Rumpole and the Primrose Path (17 page)

‘Perhaps you’ll deal with that issue in the morning, Mr Rumpole? Very well. Ten-thirty tomorrow.’ Phillida clearly felt her day’s work was done.

As we all made bows to the departing Judge, Liz Probert, who was with me as a Junior to lend a hand and take a note, assessed the situation. ‘Do you think she fancies him?’

‘I’m afraid so. There’s no accounting for tastes.’

‘You’re giving each other a pretty bad time, you and Dame Philly.’

‘That’s because we’re old friends.’ By now the Judge had gone and we were gathering up our papers.

‘Are you going to deal with the breach of confidence tomorrow?’ Liz asked the question to which I had, as yet, no answer. ‘I mean, wasn’t there obviously a breach?’

‘All right,’ I conceded. ‘What’s the defence to that?’

Liz considered a moment and then suggested, ‘Public interest?’

‘Public interest we haven’t got,’ I had to admit. ‘Public amusement, certainly. Public laughs, perhaps, but not public interest. No. We haven’t got any of that.’

In saying which I was, as about so many things connected with my great privacy case, entirely wrong.

 

All the way home on the Underground I was repeating this magic phrase: ‘the public interest’. It meant, no doubt, something the public needed to know, useful information. Did they need to know, for instance, that Mrs Justice Phillida Erskine-Brown was fatally attracted to over-confident, powerfully built, middle-aged men with unpleasant opinions on a wide range of subjects? Would the wheels of justice turn more smoothly if this information was widely disseminated? I was in a mood to think that it might be so. There might also be some value in the knowledge that Liz Probert, our Chambers’ nearest approach to a young firebrand of the left, had joined her University Conservative Club. What, I wondered, could the public learn from the younger Claude Erskine-Brown’s passionate love affair with a young actress in Grimsby? Nothing very much at all, I was forced to admit.

Such were the thoughts that were running through my head when I pushed open the door of our mansion flat and heard the television set booming. When I entered our sitting-room I found the screen filled with the head and shoulders of what looked like a gnome-like figure, with cropped hair and a beard which covered most of the lower half of his face with a sort of dusky shadow. He was saying something of no particular interest about political fundraising and across his chest ran the caption ‘Lord Hindle, Party Treasurer and Fundraiser’. Hilda was engaged in writing a letter to one of her numerous school friends.

‘Do turn him off, Rumpole.’ She Who Must Be Obeyed had decided to use me as her remote control. ‘He calls himself Lord Hindle, apparently a long-time friend of the Prime Minister, and he’s a most deadly bore.’

‘I don’t believe in Party funding through taxation. That’s not what the public wants. We have our supporters, giving anything from half a million to a few pounds, because they’re people committed to us. They believe in our core values.’ Lord Hindle had what’s become known as an Estuary accent, a voice which has had all traces of personality filtered out of it, and he spoke slowly, deliberately, as though he was giving instructions to a roomful of dim-witted underlings who might not understand a word he said.

‘Do turn him off, Rumpole. I’m trying to write to Dodo Mackintosh, and he’s driving me mad!’

‘I’m sorry.’ I was standing very close to the television set. ‘I need to look at him, I’ll turn off the sound.’ Deprived of his voice, his Lordship was only a face, but a face I was sure I’d seen somewhere before. I’d run through a long gallery of faces, many of villains, some of respectable citizens, before I suddenly remembered.

So I dusted off the old magnifying glass we kept in a drawer of the writing desk and carried out some further research. Then I dialled the home number Gervase Johnson had given me.

‘Who on earth are you trying to telephone, Rumpole?’ Hilda was watching me closely.

‘Gervase Johnson. The journalist who wrote my profile for the Fortress.’

‘They never used that profile, did they?’

‘Hello. It’s Rumpole.’

It was my lucky evening. Gervase Johnson was at home and sounded relatively sober. He was apologetic. ‘I’m sorry they never used that profile of yours for the
Fortress.’

‘Perhaps they didn’t think you were interesting enough,’ Hilda called across the room.

‘They didn’t think you told me enough about your private life,’ Gervase muttered in my ear.

‘Never mind about my private life,’ I spoke briskly. ‘My private life’s not the point at the moment. It’s the private lives of other people. Are you at home? I’ll come round and see you. I need your help desperately, old darling. I’m afraid it’s going to take some time.’

It did, but I have to say that Gervase, once the situation was explained to him, joined me with enthusiasm. We travelled together to the
Fortress
offices in Canary Wharf, searched files, got help from the picture desk and ate bacon and eggs in the all-night canteen. I was lucky to have found in Gervase an old-fashioned journalist, one who was genuinely excited by the idea of discovering the truth.

The cold light of dawn breaking over the Gloucester Road found me shaving, and while I did so singing an old music-hall song much enjoyed by my father.

‘Do be quiet, Rumpole!’ Hilda’s cry of protest emerged from the bedroom and arrived through the bathroom’s open door. ‘What on earth are you singing for?’

‘I’m singing,’ I shouted back, ‘because I think I might be in the public interest at last.’

 

‘Mr Rumpole,’ Phillida was still in her severe judicial mode, ‘I hope you’ll deal with the issue of breach of confidence today.’

‘I certainly will,’ I told her, and resisted the temptation to add, ‘Why don’t you just sit back and enjoy it?’ By now Queen’s Bench Court Four was beginning to feel more like home, someone had actually said good morning to me in the robing room, and the solid figure of Sir Mike was waiting for me in the witness box.

‘Can you help me? Your holiday in St Lucia was a year ago last January?’

‘That’s right.’

‘No doubt you went there to get a glimpse of the sun.’

Phillida smiled at the witness again.

‘We didn’t get much of it here. Yes, Mr Rumpole.’

‘And in the following month your firm won the contract to supply a massive quantity of new beds to National Health Hospitals?’

‘We did indeed. And production is going very well. In fact, I’m delighted to say we’re ahead of schedule,’ the witness reported to the Judge with pride.

‘There were rumours going round that you got that contract because you gave a massive but unrecorded amount to Government funds.’

‘There are always those sorts of rumours when there’s a big contract.’

‘We don’t want evidence of mere rumours, Mr Rumpole.’

Phillida was still on the warpath. ‘We want to deal with hard facts.’

‘That is exactly what I mean to provide,’ I said to reassure her and then turned back to the witness. ‘It was suggested that you fixed the deal up with Lord Hindle. The Party treasurer and trusted political adviser to the Government.’

‘There’s not a word of truth in that suggestion.’

‘Not a word of truth,’ Phillida made a note.

‘You went further than that, didn’t you? You said you’d never even met Lord Hindle.’

‘I may have said something like that.’

‘You said exactly that, didn’t you?’

For the first time the witness looked uncomfortable. He hesitated, looked for help to Hugo Winterton who was staring, with great interest, at the ceiling, and protested, ‘I can’t be expected to remember everything I said a year ago.’

‘Then let me help you. Do you remember giving an interview to Gervase Johnson for a profile in the
Daily Fortress?’

‘Yes, I remember that.’

‘Then perhaps you’ll listen to what you said.’ I had Gervase’s unreliable instrument in my hand, its red light glowing. In it was the tape he had found of the Smedley interview. I pressed a button. The machine was silent.

‘Shake it!’ whispered Gervase, who was now sitting behind me. I tried. Still silence.

‘Hit it then. Not too hard.’

I gave the antique device a brisk slap and it spoke out at last to the Court. We heard Gervase’s question. ‘It’s been suggested you did a deal with Lord Hindle and made a big contribution to the Party?’ And Sir Mike’s clear answer, ‘I’ve never met Lord Hindle or spoken to him. I had no connection with him whatever before the contract.’

‘That’s your voice, isn’t it?’ was my next question.

‘It seems to be.’

‘And it’s your voice telling a thumping lie?’

‘Of course it’s not a lie.’

‘Is that your answer?’

‘I’ve already told you -’

‘Very well. Let’s come if we can to the night of the party at the Sugar and Spice Bar.’

‘It was a private party.’

‘Exactly. For your friends?’

‘For people I’d invited, yes.’

‘Just take another look at the photograph, will you? I take it that was your table - you’re dancing near it with your headdress and there’s an empty seat.’

‘That was my table, yes.’

‘Just have a look at the other people at your table.’

‘It’s difficult to see in the shadows.’

‘Just try. It’s not too difficult, is it? Can you make out a small man at the table. A man with close-cut hair and the dark shadow of a beard?’

‘You mean next to the tall blonde lady, Mr Rumpole?’ Phillida had got her magnifying glass out and was studying the photograph with interest.

‘That’s the one. Your Ladyship has it!’ I congratulated her.

‘I’m not sure who that is.’ Sir Mike was playing for time.

‘Then let me help you.’ We hadn’t wasted our time in the picture department of the
Fortress.
Thanks to Gervase, they had blown up the picture of Gerry Hindle and another man watching Sir Michael’s dance of joy with the bra.

‘That’s the man you said you’d never even met, isn’t it?’

Now the witness was looking hopefully from one enlarged picture to the other. All he could say was ‘It’s like him, I agree.’

‘It is him. I’m afraid you’ve got to agree. So now we know what this case is all about. You don’t care who sees you dancing about festooned with underwear, but you didn’t want anyone to see that you’re a liar who met the Party Treasurer and no doubt paid your money and took your contract. That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it? We’re going through this legal farce to protect another bit of political sleaze. Isn’t that the truth of the matter?’

‘Mr Rumpole.’ It was Dame Phillida who answered, but a changed, distressed and deeply serious Dame Phillida, who looked at the witness and now turned away from him as though she could no longer stand the sight. ‘Mr Rumpole, I take it you are alleging that it’s in the public’s interest that this photograph should ’be published to disclose what may have been an improper agreement about a government contract ?’ She said that and we were friends again.

‘Your Ladyship puts it much more clearly than I could.’ I gave her what I hope was a charming smile.

‘And I take it you’re asking for an adjournment so you can amend your pleadings to cover these new allegations.’

‘Your Ladyship is right,’ I told her. ‘That’s exactly what I’m asking for.’

 

The adjournment turned out to be very short. We waited outside Queen’s Bench Court Four while further down the corridor Sir Mike snarled at his legal team as though, if his case really had taken a turn for the worse, it was entirely their fault. Meanwhile, the irrepressible Rankin was saying ‘Excellent!’ and ‘What japes!’ at regular intervals and Liz Probert was trying to draft a new defence. Then Hugo’s Junior came like a herald to suggest I meet his leader at a neutral point halfway down the corridor, between our opposing armies.

‘I think I’ve talked a bit of sense into him.’ My learned friend offered me a small cigar, which I accepted gratefully.

‘It’s no good our going on with this. You’ll only get him further and further up shit creek. I’m going to tell the Judge that, out of respect to an old established family newspaper, we’re calling the whole thing off, and of course we’ll have to pay your costs.’

‘That suits me very well,’ I told him. ‘You tell Dame Phillida that. She’ll be sorry to see him go.’

‘Not so sorry, I think, after his performance this morning,’ my opponent had to admit. ‘I expect you’ll be glad to return to the Old Bailey, won’t you?’

‘Away from this almighty sleaze,’ I agreed. ‘It’ll be nice to get back to a bit of ordinary decent crime.’

 

We had dropped a small stone into the muddy waters of politics and the ripples spread. Much to everyone’s surprise and regret it was discovered that Sir Mike’s contribution to Party funds hadn’t been recorded or disclosed. This may have been due to a computer breakdown or some similar act of God, the relevant minister told Parliament. Sir Mike’s generosity had nothing whatever to do with the contract for hospital beds, Slumberwell being quite clearly the only firm to offer competitive prices and a dependable delivery date. Lord Hindle had been staying with friends in St Lucia and they had taken him to the party in the Sugar and Spice Bar, a fact which Sir Mike may have quite understandably forgotten. The Standards Committee was considering the matter, and had it well in hand. When the Opposition asked questions, the answers were reassuring. There would be the fullest and fairest investigation and a full report would be made to the House as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the Government was delighted to announce that the target for the provision of new hospital beds would certainly be reached by ist October, although, of course, the Government couldn’t absolutely guarantee this date, which was only, in fact, a ‘desirable’ target. At the moment there were more serious matters to discuss, such as the recycling of outdated mobile telephones.