The Queen v. Karl Mullen

by Michael Gilbert

  “You mean, in order to be prejudiced.”

  “Don’t take it out of me, my boy. I’m older than John and more broad-minded.”

  “Then you don’t want me to tell Mullen to go somewhere else? There are firms in the City who would jump at the case.”

  “No doubt. Particularly since Mullen will have South African government money behind him. No. All I’m saying at the moment is, cross the first bridge first. The diplomatic point is a very interesting one. No one could blame us for pursuing that, and Counsel will make a meal of it.”

  “I’m glad you’re not ordering me off altogether,” said Roger. “I’ve had a six-page letter from my son, at St. Paul’s. Harriet must have told him about the case. He was tremendously bucked that I was acting for a character like Mullen. He said that it showed that the law of England was old enough and steady enough to stand up for unpopular people.”

  “That sounds like a quotation.”

  “It is. I got it from one of Marshall Fitzhugh’s speeches and put it in one of my letters to him. Now he’s played it back to me.”

  “It’s a curious thing,” said Mr. Banting, “how children are always far to the left of their parents.”

  The headlines in the Evening Standard had caught the eye of other, more influential, people.

  The News Editor of the Sentinel, that bible of the radical intelligentsia, said to his deputy, “What’s all this about?”

  “South Africa,” said the deputy.

  “Explain.”

  “Old Lauderdale had obviously heard that Mullen was a South African policeman and therefore naturally a Beast of Belsen and took the first opportunity of tearing a strip off him.”

  “Will it develop?”

  By this the News Editor meant, as his deputy well understood, will there be a fruitful fall-out from which subsequent stories can be garnered, one leading to another, until it finally peters out in the correspondence columns having fulfilled the destiny of News which is to occupy the maximum amount of space with the minimum of readership boredom?

  “I think it might come along nicely,” said his deputy. “Anything to do with police brutality is news.”

  “You think so?”

  “Well, isn’t it?”

  “It’s news of a sort,” said the Editor, “but is it vital news? Is it the sort of thing that stirs the heart of the great British public? Because in my experience the heart of the great British public is about as difficult to stir as my grandmother’s Christmas puddings.”

  “Then you think that it’s only category ‘B’ stuff?” He was disappointed, but willing to learn.

  “The top of category ‘B’, certainly. But you’ll soon find out that category ‘A’ news – the stuff that gets right home to readers – has to be something that worries them. A lot of people are interested in South Africa. I’m not denying it. They read about the sort of things that are going on in there and they say, ‘bloody bad show, killing women and children’, and then they get on with something that really interests them, golf or bridge or whatever. Dean Swift had the right of it. What a newspaper man he’d have made, if he hadn’t happened to be a clergyman! You remember his poem about the old ladies chatting over their cards? ‘My female friends . . . Receive the news in doleful dumps. The Dean is dead (and what is trumps?)’.”

  “Then what do you put in category ‘A’?”

  “Well, take the King’s Cross disaster. That was news. After all, any one of our readers might have been on that train and could be on the next one. Or the two planes which collided outside Heathrow. That sort of thing. I was a boy in the thirties and I can tell you this. Every single thing that Adolf Hitler said or did was top news. Why? Because young men could see it leading them straight back to the Somme and Passchendaele.”

  “I understand that,” said his deputy reluctantly, “but surely if people in this country aren’t worried enough about South Africa, isn’t it our duty to do something about it? Oughtn’t we to be leading public opinion, not following behind it?”

  He was not long down from Cambridge and still retained some of his light-blue idealism.

  His opposite number on that popular sheet, The Comet, saw the headlines. He said to his deputy, “Lauderdale had better be careful. He’ll be in trouble with the Lord Chancellor if he starts shooting his mouth off.”

  The matter was also under discussion at West End Central Police Station, where Chief Inspector Ancrum had received a visit from Chief Superintendent Baron, Head of the Special Branch.

  Ancrum said, “Sheridan is a very experienced officer. I don’t think he had any option. Once he heard that Mullen had nearly made a break for it he had to take him along. Of course, he was given bail as soon as the formalities were finished.”

  “Who said he nearly made a break for it?”

  “That was old Ratter. He works for City Tecs now.”

  “Ratter? Do you mean a fat chap who used to be in ‘V’ Division at Wimbledon?”

  “That’s the one. They got a new Assistant Commissioner in No. 1 District – as it was then. He was dead nuts on physical fitness. Mile runs before breakfast. The Monty touch. Ratter didn’t go for that at all. He said if he tried to run a hundred yards he’d die, so he got out.”

  “But apart from his weight problem, you’d say he was a reliable man?”

  “Reliable and experienced.”

  Baron said, “I’m not criticising what Sheridan did. I don’t think he had any option. What I’m saying is that when a case has a political angle to it, you have to be dead careful.”

  “If there is a political angle,” said Ancrum, “the case goes straight to you. It’s the sort of thing you’re paid to look after.”

  6

  On the following morning Captain Hartshorn walked down from Mornington Square into the City. It was lovely autumn weather and he was in no hurry. He enjoyed the City at weekends when the streets were almost empty, when the towering business blocks had been deserted by the black-coated, striped-trousered lemmings and the shops and cafés which catered for them were mostly shut.

  Of set purpose he directed his course more to the west than he need have done. Crossing Smithfield Market and steering by the dome of St. Paul’s he came out at the point where Newgate Street meets Paternoster Row. He had heard a lot from his daughter about Fischer Yule’s office, but had not yet seen it himself. His present intention was to fix its location in his own mind and to see whether it would be possible to have it watched.

  As he swung into Cheapside he noticed, ahead of him, the trim figure of a black girl. He slowed his pace and kept his eye on her until she turned left into Axe Lane. By the time he reached the corner she was on the point of running up the two or three steps which led to the front entrance of what he guessed, correctly, to be the headquarters of the South African Security Section. He knew that it was open on Saturday mornings, though only for the convenience of the top brass. Typists and secretaries were not expected to attend. This meant that he had no means of finding out what went on there on that day. A pity, he thought, since discussions held in such circumstances could well be important.

  He decided that it would be imprudent to show himself in Axe Lane and continued on his way down Cheapside towards Basinghall Street.

  The legal firm of Angel and Auchstraw had its modest office on the top storey of a building in Basinghall Street, with its back windows overlooking the Mansion House. Though small, its name was well known to a number of the people who worked between Temple Bar and Aldgate Pump. They referred to it as the Angel Orchestra. Its activities had been commented on more than once by the police in private; and publicly by judges who are, of course, privileged. The firm was Roland Auchstraw. No one had ever met Mr. Angel and it was generally believed that Auchstraw had invented him, in order to give a certain euphony to the title.

  Captain Hartshorn knew the firm well. Describing it to a friend he had said, ‘Well, all I can tell you about it is that it’s the sort of firm where the partners are a
lways the last to leave in the evening. Before they go they lock up all their records in a safe and put any loose papers through a shredder.’ He might have added that they were one of the few firms that retained the pre-war practice of opening on Saturday mornings since some of the people who visited them preferred to do so when the streets were empty.

  “Nice to see you again, Captain,” said Roland Auchstraw. He was a short, tubby, guileless-looking man who had deliberately cultivated a resemblance to Phiz’s Mr. Pickwick. He had even taken to wearing a pair of small steel-rimmed glasses modelled on the ones shown in these illustrations, though since they were of plain glass it is difficult to see how they assisted his eyesight, which was, in fact, remarkably keen. His opponents in court had learnt to keep their own papers covered after he had won a case by reading the first paragraph in one of their documents that had certainly not been intended for his eyes.

  “Nice to see you, too,” said the Captain. “How’s business?”

  “Slack, very slack. Hard to turn an honest penny these days. I hope you’ve brought me an interesting job. I take it you’re still with your Orange boys.”

  “Certainly. And you can regard them, for these purposes, as your client.”

  Mr. Auchstraw said, “Splendid. Splendid.” It was agreeable when clients came to him well provided with money. This was not always the case, for many of them were legal-aided, but he had acted for the Orange Consortium before and knew something of the ways in which it was fina”I have two immediate jobs for you. May be more to come, as the situation develops.”

  “The situation?” said Mr. Auchstraw thoughtfully.

  Hartshorn knew that it was no use running an ally like Roland Auchstraw in blinkers. He told him the whole story, not even omitting the part played by his daughter and the information he had had from her. Auchstraw listened carefully. The possibilities were clear enough to his observant eye.

  “You’ll appreciate,” said Hartshorn, “that it’s no use having this information unless we can pass it onto the prosecution to help them knock down the plea of diplomatic privilege.”

  “I understand that. But it’s going to need devilish careful handling. If we pass it to some white-wigged junior who’s still wet behind the ears, he won’t have thought out the angles. He’ll just blurt it out and when he’s asked how he got the information he’ll fluff and no one will believe a word he says.”

  “It’s an important case. Do you think they’ll risk giving it to a new boy?”

  “Not probable. But possible. Between you and me, the Crown Prosecutions Service is in a mess. It’s overworked and understaffed. When you think that one Branch Crown Prosecutor has to look after the cases in three busy courts, it’s not surprising that he hardly knows whether it’s Wednesday or Christmas. He’s got a couple of assistant B.C.P.s to help him, but they’re really only office boys. And if,” he added handsomely, “they were half as clever as my office boy, they might be some use to him.”

  “But he can ask for help.”

  “Yes. If he’s modest enough to admit that he’s out of his depth. There’s a stable of barristers available. They class them as Category 1 to 4. Category 4 can be quite hot. Might even be Treasury Counsel.”

  “And since you don’t yet know who’s going to take the case, you can’t prime him.”

  “True. But as soon as I do know I’ll get it to him, I can promise you that. The Crown Prosecutions Service is what you might call a rambling edifice. Thirty-five area branches and all their underlings. And being a rambling edifice it’s got a lot of side doors and back doors. You understand me?”

  “I understand you perfectly,” said Hartshorn. “And I’ve every confidence in you. Now for the second point. I want the headquarters of the South African Security Branch kept under observation until further notice.”

  “Fischer Yule’s outfit.”

  “Right. And I’d guess that he’s chosen his office with an eye to making it difficult to watch. Difficult, that is, without the watchers being noticed. Axe Lane is not the sort of place someone can hang about in all day. He’d be noticed inside five minutes and reported in ten.”

  “Not easy,” agreed Mr. Auchstraw. “Needs thought.”

  From one of his cabinets he had extracted a street guide and a section of the excellent plan which is produced by the Land Registry. It was on a scale large enough to show individual buildings. He said, “Two turnings off Axe Lane. I see. Harnham Court and Deanery Passage. Both running up to big office blocks. They must employ commissionaires.”

  “I don’t think it’s any use approaching them. They’ve already been bought.” He explained the system of alternative exits devised by Yule.

  “Cunning bugger,” said Mr. Auchstraw in tones of warm appreciation. “You know what it means, don’t you? On a weekday, if you wanted to be sure of following anyone coming out, you’d need a team of four permanently on duty. And if you’re wanting to organise permanent observation you’ve only got two options. You could use someone employed in one of the other buildings. Trouble is, the ones on either side are banks. They’re apt to be holier-than-thou. Then there are three buildings on the other side of the road lower down. Numbers 15, 17 and 19. According to this guide they’re all of them occupied by dozens of small outfits. All right. If money’s really no object, I might be able to take a room in one of them on a short let. Say three months. It wouldn’t be cheap, though.”

  “It might not be cheap, And I realise it will involve you in a good deal of work. But if you could manage it, that would be ideal.”

  “We never object to trouble and extra work,” said Mr. Auchstraw, “as long as it helps our clients.” He sounded so benevolent when he said this that Captain Hartshorn found himself listening for a choir of angel voices.

  Other parties were on the move on that fine Saturday morning. Roger set out after breakfast from his top-floor flat in Osnaburgh Terrace, walked the short distance to Warren Street underground station and took a Northern Line train in the direction of Edgware.

  He was impelled by the thought that had been worrying him, on and off, for two days. Overnight it had taken more definite shape and now he fancied that he could track it to its source.

  Nor was he displeased at getting out of the flat. His son, Michael, was home from St. Paul’s for the first long weekend of the autumn term. He had arrived with a split lip and a black eye. (‘Playing against Dulwich. Dirty crowd’) and the conversation had been mostly about rugby football, but Roger had an uneasy feeling that shop-lifting was soon going to surface. It was partly on account of this that he had decided to devote a whole morning to trying to lay a ghost.

  He did not know that he was being followed. The idea had not crossed his mind; nor was there any reason that it should have done.

  The train pottered northward, coming out into the open between Hampstead and Golders Green and finally depositing him at Colindale. He had been worried about getting into the Newspaper Library and was relieved to find that his British Museum reader’s ticket passed him in without trouble.

  The nondescript man who was following him was not so fortunate. Having tried, without success, to sidle past the commissionaire on the door he was forced to hang about outside.

  A helpful assistant dealt with Roger’s enquiry.

  “Oxford,” he said. “City or University?”

  “Could be either.”

  “Then I suggest you consult Willing’s Press Guide. It’s on the shelf over there. It will give you all the names. Do you know the date?”

  Yes, he knew the date. Mullen had said, ‘I came down a year after you did.’ So that must be the year when it happened; if it did.

  He filled in a form and composed himself to wait. His thoughts were not entirely comfortable. Was he, he wondered, behaving like the younger son in the fairy story, who persisted in asking questions, when knowledge was dangerous and ignorance would have been bliss?

  When the heavy, yellowing volumes of old newsprint arrived on a trolley and we
re lifted onto the table in front of him he hesitated for some time before opening them.

  The attendant, coming up behind him, said, “I hope those are the ones you wanted, sir.”

  “Yes,” said Roger. “Those are the ones. Thank you.” He started to read. It took him an hour to find what he wanted.

  When he got back to the flat, still unaware that his movements were of interest to anyone but himself, he found his wife on her own. Michael was at Twickenham, watching the Harlequins play Leicester. This naturally brought them to the subject of black eyes and split lips, but Harriet could see that he was not really interested in mayhem on the rugby field. He had been uneasy when he set out; now he was more than uneasy. He was worried.

  She would dearly have liked to know where he had been and what he had been up to, but unless he chose to tell her she wasn’t going to ask. It was on this basis that a happy marriage had been built during the last eighteen years.

  When Roger was drinking his after-lunch coffee he said, apropos of nothing that had gone before, “I went up to Colindale this morning. The Newspaper Library. It’s an amazing place. They’ve got copies of practically every newspaper that’s been published anywhere in England during the last hundred years and more.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” said Harriet.

  “I’ll tell you what I was looking for. I was trying to run down a memory of something one of my Oxford friends had told me.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “I’m sorry to say I did. It was a single paragraph hidden away in the Oxford News and Journal. A report that an undergraduate of Worcester College called Mullen had pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a book from Messrs. Harmsworths bookshop. In order not to jeopardise his career the court had shown clemency. It had simply bound him over for one year.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that provided he did not offend again for one year, no further action would be taken. Anyway, it was his last year at Oxford.”