John Mortimer - Rumpole On Trial

by Rumpole On Trial(lit)

  and barristers aren't ""' ntil the trial's over.' I'll leave you to Bernard again?' 'And then shall we lu<1 , 'I'd like that very mw cheek, more purposeful than So I got another kis"

  58 the first, and then she walked quickly to her car' g°t in and started the engine. She didn't drive away at once, however. I saw her lift the car phone. She was still talking to it when I walked away towards the Old Bailey and a Isss sensational trial with no beautiful witnesses.

  It was not only the ghastly case of harassment reported by Erskine-Brown that persuaded Soapy Sam Ballai'd that moral standards were breaking down all over (he world and * particularly in 3 Equity Court. Liz and her co-mortgagee managed to produce another sensational scandal. Young David Inchcape was off doing a long arson in Birmingham and Liz wanted to talk to him urgently about a divorce case in which he was for the husband and she for the wife. The matter was called Singleton v. Singleton, and I iz's client was an ex Miss Broadstairs who was dissatisfied With the payoff of twenty thousand smackers offered to her by the filthy rich garage proprietor who she was now divorcing, So Liz put a call through to Dave in the Birmingham robing room. As they discussed the case, as barristers often do, they identified so closely with their clients that they adopted their characters as their own.

  'Well, you know perfectly well I'm having baby, Dave,' Liz was saying as Ballard entered her room in search of his missing Archbold on Criminal Law, which he suspected everyone in Chambers of half-inching.

  Our Head of Chambers stood in amazement as Liz, ignoring him completely, continued her call. Reconstructing it as best I can from her recollection of it, it must have gone something like this: 'Of course, the baby's yours! There's not a scrap of evidence it's not yours. The Chairman of the Council? I've never even been out with the Chairman of the Council. He boasted about it in the golf club? All men boast, don't they? An right, if that's your case I'll demand a blood test and take you for every penny. Of course you can afford it. I know exactly how much you're drawing in cash out of that garage b inc ' Ballard was, I have no doubt, even more shocked at the talk 59 of a commercial garage than he had been at the news of the expected child. He was to hear little more because Liz was nearing the end of her diatribe.

  'Right, I know you've got to go. But think about it, Dave.

  We've got to get this settled once and for all. Of course, I miss you.' So she put down the phone and left the room, saying, ThenI They're totally irresponsible,' as she passed our Head of Chambers. And he was so astonished that he even forgot to ask about his Archbold.

  As he always took a long time to make up his mind on any subject, Ballard took no action on the Liz-Inchcape scandal for a while. However, when Dave got back from the Midlands and met our Head coming out as he was going into Chambers a curious conversation took place. Ballard opened with, 'Oh, Inchcape. A quick word with you of a preliminary nature.

  There may be more to come at a later stage, much more. But as your Head of Chambers I'm bound to advise you to get rid of your garage.' 'But we haven't got a garage in Islington.' Young Dave was totally mystified. 'We have to keep the Deux Chevaux in the street. That's why we can never get it to start on cold mornings.' 'I'm not talking of Islington, Inchcape. Forget Islington.

  Remember, a barrister does not engage in trade. Get rid of the business.' 'But Ballard, what business?' Inchcape asked helplessly.

  'You've got to choose.' Soapy Sam was remorseless. 'I tell you that quite frankly. It's either the petrol pumps and video tapes, and bunches of flowers and all that sort of thing. Or Chambers. We'll go into the other side of it later, but at the moment forget all about garages. Do I make myself clear?' So Ballard went about his business and Dave Inchcape was left, saying after him, 'Not in the least!5 A? always Mr Bernard played his part with admirable ef, tx ficiency and I soon found myself briefed and in the interview room at Brixton with Desmond Casterini, who looked, as he had done at the piano, as though he were wandering vaguely 60 in a twilight world and would only return to ours with considerable reluctance. It was with difficulty that I persuaded him to give factual answers to simple questions, but at last I led him to deal with the message on the answering machine in the flat he shared with his wife, Elizabeth. It was from the dead man and no doubt left on the day of the murder, for the police had found it there when they took Desmond home and made a search of his premises.

  'The message was from Tom Randall,' I reminded him.

  'He wanted to meet you and said it was to discuss your lives since Dreams of Youth. Did you know what that meant?' 'I suppose from the time we three started together.' 'And you made a note on the pad by the machine: tom at the room six o'clock. Did you think he might be going to tell you that he and your wife were lovers?' 'Dear God, Mr Rumpole! It didn't cross my mind.' Casterini shivered as though the thought chilled him to the marrow. 'I never had a single moment of doubt or suspicion about Elizabeth. Not a shadow, I can assure you.' 'Did you not? The Prosecution are going to suggest that you shot Tom Randall in a fit of jealous rage.' 'I gave you my oath, Mr Rumpole, by the great musicians I hold most dear: Mozart, Haydn, Schubert...' He started on a litany which I thought would strike few notes down the Old Bailey.

  'Just a simple "no" will do. We might hit a judge who thinks those chaps are runners in the 3.30 at Kempton Park.

  This rehearsal room, did you rent it permanently?' 'We did, yes. We liked to use it whenever we pleased.' 'Wasn't that rather expensive?' 'Oh, Elizabeth has money, you know. Comfortably off. She started to make it at college. She opened a boutique to sell wonderful clothes second-hand, vintage model dresses. She was able to help Tom out when we started, so he didn't have to take so many other jobs. We're lucky in that respect. Very fortunate.' I felt that among all this information there was a nugget of great importance. I sat in silence for a while, trying to identify 61 it. Then I asked about something that had been on my mind for a long time. 'Apparently there was a trial when your wife was at college.' 'She told me about that,' Casterini answered without hesitation.

  'They'd got to know a man called Hoffman. He'd left the college and become a musicians' agent. It seems he was also an agent for hard drugs. There was a boy in college called Billy Munn accused of being in the ring, he was a friend of Elizabeth's. Hoffman went down for ten years but Elizabeth's friend Billy was acquitted.' 'Must have had a brilliant barrister.' I didn't want to boast.

  'Of course I didn't know her in those days.' 'You weren't at college together?' I don't know why that fact surprised me.

  'No, I went to Guildhall. I met the other two later and we started playing together. Then we formed the Casterini Trio.

  Elizabeth's money helped.' 'I bet it did.' And then I turned to a more dangerous subject. 'Now. The Colt revolver. You kept it, and ammunition?' 'My old father, bless him, always slept with it loaded under his pillow. In our house in Lissmaglen.' Casterini seemed quite prepared to talk about the murder weapon. 'He was a poet by profession, but some of the bad boys were after his blood.' 'Have you any idea how that old family heirloom got behind the piano?' 'No idea in the world. I swear to you, sir, by...' 'Never mind about all that. You got the message around midday. Did you stay at home after you got it?' 'No, I went to lunch with my sister, Siobhan. She doesn't come over from Dublin often. We went to a film together and had tea.' ". 'You arrived at the building just after six?' 'The news had started on the car radio. That's exactly right.' (, 'What happened then?' 'Well, the lift was stuck, it's always stuck. It's a kind of prehistoric conveyance, Mr Rumpole.' 62 'And then?' 'I started to walk up the stairs.' 'Did you see anyone on your way up?' 'Not a solitary soul, I swear it. The place is usually empty at that time. People are away at concerts and so on.' 'When you got up to your room, was the door open?' 'It was closed. Not locked, of course.' His recollection seemed surprisingly clear.

  'And then you found Mr Randall?' 'He was lying on the floor. I knelt down and felt his heart.

  That's how I got blood...' 'Yes, of course. That will be our defence.' Our defence, our w
hole defence and nothing but our defence. I was silent again and then I said, as I felt I had to, 'Mr Casterini, in a matter as serious as this some people might want a Q.C. to defend them.' 'A what?' The pianist was clearly a child as far as the law was concerned.

  'A Q.C. Queen's Counsel. Queer Customer. I'm not saying he'd do it any better. Probably worse. But I'm sure you realize it's a difficult case.' 'I'll rely on you, Mr Rumpole.' He was quite sure about it.

  'Elizabeth told me you were a wonderful man.' 'Did she really?' It was ridiculous how pleased I was. 'Did she say that?' As we were leaving Brixton, where prisoners not yet convicted are now kept in conditions that are considerably worse than those enjoyed there a hundred years ago, when we were out in the free world, away from the stench of chamberpots and the jangle of warders' keys, I asked my instructing solicitor what I had come to think of as the thousand-dollar question. 'In all your long experience, Mr Bernard, have you ever known a villain leave his weapon at the scene of the crime?' 'Casterini might have thought he'd hidden it and he'd come back for it later. I mean, he couldn't walk out of the building with it then, could he? Seeing as he met the trumpet blower on the stairs.' 63 'What colourful lives these musicians lead'.' And then I said, 'I want you to find out everything you can about the Hoffman drug case. It was on at the Old Bailey about ten years ago. Newspaper reports, everything.' 'How's all that going to help us?' 'I don't know yet. I don't honestly know at all. But we're acting for Mr Casterini. And remember, he's liable to get potted, unless we can think of some alternative explanation.

  So, Bonny Bernard, let us get to work!' We set about to prepare our defence. We visited Butterworth Buildings and found the porter who, cowering behind a closed door and over a gas-fire, was unlikely to keep any check on the arrivals and departures. As apparently was often the case, the lift was stuck on the sixth floor, so we slogged up a dusty and ill-lit staircase. On the fourth floor we heard the horns of elfland faintly blowing and I assumed that Mr Peter Matheson was in residence and at work. On the fifth we went into the Casterini rehearsal room and saw only a few chairs, music stands, an upright piano, shelves for music, a table with paraphernalia to make coffee and a scrubbed patch of floor which had once been blood-stained. On the sixth floor we found the lift had stuck because the gate hadn't been shut properly. I saw a passage and a door marked fire exit.

  Something made me push the bar which opened it and we found a platform which led to a rusty iron fire-escape with stairs down to the street, a long way below.

  Before we left Butterworth Buildings I gave Mr Bernard a further list of my requirements. 'Ask your friends in the Crown Prosecution Service to let you see the dead man's bank accounts, far back as you can go. And I'd like a copy of his birth certificate. Then, the Bill took a load of documents out of the Casterinis' flat, go through them with a fine-tooth comb.' (. 'What're you looking for, Mr Rumpole?' Bernard sounded resigned to my excessive demands.

  'Money dealings. Telephone bills. Tell me what you find. I think particularly telephone bills.' 64 There is one thing to be said in favour of the decline of civilization as we know it: the slide into the abyss can provide some extremely comic moments. One such came when Soapy Sam Ballard called me into his presence as he had an appointment with Claude. 'I want you there as an observer, Rumpole.

  We are not yet ready to sit in judgment. But it's only fair that anything Erskine-Brown may have to say is said in front of witnesses.' 'You mean, taken down and used in evidence against him?' I asked hopefully.

  'It may not come to that.' Ballard sounded gloomy. 'I pray to God it may not come to that.' So I sat in Ballard's room and very soon there came a knock at the door and Erskine-Brown was with us and sprawled in Ballard's client's chair, apparently exhausted.

  'The investigation into the harassment affair isn't proving all that easy. I'm getting nowhere with Dot.' 'Are you not, Erskine-Brown?' Ballard looked at him sadly.

  'Well, I'm sure it's not for want of trying. She is, of course, the young lady you had in mind?' 'Oh, yes. Indeed. I'm absolutely certain she's being harassed, in the workplace. But I simply can't get her to lodge a formal complaint.' 'Can you not?' Once more Ballard spoke more in sorrow than in anger. 'Well, she's made a formal complaint now. To me.' 'Has she?' Claude seemed to cheer up considerably. 'Oh, good!' 'Good? You think it's good! I don't think it's good at all.

  She says she's been harassed.' 'Harassed, Ballard,' Claude corrected him. 'I told you that's how they say it nowadays.' 'Harassed or harassed, it comes to exactly the same thing in the end. The fact is that Miss Clapton, who seems a perfectly respectable girl, is extremely worried.' 'I'm not at all surprised. Henry's behaviour was unforgivable,' Claude told him.

  'Henry?' Ballard sounded surprised. 'She didn't say a word about Henry 'She didn't? Who's she complaining about then?' 'You!' 'What?' 'She said you pressed her to come into your room on the pretext of showing her your watercolours.' And Ballard weighed up the evidence. 'It sounds a pretty flimsy excuse to me.' 'But Ballard...' Erskine-Brown rose to his feet, clearly alarmed at the unexpected turn of events.

  'She said you talked to her about terrible urges,' Soapy Sam went on remorselessly.

  'I said I could understand them. We all have them. That's what I said.' 'Speak for yourself, Erskine-Brown,' Ballard rejected the imputation vigorously. 'And it seems you said you found her extremely "fanciable", an expression new to me, but I'm afraid I can guess its meaning. And you promised to get her promoted to a junior clerkship, no doubt for a certain consideration.' 'Ballard, this is a totally unjustified accusation!' 'You never said that?' 'Well, I may have said something like that. But what I meant was...' 'No!' Ballard held up his hand to stop further self-incrimination.

  'I want to be perfectly fair to you, Erskine-Brown. I want to give you ample time to consider your defence.' 'My defence!' 'Of course.' Ballard gave his interim judgment. 'This will have to be decided, together with other rather disturbing matters, at a full Chambers meeting. Until then I hope you will have no further conversations with Miss Clapton. She, of course, will be a vital witness. I would only give you one word of advice at this time, Erskine-Brown. Make a clean breast of it to your wife!' 'Rumpole!' Erskine-Brown turned to me as the voice of sanity. 'Do you honestly believe...?' 'I believe nothing, Claude,' I said. 'I haven't made up my mind. I'm here purely as a witness.' 'A witness to what?' 'To your answer to the charge,' Ballard told him. 'What we 66 have here is moral decay,' Soapy Sam said to me after Claude had left in a state of indignation and dismay. 'You know what caused the decline and fall of the Roman Empire?' I had to confess I wasn't entirely clear.

  'Lust, Rumpole. Flagrant immorality has reared its head all over this building. Oh, yes. I will have to call on everyone to pull themselves together.' 'According to you, isn't that rather what they're doing already?' 'I really don't know what you're talking about, Rumpole.' I looked at the man. He was undoubtedly a pompous, blinkered, humourless prig who seemed to confuse the Headship of a small, mainly criminal set of Chambers with the Archbishopric of Canterbury. And yet I remembered what Elizabeth had told me I should feel about him. I tried it out.

  'I love you, Ballard,' I said.

  'What was that?' The poor fellow clearly couldn't believe his ears. So I repeated, 'I love you with all my heart.' He was looking at me and his very worst suspicions seemed to be confirmed. 'Rumpole,' he asked nervously, 'do I detect a curious odour in this room?' 'Perhaps the odour of sanctity.' 'I don't think so. It's a heavy, sweet smell. Cloying. Tell me honestly. Are you perfumed, Rumpole?' 'As I was saying', I ignored his question, 'I believe it's our duty to love everything, and because of that, well, I can only say, "I love you, Ballard."' I had clearly gone too far and taken Elizabeth's advice too literally. The man got up, extremely alarmed. 'Another time, perhaps. I've got a case starting over the road.' And as he hurried to the door he was muttering, 'Think about it very carefully, Rumpole. Moral decay. Getting in everywhere.' So two causes came to trial, the great harassment inquiry in Chambers
and the case of R. v. Casterini at the Old Bailey.

  The second, greatly to my regret, was held before Judge Sir Oliver, or 'Oilie', Oliphant, who came, as he was never tired of reminding us, from the North of England. In fact he 67 regarded everyone who lived south of Leeds as idle dreamers who spent their time lying in the sun, peeling grapes and strumming guitars. He was firmly of the opinion that all cases could be decided by 'good old North Country common sense', which, so far as he was concerned at least, often proved a somewhat unreliable test.

  The proceedings began in a routine manner with the medical evidence and then Detective Sergeant Straw produced the revolver which he had found in the rehearsal room.

  'It was not very well concealed?' I asked the officer.

  'Not particularly.' 'And no fingerprints were found on the weapon?' 'That is right.' 'Did that surprise you?' 'Let's use our common sense about this, Mr Rumpole.' Mr Justice Oliphant entered the arena. 'No doubt whoever did it removed the fingerprints so as to avoid detection. Does that make sense to you. Members of the Jury? I know it does to me.' 'So is this your Lordship's theory?' I asked politely. 'My client was careful to leave his gun behind, although it could easily be traced to him, but took a lot of trouble clearing off the fingerprints.' 'Or else wore gloves,' the D.S. suggested.