Walden of Bermondsey

by Peter Murphy

  The Inspector looks down at the police log, just to make sure that he is going to get the details right. For some reason, it is a bit like pulling teeth. I can’t imagine why. Surely, this man has not risen to the rank of Inspector in the Metropolitan Police without having seen this kind of thing once or twice before.

  ‘Sir, I saw a white male, I would say between forty and fifty years of age, lying on his back on the couch.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else about this male?’

  ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘What did you notice?’

  ‘I noticed that the male was naked.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I noticed that his penis appeared to be erect, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector,’ Piers says. ‘Did you see anyone else in the room?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I saw two white females, both of whom appeared to be in their early twenties.’

  ‘And what, if anything, did you notice about the white females?’

  The Inspector consults the police log once again.

  ‘They were also both naked, sir.’

  ‘I see. And what, if anything, were the females doing?’

  A long pause.

  ‘They were kneeling one each side of the couch, sir, and I noticed that they appeared to be touching the male’s penis with their fingers.’

  Piers is visibly relieved that he has succeeded in coaxing this evidence from his witness. He pauses for a moment to recover himself.

  ‘What did you do on seeing this?’

  ‘I immediately instructed the two females to stop what they were doing, sir, and I instructed PC Walsh and PC Hargreaves to get them dressed and detain them. PC Davis and I then spoke to the male, and asked him to get dressed. Our protocol was that any males found to be the recipients of sexual services would be required to provide their names and addresses, and would then be free to go, but would be told that a decision would be made in due course about whether to take proceedings against them. When told this, the male replied spontaneously, “But I only came for a massage.” I recorded his answer in my notebook. I gave him a slip to present to the officer guarding the door at the bottom of the stairs, who would then allow him to leave the premises, and he left.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘PC Walsh and PC Hargreaves were going through the protocol with the two females, and as I said before, their answers were satisfactory, and they were allowed to leave once we had their names and contact information. PC Davis took a number of photographs of the room and seized three pieces of evidence.’

  ‘Are those pieces of evidence shown in the photographs?’

  ‘Yes, sir, they are.’

  Piers turns towards me. ‘Your Honour, with the agreement of my learned friends, I will read the statement of PC Davis later. There is no objection to the jury having the photographs of the Louis XIV room now. With the usher’s assistance, there are copies for your Honour and the jury, and may this be Exhibit two, please?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Drayford,’ I reply. I scrutinise the exhibit carefully. There are twelve photographs depicting the Louis XIV room from various viewpoints, and giving due prominence to the clock with the carved hunting scene. Judging by the jury’s reaction, they would prefer some shots of the action the Inspector found going on in the room, or at least of the participants. If so, they are out of luck. But they do get a good shot of the chaise longue, and with a little imagination they will be able to recreate the scene in their minds. There are also photographs of the three pieces of evidence seized by PC Davis, which appear to be: a large box of condoms, opened; a feather duster; and what looks like a thin, phallic-shaped, white plastic item.

  There are occasions in court when judges have to ask stupid questions, or at any rate, questions which suggest that the judge is a century or two behind the times, or must have been hiding away in a cave somewhere while contemporary life developed all around him. The classic case, of course, was the judge who in an earlier era asked the question, ‘Who are the Beatles?’ and as a result was instantly derided in the press as the typically remote, out-of-touch and pathetically outdated male all too commonly found on the bench. Now, it is possible that the judge genuinely did not know who the Beatles were, in which case the press obviously had a point. But it is much more likely that he thought it necessary to ask the question on the record so that he would get an answer on the record. We shall probably never know. But judges sometimes have to ask questions when no one else will, simply because an answer is required.

  This appears to be such a case, because Piers seems to have no intention of asking the Inspector to explain the third piece of evidence. So even though everyone in court, including the jury, are quite well aware of what it is, yours truly has to pretend that he is the only person in court who doesn’t. What’s worse is that the press are represented in court, and if it’s a slow news day, they may quite fancy a picture of me in wig and gown with a paragraph about my sexual naïveté. Well, at least the Reverend Mrs Walden will be amused. I can avoid all this if I can only get Piers to ask before I have to.

  ‘Mr Drayford,’ I say, ‘would you care to establish from the Inspector the nature of the item shown in photograph fifteen?’

  Piers smiles, and you can see him thinking, ‘This is going to be a good one to tell in chambers later.’

  ‘Certainly, your Honour. Inspector, what is the item in photograph fifteen, please?’

  The Inspector makes a pretence of studying it closely.

  ‘It appears to be a vibrator, your Honour,’ he replies.

  He is not going to elaborate without being pushed, so the moment arrives.

  ‘What is a vibrator?’ I ask.

  Two women on the jury now have a fit of the giggles. As do Emily Phipson, Susan Worthington, and Aubrey Brooks, though they are doing a better job of hiding it.

  ‘Your Honour, a vibrator is an electrical device sometimes used to provide sexual stimulation.’

  ‘Yes, quite so, thank you,’ I say, trying my best to give the impression that I knew that all along – which, of course, I did.

  ‘I hope that’s clear, members of the jury,’ Piers says.

  I am sure it is, I say to myself, but no bloody thanks to you.

  ‘Now, Inspector, did you receive reports from the officers who entered the other three rooms?’

  ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘The jury will hear from those officers in due course, but is it your understanding that sexual activity was taking place in each room between one or more young women and a male client?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And in each case, were the young women and the male clients treated in the same way as you treated those in the Louis XIV room?’

  ‘They were, sir.’

  Piers pauses to consult his notes. ‘And when all that had been completed, the rooms photographed and the evidence seized, what time was it?’

  ‘It was after one o’clock in the morning, sir.’

  ‘Did you then go downstairs?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘The premises were virtually empty, sir. It was already late when we arrived, and I believe our presence had probably caused the restaurant to empty quite soon after we arrived. I saw Dimitri Valkov and Lucy Trask still sitting behind the reception desk. There was also another man sitting with them, who I now know to be Robert Jordan, the owner of the restaurant, whom I had not seen when we arrived.

  ‘I told Mr Valkov that he was under arrest on suspicion of being concerned in the management of a brothel, and cautioned him, to which he replied, “It is legitimate massage; traditional Swedish massage. For the rest, I don’t know.” He was then taken to Bermondsey police station, where the custody sergeant authorised his detention.’

  ‘Inspector, was anyone else arrested on that evening?
’

  ‘Not on that evening, sir. Subsequently, after Mr Valkov had been interviewed and further inquiries had been made, Robert Jordan and Lucy Trask were arrested by officers of the Serious and Organised Crime Unit, but I was not involved with that.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Inspector,’ Piers says. ‘Wait there, please.’

  Emily rises to her feet with the air of a woman who has a disagreeable task to perform which she has put off for as long as possible, but can no longer avoid.

  ‘Your Honour,’ she says ponderously, ‘may I make it clear that Mr Valkov accepts that he was responsible for the administration of the massage parlour in the upstairs rooms at Jordan’s. I do not intend to go into detail about that with this witness. I am sure that the details will become known to the jury quite soon.’

  ‘Yes, very well, Miss Phipson,’ I reply.

  ‘Inspector, you did not see Mr Valkov upstairs on that evening, did you?’ she asks. ‘Because, as you say, you had an officer watching him from the moment he was escorted from the bar to sit behind the reception desk.’

  ‘That is quite correct, Miss.’

  ‘All the young women said they dealt with Mr Valkov, as far as their employment was concerned, did they not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And so Mr Valkov was the man running what they all agreed to be a fair and well-run place of work, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For the purposes of the protocol, were all the young women asked what kind of work they were doing at Jordan’s?’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘That’s a standard question, for obvious reasons?’

  “Yes, Miss.’

  ‘How did they answer that question?’

  ‘They said they were practising massage therapy, Miss.’

  ‘In each case?’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘Did any of them say that she had performed sexual services of any kind at Jordan’s?’

  ‘From memory, several quite candidly said that they had accepted money from clients for sexual services.’

  ‘Did any of those women make any complaint of having been compelled to provide sexual services?’

  ‘No, they did not…’

  ‘Or of having been asked to do so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘You have answered my question, Inspector, thank you. One other thing. Did your officers search a small rest area provided for the women working there?’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘Did they find notices on the wall of that room, warning the women that they must not engage in any sexual activity or conversation with clients?’

  ‘They did, Miss, yes.’

  ‘The jury will see the notice in due course, but is it right that it was in six different languages?’

  ‘I believe so, yes.’

  ‘English, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, German and Italian?’

  ‘From memory, yes.’

  Emily sits down abruptly.

  ‘Inspector,’ Susan Worthington begins, popping up brightly out of her seat, ‘you didn’t see Robert Jordan downstairs when you arrived, did you?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘And you didn’t see him upstairs at any time, did you?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘In fact, do you now know that Mr Jordan is the chef of the restaurant and is to be found in the kitchen whenever the restaurant is open?’

  ‘That is my understanding, Miss, yes.’

  ‘Are you also aware that when the young women found in the rooms were asked, for the purposes of the protocol, who was responsible for employing and paying them and for their conditions of work, not one named Robert Jordan?’

  ‘That is quite correct.’

  ‘In fact, they appeared to have no idea who Robert Jordan was, did they?’

  ‘None of them claimed to have met Mr Jordan, certainly,’ the Inspector replies.

  ‘Thank you, Inspector,’ Susan says, resuming her seat. That’s not going to get Jordan off the hook by a long chalk, but it’s a start.

  Interestingly, Aubrey Brooks does not pursue any similar inquiries on behalf of Lucy Trask; for whatever reason, he prefers to keep his powder dry for now.

  I wait for Piers to explore the question of who did what in re-examination. He thinks about it for a while before asking whether I have any questions. I most certainly do not. If Piers isn’t going there, I’m certainly not. I thank the Inspector for his evidence and release him.

  That’s as far as we will take it today. I am scheduled to sentence a youth who, being short of funds to report to Bermondsey police station to answer his police bail, called in a non-existent robbery at knife-point, in the hope of getting a lift. His call brought a number of officers, including two armed officers, rushing to the scene. When the officers discovered the truth, by the simple device of matching his mobile to the number of the phone from which the 999 call was made, they did indeed give him a lift to the police station, thereby rendering his strategy a complete success in that sense. However, it came at the price of a charge of wasting police time to add to the original tally of two charges of selling cannabis to his mates after school in the company of an adult supplier, whom Marjorie has already sent down for two years.

  I sometimes wish Parliament would create an offence of aggravated stupidity, with a minimum penalty of being transported for ten years to some otherwise uninhabited Scottish island patrolled by great white sharks. But I have no power to pass such a sentence, and in reality there is not a lot I can do with him. In the end, given the surprising fact that he is of previous good character and has had a pretty dodgy upbringing, I dispatch him back to the Youth Court for a referral order to be made. We will probably get another shot at him later in his career.

  * * *

  Tuesday morning

  Jordan’s has, of course, been all over the Standard and the London local radio stations last night, and has even made the dailies this morning, and when I call in on Jeanie and Elsie for my latte and my ham and cheese bap, they have the Mail open at the right page for my inspection.

  ‘You’re going to be famous, aren’t you, sir?’ Elsie says. ‘I mean, doing a scandalous case like this. And, to think, it’s right on our doorstep, isn’t it?’

  I am quickly scanning the Mail’s article about the trial. Mercifully, it doesn’t seem to include my question about the vibrator.

  ‘I’ve walked past it lots of times,’ Jeanie replies. ‘It always looks so respectable, doesn’t it? It just goes to show: you never know, do you? You never know what’s going on behind closed doors.’

  ‘That’s the truth, and no mistake,’ Elsie says. ‘My uncle Albert was getting up to all kinds of things for years, and nobody ever knew. He lived in a nice quiet street in Chigwell, with lace curtains, and everything, did my Uncle Albert, but in the end it turned out that he was –’

  ‘Yes,’ I interrupt quickly. I’m not sure I am ready to hear about Uncle Albert before drinking my latte, and quite possibly, not even then. ‘But you must remember that the trial is only just beginning. We don’t really know what was going on at Jordan’s yet. We have to wait until the jury reach a verdict.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Jeanie concedes. ‘But the Mail says a police officer actually caught them at it, in flagrante whatsit.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘But the question is going to be what each of the defendants knew about it.’

  ‘It’s such a shame,’ Jeanie muses, as if she hasn’t really taken in the point about the defendants’ knowledge. ‘He was on that TV show, wasn’t he, Elsie, that Robert Jordan?’

  “‘Britain’s Got the Best Chefs!”’ Elsie replies. ‘I remember watching him the night he lost. I think it was in the semi-finals and they had to cook dinn
er for a bunch of rugby players. Well, you knew Robert wasn’t going to win, didn’t you? Not with that continental style of cooking he has. Not with a bunch of rugby players. It was that bloke from Newcastle with the tattoos who won, wasn’t it? But the judges said Robert was a very talented chef, and the restaurant is supposed to be very good. I don’t suppose you’ve been there, sir?’

  ‘No, never,’ I reply quickly.

  ‘Oh no, well, you wouldn’t, would you, sir?’ Elsie replies immediately, apparently as an apology for having made such a terrible suggestion. ‘Not with your wife being a vicar and everything.’

  ‘I don’t think we’d have room for a massage parlour in here, Elsie, would we?’ Jeanie asks, turning to survey their business domain, a cosy and often noisy arch under a railway bridge leading to London Bridge station.

  ‘Not blooming likely,’ Elsie agrees. ‘Not even if we put a curtain up somewhere. We would have to look for bigger premises, wouldn’t we? Perhaps we should. What do you reckon, Jeanie? We could probably make a few bob, couldn’t we?’

  This reduces them both to gales of laughter.

  ‘And he lived in Chigwell,’ I hear Elsie say from a distance, as I walk over to George’s news stand for my copy of the Times, ‘of all places. You just never know, do you?’

  ‘He’s Russian, then, is he, guv?’ George asks. ‘That bloke Valkov?’

  ‘He is,’ I agree.

  ‘Yeah. That’s what the papers are saying. Bloody typical, innit?’

  ‘What is?’ I ask.

  ‘They come over here and all they do is commit crimes. Why can’t they stay in their own country if they’re going to commit crimes, that’s what I want to know.’

  ‘Not all Russians commit crimes, George,’ I point out.

  ‘Or, if it’s not that, they have billions of pounds and they buy up all those really expensive houses in Kensington and Chelsea, so they can take cocaine and not pay any taxes.’

  I look at George for a moment.

  ‘They’re not all like that,’ I insist. ‘Why do you have such a poor opinion of them?’

  ‘My old man met a lot of them during the War, guv,’ George says, ‘when he was stationed in Germany and they had to go into the Russian zone for one reason or another. He could tell you some stories about the Russians, could my old man, and no mistake.’