Rumpole Misbehaves

by John Mortimer

  ‘Or is it because he’s a lousy cross-examiner?’ was, again, something I didn’t say.

  ‘So we’ve become really friendly.’

  ‘I thought you never liked the chap.’

  ‘But it’s different now. I sometimes feel that I’m not getting the sort of work I deserve and he understands that. So when he said you should be made to take the ASBO seriously, I agreed. I never thought of prison.’

  ‘I’ve told you, Mizz Liz, dismiss it from your mind. Devote your time to understanding Claude.’ And I didn’t add, ‘It shouldn’t take you very long.’

  ‘And he’s going to take me to the opera next week. Do you go to the opera, Rumpole?’

  ‘Hardly at all.’ And I remembered an old saying: ‘If a thing’s too silly to say, then sing it.’

  ‘I have wheels, Mr Rumpole. To be used in important cases and cases of difficulty, as this one is,’ Fig Newton said proudly. ‘But you must have wheels that sink into the background. My old Golf is just such a vehicle.’

  The information Fig had obtained was, it appeared, too confidential to be revealed in Pommeroy’s, so Bonny Bernard and I met with the tireless sleuth in my room in Chambers.

  He had parked and then watched the lock-up garage under the office block in the Canary Wharf area for several nights. On the fourth night he struck lucky.

  ‘I was keeping observation from a side street just opposite when I was rewarded by the arrival of a lorry just after midnight. The garage door was left open and some men were there who helped the lorry driver unload packing cases, which were moved into the garage.’

  After the garage doors were closed, Fig thought he heard male and female voices. He kept observation until four a.m., when a large van-like car, which Fig described as a ‘people carrier’, arrived. Three girls emerged from the garage and were helped into the vehicle.

  Fig was able to follow them to a house in Battersea, into which one of the girls was taken. Then the people carrier drove on to an address in Clapham. An escort rang on the bell of the house in question, where the door was opened by a middle-aged woman who took the other two girls inside. Although Fig tried to follow the people carrier further, he was delayed at some traffic lights and lost contact with it.

  The industrious Fig had also been to the land registry and discovered that the empty block and garages were owned by a company called Helsing. After further inquiries he tried to ring Helsing but found that they were not answering their phone.

  Then I asked Fig for the address of the house in Clapham where the girl was deposited. When he told me I laughed so loudly that I was in danger of getting another ASBO.

  22

  ‘Have you got it?’

  The question was fired at me as soon as Graham Wetherby was delivered to the interview room in Brixton Prison.

  ‘Got what exactly?’

  ‘The QC.’ Wetherby appeared to be more anxious about my promotion than about the state of his defence.

  ‘Not quite yet,’ I told him. ‘But I have been before the selection committee and they as good as told me it was in the bag. The thing has to be rubber-stamped by the Minister for Constitutional Affairs.’

  ‘So you’ll be QC at my trial?’

  ‘I’ll do my very best.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole,’ Bonny Bernard came to my rescue, ‘will give you considerable service whether he’s a QC or not.’

  ‘The most important thing,’ I told my client, ‘is to remember the times. We worked them out the last time I was here. Twelve fifteen you made a telephone call from the office. And you arrived at the flat in Flyte Street at…’

  ‘Around one pm.’

  ‘That’s right, and you got into the room at…’

  ‘One thirty.’

  ‘Excellent! And the police and the police doctor were there at two thirty. That’s when the doctor examined the body.’

  I had agreed to this conference to keep Graham Wetherby feeling properly looked after, not because I thought we had anything more helpful to discuss. I looked at my watch; there was still almost half an hour before we could decently leave. What could we discuss? The weather, ASBOs, the iniquities of a government that tried to tell us how to be good and true? None of these topics seemed suitable, so I played for safety. ‘Tell me a little more about yourself. I know you work in the Home Office. What sort of job do you do exactly?’

  ‘Extra office accommodation for property and human resources without our Queen Anne’s Gate headquarters. It has to do with positioning.’

  ‘I’m sure it has, but could you just translate a little?’

  ‘The Home Office has grown so big we have to find external office accommodation for human resources.’

  ‘Does that mean people?’

  ‘Of course it does.’ Wetherby looked at me as though I was a child who had not quite come to grips with the alphabet. And I thought that my client’s job was probably so dull and uneventful that an occasional visit to such places as the Flyte Street flat might have become a necessity.

  ‘You dealt with property companies–I mean, when your office was expanding?’

  ‘A lot of them.’

  ‘Does the name Helsing mean anything to you?’

  I thought it was just worth trying. Graham Wetherby considered, and shook his head.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I had nothing more to ask, but Wetherby, afraid of the loneliness of his cell, looked at me, begging me to stay, so we went on talking about nothing very much until the warden came in and told us our interview time was up. As we left my client was still worrying, asking if I’d do my best to become a QC in time for his trial.

  And then I was back to where this story began, in the South London Magistrates’ Court with young Peter Timson, who stood, as I had done, within the shades of the prison-house for breaking the terms of an ASBO.

  ‘You’ll do your best for him, won’t you, Mr Rumpole?’ Bertie Timson seemed suddenly worried. If he wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, he obviously didn’t want it quite yet. ‘The lad’s too young for prison. In a year or two perhaps, he’ll know how to deal with it. But now he’s far too young.’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ I told him, as though I had complete confidence in young Peter’s defence.

  We were in the entrance hall of the magistrates’ court, together with the casual streetwalkers and angry businessmen hauled up for drink-driving. I was with Bonny Bernard and Fig Newton, who had come reluctantly to court, where I thought he might be needed.

  Then I saw Parkes, the solicitor employed by the council for the prosecution of such dangerous villains as young Peter Timson. With him was a tall woman, perhaps in her late fifties, with bright hair piled high on her head, a long neck disappearing into a fur-collared leather jacket and an extremely discontented expression. I looked at Fig, who nodded. Then Parkes approached me.

  ‘I’ve got Mrs Englefield to come.’

  ‘I know. We served a witness summons on her.’

  ‘She’s a very busy woman.’

  ‘So I understand.’

  ‘I shall tell the magistrate her evidence is quite unnecessary. I’m not going to call her.’

  ‘Then I’ll call her as part of my defence.’

  Parkes looked at me with extreme suspicion.

  ‘What are you up to, Rumpole?’ was what he said.

  All I could answer was, ‘Wait and see.’

  The court was no better or worse than it had been before. The same Madam Chair sat between the same two bookends, the plump fellow with the Trade Union badge and the thin schoolmaster. The same obedient usher called ‘Timson. Application to enforce anti-social behaviour order. The defendant is here.’

  And I turned my head to see the diminutive figure of Peter Timson in what passed as a dock in the South London Magistrates’ Court.

  ‘Mr Rumpole is here for the defendant Timson.’

  ‘Let’s call him Peter,’ I said as I rose to my feet.

  ‘Why?�
� Madam Chair seemed unlikely to agree. ‘We remember you from when this case was before us earlier and we made the order, Mr Rumpole, in spite of your lengthy speech. We hope you won’t feel inclined to mention Nelson Mandela in this court again.’

  ‘If you wish it.’ I gave her what I knew was an insincere smile of obedience. ‘Nelson Mandela shall be left out of these proceedings entirely.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘I merely ask that my client should be referred to as Peter as he is a twelve-year-old child.’

  ‘We are all aware of that, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘So you should be. And is a child able to be sent to prison?’

  ‘To a young offenders’ institution, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘Call it what you like, it’s a prison where he can be taught to do more crime and come out a threat to society.’

  Madam Chair then conferred with her bookends and came back with, ‘Very well. We’ll call him Peter if you like. But it won’t make the slightest difference to the proceedings.’

  ‘I’m much obliged.’

  I was about to sit down, but after a bit of advice from the clerk to Madam Chair she said, ‘Mr Rumpole, do we understand that your client admits the breaking of the order?’

  ‘I’m not admitting anything until we’ve heard it properly passed in court.’

  ‘We have read Mrs Englefield’s statement.’

  ‘That’s the point. It was a statement by a witness who didn’t offer herself for cross-examination. That’s not evidence at all. Hopefully, this Mrs Englefield is in court.’

  ‘Because you took out a witness summons,’ Parkes told the magistrates helpfully.

  ‘Exactly so. I did that so I can cross-examine her after she’s taken the oath and then we might come to the truth.’

  ‘The truth about your client’s footballing?’

  ‘And a few related matters.’

  At this Madam Chair seemed at a loss and sought the advice of her clerk, who stood up from below her. After she had enjoyed a prolonged earful, she asked, ‘What is your authority, Mr Rumpole, for saying that a statement has to be proved by a witness on oath and available for cross-examination?’

  ‘No written authority at present. Although I gather that directions are to be given shortly.’

  ‘Directions? By whom exactly?’

  ‘The Minister for Constitutional Affairs.’

  ‘In what case?’

  ‘No case. But I know he finds it outrageous that a young child should be deprived of his liberty on charges that have never been tested by cross-examination.’

  The atmosphere in court changed rapidly. Madam Chair muttered some urgent remarks to the bookends, then she said, ‘Mr Parkes, I don’t suppose you’d object to putting Mrs Englefield in the witness box so that Mr Rumpole might ask her a few questions? It seems a fairly simple issue, but we have to take into account the view of the Minister for Constitutional Affairs.’

  ‘No, Madam. I have no objection, if you have the time.’

  ‘I’m afraid we do.’ Madam Chair spoke for the bookends too. ‘We can only hope that Mr Rumpole will keep it short.’

  So the witness entered the box, swore on the Bible and gave her name as Mrs Harriet Englefield and her address as 15 Beechwood Grove. She swore that since the first order was made she had seen young Peter Timson, the boy in the dock, on at least six occasions enter her quiet and secluded street in search of a football which had strayed from its proper place in Rampton Road.

  When Parkes sat down Madam Chair gave me a look of exasperation and said, ‘You may put your questions shortly, Mr Rumpole.’

  ‘I hope to keep them short, Madam. That depends on the witness.’

  ‘So how can I help you, Mr Rumpole?’ Mrs Englefield gave me a tolerant smile.

  ‘Quite easily, I hope. Perhaps you could tell us why you didn’t want this little footballer hanging around your street.’

  ‘It disturbed me.’

  ‘Not much of a disturbance, was it? A small boy entering your road for a few minutes to retrieve a football.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Mr Rumpole. We buy our houses in the Grove for peace and quiet. There are important people living there, doctors and a retired general who is writing a book. Then there is my aged mother, who lives with me. They all need tranquillity. And of course I need it for my work. I have a good many patients. They come to me for treatment.’

  ‘And what sort of treatment do you give them?’

  ‘I give spiritual healing. We sit together and think of our own spaces. Then they like to talk. They may have troubled auras and I do my best to cleanse the space around them.’

  ‘And what are their troubles exactly?’

  ‘Unhappy marriages or affairs. Feelings of uselessness when they have lost touch with the life force. Feelings of doubt and insecurity.’

  ‘And I suppose,’ Madam Chair was out to help the witness, ‘you need peace and quiet for that?’

  ‘Absolutely. I chose Beechwood Grove because it was so quiet.’

  There was a silent moment during which I considered my best form of attack. Then Madam Chair clipped in with, ‘Is that all you have to ask, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘Not quite all,’ I told her, and turned my attention to the witness. Then I led off with, ‘Mrs Englefield, no doubt you’ve heard of the importation of girls who pay good money to get smuggled in to the country and are set to work as prostitutes? Have you heard of that?’

  ‘Yes.’ The witness closed her eyes in an apparent effort to remember. ‘I may have read something about it.’

  ‘I have to suggest you know a great deal more about it than that.’

  ‘I don’t know what Mr Rumpole is suggesting.’ This interruption came from the prosecutor.

  ‘Then sit quietly and you’ll find out.’ I was beginning to lose patience with Parkes. ‘Now, let me take you back to 10 May.’

  ‘I can’t remember what I was doing then.’

  ‘Can’t you? It was something rather sensational. Don’t worry. I’m here to remind you. The night before, a number of girls from a distant country had been smuggled into England and left in a warehouse somewhere near Canary Wharf. They were to be distributed to various addresses to work as prostitutes.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole! Is this really necessary?’ It was Madam Chair who interrupted this time.

  ‘Absolutely essential to my case. And when the Minister spoke of cross-examination he meant uninterrupted cross-examination.’

  This appeared to quieten the tribunal enough for me to continue.

  ‘That morning a witness I shall call saw the girls moved from the warehouse and distributed to certain addresses. At four forty-five a people carrier drove up to your house in Beechwood Grove. Two girls were delivered to you. My witness will identify you as the lady who opened the door to them and let them into your house. Are you really going to tell us that they came to you for spiritual healing?’

  Mrs Englefield didn’t answer, so I went on with my case.

  ‘I have to suggest to you that the sole reason why you didn’t want little boys kicking footballs round your house is that they might see too much! They might learn too much about you. They might tell stories of mysterious foreign girls who had been shipped over the Channel in the backs of lorries and delivered at your door in the early hours of the morning. Delivered to the Beechwood Grove brothel.’

  The woman in the witness box stood silent, staring at me with a look of hatred. Then the industrious Parkes sprang into action. He said that these were serious allegations which had come out of the blue and that he would have to take further instructions. He asked for an adjournment to consider his position. To this suggestion Rumpole most generously agreed.

  Bonny Bernard and I got back from the pub, replete with bangers, mash and Guinness, to be received by an anxious Parkes, who asked me to agree to a statement to be made by him in court. ‘Mrs Englefield,’ it said, ‘denies any and all of the suggestions made to her about girls arriving at he
r house. However, on further consideration, she does not wish to send such a young boy into custody, so she intends to discontinue proceedings on the ASBO.’

  ‘And never to reinstate them,’ I suggested.

  ‘All right, Mr Rumpole. She really has no choice.’

  Bertie Timson told his son that I was a ‘magnificent brief’. Peter and I shook hands and so, as a satisfied client, he left me.

  It may not have been one of my greatest wins, but thanks to Fig Newton it was sorted out admirably. I was left wishing that all the problems of my life could be solved so satisfactorily.

  23

  It was at about this time, if my memory serves me rightly, that our chambers in Equity Court were invaded, not by terrorists, as Ballard had always feared, but by a youngish, that is to say around thirty-year-old, barrister by the name of Christopher Kidmoth.

  ‘It is a significant honour for our chambers,’ Ballard told me, ‘to have the grandson of Lord Chancellor Quarant join us.’

  I had read the speeches of the old Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords, including the one on consent to rape while drunk. In my view, old Quarant had made a bit of a pig’s breakfast of the law at that time.

  ‘After his pupillage they wouldn’t give Christopher a place in his grandfather’s old chambers. Things have changed, Rumpole. Family connections don’t ensure you a place nowadays.’

  ‘But you took him on here because of his family connections, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not at all, Rumpole. Perish the thought. I voted in favour of admitting him because he’s a bright young barrister who might be able to fill a place made vacant by any one of us who wishes to retire.’

  ‘Don’t look at me, Ballard,’ I warned Soapy Sam. ‘You’re not getting rid of me. I have no thought of retiring.’

  ‘Not now, perhaps. But the day will come…’

  ‘When I die with my wig on, that’s true. Until then I’m staying with you.’ I might have added, ‘Because nothing they sling at me in court could be as bad as having to confront, every day and all day, the changing moods and the general disapproval of She Who Must Be Obeyed.’