Rumpole and the Primrose Path by John Mortimer

Author:John Mortimer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

‘Rumpole, I hear you’re doing an invasion of privacy case.’

‘Breach of confidence. Invasion of privacy. Outrageous infringement of human rights. Yes, Claude. That’s the sort of practice I carry on these days. I’ve left the petty larcenies and the public-bar affrays to Old Bailey hacks like you.’ I didn’t tell Erskine-Brown that I had been briefed by the Chivering Argus because the paper now faced bankruptcy as a result of Sir Mike’s charge and couldn’t afford a fashionable silk, or that, so far as I could see at the moment, there was little or no defence to the tycoon’s deadly writ.

‘I assume,’ Erskine-Brown had come into my room wearing what was, even for him, a peculiarly doleful expression, ‘that you know quite a bit by now of the law concerning the invasion of privacy?’

‘I have that at my fingertips,’ I assured him. ‘Is there anything wrong with your privacy, Claude?’

‘It has, I’m afraid, Rumpole, been seriously invaded.’ With which he sank into my client’s chair, no longer a reasonably confident QC, but a man like any other, in desperate need of reassuring legal advice. ‘I came to you as an expert in this class of case.’

‘Then you’ve come to the right man, Claude. So fire away. What’s the problem?’

‘The problem, Rumpole, is, I’m very much afraid, Mercy Grandison.’

I considered the matter for a while, and then I asked what seemed to me to be an essential question. ‘Who the hell is Mercy Grandison?’

‘Rumpole, I can’t believe it!’

‘You can’t believe what?’

‘That you don’t know who Mercy Grandison is.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You’ve never watched Shopping Mall?’

‘Never.’

‘She’s the one who runs the Boutique at the end of the Mall. You know, the one who broke up her marriage with Barry from the Sock Shop and had such a ghastly time with Bertrand from the Bistro des Voyageurs.’

‘Enormously interesting, Claude. But how does any of that threaten your privacy?’

‘Shopping Mall doesn’t, but Mercy Grandison does.’

‘An actress?’

‘And author. That’s the terrible thing, Rumpole. She’s got a book coming out next month. It’s been advertised in the Telegraph.’

‘A history of shopping?’

‘Unfortunately not. It’s her life story - A Wandering Star. “How Mercy Grandison, born Mary Grimes, sixth daughter of a Wisbech plumber, rose to become Queen of the Soaps. In this touching memoir, Mercy reveals the heartbreaks behind the glitter of show business.”’ Erskine-Brown had pulled a crumpled cutting from his wallet and put it, I thought reverently, on my desk. I had to confess I still didn’t see what the bothered QC was worrying about.

‘She reveals the heartbreaks, Rumpole.’

‘What’s that got to do with you?’

There was a pause, during which a certain amount of wrestling for the soul of Erskine-Brown seemed to be taking place. When the struggle was over he allowed himself to speak. ‘I’d better confess to you, Rumpole.’

‘You probably should, if you want my advice.’

‘It was years ago. I’d gone up to Grimsby to do a lengthy fraud.’

‘That’s forgivable.’

‘And one evening I went to the threatre. The local Rep. I went to see Private Lives by Noel Coward.

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