‘Would it have been?’
‘I never found out. Now I never will.’
‘Did you ever suspect he was being unfaithful?’
‘Not in the beginning, although after the first few months he invariably came home late. He said it was how it had to be in his business. I thought there might be other women when I went up to Long Island and he stayed in Manhattan. He was rarely in the apartment when I called.’
‘Did you ever challenge him?’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t have any proof?’
‘He was disinterested in me when he did come home.’
‘Sexually, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your husband engaged a private enquiry agent to watch you. Did it ever occur to you to do the same, to watch him?’
‘No. When we finally did, appointing DDK, it was at your suggestion. I didn’t have to, before then. He’d admitted it, hadn’t he?’
‘I’m not sure I understand that remark. Or that the jury will,’ complained Reid.
‘When I told him he had given me chlamydia there was the big argument – he’d been drinking. When I said he’d obviously been sleeping with someone else he said not one. Two. And laughed. He later tried to deny it, when he sobered up and realized the mistake he’d made.’
Jordan saw Reid’s frown. ‘Do you think that’s why he admitted it, in his statement?’
‘I don’t know. When I told him I wanted a divorce he said I wouldn’t win. That he’d destroy me.’
‘How was he going to destroy you?’
‘Begin divorce proceedings against me, first. And make my life a misery.’
‘The lover you never had: the lover his investigators failed to find?’
‘Yes.
‘Did your husband ever physically attack you?’
‘He actually hit me twice. Once was at that time, during the argument. He slapped me, across the face. Told me to pull myself together.’
‘Were you bruised? Marked in any way?’
‘Not really.’
‘You didn’t need hospital treatment?’
‘Oh no!’
‘When was the other occasion?’
‘Soon after, when I told him I was going to France and that he would be hearing from you, my lawyer, about the divorce. That I was finally getting away from Long Island and the marriage and from him. He punched me… said…’ Alyce stopped.
‘Said what?’ pressed Reid. ‘The words he used?’
‘Told me to fuck off, right then. Never to think of coming back. He actually said crawling back, like the sad bitch I was.’
‘Were you hurt when – and how – he punched you?’
‘I wasn’t expecting it. I fell over, hit my leg and side against a table.’
‘So you were hurt?’
‘I was bruised.’
‘Did you need hospital attention?’
‘Dr Harding looked after me. I left Long Island right then. For the last time.’
Beckwith had started taking proper notes but stopped when Reid said, ‘You told your husband that I was going to initiate divorce proceedings before you left for France?
‘Yes. I took the papers I needed to sign with me’
‘Weeks before you met Harvey Jordan, the defendant in your husband’s claim under the criminal conversation provisions in the alienation of affections statute in force in this state?’
‘At least six weeks before. Which is why the accusation against Mr Jordan is so ridiculous.’
‘What was the likelihood of your crawling back, after discovering you had contracted venereal disease from him?’
Alyce snorted a laugh. ‘As ridiculous as him citing Mr Jordan. Only one person is responsible for the breakdown of my marriage to Alfred Appleton. And that is Alfred Appleton.’
‘You’re not telling the truth, are you, Mrs Appleton?’ demanded David Bartle.
‘I am telling the truth, which I swore to do when I took the oath.’
‘He never hit you, did he?’
‘He slapped me when he was drunk and I told him I was beginning divorce proceedings. And threw me over, as I have just told the court.’
‘Neither of which needed any medical treatment?’
‘Dr Harding looked after me after I was punched. There was bruising, as I told you. Some grazing.’
‘Yet Dr Harding, who has attended you remarkably closely so far because of what is claimed to be the stress of these proceedings, is not in court on the day of your major evidence?’
‘I did not want to take them but he prescribed some pills when he knew he would not be able to be here today.’
‘Your honour,’ broke in Reid, rising before Bartle could continue. ‘Dr Walter Harding is not in court today because of something that unexpectedly arose at the hospital at which, as you know, he is the administrator. I could make contact to see if the situation at the hospsital has been resolved, for him to come here, if your honour wishes.’
‘I think it is essential, in view of your questioning, don’t you, Mr Bartle?’
‘I would have thought it essential for him to be here in the first place,’ complained Bartle, tightly.
‘Quite so,’ said the judge. ‘We find ourselves with another lapse in the presentation of the case. But it can easily be remedied. You are excused the court in the hope of bringing Dr Harding to us before we end today, Mr Reid.’
Jordan saw Beckwith had arranged question marks on his pad. Some were at an angle instead of being upright.
‘Your husband didn’t admit to two affairs, did he?’ resumed Bartle. ‘You told him you’d had him under surveillance, because you suspected he was being unfaithful. And that you were going to cite Sharon Borowski and Leanne Jefferies?’
‘That is not the correct sequence,’ rejected Alyce. ‘It was as I have described it. I had not organized surveillance and had no idea who the whores were with whom he was sleeping: I just knew he was sleeping around because that was how I had become infected. That was what I told him.’
‘It was you who first mentioned the divorce statute of criminal conversation here in North Carolina, not him,’ insisted the lawyer.
‘Until I engaged Mr Reid – and learned the totally unfounded case brought against Harvey Jordan by my husband – I had no idea of any such law or divorce provision. How could I have done?’
‘Yet you initiated proceedings against Ms Jefferies!’
‘I was advised by Mr Reid that it was a course open to me. And that it was one that I should take. ’
‘You had suffered a disease, which you claim your husband gave you. You had told him you were divorcing him. Yet you took the papers with you to France, instead of signing them here. You were still unsure about the divorce, weren’t you?’
‘No!’ denied Alyce. ‘The papers weren’t complete, particularly the criminal conversation claim against Leanne Jefferies. They were posted to me in France. I took what was already prepared. I was going to be by myself. I had time to read everything very thoroughly.’
‘But you weren’t by yourself, were you?’
‘I wish I had remained so, not for my own sake but for Mr Jordan’s. I very much regret his entrapment by my husband.’
The exclamation marks on Beckwith’s pad were all upright now.
‘Your husband is a wealthy man, the president of one of Wall Street’s leading commodity brokerages with a multi-millon dollar turnover?’
‘My husband never discussed business affairs with me, only in the beginning when he borrowed a million dollars from me.’
‘A million dollars that you have no proof of drawing from any of your accounts.’
‘It was how he wanted it done, in cash.’
‘Not only is there no traceable record of it having been withdrawn from your accounts, there is no recorded entry of such a sum in the company books. How do you explain that?’
‘Easily. I told you he asked for it in cash, to avoid it showing in the books. If it were recorded it would have been taxable. Maybe it was to spend on the women I then didn’t know about.’