John Mortimer - Rumpole On Trial

by Rumpole On Trial(lit)

  'So what do you think of the Devil, then?' 'He looks funny.' Tracy was smiling, which I thought, in all the circumstances, was remarkably brave other.

  'Funny?' 'He's got a tail. The tail's funny.' 'Who first told you about the Devil, Tracy?' 'I don't know,' the child answered, but the persistent inquisitor was not to be put off so easily.

  'Oh, you must know. Did you hear about the Devil at home? Was that it? Did Dad tell you about the Devil?' Tracy shook her head. Mirabelle Jones sighed and tried again. 'Does that picture of the Devil remind you of anyone, Tracy?' Still getting no answer, Mirabelle resorted to a leading question, as was her way in these interviews. 'Do you think it looks like your dad at all?' In search of an answer to Miss Jones's unanswered question, I summoned Cary and Roz to my presence once again. When they arrived, escorted by the faithful Bernard, I put the matter as bluntly as I knew how. At the mention of evil, Tracy's mother merely looked puzzled. 'The Devil? Tracy don't know nothing about the Devil.' 'Of course not!' Gary's denial was immediate. 'It's not as if we went to church, Mr Rumpole.' 'You've never heard of such a suggestion before?' I looked hard at Tracy's father. 'The Devil. Satan. Beelzebub. Are you saying the Timson family knows nothing of such matters?' 'Nothing at all, Mr Rumpole.' 'When they came that morning...' 'When they came to get our Tracy?' Roz's eyes filled with tears as she relived the moment.

  'Yes. When they came for that. What did you think was going on exactly?' I asked Cary the question.

  'I thought they come about that shop that got done over, Wedges, down Gunston Avenue. They've had me down the nick time and time again about it.' 'And it wasn't you?' 'Straight up, Mr Rumpole. Would I deceive you?' 'It has been known, but I'll believe you. Do you know who did it?' I asked Cary.

  'No, Mr Rumpole. No, I won't grass. That I won't do. I've had enough trouble being accused of grassing on Gareth Molloy when he was sent down for the Tobler Road supermarket job.' 'The Timsons and the Molloys are deadly enemies. How could you know what they were up to?' 'My mate Barry Peacock was driving for them on that occasion.

  They thought I knew something and grassed to Chief Inspector Brush. Would I do a thing like that?' 'No, I don't suppose you would. So you thought the Old Bill were just there about ordinary, legitimate crime. You had no worries about Tracy?' 'She's a good girl, Mr Rumpole. Always has been,' Roz was quick to remind me.

  'Always cheerful, isn't she, Roz?' Her husband added to the evidence of character. 'I enjoys her company.' 'So where the devil do these ideas come from? Sorry, perhaps I shouldn't've said that... You know Dominic Molloy told the social worker you taught a lot of children satanic rituals.' 'You ever believed a Molloy, have you, Mr Rumpole, in court or out of it?' Cary Timson had a good point there, but I rather doubted if I could convince the Juvenile Court of the wisdom learned at the Old Bailey.

  When our conference was over I showed my visitors out and I thought I saw, peering from a slightly open doorway at the end of the corridor, the face of Erskine-Brown, as horrified and intent as a passer-by who suddenly notices that, on the other side of the street, a witches coven is holding its annual beano. The door shut as soon as I clocked him and Claude vanished within. Twenty minutes later I received a visit from Soapy Sam Ballard, Q.c., our so-called Head of Chambers. I don't believe that these events were unconnected.

  As soon as he got in, Ballard sniffed the air as though detecting the scent of brimstone and said, 'You've had them in here, Rumpole?' 'Had who in here. Bollard?' 'Those who owe allegiance to the Evil One.' 'You mean the Mr Justice Graves fan club? No. They haven't been near the place.' y 'Rumpole! You know perfectly well who I mean.' 'Oh, yes. Of course.' I decided to humour the fellow. 'They were all here. Lucifer, Beelzebub, Belial. All present and correct.

  High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her king's barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat, by merit raised To that bad eminence; and from despair Thus high uplifted beyond hope...

  'Grow up. Bollard! I am representing an eight-year-old child who's been torn from the bosom of her family and banged up without trial. You see here Rumpole, the protector of the innocent.' 'The protector of devil-worshippers!' Ballard said.

  'Those too. If necessary.' I sat down at the desk and picked up the papers in a somewhat tedious affray.

  'Rumpole. Every decent Chambers has to draw the line somewhere.' 'Does it?' 'There are certain cases, certain clients, even, which are simply, well, not acceptable.' 'Oh, I do agree.' 'Do you?' 'Oh, yes. I agree entirely.' 'Well, then. I'm glad to hear it.' Soapy Sam looked as gratified as a cleric hearing a death-bed confession from a life-long heathen.

  'Didn't I catch sight of you prosecuting an accountant for unpaid V.A.T.?' I asked the puzzled Q.C. 'Some cases are simply unacceptable. Far too dull to be touched by a decent barrister with a bargepole. Don't you agree, old darling?' 'Rumpole, there's something I meant to raise with you.' The saintly Sam was growing distinctly ratty.

  'Then buck up and raise it, I'm busy.' I returned to the affray.

  'Young Charlie Wisbeach wants to come into these Chambers. He'd bring us a great deal of high-class, commercial work from his father's firm. Unfortunately we have no room for him at the moment.' 'Has he thought of a cardboard box in Middle Temple Lane?' I thought this a helpful suggestion; Bollard didn't agree.

  'This is neither the time nor the place for one of your jokes, Rumpole. You have a tenancy here and tenancies can be brought to an end. Especially if the tenant in question is carrying on a practice not in the best traditions of Equity Court. There is something in this room which makes me feel uneasy.' 'Oh, I do so agree. Perhaps you'll be leaving shortly.' 'I'm giving you fair warning, Rumpole. I expect you to think it over.' At which our leader made for the door and I called after him, 'Oh, before you go. Bollard, why don't you look up "exorcism" in the Yellow Pages'? I believe there's an unfrocked Bishop in Stepney who'll quote you a very reasonable price. And if you call again, don't forget the Holy Water!' But the man had gone and I was left alone to wonder exactly what devilment Cary Timson had been up to.

  I have, or at a proper moment I will have, a confession to make. At this time I was presenting She Who Must Be Obeyed with a mystery which she no doubt found baffling, although I'm afraid a probable solution presented itself to her mind far too soon. I had reason to telephone a Miss Tatiana Fern and, not wishing to do so with Hilda's knowledge, and as the lady in question left her house early, I called when I thought She was still asleep. I now suspect Hilda was listening in on the bedroom extension, although she lay motionless and with her eyes closed when I came back to bed. Later I discovered that when Hilda went off to shop in Harrods she spotted me coming out of Knightsbridge tube station, a place far removed from the Temple and the Old Bailey, and sleuthed me to a house in Mowbray Crescent which she saw me enter when the front door was opened by the aforesaid Tatiana Fern. So it came about that She met Marigold, Mr Justice Peatherstone's outspoken wife, and together they formed the opinion that Rumpole was up to no good whatsoever. Of course, She didn't tackle me openly about this, but I could sense what was in the wind when she started up a (conversation about the male libido at breakfast one morning.

  It followed from something she had read in her Daily Telegraph.

  'They're doing it again, Rumpole.' 'Who are?' Then.' 'Ah.' 'Causing trouble in the workplace.' 'Yes. I suppose so.' 'Brushing up against their secretaries. Unnecessarily. I suppose that's something you approve of, Rumpole?' 'I haven't got a secretary, Hilda. I've got a clerk called Henry. I've never felt the slightest temptation to brush up against Henry.' And that answer you might have thought would finish the matter, but Hilda had more information from the Telegraph to impart. 'They put it all down to glands.

  Men've got too much something in their glands. That's a fine excuse, isn't it?' 'Never tried it.' But I thought it over. 'I suppose I might: "My client intends to rely on the glandular defence, my Lord."' 'It wouldn't wash.' Hil
da was positive. 'When I was a child we were taught to believe in the Devil.' 'I'm sure you were.' 'He tempts people. Particularly men.' 'I thought it was Eve.' 'What?' 'I thought it was Eve he tempted first.' 'That's you all over, Rumpole.' 'Is it?' 'Blame it all on a woman! That's men all over.' 'Hilda, there's nothing I'd like more than to sit here with you all day, discussing theology. But I've got to get to work.' I was making my preparation for departure when She said darkly, 'Enjoy your lunch-hour!' 'What did you say?' 'I said, "I hope you enjoy your lunch-hour," Rumpole.' 'Well, I probably shall. It's Thursday. Steak pie day at the pub in Ludgate Circus. I shall look forward to that.' 'And a few other little treats besides, I should imagine.' Hilda was immersed in her newspaper again when I left her. I knew then that, no matter what explanation I had given, She Who Must Be Obeyed had come to the firm conclusion that I was up to something devilish.

  It's a strange fact that it was not until nearly the end of the three score years and ten allotted to me by the psalmist that I was first called upon to perform in a Juvenile Court. It was, as I was soon to discover, a place in which the law as we know and occasionally love it had very little place. It was also a soulless chamber in Crockthorpe's already chipped and crumbling, glass and concrete courthouse complex. Tracy's three judges, a large motherly-looking magistrate as Chairwoman, flanked by a small, bright-eyed Sikh Justice in a sari, and a lean and anxious headmaster, sat with their clerk, young, officious and bespectacled, to keep them in order. The defence team, Rumpole and the indispensable Bernard, together with the prosecutor, Mizz Liz Probert, and a person from the Council solicitor's office, sat at another long table opposite the Justices. Miss Mirabelle Jones, armed with a ponderous file, was comfortably ensconced in the witness chair and a large television set was playing that hit video, the interview with Dominic Molloy. We had got to the familiar dialogue which started with Mirabelle's question: 'He wanted you to play at devils? This man did?' 'He said he was the Devil. Yes,' the picture of the boy Dominic alleged.

  'He was to be the Devil. And what were you supposed to be? Perhaps you were the Devil's children?' At which point Rumpole ruined the entertainment by rearing to his hind legs and making an objection, a process which in this court seemed as unusual and unwelcome as a guest lifting his soup plate to his mouth and slurping the contents at a state banquet at Buckingham Palace. When I said I was objecting, the clerk switched off the telly with obvious reluctance.

  'That was a leading question by the social worker,' I said, although the fact would have been obvious to the most superficial reader of Potted Rules of Evidence. 'It and the answer are entirely inadmissable, as your clerk will no doubt tell you.' And I added, in an extremely audible whisper to Bernard, 'If he knows his business.' 'Mr Rumpole', the Chairwoman gave me her most motherly smile, 'Miss Mirabelle Jones is an extremely experienced social worker. We think we can rely on her to put her questions in the proper manner.' 'I was just venturing to point out that on this occasion she put her question in an entirely improper manner,' I told her, 'Madam.' 'My Bench will see the film out to the end, Mr Rumpole.

  You'll have a chance to make any points later.' The clerk gave his decision in a manner which caused me to whisper to Mr Bernard, 'Her Master's Voice.' I hope they all heard, but to make myself clear I said to Madam Chair, 'My point is that you shouldn't be seeing this film at all.' 'We are going to continue with it now, Mr Rumpole.' The learned clerk switched on the video again. Miss Jones appeared to ask, 'What was the game you had to play?' And Dominic answered, 'Dance around.' 'Dance around.' Mirabelle Jones's shadow repeated in case we had missed the point. 'Now I want you to tell me, Dominic, when did you meet this man? At Tracy Timson's house? Is that where you met him?' 'It's a leading question!' I said aloud, but the performance continued and Mirabelle asked, 'Do you know who he was?' And on the screen Dominic nodded politely.

  'Who was he?' Mirabelle asked and Dominic replied, 'Tracy's dad.' As the video was switched off, I was on my feet again.

  'You're not going to allow that evidence?' I couldn't believe it. 'Pure hearsay! What a child who isn't called as a witness said to Miss Jones here, a child we've had no opportunity of cross-examining said, is nothing but hearsay. Absolutely worthless.' 'Madam Chairwoman.' Mizz Probert rose politely beside me.

  'Yes, Miss Probert.' Liz got an even more motherly smile; , she was the favourite child and Rumpole the black sheep of the family.

  'Mr Rumpole is used to practising at the Old Bailey ' 'And has managed to acquire a nodding acquaintance of the law of evidence,' I added.

  'And of course this court is not bound by strict rules of evidence. Where the welfare of a child is concerned, you're not tied down by a lot of legal quibbles about hearsay.' 'Quibbles, Mizz Probert? Did I hear you say quibbles?' My righteous indignation was only half simulated.

  'You are free,' Liz told the tribunal, 'with the able assistance of Miss Mirabelle Jones, to get at the truth of this matter.' 'My learned friend was my pupil.' I was, I must confess, more than a little hurt. 'I spent months, a year of my life, in bringing her up with some rudimentary knowledge of the law.

  And when she says that the rule against hearsay is a legal quibble...' 'Mr Rumpole, I don't think my Bench wants to waste time on a legal argument.' The clerk of the court breathed heavily on his glasses and polished them briskly.

  'Do they not? Indeed!' I was launched on an impassioned protest and no one was going to stop me. 'So does it come to this? Down at the Old Bailey, that backward and primitive place, no villain can be sent down to chokey as a result of a leading question, or a bit of gossip in the saloon bar, or what a child said to a social worker and wasn't even cross-examined.

  But little Tracy Timson, eight years old, can be banged up for an indefinite period, snatched from the family that loves her, without the protection the law affords to the most violent bank robber! Is that the proposition that Mizz Liz Probert is putting before the court? And which apparently finds favour in the so-called legal mind of the court official who keeps jumping up like a jack-in-the-box to tell you what to do?' Even as I spoke the clerk, having shined up his spectacles to his total satisfaction, was whispering to his well-upholstered Chair. 'Mr Rumpole, My Bench would like to get on with the evidence. Speeches will come later,' the Chairwoman handed down her clerk's decision.

  'They will. Madam. They most certainly will,' I promised.

  And then, as I sat down, profoundly discontented, Liz presumed to teach me my business. 'Let me give you a tip, Rumpole,' she whispered. 'I should keep off the law if I were you. They don't like it around here.' While I was recovering from this lesson given to me by my ex-pupil, our Chairwoman was addressing Mirabelle as though she were a mixture of Mother Teresa and Princess Anne. 'Miss Jones,' she purred, 'we're grateful for the thoroughness with which you've gone into this difficult case on behalf of the Local Authority.' 'Oh, thank you so much. Madam Chair.' 'And we've seen the interview you carried out with Tracy on the video film. Was there anything about that interview which you thought especially significant?' 'It was when I showed her the picture of the Devil,' Mirabelle answered. 'She wasn't frightened at all. In fact she laughed. I thought...' 'Is there any point in my telling you that what this witness thought isn't evidence?' I sent up a cry of protest.

  'Carry on, Miss Jones. If you'd be so kind.' Madam Chair decided to ignore the Rumpole interruption.

  'I thought it was because it reminded her of someone she knew pretty well. Someone like Dad.' Mirabelle put in the boot with considerable delicacy.

  'Someone like Dad. Yes.' Our Chair was now making a careful note, likely to be fatal to Tracy's hopes of liberty.

  'Have you any questions, Mr Rumpole?' So I rose to cross-examine. It's no easy task to attack a personable young woman from one of the caring professions, but this Mirabelle Jones was, so far as my case was concerned, a killer. I decided that there was only one way to approach her and that was to go in with all guns firing. 'Miss Jones', I loosed the first salvo, 'you are, I take it, against cruel
ty to children?' 'Of course. That goes without saying.' 'Does it? Can you think of a more cruel act, to a little child, than coming at dawn with the Old Bill and snatching it away from its mother and father, without even a Barbara doll for consolation?'.

  'Barbie doll, Mr Rumpole,' Roz whispered urgently.

  'What?' 'It's a Barbie doll, Mrs Timson says,' Mr Bernard instructed me on what didn't seem to be the most vital point in the case.

  'Very well. Barbie doll.' And I returned to the attack on Mirabelle. 'Without that, or a single toy?' 'We don't want the children to be distracted.' 'By thoughts of home?' 'Well, yes.' 'You wanted Tracy to concentrate on your dotty idea of devil-worship!' I put it bluntly.

  'It wasn't a dotty idea, Mr Rumpole, and I had to act quickly. Tracy had to be removed from the presence of evil.' 'Evil? What do you mean by that exactly?' The witness hesitated, momentarily at a loss for a suitable definition in a rational age, and Mizz Liz Probert rose to the rescue. 'You ought to know, Mr Rumpole. Haven't you had plenty of experience of that down at the Old Bailey?' 'Oh, well played, Mizz Probert!' I congratulated her loudly.

  'Your pupilling days are over. Now, Miss Mirabelle Jones' I returned to my real opponent, 'let's come down, if we may, from the world of legend and hearsay and gossip and fantasy, to what we call, down at the Old Bailey, hard facts. You know that my client, Mr Cary Timson, is a small-time thief and a minor villain?' 'I have given the Bench the list of Dad's criminal convictions, yes.' Mirabelle looked obligingly into her file.