Rumpole and the Angel of Death (10 page)

‘Well, I wish you luck. Who's your judge?'

‘We're likely to get stuck with Jamie MacBain.'

‘“I was not born yesterday, y'know, Mr Rumpole. I think I'm astute enough to see through
that
argument!”' Rollo had lost none of his talents as a mimic and did a very creditable imitation of Mr Justice MacBain's carefully preserved Scottish accent. ‘Why don't you come down to the house for a whisky and splash?' he asked in his own voice.

‘I can't. They'll be waiting for me in the car. You're sure you don't mind me taking on the case?'

‘Why should I mind? You've got to do your job. I've no doubt justice will be done.'

I climbed over the stile then walked away. When I looked back, he wasn't going to jump but turned the horse and trotted back the way he had come. He had said justice would be done but I wasn't entirely sure of it.

I kept all of this to myself and said nothing to She Who Must Be Obeyed, although I knew well enough that the time would come when I'd certainly have to tell her. As the trial of Dennis Pearson drew nearer, I decided that the truth could no longer be avoided and chose breakfast time as, when the expected hostilities broke out, I could retreat hastily down the tube and off to Chambers and so escape prolonged exposure to the cannonade.

‘By the way,' I said casually over the last piece of toast, ‘I'll probably be staying down in the Gloucester direction before the end of the month.'

‘Has Rollo Eyles invited us again?'

‘Well, not exactly.'

‘Why exactly, then?' With Hilda you can never get away with leaving uncomfortable facts in a comforting blur.

‘I've got a trial.'

‘What sort of a trial?'

‘A rather important murder as it so happens. You'll be glad to know, Hilda, that when it comes to the big stuff, the questions of life and death, the cry is still “Send for Rumpole”.'

‘Who got murdered?'

The question had been asked casually, but I knew the moment of truth had come. ‘Well, someone you've met, as a matter of fact.'

‘Who?'

My toast was finished. I took a last gulp of coffee, ready for the off.

‘Dorothea Eyles.'

‘You're defending that horrible little hunt saboteur?'

‘Well, he's not so little. Quite tall actually.'

‘You're defending the man who murdered the wife of your friend?'

‘I suppose someone has to.'

‘Well! It's no wonder you haven't got any friends, Rumpole.' Was it true? Hadn't I any friends? Enemies, yes. Acquaintances. Opponents down the Bailey. Fellow Members of Chambers. But
friends
? Bonny Bernard? Fred Timson? Well, I suppose we only met for work. Who was my real friend? I could only think of one. ‘I got on fairly well with the dog Lancelot. Of course he's no longer with us.'

‘Just as well. If you defend people who kill your friends' wives, you're hardly fit company for a decent dog.' You have to admit that when Hilda comes to a view she doesn't mince words on the matter.

‘We don't know if he killed her. He's only accused of killing her.'

‘No hair and earrings? You only had to take a look at him to know he was capable of anything!'

‘They didn't arrest the one with no hair,' I told her. ‘I'm defending another one.'

‘It doesn't matter. I expect they're all much of a muchness. Can you imagine what Rollo's going to say when he finds out what you're doing?'

‘I know what he thinks.'

‘What?'

‘That it's in the best tradition of the Bar to defend anyone, however revolting.'

‘How do you know that's what he thinks?'

‘Because that's what he said when I told him.'

‘You told him?'

‘Yes.'

‘I must say, Rumpole, you've got a nerve!'

‘Courage is the essential quality of an advocate.'

‘And I suppose it's the essential quality of an advocate to be on the side of the lowest, most contemptible of human beings?'

‘To put their case for them? Yes.'

‘Even if they're guilty?'

‘That hasn't been proved.'

‘But you don't know he's not.'

‘I think I do.'

‘Why?'

‘Because of what he told me.'

‘He told you he wasn't guilty?'

‘No, he told me he
was.
But, you see, I didn't believe him.'

‘He told you he was guilty and you're still defending him? Is that in the best traditions of the Bar?'

‘Only just,' I had to admit.

‘Rumpole!' She Who Must Be Obeyed gave me one of her unbending looks and delivered judgement. ‘I suppose that, if someone murdered
me,
you would defend them?'

There was no answer to that so I looked at my watch. ‘Must go. Urgent conference in Chambers. I won't be late home. Is it one of your bridge evenings?' I asked the question, but answer came there none. I knew that for that day, and for many days to come, as far as She Who Must Be Obeyed was concerned, the mansion flat in Froxbury Mansions would be locked in the icy silence of the tomb.

During the last weeks before the trial Hilda was true to her vow of silence and the mansion flat offered all the light-hearted badinage of life in a Trappist order. Luckily I was busy and even welcomed the chance of a chat with Gavin Garfield whom, although I had excluded him from my visit to the Cotswolds, I now set to work. I told him his first job was to get statements from the other saboteurs in the van, and when he protested that we'd never get so far as calling evidence in view of what Den had told us, I said we must be prepared for all eventualities. So Gavin took statements, not hurriedly, but with a surprising thoroughness, and in time certain hard facts emerged.

What surprised me was the age and respectability of the saboteurs. Shaven-headed Roy Netherborn was forty and worked in the accounts department of a paper cup factory. He had toyed with the idea of being a schoolmaster and had met Janet Freebody, who was a couple of years older, at a teacher training college. Janet owned the cottage in Wayleave where the platoon of fearless saboteurs had put up for the night. She taught at a comprehensive school in the nearby town where we had fled from the dreaded hotel. Angela Ridgeway, the girl with the purple lock, was a researcher for BBC Wales. Sebastian Fells and Judy Caspar were live-in partners and worked together in a Kensington bookshop, and Dennis Pearson, thirty-five, taught sociology at a university which had risen from the ashes of a polytechnic. They all, except Janet, lived in London and were on the committee of a society of animal rights activists.

Janet had kept Roy informed about the meet at Rollo Eyles's house, and they had taken days off during her half-term when the meet was at Wayleave. The sabbing was to be made the occasion of a holiday outing and a night spent in the country. When they had got their rucksacks and sleeping-bags out of the van, Roy, Angela, Sebastian and Judy retired to the pub in Wayleave where real ale was obtainable and they used it to wash down vegetable pasties and salads until closing-time at three. Janet Freebody had things to do in the cottage, exercise books to correct and dinner to think about, so she didn't join the party in the pub. Neither did Den. He said he wanted to go for a walk and so set off, according to Roy, apparently to commune, in a solitary fashion, with nature. This meant that he was alone and unaccounted for at one o'clock when Tricia was going to swear on her oath that she saw him coming out of Fallows Wood with a coil of wire.

Other facts of interest: Fallows Wood was only about ten minutes from Wayleave. Roy couldn't remember there being any wire in the van when they set out from London; it was true that they had discussed using wire to trip up horses, but he had never bought any and was surprised when the police searched the van and found the coil there. It was also true that the van was always in a mess, and probably the hammer found in it was his. Den had brought a kitbag with his stuff in it and Roy couldn't swear it didn't contain wire. Den was usually a quiet sort of bloke, Roy said, but he did go mad when he saw people out to kill animals: ‘Dennis always said that the movement was too milk and watery towards hunting, and that what was needed was some great gesture which would really bring us into the news and prove our sincerity – like when the girl fell under a lorry that was taking sheep to the airport.' I made a mental note not to ask any sort of question likely to produce that last piece of evidence and came to the conclusion that Roy, despite his willingness to give Gavin a statement, wasn't entirely friendly to my client, Dennis Pearson.

The placards, a small plantation at the meet, had become a forest outside the Court in Gloucester. Buses, bicycles, vans, cars in varying degrees of disrepair, had brought them, held up now by a crowd which burst, as I elbowed my way towards the courthouse door, into a resounding cheer for Rumpole. I didn't remember any such ovation when I entered the Old Bailey on other occasions. In the robing-room I found Bernadette asleep in a chair and little Marcus Pitcher tying a pair of white bands around his neck in front of a mirror. ‘See you've got your friends from rent-a-crowd here this morning, Rumpole.' He was not in the best of tempers, our demonstrators having apparently booed Bernadette for having thrown in her lot with a barrister who prosecuted the friends of animals.

I wondered how long their cheers for me would last when I went into Court, only to put my hands up and plead guilty. My client, however, remained singularly determined: ‘When we plead guilty, they'll cheer. It'll be a triumph for the movement. Can't you understand that, Mr Rumpole? We shall be seen to have condemned a murderer to death!'

The approach of life imprisonment seemed to have concentrated Den's mind wonderfully. He was no longer the silent and enigmatic sufferer. His eyes were lit up and he was as excited as when he'd shouted his threats at the faded beauty on the horse. ‘I want you to tell them I'm guilty, first thing. As soon as we get in there. I want you to tell them that I punished her.'

‘No, you don't want that. Does he, Mr Garfield?' Gavin, sitting beside me in the cell under the Court, looked like a man who had entirely lost control of the situation. ‘I suppose if that's what Den has decided . . .' His voice, never strong, died away and he shrugged hopelessly.

‘I
have
decided finally' – Den was standing, elated by his decision – ‘in the interests of our movement.' For a moment he reminded me of an actor I had seen in an old film, appearing as Sydney Carton on his way to the guillotine, saying, ‘It's a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done.'

‘You're not going to do the movement much good by pleading guilty straight away,' I told him.

‘What do you mean?'

‘A guilty plea at the outset? The whole thing'll be over in twenty minutes. The animal murderers, as you call them, won't even have to go into the witness-box, let alone face cross-examination by Rumpole. Will anyone know the details of the hunt? Certainly not. Do you want publicity for your cause? Plead guilty now and you will be lucky to get a single paragraph on page two. At least, let's get the front page for a day or so.' I wasn't being entirely frank with my client. The murder was serious and horrible enough to get the front pages in a world hungry for bad news at breakfast, even if we were to plead guilty without delay. But I needed time. In time, I still hoped, I would get Den to tell me the truth.

‘I don't know.' My client sat down then as though suddenly tired. ‘What would you do, Gavin?'

‘I think' – Gavin shrugged off all responsibility – ‘you should be guided by Mr Rumpole.'

‘All right' – Den was prepared to compromise – ‘we'll go for the publicity.'

‘Dennis Pearson, you are accused in this indictment of the murder of Dorothea Eyles on the sixteenth of March at Fallows

Wood, Wayleave, in the county of Gloucester. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?'

‘My Lord, Members of the Jury' – Den, as I had feared, was about to orate. ‘This woman, Dorothea Eyles, was guilty of the murder of countless living creatures, not for her gain but simply for sadistic pleasure and idle enjoyment. My Lord, if anything killed her, it was natural justice!'

‘Now then, Mr-' Mr Justice James MacBain consulted his papers to make sure who he was trying. ‘Mr Pearson. You've got a gentleman in a wig sitting there, a Mr Rumpole, who's paid to make the speeches for you. It's not your business to make speeches now or at any time during this case. Now, you've been asked a simple question: Are you guilty or not guilty?'

‘She is the guilty one, my Lord. This woman who revelled in the death of innocent creatures.'

‘Mr Rumpole, are you not astute enough to control your client?'

‘It's not an easy task, my Lord.' I staggered to my feet.

‘Your first job is to control your client. That's what I learnt as a pupil. Make the client keep it short.'

‘Well, if you don't want a long speech from the dock, my Lord, I suggest you enter a plea of not guilty and then my learned friend, Mr Marcus Pitcher, can get on with opening his case.'

‘Mr Rumpole, I was not born yesterday!' Jamie MacBain was stating the obvious. It was many years since he had first seen the light in some remote corner of the Highlands. He was a large man whose hair, once ginger, had turned to grey, and who sat slumped in his chair like one of those colourless beanbags people use to sit on in their Hampstead homes. He had small, pursed lips and a perpetually discontented expression. ‘And when I want your advice on how to conduct these proceedings, I shall ask you for it. Mr Moberly!' This was a whispered summons to the clerk of the court, who rose obediently and, after a brief
sotto voce
conversation, sat down again as the Judge turned to the Jury.