John Mortimer - Rumpole 1 - Rumpole of The Bailey Read online

  Wystan looked particularly pained.' South London criminals?

  ' I mean, do we want people like the Timsons forever hanging about in our waiting room? I merely ask the question.' He was not bad, this Erskine-Brown, with a big future in the nastier sort of Breach of Trust cases.

  'Do you? Do you merely ask it?" I heard the pained bellow of a distant Rumpole.

  'The Timsons... and their like, are no doubt grist to Rumpole's mill,' Wystan was starting on the summing up. 'But it's the balance that counts. Now, you'll be looking for a new Head of Chambers.' 'Are we still looking?' My friend George Frobisher had the decency to ask. And Wystan told him,' I'd like you all to think it over carefully. And put your views to me in writing. We should all try and remembei. It's the good of the Chambers that matters. Not the feelings, however deep they may be, of any particular person.' He then called on Albert's assistance to raise him to his feet, lifted his glass with an effort of pure will and oifered us a toast to the good of Chambers. I joined in, and drank deep, it having been a good thirty seconds since I had had a glass to my lips. As the bubbles exploded against the tongue I noticed that the Featherstones were holding hands, and the brand new artificial silk was looking particularly delighted. Something, and perhaps not only his suspender belt, seemed to be giving him special pleasure.

  Some weeks later, when I gave Hilda the news, she was deeply shocked.

  'Guthrie Featherstonel Head of Chambers!' We were at breakfast. In fact Nick was due back at school that day. He was neglecting his cornflakes and reading a book.

  'By general acclaim.' ' I'm sorry.' Hilda looked at me, as if she'd just discovered that I'd contracted an incurable disease.

  'He can have the headaches, working out Albert's extraordinary book-keeping system.' I thought for a moment, yes, I'd like to have been Head of Chambers, and then put the thought from me.

  ' If only you could have become a Q.C.' She was now pouring me an unsolicited cup of coffee.

  'Q.C.? C.T. That's enough to keep me busy.' 'C.T.? Whatever's C.T.?' 'Counsel for the Timsons!' I tried to say it as proudly as I could. Then I reminded Nick that I'd promised to see him off at Liverpool Street, finished my cooling coffee, stood up and took a glance at the book that was absorbing him, expecting it to be, perhaps, that spine-chilling adventure relating to the Footprints of an Enormous Hound. To my amazement the shocker in question was entitled simply Studies in Sociology.

  'It's interesting,' Nick sounded apologetic.

  'You astonish me.' 'Old Bagnold was talking about what I should read if I get into Oxford.' ' Of course you're going to read law, Nick. We're going to keep it in the family.' Hilda the barrister's daughter was clearing away deafeningly.

  ' I thought perhaps P.P.E. and then go on to Sociology.' Nick sounded curiously confident. Before Hilda could get in another word I made my position clear.

  'P.P.E., that's very good, Nick! That's very good indeed! For God's sake. Let's stop keeping things in the family!' Later, as we walked across the barren stretches of Liverpool Street Station, with my son in his school uniform and me in my old striped trousers and black jacket, I tried to explain what I meant.

  'That's what's wrong, Nick. That's the devil of it! They're being born around us all the time. Little Mr Justice Everglades... Little Timsons... Little Guthrie Featherstones. All being set off... to follow in father's footsteps.' We were at the barrier, shaking hands awkwardly.' Let's have no more of that! No more following in father's footsteps. No more.' Nick smiled, although I have no idea if he understood what I was trying to say. I'm not totally sure that I understood it either. Then the train removed him from me. I waved for a little, but he didn't wave back. That sort of thing is embarrassing for a boy. I lit a small cigar and went by tube to the Bailey. I was doing a long firm fraud then; a particularly nasty business, out of which I got a certain amount of harmless fun.

  Rumpole and the Alternative Society

  In some ways the coppers, the Fuzz, Old Bill, whatever you may care to call them, are a very conservative body. When they verbal up the criminal classes, and report their alleged confessions in the Nick, they still use the sort of Cockney argot that went out at the turn of the century, and perfectly well-educated bank robbers, who go to the ballet at Covent Garden and holidays in Corfu, are still reported as having cried,' It's a fair cop, guv,' or 'You got me bang to rights,' at the moment they're apprehended. In the early 1970s however, when Flower Power flooded the country with a mass of long hair, long dresses and the sweet smell of the old quarter of Marrakesh, the Fuzz showed itself remarkably open to new ideas. Provincial drug squads were issued with beads, Afghan waistcoats, headbands and guitars along with their size eleven boots, and took lessons in a new language, learning to say,' Cool it man,' or' Make love not war,' instead of 'You got me bang to rights.' It was also a time when the figures of the establishment fell into disrepute and to be a barrister, however close to the criminal fraternity, was to be regarded by the young as a sort of undesirable cross between Judge Jeffries and Mr Nixon, as I knew from the sullen looks of the young ladies Nick, who was then at Oxford and reading P.P.E., brought home in the holidays. I have never felt so clearly the number of different countries, all speaking private languages and with no diplomatic relations, into which England is divided. I cannot think for instance of a world more remote from the Temple or the Inns of Court than that tumble-down Victorian house in the west country (No. 34 Balaclava Road, Coldsands) which the community who inhabited it had christened 'Nirvana', and which contained a tortoise who looked to me heavily drugged, a number of babies, some surprisingly clean young men and women, a pain-in-the-neck named Dave, and a girl called Kathy Trelawny whom I never met until she came to be indicted in the Coldsands Crown Court on a charge of handling a phenomenal amount of cannabis resin, valued at about ten thousand pounds.

  Coldsands is a rather unpopular resort in the west of England with a high rainfall, a few Regency terraces, a large number of old people's homes, and a string quartet at tea-time in the Winter Gardens] on the face of it an unlikely place for crime to flourish. But a number of young people did form a community there at 'Nirvana', a place which the local inhabitants regarded as the scene of numerous orgies. To this house came a dealer named Jack, resplendent in his hippie attire, to place a large order for cannabis which Kathy Trelawny set about fulfilling, with the aid of a couple of Persian law students with whom she had made contact at Bristol University. Very soon after the deal was done, and a large quantity of money handed over, Jack the Hippie was revealed as Detective Sergeant Jack Smedley of the local force, the strong arm of the law descended on 'Nirvana', the Persian law students decamped to an unknown address in Morocco, and Rumpole, who had had a few notable successes with dangerous drugs, was dug out of Old Bailey and placed upon the 12.15 from Paddington to Coldsands, enjoying the lare luxury of a quiet corner seat in the first-class luncheon car, by courtesy of the Legal Aid Fund of Great Britain.

  I could afford the first-class luncheon, and spread myself the more readily, as I was staying in a little pub on the coast not five miles from Coldsands kept by my old mates and companions in arms (if my three years in the R.A.F. ground staff can be dignified by so military a title), ex-Pilot Officer 'Three-Fingers' Dogherty and his wife Bobby, CX-WAAF, unchallenged beauty queen of the station at Dungeness, who was well known to look like Betty Grable from behind and Phyllis Dixey from the front and to have a charm, a refreshing impertinence and a contempt for danger unrivalled, I am sure, by either of those famous pinups from Reveille. I have spoken of Bobby already in these reminiscences and I am not ashamed to say that, although I was already married to Hilda when we met, she captured my heart, and continued to hold it fast long after the handsome Pilot Officer captured hers. I was therefore keenly Booking forward to renewing my acquaintance with Bobby; we had had a desultory correspondence but we hadn't met for many years. I was also looking forward to a holiday at the seaside, for which Miss Trelawny's little trouble seemed merely to provide the
excuse and the financial assistance.

  So I was, as you can imagine, in a good mood as we rattled past Reading and cows began to be visible, standing in fields, chewing the cud, as though there were no law courts or judges in the world. You very rarely see a cow down the Bailey, which is one of the reasons I enjoy an occasional case on circuit. Circuit takes you away from Chambers, away from the benevolent despotism of Albert the clerk, above all, away from the constant surveillance of She Who Must Be Obeyed (Mrs Hilda Rumpole). I began to look forward to a good, old-fashioned railway lunch. I thought of a touch of Brown Windsor soup, rapidly followed by steamed cod, castle pudding, mouse-trap, cream crackers and celery, all to be washed down with a vintage bottle of Chateau Great Western as we charged past Didcot.

  A furtive-looking man, in a short off-white jacket which showed his braces and a mournful expression, looked down at me.

  'Ah waiter. Brown Windsor soup, I fancy, to start with."

  ' We're just doing the Grilled Platter, sir.' I detected, in the man's voice, a certain gloomy satisfaction.

  'Grilled-what?' ' Fried egg and brunch-burger, served with chips and a nice tomato.' 'A nice tomato! Oh, very well.' Perhaps with a suitable anaesthetic the brunch-burger could be taken. 'And to drink. A reasonable railway claret?' 'No wines on this journey, sir. We got gin in miniatures.' 'I don't care for gin, at lunchtime, especially in miniatures.' Regretfully I came to the conclusion that circuit life had deteriorated and wondered what the devil they had done with all the Brown Windsor soup.

  At Coldsands Station a middle-aged man in a neat suit and rimless glasses was there to meet me. He spoke with a distinct and reassuring west-country accent.

  'Air Horace Rumpole? I'm Friendly.' ' Thank God someone is!' 'I was warned you liked your little joke, Mr Rumpole, by London agents. They recommended you as a learned counsel who has had some success with drugs.' 'Oh, I have had considerable success with drugs. And a bit of luck with murder, rape and other offences against the person.' 'I'm afraid we don't do much crime at Friendly, Sanderson and Friendly. We're mainly conveyancing. By the way, I think there's a couple of typing errors in the instructions to counsel.' Mr Friendly looked deeply apologetic.

  I hastened to reassure him.' Fear not, Friendly. I never read the instructions to counsel. I find they blur the judgtment and confuse the mind.' We were outside the Station now, and a battered taxi rattled into view.

  ' You'll want to see the client?' Friendly sounded resigned.

  ' She might expect it.' 'You're going to "Nirvana"?' 'Eventually. Aren't we all? No, Friendly. I shall steer clear of the lotus eaters of No. 34 Balaclava Road. A land, I rather imagine, in which it seems always afternoon. Bring the client for a con at my hotel. After dinner. Nine o'clock suit you?' ' You'll be at the George ? That's where the Bar put up.' 'Then if it's where the Bar put up, I shall avoid it. I'm staying with old mates, from my days in the R.A.F. They run a stately pleasure-dome known as the Crooked Billet.' 'The little pub place out on the bay?' I noticed Friendly smiled when he spoke of the Dogherty's delight, a place, I had no doubt, of a high reputation. The taxi had stopped now, and I was wrestling with the door. When I had it open, I was in a high and holiday mood.

  ' Out on the bay indeed! With no sound but the sea sighing and the muted love call of the lobster. Know what I say. Friendly? When you get a bit of decent crime at the seaside... Relax and enjoy it!' Friendly was staring after me, perhaps understandably bewildered, as I drove away.

  The taxi took me out to the Crooked Billet and back about twenty-five years. The pub was on the top of some cliffs, above a sandy beach and a leaden sea. From the outside it seemed an ordinary enough building, off-white, battered, with a neglected patch of garden; but inside it was almost a museum to the great days of World War Two. Behind the bar were Sam's trophies, a Nazi helmet, a plaster Mr Churchill which could actually puff a cigar, a model Spitfire dangled from the ceiling, there were framed photographs of ex-Pilot Officer Dogherty in his flying jacket, standing by his beloved Lancaster and a signed portrait of Vera Lynn at the height of her career. Even the pin-table appeared to be an antique, looted from some NAAFI. There was also an old piano, a string of fairy lights round the bottles and a comforting smell of stale booze. Someone was clanking bottles behind the bar, but I could see no more than a comfortable bottom in old blue slacks. I put out a red alert.

  ' Calling all air crew! Calling all air crew! Parade immediately.' At which Bobby Dogherty turned, straightened up and smiled.

  Age had not actually withered her, but it had added to the generosity of her curves. Her blonde hair looked more metallic than of old, and the lines of laughter round her mouth and eyes had settled into permanent scars. She had a tipped cigarette in her mouth and her head was tilted to keep the smoke out of her eyes. She looked, as always, irrepressibly cheerful, as if middle age, like the War, was a sort of joke, and there to be enjoyed.

  'Rumpole. You old devil!' 'You look beautiful,' I said, as I had often done in the past, and meant it just as much.

  ' Liar! Drop of rum ?' I didn't see why not and perched myself on a bar stool while she milked the rum bottle. Soon Rumpole was in reminiscent mood.

  'Takes me right back to the NAAFI hop. New Year's Eve, 1943. Sam was out bombing something and I had you entirely to myself, for a couple of hours of the Boomps-a-Daisy... Not to mention the Lambeth Walk.' I raised my glass and gave our old salutation,' Here's to the good old duke!' 'The good old duke.' Bobby was on her second gin and tonic, and she remembered. 'You never took advantage.' I lit a small cigar. It caught me in the back of the throat. ' Something I shall regret till the day I cough myself into extinction. How's old Sam ? How's ex-Pilot Officer' Three-Fingers' Dogherty?' 'Bloody doctor!' For the first time, Bobby looked less than contented.

  'Doctor?' 'Doctor Mackay. Came here with a face like an undertaker.' She gave a passable imitation of a gloomy Scottish medico.' "Mrs Dogherty, your husband's got to get out of the licensing trade or I'll not give him more than another year. Get him into a small bungalow and on to soft drinks." Can you imagine Sam in a bungalow?' ' Or on soft drinks! The mind boggles!' ' He'll find lime juice and soda has a pleasant little kick to it. That's what the doctor told me.' 'The kick of a mouse, I should imagine. In carpet slippers.' ' I told the quack, Sam's not scared. Sam used to go out every night to kill himself. He misses the war dreadfully.' ' I expect he does.' ' Saturday night in the Crooked Billet and a bloody good piss-up. It's the nearest he gets to the old days in the R.A.F.' 'You want to be careful... he doesn't rush out and bomb Torquay,' I warned her, and was delighted to see her laugh.

  ' You're not joking! The point is... should I tell Sam?' 'Won't your Doctor Mackay tell him?' 'You know how Sam is. He won't see hide nor hair of the doctor. So what should I do?' ' Why ask me ?' I looked at her, having no advice to give.

  'You're the bloody lawyer, darling. You're meant to know everything!' At which point I was aware that, behind us, a man had come into the bar. I turned and saw him scowling at us. He was wearing a blazer, an R.A.F. scarf in an open shirt and scuffed suede shoes. I saw a good-looking face, grey hair and a grey moustache, all gone slightly to seed. It was none other than ex-Pilot Officer Sam' Three-Fingers' Dogherty.

  'We're not open yet!' He seemed to have not yet completely awakened from a deep afternoon kip, as he advanced on us, blinking at the lights round the bar.

  ' Sam! Can't you see who it is ?' Bobby said, and her husband, who had at last identified the invasion, roared at me.

  'My God, it's old grounded Rumpole! Rumpole of the ops room!' He moved rapidly to behind the bar and treated himself to a large Teachers which he downed rapidly. 'What the hell brings you to this neck of the woods?' 'He wrote us a letter.' 'Never read letters. Here's to the good old duke!' He was on his second whisky, and considerably more relaxed.

  'What brings me? A lady... you might say, a damsel in bloody great distress.' 'You're not still after Bobby, are you?' Sam was only pretending to be suspicious.

 
; ' Of course. Till the day I die. But your wife's not in distress exactly.' 'Aren't I?' Bobby looked down into the depths of her gin and tonic, and I filled them in on the nature of my mission.

  'The lady in question is a certain Miss Kathy Trelawny. One of the lotus eaters of "Nirvana", 34 Balaclava Road. Done for the possession of a suitcase full of cannabis resin.' I had put up, as we used to say in the old days, a Black. If I had asked the Reverend Ian Paisley to pray for the Pope, I couldn't have invited an icier gaze of disapproval than Sam gave me as he said,' You're defending her ?' 'Against your crafty constabulary. Come in here, does she?' 'Not bloody likely! That crowd from Balaclava Road wouldn't get past the door. Anyway, they don't drink.' The glass of Teachers was recharged to banish the vision of the lotus eaters invading the Crooked Billet.

  'Dear me. Is there no end to their decadence? But you know my client?' 'Never clapped eyes on her, thank God! No doubt she's about as glamorous as an unmade bed.' 'Oh, no doubt at all.' Gloomily, I thought he was almost certainly right, something peering through glasses, I thought, out of a mop of unwashed hair. Sam came out from behind the bar and started to bang about, straightening chairs and tables, switching on more lights.

  ' How can you defend that creature?' 'Easy! Prop myself to my feet in Court and do my best.' ' But you know damn well she's guilty!' It's the one great error everyone makes about my learned profession; they think we defend people who have told us they did the deed. This legend doesn't add to the esteem in which barristers are held, and I sighed a little as I exploded the myth for the thousandth time.