Rumpole Misbehaves (11 page)

‘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.

Wetherby said nothing, so she locked the sitting-room door, which made him a prisoner, until the police arrived an hour later. He was then arrested and a police doctor examined Ludmilla's body.

Noakes ended by asking the witness to describe Ludmilla's character.

‘I know people don't approve of what she did for a living, but she was a sweet girl, always cheerful and always kind to me. She never deserved what he did to her.'

This produced looks of sympathy and concern from the jury, so I knew that when I got up to cross-examine her I would be about as popular as a drunk interrupting a church service with an obscene joke. All the same, I had to challenge the witness.

‘Miss McKinnan,' I tried to start in a friendly fashion, ‘you have suggested that my client strangled Ludmilla.'

‘I know he did.'

‘And, having strangled her, he called you in to see what he had done.'

‘He called out to me. Yes.'

‘When what he could have done was to walk out of the flat and get clear away before you had discovered the body. Isn't that what you'd have done if you'd committed a murder?'

‘Mr Rumpole!' Mr Justice Barnes interrupted for the first, but certainly not the last, time. ‘This witness can't be asked what she would do if she had committed a murder. Her evidence is confined to what she saw.'

‘And what she saw was apparently a murderer who called attention to his crime and stayed to get arrested.'

‘That is a comment you may make at the appropriate time. At the moment would you confine yourself to dealing with this lady's evidence!'

‘Very well, My Lord.' I used the retort courteous, not wishing the jury to find me a difficult customer.

And then I asked her, ‘Had you ever seen my client, Graham Wetherby, before that fatal afternoon?'

‘Never at all. But I saw enough of him then.'

‘So you had no reason to think he'd had any sort of quarrel with Ludmilla?' ‘No.'

‘Thank you for telling us that. So, within five minutes of meeting a total stranger, he decided to strangle her?' ‘Sadly, our legal history is full, members of the jury,' Barnes decided to tell them, ‘of murderers who have killed prostitutes without any apparent reason. It might be done from some perverted idea of ridding the world of such women.'

‘You may choose to disregard His Lordship's reference to Jack the Ripper,' I told the jury. ‘I'm afraid we have here a case of premature adjudication.' It was a telling phrase that I had used a few times before, and I was pleased to see that it raised smiles from at least three members of the jury.

‘Manual strangulation might be a perverted part of the sex act, members of the jury,' Barnes suggested.

‘He'd hardly been in her room for more than a minute or two,' I reasoned. ‘Not enough time to get his trousers off, let alone have a fatal spasm of lust.'

This succeeded in silencing Barnes for a short while. So I turned my attention back to the witness.

‘Let me ask you about Ludmilla. Did you know that she was imported from Russia in a crate on the back of a lorry?'

‘I think she tried to tell me something like that. She couldn't speak much English.'

‘Was she brought to your address in a people carrier from somewhere near Canary Wharf?'

‘I don't know anything about that.'

‘There, Mr Rumpole,' Barnes said with some pleasure, ‘you've had your answer.'

‘But you know there is an organization bringing in prostitutes from abroad, and Ludmilla was one of them?'

‘I knew nothing about that.'

‘Once again you have your answer,' the demented camel on the bench interrupted.

I gave the jury what I hoped was a look of hopeless resignation at an impossible judge, and then I got on to what I had decided was the most important part of the evidence.

‘Do you remember a journalist called Lars Bergman?'

‘I don't know that name.' It was the first time the witness had handed me an opening.

‘But you remember a journalist coming to your address? He wanted Ludmilla to tell him the story of how she got to England, and her relationship with the group that brought her here.'

The witness had to agree reluctantly that she did remember the journalist.

‘He might have said something like that.'

‘Did Ludmilla agree to cooperate with him?'

‘He said she had. He'd offered her a lot of money for her story.'

‘I'm sure he did. But the organization didn't want the story told, did they?'

‘Mr Rumpole,' Barnes weighed in again. ‘I wonder what exactly this organization is?'

‘Then wonder on, My Lord, till truth make all things plain.' I did my best to silence him with a quotation, then turned back to the witness. ‘The organization that brought Ludmilla here didn't want their story told, did they? And very soon afterwards her throat was wrung, so she could tell no more tales!'

‘Mr Rumpole, who are you suggesting did this terrible deed?'

‘Someone, My Lord, who had a far better motive for killing her than my unfortunate client. Someone who was afraid she'd tell the whole story. Someone killed her and made sure that her death would be blamed on the next available client. You knew that, Miss McKinnan, didn't you?'

There was a silence then. The witness, a middle-aged woman who might have been a hospital nurse, was looking round the court as if in the hope of finding some reasonable way of escape. She needn't have bothered. Barnes, of course, came to her rescue.

‘It is my duty to remind you that you are not bound to answer any question which might incriminate you. Do you wish to answer Mr Rumpole's question?'

‘It's an impertinence!' the witness said with obvious relief.

‘I'm sure we would all agree with that,' Barnes couldn't resist saying. ‘Do you intend to answer?'

‘Certainly not.'

‘There, Mr Rumpole.' Barnes gave me a mirthless smile. ‘You've done your best!'

‘My best, or my worst? I'll let the jury decide. I have no more questions.'

So I sat down, not altogether displeased with my cross-examination.

 

‘That woman was lying!' That was my client's comment when I met him in the cells at lunchtime.

‘Not at all. I made her tell the truth. It was very helpful.'

‘And that judge! He's got no respect for you, Mr Rumpole.'

‘The feeling is entirely mutual,' I assured him.

‘Maybe he'll respect you a bit more when the QC comes through.'

‘I don't expect so.'

‘Why not?'

‘I'm afraid the judge is out for a conviction. I'll have to disappoint him.'

As I left the cell my client slapped his forehead and said, ‘Before I forget, Mr Rumpole. Helsing.'

‘What do you mean exactly?'

‘You asked me if I remembered the name. It came to me after you'd gone. It was a small firm of estate agents. We used them for accommodation when I was with human resources at the Home Office.'

‘Thank you for that.' I was genuinely grateful but I tried not to sound too over-optimistic, even though I was beginning to feel that we might be in the clear. But there was still a lot to do and I had yet to cross-examine the police doctor.

 

‘Dr Plater, you first saw the body of Ludmilla Ravenskaya when you arrived at about two-thirty. What did you find?'

‘That death had been due to manual strangulation.'

‘I think we're all agreed about that. What else did you notice?'

The doctor was a middle-aged man with a high forehead and a nervous smile. ‘I'm not quite sure what you're referring to.'

‘Well, for instance, were there signs of rigor mortis?'

‘I did notice some stiffening of the joints, yes.'

‘
Some
stiffening? Are you telling us that the stiffening was quite far advanced?'

‘I thought it was. But I'd been told the time of death was only an hour before. So I felt I'd been mistaken.'

‘And what if you weren't mistaken?'

‘I'm not quite sure what you mean…'

‘Neither am I, Mr Rumpole. You could put it more clearly to the doctor.' Mr Justice Barnes added his pennyworth.

‘I mean that would have meant death two or three hours before your examination of the body.'

‘Put like that, I suppose it's possible.'

‘Did you notice anything about the girl's eyes?'

‘Did I notice what about the eyes?'

‘Did you notice, for example, black spots in her eyes?'

‘Someone had shut her eyes. I opened them.'

‘And were there black spots?'

‘Something like that. Yes,' the doctor admitted reluctantly.

‘And that would indicate death some three hours previously?'

‘That is usually so, yes.'

‘All you saw of that girl's body would indicate a death much longer before your examination than one hour?'

‘In the usual course of events, yes.'

‘In the usual course of events,' I repeated his answer to the jury.

Barnes told me not to attempt to make a speech until later. I didn't think the jury welcomed this intervention.

‘I wasn't asked to consider the time of death.' The doctor looked apologetic.

‘Well, you've been asked to consider it here and you have been extremely helpful. Thank you.'

I have left out many of the details in Wetherby. Statements of the accused had been produced, all of which protested his innocence.

The next day brought us Detective Inspector Belfrage, a large, avuncular figure. My job was to get him to be as helpful as possible without launching an all-out attack. A cosy chat between old friends was what I was aiming for.

‘So, Detective Inspector Belfrage,' I started off, ‘you have a long experience of cases of this sort, isn't that so?'

‘I certainly have. And you've knocked around the criminal courts for a fairly long stretch as well.'

This brought a titter from the jury box, which was immediately silenced by the intervention of the gloomy Barnes.

‘Mr Rumpole,' he said, ‘this is a very serious case, so please make sure it proceeds in a serious manner.'

‘Of course, My Lord. Nothing could be more serious than the wrongful conviction of an innocent man.' Then I turned to the inspector. ‘I imagine you have traced the course of Ludmilla's life from the time of her arrival in England to her death in Flyte Street? You know that she was imported from Russia in a crate on the back of a lorry, like a consignment of chutney? And that when she was discovered at Dover she was allowed to stay here provided she reported to the police? Do you think it might be said that Home Office officials were being particularly lenient in her case?'

‘Mr Rumpole, how can the officer possibly answer that?' Barnes had adopted his usual look of disapproval.

‘Very well, My Lord. But would you agree, Inspector, that there are various criminal organizations dealing with the importation of foreign girls to be sent to work as prostitutes?'

‘There are indeed. Young girls who have paid good money to be smuggled into England, where they have been promised good jobs and tempting wages. Once here they are forced into prostitution. That is happening, yes.'

‘So let us look at this case. A Home Office official allowed her in. She's then taken to a building in the Canary Wharf area of London, where I shall prove that girls of her sort are temporarily confined. The ownership of the building has been traced to Helsing, a firm of estate agents occasionally used by the Home Office. From here she's put to work as a prostitute in Flyte Street. Does not all of that suggest that a serious and efficient organization was at work?'

‘It certainly would seem so,' the inspector agreed.

‘An organization of people who know their business?'

‘I would say so, yes.'

‘Perhaps an organization with connections to the Home Office itself?'

‘Mr Rumpole! That's an outrageous suggestion!' The camel-like judge threw back his head and snorted with anger.

‘This is an outrageous crime, My Lord.'

‘I shall warn the jury to disregard anything you've said about the Home Office.'

‘And I'm sure that the members of the jury will consider your advice very carefully before they decide whether or not to act upon it.' I paused then, before going on to my final question.

‘If Ludmilla was about to tell her story to a journalist, the organization controlling her would have done everything in their power to stop this happening, wouldn't they?'

‘I expect they would.'

‘They might even not have stopped short of murder?'

There was what seemed like an endless pause while the inspector considered an answer which might win or lose the case.

‘I suppose that is a possibility, yes.'

‘Thank you, Inspector.' I sat down with a great sigh of relief. ‘You've been extremely helpful.'