Rumpole and the Angel of Death (28 page)

‘One down,' I replied, ‘and thousands left to go.'

When I got into Chambers Fishlock, the human rights solicitor, was already there, cradling a bundle of morning papers as though it were a long-lost child. ‘Biased Judge,' he almost whooped for joy. ‘Flagrantly biased! No doubt at all about that. So what do we do now?'

‘We get whoever was the mole in the rugby club to swear an affidavit and troop off to the Court of Appeal.'

‘To tell them the Judge was biased?'

‘And has, with any luck, delivered himself into our hands.'

I am not an habitué of the Court of Appeal. It has none of the amenities I'm used to – such as witnesses to cross-examine and juries to persuade. One Judge is bad enough, but the Appeal Court comes equipped with three who bother you with unnecessary and impertinent questions which are not always easy to answer.

Lord Justice Percival Ponting, who presided over the Hashimi appeal, had hooded eyes and the distasteful look of a person who goes through life with a bad smell under his nose. He had never recovered from having achieved a double first at Cambridge and regarded Old Bailey hacks in general, and Horace Rumpole in particular, as ill-educated dimwits who couldn't read the Institutes of Justinian in Latin.

‘Mr Rumpole' – the Lord of Appeal in Ordinary pronounced my name as though he regretted having stepped in it – ‘will you be so good as to refer us to any passage in the transcript of the trial in which the learned Judge made any sort of biased remark to the Jury concerning your client, Mr Harashimi?'

‘
Hashimi,
my Lord, as it so happens.'

‘Oh, I'm so sorry. I do beg his pardon. Hashimi then. Well, Mr Rumpole, will you now refer us to the passages in the transcript.'

‘In the transcript of the speech at the rugby club? The Judge couldn't have made his views more absolutely clear . . .'

‘Do remind us, Mr Rumpole. The Jury wasn't empanelled to sit in judgement at the rugby club dinner, was it?'

‘No, my Lord, but . . .'

‘And by the time that event took place, the Jury had reached a verdict, after an unbiased summing-up, had they not?'

‘His after-dinner diatribe, his post-prandial peroration, my Lord, shows exactly what the Judge had in mind.'

‘Mr Rumpole. We all may have things on our minds. We may have views about the merits of this Appeal which it might be kinder not to express in public. You may have in mind a proper realization of the shallowness of your argument. It's what's said in Court that matters!'

‘We don't live our entire lives in courtrooms. What's my client to think now? What's any reasonable man to think? That he was tried unfairly by a biased judge.'

‘Is that your best point?'

‘Indeed, it is!' I turned up the volume to show I was running out of patience with Ponting, alarming the ushers and causing the little Lord Justice on the left to open his eyes.

‘No need to raise your voice, Mr Rumpole. You are perfectly audible. Your first point is that your client was tried by a Judge who successfully concealed his true feelings?'

‘And secondly, that he did so deliberately to secure a conviction.'

‘You were right, Mr Rumpole.' Percy Ponting smiled down at me from a great height and in a wintry fashion. ‘Your first point was the best one.'

‘“A great many of these towel-headed gentry came here as so-called students to escape the tough laws of their own countries . . . when my jury brought in a guilty verdict on the murderer Hashimi I had a song in my heart.” How can you possibly say that's not biased?'

‘Words which he didn't utter at the trial?'

‘Words which show exactly how he felt at the trial.'

‘Mr Rumpole, I think we are now seized of your argument.'

‘I don't think you are. I think you are about to ignore my argument.'

‘If you have nothing more to add . . .'

‘Oh, yes, I have. A great deal more to add.' I added it for another three-quarters of an hour, while Percy Ponting joined the little fellow on his left in carefully simulated sleep. It came as no surprise when we lost, and leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused. Two days later that august and elevated body also refused leave.

‘I'm afraid,' I had to tell Fishlock, ‘it looks like the end of the line.'

‘Not exactly.' He looked like a man possessed of a well-kept secret. ‘What about Article Six of the European Convention on Human Rights?'

‘A document,' I hastened to tell him, ‘which is my constant bedtime reading.'

‘Everyone is entitled to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal!'

‘That is what I had in mind. So we're off to The Hague, are we?'

‘
You
may be, Mr Rumpole. But the Court of Human Rights sits in Strasburg.'

‘Of course! That's the one I meant. So you're going to brief me in Strasburg, are you? It'll make a change from the Uxbridge Magistrates Court.'

It was then that Peter Fishlock began to talk about Rumpole and human rights being as inseparable as Marks & Spencer, and I speculated on the possible generosity of Euro legal aid.

‘I hear you're off to Europe, Rumpole.' Soapy Sam Ballard looked at me with incredulity and distaste, as though I had just won the National Lottery.

‘Rather a bore, really.' I lit a small cigar in an offhand manner. The man had entered my room eagerly enough, but now covered his mouth with his fist and coughed as though I had set out to asphyxiate him. ‘But you've got to be prepared to travel when you've got an international practice like mine.'

‘I understand. And I'm perfectly prepared to travel, Rumpole.'

‘Going far? We'll have to do our best to get along without you.'

‘I'm coming with you, of course. In a case of this importance, you'll be in need of a leader. Preferably one from Chambers.'

‘Oh, I don't think so, old darling. My instructing solicitor is prepared to leave it to me. The Rights of Man, you know, are rather my
spécialité de la maison.
I'm sure you've got enough landlord and tenant stuff to keep you fully occupied.' At which, I blew out smoke and the would-be leader, looking extremely miffed, simulated terminal bronchitis and withdrew from my presence.

So the long journey started which ended up over the choucroute and the water of life in the Grimms' fairytale Kammerzell House in Strasburg. There I was applauded for my devotion to justice by a fan club of Europeans and his Honour Judge Bloxham, looking extremely green about the gills, sat glowering at me with ill-concealed hostility from the corner of the room.

As Jeremy Jameson collected the bill to put in with his Euro expenses, I plodded off towards the facilities. As I stood in front of the porcelain, lit by a sudden and blinding white light, I was conscious of a shrunken figure at the far end of the row of stalls. Judge Bloxham turned to face me, zipping up his trousers; and, looking paler than ever, his eyes dead with despair, he uttered one word, pronounced like a curse from a dry throat, ‘Rumpole', and shuffled away across the marble floor.

I gave him time to get away and then returned to the dining-room, only to discover that, as rare things will, all my newfound friends had vanished. Betsi Hoprecht and the rimless Professor of International Law (both of whom had met me at the airport), the Euro M.P., Poppy, the elegant sheep, and even my instructing solicitor had gone off into the night and the table was being cleared under the instruction of the Minister for Strawberries. At that moment I felt I was in Europe, a stranger and alone.

Walking back to the hotel in the moonlight, I looked at my watch. Almost eleven on a Saturday night. It seemed a long time since I and Peter Fishlock had been met at the airport by Betsi Hoprecht, who had stood tall and fair-haired above the smaller, darker inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine waiting for their loved ones. She had taken us in charge, kept us going on a tour round the monuments, and arranged the dinner at the Kammerzell House at which we were to meet the gallant band who sat shoulder to shoulder, consuming choucroute and fighting for the Rights of Man. I had felt safe in Betsi's hands, relieved of the painful process of decision. Now I was on my own, crossing the cathedral square, and I decided to see the astronomical clock put on its hourly performance.

The shadowy cathedral was empty, the windows which Betsi had shown us glowing with coloured sunlight were now blind and black. Only a few candles, lit for the dead and the dying, flickered in the cloisters by the side-chapels. In the empty pews only a few heads, the anxious, the insomniac or old, were bowed in prayer and contemplation. I put in a coin and the clock towered above me in golden light with its minarets and huge dials, the signs of the Zodiac, the round sun in a bright blue sky dotted with stars, the columns of gold and black marble, and the figures of Christ and Death waiting for their hourly moment of confrontation.

As I looked up at these wonders, I was conscious of a tallish tourist standing beside me. I thought how badly his clothes went with the wonders of sixteenth-century science and architecture: a red plastic anorak with
LES DROITS DE L'HOMME
written on it, trousers that looked as though they'd been made in a computer, and a baseball cap which bore the insignia of the Common Market. Then eleven struck. The heavens began to whirr and move at the command of the master clockmaker, the Ages of Man passed in their chariots, the heavenly globe was lit up in front of the perpetual calendar with its statues of Diana and Apollo, and Christ, his hand held up in benediction, chased the skeleton Death. As the slow strokes died away, and all the devices on the clock shuddered to a standstill, a voice with which I was unfortunately familiar said, ‘The continentals are clever fellows, aren't they?'

‘Bollard! What on earth are you doing here?'

‘What on earth? That's rather a good question, Rumpole. What are any of us doing on earth? Our duty, let us hope. To God and our country. And preparing ourselves for a better life
not
on earth. That's the hope we live with.'

‘I have to tell you, Bollard, that if the hope you live with is infiltrating yourself into Monday's case as leading Counsel for Amin Hashimi, forget it. Your journey has been entirely unnecessary.'

‘I shall be in the case on Monday, as you would know, Rumpole, if you were in the habit of reading your papers before going into Court. But I shall be appearing for a slightly more reputable client than your Mr Hashimi.'

‘Oh, really. Who's that?'

‘H.M.G., Rumpole.'

‘Who's he, when he's at home?'

‘Her Majesty's Government. I'm here to support Lord Justice Ponting's opinion in the Court of Appeal.'

‘You mean you're for the H.M.G. of the U.K.?'

‘Exactly so!' Of course Ballard failed to detect the note of sarcasm in my flight to the acronym.

‘But you didn't do the case at the Bailey or in the Court of Appeal. Tubby Arthurian did it.'

‘Quite right. But with the international importance this matter has now achieved, with the entire reputation of the U.K. judiciary at stake, it was thought by H.M.G. . . .'

‘What was thought?'

‘Well' – the man seemed embarrassed, as it turned out he had good cause to be – ‘that Counsel should be chosen who would be likely to have some influence over you. To check what H.M.G. described, in a confidential memo to myself, as your worst excesses, Rumpole.'

‘Why on earth would you have any influence over me?'

‘Well, H.M.G. thought that as I am undoubtedly your Head of Chambers and therefore placed in some position of authority . . .'

‘H.M.G. thought
that
might curb my excesses?'

‘Naturally.'

‘Then H.M.G. must be singularly ignorant of the inner working of our great legal system. H.M.G. should know by now that the sight of you, Bollard, causes my worst excesses to break out like the measles.'

‘I had hoped' – Soapy Sam had the good sense not to sound particularly optimistic – ‘that we might be able to reach some sort of common approach. We don't want to cause poor old Bloxham public embarrassment, do we?'

‘Don't we? I've been looking forward to it for months.'

‘Perhaps we could talk over a drink.'

‘You can buy me a drink at any time,' I was kind enough to tell him.

‘Thank you, Rumpole.' Ballard was now looking anxiously round the cathedral, and a note of fear had come into his voice, 'Hilda's not with you, is she?'

‘Mrs Rumpole,' I told him, with some dignity, ‘has gone to stay with her friend Dodo Mackintosh in Cornwall.'

‘I wouldn't want Marguerite to hear that wives were allowed. I told her this was strictly no spouses.'

Marguerite, I remembered, was the ex-Matron of the Old Bailey, the person once in charge of aspirins and Elastoplast, whom the fearless Ballard had decided to marry. ‘How did she take that?'

‘Not too well, I'm afraid. But I told her that when you're appearing for H.M.G. confidential matters may arise.'

‘Baloney!'

‘Well, I have to confess, Rumpole, that the idea of being fancy-free on this agreeable little trip to the Continent did rather appeal to me. I thought I might stay on for a couple of days. I took the opportunity of buying some holiday gear this afternoon.' He looked down at his trousers with incomprehensible pride.

‘You mean that rig-out? You look as though you were going in for a bicycle race.'

‘You should learn to get with it, Rumpole. An old tweed jacket with leather patches' – the man had the ice-cold nerve to look critically at my attire – ‘and grey flannel bags simply don't say
European.
'

‘Unlike your plastic anorak? It doesn't seem to be able to stop talking about it.'

‘Perhaps you should mix a little more with young people, Rumpole. Perhaps you should learn to approach the millennium. I've got to know some young people. Since I got here, I've got to know what you might call the international set.'