cash, the deposit for the car rental going against his hotel bill.
Jordan was at Lesley Corbin’s Chancery Lane office fifteen minutes before the appointed time, his query list memorized but in his inside pocket if he needed any reminders, together with all the official personal documents she’d asked him the previous day to bring, which he had although reluctantly, professionally aware of their illegal usefulness.
The package Daniel Beckwith had couriered from New York appeared the same size as he remembered Alyce Appleton completing at the hotel, although substantially thicker, topped by a copy of the lawyer’s terms and conditions of engagement.
‘I’ve never heard of agreeing contracts with lawyers?’ said Jordan. It was one of the questions on his list.
The woman shrugged. ‘It’s sometimes done here between solicitors and barristers, on behalf of clients. Maybe it’s to do with the particular circumstances of this situation, different jurisdictions and regulations in different countries, in addition to different American states being involved. I’ve gone through it. I didn’t find any reason why you shouldn’t sign: it’s as much for your protection in an American court as it is for his being paid his fees.’
‘You think they’re reasonable?’ seized Jordan, wanting to concentrate on finance as quickly as possible.
‘I warned you about costs,’ reminded the woman. ‘The court refreshers are $2,000 a day. What can’t be quantified at the moment from what Beckwith provided – or what he hasn’t yet been provide with , from the other sides – is exactly how many days the case might take. It’s obviously a contested case – you contesting the claims against you, presumably as Alyce will be doing even if they are conniving – so it definitely won’t be a short hearing.’
‘Give me a ballpark figure,’ demanded Jordan.
‘Impossible,’ refused the lawyer. ‘You want to do some sums on the back of an envelope, allow a month…’ She paused. ‘A minimum of a month.’
‘Presuming the court won’t sit on a Saturday or Sunday, that will be something like $40,000 in court refreshers alone?’
‘And there’s the hourly $500 for all the preliminary consultations,’ added Lesley. ‘There’ll also be search fees, impossible at this stage to estimate. And if you’re going to have to go back and forth, possibly several times, and pay hotel bills while you’re in New York and Raleigh, you’ve got to calculate travel and living expenses. Also impossible to estimate. And my fees and expenses, which I haven’t got around to thinking about yet. That’s why I can’t give you a ballpark guess. But I did warn you that it wasn’t going to be cheap.’
‘What if all the claims are dismissed, that I’ve been forced to defend myself against marriage destroying allegations that aren’t justified?’
‘In this country a judge would have the discretion to apportion costs, according to culpability. I’ll raise it with Dan when I respond to all the stuff he’s sent over for us to complete today. But you’ve got to bear in mind that you did sleep with her. And that you knew she was a married woman.’
‘That was surely her decision?’
‘I said I’ll raise it with Dan. You ready to start on his stuff?’
‘That’s what I’m here for.’
The woman isolated a document several pages thick and said, ‘OK, let’s learn all we can about Harvey William Jordan.’ She smiled up. ‘You brought your birth certificate, as I asked you?’
His hesitation at handing it across the desk to her was instinctive at parting with such an essential tool of his trade.
‘What is it?’ She frowned.
‘I don’t particularly like surrendering personal documents.’
The frown remained. ‘It’ll be copied, here today, like all the other stuff he wants. And couriered, in the possession of a messenger from the time it leaves here until it’s handed over to Dan’s firm in New York.’
Another silly lapse, Jordan thought, self-critically. ‘Sure. Stupid of me. I’ve not been involved in anything like this before.’
‘We have to know, with supporting details, what you do for a living,’ she went on.
‘I need to understand something,’ said Jordan, coming to the most highlighted note on his reminder list. ‘There’ll be lawyers acting separately for Alyce as well as those acting for Appleton? And Dan acting for me, right?’
‘Yes,’ the woman agreed, curiously.
‘I read somewhere that statements are exchanged between lawyers, in advance of cases beginning?’ Jordan was inwardly churning at having a lie to explain away.
‘That’s the system.’
‘Are facts checked, before cases begin? So that they can be contested in court, if they’re doubted?’
The frown came back. ‘Sometimes. What’s your problem?’
‘I told Alyce I was a venture capitalist, from a family inheritance.’
‘And you’re not?’
‘I’m a gambler,’ announced Jordan, the vocation long accepted by the British tax authorities.
‘You mean you don’t have a job, an occupation or a business? That that’s all you do, gamble professionally?’
‘Yes. But it’s not as easy as you seem to imagine. To succeed as a professional gambler you’ve got to win more than you lose, as I do.’
‘Why didn’t you tell her what you really did?’
‘I thought venture capitalist sounded better, I guess,’ Jordan said as he shrugged, wishing what he was telling Lesley Corbin sounded better. The agreement with the British tax authorities had taken almost three years, but always through correspondence, never personal encounters like this. Verbally it didn’t sound very convincing. Jordan had perfected a method of providing what the British Inland Revenue finally recognized as legal proof of income but needed to know if it would be accepted by an American court and American lawyers. Even if it was it was going to require great more physical effort. And a lot more dodging and weaving to avoid it being discovered that he was duplicating to satisfy two, not just one, demand. He wished he could better gauge Lesley Corbin’s thoughts from the quizzical expression on her face.
‘You make enough from gambling to live at the best hotels for months at a time, as you did in France?’ she pressed.
‘It fluctuates. I haven’t starved so far.’ Because I very rarely wager any actual money, he thought. She was never going to accept it! She’d see through it as a lie, and a bad one at that, as if through polished glass.
‘Dan wants some financial information,’ she said, flatly.
‘I guessed he might,’ said Jordan, constantly bemused by his unusual honesty. Heavily he went on: ‘I can’t produce audited books, if you know what I mean.’
The woman smiled, as Jordan hoped she would. ‘Or income tax returns?’
‘I could produce copies of those,’ Jordan promised, glad he’d taken duplicates to remind himself from year to year.
‘So there are tax accepted records, if they’re demanded?’
‘I’d prefer them not to be,’ admitted Jordan, edging forward.
‘Let’s leave official interest for the moment,’ she said. ‘I could accept a cash deposit, to be held in a client account.’
She wasn’t going to challenge him! It was going to work! ‘Information of which will be made available only to America?’
‘It’s only applicable and required by America,’ she pointed out. ‘I will accept your cash deposit, as I am verbally accepting your instructions. I am not required to know anything more about a source of that cash; that’s Dan’s responsibility. I will talk personally, by telephone, to Dan – not set out the question by letter – and when you get to New York you’ll need to talk in more detail to him. We’ve got to keep in mind how important it is to minimize any publicity. Do you understand?’
‘Very clearly,’ assured Jordan. ‘As I’m sure you understood my concern. How much will you want that deposit to be?’
‘That’s what I’ll talk to Dan about.’
‘I’m glad we’re having this conversation.’
