The Queen v. Karl Mullen (8 page)

As he swung into Cheapside he noticed, ahead of him, the trim figure of a black girl. He slowed his pace and kept his eye on her until she turned left into Axe Lane. By the time he reached the corner she was on the point of running up the two or three steps which led to the front entrance of what he guessed, correctly, to be the headquarters of the South African Security Section. He knew that it was open on Saturday mornings, though only for the convenience of the top brass. Typists and secretaries were not expected to attend. This meant that he had no means of finding out what went on there on that day. A pity, he thought, since discussions held in such circumstances could well be important.

He decided that it would be imprudent to show himself in Axe Lane and continued on his way down Cheapside towards Basinghall Street.

The legal firm of Angel and Auchstraw had its modest office on the top storey of a building in Basinghall Street, with its back windows overlooking the Mansion House. Though small, its name was well known to a number of the people who worked between Temple Bar and Aldgate Pump. They referred to it as the Angel Orchestra. Its activities had been commented on more than once by the police in private; and publicly by judges who are, of course, privileged. The firm was Roland Auchstraw. No one had ever met Mr. Angel and it was generally believed that Auchstraw had invented him, in order to give a certain euphony to the title.

Captain Hartshorn knew the firm well. Describing it to a friend he had said, ‘Well, all I can tell you about it is that it’s the sort of firm where the partners are always the last to leave in the evening. Before they go they lock up all their records in a safe and put any loose papers through a shredder.’ He might have added that they were one of the few firms that retained the pre-war practice of opening on Saturday mornings since some of the people who visited them preferred to do so when the streets were empty.

“Nice to see you again, Captain,” said Roland Auchstraw. He was a short, tubby, guileless-looking man who had deliberately cultivated a resemblance to Phiz’s Mr. Pickwick. He had even taken to wearing a pair of small steel-rimmed glasses modelled on the ones shown in these illustrations, though since they were of plain glass it is difficult to see how they assisted his eyesight, which was, in fact, remarkably keen. His opponents in court had learnt to keep their own papers covered after he had won a case by reading the first paragraph in one of their documents that had certainly
not
been intended for his eyes.

“Nice to see you, too,” said the Captain. “How’s business?”

“Slack, very slack. Hard to turn an honest penny these days. I hope you’ve brought me an interesting job. I take it you’re still with your Orange boys.”

“Certainly. And you can regard them, for these purposes, as your client.”

Mr. Auchstraw said, “Splendid. Splendid.” It was agreeable when clients came to him well provided with money. This was not always the case, for many of them were legal-aided, but he had acted for the Orange Consortium before and knew something of the ways in which it was fina”I have two immediate jobs for you. May be more to come, as the situation develops.”

“The situation?” said Mr. Auchstraw thoughtfully.

Hartshorn knew that it was no use running an ally like Roland Auchstraw in blinkers. He told him the whole story, not even omitting the part played by his daughter and the information he had had from her. Auchstraw listened carefully. The possibilities were clear enough to his observant eye.

“You’ll appreciate,” said Hartshorn, “that it’s no use having this information unless we can pass it onto the prosecution to help them knock down the plea of diplomatic privilege.”

“I understand that. But it’s going to need devilish careful handling. If we pass it to some white-wigged junior who’s still wet behind the ears, he won’t have thought out the angles. He’ll just blurt it out and when he’s asked how he got the information he’ll fluff and no one will believe a word he says.”

“It’s an important case. Do you think they’ll risk giving it to a new boy?”

“Not probable. But possible. Between you and me, the Crown Prosecutions Service is in a mess. It’s overworked and understaffed. When you think that one Branch Crown Prosecutor has to look after the cases in three busy courts, it’s not surprising that he hardly knows whether it’s Wednesday or Christmas. He’s got a couple of assistant B.C.P.s to help him, but they’re really only office boys. And if,” he added handsomely, “they were half as clever as
my
office boy, they might be some use to him.”

“But he can ask for help.”

“Yes. If he’s modest enough to admit that he’s out of his depth. There’s a stable of barristers available. They class them as Category 1 to 4. Category 4 can be quite hot. Might even be Treasury Counsel.”

“And since you don’t yet know who’s going to take the case, you can’t prime him.”

“True. But as soon as I do know I’ll get it to him, I can promise you that. The Crown Prosecutions Service is what you might call a rambling edifice. Thirty-five area branches and all their underlings. And being a rambling edifice it’s got a lot of side doors and back doors. You understand me?”

“I understand you perfectly,” said Hartshorn. “And I’ve every confidence in you. Now for the second point. I want the headquarters of the South African Security Branch kept under observation until further notice.”

“Fischer Yule’s outfit.”

“Right. And I’d guess that he’s chosen his office with an eye to making it difficult to watch. Difficult, that is, without the watchers being noticed. Axe Lane is not the sort of place someone can hang about in all day. He’d be noticed inside five minutes and reported in ten.”

“Not easy,” agreed Mr. Auchstraw. “Needs thought.”

From one of his cabinets he had extracted a street guide and a section of the excellent plan which is produced by the Land Registry. It was on a scale large enough to show individual buildings. He said, “Two turnings off Axe Lane. I see. Harnham Court and Deanery Passage. Both running up to big office blocks. They must employ commissionaires.”

“I don’t think it’s any use approaching them. They’ve already been bought.” He explained the system of alternative exits devised by Yule.

“Cunning bugger,” said Mr. Auchstraw in tones of warm appreciation. “You know what it means, don’t you? On a weekday, if you wanted to be sure of following anyone coming out, you’d need a team of four permanently on duty. And if you’re wanting to organise permanent observation you’ve only got two options. You could use someone employed in one of the other buildings. Trouble is, the ones on either side are banks. They’re apt to be holier-than-thou. Then there are three buildings on the other side of the road lower down. Numbers 15, 17 and 19. According to this guide they’re all of them occupied by dozens of small outfits. All right. If money’s really no object, I might be able to take a room in one of them on a short let. Say three months. It wouldn’t be cheap, though.”

“It might not be cheap, And I realise it will involve you in a good deal of work. But if you could manage it, that would be ideal.”

“We never object to trouble and extra work,” said Mr. Auchstraw, “as long as it helps our clients.” He sounded so benevolent when he said this that Captain Hartshorn found himself listening for a choir of angel voices.

Other parties were on the move on that fine Saturday morning. Roger set out after breakfast from his top-floor flat in Osnaburgh Terrace, walked the short distance to Warren Street underground station and took a Northern Line train in the direction of Edgware.

He was impelled by the thought that had been worrying him, on and off, for two days. Overnight it had taken more definite shape and now he fancied that he could track it to its source.

Nor was he displeased at getting out of the flat. His son, Michael, was home from St. Paul’s for the first long weekend of the autumn term. He had arrived with a split lip and a black eye. (‘Playing against Dulwich. Dirty crowd’) and the conversation had been mostly about rugby football, but Roger had an uneasy feeling that shop-lifting was soon going to surface. It was partly on account of this that he had decided to devote a whole morning to trying to lay a ghost.

He did not know that he was being followed. The idea had not crossed his mind; nor was there any reason that it should have done.

The train pottered northward, coming out into the open between Hampstead and Golders Green and finally depositing him at Colindale. He had been worried about getting into the Newspaper Library and was relieved to find that his British Museum reader’s ticket passed him in without trouble.

The nondescript man who was following him was not so fortunate. Having tried, without success, to sidle past the commissionaire on the door he was forced to hang about outside.

A helpful assistant dealt with Roger’s enquiry.

“Oxford,” he said. “City or University?”

“Could be either.”

“Then I suggest you consult
Willing’s Press Guide.
It’s on the shelf over there. It will give you all the names. Do you know the date?”

Yes, he knew the date. Mullen had said, ‘I came down a year after you did.’ So that must be the year when it happened; if it did.

He filled in a form and composed himself to wait. His thoughts were not entirely comfortable. Was he, he wondered, behaving like the younger son in the fairy story, who persisted in asking questions, when knowledge was dangerous and ignorance would have been bliss?

When the heavy, yellowing volumes of old newsprint arrived on a trolley and were lifted onto the table in front of him he hesitated for some time before opening them.

The attendant, coming up behind him, said, “I hope those are the ones you wanted, sir.”

“Yes,” said Roger. “Those are the ones. Thank you.” He started to read. It took him an hour to find what he wanted.

When he got back to the flat, still unaware that his movements were of interest to anyone but himself, he found his wife on her own. Michael was at Twickenham, watching the Harlequins play Leicester. This naturally brought them to the subject of black eyes and split lips, but Harriet could see that he was not really interested in mayhem on the rugby field. He had been uneasy when he set out; now he was more than uneasy. He was worried.

She would dearly have liked to know where he had been and what he had been up to, but unless he chose to tell her she wasn’t going to ask. It was on this basis that a happy marriage had been built during the last eighteen years.

When Roger was drinking his after-lunch coffee he said, apropos of nothing that had gone before, “I went up to Colindale this morning. The Newspaper Library. It’s an amazing place. They’ve got copies of practically every newspaper that’s been published anywhere in England during the last hundred years and more.”

“It sounds wonderful,” said Harriet.

“I’ll tell you what I was looking for. I was trying to run down a memory of something one of my Oxford friends had told me.”

“Did you find it?”

“I’m sorry to say I did. It was a single paragraph hidden away in the
Oxford News and Journal.
A report that an undergraduate of Worcester College called Mullen had pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a book from Messrs. Harmsworths bookshop. In order not to jeopardise his career the court had shown clemency. It had simply bound him over for one year.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that provided he did not offend again for one year, no further action would be taken. Anyway, it was his last year at Oxford.”

“And who was Mullen?”

“Charles Mullen. Whilst he was at Oxford he preferred to use the English form of Karl.”

The implications of this were slowly dawning on Harriet.

She said, “My God. Yes. I see. Awkward.”

“If, as seems likely, the news was so unimportant that the national press ignored it and, anyway, the Christian name was different, the chances of this being noticed now are a hundred-to-one against.”

“A thousand-to-one, I’d say.”

“But it puts me in an extremely awkward position. In the ordinary way, in a case of this sort, you can present the accused as a man of spotless reputation, who is totally unlikely to have committed the offence. It’s a very strong card.”

“Which the prosecution can trump if they happen to read the
Oxford News and Journal
of twenty years ago.”

“That’s right,” said Roger. He finished his coffee, which was now cold, in one gulp and looked as though he wished he could swallow the
Oxford News and Journal
with it.

Harriet said, “I suppose it’s occurred to you that there’s a simple way out of this. Couldn’t you ask Mullen to use another solicitor? Someone who wouldn’t be burdened with this awkward knowledge. You’re not the only solicitor in London.”

“I’m the only one Mullen knows. But I think I’ll have a word with Counsel first.”

“But if you tell Counsel, won’t he be bound to tell the other side?”

“Certainly not. The prosecution is supposed to supply the defence with all relevant facts – though often they don’t. The defence is under no obligation whatever to help the prosecution. In fact, if he chooses to take the risk, he could ask his opposite number for the defendant’s antecedents and get back a 609 with ‘nil recorded’.”

“A
what
?”

“Sorry. A 609 is a police document.”

“Please let’s stick to the King’s English. I’m confused enough already. You mean that if the prosecution don’t know about this earlier matter you can trap them into giving Mullen a clean sheet?”

“Right.”

“It doesn’t seem right at all. It seems unethical.”

“A lot of criminal procedure is unethical. In a case like this the only thing Counsel can’t do is use the words ‘of good character’ about his client and that’s such a normal thing that the other side might notice the omission and guess that something was up. But they’d hardly have time to dig it out.”

“You make it sound like a game,” said Harriet crossly.

“It’s not Counsel I’m bothered about. He’s paid to deal with dicey situations like this. It’s Mullen. I shall have to tell him.”