The Namedropper (40 page)

Alyce had accepted without any visible regret the calling of her doctor and gynaecologist and insisted that she could remember telling Appleton during their April fifth confrontation that she already had him under surveillance, which in fact hadn't begun until after she'd engaged Reid as her divorce lawyer.

When the after-court conference ended Jordan hesitated, on the point of suggesting that he and Alyce spend the unexpectedly free afternoon together, only pulling back at the awareness that he had more arrangements to make for his planned moved against Alfred Appleton.

Back in his locked hotel suite Jordan patiently surfed the net for hedge funds based throughout the Caribbean – uncaring that what he intended breached US financial regulations – and selected two in Grand Cayman, one in the Turks and Caicos Islands and the other in Aruba. To each he wrote, from his position inside Appleton's personal computer, in Appleton's name and giving Appleton's genuine passport details, Social Security identification and asked for opening deposits required to establish a portfolio.

He did not expect immediate responses – imagining a delay possibly as long as a week – but within an hour he received an acknowledgement from one of the Grand Cayman funds, stipulating $25,000 as a minimum, and another from Aruba setting the figure at $10,000. He notified each to expect contact from Alfred Jerome Appleton within the coming month.

Beckwith was waiting for him when Jordan got to the bar, delayed by the hedge fund enquiries and still with some of his sites unchecked. The lawyer announced that he'd taken the chance of Jordan agreeing to their going to a restaurant that Reid had recommended, about ten miles out of town.

‘A change from here would be good,' accepted Jordan.

‘Abrahams has confirmed his arrival tomorrow,' said Beckwith. ‘So have the other two.'

‘I didn't expect that, did you?'

‘It's getting difficult to anticipate anything,' said Beckwith. ‘All these delays must be boring the hell out of you?'

‘I manage to fill in the time,' said Jordan.

When they got back from the restaurant, which they'd enjoyed and decided to use again, Jordan declined Beckwith's offered nightcap, anxious to complete his nightly computer check.

He'd been at his screen less than an hour when he came upon the query from a Chicago broker and accepted that the hunt to find the Appleton and Drake intruder had begun.

Twenty-Eight

T
here was the briefest stomach lurch at his detection: if there hadn't it would have meant he had become complacent, which Jordan had always regarded as the greatest sin possible in his profession. But that was all it was, brief, as quickly acknowledged and just as quickly compartmentalized because there was not the slightest risk of the investigation that would now laboriously unfold ever connecting him to what had already happened or with what was going to continue happening until, Mr Invisible once more, he chose to disappear at the split-second click of a computer key. A gambler, which Jordan most very definitely was not, would have bet upon it taking two months from this moment for Appleton and Drake to go thoroughly through their back office trades for them to begin to recognize how completely they had been invaded and by how much they had been looted. Jordan set himself a month to complete what he had started. Even if, by the sort of miracle in which Jordan did not believe, the investigation within a month traced the intrusion to Darwin he was still not in any personal danger. The Trojan Horse in the Darwin cut-out system was in Appleton's name and contained all Appleton's identifying details, none of Jordan's.

Jordan was nevertheless disappointed – and irritated – at being discovered. He'd been particularly careful not to siphon money from any ‘wash trades' – buy-and-sell futures purchases upon which an immediate profit was likely, sometimes within the space of twenty-four hours – but those instead intended to be held for a longer period for the price to go up. Jordan's mistake, which he at once and fully acknowledged, was not sufficiently following the market movement in all the commodities through which he'd moved collecting, figuratively with his basket in hand. He'd concentrated upon metals, the primary trading activity of Appleton's company. The five-hundred dollars he'd skimmed from the order placed by a Chicago-based broker named David Cohen was for pork belly, predictable from the Chicago exchange being dominated by meat trades, the movement of which, unlike metals, he hadn't consulted daily and in which there had obviously been a sudden upward price jump to trigger the sell. Like all objective men, Jordan accepted it as a lesson to be learned and a mistake not to be repeated: from now on he had daily – even twice daily – to monitor the price shifts of every commodity deal he raided.

A month then, Jordan rationalized. More than sufficient time in which to achieve everything – more maybe – that he wanted. No reason, yet, for him to break the American financial regulations by opening, in Appleton's name, the intended hedge fund portfolios. His only current pressure was to move the visible money from the New York bank accounts into the safe-deposit facilities to make available space for fresh infusions from the Appleton and Drake client list. During the four weeks Jordan estimated he could accumulate between $500,000 and $750,000 to offset any court award and lawyer costs; possibly more if his monitoring of the impending investigation disclosed that it was moving more slowly than he'd estimated. No! Jordan warned himself, at once. To go beyond his time limit would be to risk the gamble he had already decided against.

Jordan awoke by six, wrongly believing the Chicago challenge to be the only leftover surprise of the day. There had been insufficient movement over the preceding three days to prompt profit selling in either copper or steel and he decided to restrict himself entirely in both, going through previously untouched accounts and distributing a total of $5,000 between the five New York accounts. The transfers completed, Jordan came across a letter from the Chicago broker, which was not addressed to Appleton but to a junior partner in the firm, John Popple, who had carried out the futures purchase, smiling at the confirmation of its tone. It was not phrased as a complaint but as an enquiry, inferring that the five-hundred-dollar disparity was a bookkeeping or accounting mistake, which was the manner in which Popple replied, promising a records check of the back office buy and sell comparisons, with the undertaking to get back to Cohen within days.

He'd underestimated the time it would take for a proper investigation to get underway, Jordan decided, upon reflection. It was far more likely to be three rather than two months. But he'd stick to his schedule. Unless, that is, something came up that he hadn't anticipated.

How long would it be before Appleton learned of the Chicago enquiry? Jordan wondered, gazing fixedly at the hunched, dour-faced commodity trader as the court assembled. Certainly not this week. Maybe not until a full blown criminal enquiry, by which time the divorce case could be over and he, conceivably, back in England evolving another, overly delayed new operation. Or would he be? Wrong question, he corrected himself. Did he
want
to go back to London directly after distancing himself both from the divorce and the retribution against Alfred Appleton? All of it had been – and would continue to be – work: unaccustomed work far harder and more demanding than that upon which he was normally engaged. And in between which he usually allowed himself a recovering break, if not a proper vacation. Didn't he deserve a period of rest, just he and …? Jordan stopped the drift, very positively refusing it, turning to the other side of the court for the first time that day. Alyce was in black again, her paleness accentuated, and she had turned back to the separating bar towards which Dr Harding, in turn, was stretched forward in nodded conversation, along with a greying, bespectacled woman. In the same row, although not directly alongside, sat the three venerealogists. Because of how she was twisted to look behind her Alyce became aware of Jordan's look and turned to smile, briefly, at him. Beckwith and Reid were also stretched between their separated tables in huddled discussion and as they rose for the familiar opening ritual of the judge's entry Beckwith muttered, ‘Could be another good day.'

Reid remained on his feet as the rest of the court settled and to Pullinger's enquiring look said, ‘I wish to inform your honour at this earliest opportunity, and prior to the expert medical evidence for which this court was adjourned yesterday, that I have received this morning, by courier, the requested medical examination report on Sharon Borowski, after her fatal automobile accident. I have had that report duplicated for distribution, with your honour's permission, before the calling of today's medical experts, whose interpretation I believe will be necessary.'

‘You are not seeking yet another adjournment, are you, Mr Reid?' demanded the judge, threateningly.

‘Subject to any representation from other counsel – and of course to your honour's guidance – I am prepared to ask doctors Abrahams, Chapman and Lewell to respond from the witness stand. If it would further assist the court, there are also present today Dr Walter Harding and Mrs Appleton's gynaecologist, Dr Brenda Stirling, whose addition to my witnesses list I have already advised.'

Instead of addressing the other lawyers individually, Pullinger looked between the three of them and curtly said, ‘Well?'

Bartle was first on his feet to agree, followed by the other two and while the medical examiner's report was being circulated Beckwith said, quietly, ‘Shit!'

‘What's the problem?' Jordan whispered back.

‘If whatever's in the report on Sharon Borowski goes against Appleton, there's room for a mistrial appeal – intervention at least – on the grounds of insufficient consultation.'

‘Why didn't you object?'

‘It's better as far as you are concerned to go ahead. You're the guy I represent, remember?' said Beckwith, rising as George Abrahams was called to the stand. Because it was the first time the jury were to hear the evidence referring to the chlamydia, the beginning of Beckwith's examination was a virtual repetition of the previous closed court hearing establishing that Jordan was clear of any such infection.

Beckwith got as far as: ‘Can we now turn …?' before Pullinger's interruption.

‘Not yet,' stopped Pullinger. To Abrahams he said, ‘I require you to answer in the briefest manner possible some questions I wish to put to you, which have to be introduced into the public record. You have already given evidence before me, in the absence of a jury, upon chlamydia, have you not?'

‘Yes,' confirmed the venerealogist.

‘During the course of that evidence you were asked to comment upon the findings of two other expert witnesses, Drs Chapman and Lewell?'

‘Yes.'

‘What were those comments?'

As he had in the closed session the man shifted uncomfortably, looking at both other specialists. ‘That they were inadequate.'

‘With what result?'

‘They were reconsidered and resubmitted.'

‘What did those resubmissions prove?'

‘That Alfred Appleton and Leanne Jefferies had in the past suffered from chlamydia.'

‘Which the initial reports did not indicate?'

‘No.'

‘Thank you,' said Pullinger, nodding for Beckwith to continue.

‘I am going to impose upon your expertize with the continuation of my questioning,' apologized Beckwith, in advance. ‘You have before you the medical findings upon the late Sharon Borowski, with whom Alfred Appleton has admitted a sexual liaison. I seek your correction, if it is appropriate, in suggesting that the listed injuries in that report – a skull fracture, compression of the left rib cage, burst aorta and spleen – is consistent with injuries sustained in a head-on collision between two vehicles, one of which, according to the report before you, was driven by the late Sharon Borowski?'

‘Consistent also with the deceased not wearing any seat restraint,' agreed the doctor.

Beckwith nodded his thanks to the qualification. ‘Can we now turn to the other findings, particularly the serological discoveries? Can you explain those to the jury, Dr Abrahams?

‘The blood alcohol level is two and a half times beyond the legal driving limit. There is also a substantial amphetamine reading.'

‘So Sharon Borowski was driving under the influence both of drink and drugs?' broke in Beckwith.

‘Unquestionably.'

‘Are there any other analyses?'

‘There is reference to unidentified antibodies which were not judged medically relevant to the particular autopsy.'

‘What are antibodies, Dr Abrahams?'

‘A body – a substance – formed within the blood either synthetically or by the immune system of the body to fight a toxin.'

‘A disease or an infection?'

‘Yes. But which is not specified.'

‘What is the recognized treatment for chlamydia?'

‘Treatment by one of a number of antibiotics.'

‘Which would result in antibodies in the blood?'

‘Yes.'

‘Could Sharon Borowski have been suffering from chlamydia?'

‘I have already testified that the antibodies are not specified, by analysis. It could have been one of a number of diseases or infections,' refuted Abrahams.

‘One of which could have been chlamydia?' persisted Beckwith.

‘Or not,' the venerealogist continued to refuse.

‘I think you have pursued the point sufficiently, Mr Beckwith,' said the judge.

None of the other three lawyers chose to cross-examine Abrahams. Forewarned by the judge's previous intercession Beckwith did not directly question Dr Chapman about his first attempted medical submission during the closed session, leaving it to Pullinger to extract the admission from the specialist that his first medical assessment had needed substantial correction and clarification. Despite Beckwith's pressure, when he resumed after the judge – pressure matched by Reid when he took up the questioning – Chapman doggedly refused to go beyond his closed court insistence that his initial failure to disclose chlamydia antibodies in Appleton's blood had solely been because of his strict adherence to the instructions he'd received from David Bartle. Chapman even more insistently refused to speculate on the presence of unidentified antibodies in the blood of Sharon Borowski.