Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders (22 page)

All Simon had to say is contained in my account of the meetings with him in the interview room under the Old Bailey, so I needn't repeat his story here. It's enough to say that he admitted he had been extremely foolish when he pointed the gun at his father, but he had never loaded it and, of course, never meant to shoot. Finally I asked, ‘If it were suggested to you that your father attacked you later on that night and you shot him in self-defence, what would you say?'

‘I'd say that was nonsense. He never attacked me and I never shot him. I couldn't have done that and I never did.'

‘And Charles Weston?'

‘I never shot him either.'

Tom Winterbourne, of course, made the most of the fact that Simon never called the police or a doctor as soon as he saw his father bloodstained in the chair. Again Simon said he was worried he'd be blamed for his father's death, and he went for a walk to calm his nerves. If our case was no better after Simon left the witness box, at least it was no worse. I scribbled a quick note of reassurance and gave it to Bonny Bernard to deliver to the dock.

 

‘Two men, two officers in the Royal Air Force, decide that the war is no longer for them. They have become terrified of their nightly raids, risking death, which they feel must come to them in time, over enemy territory - fighting a war they are sure is lost and in which they can no longer believe. Can you not understand, members of the jury, how anything, even a prisoner-of-war camp, seemed safer than that? So they planned to surrender. Was it prearranged with someone working for the enemy, or did they just think it would be enough to come out of the plane with their hands in the air? Whatever the plan, it's clear, isn't it, that David Galloway didn't agree with it, so he had to die. The story that he was the only one of the three to be caught in a burning plane may seem as implausible to you as it did to Peter Benson. So Peter Benson believed that both Jerold and Weston were traitors, who might well have been responsible for the death of his friend. In wartime they would have been executed as traitors. In these days of peace, did he decide to become their executioner? That night presented him with a remarkable opportunity. It offered him a gun and a magazine. More than that, it offered him young Simon Jerold, whom everyone had heard threatening to kill his father. The execution of Jerry Jerold and “Tail-End” Charlie would certainly be blamed on Simon. So he talked about execution after the young man had gone to bed. You'll remember the witness Dempsy, who heard him. And so he returned later that night and shot both the men as they opened their doors to him. Shot them through the heart as they stood in their hallways, in the way the medical evidence and the positions of the bloodstains have been made clear to you.'

I had, of course, got to know the jury well during our days in court together. There was one red-faced, grey-haired man who smiled at the faintest approach to a joke, and I felt sure he was on my side. And there was a hawk-nosed, tweezer-lipped woman who never smiled whom I took to be the leader of the opposition. My task was to convert Tweezer Lips and strengthen Red Face with persuasive arguments to use in the jury room.

‘Members of the jury, I don't have to prove my case against Peter Benson. He has chosen to run away and hide from this court, and that fact may persuade you that he has something serious to hide. The question you have to ask yourselves is that, given all this evidence, including the fact that he was the last person to be seen with the gun, is it possible that he committed the Penge Bungalow Murders? If you, as we would say you must, come to the conclusion that he is very possibly the murderer, then you can't be sure of Simon Jerold's guilt and it will be your duty, and I'm sure your pleasure, to return a verdict of “not guilty”.'

None too soon, I reached the peroration. ‘In a day or two this case will be over. It's taken up just over two weeks of your lives. Soon you'll go back to your jobs and you won't have to think any more about the Penge bungalows and the Luger pistol, the magazine and the bloodstains in the hall. This case is only a small part of your lives. But for that young man sitting there in the dock -' here I swung round and pointed at Simon - ‘it's the whole of his life that's at stake. And I put that young life with confidence in your hands.'

So I sat down and felt, as I have since in so many cases, an extraordinary feeling of relief, as though some unbearably heavy load had been lifted from my shoulders. I had done all I could for Simon and my job was over. Now it was for the jury to decide. The Penge Bungalow Murders case was out of my control entirely. It was with a curious sense of detachment that I listened to the judge's summing up.

 

‘Mr Rumpole,' he told the jury, and by then my name came quite easily to him, ‘has provided little evidence of Benson's guilt. However, you are entitled to take into account the fact that he fled from that witness box and has, apparently, gone into hiding. That may or may not be a manifestation of guilt, it's for you to decide. You can take into account all the other matters that emerged from the prosecution witnesses, the fact that Benson quarrelled with the deceased Jerold, his use of the word “execution” and so on. Mr Rumpole is right in telling you that if you think there is a real possibility that Benson shot them, you can't be sure of Simon Jerold's guilt. Remember, members of the jury, our law has always held that it's a greater horror for an innocent man to be convicted than that someone who may be guilty goes free.'

He took snuff then, but I felt I could have run up to the bench and hugged him, or at least shaken the hand which had carried the brown powder to the judicial nose. I, of course, restrained myself, and the jury were sent out looking, some of them at least, as though they were worrying about what the word ‘manifestation' might mean.

 

‘Have I got a chance, Mr Rumpole? That's all I want to know.'

‘Of course you've got a chance. The judge's summing up was very fair. Quite favourable to us in fact.'

‘Is it a real chance? Tell me the truth.'

‘I'm telling you the truth. It's a real chance.'

The self-possessed Simon we had seen in the witness box had gone, disappeared completely, and he had drifted back to the Simon we first met, a creature already halfway out of this world, with his eyes full of terror. My detachment had gone and, although there was nothing more I could do, I felt the full weight of responsibility again. I saw nothing ahead but the impossible task of saying goodbye to him after a guilty verdict.

‘Do
you
think I've got a chance?' Simon had turned, in his despair, to Bonny Bernard.

‘You've got a good chance. Mr Rumpole's given you the best chance possible.'

‘Is it the truth? You're not just saying that?'

‘No, Simon, it's the truth.'

‘I can't believe you.' And young Simon Jerold closed his eyes, as though not daring to look at the events to come.

After we left him Bonny Bernard and I sat in the canteen, our stomachs awash with coffee and our fears growing. The jury had been out nearly three hours, a long time in those days, and then, as now, a prolonged retirement was not good news for the defence. Bernard told me that his principal, Barnsley Gough, would be coming down. We tried to discuss the case, or other cases we might perhaps do together. And then such topics dried up and we sat in silence until, at very long last, the message came, the jury was coming back to Court Number One with a verdict.

The courtroom was gradually filling with the principal players in our two-and-a-bit-week drama. Simon was brought up from the cells and sat between the dock officers, staring at his hands as though afraid to look up. Hilda smiled down at me from the public gallery and raised her thumbs as a sign of encouragement, and then an extraordinary thing happened: Hilda's daddy, C. H. Wystan, wigged and gowned as though he had been fighting the case, slid into the seat in front of me just as the jury came clattering back into their places. The clerk of the court rose to ask the final question. Hope drained away from me like cold bathwater and I was sure the answer would be fatal.

‘Will your foreman please stand?'

Neither Red Face nor Tweezer Lips rose to their feet. Instead an unremarkable sandy-haired man in the front row stood up.

‘Have you reached a verdict on which you are all agreed?'

‘We have, My Lord.'

‘And do you find Simon Jerold guilty or not guilty of wilful murder?'

‘Not guilty, My Lord.'

Of course I couldn't believe it at first; neither could Simon, who was looking round the court in amazement. The press benches emptied as the reporters ran out to queue for the telephones. And then, to my further amazement, C. H. Wystan rose in front of me and addressed the judge. ‘May my client be released, My Lord?' He spoke with great authority, as though he'd pulled off a remarkable triumph.

‘Certainly, Mr Wystan. It's good to see you back. Release the prisoner.'

‘I'm much obliged, My Lord.'

The judge had spoken, and my part in the Penge Bungalow trial was over.

24

It was, I suppose, one of the best days in a long life when Simon Jerold, free and innocent, came out of the entrance of the Old Bailey, blinking in the light of the last autumn sun and the flashing of many press photographers. He was accompanied and closely attended by his one-time leading counsel, C. H. Wystan, QC. They were closely followed by our instructing solicitor, Barnsley Gough, whose moustached lips were stuck in a triumphant grin. Bringing up the rear of this procession came the foot soldiers, who had stood in the front line of the battle, myself and Bonny Bernard.

We stopped on the pavement outside the old Palais de Justice and Simon turned to me, holding out his hand, and I took it. He seemed dazed, as anyone might be who, having been sent down to hell, is suddenly told to clear off to the world above and get on with his life.

‘How can I thank . . .' he began, with no clear idea of how to end the sentence.

‘No need,' I told him. ‘Absolutely no need at all. It's enough satisfaction that you've won the case.'

As the palms of our hands, now dry, were joined, the cameras flashed in my direction. They were accompanied by a word of warning from C. H. Wystan.

‘Allowing yourself to be photographed for the daily press, Rumpole, is not in the finest traditions of our great profession.'

‘You weren't exactly camera-shy, were you, my absent leader?' was what I didn't say.

While this was going on, a happily smiling Joanie had emerged from the court and, taking Simon's arm, steered him towards the taxi Barnsley Gough had hired on the Legal Aid to take Simon back to the lonely bungalow and out of my life.

There was the loud roar of a powerful motorbike as Tom Winterbourne sped past us, no doubt in pursuit of the thoroughly bad men and women in the world.

‘Well done, Rumpole. Well done, indeed!' It was Hilda Wystan, down from the public gallery and apparently in a mood of euphoria. ‘Are you walking back to chambers? I know Daddy wants a serious word with you.'

‘He's already had one. About not getting my photograph in the paper.'

‘Oh, much more serious than that! I'll have to go back to my boring secretarial course this afternoon. But not for long, I hope and pray. Certainly not for long. Tell you what, I'll walk you up to the Temple.'

So Hilda and I walked from Ludgate Circus, the route I had taken after our breakfast in the Tastee Bite with such feelings of pessimism and dread. Now I was bursting with pride, prepared to sink a whole bottle of Château Thames Embankment in Pommeroy's and perform a ritual dance of triumph on the lawns of the Temple gardens, with all the astonished members of the bar, white and dirty-grey wigs, leaning out of their open windows to applaud me. A serious talk with Hilda's daddy in his room in chambers seemed a poor sort of celebration.

‘Don't worry about it.' Hilda was clearly doing her best to cheer me up when we parted. ‘It's just one of those formalities we have to go through. Daddy's not going to eat you, Rumpole.'

I never thought he was. It was Hilda's use of the word ‘we' that I found a little confusing. Hilda clearly hadn't been invited to the summit meeting in her father's room. She peeled off at the entrance to Equity Court with a wave and wished me luck.

As I went into the door of Equity Court chambers Teddy Singleton, swinging his rolled umbrella and wearing his velvet-collared overcoat, came out. ‘Are you up for a little chat with the old Wistful?' he asked me. ‘Ready to start a “fun chambers” outside the Temple area?' and then went off laughing, having bestowed no kiss upon me. As I went down the passage, Albert Handyside emerged from the clerk's room, closed the door behind him and offered me, again no kiss, but more well-meaning advice.

‘That was a good win, Mr Rumpole. A truly remarkable win. My sincere advice as a clerk with some thirty years, man and boy, of clerking in the Temple is to play it down, Mr Rumpole. Try not to refer to it in conversation. Don't smirk about it. Do your level best not to boast.'

‘Do you really mean that?' I have to confess I was disappointed. ‘I had been looking forward to a good many years of boasting about the part I played in the Penge Bungalow Murders.'

‘You pulled off a good win, Mr Rumpole. Solicitors don't always like men at the bar who pull off a good win.'

‘You mean solicitors like to lose cases? I must confess the idea hadn't occurred to me.'

‘They've usually advised their clients that the case presents various difficulties and they can't hold out much hope. They don't like to be taken by surprise.'