Rumpole Rests His Case by John Mortimer

our new lifestyle. You’ll be on the television. You’ll be famous, Rumpole.’
    â€˜You mean — the whole country will see us?’
    â€˜Yes, of course.’ Hilda sounded delighted. ‘Nationwide.’
    â€˜So Judge Bullingham and Soapy Sam Ballard and the Lord Chief Justice and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police — not to mention the Timsons and my next Jury and the entire population of Wormwood Scrubs — can watch me sitting with you in a talk pit having our relationship cemented by beams of light from crystal balls and volcanic eruptions? Do you honestly think, Hilda, that’s going to be a great help to my practice at the criminal Bar?’
    â€˜Of course it will! You need a bit of publicity, Rumpole. No one’s ever heard of you. Now you’ll be quite famous. Oh, and I’ve got another piece of good news. I got a call from Elsie Prosser. Elsie Inglefield as was.’
    â€˜You mean,’ I could sense what was coming, ‘you two were at school together?’
    â€˜Of course we were. Elsie Inglefield was a house monitor with me at St Elfreda’s. That was before she married the Honourable Archie Prosser.’
    â€˜The Boy Wonder? What’s honourable about him?’
    â€˜He’s Lord Binfield’s son. And Elsie tells me he’s joined your Chambers. A bit of a feather in the cap of i Equity Court, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Hardly.’
    â€˜Anyway, I’ve invited them here to dinner. It’s a long time ahead, but make a note in your diary. Of course we can tell them about it, but I’m afraid the new talk pit won’t be ready by then.’
    A pity, I thought. I could have pushed the Hon. Archie Prosser into it and nailed down the lid.
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    The neglected council house somewhere in Kent was a place that had no talk pit, no lava lamps and had never been subjected to any sort of makeover. The walls showed the damp, and hot water was a distant memory since the boiler packed up. The windows were frequently broken by local inhabitants, resentful of strangers whom they suspected were after their jobs or had come to sponge off their taxes. The men played cards or sometimes, in the evenings, sang national laments, or outdated rock numbers they had heard secretly on banned radios. The women, astonished at being allowed to uncover their faces or wear trousers without fear of the lash, giggled and gossiped in the kitchen. The children whooped with delight as they chased each other up and down the stairs, playing as they might have done in their villages or in the back streets of Kabul, only knowing they were out on an adventure and not caring where, or how, their future lives would be led. In one of the overcrowded bedrooms a man lay with his face to the wall, sunk in a deep depression and hopeless gloom. The others, as though afraid that this condition might be contagious, as far as possible avoided him.
    When Ted Minter the solicitor called at this address, Doctor Mohammed Nabi was no longer there. He had stirred himself, gone out to buy a little food with his vouchers and not returned.
    â€˜I told you he’s afraid for his life, Mr Rumpole. Maybe it’s some of the other refugees. Perhaps it’s part of the Mafia that smuggled him over.’
    â€˜Mafia?’ I asked Ted to explain.
    â€˜The Russian Mafia. Aided by quite a few Afghans on the make. The mango chutney element has the stamp of Afghans on it.’
    â€˜So which of their organizations is threatening the Doctor?’
    â€˜Jamil doesn’t know. He says the Doctor hasn’t any idea, but it was a Russian he paid originally.’
    â€˜And the Doctor’s vanished?’
    â€˜I told you, I only get instructions through Jamil.’
    â€˜And have you met this Jamil?’
    â€˜He telephones me.’
    â€˜So what organization does he belong to?’
    â€˜Well,’ Ted became vague, started a search in his overstuffed