‘What’s the point you’re getting to, Harvey?’ queried Beckwith. ‘As Alyce says, it was before she knew him. Where’s the relevance with what we’re dealing with now?’
‘Maybe there isn’t any,’ conceded Jordan at once. ‘But doesn’t character and morality and integrity feature a lot in what we’re dealing with now? Why would a man guaranteed to feature – to represent his country – in the two most outstanding events of his chosen sport abruptly back off?’
‘Because he got sick, like Alyce just said,’ suggested Reid.
Jordan stared at the lawyer, letting the seconds build into minutes. ‘Don’t you think it’s worth having your enquiry guys poke around a little, ask questions? Find out if it’s true? I do.’
‘So do I, for whatever’s discovered,’ said Alyce. ‘You’ve forgotten the conversation we had in Raleigh, about my believing he had a mental problem? It could account for a lot of his behaviour. Still could.’
‘Like suggesting Alyce’s family might need his financial support when from what Alyce tells us was the reverse, when he set up on his own,’ said Jordan, snatching for another point. ‘Didn’t he have family money of his own? You establish he’s a fantasist, you establish he fantasized about Alyce having affairs, to excuse his own.’
‘You seem to have been working hard on this,’ accused Reid, irritation returning. ‘Harder than me or the people I employ to find out things for me.’
‘I’m not in any sort of contest with you or anyone you employ,’ rejected Jordan. ‘And I’m not trying to prove anything. I’ve got every good reason to work harder than anyone else and you can count them all in dollars. Your enquiry people letting you down? Fire them and get better ones.’
Reid flushed, his face hardening further. ‘I’m not trying to get into an argument with you here.’
‘I just told you, neither am I,’ insisted Jordan. ‘I thought this was a conference to exchange ideas to help all of us.’
‘Which it is,’ Beckwith hurried in. ‘You got any other specific thoughts or ideas?’
‘Nothing specific,’ said Jordan. There might even be a benefit from upsetting Reid; assessed from the preceding hour the lawyer certainly needed to try harder than he appeared to have done so far.
‘We’ve started to get the media approaches,’ disclosed Reid, anxious to move on. ‘I’ve had calls from the News and Observer and from NBC 17.’
‘They’ve tried to reach me, too, at the house in Raleigh,’ said Alyce. ‘I haven’t returned the calls, obviously.’
‘I told them it was a closed matter,’ continued Reid. ‘Nothing’s appeared so far. The uncertainty is what Appleton’s side will say publicly. I’ve told Bartle I’m going to file for a closed court. Confirmed it in writing, too, in the hope that will restrict whatever Appleton’s people might say. If they make a statement ahead of my application, knowing that I’m going to make it, Pullinger might consider it contempt, which would be in our favour.’
‘You spoke to Bartle by phone first?’ asked Beckwith.
‘Yes,’ nodded Reid.
‘Didn’t he give any indication if they’d oppose it?’
‘He said he hadn’t been called by the media but didn’t know if Appleton had, that he hadn’t heard from him. And that they’re having a meeting today, as we are. They’ve received notification of Pullinger’s appointment, as we have.’
‘How’d he sound?’ asked Jordan.
Reid humped his shoulders, frowning. ‘We’re on opposing sides. He didn’t sound like anything. If you mean did we talk in any detail, we didn’t. I made it sound like I was offering a favour, warning him about Pullinger’s possible reaction.’
‘Which I might reinforce,’ said Beckwith, contemplatively. ‘I haven’t informed Bartle I’m filing for dismissal. Pullinger could consider it contempt if either Bartle or Appleton spoke in advance of that hearing, too…’ He smiled around the room. ‘In fact that’s what I will do! Telephone him today and follow it up with a couriered letter he’ll get before today ends.’
‘He’s meeting Appleton today,’ reminded Jordan, unnecessarily. ‘You do it right now you give him the opportunity to warn Appleton off from saying anything.’
Now it was Beckwith who let the seconds build before saying, ‘Thanks for the prompt, Harvey. We’re all of us anxious to button down on publicity. Right now was exactly when I was going to break off to make the calclass="underline" leave Alyce and you and Bob to maybe have some more coffee, talk among yourselves.’
Fuck you, thought Jordan, refusing the intended intimidation. ‘It’s good to hear we’re all moving in the same direction, Daniel. I’ll pass on more coffee, though.’
As Beckwith left the conference annex Alyce said to her lawyer, ‘How long before we actually get to court? Get to the end of it all?’
‘We get to the end when we get to the end,’ said Reid, clumsily. ‘I’m not going to agree an actual hearing date – I don’t mind how many postponements I get because of Appleton’s awkwardness – because every difficulty he creates is to our advantage with a judge like Pullinger. I let one thing go, because we’re in too much of a hurry -’ he was talking not to his client but directly to Jordan – ‘through impatience and the wish to get everything out of the way as quickly as possible, the more you’re at risk, both of you, of coming out the guilty parties. And like you’ve already told me, Harvey, you’re counting that risk in dollar signs.’
He had to allow the other man some recovery, Jordan decided. ‘Take as much time as is necessary to get it absolutely right.’
‘That’s precisely what I’m going to do,’ insisted Reid. ‘What Dan and I are going to do between us, get everything absolutely right.’
Reid had recovered enough, thought Jordan. To Alyce he said, ‘You living permanently back in Raleigh now?’
‘Mostly. I might stay over a few days here, having come up for this. Check the apartment out. There’s got to be a lot of mail.’
‘I postponed going back to London because of today. I’ll probably go back in a day or two. And I’m sorry about before, that day in Raleigh. I was out of order.’
Her obvious surprise matched that of her lawyer. Alyce said, ‘You already apologized for Raleigh.’
‘Today it’s my idea to do so.’
Alyce smiled, uncertainly. ‘Thank you.’
Daniel Beckwith returned noisily from his outer office, his jacket discarded elsewhere, yellow legal pad notes bunched in either hand. ‘Bartle isn’t seeing Appleton until later this afternoon, so the timing was perfect. He took the point of the call. Several points, in fact. Told me he’d obviously be at the dismissal application, anticipating that he’d be instructed to oppose it.’
‘He mention my call?’ asked Reid.
‘Not a word about it,’ said Beckwith.
‘What impression did you get?’ asked Jordan, inferring that this latest legal exchange had been more productive than that with Reid.
‘That neither he – nor Appleton – had expected you to defend the action,’ replied Beckwith, smiling. ‘I played it for him to come to me. Which he did. He seemed surprised that you were here in New York, that I wasn’t representing you in absentia.’
So surveillance still hadn’t been re-established, Jordan immediately deduced. ‘Is that good or bad?’
‘Good, for us. Opens the door for me to challenge everything that’s claimed against you as well as against Alyce, if my dismissal is rejected and the main hearing proceeds with Leanne Jefferies additionally brought into the action. We don’t actually have an outright defence: you’ve both admitted the adultery. But it strengthens the point – provides the strong mitigation – that Bob hit on in Raleigh, that as far as you were both concerned Alyce’s marriage to Appleton was over.’
Jordan hesitated, his mind on what he’d illegally read in Patrick O’Neill’s report of the Watchdog agency’s failure to find any evidence of Alyce having lovers in Manhattan or Long Island. ‘You know who Appleton’s enquiry agency is?’