‘Gonna build a kingdom on this sad old ground,
Gonna build a kingdom all around!
Gonna call it heaven, cause that’s what it’ll be,
A place of beauty, joy and peace for you and me!’
‘The Sun’s Children,’ William said. ‘We’re always singing.’ Strangely enough Nick didn’t find even this fact reassuring.
At William’s instructions he drove across to the row of communal buildings. He parked and they got out. William led him to what seemed to him to have been a converted cowshed and opened a door.
‘This is the reception area, Nicholas. Wait in here. Be at peace, and I’ll tell the office you’ve arrived to make your home with us.’
‘Well, I’m not sure…’ Nick sounded doubtful, but William said firmly, ‘Wait here, Nicholas. The Parents in Love will be here to greet a new child. No further decisions are expected of you.’
William left, and Nick found himself in a long room, furnished with sofas and easy chairs. The walls were decorated with a number of bright but amateurish murals of young men and women and some children, walking naked across a primitive landscape hand in hand, or holding up their arms to a round yellow sun surrounded by spiky rays and painted as it would be in a child’s painting. The naked figures were so turned that there was no direct display of their private parts, and indeed their sex wasn’t always easy to determine. Almost the whole of an end wall was covered with a hugely blown-up photograph of the beaming cleric whose picture hung over the gateway. Hymn tunes of a cheerful nature were being piped into the room by some mechanical musak system. There were long coffee tables on which stood bowls of flowers. There were no newspapers or magazines, no books and no ashtrays.
Nick went to the long windows and stood looking out into the yard. He saw the industrious young people loading the truck; he could see the guardians of the gate talking together by their shed. And then he saw another group of three or four Sun Children come out of what may have been an office and set off towards the building at the end of the square. They were carrying ledgers and files, and walking a little behind them, as though too tired to keep up, he saw Tiffany Jones.
The door was unlocked, either by good luck or by William’s forgetfulness. Nick was out of it in a moment and standing in the sunshine calling, ‘Tiffany!’
‘Nick! It’s you. Have you come inside?’
She stood there, a beautiful black girl with her arms full of files, half turned towards him, and he could hear the exhaustion in her voice, although it was denied by the bright and perpetual smile worn by all the Children of Sun.
‘Tiffany. What are you doing? We all missed you. Paul’s gone crazy looking for you.’
‘I’m working, Nick. Working for the Master.’ She looked round nervously and lowered her voice. ‘We’re not supposed to talk… Not to Outside People.’
‘Working? What the hell are you working at?’
‘Oh, the books. Using my skill in figures. I work so hard, Nick.’
‘Tiffany. Tell me.’ Nick asked what I needed to know.
‘I can’t tell you. The last guy they had… for accounting… He was a traitor! He betrayed them, you see? That’s why they needed me.’
‘Who was he, Tiffany?’
She didn’t answer his question and Nick looked round; one of the young men from the gate was coming towards them. ‘I can’t stop. We’ll meet and talk. Not one to one, however. We can only talk together. With all the Children…’
On the other side of the square the loading of the pick-up truck was finished, the driver was climbing into his seat and the crowd of loaders was moving away towards the large building at the end. The young man from the gate was moving towards Nick, calling out to him in a voice which had lost some degree of warmth.
‘Hey! Hey, you friend. Is that your Volks?’
‘Be welcome, Nick. Be very welcome,’ Tiffany said faintly.
As she moved away from him, Nick was looking at the cardboard-covered file which was top of those in the black girl’s arms. There was a name written on the cover, which had been crossed out, the name ‘PercivaF.
‘Drive that up to the car port with the other gifts.’ The young man instructed Nick in a voice that made it clear that it was less a request than an order. Nick looked to the open shed at which the young man was pointing, in which stood a number of new, and not so new, motor cars. Then he pulled his car door open.
‘Tiffany.’ He spoke to her as calmly as he could. ‘Let me take you home.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Nick.’ She was smiling at him, and at that moment her smile seemed particularly weary. ‘I am home.’
It was the last he saw of her.
‘Come on, friend. Move, why don’t you?’
The young man from the gatehouse was not to be denied. Nick swung into the driving seat and saw through his dusty windscreen that the gate was open wide to let the truck full of vegetables out. He switch on his engine, put his foot flat on the floor and gripped the steering wheel as his car shot forward. He reached the gate in a cloud of dust just as the truck was moving through it, and, ignoring the shouts of the gatekeepers, he managed to get through in the truck’s wake before the gate could close behind it. There was a space in front of the gate in which Nick could pass the truck, and then a long narrow road between banks where he tried to get away from the truck, but it accelerated also and seemed near enough to touch his back bumper.
Then the road twisted and Nick saw the lumbering back of a slow-moving harvester in front of them. He twisted his wheel and, half mounting the bank, managed to squeeze his little Volkswagen past the agricultural implement, leaving the vegetable truck stuck closely behind it. Nick didn’t lift his foot from the floor when he reached the freeway, but though he watched his mirror no one seemed to be giving him chase. He didn’t feel safe, however, until he had parked in front of his house, got inside and poured himself a long cold glass of Californian white wine in the cause of freedom. He then lifted the telephone and put in a call to Equity Court in the Temple.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Splendid, Nick. Absolutely splendid. My dear boy, I’m grateful. What a sad loss you are to the law! Well, of course your mother’s all right. What on earth’s she got not to be all right about? Well, that’s very kind… I miss you too, Nick. Of course I do.’
As I put down the instrument, I became aware of the presence of Guthrie Featherstone lurking by my desk.
‘Rumpole! I really think it’s time I had a word.’
‘That son of mine,’ I said in some elation, ‘is a chip off the old block, Featherstone. He’s just done a splendid job on the Simpson murder case. An absolutely splendid job.’
‘Rumpole. I’ve been talking things over with Henry and I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve got an overflow problem in Chambers.’
‘Then why don’t you pull out the plug, my old darling. Do you have to go on finding room for that sinister little Welshman?’
‘Glendour-Owen has an excellent practice. But you see, we had made our plans on the clear basis of your retirement.’
‘Don’t tell me you can’t find room for me, Featherstone.’ I was in no mood to bandy words with my Head of Chambers. ‘I hear you were thinking of taking on another lady, some blonde bombshell who hunts and picks up matrimonials.’
‘That was rather different. Elizabeth Chandler could have mucked in with Philly. Anyway, I’ve rather given up on that idea,’ said Featherstone, admitting his total defeat at the hands of the redoubtable Miss Trant.
‘Well, then. There’s absolutely no problem.’
‘Oh yes there is, Rumpole. Look, if you are coming back to the Bar, which at your time of life I don’t honestly advise, I just think you’ll have to make other arrangements.’
I looked at Featherstone then with a sort of pity. The poor fellow had no idea of the gaping pit which was about to open at his feet. ‘You can’t do it, my old darling,’ I said. ‘You simply can’t afford to lose me, Featherstone
. You see, you absolutely rely on me to defend you. On a serious charge, before a quite merciless tribunal.’
‘Oh really, Rumpole. And what tribunal are you talking about?’
‘I am talking, my dear Featherstone, about your wife Marigold.’
And then I told him about the serious charges laid against him, matters which his wife hadn’t seen fit to mention in the privacy of their home, and the embarrassing divorce case she was planning. And I was the only advocate with the smallest chance of winning him a verdict of not guilty, I pointed out, and he saw the force of the argument, that continued prattle about there being no room for Rumpole in Chambers was a foolish waste of time.
Featherstone sat with his jaw dropped and a glassy look in his eye. He seemed to see the distant vision of Mr Justice Featherstone in scarlet and ermine vanish before his eyes.
‘Marigold can’t have seen me,’ he tried to argue hopelessly, ‘in the perfume department.’
‘She has the evidence of her own eyes,’ I assured him. ‘I’m afraid she’s prepared to believe them.’
‘Or in the restaurant?’ he added hopefully.
‘There the prosecution relies on her brother’s testimony.’
‘Tom must have been mistaken.’
‘Unlikely. And even if he were…’
‘Yes?’
‘In view of the nature of the tribunal, I think he’s likely to be believed.’ As with all clients, it was better to point out the worst of the case to Featherstone. Then he would be more grateful for any small success I might achieve.
‘Rumpole. I rely on you.’ He looked at me in a beseeching sort of way.
‘I know.’
‘Marigold simply won’t discuss the matter with me. She’s hardly spoken for the last ten days.’
‘So you want me to defend you?’ I appeared to be thinking the matter over.
‘Please, Rumpole.’ His dependence on me was almost endearing. I have always found it hard to actually dislike my clients, so I gave him the benefit of my advice and experience.
‘Nothing’s so unconvincing as a bare denial. That’s what I told Bertie Timson.’
‘Who the hell’s Bertie Timson?’
‘Oh, just one of my other villains,’ I told him casually, at which Featherstone protested.
‘Rumpole!’
‘The old darling stands accused of carrying house-breaking instruments by night. “Come out with a bare denial,” I told Bertie, “and no one believes you.” Now if the truth of the matter is that you were in the perfume department…’ I brought the general principle back to fit the specific facts in Featherstone v. Featherstone.
‘But there is some quite innocent explanation!’ Featherstone was taking to the life of crime like a duck to water.
‘And for you sitting in the restaurant with whoever it was?’ I asked.
‘Does Marigold know who it was?’ he asked with terror in his voice, seeing a scandal approaching which would involve the whole of Chambers.
‘Not by name. She says she was a floosie. Some little tart from the King’s Road,’ I reassured him.
‘Oh, Rumpole,’ Featherstone said in a voice of doom. ‘It was Phillida…’
‘Can you possibly mean Miss Phillida Trant, ll.b. (Hons.) of London University, member of this distinguished Chambers?’ I asked incredulously, turning the knife in the self-inflicted wound.
‘Yes, Rumpole. I’m afraid that’s exactly who it was.’
‘Then if there is an innocent explanation…?’ I put the situation before him, in all its seriousness. ‘You must let me come out with it. Otherwise I don’t give a toss for your chances, quite frankly.’
‘Of course, Rumpole. An entirely innocent explanation,’ Featherstone assured me, somewhat desperately.
‘We could call Miss Phillida Trant to give evidence. I imagine she’s a witness who would carry a good deal of weight, even with the most obstinate tribunal.’
‘Well, no.’ Featherstone was doubtful. ‘No, I don’t think we could really ask Phillida.’
As with Bertie Timson, I saw the red light at once. There is no course more fatal to the defence than calling an unhelpful witness. However, I did my best to fill Featherstone with a sense of urgency. ‘Your lady wife says she’ll be back to speak to me.’
‘Tell her, Rumpole!’ He was beseeching me now. ‘She’ll listen to you. I’m sure she’ll listen.’
‘Tell her? Of course I’ll tell her, I’ll put your case to her. Fair and square. The only problem is, Featherstone, my old darling defendant…’
‘Yes?’
‘As yet I have absolutely no idea what your case is.’
There was a long pause and then he said, ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Well, you’d better think quickly,’ I.warned him. ‘Marigold will be here in exactly a week’s time.’
In the interim my instructing solicitor, young Michael Mow-bray, visited the village near to which the Hon. Rory Canter had farmed almost a thousand acres of rich and productive Hampshire countryside. He drove up to the farmhouse of mature and sunlit Georgian brick, he admired the newly painted white gates and gleaming farm machinery, he saw how sleek and well the black and white cows appeared to be as they were driven to the milking machines, and how neatly and in what good time the fields were ploughed. He also noticed that such farm workers as he saw looked young and intelligent and quite unlike the usual Hampshire labourer.
Having taken a view of the property, Mowbray had a pint of beer and a plate of bread and cheese in the local pub, The Baptist’s Head. There he heard that Fineacre Farm had been taken over by a foreign company, the exact nature of which was unknown to the red-faced, panting landlord, but which seemed to employ a work force of young people who kept themselves a great deal to themselves and were an absolute dead loss as customers. More than that my instructing solicitor could not learn, so he left, having promised to come back at an early date and sample the landlord’s Cordon Bleu French dinner, which featured chicken boiled in red wine, frozen vegetables and the Gastronomic Gateau Trolley - a promise which Mike Mowbray, who despite his deep and long-lasting friendship with Ken Cracknell was a young man of some taste and discernment, had no intention of keeping.
He drove next to the neighbouring town and sought five minutes with the local solicitor, who happened to employ as London agents the firm where Mowbray had served his articles. He said he had a client, and hinted at untold wealth and Arab connections, who was interested in buying the Fineacre property. The elderly partner smiled, shook his head and said he doubted very much if the present owners would sell. He himself had acted in the rather unusual transaction by which they had acquired the farm from Rory Canter. From him Mowbray was able to discover who these owners were, and when he passed the information on to me, I was more eager than ever for the date of the Simpson trial, and to pass on the facts I had collected to an Old Bailey jury.
‘In my humble submission to the Court… I’m sorry, I mean to you, Mrs Featherstone… you have absolutely no reason for a divorce, or indeed to feel any emotion except… conjugal love… and gratitude towards my client. I mean your husband.’
Before tackling the problems of Percival Simpson, I had Guthrie Featherstone’s defence to take care of, and I was engaged on pleading his cause, based on the new and ingenious set of instructions he had given me after our preliminary conference. As I opened the proceedings I saw the tribunal looking distinctly frosty. It was as I had feared all along: Mrs Marigold Featherstone was going to prove a hard nut to crack, and she was as unsmiling as a Methodist Magistrate faced with a bad case of flashing in Chapel.
‘What should I say? “Thank you very much, Guthrie, for messing about with a floosie”?’
‘And on that charge I shall be able to demonstrate that Guthrie Featherstone, Q.c, m.p., is entirely innocent,’ I assured the Court.
‘Innocent!’ The voice of Marigold Featherstone was the voice of scorn.
‘Oh yes. All men are innocent until they’re p
roven guilty.’ I thought I’d better remind her of the proud principle of British justice.
‘Well, he is “proven guilty”, as you call it, by the evidence of my own eyes. And of Tom’s eyes.’
You see what she was like? She was of the stuff of which Judge Bullingham was made, with his talent for taking every possible point against the defence.
I came in from another angle and said quietly, ‘Mrs Feather- stone. When is your wedding anniversary?’
‘Next month. The twenty-first. Guthrie always forgets it.’
‘Well, this year he didn’t forget it. He remembered it, most devotedly. Tell me, Mrs Featherstone, do you like “Ma Ten-- dresse” perfume?’
I could see the question had surprised her, but she answered impatiently, ‘I have absolutely no idea. I have never tried it.’
‘Then it will be a new experience. Your husband hopes you’ll find it enjoyable,’ I told her quietly. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘He went into Harrods to buy you a large bottle of “Ma Tendresse” as a present for your wedding day.’
The Court thought this over, appeared to reflect, but then said, with a first appearance of doubt, ‘But Tom saw him in the restaurant…’
‘Purely circumstantial evidence,’ I assured her hastily. ‘On which so many people have been wrongly convicted.’
‘You’re not suggesting Tom was mistaken?’ The Court was still hostile, although perhaps less determined.
‘Not in what he saw,’ I said reasonably, ‘but in the inter- pretation to be placed upon it. You see, Guthrie had just slipped into the Trattoria… and he happened to see a lady, a member of the Bar as a matter of fact, waiting for a girl-friend.’
‘A member of the Bar?’ Obviously she hadn’t even considered the possibility.
‘Oh yes, Mrs Featherstone. A profession open to all sorts and conditions of men and women. He sat down to chat to her, about a case they were involved in, a long firm fraud.’
The First Rumpole Omnibus Page 54