Walden of Bermondsey

by Peter Murphy

  I really must get George and Hubert together one of these days, I think. They could keep each other entertained for hours.

  The morning begins with the evidence of the officers who invaded the remaining three upstairs rooms. The activities going on in those rooms were essentially the same as the activity going on in the Louis XIV room. None bears very much resemblance to what I understand to be traditional Swedish massage. The defence have already established that none of the three defendants was seen upstairs at any time during the evening, so there is no cross-examination, and mercifully none of the pieces of evidence seized by the officers requires explanation beyond what is obvious from the photographs.

  Next comes the financial evidence. Not long after the raid, the prosecution took the precaution of applying to me for an order for inspection of the Jordan’s bank account and the personal bank accounts of each of the three defendants. They also applied to freeze the defendants’ assets, subject to provision for living expenses, because if they are convicted, the next thing that will happen is that the prosecution will begin confiscation proceedings to claw back their ill-gotten gains, and they don’t want the defendants disposing of them before this can be done.

  The financial investigator tells us that there is nothing suspicious about the Jordan’s business account, but the personal accounts are a different story. She has laid it out for us in a series of charts, which tell a compelling story. Starting about a year before the police raid, there is a pattern of cash deposits into the accounts of Robert Jordan and Lucy Trask, modest and occasional at first, but quickly escalating to larger and more regular, until both are receiving somewhere between five hundred and a thousand pounds per month just before the raid. These deposits are exactly mirrored by cash withdrawals from Dimitri Valkov’s account.

  Valkov’s account is a mess. It is easy enough to identify deposits of his salary from Jordan’s and his regular personal payments for rent, utilities and the rest of it. But beyond that, there is a morass of cash deposits, cash transfers and payments to various suppliers, as well as some which clearly refer to the young women working upstairs. It tells the story, the investigator says at Piers Drayford’s invitation, of Valkov running a business on the side, keeping it off the books of the restaurant, and making sure that Robert Jordan and Lucy Trask were getting their cut for the use of the premises and whatever services they rendered. Wisely, the defence allow all this to pass without much comment. All Piers has left now is the police interviews, which we will get to this afternoon.

  And so to lunch, an oasis of calm in a desert of chaos.

  I break the news to my colleagues as gently as I can.

  ‘Vending machines?’ Marjorie exclaims, after we have all observed a shocked silence for some time. ‘That’s outrageous. I mean, it’s not that I eat the food here myself, as you know. I wouldn’t dream of it. But we have to provide something reasonable for jurors and witnesses.’

  ‘Not to mention the Bar and solicitors,’ Legless adds. ‘They only have an hour for lunch, so they can’t really go anywhere. They can’t be expected to survive on a bar of chocolate and a fizzy drink.’

  ‘I have tried to explain it to them until I am blue in the face,’ I reply. ‘But it’s always the same answer. It’s costing too much to subsidise the kitchen and they need the money for other things.’

  ‘They always need the money for other things,’ Legless complains. ‘It’s that bloody woman Meredith, isn’t it? She didn’t want to give us the secure dock for court three, and she wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been assaulted by a defendant escaping from the dock. I had a broken arm and concussion. That’s what it took to make them listen. What will it take this time? One of their bloody vending machines toppling over and killing a juror?’

  ‘It’s not just Meredith this time,’ I say gloomily. ‘This is coming from on high, Mr Jeremy Bagnall CBE, no less.’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ Legless replies dismissively.

  ‘You would have if you were RJ,’ I point out. ‘I have heard his name breathed reverentially a number of times. Mr Bagnall operates at a very senior level. It is rumoured that he has the ear of both the Minister and the Lord Chief Justice. Once Mr Bagnall decides something, it remains decided, it is said.’

  ‘So, there is nothing we can do?’ Legless asks. ‘What about Health and Safety?’

  ‘I think Health and Safety might actually be rather pleased to see the kitchen closed down,’ I reply, ‘for a variety of reasons.’

  ‘Isn’t it a violation of our Human Rights?’ Legless insists.

  ‘What is?’ Marjorie replies. ‘Closing the kitchen down or allowing it to stay open?’

  ‘Meredith did make one suggestion,’ I say, ‘which she led me to believe would have Mr Bagnall’s blessing.’

  ‘What, apart from the vending machines?’ Marjorie asks.

  ‘Yes. She suggested that we might try to reach some agreement with caterers ourselves to provide a service for lunch, so that they don’t have to subsidise it.’

  ‘Of course,’ Legless says. ‘They’ve privatised everything else, haven’t they – the prison service, the probation service, the court reporters? Why not farm the kitchen out to the private sector too? Makes perfect sense. Of course, it will go straight down the tubes, as everything does when it’s privatised, but if the Ministry doesn’t have to pick up the bill, they won’t worry about that, will they?’

  I shake my head. ‘I wouldn’t mind doing that just for the mess, for the four of us and the occasional guest, if we all wanted it. I don’t suppose that would be too difficult, and it could only improve the quality of the food. But I can’t take on the administration of a kitchen for the entire court.’

  ‘I suppose what the Grey Smoothies would say, Charlie,’ Legless replies, ‘is that you wouldn’t have to take it on. You just put it out to tender, invite bids, and hold a competition. Let them all take turns doing lunch for a day to show what they can do. Then you choose whichever lot is the cheapest – as long as the food is not too awful, obviously. You wouldn’t have to worry about it once it was up and running. You hand over the kitchen to them, and let them carry the can when it goes south. When they go belly up, you throw them out and start again with somebody else.’

  ‘My friend Budgie might want to give it a go,’ Marjorie says suddenly, ‘if you do put it out to tender.’

  ‘Budgie?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s not her real name, Charlie, obviously. Her real name is Bernadette, but we all call her Budgie. She does some catering, for parties, weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, that kind of thing. I’ve been to several of her events, and she does a very good job. The only thing is, I’m not sure she would want to do it every day. She does have a bit of an active social life. But I could ask her if you like.’

  ‘Let me think about it,’ I reply wearily.

  ‘I think I could manage,’ Hubert says, looking up from his Portobello mushroom risotto dish of the day, ‘as long as I could rise for lunch for two hours, say, between twelve-thirty and two-thirty.’

  ‘Two hours?’

  ‘Yes. I think about two hours should be enough.’

  ‘Enough for what?’

  ‘To go for a quick lunch at the Garrick,’ he replies. ‘Jump in a cab outside court, over to Covent Garden, do the daily lunch buffet, jump in a cab and come back. I might be able to do it in less than two hours, actually.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s on, Hubert’ I reply. ‘It’s the equivalent of losing more than half a day’s sitting time per week.’

  ‘But I have to have lunch,’ Hubert insists. ‘If I can’t have my dish of the day, I’ve got to have something to keep me going in the afternoon.’

  ‘I understand that, Hubert. But let me try to come up with some other solution before you resort to that,’ I plead. ‘I must admit, I’m not sure there is a solution to come up with, but give me some time to think about i
t.’

  * * *

  Tuesday afternoon

  The afternoon goes slowly. Piers Drayford and the officer in the case, DS Barraclough of the Serious and Organised Crime Unit, read the police interviews out one by one, in the time-honoured manner – rather like a play-reading session, question and answer, question and answer, page after page, page after page. Fortunately, the story is not too tangled.

  We begin with Valkov. His account is as follows. Very early in the Jordan’s project, Jordan hires Valkov as his bar manager. Valkov is an experienced bar manager, but as it turns out, he has other professional experience also. After a short time in the job, Valkov approaches Jordan one day with an idea. Instead of having those rooms sitting empty and neglected upstairs, when you are paying rent for them, he says, why not turn them into a paying concern? Jordan already has the idea of turning them into a paying concern, but his idea is more along the lines of private dining areas. He can’t do that immediately, because it would be a significant expansion and the funds are not available, not to mention it would require extra staff to cope with the demands on the kitchen. Valkov understands this, but his point is that his proposal would be a temporary expedient which would make money, and thereby make the redevelopment of the dining area affordable within a shorter time frame.

  This interests Jordan, but he is initially resistant to the idea of a massage parlour. He is running a serious restaurant, and the last thing he needs is advertising for massage, much less half naked girls wandering through the bar harassing the customers. That’s not how it will be, Valkov assures him. Upstairs will be quite separate from downstairs. There is only one door, and it will remain locked except for the girls and their clients coming and going. They will come and go quietly and there will be a dress code consistent with the restaurant’s standards whenever they do come and go. There will be no advertising at the restaurant.

  Jordan has questions, of course. How will all this work? How will you furnish the rooms, attract clients? Valkov says Jordan should trust him. He has run massage parlours before, in other bars in which he has worked. There will be some initial capital outlay, for furnishings and so on, but massage rooms are simple settings, and the cost will not be exorbitant. Valkov will hire the girls, interviewing them carefully and insisting on a good level of experience. He will take care of the financial arrangements, receiving all the money paid, and paying the girls an agreed rate. The arrangement is guaranteed to make a substantial profit. In addition, the clients may decide to order drinks from the bar, which Valkov will deal with personally, increasing the level of profit even more. There are a couple of slight technical difficulties about licensing and insurance that have to be overcome, but Valkov has dealt with this kind of arrangement before and knows exactly how to handle it.

  At first, everything works beautifully. The rooms are nicely decorated and furnished. Clients begin to arrive. Money begins to flow in. The girls are excellent, and the customers always seem happy. Word is getting round, and soon the rooms, and particular young women, are being booked in advance. He is paying an agreed share of the proceeds into Robert Jordan’s bank account. He is also paying an agreed share to Lucy Trask, whose cooperation as receptionist is essential. And then, one evening, the roof caves in.

  The girls – his girls – are caught doing the one thing he has always expressly forbidden, performing sexual services. Valkov has no idea this was going on. If he had, he would have put a stop to it immediately, and he would have fired any girl involved. He has notices in six languages in the women’s rest area, making this clear. When the police raid takes place, he is shocked, utterly devastated. He is fully aware of the law, and respects it, and he is distressed beyond measure that this has happened to his dear friend Robert Jordan.

  Robert Jordan’s interview confirms this general history of the matter. Naturally, Jordan, being entirely inexperienced in such matters, has to trust Valkov, but he has no reason not to trust him. Valkov is a competent and honest bar manager, popular with staff and customers alike, and despite his initial reservations, Jordan finds that the massage parlour is indeed completely discreet, and does not impinge on the restaurant at all. Robert Jordan has not been upstairs since Valkov started decorating and furnishing it. He sees the accounts, which all seem in order, and he appreciates the extra money, on which he fully intends to pay tax.

  He is a bit less self-assured when confronted with the reality that massage parlours have their own licensing requirements, which are monitored by the local authority; and that his licence to sell alcohol does not actually apply to the upstairs rooms. He was blissfully unaware of all of this at the time, and now recognises that it was a serious error of judgement on his part to allow it to happen. But you must understand, he is a chef, not a manager, and he is ignorant of such things. He relies on people to do such things for him. He is in the kitchen from the moment Jordan’s opens to the moment it closes, and he has never had any reason to believe that any sexual activity was going on upstairs while he was labouring over a hot stove. If he had had any inkling of any such thing, he would have instructed Valkov to close it down immediately.

  Lucy Trask also has no idea anything is amiss until the police storm in on the fateful evening. She assists with the massage parlour by taking bookings and welcoming clients, and is the custodian of one of the sets of keys to upstairs, which she needs in order to make sure that the girls and the clients can come and go with complete discretion, and without attracting suspicion in the restaurant. She also, at her discretion, bungs fifty pounds in cash to taxi drivers who deliver a new client, or even a valued returning client. She questions this practice at first, but Valkov explains that it is necessary because of the ban on advertising at the premises. She is just as shocked, horrified, distraught, and generally mortified as everyone else when the police storm in. Never in her wildest dreams, and so on.

  And there it rests. Piers Drayford will close his case quite early tomorrow morning after sorting out a few things about the exhibits and finalising some agreed facts to be placed before the jury. And then it will be the turn of the defence.

  * * *

  Wednesday morning

  Emily announces that she will call Dimitri Valkov to give evidence. Valkov is about forty, with long black hair tied back in a ponytail. Throughout the trial he has worn a black leather jacket, white shirt and blue jeans, and today is no exception. He has quite a spring in his step, and runs ahead of the prison officer by some distance while making his way from the dock to the witness box. Emily begins with a few introductory questions, establishing his full name, his age, the fact that he is unmarried, and the fact that he has lived and worked in England for a little over ten years.

  ‘Mr Valkov, before working at Jordan’s, what was your experience in bar management?’

  ‘I am managing many bars, for many years,’ he replies. ‘I manage bars in big hotels in Moscow. Then, when I come to this country, I work in three or four bars in London, always do good job.’

  ‘Tell the jury what is involved in good bar management.’

  Valkov turns to the jury with a flourish, and enters lecture mode, voice slightly raised, arms waving around, much as I imagine him doing when talking to Robert Jordan about the benefits of Swedish massage.

  ‘To be bar manager is not to pour drinks,’ he begins with emphasis. ‘You must know how to pour every drink, of course. But this is not for manager. This is for bartenders. So the first thing is, you must have good assistants, good bartenders. You must be able to depend on them. As manager you must be responsible for the money. You must know how much is coming in through the till, and how much is going out, what you need to order and when. You must look out for any sign of dishonesty in your staff and put an end to it immediately.’

  ‘When Mr Jordan hired you to manage the bar at his restaurant, what did you understand he wanted of you?’

  Valkov pauses for a moment to look up at the ceili
ng before resuming the lecture.

  ‘You must understand,’ he replies. ‘Robert Jordan, he is the artist. He is the great chef. This is not a diner of which we are speaking. This will be one of the great restaurants of London. It will be world famous. There will be Michelin stars. With a man like Robert Jordan –’

  Emily intervenes without waiting for me to ask.

  ‘Mr Valkov, the question is, what did he want of you?’

  ‘This is what I am answering,’ Valkov protests. ‘This man is the great chef, this man, he is not the man to manage the bar. He has no time, and he should not be distracted from his art by such things. So when he hires bar manager, he hires man who keeps good accounts, who makes sure the restaurant is well supplied, man who can talk to the sommelier, to make sure that he understands the wines that will be ordered. I hire good bartenders. I make good atmosphere for customers. I make sure the bar is without problems, so Robert does not have to worry himself about it. He is free to make his creations in the kitchen. This is what he wants of me, and this is what I do.’

  ‘Mr Valkov, were you familiar with the upstairs rooms at Jordan’s?’

  ‘Yes, when I first come to restaurant, I see these rooms. They are being used for storage only. Robert tells me that in future they will be private dining rooms, but this he cannot do until restaurant is better known.’

  ‘And until there was more money to decorate and furnish the rooms?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did there come a time when you made a suggestion to Robert Jordan about those rooms?’

  ‘Yes. To me, it was bad plan to leave the rooms unused. He is paying rent for them, but also, you can have problems with damp when they are empty for long time. I suggest to him that they can be used now already, and make money for him also until he is ready for the private dining.’