Rumpole and the Primrose Path (20 page)

‘I suppose you think you’ll get him off.’ Dermot the sports commentator sounded contemptuous.

‘I may do,’ I told him. But the day before, we had been served an additional statement which made creepy Neville’s chances of walking free considerably less likely.

 

In a bizarre world of fire and brimstone, cities fallen into sin, a beautiful woman condemned to an arbitrary death, a child left motherless and a lonely clerk acting in what he conceived to be the service of a vengeful God, Court Number One at the Old Bailey seemed, on the morning the trial began, an oasis of sanity. It was presided over by Mr Justice Sloper, known as Beetle because of the strong lenses which gave his eyes a bulging and insect-like appearance. He did his best not to interrupt and was reasonably civil to barristers. I remember him as a prosecution Junior in the Penge Bungalow Murders, when we used to buy each other a Guinness during the lunchtime adjournment, much to the annoyance of our clients who thought, quite wrongly, that we were doing a deal behind their backs.

Now the prosecution was in the hands of Adrian Hoddinot, a tall and languid learned friend, who always said he merely stayed at the Bar for the sake of keeping his Great Dane, Ophelia, in the comfortable state to which she had become accustomed. He was high on my list of decent prosecutors and had, in fact, been a considerable help to me in the case of the Teenage Werewolf. The Jury looked seriously impressed by the horror and seriousness of the case they had read about in the papers; but I had no reason to think they wouldn’t listen to anything the defence might have to offer. All this is only to say that the trial of Neville Skeate was about to be conducted by a reasonable body of men and women, the only representative of the fire-and-brimstone attitude to justice being the quiet clerk sitting in the dock with his great hands neatly folded.

The Court clerk read out the names of the jurors and they answered to them briskly. My future friend and ally was Number Four in the Jury box, sitting between a grey-haired man with a slight limp, who might have been a retired school-master, and a fidgety young man in an unstructured suit, perhaps a dealer in options and futures, who was no doubt counting the money he was missing in the City and wishing he was elsewhere. Number Four was asked if her name was Kathleen Brewster, to which she answered with a smiling ‘Yes’ as though it were her pleasure and privilege to be there. With the Jury roll-call over, she settled down to listen to Adrian Hoddinot as he opened the case for the prosecution.

After describing the finding of the body, and telling the Jury about the murdered girl, the prosecutor started to deal with the case against my client. ‘The defendant Skeate ...’ No doubt determined to be fair, the dog-loving Adrian still couldn’t keep a note of anger and contempt out of his voice, ‘adopted the habit of shouting abuse in such places as gay bars and massage parlours ...’

At this point I thought it right to rise and offer an objection. ‘My Lord,’ I said, ‘may I, in all humility -’ (a meaningless phrase, inserted merely to give me time to decide how to frame my objection. I didn’t feel in the least humble that morning), ‘may I submit that this case has nothing whatever to do with gay bars and massage parlours. A person may object to many institutions, in my case it might be banks and fast-food outlets, but such strong feelings might well fall far short of the tendency to murder.’

I saw Kathleen Brewster stifle a giggle with the back of her hand. Beetle Sloper glanced at her from the Bench and seemed impressed with the success of my objection with a front-row juror. ‘Yes, Mr Hoddinot, I think Mr Rumpole has a point there. Perhaps you should confine your evidence to the place of entertainment where it is suggested that death threats were uttered against Pamela McDonnell. The Candy Caterpillar.’

‘Crocodile, my Lord.’

‘What did you say?’

‘It’s called the Candy Crocodile.’

‘Yes, of course it is.’ The Beetle seemed only mildly irritated in an exchange typical of the vague misunderstandings which haunt all criminal trials. What was more unusual was what I noticed in other parts of the Court. Recovered from her giggle, Kathleen was looking up at the public gallery, which was well filled, as were the press benches. The character who seemed to have attracted her attention was a fair-haired man, perhaps in his thirties, wearing a dark suit but with a tan which looked as though he might have lived in a climate sunnier than that of London, the city of sin. He was sitting in the first row of the public gallery. Listening carefully and taking notes, he seemed to have some deep interest in the trial.

 

‘Did you hear my client call Pamela McDonnell a Slime Pit?’

‘Something like that, yes.’

‘And the Whore of Babylon?’

‘I believe Babylon did come into it.’

‘Was there a good deal about smiting the cities of sin?’

‘He was threatening her. There were a lot of words. I didn’t pay all that much attention to them.’

I was cross-examining the doorman and bouncer of the Candy Crocodile. Number Four juror, Kathleen Brewster, was watching my performance with approval.

‘Perhaps you could help us about this, Mr Henry Parkin.’ I gave the bouncer his full name. ‘Wasn’t a great deal of what he was saying quoted from the Old Testament of the Bible?’

‘I wouldn’t know about that. It sounded like threats to me.’

‘A great deal of the Old Testament does consist of threats, does it not, Mr Rumpole?’ The Beetle on the Bench was doing his best to follow the evidence.

‘In a historical context, my Lord. There may be some mention of smiting and destroying with fire and brimstone, but I don’t believe anyone feels threatened when they hear it read out in church on Sundays.’

My fan in the Jury box gave me a small chuckle, although most of her fellow jurors remained stony-faced.

‘What I’m suggesting is that Neville Skeate was denouncing London as a wicked city, in a general sort of way.’

‘He has told us,’ the Beetle Judge was determined, unfortunately for my client, to see that the whole of the bouncer’s evidence was remembered, ‘that he heard your client threatening to kill Pamela McDonnell.’

‘That’s right. That’s when I punched him.’ My fan was no longer smiling and most of her fellow jurors looked as though they approved strongly of the bouncer’s reaction to the Ninth Day Elamite’s sermon.

‘Are you sure you heard him threaten to kill her?’ I was trying to make the best of a bad job.

‘I heard that. Yes.’

‘Haven’t you ever heard these words used by people who mean nothing of the sort?’

‘What’re you saying, exactly?’ Mr Parkin was puzzled.

‘A mother angry with her child may say, “I’ll kill you if you don’t sit still on the bus.” Or someone at work, “I’ll kill that plumber if he doesn’t turn up this afternoon.”’

I looked at the Jury box. Number Four seemed to be trying hard to find this part of my cross-examination convincing, but she was the only one. Mr Parkin the bouncer was more helpful.

‘I suppose I’ve heard something like that. At times.’

‘And let’s be quite clear about this. You never saw him attack her, or even touch her in any way?’

‘He never touched her so far as I could see. No.’

‘Thank you, Mr Parkin.’

I sat down. What more could I do? The dog-loving Adrian Hoddinot got up for a cunning re-examination.

‘Mr Parkin, Mr Rumpole has suggested that some people might use the words “I’ll kill you” without them necessarily meaning much at all.’

‘I heard that, yes.’

‘Is the difference between the child on the bus and the plumber and Pamela McDonnell that she actually ended up dead?’

Of course, I objected. Of course, the Judge disapproved. But the prosecutor had made an obvious point. Well, you can’t possibly win them all down the Old Bailey, but Number Four in the Jury box looked sadly disappointed.

Through all this, Neville Skeate sat in the dock motionless, his great crude hands folded in his lap, his face only betraying the satisfied smile of those who feel sure they have God on their side.

 

I had an easier task with the soil expert found by the forensic science department of the Metropolitan Police to report on the specks of dirt found on the soles of Neville Skeate’s trainers.

‘There were no footprints that matched his shoes found near the body?’

‘It had rained in the night. I understand there were no clear footprints.’ The forensic witness was young and considerably overweight. He had a thin, reedy voice and the bright, enquiring eyes of someone who spends their time examining minute particles of dirt in the hope of finding some evidence of guilt.

‘You say there was some soil and grass on Skeate’s shoes?’

‘He had been standing on grass, yes.’

‘A fascinating discovery!’ I congratulated him. ‘So he might have been standing on any lawn or bit of grassland in England? Not much of a help in this enquiry, is it?’

‘No. But the soil. It was acidic clay, basically.’

‘Ah yes, of course. The soil. Can you tell us how many spots in Greater London or the Home Counties might have similar patches of acidic clay soil?’

‘Not all that many, perhaps, with exactly the same pH acidity figure of 5.5. Not in precisely those proportions.’

‘Not all that many. But some?’

‘Perhaps some.’

‘So it’s possible that Neville Skeate had been standing on some of these other patches of sandy soil, and was nowhere near Hampstead Heath when Pamela McDonnell met her untimely death? Can we rule that out?’

‘I suppose,’ the young master of the speck of dirt had to admit, ‘we can’t rule that out entirely.’

‘Bricks without straw,’ I had to tell Bonny Bernard when we emerged for lunchtime adjournment from Court Number One.

‘Perhaps.’ My favourite instructing solicitor wasn’t always encouraging. ‘But you do make them particularly well.’

We were trying to console ourselves with slices of cold pie and pints of Guinness in the pub opposite the Old Bailey, when a voice behind me was heard to say, ‘It’s an education to watch you in action, Mr Rumpole.’

I turned to see a sun-tanned face and a helmet of fairish hair, and to meet the white-toothed smile of a boyish man in a dark, fashionably tailored suit.

‘As a very junior member of the legal profession, it would be an honour to buy you two hard-working gentlemen lunch.’

After I had made a vague and happily unsuccessful protest, and after he had ordered himself a drink and handed a couple of notes to the barman, I asked him where he practised law.

‘Abroad, mainly. Middle East. Arab Emirates. All commercial work. I’m afraid you’d find it very dull. I just happened to be in England and I read you were defending a murderer.’

‘He’s not a murderer yet. Not till he’s found guilty.’

‘Still, it’s only a matter of time.’ He seemed to take it for granted.

It was then that I remembered where I’d seen him. Of course, he was the man in the public gallery who my favourite juror had stared at for a long moment on the first day of the trial.

‘You’ve been listening to all the evidence?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t miss a moment.’ He seemed so anxious to talk that I couldn’t finish a sentence. ‘I’m so admiring the way you’re making a hopeless case sound as though it actually had a run.’

I hadn’t minded when Bonny Bernard said it, but I resented this instant presumption of guilt from a complete stranger. ‘I don’t think you’ll know whether or not there’s anything in it until the Jury comes back,’ I told him. ‘You may see some surprises yet.’

‘I shouldn’t have said that, I suppose.’ His smile was now faintly apologetic. ‘But you must know yourself, Mr Rumpole, with all your great experience of the law, that poor old religious maniac hasn’t got a hope in hell.’

‘We’re not in hell,’ I had to tell him. ‘We’re in Number One Court at the Old Bailey. And there’s always hope until the Jury comes back.’

‘Of course you’ve got to say that. And of course you’re putting up a great fight. But I’ve been looking at the Jury. They can’t wait to sink you.’

‘I’m not sure you’re right,’ I told the lawyer from the Arab world. ‘I think I’ve got some friends on the Jury.’

‘Oh, her.’ He seemed to know exactly whom I meant. ‘I don’t think she’s going to count much, is she? Sorry. Got to dash. I’ve got some calls to make before two o’clock.’

So he swept up his change from the counter, I saw a sun-browned hand, a wrist decorated with a discreetly expensive watch, a glittering cufflink, and he was gone, no doubt to make his calls and then climb back to the public gallery before I even had a chance of asking his name.

 

‘I saw him at association. When we were watching the telly and what have you. In Brixton. I knew what he was in for, strangling the girl on Hampstead Heath, and most of them shunned him for it. He was very quiet usually. He just sat, not even looking at the telly. He seemed a lonely sort. So I sat near and spoke to him.’

‘Did you become friendly?’ Adrian Hoddinot was examining the witness whose evidence, arriving late as an afterthought, had seemed to strengthen the case against my client. Neville Skeate had apparently unburdened his soul and made a full confession to a fellow prisoner.

‘I wouldn’t say friendly. It was just that I thought he was the lonely sort. Needed a bit of cheering up. I’m the kind that will get along with anybody, so I engaged him in conversation.’ William Phelps was a small, soft-eyed, untidy man who seemed only anxious to be liked. ‘I think he appreciated that.’

He avoided, I noticed, looking at the man in the dock, although he had wanted to get on with him and engage him in conversation. For his part, Neville Skeate gazed upwards as though communicating with heavenly powers, and showed no sign of recognizing the friendly witness.

‘Just tell us about any conversation you had with Skeate that might have been about this case.’