The Anti-Social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole (11 page)

 

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.'

‘I still feel that the time may come,' Ballard said hopefully.

*

A few days later I saw a group that contained Mizz Liz, Claude Erskine-Brown, our clerk, Henry, and Hoskins. As I passed this apparently merry gathering on my way back to my room, after a short taking and driving away at Snaresbrook, a fair-haired youth, whom I took to be the new arrival, Kidmoth, called after me, ‘There goes the oldest inhabitant! Are you off to your room for a picnic, Rumpole?'

I didn't demean myself by answering this sally. I might have said, ‘I'm sorry that none of you seem to have any work to do!' But I passed silently through to my quarters.

Another week or two passed before I was made particularly aware of our newest member. A cold spring had turned into a warm June when he entered my room without knocking and settled himself comfortably into my client's chair. He flicked a falling blond lock back from his eyes.

I was working and lunching at my desk at the time and I didn't give him a particularly warm welcome.

‘You know what this chambers lacks, Rumpole?' he started off with.

‘Repairs to the upstairs loo? It flushes reluctantly.'

‘No. Not that. Team spirit! Like we had in our house at Harrow. At the moment it's just a collection of individuals, all competing against each other.'

‘I don't feel I'm competing against anybody.'

‘You're a one-off, Rumpole. Everyone knows that.'

‘I'm not sure I'd want to be anything else.'

‘You will, Rumpole. You will. I'm going to invite everyone at 4 Equity Court to our annual herb garden barbecue at Quarant.'

‘At where?'

‘Quarant Castle. I know it sounds grand, but it's quite relaxed. And Ma and Pa will be thrilled to see you all. Everyone to bring wives and children, the whole shooting match. Oh, by the way, Sammy Ballard told me that Leonard Bullingham is a close personal friend of yours.'

I was silent for a moment, astonished at hearing our Head of Chambers called ‘Sammy'. Then I said, ‘He's a close personal friend of my wife.'

‘Good! I'll ask him too. And Mrs Justice Erskine-Brown. You can't have too many judges.'

‘I'm not sure I agree with that,' I told him.

Then he said he was off to take coffee with ‘Sammy' Ballard, and he left the presence.

*

The invitation came a couple of weeks later.

Lord and Lady Quarant invite Mr and Mrs Horace Rumpole to their summer party in the herbgarden. Dress informal
.

I tried to hide this dreaded message under my breakfast plate, but Hilda spotted it immediately.

‘The dear Quarants. Everyone says they're utterly charming.'

‘The son's in our chambers. Christopher Kidmoth. He threatened something of the sort.'

“‘Dress informal”. That means a new summer frock, Rumpole.'

At Kidmoth's suggestion a bus was hired to take us all from the Temple to the herb garden party. Informal dress was interpreted in many ways. Sam Ballard had a straw hat and Claude Erskine-Brown was tricked out in full cricket whites. I was struck by the appearance of his wife. Phillida was once a sparkling young beauty, appointed the unofficial Portia of our chambers, but she had achieved a middle-aged loveliness and a sort of authority that made everyone make way for her.

Hilda had purchased a deep orange creation. The Mad Bull, I thought inappropriately, appeared in
long khaki shorts, while Henry and the secretaries from the clerk's room were dressed as for a summer holiday in Ibiza. I had dug out a white cotton jacket, now yellowing with age, and Hoskins had brought a selection of his daughters, who huddled together and whispered to each other.

Surrounded by the suburban spread of southeast London, Quarant Castle rose like ‘a good deed in a naughty world'.

We tramped across a drawbridge into a small courtyard and then found ourselves in a country garden which seemed to have sought refuge inside the sturdy walls. We passed roses, delphiniums and hollyhocks in bloom, and then we went into the herb garden, where thyme and rosemary and mint gently swayed in the breeze.

It was at the corner of this garden that a brazier was lit and Christopher Kidmoth put on an apron and a chef's hat and started to cook, while two servants from the castle handed round red wine in paper cups.

In the course of time, while I was trying to deal with a sausage in a bun, an elderly, grey-haired fellow bowled up beside me in a wheelchair.

‘Singed meat!' he said. ‘Do you really enjoy eating singed meat?'

‘That seems to be the only thing there is.'

‘It was all Christopher's idea. He loves having people to eat singed meat in the garden. By the way, he was telling me that you're one of the barristers, Rumpole. He says you're top hole at the job.'

‘That has to be me,' I admitted.

‘He says you can get people off in murder cases.'

‘I have a certain reputation…'

‘You can get them off, even if they did it?'

‘No. Only if it can't be proved that they did it.'

‘Ah. I see. Very clever!'

There was a pause and then the old fellow, whom I took to be Lord Quarant, looked round the assembled company. ‘The trouble is,' he said, ‘I feel I'd like to commit murder almost daily. Stubbs the gardener, who insists on planting vulgar-coloured dahlias. Mrs Donovan the cook, who won't do me a decent macaroni cheese.' Then he lowered his voice. ‘My wife, who tells me that at my age I'm lucky not to be dead. If I do any of them in, would you defend me?'

‘It would be a pleasure,' I said, to humour the old chap.

‘It'd be a pleasure!' Lord Quarant threw back his head and shook with laughter. ‘Would it really?'

Before I could answer he bowled himself off
to greet some new arrivals, neighbours perhaps, whom he might wish to kill.

By now Hilda was deep in conversation with Claude, and Mizz Liz was being chatted up by the heir to Quarant Castle. Having downed two or three paper cupfuls of red wine, which was only a shade less appealing than Pommeroy's Very Ordinary, I stepped through an archway in the hedge in the hope of finding a private place.

After relieving myself I walked on, seeking peace and quiet, between the hedges, until an extraordinary spectacle met my eyes.

In an embrasure in the hedge the Mad Bull was seated very close to Mrs Justice Erskine-Brown on a white painted iron seat. As he kissed her I saw his hand on her knee slide towards the opening of her fashionably short skirt. I beat a hasty retreat, and I didn't think that they had noticed me. But the vision of the two judges kissing had a lasting effect on me.

Extract from the Memoirs of Hilda Rumpole

Leonard Bullingham has taken a shine to Dame Phillida Erskine-Brown. I could tell by the way he gawped at her at Quarant Castle. Afterwards he kept telling me what a handsome woman she was. Well, she hasn't worn so badly, but of course, I told him, she's knocking on and their twins, Tristan and Isolde, must be quite grown up.

All the same, I said to him, I wish she could just relax and be her age. That streaky hair-do and
ridiculously short skirt were quite unsuitable. All I could say about her appearance nowadays was ‘mutton dressed as lamb'.

I did get a bit jealous though when he told me at the bridge club how very much Phillida had enjoyed lunch at the Sheridan. I couldn't help remembering how he had once taken me for lunch at his club.

And then there was the question of the flicks. I was particularly anxious to see the new
Pirates of the Caribbean
film as I am very taken with Johnny Depp. It was hopeless asking Rumpole to accompany me, but I remembered that Leonard had taken me to see a film in the days when he was, so to speak, courting me.

When I told him my idea about the flicks he actually said, quite calmly, ‘I've fixed up to see that with Phillida.'

Events, which up till then had passed in a leisurely way since the days when I appeared in the ASBO scandal for Peter Timson, were now hurrying towards a climax, so that, as Hamlet's mother was fond of saying, they almost trod on each other's heels.

‘You'll never guess what happened last night,' Mizz Liz Probert said, coming into my room to tell me.

‘I shan't even try. And as it's mid-morning, can I offer you a cup of coffee from my machine? It's
far better than that Arctic mud they provide for you in the clerk's room.'

‘Last night I went out with Claude.'

‘Who, you think, is a splendid character.'

‘About whom I do now have certain feelings. Yes.'

‘Has Claude told Phillida that he went out with you?'

‘I don't think so. He needs help, Rumpole. I need to help him to restore his self-esteem.'

I thought that Claude's self-esteem was probably indestructible, but I refrained from saying so.

‘Anyway, his wife, Phillida, said she was going to a conference of senior judges, very boring. Of course, the children were well able to look after themselves.'

‘So what happened?'

‘I wanted to see the new
Pirates of the Caribbean
movie and take a look at gorgeous Johnny Depp. Who do you think we saw in the queue ahead of us at the cinema in Leicester Square?'

‘I've no idea.'

‘Only Phillida and Mr Justice Bullingham. That's all!'

‘Did they see you?'

‘I don't think so. But she lied to him, Rumpole.
She never told him she was going out with a High Court judge.'

‘And did Claude tell her he was going out with a single barrister?'

‘No. But
I
didn't lie to Claude. I just went out.'

 

The warmth of early June had gone, to be followed by an uncertain summer with bright days, then high winds and pouring rain. The list of new judges came out and, in spite of his intervention in the Rumpole ASBO case and Leonard Bullingham's promise of support, Ballard's name was not among those picked.

‘Uneasy is the head that relies on princes' favours,' I told Sam.

‘I don't think Leonard Bullingham is a prince,' he answered. ‘In fact he gained his scarlet and ermine
by cosying up to the Lord Chancellor. I don't agree with that sort of thing. It's beneath contempt.'

I totally agreed. And I was not delighted to discover that on the list was the gloomy Barnes, the man with the looks of a discontented camel. It was this Barnes, you will remember, who had suggested that Rumpole spent his life trying to extricate the guilty from lawful punishment for their crimes.

It was therefore with some sinking of the heart that I learned the new judge was to be started off with a turn at the Old Bailey, where he was to try the tricky matter of the Queen against Graham Wetherby on the serious charge of murder.

‘You still haven't got it, have you?' It was the first question my client asked me in the cell.

‘Got what exactly?'

‘The QC, of course.'

‘No. But, as I told you, the committee have recommended me and the final decision has to come from the Minister, Peter Plaistow.'

‘So I won't have a QC for the trial?'

‘You may not have a QC but you'll have Rumpole of the Bailey. Stop worrying and let's just go quickly through the evidence again.'

‘There can be few cases tried in this court, members of the jury, in which the facts point so clearly and inescapably to the guilt of the accused. We have no doubt at all that when you have heard the full story, whatever ingenious arguments my learned friend Mr Rumpole may put forward, this case can only have one conclusion, the conviction of Graham Wetherby on a charge of wilful murder.'

The speaker was Humphrey Noakes, QC, leading for the prosecution. He was a star of the Bar Golf Club. He wasn't the greatest lawyer in the
world but the jury was being made to feel that he and they were normal people, as opposed to the devious Rumpole and his savage client.

Anna McKinnan was the first, and the most dangerous, witness for the prosecution. To remind you of her evidence, she testified that Wetherby arrived at the flat in Flyte Street shortly before one o'clock. After he'd paid her £110 she told him that the young lady wasn't with anyone else and he could go into the small sitting room and wait for her. If she didn't appear in a reasonable time he should knock on the bedroom door and she would call for him to come in. About twenty minutes later she heard Wetherby call out. She went in and found him standing by the bed. Ludmilla was lying across the bed, and she could see red marks around her neck.