‘No.’
‘Have you ever been?’
‘Divorced, a long time ago.’
‘You’ve got the papers to prove that?’
‘Yes,’ said Jordan, uneasily.
‘Children?’
‘No.’
‘Are you in a relationship that makes you responsible for any dependants?’
‘No.’
‘Do you suffer any permanent illness or disease?’
‘What?’ questioned Jordan, surprised.
‘You had sexual relations with a married woman. According to what Dan has set out here, if you are suffering from AIDS or any sexually transmittable disease you didn’t tell Alyce about before you entered into a relationship you could be criminally charged with assault, as well as giving Alfred Appleton grounds for several additional claims. Murder or manslaughter even, if Alyce becomes infected with AIDS from which she subsequently died.’
‘I am not suffering from AIDS or any other sexually transmitted disease.’
‘That will have to be attested by a sworn medical statement.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘I thought we’d agreed there is nothing amusing about the circumstances in which you find yourself.’
‘I’ll arrange the tests.’
‘I’ve already made your appointment for eleven o’clock tomorrow, in Harley Street. A Dr Preston.’
‘Thank you.’ How close, Jordan wondered, would Dr Preston’s consulting rooms be to those of plastic surgeon Paul Maculloch, whose stolen identity was proving to be so useful, although not in the way originally intended.
‘Did you give – or exchange – gifts with Alyce Appleton?’
‘No.’
‘Exchange addresses?’
‘You know we didn’t!’
‘For the record.’
‘No.’
‘Did she provide any details of her husband’s business?’
‘She told me he was a commodity dealer.’ The rest was for him to find out, Jordan promised himself.
‘That’s a generalization.’
‘She didn’t specify. Just told me the name of the firm, Appleton and Drake.’
‘Did you independently enquire into what they specifically traded?’
‘I had no reason. I wasn’t interested.’ But now I am, mentally added Jordan. How long would it take him to find out all that he needed about Appleton and Drake?
‘Did you have any prior knowledge of or about Alyce Appleton?’
‘I don’t understand that question,’ protested Jordan.
‘It’s not difficult,’ retorted Lesley Corbin. ‘The common thread through every claim Appleton is making is that you’ve intentionally stolen his wife.’
Jordan was momentarily halted by the irony. ‘I do not steal other men’s wives. Neither am I a gigolo.’
‘That wasn’t part of the question but I’ll include it in your answer. It might be apposite. Did you know before you began the affair that Alyce Appleton was rich?’
Harvey Jordan’s hesitation now was to keep his reply as honest as possible, following the golden precept that the fewer the lies the fewer there were to remember and by which to be trapped. Cautiously he replied, ‘Her jewellery was obviously expensive. And she was staying in a suite in an expensive hotel. But then so was I. I didn’t pick her out for either of those reasons. I didn’t pick her out at all! We got into conversation. Things developed.’
‘As things developed with other women before, according to what you’ve already told me, already told Dan?’
‘You’re making me sound like a gigolo!’
‘Remember what Dan said about training you to respond properly to questions! Look upon this as an early lesson. Questions can be phrased to make you lose your temper, which you came close to doing there.’
‘I did not get into conversation with Alyce Appleton because I thought she was rich, nor to take advantage if she were rich,’ said Jordan, pedantically. ‘I paid for every hotel room, meal and yacht trip we shared.’
‘You got receipted bills, in your name?’
‘For Christ’s sake!’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘No, I do not have receipted bills in my name.’
‘Credit card counterfoils?’
‘I paid for everything in cash. I thought I’d already told you that.’
The woman looked up from her documents. ‘ Everything in cash! That surprises me, in this day and age of convenient plastic’
‘I’m not part of “this day and age of convenient plastic”.’ Only other people’s plastic, came the thought.
She grinned briefly at the continuing pedantry. ‘Which brings me to a financial question I forgot. What debts, outstanding or unpaid credit or store card liabilities or financial court orders do you have against you?’
‘None.’
Lesley came up to him again. ‘ None?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘What about a mortgage? Or car finance? Or overdrafts?’
‘I own my apartment in Marylebone outright. I do not have a car. Or any overdrafts.’
She shook her head. ‘That’s amazing!’
‘That’s how it is. How I choose to live.’
‘Professional gamblers really don’t gamble, do they?’
‘Not this one.’
Lesley Corbin moved on to another document in the American pack. ‘As well as the birth certificate we’ve already talked about, Dan wants at least three photographs of you, a copy of your parents’ marriage certificate and a copy of your passport. And now we’ve got to add your divorce papers.’ She looked up again. ‘Have you brought it all, as I asked?’
‘I’ve brought them but I want to know why he wants it all?’
‘I’m just relaying the request,’ Lesley said. ‘Dan wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t necessary. Like I said, it’s all going to be couriered so it will all be safe.’
As he handed each item over Jordan said, ‘The exchange of statements from the other sides? Will I be shown them, before the case?’
‘Inevitably Dan will take you through them; that’s the whole purpose of an exchange, to isolate factual errors or outright lies.’
‘So we’ll be able to gauge whether they’re working together, to set me up?’
‘I only mentioned that as a possibility and I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t because that’s all it is and quite an unlikely one at that,’ said the lawyer. ‘If it is and Dan can prove it, that’s you off any divorce or alienation of affection hook and all the other damages claims. Which is the good news. The bad news could be that it would establish a case for attempted deception, which would make it a crime to be heard in a criminal court with you as the major prosecution witness. And would almost inevitably attract the publicity back here you want to avoid.’
Jordan walked directly down Chancery Lane, crossed Fleet Street into El Vino and huddled himself into the furthest corner of the back bar with a large glass of Chablis, not so much to drink as to justify his occupation of the secluded table. His feelings during the conference with Lesley Cordin had gone up and down like an elevator, finishing at ground or even basement level. He realistically supposed that it didn’t even come close to the exchanges that were to follow – his first lesson, the woman had called it – but it had been far worse than he’d expected. His high point had been Lesley’s acceptance of where his income came from, but as their conversation – and her demands for evidence – progressed, he’d objectively realized that lawyers representing someone as determined as Alfred Appleton appeared to be wouldn’t believe it so readily as she had, whether or not there was any connivance between the commodity trader and his wife. Despite Lesley’s repeated insistence that she had been offering the most outside of all outside possibilities, which she now regretted, Jordan had clung to the hope of it being dramatically proven in court to provide his absolute, guilt-free salvation. Which now it couldn’t be. His lowest point was Lesley Corbin’s easy but unarguable illustration of how a finding of collusion could result in a criminal prosecution with an even greater risk of the publicity he was so desperate to avoid. The worst feeling of all was of being incarcerated in an ever-tightening, constricting straightjacket from which he couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to escape suffocation.