‘That’s what I said.’
‘What about a mortgage? Or car finance? Or overdrafts?’
‘I own my apartment in Marylebone outright. I do not have a car. Or any overdrafts.’
She shook her head. ‘That’s amazing!’
‘That’s how it is. How I choose to live.’
‘Professional gamblers really don’t gamble, do they?’
‘Not this one.’
Lesley Corbin moved on to another document in the American pack. ‘As well as the birth certificate we’ve already talked about, Dan wants at least three photographs of you, a copy of your parents’ marriage certificate and a copy of your passport. And now we’ve got to add your divorce papers.’ She looked up again. ‘Have you brought it all, as I asked?’
‘I’ve brought them but I want to know why he wants it all?’
‘I’m just relaying the request,’ Lesley said. ‘Dan wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t necessary. Like I said, it’s all going to be couriered so it will all be safe.’
As he handed each item over Jordan said, ‘The exchange of statements from the other sides? Will I be shown them, before the case?’
‘Inevitably Dan will take you through them; that’s the whole purpose of an exchange, to isolate factual errors or outright lies.’
‘So we’ll be able to gauge whether they’re working together, to set me up?’
‘I only mentioned that as a possibility and I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t because that’s all it is and quite an unlikely one at that,’ said the lawyer. ‘If it is and Dan can prove it, that’s you off any divorce or alienation of affection hook and all the other damages claims. Which is the good news. The bad news could be that it would establish a case for attempted deception, which would make it a crime to be heard in a criminal court with you as the major prosecution witness. And would almost inevitably attract the publicity back here you want to avoid.’
Jordan walked directly down Chancery Lane, crossed Fleet Street into El Vino and huddled himself into the furthest corner of the back bar with a large glass of Chablis, not so much to drink as to justify his occupation of the secluded table. His feelings during the conference with Lesley Cordin had gone up and down like an elevator, finishing at ground or even basement level. He realistically supposed that it didn’t even come close to the exchanges that were to follow – his first lesson, the woman had called it – but it had been far worse than he’d expected. His high point had been Lesley’s acceptance of where his income came from, but as their conversation – and her demands for evidence – progressed, he’d objectively realized that lawyers representing someone as determined as Alfred Appleton appeared to be wouldn’t believe it so readily as she had, whether or not there was any connivance between the commodity trader and his wife. Despite Lesley’s repeated insistence that she had been offering the most outside of all outside possibilities, which she now regretted, Jordan had clung to the hope of it being dramatically proven in court to provide his absolute, guilt-free salvation. Which now it couldn’t be. His lowest point was Lesley Corbin’s easy but unarguable illustration of how a finding of collusion could result in a criminal prosecution with an even greater risk of the publicity he was so desperate to avoid. The worst feeling of all was of being incarcerated in an ever-tightening, constricting straightjacket from which he couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to escape suffocation.
Harvey Jordan immediately recognized the self-pity that had brought him down before and didn’t want – wouldn’t allow – again. He hoped Lesley Corbin had been right about there always being a way out and that the way he had in mind would materialize. He really did have a lot to do to make it work.
Eight
Since the legal tightening up of the money-laundering legislation demanding proof of cash receipts and profits – most directly targeted against the proceeds from drug trafficking – it had become much more difficult for Harvey Jordan to operate his well established, and so far foolproof, scheme to obtain tax evidence of his supposed income. When he had first embarked upon his career, casinos had been far more casual than they were now monitoring the big chip purchases against money paid out when those same chips were cashed in. In the much mourned early days Jordan had been able to buy?50,000 worth of chips with the stolen identity money, then move from the most crowded tables too frequently for any one croupier or pit boss to remember the minimal stakes he placed against what he won or lost. He would then return to the caisse to get a tax receipt for all but a little of what he’d changed in the first place. Jordan estimated he actually did win on fifty percent of his casino outings – always betting evens – and every time he did it represented a bonus.
Since the legislation Jordan believed he had isolated the casinos that noted the chip-purchasing amounts against the money reclaimed, which had greatly reduced his choice and made getting the necessary paperwork that much harder. And now he was confronted with a demand to at least double – possibly even treble – his receipt collecting to satisfy not just his well organized and regulated return to the English Inland Revenue but an American court and its assembled lawyers if a source were demanded for the cash he was to deposit with Lesley Corbin’s firm for the forthcoming divorce hearing.
Jordan reassurred himself that he could overcome the casino difficulties from horse racing. By visiting some courses without making any effort to evade the still feared surveillance he could also actually prove to the opposing American legal teams that he genuinely was a professional gambler. By buying betting slips from on-course bookmakers in full public – and hopefully photographed – view and milling around them again at the end of a race, he would appear to be collecting his winnings, whether there were any or not and which was immaterial. All he needed was the date, place, race title and name of the winning horse. And to insist, if he were challenged, that he hadn’t been able to retain the slip. He would, though, keep those with which he did coincidentally win.
It was going to involve a lot of late nights and a considerable amount of travelling, even if he restricted himself to race meetings conveniently around London, which he couldn’t do all the time because, as he’d told Lesley, a professional gambler only followed certainties. And until the American ordeal was over his role had to be that of a very visible and successful professional punter, not that of someone whose identity he had stolen. That reflection physically stopped Jordan, half dressed in preparation for another unwelcome and unwanted day.
Realistically nothing was more important than what was happening – or about to happen – in America and his doing everything possible to reduce whatever damage might come from it. But he had no idea how long it was going to be before it was resolved: however, whenever, it might be resolved to his benefit. But until it was, he couldn’t begin to think about any further identity thefts. It could, he supposed, be as long as a year. Which made it the most frightening uncertainty of all and it hadn’t even been on his list of questions to ask Lesley Corbin or Daniel Beckwith.
Again, unsettlingly, Harvey Jordan felt the tightness of the slowly crushing straightjacket he now found himself in.
Dr James Preston was a small, electric-haired man who fussed nervously around his disordered office, his unbuttoned white coat flapping about him like startled wings, head jerking constantly about him in an apparent search for something mislaid or forever lost. Not looking at Jordan he said, ‘You’ve got some notes? Samples?’
‘Neither,’ said Jordan. ‘The appointment was made by my solicitor, Lesley Corbin. It’s for a legal case.’
‘Legal case?’ demanded the venerealogist, frowning directly at Jordan for the first time.
‘In America,’ offered Jordan.
The man flustered through a hamster’s den of papers on his desk, finally coming up with a confirming official letter from Lesley Corbin. Looking up again he said, ‘HIV, negative or positive? Any venereal infection?’
‘To prove I am not suffering from anything.’ Jordan supposed he should be amused by the shambling, mad doctor imagery, but he wasn’t. As Lesley had reminded him the previous day there was nothing amusing in the situation in which he found himself.
Preston stared from beneath his upright shock of pure white hair. ‘You think you have caught something?’
‘It’s to guarantee that I haven’t infected someone. Anyone.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed the man, in final understanding. He went back to the appointment slip. ‘It doesn’t say,’ he said, as if offering an explanation of his own.
