There were two more challenges, both from Manhattan brokers this time, both highlighting shortfalls, one on a $200,000 copper disposal, the other on an aluminium trade that should have resulted in a $130,000 profit. The combined deficit for which Jordan was responsible – both one of his early hits – was $3,400. As with the Chicago query, the approaches from both brokers imagined a miscalculation and the Appleton dealers’ replies promised immediate enquiries.
It was the internal email correspondence upon which Jordan concentrated.
In sequence they began between the two metal dealers but within the space of three messages grew to include John Popple, the dealer to whom the Chicago complaint had been made. Popple’s pick-up to his two colleagues was that the initial back office investigation had failed to discover the disparity in his sale, to which the copper broker, George Sutcliffe, replied suggesting the three of them immediately report the situation to their financial control division. The third man, Colin Nutbeam, warned against an overreaction before making their own essential enquiries. ‘We’ll look fools if there’s a simple explanation like a misplaced digit or a dropped decimal point, with no cause for panic.’
Popple countered that he was going to bring it before his section leader. ‘I’ve been trying to track it down for days and can’t. It’s time I made it official.’ Both the other traders asked Popple not to mention their problems until they’d had the chance to make their own checks. Popple wished them luck.
Still no cause for him to panic, Jordan judged. There was no way, short of a professional electronic sweep, of discovering his illegal presence within the Appleton and Drake computers. And when that eventually happened, weeks away from now, the embezzler’s name uncovered would be that of Alfred Appleton, not Harvey Jordan. But before that there would have to be a full scale and individual trader audit to establish the embezzlement in the first place and after that a criminal investigation mounted to trace its source to Appleton.
It was still moving faster than Jordan had expected. But then, although he knew his way through the labyrinth of computer hacking, he hadn’t actually worked such a complicated scam as this before. So he didn’t precisely know what to expect. Except, of course, to win. Which he would because he always did.
Jordan phished Appleton and Drake’s trades with the delicacy of an angler dancing a fly on a trout stream, taking his time, undecided between gold or silver, eventually choosing to split between the two. He raided three gold holdings and two silver, switching a total of $18,500 in bank transfers. The tranche brought him close to his self-imposed banked limit, making essential withdrawals from all the accounts into the unrecorded safe deposits. In which, including the $18,500, his profit currently stood at $195,000.
He hadn’t confirmed the possibility of their meeting that night but decided there was a need, suggesting by telephone to Beckwith that they go again to the out-of-town restaurant to get away from the incarceration of the hotel. Both stopped, momentarily startled, at the sight, already at a table although not yet eating, of Appleton and Bartle. Both, briefly, seemed equally surprised.
It was the bejeaned Beckwith who recovered first. He gave a stilted half wave, to which Bartle awkwardly responded, told the bell captain they needed their reserved table to be at the opposite side of the room and as they walked towards it said to Jordan, ‘It’s a free country and there ain’t any law against it.’
They ordered martinis in preference to the heavier Jack Daniels and a recovered Jordan said, ‘You know what baffles me? How someone as –’ he had to pause, for the word – ‘as delicate as Alyce could have shared the same bed with someone like him. I’ve never actually seen one, but with that funny hump of his he reminds me of that bison on your belt buckle.’
‘You’ve got the inside track to make that sort of comparison, which I guess makes you biased,’ said the lawyer and smiled. ‘But he sure as hell doesn’t give Tom Cruise any competition, does he? It make you uncomfortable, being in the same room?’
‘Not at all,’ said Jordan, meaning it. At that moment, he reflected, he knew more of the inside workings of Appleton’s business than Appleton himself.
‘Miserable looking son of a bitch as well,’ said Beckwith. ‘But then at the current state of play he’s got every reason to be. I’d still like to hear what they’re talking about.’
‘What Leanne’s going to say would be a good guess,’ suggested Jordan. Coming to the first reason for his invitation, he went on: ‘You heard from Bob, about what he and Wolfson talked about?’
Beckwith shook his head. ‘Didn’t expect to. We’re hugger-mugger about everything involving you and Alyce because of the obvious mutual interest. Anything concerning him and Wolfson – and Leanne, I guess – is outside the loop.’
‘What bargain has Wolfson got to offer Bob?’
Beckwith shrugged again. ‘Beats me. The only purpose of bargaining meetings is mutual co-operation and I can’t imagine what there is to co-operate about between Alyce and Leanne.’
‘Wouldn’t it also be …’ Jordan has to pause again, for the word. ‘Illegal, un-professional maybe, for them to talk like this?’
‘It’s coming pretty close to the fence,’ allowed the lawyer. ‘But it’s not forbidden. And if you can’t stop the express train coming at your client at 100 miles an hour – which Wolfson can’t – it doesn’t hurt to negotiate.’
‘About what?’
‘I just told you,’ said Beckwith, with a flare of impatience. ‘I don’t know! And can’t think of a reason.’ He looked across at the other table. ‘They’re really not very happy to see us.’
Jordan followed his lawyer’s concentration across to the other table, from which both Bartle and Appleton were looking at them and talking at the same time. Bartle took a cell phone from his pocket, dialled and abruptly slammed the lid shut. Appleton half rose but sat when Bartle held out a restraining hand.
Jordan said, ‘Looks like an argument. As well as a telephone call that didn’t connect.’
‘I’d say so,’ agreed Beckwith.
Jordan turned away at the arrival of the wine waiter. As the host he tasted and agreed to the Napa Valley burgundy, although he would have preferred a French wine. Coming to the second point he wanted to establish, he said, ‘Let’s talk about something you might be able to speculate on. The way it’s going I don’t think it’ll get anywhere near your estimate.’
‘No way,’ agreed Beckwith, at once. ‘We’ve got Leanne tomorrow. Maybe some recalls, although I’m not going to apply for any at the moment. I don’t think Bob has got anyone else, now that his enquiry people have been cut off by Pullinger. I don’t think he needs anyone else.’
‘So what’s your new estimate?’
‘Middle of next week, tops.’
Everything was definitely moving faster – coming up to the speed of light – than he’d expected, acknowledged Jordan, ‘I know it will only be a ballpark figure. That’s all I’m asking for. Keeping everything else out of the equation, how much am I into for costs?’
Beckwith waited for their meal to be served, cut into his inevitable steak but held it on the fork before him, as if examining it. ‘We got a problem here, Harvey?’
‘Absolutely not, apart from moving necessary funds across from England,’ assured Jordan. ‘Which is why I’m asking the question. I may need to go back to withdraw some more … make plane reservations, stuff like that.’
‘Ballpark?’ heavily qualified Beckwith.
‘Ballpark,’ confirmed Jordan.
‘Two hundred and fifty thousand,’ estimated Beckwith. ‘And don’t even think of anything extra for an appeal.’
From his conversations in London with Lesley Corbin, Jordan had imagined it would be much higher. ‘Maybe I won’t need to go back to England.’ Just hit Appleton far harder, after making room in the open-mouthed accounts, he thought.
With a better view of Bartle’s table from where he was sitting, Beckwith said, ‘And baby makes three!’
Jordan turned again to see Peter Wolfson approaching Bartle’s table. At something that Bartle said the other lawyer looked across towards them before he sat. Beckwith gave another hand gesture, which Wolfson did not acknowledge.
Beckwith said, ‘Like the wise man said, shit happens! They go to all the trouble of finding a little, out-of-town hideaway for their council of war and we walk in. No wonder they look so pissed off.’
‘You think Wolfson’s come straight from seeing Bob?’
‘Hardly need the help of Sherlock Holmes, do we?’ said Beckwith. ‘I can hardly wait for tomorrow.’
But they had to, longer than they’d expected. After rigidly sticking to his early morning routine, which produced nothing beyond what he’d already read on Appleton and Drake’s computers, Jorden went down for breakfast to be told that by the time Beckwith called him, Reid had already left to collect Alyce from the Bellamy estate.
‘Earlier than usual?’ queried Jordan.
‘Two hours earlier than usual,’ agreed Beckwith. ‘They obviously had things to talk about.’
And they were still talking, already at their table, when Jordan and his lawyer arrived at court. There was only the briefest moment, before the judge’s entry, for any conversation between Alyce’s lawyer and Beckwith, before Peter Wolfson called Leanne Jefferies to the stand. Jordan managed eye contact with Alyce as the other woman was being sworn. Alyce looked back at him blankly. On his pad Jordan wrote, ‘What?’
Beckwith scribbled back: ‘Leanne’s ours!’
Led by Wolfson, with Appleton and Bartle both intently forward over their separate table, Leanne confirmed her age to be thirty and described herself as a senior partner in the Wall Street commodity firm of Sears Rutlidge. Not once looking at him, Leanne testified she had known Alfred Appleton by reputation over a period of five years as the senior partner of Appleton and Drake, a rival firm of commodity dealers. Thirteen months earlier she and Appleton had begun a brief relationship, which she estimated to have lasted no longer than two months. At that time she had understood Appleton to be coming to the end of an unopposed divorce. Her relationship with Appleton had ended when she contracted a sexually transmitted disease, which Appleton told her he had, in turn, caught from his wife during a failed reconciliation before their relationship began. She would not have engaged in such a relationship if she had known that divorce proceedings had not, at that time, even been initiated. She had not regarded their affair as a serious commitment on either side and now deeply regretted it.
‘How many commodity firms are there in Wall Street?’ demanded Reid, as he rose to cross-examine. As always, when he was on his feet in court, there was no trace of asthma in his voice.
‘I’m not sure.’ There was a discernible uncertainty from how she had responded to this questioning.
‘Ten? Twenty? Thirty?’ suggested Reid.
‘I really am not sure,’ Leanne insisted.
‘Would you say it was a comparatively limited community, most dealers knowing other dealers?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘But you knew Alfred Appleton for what, almost four years, before your affair began?’
‘Yes.’ When she wasn’t talking Leanne had her lips drawn in tightly between her teeth.
‘Wasn’t he someone particularly well known in Wall Street because of his family antecedents?’
‘Not particularly,’ she repeated.
‘Did you know of the family history?’
‘I may have heard something of it.’
‘Did you or didn’t you?’ demanded Reid, brusquely.
‘I’d heard something about it,’ conceded Leanne, defensively.
‘What about the historically well known Bellamy family?’
‘I didn’t know anything about a Bellamy family,’ protested the woman.
‘You didn’t know that your lover, Alfred Appleton, was married to Alyce Bellamy, uniting two of the best known families in America’s founding history?’
‘No,’ said Leanne. Before every answer she looked hopefully towards Wolfson although still steadfastly refusing to look at Appleton, so close at the adjoining table.
‘When did you discover the identity of Alfred Appleton’s wife?’
‘I don’t remember. Not until we became close, I don’t think.’
‘How did you become close? When did it happen? Who approached whom?’
Leanne took several moments to reply. ‘It was at a seminar in New Jersey. Went over two days.’
‘When did it begin, the first night or the second night?’
There was another pause. ‘The second night.’
‘Before you went to bed with Alfred Appleton the second night, you knew he was a married man, didn’t you?’
‘He told me he was divorced.’
Appleton thrust sideways to talk to his lawyer at Leanne’s answer.
‘Was divorced? Or getting divorced?’ pressed Reid.
‘Was divorced,’ insisted Leanne. ‘Just waiting for the decree to become absolute.’
‘That’s exactly what he said, that he was waiting for the decree to become absolute?’
‘Yes,’ blurted Leanne, before seeing Wolfson shaking his head. ‘I mean … I think … yes …’
‘By then you knew who Appleton was … the history, didn’t you?’
‘Something had been said … I had an idea,’ the woman stumbled on.
‘You saw yourself as the second Mrs Appleton, didn’t you, marrying into one of America’s oldest families?’ pounced Reid.
‘No!’ Leanne denied, flustered. ‘That wasn’t how it was … what it was … I told you, it wasn’t a commitment.’ She looked at Alyce, beside her interrogator. ‘Like her’s wasn’t a commitment. Didn’t mean anything. Just something that happened …’ She twisted, looking for the first time to Appleton and managed, ‘You … you bastard …’ before collapsing back into her chair, sobbing.
To Jordan, Beckwith finally said, ‘If I can only get the chance!’
First Bartle and then Wolfson objected to Beckwith taking up the cross-examination, Wolfson even pleading that Leanne was incapable of continuing despite her obvious recovery on the witness stand, but Pullinger dismissed both arguments that further questioning was unnecessary.
‘You did believe Alfred Appleton’s marriage was over, didn’t you?’ began Beckwith, softly encouraging.
‘Yes.’
‘Because that was what he’d told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So he lied to you?’
‘Your honour!’ Bartle tried to protest but Pullinger gestured him down.
‘Yes,’ said Leanne. She no longer appeared uncertain.
‘As he lied about catching chlamydia from his wife?’
‘I suppose so … from what I’ve heard here, in court.’
‘Why didn’t you go to a doctor, a venerealogist, in New York?’
‘He said he knew people in Boston who could help … that he had influence there.’
‘Alfred Appleton persuaded you to go to Boston because he had influence there!’ said Beckwith. ‘What did you understand he meant by that?’
‘I don’t really know … that they were good doctors, I suppose.’
‘Why weren’t you treated by the same venerealogist who treated him, Dr Chapman?’
‘He said it would be best if we were treated separately.’
‘Did you ask him why?’
‘No, not really. I was very upset, at having been infected. He said I wasn’t to worry. That he’d fix everything.’
‘Your honour,’ objected Bartle, again. ‘I really must protest at this! My client—’
‘Is here, in court, able to refute anything that this witness says if you choose to call him,’ stopped Pullinger. ‘As you are to cross-examine in an attempt to obtain contrary evidence if you choose, Mr Bartle.’
‘He told you he would fix everything,’ picked up Beckwith. ‘Is Alfred Appleton a dominant man, Ms Jefferies?’
‘Very much so.’
‘Who dislikes opinions contrary to his own?’ finished Beckwith.
‘Who refuses opinions contrary to his own,’ said the woman. She was sitting forward in her chair now, looking directly at Appleton.
‘When was the first time you heard of a person named Sharon Borowski?’
There was a falter from Leanne Jefferies. ‘When I was served with the court papers, ordering me to appear here.’
‘You hadn’t expected them? Been warned to expect them?’
‘Of course not!’ replied Leanne, indignantly.
‘Because you believed the divorce was already resolved: over?’
‘Exactly!’
‘What did you do?’
‘Called Alfred. Asked him what was happening.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That there had been a mix-up: a mistake. That he’d fix it.’
‘That he’d fix it,’ repeated Beckwith, for the second time. ‘How did he say he was going to fix it?’
‘He made me go to his lawyers in Boston who said—’
‘Stop!’ sharply ordered Pullinger, from the bench. ‘Do you intend pursuing this, Mr Beckwith?’
‘In view of the suit that has been brought against my client I believe it is incumbent upon me to pursue it, your honour,’ said Beckwith.
‘Mr Bartle?’ asked the judge.
‘I would respectfully submit that this is far beyond any grounds of admissibility,’ said Appleton’s lawyer.
‘Mr Wolfson?’ repeated Pullinger.
‘With equal respect, your honour, I would make the same submission,’ said Leanne’s lawyer. ‘And would further seek to approach your honour either at the bench or in chambers if your honour feels there is benefit to your court or to yourself from such discussion.’
Pullinger slumped reflectively into his high-backed chair, leaving three of the four attorneys on their feet. Leanne looked around her, confused. Alyce stared directly ahead, unmoving. Appleton’s bison’s head was forward, over his table. There were the sounds of shifting from the jury box.
Pullinger came slowly forward, further than he normally sat, immediately bringing to Jordan’s mind the imagery of a watchful predatory vulture. ‘To permit the continuation of this examination, while permissible within the bounds of law, would seriously invite the possibility of my having to dismiss this jury and declare a mistrial upon the grounds of undue and prejudicial bias. To deny its continuation provides Mr Beckwith with the opportunity to seek an appeal on behalf of his client, as indeed it does Mr Bartle and Mr Wolfson on behalf of theirs. So be it. This has been the most contentious and most unsatisfactory hearing I believe I have ever been called upon to adjudicate. I further believe, however, that at this stage it is still possible for me to direct the jury, subject to consultation with the respective attorneys about further potential witnesses, to a fitting and legally satisfactory conclusion. Which it is my intention to do. It is also my intention to release the jury from their responsibilities for the rest of this day, be available in chambers for individual or combined discussion with counsel about witnesses to whom I have already referred and subject to those representations, address the jury at the opening of the court tomorrow.’
*
‘We’ve won!’ declared Beckwith.
‘There can’t be any doubt,’ agreed Reid.
They’d gone together to see Pullinger in chambers, to announce neither had any remaining witnesses nor objection to the hearing being closed and waited back at their tables to be recalled by the judge if the separately attending Bartle and Wolfson had raised a question needing a fuller discussion, which seemingly they hadn’t. Reid telephoned his office from the courtroom corridor, before helping Alyce into his car, and the ordered champagne – French, not American – was waiting when the four of them arrived.
Alyce hesitated at the toast and said, ‘You heard what Leanne said, about his always needing to dominate. Which I’d already told you he does. Alfred will appeal. The judge actually invited him to!’
‘Not even a control freak like your soon-to-be ex-husband could risk having paraded in open court, to be reported every day, what’s come out here,’ insisted Reid. ‘And it would come out, if you retained me to appear on your behalf at an appeal. I’d object to any closed hearing and make that clear to whatever attorney he engaged. And it wouldn’t be David Bartle. I don’t think he would take the case even if he were offered it. Which I don’t think he would be able anyway because I think Pullinger is going to report both him and Wolfson to their bar council for professional misconduct. Which in my opinion Wolfson’s move last night definitely was.’
‘I’m still waiting to hear what that was!’ protested Jordan.
‘He offered a deal, an out-of-court damages settlement of $500,000 to Alyce from Leanne if we agreed not to call her. She’d told Wolfson, who’d told Bartle, that she’d be a hostile witness because of the crap Appleton dumped on her.’
‘But I said no,’ added Alyce. ‘I didn’t – don’t – want her money. I want Alfred just once to be shown he’s not God.’
Which she would, although not immediately, thought Jordan. ‘Where was Leanne going to get $500,000?’
‘Appleton, I guess,’ said Reid. ‘Wolfson insisted the money was there, if we agreed.’
‘She wouldn’t have done,’ said Alyce. ‘The bastard would have cheated her, like he cheats everybody.’
‘Are we going to get around to drinking to victory?’ complained Beckwith.
They finally drank, Alyce hesitantly. She said, ‘Thank you. Thank all of you. I can’t believe it’s virtually all over. And it is, isn’t it? Virtually all over? We can behave like normal people again?’
‘All over but for the formalities,’ promised Reid, bringing out the Jack Daniels from his desk drawer in preference to the champagne.
Alyce shook her head against her glass being refilled, as Jordan did, moving with her away from Reid’s desk.
‘What are you doing this afternoon?’ asked Alyce.
‘I haven’t thought about it,’ lied Jordan. He’d already calculated that at only just past one he had more than sufficient time to get to Manhattan to empty the overflowing bank accounts to make room for more transfers and be back in Raleigh long before tomorrow’s court opening.
‘Why not spend it back at the house?’ invited Alyce.
‘I’d like that very much,’ accepted Jordan. The bank accounts could wait, overflowing or not.
Jordan and Beckwith had alternated between cars to move between the hotel and the court building and that day they had used Jordan’s hired Ford. Beckwith accepted with a frown, although nothing more, at being told he’d need a taxi for his hotel return and within fifteen minutes Jordan and Alyce were driving in the opposite direction to the Bellamy estate. Jordan followed Alyce’s route directions from the civic centre court avoiding any possible media interference, isolating none, but Jordan quickly recognized the surroundings, and as they passed it nodded towards the previous night’s restaurant. ‘That’s where we saw them, after Wolfson made his pitch to Bob.’
‘Bob told me,’ said Alyce. ‘They must have thought you were having them watched, knowing where they were, when you walked in.’
‘They certainly reacted as if they had been caught doing something wrong,’ laughed Jordan. It wasn’t difficult for him to laugh – to be very happy – alone with Alyce driving through the low, undulating North Carolina countryside.
‘I can’t believe they thought I’d go for the offer, legal or otherwise. Bob doesn’t think they ever expected you to fight the case in the first place; that you’d be too frightened of losing and simply stay away.’
‘I still might wish I had stayed, after tomorrow.’
‘I’m not as confident as either Bob or Dan,’ Alyce admitted. ‘They don’t know Alfred like I do. He doesn’t lose, ever: doesn’t know how. He’ll appeal if there’s the slightest room for him to do so.’ There had been no building, no sign of any habitation at all, for the previous fifteen minutes and Alyce raised her arm, gesturing to his right. ‘Just around this bend there’s a turning to the right that suddenly comes up. Take it.’
Jordan did and almost at once found himself on the edge of a plain that stretched out in all directions as far as he could see. He said, ‘That’s incredible! The world’s flat and we’re right at the edge!’
Alyce shifted in her seat. Quietly, as if she were embarrassed, she said, ‘It’s all Bellamy land, as far as the horizon and as much – more than as much – again beyond.’
‘That’s … I don’t know … it must be …’ groped Jordan.
‘A lot of land,’ helped Alyce. ‘And there’s more, way over to the south right up to the coast. We’ve leased a lot of it: long, hundred year leases, but we still own it.’
‘You own it,’ qualified Jordan.
‘Ultimately, I guess,’ agreed Alyce. ‘It’s all tied up in trusts and foundations and charities and God knows what. It was all here for the taking when the first ships landed, all those years ago. And a man named Hector Bellamy took it. At least, unlike most of the other early settlers, he didn’t annihilate the native Americans who already lived here. Maybe he should have done. According to the history they rose up against his settlement and killed him. But not until he had sons …’ Almost inaudibly, she said, ‘Which I can’t now have.’
Jordan wasn’t sure if she’d intended him to hear and pretended that he hadn’t. They drove on for what Jordan knew from the car’s speedometer trip to be a further ten miles, passing through an unexpected neon-lit township – which Jordan thought of as an unwelcome intrusion – before Alyce gestured another right turning on to a private blacktop. Within yards there was a CCTV-monitored gatehouse with a further camera-mounted identification speaker grill, into which Alyce leaned across him to announce their arrival. A huge, electronically-controlled barrier that filled the entire gate space began to open. From both sides of the gatehouse spread a high fence in front of which, at intervals, were printed warnings of its electrification. About twenty yards behind the fence began a thatch of even higher trees seemingly planted without any design but which, in fact, formed a straggled forest beyond which it was impossible to see from the outside. No house was immediately visible but there were several flocks of faraway sheep as well as a herd of nervously attentive deer. When the buildings came into view Jordan realized that there was not one house but several, a complex dominated by the central, columned and veranda-encircled white clapboard original with separate, two-and three-storey constructions grouped around it, completed by a single storey, L-shaped stabling to one side. Around it all was looped a stand of very tall and long-established shading trees. Jordan was surprised, when he stopped, to see that they had only been driving a little over an hour.
As the towering front door opened to their approach Jordan said, ‘It’ll be a uniformed butler!’
‘House manager,’ corrected Alyce, although it was a man in a black suit and tie waiting for them at the entrance. ‘We’ll eat something when I’ve got out of these court clothes.’ To the man she said, ‘We’ll use the garden room, Stephen. Take Mr Jordan through, will you?’
Alyce’s instinctive authority he remembered from that night at the Carlyle – but only occasionally in France – had returned, Jordan recognized, following the man as Alyce mounted the wide stairway winding around half of the circular entrance hall. From its panelled walls were displayed a portrait gallery of whom Jordan guessed to be Alyce’s ancestors. The garden room fulfilled its title. It was a vast glass-walled and roofed conservatory stretching out into sculpted and fountain-flower displays on three sides, with long-leafed plants and vases of more flowers inside. Jordan declined the offered drink, looking out beyond the neatly bordered and colour-coordinated beds in which two gardeners were working.
When Alyce entered she was wearing a V-necked sweater, light blue jeans that Jordan was sure he’d seen in France and was barefoot. He nodded in the direction in which he had been frowning and said, ‘What looks like a long red flag, way beyond all the buildings? It’s a wind sock, right?’
‘An airstrip,’ she agreed. ‘Flying is the quickest and most convenient way to commute up and down from New York. There’s a helicopter as well as a Lear. Both owned and run by the Bellamy Foundation.’
‘I didn’t guess it was anything like this … as extensive as this … an empire.’
Alyce shrugged. ‘Stephen offer you a drink?’
‘I thought I’d wait.’ Jordan saw that while he’d stood with his back to the room a table, glass topped to fit its surroundings, had been laid with cutlery, goblets and tumblers.
‘Lunch is scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.’
‘Sounds good.’
Alyce, totally comfortable in her own accustomed environment – the creator of her own environment – went to a side cooler Jordan hadn’t seen and said, ‘How about a drink now?
Jordan saw at once that it was the white burgundy he’d ordered for them in France. ‘Now I’d like one.’ His conflicting – unaccustomed – feelings were colliding. At that precise moment he knew himself to be confused. Seeking a balancing plateau, he said, ‘I thought your mother would be here?’
‘She likes the beach house at this time of the year. She paints. Actually paints quite well.’
Faraway in another part of the mansion there was the distant sound of a telephone and almost at once a louder summons from a multi-lined console on a side table. As Jordan gestured that he was leaving the room he heard Alyce say, ‘Hello? Hi … Sorry … Yes, he’s here now … I’m fine … no problem … OK …’ He was at the door when he heard, ‘Hey, come back.’ And when he re-entered the room she said, ‘Thanks for the politeness but you didn’t have to do that. It was Walter. He’s coming over when he’s finished.’
‘Walter?’
‘Walt Harding. He can guide you back, later.’
Jordan hadn’t thought about later; hadn’t thought about anything, not wanting to anticipate anything more than a minute ahead. Now he felt disappointed. He said, ‘I could have found my own way.’ He admitted to himself the hope that he wouldn’t have needed to. At least it took away the uncertainty.
Alyce didn’t reply, rising instead at the re-entry of the butler. He was pushing a flame-heated serving trolley from which, as they sat, he ladled eggs and fish on to plates and topped up both their glasses.
Alyce said, ‘I guess by this time next week you’ll be back in London?’
‘I haven’t thought about it. Let’s get tomorrow over, first.’
‘Wondering why I invited you out here this afternoon?’
‘No,’ lied Jordan.
‘It’s about tomorrow. Like I told you, I’m not as confident as either Bob or Dan. Even if there’s no damages awarded against you, you’ve still got a lot of costs and—’
‘Stop!’ demanded Jordan, loudly. ‘We’ve done this too many times and I’ve told you no too many times. It’s still no. Always will be, so let’s forget it once and for all, OK?’
‘No, it’s not OK!’ she argued. ‘You’re going to be out a lot of money, whatever happens. That’s not fair.’
Jordan swept out his arm, encompassing the house and beyond. ‘So you brought me here to show me you could afford it more than I could!’
‘That’s not fair, either!’
‘Tell me it isn’t true then.’
‘I wanted to talk to you, by ourselves. The court break was convenient. I wasn’t trying to impress you. This is just how it is.’
‘I am impressed,’ finally conceded Jordan. ‘But not enough to take your money. It’s no longer a conversation between us.’ He’d never imagined himself uninterested in anyone else’s money, Jordan further conceded. But there had been a lot of other things – attitude changes – over the last few weeks that he wouldn’t have imagined possible, either.
‘Never again,’Alyce promised. She sniggered. ‘Promise you won’t get mad if I say something else, though?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘You know who you reminded me of, yelling at me like that?’
‘You tell me it’s Alfred and I’ll yell louder,’ he said, joining in the game.
‘It was Alfred. How he used to speak … talk to people … talk to everybody …’ She hesitated at Stephen’s return with a black uniformed woman to clear the table apart from their wine and water glasses. Allowing time for them to get out of hearing, she said, ‘People never worked for us, either in Manhattan or Long Island, beyond a few weeks, because of it.’ She physically shuddered, at the recollection.
‘In the land of the laid-back, why on earth does everyone automatically refer to him as Alfred, never Al!’
Alyce’s laugh this time was more spontaneous. ‘Call Alfred Al! You’ve got to be joking! He was always Alfred and even then only to a very few people.’
‘How the hell did you ever get involved with such a …’ Jordan paused. ‘A man.’
‘Monster would have done,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many times and in how many different ways I’ve asked myself that same question. But he’s very good at hiding himself, when he needs to … when it’s necessary. And it was very necessary with me and the family and all that we’d created. It was only when it didn’t work, as he’d intended it to work, that it all started to go wrong. That the punishments started …’
‘You’re losing me,’ complained Jordan. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t even be talking about it, now that it’s virtually over. There’s no point.’
‘You know what I now realize Alfred really felt about me? About me and all the historic bullshit and where we, the Bellamys, are now?’ said Alyce, too engrossed in her own reflections to heed Jordan’s caution. ‘It was resentment. It was right, what Bob suggested in court, although he never brought it out like it truly was. It wasn’t me that Alfred loved. I don’t think it’s possible for him to love anyone, probably not even himself, although I think I said that he did. What Alfred really did love, which Bob challenged him with, was the idea of being the king in an American royal family – a king who could have as many mistresses as he wanted, like kings once did: like some still do, maybe. Marrying me gave him the combined lineage but to make it really work he needed the court and the country to rule. Which didn’t exist. But the Bellamy Foundation existed; the foundation on which I was a working chief executive until he persuaded me to resign, as I told the court. Except that it wasn’t because he considered it ill-fitting for me to be a working woman. He manoeuvred that to vacate the throne for himself. But he miscalculated, as Alfred so often miscalculated. The Bellamy Foundation is a charitable organization, with all the responsibilities that were explained in court. But there’s nothing charitable about the board that runs it. They’re hard-assed professionals who were the first to see Alfred for what he is, long before I did. Getting on to it wasn’t the shoo-in he thought it was going to be. He couldn’t get the necessary board member vote, certainly not when mother, who’s got the controlling vote structure, wouldn’t back him. That’s how the punishments started …’
‘Punishments?’ queried Jordan.
‘I believe that’s what the loans were, Alfred Appleton’s personally imposed financial penalties. And the neglect and the whoring, although I don’t think infecting me as he did was an intended humiliation, because to do that he had to contract it first and not even he would do that.’ Alyce abruptly laughed, although nervously. ‘Jesus, I’ve really run off at the mouth, haven’t I? Turned you into my therapist.’
Jordan laughed with her, anxious to lighten the mood. ‘I had a free afternoon.’
‘I know …’ she started, but then stopped.
‘Know what?’
‘I’m not going to talk about money, I promise. But I know from Bob what a hell of an input you made. I want to thank you and apologize for you getting caught up in it and I promise never again to mention any of that, either.’
‘You think I could have a moment or two to talk?’ asked Jordan, sure he knew what he wanted to say but not at all sure how to say it.
‘Depends what it is,’ qualified Alyce, cautiously.
‘None of what’s happened …’ Jordan started awkwardly, stopping at the sound from the far door of the garden room.
‘Hi!’ greeted Walter Harding, emerging through the foliage.
‘Hi!’said Alyce.
Shit! thought Jordan.
When they came to be delivered Jordan’s initial reaction to the verdicts was that of an anti-climax – despite, even, his total exoneration – because that was how he regarded the conclusion of the previous afternoon at the Bellamy house, anxious at its end to quickly leave a place which, until Harding’s intrusion, he’d hoped desperately not to leave that night. Hopefully not for many nights. So occupied still was he by that disappointment that at the opening of the court proceedings Jordan actually had to force his concentration upon Pullinger’s summation and guidance to the jury, which strictly obeyed Pullinger’s insistence on the priority of its required judgements.
This meant Appleton’s criminal conversation claim against him was the first to be dealt with and totally dismissed. Immediately following the verdict, Pullinger ordered that Appleton should pay three quarters of Jordan’s total costs for initiating such a flagrantly insupportable action, in part for which he held Bartle responsible for providing the inept legal advice. The jury found against Leanne Jefferies but again following Pullinger’s instructions limited the award against her to $50,000 in Alyce’s favour. They also found in Alyce’s favour on her cross petition against Appleton.
After discharging the jury Pullinger declared he had considered a bench order alleging perjury against Appleton but held back from doing so in the event of the man appealing upon the grounds he’d offered the previous day. He definitely intended an enquiry into alleged perjury against Mark Chapman and to carry out his already indicated decision to report both venere-alogists to their respective Massachusettes licensing authorities for professional misconduct. On the same grounds he was going to report David Bartle and Peter Wolfson to both the North Carolina and New York State bar associations.
‘In addition to which,’ Pullinger told the two attorneys, whom he’d ordered to stand before him, ‘I shall refuse ever again to have either of you appear before me on any legal matter, which I shall make clear to both bar associations I have nominated. I further order, upon the possibility of both or either of your clients being held in contempt of my court, against making comments or assisting in any way the media, either electronic or print, beyond what this court provides about any of the defendants or claimants in these proceedings. I want your assurance, which will be recorded by the court stenographer, that you fully and completely understand the order I have just issued.’
One by one the two attorneys, Appleton and finally Leanne Jefferies, acknowledged that they understood.
‘This hearing, the most disgraceful ever presented before me, is now closed,’ Pullinger concluded.
Reid’s office was judged both inadequate and inappropriate for the celebration and at a loss for an alternative they went back to the all too familiar hotel where a hurriedly arranged private room was hired and food and drink ordered while Alyce telephoned her mother to relay the news and Jordan returned to his suite to make an earlier-than-usual computer check that there had been no movement upon the existing shortfall enquiries, nor any new challenges. As an afterthought as he was actually leaving his suite, Jordan quickly dialled Lesley Corbin in London, who said she’d never had any doubt of the outcome and whom Jordan didn’t believe.
Jordan was back in his anti-climax depression when he got to the celebration, by which time Walter Harding had arrived and Alyce had passed on the court verdict. Also there were the DDK enquiry team who had never been called upon as well as some support staff from Reid’s office.
Harding approached Jordan the moment he entered the room and said, ‘Didn’t I tell you this was exactly as it would turn out!’
‘You certainly did,’ agreed Jordan. As well as a lot of other I-can-predict bullshit by which he’d become so irritated the previous afternoon that he’d switched off any attention to the man’s constant outpourings.
‘How’s it feel?’ demanded Harding.
‘I’m not sure it’s settled in.’ Jordan wished Alyce would break away form Reid so that he could excuse himself from the hospital administrator.
‘It was obviously nonsense from the beginning,’ insisted the man. ‘I guess you’re now going back to reality and England, where everything and everybody is normal?’
He’d never ever lived in reality, thought Jordan. Always the opposite, the unreality of living – being – somebody else, with somebody else’s name and persona. He said, ‘I’m not sure that’s an apt description, either.’ He saw Alyce had moved away from her lawyer and immediately excused himself to join her.
Alyce said at once, ‘I didn’t realize Pullinger was delaying the media release until tomorrow.’
‘Neither did I.’
‘By which time I shall be back at the house, beyond any camera lens.’
‘Is that what you’re going to do?’
‘There’s no better place to hide.’
‘For how long?’
‘For as long as I choose, although the judge put a pretty effective lid on it becoming a long-running saga, didn’t he?’
‘So what after you come out of retreat?’ pressed Jordan.
She smiled at the expression. ‘Regain my life. I’ve already arranged to get my place back on the board of the Bellamy Foundation.’
‘As well as?’
‘That’s as far as, for the moment,’ said Alyce. ‘There was something you were going to say, just before Walter arrived at the house yesterday?’
‘Maybe later,’ said Jordan. ‘Not now.’
‘Call me.’
Jordan tried the moment he got into his Carlyle suite the following morning, before even bothering to unpack after a delayed New York arrival from Raleigh. At the Bellamy North Carolina estate, Stephen – after having established who Jordan was – told him Alyce wasn’t there and that he didn’t know when she would be returning; she hadn’t given a date or a location, although he didn’t think it was Manhattan. Jordan told the butler where he was – even stipulating his suite number – and to pass on a message for Alyce to call if she made contact. And did the same when, despite the butler’s doubt that Alyce was in New York, he got the answering service at her West 84th Street apartment.
During the returning flight Jordan had scoured as many newspapers as were available at Raleigh airport. Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal’s coverage was relegated to deep into the inside pages, boosted beyond the strictly limited factual release from Pullinger’s court by photographs of both Appleton and Alyce and the inevitable historical background of both families. Jordan was named only once, without either a photograph or an indication, even, of his English nationality. There was nothing in any international edition of any English newspaper collected for him by the hotel’s customer service department. He’d alerted Lesley Corbin during his earlier call from Raleigh and when he telephoned again she confirmed there was no reference either to the case or to him personally in any of that morning’s London editions. Neither had there been on any national British television or radio bulletin or any Internet news source she’d accessed.
‘Why should there have been?’ she asked him, rhetorically. ‘You were found not guilty of any involvement in the case.’
Jordan waited until after he’d unpacked before mounting his daily monitor of the Appleton and Drake computers. There was a further challenge, again from a Manhattan broker, to a shortfall on another of the earliest copper trades he’d raided, and evident growing alarm in the continuing email conversations between the two earlier questioned metal traders at their inability to discover the cause of their individual problems through any of the personal enquiries they had so far conducted. One, Colin Nutbeam, complained of not being able to look any further or differently than he already had and his colleague, George Sutcliffe, agreed that if they didn’t identify the cause of the disparities in the next twenty-four hours there was no alternative but to officially report it to their respective financial supervisors. From the now extensive communications between the originally challenged John Popple and his financial controller there were gaps indicating either personal interviews or internal telephone conversations, culminating the previous day in the latest email from the fiscal manager, not to Popple but to Alfred Appleton, asking for the earliest possible meeting upon his return from Raleigh to discuss an apparently inexplicable financial discrepancy in an onwardly traded pork belly future. In an attempt to trace the error before the requested meeting, the controller intended conducting an audit of every buy and sell contract in which Popple had been involved in the preceding six months. Until the matter was resolved it was suggested that a specific accounting be made of every buy and sell trade in which Popple had engaged.
Jordan unsuccessfully tried Alyce’s number again before leaving the hotel, delaying any more raids upon Appleton and Drake holdings until he had made room in the five bank accounts. Even though the banks were comparatively close to each other it took him almost four hours to move between them, keeping to the same strict routine. He first withdrew all but between $2,000 to $3,000 from each account, carrying the cash to the separate securities divisions, where in the locked seclusion of their individual private rooms he emptied the already well filled safe-deposit boxes into the two briefcases he carried with him.
Both for continued security against the unlikely irony of a street mugging and to necessarily relieve the physical strain of carrying the two now very heavy cases, Jordan hailed a taxi when he emerged from the last bank to take him back to the Carlyle hotel. There he re-entered the computers of Appleton and Drake and spent almost a further hour plundering previously untouched accounts, moving a total of $22,000 into the five banks in which he had been earlier that afternoon. There was no new correspondence in any of the Appleton and Drake sites he accessed, including the personal station of Alfred Appleton.
Jordan again got Alyce’s answering service when he tried the Manhattan apartment and Stephen insisted there had been no contact from her since Jordan’s previous call, promising to pass on his message and location the moment there was.
The low table in the suite’s sitting room was substantial, running virtually the entire length of the two couches it divided, but it was still too small to accommodate the money when Jordan tried to tip out the contents of both briefcases, even though he had mostly stipulated $100 notes every time he had made a cash withdrawal. Jordan worked carefully and with practised professionalism, assembling the money in individual, one-thousand-dollar bundles before moving the piles from the table to the floor to make room for what was in the second case. At that moment the haul amounted to $530,0000, which meant that after Pullinger’s reduced costs decision in his judgement that Jordan had more than sufficient to settle his account with Daniel Beckwith, even if the final bill exceeded the attorney’s ballpark figure of $250,000. Jordan managed to fit $10,000 in the suite safe, concealed inside the bedroom closet. Neatly stacked as the money now was it was easy to assemble in envelopes of $10,000 each to transport it all in just one briefcase to the cashier’s office, where he rented three more safe-deposit boxes in addition to the two already in his genuine name.
Jordan resisted his impatience to telephone the Manhattan apartment too early the next morning, waiting until just before ten before calling Alyce again, not bothering to leave another message when he again got the answering machine.
Why had she suggested he call if she hadn’t intended to be at either of the numbers she’d given him!
It wasn’t until his settlement meeting with Daniel Beckwith, after a further two days without any contact from Alyce, that Jordan learned Alyce had changed her mind about hiding in North Carolina and flown instead to Antigua.
‘According to Bob she didn’t want to be kept a prisoner there by the media: they’ve set up camp outside, despite Pullinger’s warnings,’ said Beckwith.
‘You know where in Antigua?’
‘No,’ frowned the lawyer. ‘Why?’
‘I didn’t properly say goodbye,’ improvized Jordan.
‘When are you going back?’
‘In a day or two,’ said Jordan. He really did need to go back to England, he told himself. There could be a lot of correspondence at the Hans Crescent flat, quite apart from what might be waiting for him in Marylebone.
‘I guess it’s still possible that Appleton might appeal, despite Pullinger’s warning,’ said Beckwith. ‘He could, I suppose, apply for a retrial because of the comments. Or argue separately against the costs apportionment. Whatever, I don’t see how or why you should be enjoined, apart from the matter of costs, but if anything comes up that you need to know about I’ll liaise through Lesley, OK?’
‘Fine,’ agreed Jordan. ‘What are those costs?’
‘Exactly what I gave you as a ballpark figure,’ said Beckwith. ‘But by the judge’s order, your liability comes down to $50,000.’
‘Cash OK?’ questioned Jordan. He could settle what remained outstanding of the Carlyle bill the same way and still have a lot left over, he calculated. Enough, even, for a short detour to Antigua.
‘Cash is always OK, ‘ smiled the lawyer.
When Jordan called the North Carolina house yet again, Stephen insisted he did not know where Alyce was staying in Antigua – know even that she was on the island – and repeated that there had still been no contact. Jordan decided against telephoning Reid in Raleigh for the number at the same time as realizing he was verging upon making himself appear ridiculous pursuing the woman as he was doing.
When he’d explored Appleton and Drake before leaving for his appointment with Daniel Beckwith there had been no new email exchanges but it was very different when he entered again that afternoon. There were two fresh broker enquiries on discrepancies on metal trades, as well as the decision to alert their financial managers by the two traders who’d failed to solve their individual shortfall problem. And a blizzard of correspondence to and from Alfred Appleton, including four of increasing animosity, between Appleton and his partner, Peter Drake, demanding to know why an in-house investigation had not been initiated earlier. It was difficult for Jordan to assemble a fully comprehensive understanding of everything that was unfolding in the Wall Street office, because of the obvious breaks in the sequences by telephone or personal meetings, but towards the end of the day Jordan knew Appleton had ordered a total internal audit of their previous six months business upon every trader, in addition to imposing supervision upon every future trade until the cause of the apparent errors was traced. There were also emailed instructions – with the assurance of personally signed letters to follow – against allowing anything of the problems leaking outside the office to undermine the reputation or confidence of the firm. Any such disclosure would be investigated with the tenacity with which the financial irregularities were being pursued. Any uncovered whistle-blower would face civil litigation for commercial infringement of the confidentiality clauses of their contact, as well as instant dismissal.
It was time to close down, Jordan concluded. It was still short of the time he’d originally allowed himself and far shorter still of the inevitable outcome that would engulf Alfred Appleton. Jordan’s decision had nothing whatsoever to do with any belated regret. And certainly not pity, for how badly the outcome of the case had gone for the commodity trader. Appleton had set out to damage and inconvenience him as much as Appleton would eventually be damaged and inconvenienced in return. Nor was it Jordan’s fear of discovery, because after today’s final closure the risk of his being caught would no longer exist. It was, rather, that Jordan had lost interest, virtually to the point of boredom, in any future retribution. Jordan believed he had his priorities in their carefully arranged order and Alfred Appleton no longer featured on the list.
Except for this one last, explosive time.
From a selection of Appleton’s personally held but unmoved trades Jordan switched a total of $12,000 into the account he’d taken out in Appleton’s name in the Chase Manhattan and in which $2,000 still remained, although the safe-deposit box was now cleared. Directly after that he ordered by email that $10,500 be transferred into the Caribbean hedge fund that had advised him their minimally acceptable opening investment was $10,000, well aware, too, that the Chase were required automatically to report the transfer and that such reporting would just as automatically trigger the sort of official enquiry – and attendant publicity – that Appleton was so anxious to avoid.
Jordan then patiently severed all connection and trace of his Trojan Horse stables throughout every computer and ancillary link-line in the Appleton and Drake system. After electronically ending the lease on the West 72nd Street apartment and settling all out-standing bills, electronically again, he telephoned the concierge at the Marylebone flat and Lesley Corbin just off Chancery Lane, advising them of his return the following day, leaving until last his final call to North Carolina, leaving with Stephen the message that he was going back to England and would call Alyce from there sometime in the future. He managed to book a conveniently timed mid-morning flight to London the following day and that night, after dinner, took a taxi to the 23rd Street marina and seaplane port into which Appleton had flown during his daily commute from Long Island, enjoying the irony when, judging the moment, he dropped the much-used and incriminating laptop into the East River.
As he settled his outstanding and substantial bill in cash the receptionist said, ‘We hope you’ll be coming back soon to stay with us again.’
‘So do I,’ said Jordan, meaning it.
It was a Tuesday, a month after Jordan’s return to London, when his retribution against Alfred Appleton became public knowledge with headlines in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, both of whose websites Jordan monitored daily, doubting that the announcement of a police investigation into the affairs of Alfred Appleton would be carried in English newspapers. It was, though – in the Independent and the Daily Telegraph – when the FBI were called in after the additional discovery of the apparent hedge fund application, and even then the coverage was based more upon the recent divorce that had broken the ten-year bond between two of America’s oldest historical families. The Telegraph even carried a wedding day photograph of Alyce and Appleton. There was a second photograph of Appleton being escorted from Appleton and Drake’s Wall Street building by Federal agents, above a company statement denying any knowledge or involvement in alleged embezzlement of client funds and attempted illegal monetary transfers into offshore funds. The English coverage was short lived and Jordan relied upon the continuing coverage in the American newspapers, extending his monitoring to the New York Daily News as the initial story grew with the uncovering of the five New York bank accounts in easy walking distance of the commodity dealers’ building and the West 72nd Street apartment leased in Appleton’s name. Jordan’s concentration remained upon any reference or comment concerning Alyce, which he found towards the end of the first week. An unnamed spokesperson from what was described as the Bellamy North Carolina compound was quoted as saying that Alyce was out of the country at an undisclosed location on an extended vacation from which she was not expected to return for several weeks. She would have no comment to make upon that return.
Jordan had made four unsuccessful attempts to contact Alyce from England, in between working to restore the far too long neglected routine in his life, although stopping short of actively selecting a new persona to adopt. There remained, of course, the already researched operation as Paul Maculloch, in whose name the Hans Crescent apartment was leased and whose every personal detail he knew. Also existing, in the Maculloch name, were the Royston and Jones bank accounts and the unbreakable rule against carrying over from one job to another an already established facility. Jordan accepted that he was stretching the protective rule to its breaking point but that’s what restraining rules were: protective. And for this reason they had to be strictly observed.
That decision made long before the eventual Tuesday revelation about Appleton, Jordan moved both to guard his existing savings as well as severing all links to the little used Maculloch identity, even though in doing so he breached another forbidden barrier.
Within two days of his return from America he loaded half the money in the Royston and Jones deposit boxes into a crammed suitcase, far more than he had ever moved before, and went directly from Leadenhall Street to the Jersey ferry port to put it beyond any discovery or court power in the bank secrecy haven of St Helier. Two weeks later – far more quickly than any previous asset transfer – Jordan risked the repeated trip and crossed the English Channel again with the remainder of the London money. Jordan closed the Leadenhall Street facilities and the Hans Crescent flat rental the same day and spent the majority of his evenings in casinos in which, over the course of the four weeks he lost close to £20,000 of his total £70,000 stake which, although he refused to admit to any gambler’s superstition, not regarding himself as one, he regarded as a bad omen, although he still collected the necessary winning receipt certificates on the £50,000 that remained.
Dinner with Lesley Corbin on his first week back was a highlight, largely because he had so much background to recount of the Raleigh hearings – during which she pointedly reminded him there’d been a loose, unfulfilled arrangement for her to attend as a legal observer, adding that she’d already heard from Beckwith how much he’d contributed – but he’d declined her invitation to a nightcap when he delivered her home to her Pimlico flat. He paid Lesley’s bill, in cash, by return the following week and she telephoned to thank him and Jordan responded as he knew he was expected, with another dinner invitation. Afterwards he took her to a Mayfair casino and overrode her protests to stake her with five hundred pounds. She doubled it and he lost £2,300. He declined the nightcap invitation that night too. She promised to call if there was any contact from Beckwith about an appeal by Appleton and Jordan said there was a message service with which he kept in contact if he wasn’t at the Marylebone flat, lying that there was a possibility of his soon going on a gambling sweep through Europe. He did actually go to Paris for the Arc de Triomphe race meeting, briefly sorry that he didn’t invite her but regretting more losing £5,000.
It was the publicity of the Appleton investigation that brought Jordan out of denial to confront the fact that he’d done virtually nothing whatsoever constructive to re-establish anything like a proper working regime but that, to the contrary, he was positively avoiding doing so.
Jordan used the excuse of that publicity to telephone Daniel Beckwith, who responded at once with the demand, ‘Would you fucking believe it?’
‘Never in a million years,’ said Jordan, wondering the colour of the other man’s cowboy shirt that day. ‘You heard anything about an appeal?’
‘With the shit he’s now covered in! Forget it!’
‘You think he really did it?’ asked Jordan, to justify the conversation.
‘The story is they’re running book on Wall Street. You should get back over here, win yourself some easy money.’
With what he knew he could probably do just that if what Beckwith said was true, reflected Jordan. ‘You heard how Alyce is reacting? Spoken to Bob maybe?’
‘Don’t expect to,’ dismissed Beckwith. ‘I’d imagine she’s turning cartwheels and setting off fire crackers in celebration. I’ll keep in touch, if there’s anything.’
Jordan mulled over the idea for almost an hour before calling Reid in Raleigh.
As Beckwith had done, the North Carolina lawyer took the call at once, although more controlled. ‘There’s a guy with a whole bunch of trouble,’ the lawyer agreed. ‘The late night talk shows are competing for the best jokes.’
‘I’ve tried calling Alyce, to see if she’s OK,’ said Jordan, honestly. ‘I read in one of the papers that she’s abroad and won’t be back for some time?’
‘A smokescreen,’ dismissed Reid. ‘She’s mostly down here on the estate just outside the city. Best place to be if she wants to hide, which she does. And she can fly in and out when she wants from the airstrip they’ve got there.’
‘You speak to her a lot?’
‘Not a lot. No reason to, now it’s all over.’
‘If you do, will you do me a favour? Tell her I’ve tried to call, to see if she’s OK. That I’d like to hear from her.’
There was a pause from the other end of the line. ‘I’ll pass it on, if we speak again.’
Jordan’s phone rang two days later.
‘I’ve tried to call,’ said Jordan.
‘Bob told me.’
‘And before I came back.’ He thought her voice was flat, as if she were depressed.
‘Stephen told me that, too.’
‘How are you?
‘Pissed off with all the media hanging around again, since Alfred’s arrest.’
‘I guess he’s in deep trouble.’
‘I guess,’ she agreed, disinterestedly.
‘I’m thinking of coming across.’
‘What for?’
‘Just a trip,’ Jordan pressed on. ‘I thought maybe we could meet up?’
‘I told you, I’m under siege again down here.’
‘Bob said you could get in and out by air when you wanted to. We could get together in New York, if they haven’t found your apartment there.’
Alyce didn’t respond.
‘Alyce?’
I am going up for a foundation meeting next week. It’ll be the first time since my re-establishment on the board.’
‘It was next week I was thinking of coming over,’ improvised Jordan. ‘When will you be there?’
‘Tuesday onwards.’
‘I’ll be at the Carlyle again. I’ll call you from there.’
‘Wednesday,’ said Alyce. ‘Make it Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday,’ agreed Jordan.
Remembering his jetlag Jordan caught a weekend flight. The Sunday edition of the New York Times reported in a front page story that the FBI had encountered some ‘unusual features’ in the Appleton investigation.
Jordan didn’t once leave his Carlyle suite on the Sunday -eating from room service – and only walked as far as Central Park the following day. It was in the park that he read that day’s New York Times and Wall Street Journal, both of which reported, without much more detail, that the Justice Department were possibly convening a Grand Jury to investigate the Appleton affair.
He reached only Alyce’s answering service on his two Tuesday calls, asking her on both occasions where she wanted to eat, to enable him to make the reservation, but it wasn’t until the Wednesday morning that she finally answered, personally, suggesting lunch, not dinner, and at the hotel.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jordan finally asked. She was as flat voiced as she had been when she’d called him in London the previous week and since then he’d thought about little else but her obvious lassitude.
‘You really do sometimes have the strangest aptitude for asking the most stupid questions!’
‘As you sometimes have the strangest aptitude for responding with the most confusing answers.’
‘You want to call it off?’
‘No!’ said Jordan, urgently. ‘The last thing I want to do is call anything off. I want to see you. Talk to you.’
‘At lunch,’ Alyce insisted.
‘I’ll make the reservation; we can have a drink first. I’ll be waiting in the lobby again.’
Which he was, a table booked in the bar as well as the restaurant, the half bottle of champagne already in its cooler. Alyce came into the hotel with the same commanding confidence as before, attracting the same attention as before, although Jordan judged it to be because of how she was dressed – a long coated white trouser suit with a floppy-brimmed matching white hat – and so perfectly made up, the too bright red lipstick replaced by paler pink, the colour to her face more natural than applied. She accepted the champagne and extended the flute for the glass-touching toast and said, ‘I almost didn’t come again but now I have I’m glad and it’s good to see you.’
‘And I’m even more confused than ever,’ said Jordan.
‘Which I guess I am, too. And don’t want to be, not any longer.’
‘Then I’m glad I made the trip here because I don’t want any more confusion or misunderstandings,’ said Jordan. ‘From this moment on I want both of us to understand everything, know everything about the other, although I’m not sure it’s going to come out as straight as I want it to.’
‘You sure about that, my darling?’
Jordan smiled at the word, the relief surging through him. ‘I think so … I think I know so.’
‘And I think I should speak first, before—’ started Alyce.
‘No!’ refused Jordan. ‘You spoke ahead of me when we said goodbye in France and I stupidly agreed because I didn’t understand … didn’t know … and I’m not going to let it happen again. Nothing’s going to be easy, because of what and who you are and because of what I am, although what I am – really am – isn’t going to be any barrier because I’m all set for another career change that’s going to get that out of the way. I love you, which is something I never thought I’d ever tell anyone again. I want us to be together. Married together, although God knows how that’s going to happen but I’ll make it happen. I guess you’ll want to continue living here – working here -which is fine. And I don’t want you to imagine I want to live off you and your money and your position. I’ve got a lot of money … enough money … and we can give all yours to yet another charity. And—’
‘Stop!’ insisted Alyce. ‘Please stop! I don’t want you to go on misunderstanding … saying things I don’t want to hear you say, although I do want to hear you say them—’
‘You’re not making sense,’ halted Jordan, in turn.
‘Then let me,’ pleaded Alyce. ‘Let me talk, try to explain as best I can, without stopping me. Without stopping me and hating me because I never want you to hate me, not now and not ever. I know who you are, Harvey. Know what you are. Which means I know what you’ve done to Alfred. How I guessed you paid all the bills and didn’t want my money …’ She stopped, gulping too deeply at her drink and having to cough when it caught her breath.
‘I tricked you, my darling,’ she started again. ‘Tricked you and now I am so very, very sorry. I never intended it to happen, none of it. I never imagined Alfred would invoke that stupid fucking criminal conversation claim; never thought I’d ever see you again, which made everything worse, because I wanted to, so much, after France.’
‘You’re not—’ Jordan started again but sharply she interrupted him.
‘No! I’ve got to finish because I don’t think I can say it all a second time. Of course I knew Alfred was having me watched here because I was having him watched long before he put his private detectives on to me. I knew all about Sharon Borowski and Leanne Jefferies, and had two other women if I needed to cite them. But here, in America, he was getting too close. He had to be diverted, get the co-respondent he needed for the divorce. Which is why I went to France and found you. You were only ever supposed to be a necessary name to get him to pull his people off. I didn’t even know of something called criminal conversation. Or guess in a million years that you would fight it. Never thought I’d ever see you again although by the time I flew back I wanted to, so very much …’
Jordan took advantage of another gulped drink. ‘How do you know what I do?’
‘That extra week, when I extended the vacation? That was to get my own enquiry people to France: those I’d personally employed to watch Alfred, not the DKK agency that Bob engaged.’ She sniggered a humourless laugh. ‘You know why I did it? I did it because I really didn’t want you to get in the situation you ended up in. But you confused us so much, back in England. Changing from Harvey Jordan to Peter Thomas Wightman. It didn’t take long to work out why, though. Then we thought you’d caught us out, all those evasion tricks when you went back to your own apartment …’ She raised her hand towards him. ‘Don’t worry, darling. What you did when you got back to England wasn’t breaking any American law, not that I’d have blown the whistle on you if it did. And I’m certainly not going to tell anyone about what you’ve done to Alfred.’
‘You keep calling me darling.’
‘Why do you think I wore that stupid plastic ring all the time, after you gave it to me … even wore it back here on the plane? I loved you by then … like I love you now. Which is why I’m going to end it now and marry Walter, who’s kind and gentle and who I came to France to protect from Alfred’s people. And who I think I love enough, just enough, to marry.’
‘No!’ refused Jordan. ‘We could make something work. I don’t know what or how but there’ll be some way …’
Alyce shook her head. ‘It might have worked, maybe, if Alfred hadn’t sued for criminal conversation. And if you hadn’t beat him in court, as you did. Somehow, somewhen, it would come out if we got together. And when it did Alfred would have every grounds for appealing the court’s decision. Alfred would employ every private detective he could, although he wouldn’t need many to show your photograph to the banks in which you opened the accounts in his name and the realtor from whom you leased the apartment on West 72nd Street that all the newspapers have identified, would it? And then you’d go to prison – which I couldn’t bear – and all the Bellamy Foundations and trusts would be disgraced because I’d be linked – possibly even charged with complicity with you – and I couldn’t expose the family to that, as much as I love you. It’s over, my darling. It’s got to be over. We got too clever, both of us. And ended up beating ourselves.’
Jordan reclined the back of the First Class seat and adjusted the eye shades against being disturbed by the cabin staff, even though he’d already told the supervisor he didn’t want anything to eat or drink, just to be left alone. Which he was, he acknowledged; alone again, with only himself to consider or think of, which he’d once considered the perfect way to be, but didn’t any more.
Alyce was right, of course. He’d known that all the time he’d argued with her – close to pleading with her – that they could work out a way to stay together, be happy together, to her head-shaking adamant refusal that they’d end up hating each other, unable to hide from Appleton. Which meant, he supposed, that in a way Appleton had won, after all. Too convoluted, Jordan corrected himself: too much self-pity. He had to accept what had happened – not yet, but eventually – and move on, as he’d eventually moved on after that other long ago collapse into self-pity.
Except that he didn’t want to. The sudden awareness surprised Jordan; confused him even and he forced himself to confront exactly what it was he didn’t want any more To go on as he was, doing what he did, he answered himself, further surprised at another potential, self-imposed upheaval in his life. What life? he asked himself, continuing the personal analysis. What – where – was the life in becoming someone with a different name every two or three months, turning some poor bastard’s existence on its head as his had been turned by what had just happened to him? Compartmentalizing everything between himself and Alyce, Jordan recognized he’d been lucky escaping as he had, remaining undiscovered for what he was by Appleton’s surveillance team. Harvey Jordan, the man who never gambled, acknowledged that his luck couldn’t last.
What could – would – he do then? Not a decision to be rushed, although he’d once done well enough running his own legitimate computer programming business and there was more than sufficient money squirreled away in Jersey to start again. There was no need or reason to rush the decision, he thought again. Maybe something to think about, refine in detail, on another vacation. But then again, maybe not: the vacation that is, not the detailed consideration on his future. The weather in the South of France was uncertain in October.
He slept dreamlessly and undisturbed during the flight and disembarked in London actually excited at the thought of doing something new. The immigration officer was a blonde girl who reminded him vaguely of Alyce. She looked between him and his passsport photograph and said, ‘Harvey Jordan?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, to his own satisfaction. ‘Very definitely Harvey Jordan.’