The Namedropper (36 page)

Reid hesitated and it was Beckwith who answered. ‘Bob's people think they might have something about what you picked up on – Appleton's withdrawal from that Olympic selection, remember?'

‘And why he seemed to drop out of Boston's social life,' added Jordan, building on the reminder. ‘What was it?'

‘They haven't fully pinned it down, not completely. But a woman, a girl, seems to have been part of it.'

Alyce had talked of something involving a girl, Jordan at once recalled. What he couldn't remember was when and then he did: when they'd first met in New York with neither of them sure whether or not it legally endangered them. Cautiously he said, ‘That's not going to impress Pullinger, from what I've seen so far.'

‘That sort of observation is not why you're being included in these conversations to provide,' dismissed Reid.

Those words of Reid's echoed in Jordan's ear like the clearest of warning bells. Too softly for her to hear from where she stood at the window, he said, ‘Ask Alyce.'

‘I already have. She says she doesn't know what it could mean.'

‘Ask her again,' insisted Jordan.

The pony-tailed Beckwith let out an exaggerated sigh. ‘We going to have to beat this out of you, Harvey?'

It had to remain vague, Jordan decided. ‘Alyce told me something that sounds familiar, about Appleton and a girl, before she and Appleton got together.' Jordan was conscious of his lawyer looking pointedly at him as Reid walked across to the window at which Alyce stood.

Beckwith said, ‘You got something more to tell me, just the two of us?'

‘No.'

‘I don't want to be caught out again, like I was with that fucking ring.'

‘I explained that! You agreed it wasn't important.'

‘I accepted how it might have happened. I won't accept getting caught with my pants down a second time. You and Alyce got an agenda I don't know about?'

‘No!' denied Jordan, again. He was walking backwards into a cul-de-sac, he decided.

‘Where did Alyce talk about this? In France? Or here?'

‘Here.'

‘When?'

‘Before the dismissal application.'

‘A meeting you also forgot to tell me about! After I'd told you – Bob had told you, as well – to stay away from each other!'

‘It's in the past! Over!' said Jordan, inadequately. ‘Now it could help.'

‘You want to do me a favour, Harvey? I want you to stop thinking – behaving – like a gambler and more like a defendant in a court case that could still cost you a whole bunch of money. You've contributed a lot and I recognize that. Appreciate that. As Bob does. Don't risk losing everything we've so far won by trying too hard.'

He had to capitulate, Jordan accepted, reluctantly. And was relieved, too, that Reid was walking back across the ante-room towards them. Jordan said to his lawyer, ‘I'll tell you every time I piss, too,' and wished he hadn't the moment the words were out.

‘Make sure you do it in the pan and not all over your feet,' scored Beckwith, easily, increasing Jordan's regret.

‘She doesn't know much more,' announced Reid, getting to them.

‘How much more?' demanded Jordan.

‘Alyce thinks the girl belonged to the same yacht club as Appleton, in Boston. And that she lived in Lexington: it's a suburb of Boston with a lot of history,' said Reid, continuing on. ‘I can get that enquiry underway before the court resumes.'

More than Alyce had volunteered to him, thought Jordan. But then he hadn't pressed her very hard on it. ‘Should be a good enough lead,' he remarked to Beckwith. He didn't add that he'd started to discover the story of other people's lives from much less.

Jordan, who was walking behind, was conscious of Alyce looking anxiously around for her doctor as, rejoined by Reid, they filed back into court. Jordan couldn't see Harding either and before they passed through the gated rail he came as close as he conveniently could and said, ‘He'll still be on the phone. Don't worry.'

She gave no indication of having heard him. The Appleton group followed into the court directly afterwards and virtually as they sat Pullinger began addressing the recalled jury. As was in his power, the judge said, the court was to be closed to reporters and photographs, either old or new, forbidden from publication until they had reached their verdict. For that reason they were prohibited from discussing with anyone outside the court anything they heard in evidence, including members of their families or friends. If they were approached by strangers seeking information they were to obtain as best they could – a telephone number, for instance – the identity of that stranger and report it at once to a court official. Their sworn and therefore legally required function, having heard his concluding directions, was to decide which of the petitioning parties was primarily responsible for the breakdown of the marriage. Their second function, according to a law which North Carolina remained one of the few states within the Union still to observe, was to decide the financial culpability of the two co-respondents, separately cited by each of the petitioning parties. Here again, insisted Pullinger, the jury was to be guided by his very specific concluding guidance, before retiring to reach their verdicts. If there was anything whatsoever that they did not understand, or by which they were confused, they were immediately to contact a court official, for those doubts and uncertainties to be resolved.

Turning to Appleton's attorney, the judge said, ‘At last, Mr Bartle!'

Jordan was reminded, within minutes of Bartle opening, of his own lawyer's remark that Bartle had a lot of court ground to recover. Jordan's biggest surprise was that there was no attempt to apportion or admit blame to either Alyce or Appleton. Marriage was a solemn but often difficult undertaking, intoned Bartle, its failure always regrettable and too often acrimonious. They would hear of such acrimony. They would hear of adultery, to which the judge had already referred. From the care of its selection, Bartle acknowledged each member of the jury to be men or women of the world and as such, on behalf of his client, he accepted that theirs, after his honour's guidance, would be a properly considered and well founded verdict.

‘Clever opening,' insisted Beckwith, unasked, bending sideways to Jordan. ‘Not talking down to them but
to
them, as equals not to be frightened of a court or what they've got to do in it.'

Coming sideways to meet the lawyer, Jordan was briefly aware of Walter Harding resuming his seat just behind the separating rail and of Alyce's brief, snatched look of relief.

Returning to what was happening in front of him, Jordon decided Alfred Appleton appeared even more overpoweringly large when he took the stand, trying – but failing – to refuse his earlier thought of the incongruity of such a gross man being in bed, making love, to someone as fragile as Alyce. There was a studied politeness, though, in the way Appleton responded, even voiced, to his attorney's lead, talking not to Bartle but always between the jury and the judge. He was proud, declared Appleton, to be a descendent of one of America's oldest and most respected families. And had been even prouder when, by his marriage to Alyce, there had been created the link to another similarly respected, country-founding family. He had never – nor ever would – take lightly the privileges and responsibilities of his birth. He worked – worked hard – for his living, hoping in a small way to give back something of the benefits that he'd inherited from his forefathers' building and development of the great country that was the United States of America. He'd hoped his marriage to Alyce Bellamy would be a contribution towards that ambition. So hard had he followed the American ethos of working to build up his Wall Street practise that, stupidly and now regretfully, he'd neglected Alyce in the early years of their marriage. But he'd hoped to have realized that neglect in time, trying to balance the demands of business with the responsibilities of his marriage.

His fervent hope had been that they could start a family, to seal the joining together of their dynasties with children. But they did not materialize. Knowing that his wife preferred a country to a city life he'd suggested she live in a family house on Long Island, from which he'd commuted every day of the week to Manhattan. Commodity dealers worked to a twenty-four-hour clock, meaning that he needed to be in the city around six in the morning and felt rarely able to leave before seven at night and after a few months he was warned by his doctor that he was risking a nervous breakdown. He changed his routine, splitting his week evenly between their two homes. His wife became unresponsive to him and he, in turn, became convinced that she was having an affair. Stupidly, rejected by a wife he loved, lonely in Manhattan, he became involved in two quickly terminated affairs, one of which, to his great and abiding regret, had resulted in Leanne Jefferies appearing with him in court as a defendant in a damages claim brought against her by his wife.

He believed his conviction that his wife was having an affair was confirmed when he discovered he was suffering a venereal disease. Despite which, after treatment, he made a determined effort to save his marriage by attempting a reconciliation with his wife after she demanded a divorce. Shortly afterwards, his wife announced that she was suffering a venereal infection and blamed him for giving it to her, which he categorically denied then and still did now, believing it was she who had given it to him, for him, in turn, unwittingly, to give it to Leanne Jefferies.

Despite the difficulties they had experienced – the venereal infection being the greatest – he still loved his wife and was willing once more to try yet another reconciliation. He had made that clear to her but she had said she wanted to go away to France to consider it. But from France, where he later learned she had formed an association with an Englishman, Harvey Jordan, she had instructed her attorney to initiate the threatened divorce that had brought them to court that day.

Beckwith began scribbling a series of notes to Alyce's attorney as Appleton's evidence-in-chief drew to its close, with Reid hunched in what appeared to be virtually permanent conversation with a head-shaking, red-faced Alyce.

‘How would you describe your being here in court today, confronted with the end of a marriage in which you held so much hope and expectation?' asked Bartle, finally.

‘A tragedy I shall regret for the rest of my life,' replied Appleton.

Reid appeared in no hurry to get to his feet, to begin his cross-examination, and even when he stood he fumbled, without apparent success, through his disordered papers. And then he needed to use an asthma inhaler before he could speak. Finally he said, ‘I apologize, your honour. And to you, Mr Appleton.'

‘Do you need a short recess?' asked the judge.

Jordan, concentrating upon Appleton, caught the briefest exchange of satisfied looks between the man and his lawyer.

‘No, your honour. But thank you for your consideration,' said the attorney, no indication of difficulty in his voice. ‘But I would seek your understanding in an application, even before beginning my examination, to recall this witness at a future time.'

Jordan was aware of Appleton's face tightening. Bartle's, too.

‘Do you wish to approach the bench?' invited Pullinger.

‘No, your honour. The jury has heard of the plaintiff's admission of two adulterous relationships, but been introduced to only one, that with Ms Leanne Jefferies, a defendant in the secondary action of criminal conversation?'

‘Your honour!' interrupted Bartle, coming to his feet. ‘Perhaps it was remiss of me not to have brought to the jury's attention the death of the second woman to whom my colleague is referring. And if you find it to be so, I apologize. But –' he turned, to include the jury – ‘the person concerned, Ms Sharon Borowski, was the victim of a fatal automobile accident. As such she cannot feature in any way in this hearing. This surprise intercession therefore has no purpose or part in these proceedings.'

Reid took his inhaler from his pocket, considered its use, but then replaced it. ‘Your honour, in the required exchange of material before the commencement of this case –' he moved his hand through the papers on the table before him, coming up with a single sheet – ‘numbered thirty-five in your bundle, your honour, I advised the other side that I required the medical records of Ms Borowski?'

‘To which I replied that none were available, the unfortunate woman being dead,' came in the opposing lawyer, again.

‘Indeed Mr Bartle did,' agreed Reid. ‘It's numbered thirty-six in your bundle, your honour. Two other people died, in the accident involving Ms Borowski, a mother and her son. The fatality is the subject of a civil action, against Ms Borowski's estate by the husband of the other woman who died. From enquiries I have made, after Mr Bartle's dismissal of my request, I believe there was a toxicology analysis carried out upon Ms Borowski. That would have included blood samples. I have applied to the coroner for a copy of that analysis, relevant as certain medical matters would appear to be in this case and to which the plaintiff, Mr Appleton, has already given some evidence …' Turning very slightly towards the jury, Reid went on: ‘And I would stress some evidence, to the matter of transmitted infection. It is for that reason, in the hopeful expectation of a reply from the coroner during the course of this hearing, that I am making my recall application.'

‘I find no problem with this,' said Pullinger. ‘Mr Bartle?'

‘I know of no precedent for such a course to be admissible,' argued Bartle. ‘The dead cannot provide evidence from the grave.'

‘It would not be Ms Borowski providing evidence from the grave,' disputed Pullinger. ‘It would be a coroner or medical examiner, both of whom could be called to give evidence before this court, on oath, of their findings …' He paused. ‘A course, a provision of evidence, that Mr Reid opened to you by his original request.'