Rumpole and the Primrose Path (15 page)

‘Even though she had a walk-out with that appalling MP?’

‘That’ll be my fault too, if she finds out. What can I do, Rumpole? It’s my private life. How can I protect myself?’

‘Well, of course, when you parted on Grimsby Station ...’

‘Yes, yes, tell me!’ The drowning man clutched eagerly at a straw. ‘Give me your opinion.’

‘... You obviously asked her to sign a solemn undertaking promising never verbally, or in writing, or by any form of technical communication which might be invented in the future, to divulge to anyone, or to any device, the events which had occurred between you and the soap star in the Trusthouse Forte hotel. No doubt you had such a document prepared. Did you get her to sign it in front of witnesses?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rumpole. Of course I didn’t.’

‘Then I’m afraid your legal position is distinctly dicey. Not to put too fine a point on it, Claude, I would say you were up shit creek and deprived of a paddle. No case of breach of confidence. Look here, are you sure she’s written about it? Have you read it?’

‘It’s not out yet. I told you. But of course she’s written about Grimsby. It was one of the greatest moments of our lives. Do you think I’d be right to tell Philly? Should I warn her?’

‘Don’t jump,’ I reminded him of an old legal maxim, ‘before you get to the stile. The world is full of nervous husbands leaping about in level fields thinking they’ve got to clear obstructions which aren’t there. I suppose it might be possible to keep the story in question out of Dame Phillida’s paper.’

‘Oh, Rumpole, would you do this for me? As my legal adviser would you try? They’ll listen to you, now you’re briefed in the great Sir Michael’s privacy case.’

 

These words, spoken by him whom Mr Justice Graves called ‘The man Iago’, ran through my mind as I took the short walk from Equity Court to Pommeroy’s Wine Bar. Fleet Street was crowded with people leaving work, waiting in bus queues or hurrying to the tube station. There were secretaries laughing together, last-minute shoppers, men taking arms to steer each other into the pub opposite the Law Courts. Soft, misty rain was falling, so the newspaper seller under the archway into the Temple was covering up his male-interest magazines with plastic sheets. I looked into so many faces and wondered what secrets lay hidden, what private acts or memories called out for protection. Unwise love affairs, probably, small dishonesties, perhaps, minor betrayals, without a doubt, but I didn’t imagine many private lives featured murder, treason or other serious crimes. And then I wondered how many of the men scurrying for the train, or back-slapping their way into saloon bars, would be seriously upset by the publication of a photograph of themselves with a bra around their ears. There would, after all, be nothing much they could do about it. Breach of confidence cases for the protection of privacy are a luxury reserved for the rich. You’d have to be as well heeled as Sir Mike before you could bring a case.

The words of Iago and accompanying thoughts had brought me to the door of Pommeroy‘s, and as I stepped up to it there was a small flash of light in the surrounding dampness and I saw a girl with red hair, wearing a blue anorak, point a camera at me. Was I to be snapped like a starlet arriving at a film premiere? Was tomorrow’s headline going to be ‘Horace Rumpole arrives at Pommeroy’s Wine Bar’? It was all extremely puzzling, but as the girl closed her camera and hurried away, and as I moved rapidly towards my first glass of Château Thames Embankment, I thought no more about it.

 

I had taken my bottle of just tolerable claret to a table in a corner of Pommeroy‘s, and was flicking through the
Evening Standard,
which seemed short of any article entitled ‘Horace Rumpole: is he the Greatest Living Defender?’, when I saw Liz Probert downing a vodka in the company of Mervyn Lock-ward, Queer Customer, a tall, languid, human-rights barrister, who occupied alternative Chambers in the Euston Road and refused, on principle, to appear for landlords, police officers and employers or any male person accused of a sexual offence. He seemed, as usual, delighted to find himself in his own company and was looking down his nose at Liz with the sort of patronizing smile which he wore, sometimes with fatal results, when addressing juries. In the course of time, he gave her a light kiss on the forehead and glided off, no doubt to enjoy the vegetarian alternative at a dinner of the anti-globalization society, where he would be booked to make a speech.

When he had gone, Liz joined me with a heavy sigh. ‘Isn’t Mervyn a wonderful barrister?’

‘If that’s your idea of being a barrister.’ I was, I have to confess, less than enthusiastic. ‘He’s not an old taxi cab like me. More like a hired car only available to travel on certain routes for a certain class of person.’ I saw her face fall a couple of inches so, by way of causing a diversion, I asked, ‘Do you have any secrets you want to keep hidden, Liz?’

The look of vague disappointment turned to nothing less than panic. ‘Rumpole!’ Her voice had sunk to a whisper. ‘You’ve found out!’

‘Found out what?’

‘You promise you won’t tell Mervyn?’

‘Of course not, if you don’t want me to ... It’s just that I was wondering - I mean, hasn’t everyone?’

‘What?’

‘Something they want to keep private.’

‘With good reason!’

‘Probably. But as for you, Liz, I can’t believe ...’

‘Don’t you think I’m ashamed of it, Rumpole? Horribly ashamed.’

‘I’m sure there’s no need.’

‘Yes, there is a need. You know very well there’s a need. All I can say is, I was very young and silly at the time.’

‘Then I’m sure it was nothing serious.’

‘Of course it was serious! I’m not saying it wasn’t serious. It’s just that, well, I had these Old Labour parents. They went on Ban the Bomb marches. They spent nights outside the South African Embassy singing “We shall overcome”. It’s natural to revolt when you’re young. You must have felt that too, Rumpole.’

‘I think I’ve felt like revolting all my life.’

‘There you are then, you see? But mine was a one-off. An act of immature defiance. I’m ashamed of it, I really am.’

‘What was it you’re ashamed of? Just remind me.’ By now my curiosity was thoroughly aroused.

‘It was my first term at Uni.’

‘Yes, of course ...’

I waited for a fascinating revelation from the Probert past. All I got was, ‘I joined the Conservative Association!’

‘Oh dear!’ I did my best to look suitably shocked.

‘It was only for a term. Then I came to my senses. Oh, Rumpole! Give me your solemn promise you won’t tell Mervyn.’

‘I promise, solemnly.’

‘Thank you, Rumpole.’ Enormously relieved, so it seemed, Liz planted a kiss, which landed slightly to the left of my nose. Looking up from this experience, I saw the red-headed girl in the anorak standing at the bar and looking across at us with considerable interest.

 

A week later, I was surprised to get, in Chambers, a telephone call from someone called Gervase Johnson. He invited me, most unexpectedly, to the fashionable Myrtle restaurant in Long Acre for ‘a chat over a few glasses of bubbles’. He was, I was delighted to learn, working on a profile of ‘Horace Rumpole, Counsel for the Defence’ for the
Daily Fortress.

Before I could bask in the limelight of the Gervase Johnson interview, however, I had another call, which took me to the Chambers of Hugo Winterton, leading counsel for Sir Michael Smedley and the appointed protector of his privacy.

‘Bit of a change for you, isn’t it, Rumpole, civilized litigation in the Law Courts after the rough and tumble of the Old Bailey?’

‘If you call it civilized, hopping about with some girl’s bra round your ears ...’ I was, I have to confess, stung by the man’s reference to the Courts where the Great Defender carried on his practice.

‘He was relaxing, Rumpole. I expect you relax yourself when you’re on holiday, don’t you?’

‘Not by prancing about decorated by my wife Hilda’s underwear.’ Then I asked why he’d called for the pleasure of my company.

‘I thought we might knock our clients’ heads together, you and I, Rumpole. No need for a prolonged fight about this, is there? I’m sure we could find a fairly painless way out, between us?’

What was wrong with Hugo Winterton was that there was nothing wrong with him. His smile, unlike that of Liz Probert’s hero, was neither aloof nor patronizing. He was good looking, middle-aged, and the excellent coffee served in his Chambers came in solid porcelain mugs. His handsome, amused wife smiled on me from the photograph frame on his desk, and so did two fair-haired and charming children. His Chippendale chairs, his old ‘Spy’ cartoons of vanished judges, the blue vase of white tulips, his bright and clearly enthusiastic Junior - Imogen, as he introduced her - all these seemed to have been carefully selected by a Q C determined never to put a foot wrong. He even pushed a mother of pearl box containing small cigars towards me.

‘Your clerk told us you use these. Please, do light up. Imogen and I have absolutely no objection in the world to people smoking.’

Was I being led gently into some ambush? Probably. However, I couldn’t resist the temptation, and I sent a small smoke ring hovering over Hugo Winterton’s tulips.

‘Naturally, Mike was very upset when your little paper published the picture. All right, he was making a bit of a fool of himself, but we’ve all got to let our hair down sometimes. What he doesn’t want is to have the picture popping up in every blessed newspaper. So he’s got to appear to win this case.’

“Appear to”?’

‘Afraid so. And win so convincingly it’s going to scare off all the other members of our sex-starved, scandal-loving press. So there’s got to be an order for a phenomenal amount of damages.’

‘How much?’

‘We were thinking in terms of a quarter of a million - just as a warning to others.’

‘Well, I’d better be going.’ I started to prise my body from the chair. ‘Thanks for the cheroot.’

‘No, wait a minute.’ Winterton was still smiling. ‘Just between ourselves, I believe I could persuade Mike not to enforce the order. I doubt if either your paper or the editor’s got the money. Your client will only pay his own costs, and of course Mike would want some permanent editorial control over the
Argus.’

‘You mean he wants to take it over?’

‘Just to see it doesn’t make any more unprovoked attacks on him.’

‘And advertise his beds.’

‘That might be part of it, of course.’

‘And this order for a quarter of a million damages?’

‘That would stay in the background.’

‘To be enforced at any time, if my client doesn’t give Sir Mike exactly what he orders.’

‘It’s a possibility, of course. We’d hope it wouldn’t come to that.’

‘A pious hope!’

‘So, do you think we might do business, along these lines?’ It was all extremely polite. Hugo Winterton seemed genuinely anxious to come to what he thought was a painless solution.

However, during the last few weeks I had read all the cuttings, a huge collection, sent to me by Crozier about the life, business dealings and matrimonial history of Sir Mike. I had also looked in vain for his political affiliations, without success. All I got were statements that he had no interest in politicians or politics and that the way he voted was entirely his own affair. I couldn’t say that I had found a golden key to unlock all Sir Mike’s secrets, but I had thought of a possible line of attack, and I wasn’t about to surrender to Winterton without further argument.

‘I’ll put it to the editor,’ I promised my learned opponent. ‘But he’s a pretty tough sort of a character.’ I gave my preferred vision of the bird-like Rankin. ‘I’m not sure he’d agree to being in Sir Mike’s pocket for the indefinite future.’

‘Do your best with him, Rumpole, my dear old fellow. We don’t want to have to waste our time preparing for a fight, do we?’

‘I’m not too worried about that.’ Perhaps I should have reminded him that I was on my way to an interview to be entitled, when it was published, ‘Rumpole: the Great Defender.’

 

‘One. Two. Three. Four. Testing ... testing ... testing. Work, you little bugger! Work!’

The recording device lay ready to receive Rumpole’s message to the world. It was a reluctant participant in the interview, however. Sometimes its red light glowed for a while, but then it faded and a blow from the interviewer’s heavy fist failed to revive it. In the end, Gervase Johnson picked up a notebook and announced that he was going to do it the old-fashioned way. He was, I thought, an old-fashioned brand of journalist, with buttons straining across a sizeable stomach, white hair falling over his ears and the sort of patient smile that seemed prepared to live through any determined rebuff or casual humiliation.

Around us the crowd of faces, half-remembered from the gossip columns or Hilda’s favourite soaps, chattered, called to each other, blew kisses, or gave interviews out to obedient machines. I had talked my way through the Japanese sushi starter and we were well into the seared monkfish with tomato coulis, with only a fleeting longing for mashed potatoes and steak and kidney pudding. I had given Gervase Johnson a resume of my famous cases, dwelt at length on the turning point in my career (when I did the Penge Bungalow Affair alone and without a leader). I had given him classic examples of how a working knowledge of bloodstains, or signs of uncertainty in handwriting, can win a difficult case, when I began to notice that his hand was moving ever more slowly across the notebook page and the grasped pencil seemed to be giving up work. By the time I had reached my account of the mysterious case of the disappearing juror, the moving hand had stopped completely and no more notes were taken.