‘Your choice.’
‘Will Alyce be there?’
‘I don’t know. Why?’
‘Just wondered,’ dismissed Jordan. ‘Where on Wednesday? What time?’
‘I’ll let you know.’
He had a day and a half to get all his ideas together for the meeting, thought Jordan: more than enough time.
Sixteen
The surprise wasn’t that the New York meeting was in Beckwith’s office but that Alyce was again ahead of him. And that Jordan was pleased to see her. He said, ‘Hello, yet again,’ and she smiled, very briefly, but didn’t speak. To the two lawyers Jordan said, ‘I’m sorry to be late. I allowed myself forty-five minutes! I don’t know how you manage to work at all in Manhattan.’
‘It’s an art form,’ said Beckwith.
‘So how bad is it that we got Pullinger?’ asked Jordan, as he sat.
Beckwith sighed. ‘You want coffee?’
‘I’d rather catch up on what I’ve missed.’
‘You haven’t missed anything,’ said Reid, as irritated at Jordan’s impatience as the other lawyer. ‘We small-talked, waiting for you.’
Jordan was aware of Alyce smiling again and this time wished she hadn’t. ‘Thank you. Coffee would be good.’ As well as his not appearing so anxious would have been good, he realized. He’d been thoroughly pissed off by the gridlock and the time it had taken him to stash his bank account money into the safe-deposit boxes, neither of which were causes for him flustering in as he had. He smiled his thanks to Suzie when she came in with his coffee, which he didn’t really want, wondering how she managed to breathe in her second-skin virginal white trousers and top.
‘So let’s pick up on your question,’ began Beckwith. ‘We’re stuck with Pullinger, which is bad luck but something we have to live with. What we really have to do is use the cantankerous old son of a bitch more to our advantage than to Appleton’s – ’ he turned to Alyce – ‘I guess we’ve already covered the ground but we’re going to have to talk about your husband as if he’s the enemy, OK?’
‘As far as I am concerned he is the fucking enemy. So let’s stop apologizing for something that doesn’t need or deserve apology,’ responded Alyce.
There was a brief, although not actually shocked, silence and Jordan was glad that her impatience had risen to match his, hoping she took his smile as appreciation, not condescension. As in Raleigh they were away from an official working area. There were more polished plants than in Reid’s annex and a skyscraper view uptown towards the unseen park. All the sepia photographs on the wall were of early American settlers and Native Americans, most in full tribal regalia, which Jordan supposed was fitting for someone of Alyce’s ancestry and Beckwith’s dress code.
‘Let’s do just that,’ said Beckwith, recovering. ‘I got the formal notification on Monday and the same day filed for a pre-trial dismissal hearing on our part. I haven’t yet got an acknowledgement, obviously…’ He paused, gesturing to Reid.
‘And I’ve filed for court acceptance, to be party to each and every pre-hearing application. As well as making our own applications. The first is for court enforcement of our being supplied with Appleton’s medical records. The second, again against Appleton – which is the only legal way open to me – is to enforce Leanne Jefferies, upon risk of contempt, to comply with the demands of Alyce’s damages claim by providing an attorney reference. Once I have her lawyer through whom to work I can apply for her medical records, to establish if she was a sufferer from chlamydia-’
‘What about the other admitted mistress, Sharon Borowski?’ broke in Jordan, his script – as well, he hoped, as its presentation – well prepared during the preceding day and a half.
Reid frowned, appearing irritated at having been interrupted. ‘I already told you, she’s dead-’
‘The result of a car accident, not a sexual disease,’ broke in Jordan again, looking directly at the North Carolina lawyer. ‘Bad luck, Sharon, rest in peace. But if Appleton caught it off her, not Leanne, got himself fixed, and Leanne is provably clean, who gave it to Alyce? I didn’t, which we can prove. Which leaves your case that Alyce didn’t have any lovers previous to me shot to bits before you even begin, don’t you think, Bob?’
From the reaction from both lawyers Jordan thought it was turning into a conference without words: clearly it was a possibility neither had considered.
Eventually Beckwith said, ‘That’s a damned good point.’
‘I suppose Pullinger could order the production of Sharon Borowski’s medical records,’ said Reid, although doubtfully. There was an asthmatic catch in his voice.
‘Do doctors keep medical records of people who’ve died?’ asked Alyce, quietly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’
‘What I do think is that it could be one great big problem for us,’ finally admitted Reid.
‘Doctors might not keep medical records,’ Jordan pointed out. ‘Police or coroners might. If she died in a traffic accident there would have been an autopsy, wouldn’t there? With a pathology report?’
‘Let’s hope there was and that the medical examination went beyond finding the immediate cause of death,’ said Reid. He was talking now with a discernible wheeze.
The lawyer was embarrassed by his oversight, Jordan knew. As the man deserved to be. Jordan didn’t expect any more criticism from his own attorney for playing amateur advocate. ‘Could Pullinger refuse to hear a dismissal submission?’
‘If he did we could appeal over his head. So he won’t,’ said Beckwith. He looked towards Alyce. ‘I’m going to need to call you, of course.’
‘Of course,’ she accepted.
‘It’ll be an opportunity to bring out things that Appleton’s attorney might object to being introduced during your full hearing,’ picked up Reid, talking to his client. ‘That’s why I want participation access.’
‘Like the missing three years?’ questioned Jordan, seizing the obvious opening. They’d judge him a total smart-ass after today. But Jordan didn’t give a damn because it was his own ass he was trying to save and that was his only consideration.
There was none of the earlier initial irritation at Jordan’s intervention from the two lawyers, although Beckwith said, ‘Why do I think we’re going to be found wanting again?’
‘I’ve got little else to do here but read the statement exchanges and think about what’s there and what’s not there,’ said Jordan, weighing each word before he spoke, determined against being caught out himself. ‘I’ve spent some time in the library, reading reference books: there’s a lot about the Appleton and Bellamy families and their lineage. Appleton left Harvard a golden boy, no suggestion of a job apart from representing his country in the Olympics and being part of the 1992 America’s Cup team. It wasn’t a question of “if’ he’d be selected. It was a done deal. Except it didn’t become that. Appleton withdrew, for “personal reasons”, from any consideration of selection, for either the Olympics or the America’s Cup.’ Jordan was talking to Alyce now. ‘You any idea what those personal reasons were? Here’s a guy, always in the papers, society superstar and then abruptly, nothing for about three years until he joins his first Wall Street brokerage firm before breaking away to set up his own commodity businesses about six months before marrying you.’
For several moments Alyce remained looking contemplatively into her lap. ‘I didn’t know him in the early nineties, although I knew of him, of course. And you’re right, he was the golden boy and there was the expectation of him sailing in the Olympics and for the Cup. No one ever really knew why he pulled out of either.’
‘ He pulled out?’ pressed Jordan. ‘Weren’t there any rumours. Didn’t you ever ask him, after you got married?’
‘I can’t remember them all but there were a lot of rumours,’ said Alyce. ‘There was something about a girl, but that was an obvious speculation: he had the pick of the crop. And I did ask him, after we got married. He said he didn’t want to talk about it but that he’d had a nervous breakdown that had to be kept under wraps, that no one would trust a nut who’d needed psychiatric treatment to handle their money …’