Free The Queen v. Karl Mullen by Michael Gilbert Page B

comfortable. Was he, he wondered, behaving like the younger son in the fairy story, who persisted in asking questions, when knowledge was dangerous and ignorance would have been bliss?
    When the heavy, yellowing volumes of old newsprint arrived on a trolley and were lifted onto the table in front of him he hesitated for some time before opening them.
    The attendant, coming up behind him, said, “I hope those are the ones you wanted, sir.”
    “Yes,” said Roger. “Those are the ones. Thank you.” He started to read. It took him an hour to find what he wanted.
    When he got back to the flat, still unaware that his movements were of interest to anyone but himself, he found his wife on her own. Michael was at Twickenham, watching the Harlequins play Leicester. This naturally brought them to the subject of black eyes and split lips, but Harriet could see that he was not really interested in mayhem on the rugby field. He had been uneasy when he set out; now he was more than uneasy. He was worried.
    She would dearly have liked to know where he had been and what he had been up to, but unless he chose to tell her she wasn’t going to ask. It was on this basis that a happy marriage had been built during the last eighteen years.
    When Roger was drinking his after-lunch coffee he said, apropos of nothing that had gone before, “I went up to Colindale this morning. The Newspaper Library. It’s an amazing place. They’ve got copies of practically every newspaper that’s been published anywhere in England during the last hundred years and more.”
    “It sounds wonderful,” said Harriet.
    “I’ll tell you what I was looking for. I was trying to run down a memory of something one of my Oxford friends had told me.”
    “Did you find it?”
    “I’m sorry to say I did. It was a single paragraph hidden away in the Oxford News and Journal. A report that an undergraduate of Worcester College called Mullen had pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a book from Messrs. Harmsworths bookshop. In order not to jeopardise his career the court had shown clemency. It had simply bound him over for one year.”
    “Meaning what?”
    “Meaning that provided he did not offend again for one year, no further action would be taken. Anyway, it was his last year at Oxford.”
    “And who was Mullen?”
    “Charles Mullen. Whilst he was at Oxford he preferred to use the English form of Karl.”
    The implications of this were slowly dawning on Harriet.
    She said, “My God. Yes. I see. Awkward.”
    “If, as seems likely, the news was so unimportant that the national press ignored it and, anyway, the Christian name was different, the chances of this being noticed now are a hundred-to-one against.”
    “A thousand-to-one, I’d say.”
    “But it puts me in an extremely awkward position. In the ordinary way, in a case of this sort, you can present the accused as a man of spotless reputation, who is totally unlikely to have committed the offence. It’s a very strong card.”
    “Which the prosecution can trump if they happen to read the Oxford News and Journal of twenty years ago.”
    “That’s right,” said Roger. He finished his coffee, which was now cold, in one gulp and looked as though he wished he could swallow the Oxford News and Journal with it.
    Harriet said, “I suppose it’s occurred to you that there’s a simple way out of this. Couldn’t you ask Mullen to use another solicitor? Someone who wouldn’t be burdened with this awkward knowledge. You’re not the only solicitor in London.”
    “I’m the only one Mullen knows. But I think I’ll have a word with Counsel first.”
    “But if you tell Counsel, won’t he be bound to tell the other side?”
    “Certainly not. The prosecution is supposed to supply the defence with all relevant facts – though often they don’t. The defence is under no obligation whatever to help the prosecution. In fact, if he chooses to take the risk, he could ask his opposite number for the