Rumpole and the Angel of Death (36 page)

‘We're in for a good time, then?'

‘I think so. At very long last.'

After the Blot had left me, suitably encouraged, I went home on the Underground. Emerging from Gloucester Road station, I saw the formation of purple blazers bearing down on me remorselessly on what must have been the last route-march of the day. I stood aside to let them pass, but the C.O. halted the column and looked at me, through a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, with obvious distaste. ‘Are you the person who spoke to Chippenham the other day, down at the end of the line?' she asked me. ‘The boys told me he had spoken to somebody strange.'

‘It just so happened' – I decided to overlook the description – ‘that I know the family.'

‘Whether you do or you don't' – she frowned severely – ‘he was clearly upset by what you said to him. It's most unusual for people to speak to my Bolingbrokers in the street. He was obviously shocked, the other boys said so. Ever since he met you, Chippenham's been away sick.'

‘But I honestly didn't say anything,' I started to explain but, before I could finish the sentence, the word of command had been given and the column quick-marched away from me.

When I got back to the seclusion of the mansion flat (there were times when I felt that our chilly matrimonial home was more a mausoleum than a mansion), I found Hilda had gone to her bridge club and left a message for me to ring my instructing solicitor and ‘make sure neither of you slip up on Dr Betty's case'. When I got through to Bonny Bernard, he had news which interested me greatly. The puritanical Dr Eames had, it seemed, returned to care for the Chippenham family and, in particular, he was looking after young Andrew, who was suffering from some sort of nervous illness and was off school. As a witness, Bernard told me, Dr Eames was of the talkative variety and seemed to have something he was a strangely anxious to tell me. I hoped he would become even more talkative in the days before the trial.

I discovered that our case was to come before Mrs Justice Erskine-Brown, for so long the Portia of our Chambers and its acknowledged beauty (even now, when she is Dame Phillida and swathed in the scarlet and ermine of a High Court Judge, she is a figure that the unspeakable Vince might well have wanted to lure into a singles holiday on the Costa del Sand and Sex). I had known her since she had joined us as a tearful pupil; we had been together and against each other, and I had taught her enough to turn her into a formidable opponent, in more trials than I care to remember. She was brave, tenacious, charming and provocative as compared with her husband Claude who, upon his hind legs in any courtroom, could be counted upon to appear nervous, hesitant and unconvincing. I have a distinct fondness for Portia which I have reason to believe, because of the way she behaved during the many crises in Equity Court, is suitably returned. In short, we have a mutual regard, and I hoped she might feel some sympathy for a case which, in other hands, was likely to prove equally difficult for Dr Betty Ireton and Horace Rumpole. There, hopes were dashed quite early on in the proceedings.

‘It may be argued on behalf of the Defence . . .' The Prosecutor was the beefy Q.C., Barrington McTear. He had played rugby football for Oxford and his courtroom tactics consisted of pushing, shoving, tackling low and covering his opponents, whenever possible, with mud. Although his name had a Highland ring to it, he spoke in an arrogant and earblasting Etonian accent and considered himself a cut above such middle-class, possibly overweight, and certainly unsporty barristers as myself. For this reason I had privately christened him Cut Above McTear.

Cut Above had massive shoulders, a large, pink face and small, gold half-glasses. They perched on him as inappropriately as a thin, gold necklace on a ham. Now, in a voice that could have been heard from one end of a football field to the other, he repeated what he thought would be my defence for the purpose of bringing it sprawling to the ground in a particularly unpleasant tackle. ‘Your Ladyship may well think that Mr Rumpole's defence will be “This old gentleman was on his way out anyway, so Dr Ireton committed an act of mercy and not an act of murder” . . .'

‘Such a defence will receive very little sympathy in this Court, Mr McTear.' Portia was clearly not in a mood to fuss about the quality of mercy. ‘Murder is murder until Parliament chooses to pass a law permitting euthanasia.'

‘Oh, I do so entirely agree with your Ladyship,' Cut Above informed the Bench and probably those assembled in the corridor and nearby Courts, ‘so it will be interesting to discover if Mr Rumpole has a defence.'

‘May I remind my learned friend' – I climbed to my feet and spoke, I think with admirable courtesy – ‘that a prosecutor's job is to prove the charge and not to speculate about the nature of the Defence. If he wishes any further advice on how to conduct his case, I shall be available during the adjournment.'

‘I hardly need advice on prosecuting from Mr Rumpole, who hasn't done any of it!' Cut Above bellowed.

‘Gentlemen' – Portia's quiet call to order was always effective – ‘perhaps we should get on with the evidence. No doubt we shall hear from Mr Rumpole in the fullness of time.'

So Cut Above turned to tell the Jury that they would find the evidence he was about to call entirely persuasive and leading to the inevitable verdict of guilty on Dr Ireton. A glance at Hilda, who had come to support her friend and make sure that I secured her deliverance from the dock, was enough to tell me that She Who Must Be Obeyed didn't think much of my performance so far.

Dick Chippenham was the sort of witness that Cut Above could understand and respect. They probably went to the same tailor and played the same games at the same sort of schools and universities. Dick even spoke in Cut Above's sort of voice, although with the volume turned down considerably. When he had finished his examination Cut Above said, ‘I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you to wait there for a few minutes more,' as though there was an unfortunate deputation from the peasantry to trouble him, but it needn't detain him long.

‘Mr Chippenham, I'm sure all of us at the Bar wish to sympathize with you in your bereavement.'

‘Thank you.' I glanced at the Jury. They clearly liked my opening gambit, one that Cut Above hadn't troubled himself to think of.

‘I have only a few questions. Up to six months before he died, your uncle was attended by Dr Eames?'

‘That is so.'

‘But, rightly or wrongly, your uncle took against Dr Eames?'

‘I'm afraid so.'

‘That doctor not being convinced of the therapeutic effects of whisky and claret?'

I got a ripple of laughter from the Jury and a smile of assurance from the witness. ‘I believe that was the reason.'

‘So you then engaged Dr Ireton. Why did you choose her?'

‘She was a local doctor who had treated one of my wife's friends.'

‘At the time when you transferred to Dr Ireton, did you know that she was a member of Lethe, a pro-euthanasia society?'

‘Mr Rumpole admits that she was a member of Lethe.' Cut Above sprang to attention. ‘I hope the Jury have noticed this admission by the Defence,' he bellowed.

‘I'm sure you can't have helped noticing that,' I told the Jury. ‘And I'm sure that, during any further speeches from my learned friend, earplugs will be provided for those not already hard of hearing.'

‘Mr Rumpole!' Portia rebuked me from the Bench. ‘This is a serious case and I wish to see it is tried seriously.'

‘An admirable ambition, my Lady,' I told her. ‘And tried quietly too, I hope.' And then I turned to the witness before Cut Above could trumpet any sort of protest.

‘When you and your wife got back from the dinner party, it was about eleven o'clock?'

‘Yes.'

‘And apart from your uncle, the only people in the house were Dr Betty Ireton and your son?'

‘That's right. Dr Betty met us in the hall and she said she'd given Chippy his pills and a drink of whisky.'

‘At that time, would your uncle have remembered whether he'd taken his pills or not?'

‘He probably would have remembered. Dr Betty said she'd given him his pills as usual.'

‘When you got upstairs, you went in to see your uncle?'

‘We did.'

‘Was he asleep?'

‘Yes.'

‘Was he still breathing?'

‘I'm sure he was. Otherwise we'd have called for help immediately.'

‘You noticed the bottle of whisky. Was it empty?'

‘It must have been, but I can't say I noticed it then.'

‘So perhaps it wasn't empty?'

‘I can't say for sure, but I suppose it must have been.'

‘You can't say for sure. And the bottle of pills had been put away in the bathroom?'

‘Yes, I believe it had . . . My wife will tell you.'

‘So you can't be sure how many pills were left when you last saw your uncle alive?'

‘In the morning I saw the bottle of pills empty.'

‘And in the morning your uncle was dead?'

‘Yes, he was.'

‘Thank you very much, Mr Chippenham.' I sat down with what I hoped was a good deal more show of satisfaction than I felt.

‘Dr Betty said she thinks you and that deafening McTear person are behaving like a couple of small boys in the school playground.'

I thought it was perhaps unfortunate that Dr Betty was allowed bail if she was going to abuse her freedom by criticizing my forensic skills. ‘She only sees what happens on the surface. Tactics, Hilda. She's no idea of the plans that are forming at the back of my mind.'

‘Have you any idea of them either, Rumpole? Be honest. Or have you forgotten that, in the way you forgot to turn out the bathroom light when you'd finished shaving?'

It was breakfast time once again in Froxbury Mansions. I felt a longing to get away from the sharp cut-and-thrust of domestic argument and be off to the gentler world of the Old Bailey. Hilda pressed home her advantage. ‘I hope you realize that I am personally committed to your winning this case, Rumpole. I have given my word to Dr Betty.'

Then you'd better ask for it back again, was what I might have said, but lacked the bottle. Instead I told Hilda that Dr Eames was going to give us a full statement which I thought might be helpful. At which, I gathered up my traps, ready to hotfoot it down to the Old Bailey canteen where I had a date with the industrious Bernard.

‘You certainly need help from somewhere, Rumpole. And, I don't know if you noticed, you've left me your briefcase and taken my
Daily Telegraph.'
As I made the changeover, he said, ‘We've learnt a lot lately, haven't we, about the onset of Alzheimer's disease?'

Dr David Eames was a rare bird, a doctor who liked talking to lawyers. He was tall, bony, with large, capable hands and a lock of fair hair that fell over his eyes, and a serious, enthusiastic way of speaking as though he hadn't yet lost his boyish faith in human nature, the National Health Service and the practice of medicine. I don't usually have much feeling for those who seek to deprive their fellow beings of their claret, but I felt a strange liking for this youthful quack who seemed only anxious to discover the truth about the fatal events which had taken place that night in Dettingen Road.

As we sat with Bernard in the Old Bailey canteen, with coffee from a machine, and went through the medical evidence, I noticed he was strangely excited, as though he had something to communicate but was not sure when, or if indeed ever, to communicate it.

‘I'm right in thinking Alzheimer's is not a killer in itself, although those who contract it usually die within ten years?'

‘That's right,' Eames agreed. ‘They contract bronchitis or have a stroke, or perhaps they just lose their wish to live.'

‘There's no evidence of bronchitis or a stroke here?'

‘Apparently not.'

‘So it seems likely that death was hurried on in some way?' There was a silence, then Dr Eames said, ‘I think that must follow.'

‘My old friend and opponent, Dr Ackerman of the morgue, the Home Office pathologist, estimates death as between ten p.m. and one a.m.'

‘I read that.'

‘At any rate, he was dead by seven-thirty a.m. when Nurse Pargeter came to look after him. Dick Chippenham says that Chippy was alive and sleeping well at around eleven the night before. If Dr Betty had just given him an overdose . . .'

‘The pills might not have taken their effect until some time later.'

‘I was afraid you'd say that.' I took a gulp from the machine's coffee, which is pretty indistinguishable from the machine's tea, or the machine's soup if it comes to that. ‘When you stopped being the Chippenhams' doctor . . .'

‘When I was sacked, you mean?'

‘If you like. Had you had a row with Chippy? I mean, did
he
sack you?'

‘Not really. As far as I remember, it was Mr Chippenham who told me his uncle wanted me to go.'

‘There was no question of you having had a row with Chippy about drinking whisky?'

‘No. I can't remember anything like that.' The doctor looked puzzled and I felt curiously encouraged and lit a small cigar. ‘Tell me, Doctor, did you know Nurse Pargeter?'

‘Only too well.'

‘And did you like her?'

‘Pro-Life nurses can be a menace. They seem to think of themselves as avenging angels.'

‘And she didn't care for Dr Betty?'

‘She hated her! I think she thought of her as a potential murderess.'

I wondered if that might be helpful. Then I said, ‘One more thing, Dr Eames, now that I've got you here . . .'

‘What are you up to
now,
Rumpole? Talking to potential witnesses? Is that in the best tradition of the Bar?' Wasn't Stentor some old Greek military man whose voice, on the battlefield, was louder than fifty men together? No doubt his direct descendant was the stentorian Cut Above, who now stood with his wig in his hand, his thick hair interrupted by a little tonsure of baldness so that he looked like a muscular monk.