‘To cover as many eventualities as possible is why we’re having this conversation.’
‘I’m feeling more comfortable about it now.’ How easily those who practised law were prepared to bend it. Maybe becoming a lawyer would be his next career change.
‘When I speak to Dan he’ll want to know if you can adequately defend the action? Financially, I mean.’
‘I can.’ Because ultimately I won’t be paying the money, thought Jordan, the decision hardening in his mind. He had a lot to set up as soon as he got to America – if he got to America.
‘We’ll need to meet – meet, not even talk on the phone – after I’ve spoken to him.’
‘I understand.’ He’d been lucky, finding Lesley Corbin. Jordan hoped it was another omen.
Lesley flicked the edge of the document from which she was working. ‘This is very much a pro forma. Dan will need more in these new circumstances. How do you gamble? On what, I mean?’
‘Professional gamblers don’t gamble,’ lectured Jordan. ‘They only ever put their money on certainties.’
‘Don’t go polemic on me. What do you gamble on? Where do you gamble?’
‘High stake rooms at casinos: poker, blackjack, roulette, backgammon,’ he said, reciting the games he’d been one of the first to programme for Internet use. ‘Horses, too. I’ve got the maximum?30,000 Premium Bond block, which in the four years I’ve held it has produced a return of an additional?20,000. I consider that a gamble. But definitely not the lottery: the odds aren’t good for anyone.’
‘I think it would be wise for us to be careful,’ said Lesley, lecturing in return. ‘The law is that receipted proof of casino profits can be issued for tax purposes. I presume you provide those, with your tax returns?’
Jordan only just stopped himself laughing outright at being told of the system he’d bled dry for so long. ‘Some.’
The woman smiled again. ‘We’ll maybe need some; as many as you can produce,’ insisted Lesley. ‘Supported by dates, places and amounts. For horse race winnings we’ll need courses, the actual names of horses, winning slips if they can be kept.’
The duplication of which Jordan had anticipated. ‘I’m sure I can manage that.’
‘Start collecting them from now on. I don’t want you unable to face a challenge about income source.’
‘I will. See if I’ve got anything hanging around, as well,’ promised the man who never left anything financial hanging around.
‘What we’ve talked about so far makes a lot of Dan’s other questions irrelevant at this time,’ decided the woman, going back to her list. ‘I’m going to leave the occupation question blank, until I’ve talked to Dan.’
‘You’re the lawyer.’ And am I glad, he thought.
‘You are not married?’ Lesley started again, briskly.
‘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?’
