There was very little of either in the case which I had been doing in front of the aptly named Mr Justice Graves. Mind you, I would have had a fairly rough ride before the most reasonable of judges. Even some compassionate old darlings like Mr Justice ‘Pussy’ Proudfoot might have regarded my client with something like horror and been tempted to dismiss my speech to the jury as a hopeless attempt to prevent a certain conviction and a probable sentence of not less than thirty years. The murder we had been considering, when we were interrupted by Christmas, had been cold-blooded and merciless, and there was clear evidence that it had been the work of a religious fanatic.
The victim, Honoria Glossop, Professor of Comparative Religions at William Morris University in east London, had been the author of a number of books, including her latest, and last, publication Sanctified Killing – A History of Religious Warfare. She had been severely critical of all acts of violence and aggression – including the Inquisition and the Crusades – committed in the name of God. She had also included a chapter on Islam which spoke scathingly of some Ayatollahs and the cruelties committed by Islamic fundamentalists.
It was this chapter which had caused my client, a young student of computer technology at William Morris named Hussein Khan, to issue a private fatwa. He composed, on one of the university computers, a letter to Professor Glossop announcing that her blasphemous references to the religious leaders of his country deserved nothing less than death – which would inevitably catch up with her. Then he left the letter in her pigeonhole.
It took very little time for the authorship of the letter to be discovered. Hussein Khan was sent down from William Morris and began spending time helping his family in the Star of Persia restaurant they ran in Golders Green. A week later, Professor Glossop, who had been working late in her office at the university, was found slumped across her desk, having been shot at close quarters by a bullet from a revolver of Czech origins, the sort of weapon which is readily and cheaply available in certain south London pubs. Beside her on the desk, now stained with her blood, was the letter containing the sentence of death.
Honoria and her husband Richard ‘Ricky’ Glossop lived in what the estate agents would describe as ‘a three-million-pound townhouse in Boltons’. The professor had, it seemed, inherited a great deal of money from a family business in the Midlands which allowed her to pursue her academic career, and Ricky to devote his life to country sports, without the need for gainful employment. He was clearly, from his photograph in the papers, an outstandingly handsome figure, perhaps five or six years younger than his wife. After her murder, he received, and everyone felt deserved, huge public sympathy. He and Honoria had met when they were both guests on a yacht touring the Greek Islands, and she had chosen him and his good looks in preference to all the available professors and academic authors she knew. In spite of their differences in age and interest, they seemed to have lived happily together for ten years until, so the prosecution said, death overtook Honoria Glossop in the person of my now universally hated client.
Such was the case I was engaged in at the Old Bailey in the runup to Christmas. There were no tidings of great joy to report. The cards were stacked dead against me, and at every stage it looked like I was losing, trumped by a judge who regarded defence barristers as flies on the tasty dish of justice.
Mr Justice Graves, known to me only as ‘The Old Gravestone’, had a deep, sepulchral voice and the general appearance of a man waking up with an upset stomach on a wet weekend. He had clearly come to the conclusion that the world was full of irredeemable sinners. The nearest thing to a smile I had seen on the face of The Old Gravestone was the look of grim delight he had displayed when, after a difficult case, the jury had come back with the guilty verdict he had clearly longed for.
So, as you can imagine, the atmosphere in Court One at the Old Bailey during the trial of the Queen against Hussein Khan was about as warm as the South Pole during a blizzard. The Queen may have adopted a fairly detached attitude towards my client, but the judge certainly hadn’t.
The prosecution was in the not altogether capable hands of Soapy Sam Ballard, which was why he had practically named me as a founding member of Al-Qaeda at our chambers meeting. His junior was the newcomer Archie Prosser.
These two might not have been the most deadly optimists I had ever had to face during my long career at the bar, but a first-year law student with a lowish IQ would, I thought, have had little difficulty in securing a conviction against the young student who had managed to become one of the most hated men in England.
As he was brought up from the cells and placed in the dock between two prison officers, the jury took one brief, appalled look at him and then turned their eyes on what seemed to them to be the less offensive figure of Soapy Sam as he prepared to open his devastating case.
So I sat at my end of counsel’s benches. The brief had been offered to several QCs (Queer Customers I always call them), but they had excused themselves as being too busy, or unwell, or going on holiday – any excuse to avoid being cast as leading counsel for the forces of evil. It was only, it seemed, Rumpole who stuck to the old-fashioned belief that the most outrageous sinner deserves to have his defence, if he had one, put fairly and squarely in front of a jury.
Mr Justice Gravestone didn’t share my views. When Ballard rose he was greeted with something almost like a smile from the bench, and his most obvious comments were underlined by a judicious nod followed by a careful note underlined in the judicial notebook. Every time I rose to cross-examine a prosecution witness, however, Graves sighed heavily and laid down his pencil as though nothing of any significance was likely to come.
This happened when I had a few pertinent questions to ask the pathologist, my old friend Professor Arthur Ackerman, forensic scientist and master of the morgues. After he had given his evidence about the cause of death (pretty obvious), I started off.
‘You say, Professor Ackerman, that the shot was fired at close quarters?’
‘Yes, Mr Rumpole. Indeed it was.’ Ackerman and I had been through so many bloodstained cases together that we chatted across the court like old friends.
‘You told us,’ I went on, ‘that the bullet entered the deceased’s neck – she was probably shot from behind – and that, among other things, the bullet severed an artery’
‘That is so.’
‘So, as a result, blood spurted over the desk. We know it was on the letter. Would you have expected the person, whoever it was, who shot her at close quarters to have had some blood on his clothing?’
‘I think that well may have happened.’
‘Would you say it probably happened?’
‘Probably. Yes.’
When I got this answer from the witness, I stood awhile in silence, looking at the motionless judge.
‘Is that all you have to ask, Mr Rumpole?’
‘No, my Lord. I’m waiting so your Lordship has time to make note of the evidence. I see your Lordship’s pencil is taking a rest!’
‘I’m sure the jury has heard your questions, Mr Rumpole. And the answers.’
‘I’m sure they have and you will no doubt remind them of that during your summing up. So I’m sure your Lordship will wish to make a note.’
Gravestone, with an ill grace, picked up his pencil and made the shortest possible note. Then I asked Ackerman my last question.
‘And I take it you know that the clothes my client wore that evening were minutely examined and no traces of any bloodstains were found?’
‘My Lord, how can this witness know what was on Khan’s clothing?’ Soapy Sam objected.
‘Quite right, Mr Ballard,’ the judge was quick to agree. ‘That was an outrageous question, Mr Rumpole. The jury will disregard it.’