Rumpole Misbehaves (12 page)

‘Do you find it difficult to get girls to sleep with you?'

‘With this on my face, what do you think?'

Graham Wetherby touched his spreading birthmark and I hoped the jury understood. They sat stolidly and gave nothing away.

‘Is that why you had to resort to sex with girls like Ludmilla Ravenskaya?'

‘Yes, and I've usually found them very kind and understanding.'

‘Is that how you expected to find Ludmilla?'

‘Yes, but instead of that I found her dead.'

‘And what did you feel when you found her dead?'

‘Terribly sorry for her and angry with whoever did it.'

It wasn't a bad answer. Wetherby had proved to be an excellent witness. Even Noakes's earlier cross-examination, which seemed to go on forever, hadn't shaken him.

Was that because he was innocent, or because he was too good a liar? That was the question the jury would have to ask themselves.

When Wetherby left the box I started to enliven the proceedings by calling Fig Newton, who gave evidence about the premises near Canary Wharf.

‘How is all this relevant to the present case, Mr Rumpole?' asked the judge. ‘You're not suggesting that this witness saw Ludmilla at any point?'

‘No, My Lord. An essential part of my case is that there was an efficient organization dealing in these unfortunate imported girls. This organization killed Ludmilla when they thought that she was about to tell her story to the press. Is Your Lordship suggesting that the jury should be denied this evidence?'

‘I certainly am suggesting that, Mr Rumpole, and I'm looking at the clock. I shall rise now and come back into court at two o'clock, members of the jury.'

‘Would Your Lordship say half past two? That'll give me time to get up to Fleet Street and make an application to the Court of Appeal.'

I saw a look of apprehension, even fear, flit across the camel's features, as though he felt he was about to step into some nasty hole in the desert sand.

‘I will give a considered judgement on this matter at two o'clock. Perhaps you will delay your application to the Court of Appeal until you have heard what I have got to say.'

‘If Your Lordship pleases.'

I gave the poor lost camel an encouraging pat and retired to the Old Bailey canteen to consume sausage, egg and chips with Bonny Bernard.

‘I think we're on a winner,' I told him. ‘A newly appointed judge doesn't want to have his decisions pissed upon by the Appeal Court.'

My forecast was right. The learned camel returned from his lunch with the judges and, with a sigh of resignation, said, ‘You may call your evidence, Mr Rumpole, but keep it short.'

So, happily, the jury heard of girls imprisoned in the Canary Wharf building and then being driven round London and handed out like bottles of milk to customers. I even managed to get in the story of Mrs Englefield, who had now been questioned by the police.

 

When it was time for the final speeches, Noakes took the jury back through the evidence and then I got slowly to my feet.

After half an hour of commentary on all the facts, including the unanswerable question of why Graham Wetherby should have stayed there if he had committed the crime, I reached my peroration.

‘
Possible
, members of the jury. I want you to have that word in your mind through all your deliberations. You have heard of the organization that ruthlessly controlled the lives of these girls. Is it not
possible
that when they thought Ludmilla was going to reveal their secret, they decided to silence her forever? You can't convict Wetherby unless you find him guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Once you find that another explanation of these events is
possible
, then you are left in a state of doubt. Above all things, remember what the police inspector in charge of this case said. It's a
possibility
, Detective Inspector Belfrage told us, that it was not Wetherby but this secret and illegal organization that put an end to the unhappy but young life of Ludmilla Ravenskaya. If you agree with this police officer, then you must be left in some doubt. It will then be your duty, and I trust it will be your pleasure, to acquit this young man of a horrible crime.'

So I sat down, hoping that I was leaving Barnes with no alternative but to agree to my definition of reasonable doubt.

He gathered up his papers and spent an hour and a half trying to avoid my irresistible conclusion, but in the end he failed. I hoped and thought that he still had an eye on the Court of Appeal.

 

Waiting for a jury to come back is always the worst time at the Old Bailey. There is nothing you can do other than consume too many cups of coffee and listen once again to Bonny Bernard's riveting account of his daughter's success in the interschool netball semi-finals. This account was thankfully interrupted by a visit from our clerk, Henry, who'd come specially down to the Old Bailey with what he called ‘an important spot of news'.

‘It's about your application for QC, Mr Rumpole,' he said.

‘They're about to wrap me in silk, are they?'

‘I'm afraid not, Mr Rumpole. The Minister for Constitutional Affairs, he gets called the Minister of Justice now, has turned down your application.'

‘Peter Plaistow, QC?'

‘That's the one. They're saying around the Temple that you shouldn't have asked those questions about the Home Office.'

Further conversation on this matter was interrupted by the tannoy in the canteen announcing that the jury were going back to Court Number One.

 

As they came in, the members of the jury were looking at Wetherby in the dock. If they had failed to meet his eyes it would have been a sure sign of a conviction, but in ten minutes the case which had worried me, and I had lived with, for so long was over and Wetherby was a free man.

When I said goodbye, I told him, ‘You see, it didn't make any difference my not getting a silk gown.'

‘I'm sorry.' Wetherby looked more saddened by this than at any other time during the trial.

‘Never mind,' I said. ‘I can still be the oldest junior barrister around the Temple and I can win cases alone and without a leader.'

I suppose the words were brave, but I have to say that at that moment I found them entirely unconvincing.

What is there left to tell? The
Fortress
ran a story about the alleged involvement of a group within the Home Office in importing girls for prostitution. The Prime Minister told Parliament that this was an outrageous suggestion and he had every faith in the integrity of all civil servants.

Walking back to the Temple from the Law Courts one afternoon, I was caught up by Mrs Justice Erskine-Brown, who told me that she had just spent a weekend at a conference on sentencing at a country house near Winchester. ‘It was all tremendous fun,' she said, ‘and I have to tell you, Rumpole, that Leonard Bullingham has the most irresistible thighs.' Not wishing to hear any more about Mr Justice Bullingham's thighs, or indeed any other part of him, I turned off abruptly and sought sanctuary in Equity Court.

 

Scottie Thompson's friend Fred Atkins was at last apprehended by the police and in his statement after caution he admitted that he had never told Scottie about his human cargo. The case against Scottie was dropped after this rare example of honour among thieves.

 

One evening in Froxbury Mansions we were discussing young Peter Timson's ASBO case. I told Hilda that I had managed to get all the evidence in by telling the magistrate that the then Minister for Constitutional Affairs, Peter Plaistow, had said that witnesses in breach of ASBO cases should be cross-examined.

‘And was that true?' Hilda asked me.

‘Well, not exactly,' I had to admit, ‘but that's what he ought to have said.'

Hilda shook her head sadly. ‘Your profession has no sense of morality, Rumpole.'

‘It was morally right that young Peter was acquitted.'

‘I've come to a decision, Rumpole. After the way that you and Leonard have behaved, I'm going to give up my idea of reading for the Bar. I'm going down to Cornwall instead, where Dodo Mackintosh says we could have a great deal of fun sketching.'

 

So now I am back at my desk in Chambers, consuming an illegal sandwich and quaffing an illegal glass of wine. The life of an Old Bailey hack, I think to myself, has more ups and downs in it than the roller-coaster on the end of Brighton Pier. This is where it will all begin again.