Rumpole and the Primrose Path (24 page)

‘We Molloys generally use Mr Arkwright in Queen Alexandra’s Buildings. You heard of him?’

‘Of course I know Percy Arkwright. I believe, as a defender, he’s a great help to the prosecution.’ I shouldn’t have said it, but grey mince does bring out the worst in people.

‘You mean I’d be better off with you, Mr Rumpole?’

‘Perhaps. If you consult Mr Bernard, solicitor of Camberwell, he’d lead you to me.’

‘I’d say I’ll remember that for next time,’ Chirpy was now looking extra cheerful, ‘but there’s not going to be a next time. I’m sure of that.’

‘Chirpy has decided to go straight, Mr Rumpole.’ Brian Skidmore was once again the schoolteacher, announcing, in an amused sort of way, that one of his less talented pupils was planning to build, in the carpentry lesson, a light aircraft capable of transatlantic flight.

‘To be honest, I got a girlfriend, and she doesn’t like me being away in prison, Mr Rumpole. She’s always on about it. She says she gets lonely nights. I’ve got to listen to her. I’m going to get a job round her father’s Videos R Us and that’ll be the end of it.’

‘You mean you’re going to buy your own aftershave from now on, Chirpy?’ Brian was gently mocking.

Now I remembered what the Timsons had told me, with considerable amusement, about Chirpy Molloy. He was devoted to personal hygiene. He chose fairly small but expensive houses to break into, places belonging to owners who were known to be away on holiday. After collecting whatever valuables he could find, he invariably treated himself to a long and luxurious session in the bathroom. He sprinkled bath salts from glass jars into deep, hot water. He made considerable use of the Imperial Leather soap and applied the loofah. He borrowed the electric razor, slapped on the stinging perfume of Pour Les Hommes or Machisimo by Peruque. He didn’t spare the hand cream or the all-over body lotion. Then he would dress again in his working clothes and, having wiped off all possible fingerprints, make a dignified exit through a back door. The bathroom, after he left it, looked as though it had been hit by a typhoon. He needn’t have bothered about the fingerprints, the laughing Timsons told me, he might as well have left his name and address on the hall table.

‘It’s a wise decision,’ I was telling Chirpy. ‘If you’ve got a good job and a good girlfriend you certainly don’t need me!’

‘Quiet, Rumpole.’ Archie Prosser gave me orders from the next table. ‘The Home Secretary is about to say a few words.’ And he added, as though to remind me of one of the highlights of my long life, ‘You
have
met her. Don’t you remember?’

Of course I remembered Bunty Heygate, the elegant but earnest Minister in the Home Office. I had met her with Archie in the Sheridan Club when I was engaged in the case of Doctor Nabi, an asylum seeker. She had been arguing that such colourful customs as cutting off hands, or stoning women to death for adultery, were traditional in certain countries, and that it would be racist to denounce them, and unreasonable to protect those who were in flight from them. Such views must have found favour with the Government, as Bunty had, in the latest reshuffle, been promoted to Home Secretary, in which office she had forsaken her nickname and announced that she would, from now on, be known as Brenda.

So there she was in all her glory, smiling with an even deeper self-satisfaction now she was a Secretary of State. She still looked, however, like an enormously successful schoolgirl who had suddenly found herself promoted to headmistress. The page-boy haircut was neat and burnished, she was wearing a bottle-green suit, and her high-heeled, pointed-toed shoes clicked across the stone floor as she found the most favourable speaking position. Above her, galleries of cells rose like a great circle in a theatre; a net was stretched beneath the top one to catch any long-term convicts who might be tempted to take a quick way out. Brenda Heygate’s clear, untroubled voice carried easily, not only to the furthest visitor but to the lifers far above her.

‘It’s a great pleasure to be here,’ she said, ‘and to share with so many of you this excellent prison meal.’ Was mine the only muted groan? ‘I have to say, on behalf of all of us in Government, and in particular those of us in the Home Office, that we are profoundly grateful to the Bunyan Society for (here she seemed to have some trouble remembering exactly what it was she was grateful to the Bunyan Society for, so she retreated, as soon as possible, to her familiar territory) - for the very useful work it has done, and, of course, for organizing this get-together. Now, I’m sure we’ll all have read in today’s papers I have made an important announcement.’ The inmates looked at her blankly, being unlikely to have read Home Office pronouncements, and the great and the good supporters of the Bunyan Society let out a disappointed sigh. ‘We have, as you know, greatly improved the safety on our streets and reduced the crime rate since the opposition party were in power and old people were in genuine fear of taking a short walk down to the corner shop. However, there is one area in which the crime rate is, unfortunately, rising, and this is what I have called “Short-break burglary”. This is when criminals find that the householder is taking, shall we say, a short break in Paris, or perhaps Barcelona, or enjoying a longer break during school holidays, and takes advantage.’ (Here I glanced at Chirpy Molloy, who was looking modestly down at his plate as the Home Secretary discussed his special subject.) ‘We have issued a Home Office warning to everyone going away for a holiday not to advertise the fact by cancelling, shall we say, the milk, or the daily papers. A sensible idea would be to donate your milk and papers to a friendly neighbour during a holiday period. Meanwhile, I give you all fair warning that I mean to crack down heavily on short-break burglaries, the maximum sentence for which will be seven years, which I hope to see applied in appropriate cases. Unlike the previous party in power, we intend to wake up the judiciary, who seem to find it a little difficult to move with the times, and make them crack down appropriately.

‘Finally, I’d like to say that, at this excellent lunch, we have, thanks to the Bunyan Society, a remarkable proof of what we have always said - that prison can work and does work in many cases. I’m going to ask Brian Skidmore to say a few words to you.’ It seemed to have been the usual story. ‘Brian came from a broken home and lacked the role model of a father figure.’ Here it was the turn of Brian Skidmore to look down modestly at his plate. ‘He turned to minor crime as a youth, and then got into more serious trouble, but it was here at Worsfield that a few words from the Governor made the great change in his life. Now, as I’m sure you know, he works full time for the Bunyan Society and has kept completely out of trouble. Inmates of Worsfield and their guests, will you all welcome Brian Skidmore! Come along Brian, don’t be shy!’

Although he said, ‘Excuse me, Mr Rumpole. I never wanted anything like this,’ Brian didn’t seem in the least shy. In a surprisingly short time he was up beside the Home Secretary and was greeted, as an ex-prisoner, by warmer applause from the great and the good.

‘I’m not used to this,’ he said. ‘This is worse than a prison sentence, having to speak. All I can say is I have to thank a lot of people. First of all, Mr Frank Dalton, when he was Governor. I was up on a charge for something, and he said, “Why don’t we see you in chapel, Skidmore? There’s something we get to learn there. Do you know what that is?” Well, of course I didn’t know whatever he was talking about, and when I heard what they read out from the Bible I wasn’t any the wiser. The words were “The Redemption of their soul is precious.” I didn’t know what redemption was in those days, but I do now. Because Mr Dalton explained it. We could all get off the crime if we tried hard enough. With a bit of help we could. So he arranged to put me in touch with the Bunyan Society. They were visiting here at the time, and they gave me a job, making the tea, mostly. And now I’m under-manager in charge of events. So thanks for coming and a special vote of thanks, for agreeing to fit us into her busy schedule, to the Home Secretary.’

At which the crackers-down and the cracked-down-on applauded. The party was breaking up when Archie Prosser suddenly said the word ‘Applethorpe!’ and started pushing his way between the departing guests towards a distant table, where a small, slightly wizened prisoner was thoughtfully picking his teeth.

Meanwhile, Chirpy had gone smiling back to his cell. ‘He’ll never make it, you know.’ The redeemed Brian Skidmore had come back to our table and was watching Chirpy’s retreat with pity and some amusement.

‘Never make what?’ I asked him.

‘Never go straight. Not poor old Chirpy. He’ll leave here with no money and probably no job. No one to look after him.’

‘What about the girlfriend? And her father’s Videos R Us?’

‘She hasn’t bothered to wait for him. That’s what I heard in the chat round here. Of course, Chirpy doesn’t know that yet. He’ll be the last to know. So I doubt the job’s still open. He’ll drift back to the Molloys and you know what that means.’

‘I’m not sure that I do know exactly.’

‘I’m afraid he’ll be looking for a house where the milk’s been cancelled because they’ve all gone on holiday.’

‘You think Chirpy Molloy’s incapable of redemption?’

‘We can hope for the best.’ Brian put on the serious expression he had used for his speech. ‘We can always hope. But we’ve got to face the facts, Mr Rumpole. This is it. The facts have to be faced.’

I moved on then, towards freedom and, in the fullness of time, a glass with better stuff than tepid water in it. Archie Prosser joined me at the prison gates. ‘Who the hell was Applethorpe?’ I asked him.

‘Poor chap.’ Archie looked serious. ‘I was at school with him. In here waiting to be sentenced for thirty-two cases of indecent exposure. Come to think of it, he was Head Boy.’

 

Since my abandonment of the stationary bicycle, and Hilda’s discovery of the fraudulent entries in the Lysander Club’s records, home life in Gloucester Road began to feel like an extended visit to the Worsfield nick. No cries of welcome greeted me when I returned to the mansion flat, no sighs of regret when I left it after a hurried breakfast. Archie had made me a member of the Bunyan Society and I took refuge in some of its meetings, where I got to know the committee and was greeted warmly by the reformed Brian Skidmore. He told me that Chirpy Molloy had been released, but there was no news as yet of his having slid back into a life of crime.

I was in my Chambers room, wondering when, if ever, a brief in a sensational new case would arrive, when Claude Erskine-Brown stole in, looked down the passage as though he feared listeners, and carefully closed the door.

‘Rumpole, I don’t know if you’ve heard any rumours?’

‘Rumours? Of course I’ve heard rumours. Where do you think life in Chambers would be without rumours?’

‘Well, if you’ve heard any, don’t believe them.’

‘Why ever not? I usually believe rumours. But so far as politicians are concerned, I never believe anything until it’s been officially denied.’

‘Politicians?’ Claude looked startled and afraid. ‘Did you say politicians, Rumpole?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘So then you’ve heard.’ He sat down in my client’s chair in an attitude of despondent resignation.

‘Heard what, exactly, Erskine-Brown?’

‘About me and - well - her. I knew it would leak out eventually.’

Here, I thought, we go again. Claude Erskine-Brown, unlike the blessed Brian Skidmore, appeared irredeemable. Love provided as irresistible a temptation to him as crime did to such weak-minded characters as Chirpy Molloy. The only difference was that Erskine-Brown’s infidelities, unlike Chirpy’s burglaries, tended to remain in the world of dreams. As I was taught by my old, blind law tutor at Keeble College, a crime requires a guilty act with a guilty intent. Dear old Claude had the guilty intent most of the time; it was the guilty act he found hard to pull off.

‘There’s only one thing I do beg of you, Rumpole. And I know I can count on you, because of our long friendship over the years.’

‘You want a bit of free Legal Aid?’

‘Not that. No. It hasn’t come to that. It’s just if you hear my name mentioned in connection with a well-known politician ...’

I began to run them over in my mind. The Prime Minister?

Leader of the Opposition? What on earth had come over poor old Claude? He couldn’t resist, of course, supplying the answer. ‘If you hear my name mentioned in connection with, for instance, the Home Secretary, just say you know there’s absolutely nothing in it.’

‘Erskine-Brown!
Not
the Home Secretary?’ I couldn’t believe it.

‘You don’t know her, Rumpole?’

‘Indeed I do. She’s a woman who believes that we shouldn’t blame countries who stone women to death and she’s very keen on cracking down on people. You want to be careful she doesn’t crack down on you, Claude.’

The man in my armchair assumed a far-away ‘if only’ expression. Then came a low murmur. ‘I had the privilege of sitting next to her at a dinner in the Law Society. We really hit it off. She told me she found me a witty and sympathetic companion.’

‘Mrs Justice Erskine-Brown - that is to say Lady Phillida - she was at this dinner party, was she?’

‘Oh no. Philly was away on circuit somewhere.’

‘So the Home Secretary had you to herself?’

‘Almost entirely. She talked to the man on the other side, of course, but not for very long. I walked her to her car and she kissed me, Rumpole. I was kissed by a Secretary of State. And I kissed her back!’

‘I suppose I ought to congratulate you.’

‘It’s the power, I suppose. There’s a sort of potent sexuality about her.’

‘I can’t honestly say I noticed.’

‘I’ve always thought she was terribly attractive in photographs, of course. But in the flesh! Well, now it’s happened, we might meet at the Opera. Or a quiet dinner in a restaurant.’