Jordan switched his attention, his anger locked down, pleased the way the reactions were coming. ‘What, exactly, was it set up for? I don’t believe I should be involved in this situation at all and want to be out of it… don’t want to go anywhere near a courthouse. That’s how it is – all of how it is – as far as I am concerned. Now tell me how I feature as far as you are concerned.’ He’d listened intently to himself, not just to the words but to his tone, and was sure Beckwith wouldn’t be able to accuse him of either losing his temper or his control.
It was Alyce who responded, ahead of her lawyer. ‘I don’t believe you should be involved or need to go anywhere near a courthouse, either. That’s why I wanted to be here. Just – and only – to tell you that. And to say sorry. Which I already have. Now I’ve said both – and hope you believe me – there’s no need for me to stay any longer if it’s a problem for you.’ She stirred in her seat, as if to get up.
There was an abrupt silence in the room, each man looking to the other. To his client Reid said, ‘You’re here now. Agreed to the confidentiality. You might as well stay; get some idea, beyond what’s briefly already been said, what’s going to come from Harvey’s side.’
Talking directly to Jordan, not to her lawyer, Alyce said, ‘What do you want me to do? Get out and stop embarrassing you more than I’ve already embarrassed both of us? Or stay?’
The embarrassment did surge through Jordan at the awareness of how he’d behaved. ‘Why not stay?’
Alyce flushed again. ‘What about my apology! Do you believe and accept I didn’t imagine you’d become involved? Or are you determined to stay tight-assed?’
Jordan stared at her for a long time before saying, ‘Thank you for your apology at my becoming involved. Which I accept.’
‘Now what about you?’ Alyce pushed on, positively red faced now. ‘How about an apology from you, for actually believing – contemplating – for a moment that I’d put you at risk from what my bastard of a husband exposed me to! You know what that makes me, your thinking that: it makes me sick to my stomach!’
‘Maybe our coming down wasn’t such a good idea after all,’ intruded Beckwith. ‘We’re not achieving anything here.’
‘Let’s all calm down. Drink some coffee or something,’ urged Reid. ‘We break up like this the winner’s going to be Alfred Appleton, with us the losers. We’re on the same side, aren’t we?’
‘I’d hoped we would be,’ said Alyce. ‘Now I’m not so sure.’
‘Coffee or what?’ bustled Reid. ‘Let’s cool down. Compose ourselves.’
Alyce had tea. The three men chose coffee. Reid led them all away from any formal setting, to an annex to his office. It was fitted with easy chairs and sofas and polished long-leafed plants that seemed to survive in pots filled with wood chippings, not earth.
There was another brief although less awkward silence. Then, looking between Jordan and Alyce, Beckwith said, ‘OK, you’ve each read the other’s initial statement and we’ve got the medical problem out of the way. So let’s move on from there, shall we?’
Jordan seized the moment, a lot of questions already formulated. ‘What about the court? Whether it’ll be an open or closed hearing?’
‘We want it closed,’ replied Reid, at once. ‘I’ve already intimated that to Appleton’s people. And to the court.’
‘To what response?’
‘None, positively, not yet,’ said Reid. ‘But Bartle inferred they’d oppose it.’
‘Scare tactics,’ judged Beckwith.
‘That’s what I think,’ agreed Read.
‘We can support your applications, even though we can’t initiate it,’ Beckwith promised. ‘Which we will if I don’t succeed in a pre-trial submission to get Harvey dismissed from the case.’
‘Which we’ll support you in,’ said Reid. He looked directly at Jordan. ‘That’s at Alyce’s insistence, before she and I talked about anything else. That’s one of the main reasons for my asking her to be here today.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jordan, uncomfortably, looking between the woman and her lawyer.
‘You’re closer to the ground here than I am,’ said Beckwith, talking to Reid. ‘You any indication yet who our judge might be?’
‘Not officially,’ said Reid. ‘I’m guessing at Pullinger.’
‘Ah!’ said Beckwith.
‘That doesn’t sound as if you’re pleased?’ questioned Jordan, gauging the tone in both lawyers’ voices.
‘Judge Hubert Pullinger prides himself on having the strongest and loudest moral voice not just in the county but in the entire state of North Carolina; far beyond that, even,’ explained Reid.
‘Whom I remember from when I practised here makes early, preconceived judgements from which he can rarely be persuaded by contrary evidence or argument.’
‘Can’t you apply for an alternative judge?’ asked Alyce.
‘He’s also the senior judge on the circuit,’ said her lawyer. ‘It would be about the worst move, politically or tactically, to try to make. If he gets the case, we have to live with it.’
‘Why are you guessing he’ll get it?’ asked Jordan.
‘He has first pick. And this is his sort of case,’ said Reid.
‘I want to know something: something very important,’ demanded Jordan, coming to another query on his long list. ‘We’ve gone past – never touched upon, even – what the hell criminal conversations are. Will someone set it – or them – out for me, beyond saying that they’re expensive!’
Before deferring to Reid, Beckwith briefly, but with a hard-faced stare, looked at Jordan and Reid intercepted the look. The local lawyer coughed a hollow cough and said, I guess that’s a question for me?’
‘It’s a question to anyone who can answer it,’ said Jordan.
Reid coughed again. ‘In layman’s language, criminal conversation is judged as an injury to the person. Appleton’s in this case, committed by you. It’s what’s technically known as a short liability tort, whereby it is only necessary to prove and establish that sexual intercourse took place, which both of you admit. It’s also necessary to establish that a valid marriage existed. Which it did. And that the suit is brought within statutory limitations. Which – once more – it is…’
‘It is not a defence that the defendant – you – did not know that Alyce was married, that Alyce consented to the act of sex, that Alyce was separated from Appleton, that Alyce seduced you or that the marriage was an unhappy one. Or that the spouse – Appleton – had been unfaithful,’ completed Beckwith in a breathless rush, anxious to prove he knew the legislation as well as the other lawyer.
It took several moments for Jordan to absorb it all and when he spoke he was still not sure that he had, not completely. Shaking his head in disbelief he said, ‘This should have been spelled out at the very beginning! While I was still in England. From what you’ve just told me, the two of you, I’ve got absolutely no defence whatsoever against the claims that are being brought against me!’
‘You asked for the law, which you got,’ said Beckwith. ‘My job – Bob’s job, in Alyce’s case – is to advance arguments that fit your specific circumstances and persuade the judge that my interpretation of that law is in your favour. Which I think I can.’
‘As I think I can,’ came in Reid.
‘I sure as hell hope you can,’ said Alyce. ‘You haven’t set out the law as specifically as that to me, either, until now.’
‘I think I have,’ said Reid.
‘I don’t,’ refused Alyce.
‘Appleton’s surely the guiltier party!’ said Jordan. He looked hesitantly at Alyce. ‘I’m sorry about this, talking as if you’re not here, but he has to be the person who gave Alyce chlamydia. And admits to two affairs.’
‘There were more, I’m sure,’ said Alyce. ‘All that time he spent by himself in Manhattan! He wasn’t by himself in bed.’
‘My first pre-trial submission is going to be a court order for Appleton to undergo a venereal examination,’ said Reid. ‘And our enquiry people are trying to find other women. The more we get the more Pullinger will come towards us.’
‘I’ve now undergone two medical examinations,’ said Jordan. ‘And I’ve been told by both specialists that it’s a curable infection. What if he’s had treatment: that there’s no trace of his ever having had it?’
‘I’m also going to apply for an order that his side produce his complete medical records, if they won’t do it voluntarily,’ said Reid. ‘And I’ve already asked Bartle for them to be volunteered.’
