Rumpole and the Angel of Death by John Mortimer Page A

about, so she didn’t join the party in the pub. Neither did Den. He said he wanted to go for a walk and so set off, according to Roy, apparently to commune, in a solitary fashion, with nature. This meant that he was alone and unaccounted for at one o’clock when Tricia was going to swear on her oath that she saw him coming out of Fallows Wood with a coil of wire.
    Other facts of interest: Fallows Wood was only about ten minutes from Wayleave. Roy couldn’t remember there being any wire in the van when they set out from London; it was true that they had discussed using wire to trip up horses, but he had never bought any and was surprised when the police searched the van and found the coil there. It was also true that the van was always in a mess, and probably the hammer found in it was his. Den had brought a kitbag with his stuff in it and Roy couldn’t swear it didn’t contain wire. Den was usually a quiet sort of bloke, Roy said, but he did go mad when he saw people out to kill animals: ‘Dennis always said that the movement was too milk and watery towards hunting, and that what was needed was some great gesture which would really bring us into the news and prove our sincerity – like when the girl fell under a lorry that was taking sheep to the airport.’ I made a mental note not to ask any sort of question likely to produce that last piece of evidence and came to the conclusion that Roy, despite his willingness to give Gavin a statement, wasn’t entirely friendly to my client, Dennis Pearson.
    The placards, a small plantation at the meet, had become a forest outside the Court in Gloucester. Buses, bicycles, vans, cars in varying degrees of disrepair, had brought them, held up now by a crowd which burst, as I elbowed my way towards the courthouse door, into a resounding cheer for Rumpole. I didn’t remember any such ovation when I entered the Old Bailey on other occasions. In the robing-room I found Bernadette asleep in a chair and little Marcus Pitcher tying a pair of white bands around his neck in front of a mirror. ‘See you’ve got your friends from rent-a-crowd here this morning, Rumpole.’ He was not in the best of tempers, our demonstrators having apparently booed Bernadette for having thrown in her lot with a barrister who prosecuted the friends of animals.
    I wondered how long their cheers for me would last when I went into Court, only to put my hands up and plead guilty. My client, however, remained singularly determined: ‘When we plead guilty, they’ll cheer. It’ll be a triumph for the movement. Can’t you understand that, Mr Rumpole? We shall be seen to have condemned a murderer to death!’
    The approach of life imprisonment seemed to have concentrated Den’s mind wonderfully. He was no longer the silent and enigmatic sufferer. His eyes were lit up and he was as excited as when he’d shouted his threats at the faded beauty on the horse. ‘I want you to tell them I’m guilty, first thing. As soon as we get in there. I want you to tell them that I punished her.’
    â€˜No, you don’t want that. Does he, Mr Garfield?’ Gavin, sitting beside me in the cell under the Court, looked like a man who had entirely lost control of the situation. ‘I suppose if that’s what Den has decided . . .’ His voice, never strong, died away and he shrugged hopelessly.
    â€˜I have decided finally’ – Den was standing, elated by his decision – ‘in the interests of our movement.’ For a moment he reminded me of an actor I had seen in an old film, appearing as Sydney Carton on his way to the guillotine, saying, ‘It’s a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done.’
    â€˜You’re not going to do the movement much good by pleading guilty straight away,’ I told him.
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜A guilty plea at the outset? The whole thing’ll be over in twenty