The Queen v. Karl Mullen

by Michael Gilbert

  He thought it was the doctor, but the steps were much more deliberate. When the door opened and the newcomer appeared it turned out to be an elderly coloured gentleman, with a short grizzled beard and gold spectacles. He had apparently come to collect the cloak and wide-awake hat which were hanging behind the door. He said, “If you are waiting for Mr. Mkeba, I must apologise for keeping you. He is quite free now.”

  Tamplin had a reporter’s memory for faces and names. He said, “Surely you are Professor Leon Macheli. Only the other day I was reading an account of the talk you gave at the London School of Economics and there was a photograph of you in the Sentinel.”

  “I’d no idea I was so famous.”

  “Your talk seems to have been well received.”

  “Yes, indeed. The young people showed great interest in what I was able to tell them about conditions in South Africa.”

  “It’s a topic of interest to everyone today. Won’t you sit down for a moment? That is, if you’re not pressed for time.”

  “I’m not pressed for anything these days,” said the Professor with a gentle smile. “Except, if I might be quite frank with you, for money.”

  “You’re not the only one,” said Tamplin. “I don’t want to seem inquisitive, but are the people here able to help you?”

  “Indeed, they are most generous. I hardly know what my wife and I would do without them. Am I right in thinking that it was you who picked up that poor girl?”

  “I and my allies,” said Tamplin. He could see the three boys perched on the railing that ran round Mornington Square. “I don’t think it was anything more than a faint. The doctor will tell us when he comes down. And I imagine they’ve sent for her husband.”

  “Her husband?”

  “Rosemary Herbert’s husband.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve got that quite wrong. The girl upstairs, the one you so kindly picked up, is Rosemary Hartshorn. She’s Captain Hartshorn’s child. His only one and unmarried, as far as I know.”

  “Stupid of me. I must have got the name wrong. But tell me, Professor, why are you hiding your light under a bushel?”

  “My light—?”

  “You’re a well-known man. In your own line, one of the top men.”

  “It’s good of you to say so.”

  “I’d like to say more and I’d like to say it in print.” Tamplin produced his card. “We’re not a national newspaper, but we’re the one that most people read in this part of London. We’ve not got so many celebrities living among us that we can disregard one when he does arrive. If you could spare me the time, I’d like to do a piece about your work.”

  “Well, really,” said the Professor, clearly delighted. “I should surmise that you are much busier than I am. But if you would really like to come and have a talk I can show you some papers and photographs which your readers might find interesting.”

  “I’ve got one or two things on my plate at the moment, but I should be free of them after the weekend.”

  Also, though he did not mention this, he disliked working on Saturday since he turned out for the extra ‘A’ Team of the South-West London Rugby Football Club.

  “Should we say Monday morning, then?”

  “Eleven o’clock. Right. Excellent. And that sounds like the doctor coming down. Now we’ll find out what’s what.”

  The doctor was a plump and cheerful young man more interested, at that stage in his career, in fast cars than in medicine. Also he knew Tamplin well, having fought out many bouts with him on the dart-board in the saloon bar of the Dick Whittington.

  He said, “Surprise, surprise. So you were the hero of this episode.”

  “Nothing very heroic. How is the girl?”

  “Fine. She’ll do all right now.” The doctor seemed to imply that the sight of his cheerful face had effected a medical miracle. “She talks about some sort of explosion inside her head. Could be imagination. Psychosomatic. There’s a lot of it about.”

  Tamplin saw the doctor to his car, said to the boys, “It’s all right. I haven’t forgotten you,” and went back to the house. The Professor, as he was leaving, said, “I’m afraid I haven’t a card of my own. But I’ve written down my address and telephone number.”

  “Splendid,” said Tamplin. “Until eleven o’clock Monday, then.” He watched the Professor drift off and made his way into the house, where he stood for a moment listening.

  Every journalistic instinct that he possessed told him that there was something odd about the Orange Consortium, something that would repay investigation. He was convinced by now that it had no connection with the import or export of fruit. The place gave him the impression of an army headquarters with staff officers in residence. The burly character who had carried off Rosemary had emerged from a door on the first-floor landing. A count of windows had shown four storeys above the ground-floor office, which suggested accommodation for five or six residents. A busy headquarters, he thought. A cosy little self-contained unit. What sort of mischief were they up to? And what about the girl whose name was Hartshorn, but called herself Herbert? He had a shrewd idea of how she had acquired her monumental headache and if he was right it raised a number of further questions; questions which, he realised, no one in that building was going to answer.

  He made his way back into the small outer office and took down the blue book which he had started to look at. The commission, which the Commonwealth Relations Office had set up in conjunction with the Treasury, had been formed to deal with the financial and political crisis which had been created by the unwillingness of foreign banks in 1985 to roll over outstanding credits to South Africa. Tamplin had only time to glance at the index and read a couple of pages when, thinking he heard someone coming, he replaced the book hastily and moved over to the window.

  Two young men were coming up the front steps, students he guessed from the provocatively untidy way in which they were dressed. The larger of the two, who had a mop of fair hair, was limping.

  They did not pause at the front door, but came straight in and climbed the stairs. He heard them knock on the door on the first landing and a murmur of voices. Friends, it seemed, of the large character who had taken charge of Rosemary. He was returning to the bookcase when a clatter of descending footsteps announced a new arrival – this time it was the Captain.

  “Well,” he said, “you’ll be glad to hear that my daughter is back on her feet again.” He had left the door open and the suggestion that it was time for Tamplin to go was clear, if unspoken.

  “I am indeed glad to hear it,” said Tamplin. “And my only reason for staying so long is that I’m holding what you might call a proxy for the boys. The fact is, they want their blanket back.”

  “Good heavens! Of course. I’d forgotten. They shall have it.”

  When the Captain reappeared with the blanket he produced three pound coins. He said, “Would you, as their representative, give one to each of the boys, together with my thanks.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Tamplin.

  The boys seemed more relieved at getting the blanket back – it had been ‘borrowed’ by Ginger from his parents’ bedroom – than they were excited by the money. However, they cheered up when Tamplin suggested a visit to one of the teashops in Goswell Road. An explorer’s lunch of sandwiches had left a void which needed filling. Fortified by buns, the boys were very willing to speculate about the Orange Consortium, but were a bit short on facts.

  The blond boy, who was the only one who lived in the immediate neighbourhood, agreed that it was an odd set-up because, although he had seen a lot of people going in and out (‘blacks and whites’) there had been no sign of the vans and lorries which should have indicated a trade in fruit. He said that he’d heard that they’d once had a visit from the police.

  This sounded more promising, but it seemed that it had only been connected with complaints by the neighbours about late-night parties. “It’s that big buster,” said the blond boy. “He’s a weight-lifter, or sumpun. He’s got
a lot of big tough friends.”

  It was time to get back to work. Tamplin left behind enough money to pay the bill and to cover a further round of buns and departed amid expressions of gratitude.

  11

  The offices of the Highside Times and Journal were a modest set of rooms in the Pentonville Road. Gilbert Glaister, who was both editor and part proprietor of the paper, listened patiently to what Fred Tamplin had to say. He was patient because he realised that Fred was really a cut above them and would leave them, sooner or later, for one of the national papers.

  Tamplin said, “I think I know what happened to Miss Hartshorn/Herbert. In my last job one of our youngsters was doing a bit of industrial espionage on the side. He got caught the same way. It made him deaf for a week.”

  “Who do you imagine that girl was spying on?”

  “If I’m right about what the Orange crowd are up to, it was probably one of the official or semi-official South African outfits.”

  “It’s odd you should say that,” said Mr. Glaister, turning over the papers on his untidy desk. “I’ve got something here Bonnie put in—” Bonnie Parker was the female half of his reporting staff. “Yes. Here it is. She looked in at the Mullen hearing at Bow Street. I couldn’t use it, because of the reporting ban, but it seems that Crown Counsel really rocked Mullen by putting to him something he was supposed to have said to Yule – he’s Head of Security. Yule denied it, so it didn’t come to anything, but Bonnie got the impression that Yule was lying and it had been said.”

  “It adds up,” said Tamplin. “All the same, it seems a bit offside. I mean, it’s the sort of thing the defence might do, using a spy to worm out awkward stuff, in an effort to help their client, but surely not the prosecution. Not the Crown. They’re meant to play straight down the middle.”

  The two men looked at each other. Both had glimpsed the possibilities, the dangerous and exciting possibilities behind the story that chance had tossed to them. Finally Mr. Glaister said, “You commented just now that it ‘all added up’. What I’m wondering is just what it does add up to. Is it the beginning of an official drive to crucify Mullen – howled on by the popular press? That must be what the Sentinel thinks. They’ve floated out a decoy duck and I’d guess the hidden guns are all ready to open fire.”

  He pushed across a copy of that day’s issue of the Sentinel. “It’s in the correspondence column. I’ve never seen anything more deliberately provocative in my life.”

  To the Editor:

  Dear Sir,

  I happened to be in Court at Bow Street on Monday when Karl Mullen, a South African diplomat, was being charged with some offence. I cannot be more precise about it, since the details were never explained to us.

  I am not a lawyer, but I am a close follower of legal cases and it seemed perfectly clear to me that Mr. Mullen should not have been in Court at all. The Ambassador had stated that he was a member of his staff and that being so, by all existing rules and understandings, he was exempt from legal process in our Courts. I do not pretend that I am enamoured of this principle. It is irritating when a hundred minor functionaries park in prohibited spots and escape paying a fine. But the principle has long been established on grounds of international amity and reciprocal treatment and if ever there was a case in which it should have been respected, this surely was one such. Mr. Mullen is a man of standing in his own country and is here on an important mission. This seemed to provoke the Crown Counsel who indulged in one of the most spiteful and inconsequent cross-examinations that I have ever listened to. But this was not what I found most objectionable.

  No, sir. What alarmed and upset me was the attitude of the presiding Magistrate. He should, above all things be, and be seen to be, impartial. He may not approve, personally, of the policies of the present South African government, but this does not in any way excuse his conduct. He had demonstrated his bias on a previous occasion by criticising South African justice. Now he showed his feelings even more clearly by constantly interrupting what the accused was trying to say, by adopting a hectoring tone towards him and by addressing him, without courtesy, as ‘Mullen’, as though he had been proved to be a common sneak thief

  No doubt the Divisional Court will put him right on the law. The press, I think, should correct his manners.

  I am, sir, yours faithfully,

  Lover of Justice (Name and address supplied)

  “Sailing pretty close to the wind,” said Tamplin.

  “I don’t think they can do him for contempt. He takes care to mention that he is not discussing the rights and wrongs of the case. No. It’s quite clear what the Sentinel is up to. As soon as that letter is read, you can bet your boots they’ll have forty or fifty answers to it. All of them anti-Mullen. Some will be from people who don’t like to see our legal system criticised. Some from anti-apartheid fanatics and a few from people who were actually in Court and will know – from what Bonnie has told me – that in fact the Magistrate behaved well, under considerable provocation.”

  “And once the hunt is up, the other papers will follow.”

  “I’d guess so.”

  “And us?”

  “Playing tail-end Charlie to the big boys isn’t going to get us anywhere. That’s clear. What we have to do is get some facts. If the facts turn out to be in Mullen’s favour, we publish them.”

  “Lovely,” said Tamplin. “We can be on the unpopular side for once.”

  “I don’t object to being unpopular,” said Mr. Glaister. “I only object to bankruptcy. By which I mean, carry on, but watch your step.”

  “Discretion shall be my watchword.”

  “Where were you planning to start?”

  “I’ve got a date with Professor Leon Macheli on Monday. Incidentally, he’d be worth writing up on his own accord. I understand he really is a top expert on the structure of crystals. He published a book last year called A Study of Cleavages.”

  “It must have had a terrific sale,” said Glaister.

  When Fred Tamplin left the headquarters of the Orange Consortium and drove off with the three boys he was under observation from the window of the top-storey flat. Rosemary was lying back in a chair by the fire, recovered from her experiences except for an occasional ‘ping’ inside her head, as though someone was touching off a bicycle bell. Andrew Mkeba was watching her anxiously. He seemed to feel more responsibility than Rosemary’s father for what had happened.

  The Captain was looking out of the window. He said, “There he goes. A real sticker, that young man.”

  “Who? The one who brought Rosemary back?”

  “Curious about us, too. He spent part of his time in our outer office reading one of the blue books. How do I know? Because he put it back in the wrong place and upside down.”

  “He probably read it to pass the time.”

  “Maybe. You can never tell with these newspaper men.”

  “He was—?”

  “That’s right. A reporter on the local rag. It’s on his car.”

  Rosemary, who had been listening to this, sat up and said, “Do you mean he’s going to make a story out of it.”

  “I hope not. But I did overhear the doctor talking to him. A bit indiscreet for a medico, I thought. No sign of outside damage, he said, but an explosion inside the head. Well, that’s not a newspaper story by itself. But it would become one if they could link it back to Yule’s office.”

  “All I want to know,” said Mkeba explosively, “is what we’re going to do to that bastard. He hit her, didn’t he? Cut her cheek. In the presence of two witnesses. That’s assault. Maybe grievous bodily harm. We should report him to the police. Prefer charges.”

  “There are two very good reasons,” said the Captain calmly, “for doing nothing of the sort. The first is that it would give the press a straight lead back to Axe Lane. Which, as you’d have heard, if you’d been listening to me, is just the thing we don’t want. The second reason is even more important. When we got Rosemary her job we had to fake up a P45 for
m in the name of Rosemary Herbert. Details of last job, name of employer, date of leaving and so on. That’s so that they could get her tax code right. Well, I needed help for that and got an old friend of mine in the City to co-operate. If we now have to reveal that Miss Herbert is really Miss Hartshorn and had never been employed by this other firm – and if we started proceedings that would almost certainly come out – then my obliging friend would get into trouble. Serious trouble.”

  “We mustn’t do that,” said Rosemary. “I mean, I wasn’t really hurt.”

  Mkeba was still out for blood. Someone’s blood. He said, “I’ll tip off Boyo. If that reporter comes sniffing round here he’ll get something to remember us by.”

  “No,” said Hartshorn. “I don’t think I’d do that, Andrew. It’s only a side issue. Let’s keep our guns pointed at the target we really want to hit. Mr. Karl Mullen.”

  “What I’d really like to do,” said Mkeba, “is give him a touch of his own pencil drill.”

  On Saturday morning, over breakfast in his digs, Fred Tamplin studied the correspondence columns of the Sentinel. He saw exactly what his editor had meant. A comment at the head of the column said, ‘We have received forty-eight letters in reply to the one we published on Wednesday from a Lover of Justice. Forty-seven of them were hostile to the opinions he expressed. We have, of course, been careful to exclude from publication any which expressed views on the actual case, or those which were extreme in their wording, but the following will give our readers a sample of public opinion on this interesting case.’

  If the half-dozen letters which followed were among the most reasonable, thought Tamplin, the others must have been fairly hot.

  To the Editor:

  Dear Sir,

  My friends sometimes accuse me of being a chauvinist. This odd French word has had many different translations. To me it means, quite simply, that I put my own country first. The writer of the letter which you saw fit to publish last Wednesday apparently puts his own country last. And not only last, but behind a country like South Africa which has affronted every canon of civilised conduct. The latest sample of its citizenry, a man called Mullen, stands charged with the offence of shop-lifting. It seems that, rather than face this charge squarely, he is now trying to hide behind the doctrine of diplomatic privilege – a privilege developed in an age when one could, at least, rely on diplomats being gentlemen of honour, sent here by countries which respected the rule of law—