‘I told them it was a closed matter,’ continued Reid. ‘Nothing’s appeared so far. The uncertainty is what Appleton’s side will say publicly. I’ve told Bartle I’m going to file for a closed court. Confirmed it in writing, too, in the hope that will restrict whatever Appleton’s people might say. If they make a statement ahead of my application, knowing that I’m going to make it, Pullinger might consider it contempt, which would be in our favour.’
‘You spoke to Bartle by phone first?’ asked Beckwith.
‘Yes,’ nodded Reid.
‘Didn’t he give any indication if they’d oppose it?’
‘He said he hadn’t been called by the media but didn’t know if Appleton had, that he hadn’t heard from him. And that they’re having a meeting today, as we are. They’ve received notification of Pullinger’s appointment, as we have.’
‘How’d he sound?’ asked Jordan.
Reid humped his shoulders, frowning. ‘We’re on opposing sides. He didn’t sound like anything. If you mean did we talk in any detail, we didn’t. I made it sound like I was offering a favour, warning him about Pullinger’s possible reaction.’
‘Which I might reinforce,’ said Beckwith, contemplatively. ‘I haven’t informed Bartle I’m filing for dismissal. Pullinger could consider it contempt if either Bartle or Appleton spoke in advance of that hearing, too…’ He smiled around the room. ‘In fact that’s what I will do! Telephone him today and follow it up with a couriered letter he’ll get before today ends.’
‘He’s meeting Appleton today,’ reminded Jordan, unnecessarily. ‘You do it right now you give him the opportunity to warn Appleton off from saying anything.’
Now it was Beckwith who let the seconds build before saying, ‘Thanks for the prompt, Harvey. We’re all of us anxious to button down on publicity. Right now was exactly when I was going to break off to make the call: leave Alyce and you and Bob to maybe have some more coffee, talk among yourselves.’
Fuck you, thought Jordan, refusing the intended intimidation. ‘It’s good to hear we’re all moving in the same direction, Daniel. I’ll pass on more coffee, though.’
As Beckwith left the conference annex Alyce said to her lawyer, ‘How long before we actually get to court? Get to the end of it all?’
‘We get to the end when we get to the end,’ said Reid, clumsily. ‘I’m not going to agree an actual hearing date – I don’t mind how many postponements I get because of Appleton’s awkwardness – because every difficulty he creates is to our advantage with a judge like Pullinger. I let one thing go, because we’re in too much of a hurry -’ he was talking not to his client but directly to Jordan – ‘through impatience and the wish to get everything out of the way as quickly as possible, the more you’re at risk, both of you, of coming out the guilty parties. And like you’ve already told me, Harvey, you’re counting that risk in dollar signs.’
He had to allow the other man some recovery, Jordan decided. ‘Take as much time as is necessary to get it absolutely right.’
‘That’s precisely what I’m going to do,’ insisted Reid. ‘What Dan and I are going to do between us, get everything absolutely right.’
Reid had recovered enough, thought Jordan. To Alyce he said, ‘You living permanently back in Raleigh now?’
‘Mostly. I might stay over a few days here, having come up for this. Check the apartment out. There’s got to be a lot of mail.’
‘I postponed going back to London because of today. I’ll probably go back in a day or two. And I’m sorry about before, that day in Raleigh. I was out of order.’
Her obvious surprise matched that of her lawyer. Alyce said, ‘You already apologized for Raleigh.’
‘Today it’s my idea to do so.’
Alyce smiled, uncertainly. ‘Thank you.’
Daniel Beckwith returned noisily from his outer office, his jacket discarded elsewhere, yellow legal pad notes bunched in either hand. ‘Bartle isn’t seeing Appleton until later this afternoon, so the timing was perfect. He took the point of the call. Several points, in fact. Told me he’d obviously be at the dismissal application, anticipating that he’d be instructed to oppose it.’
‘He mention my call?’ asked Reid.
‘Not a word about it,’ said Beckwith.
‘What impression did you get?’ asked Jordan, inferring that this latest legal exchange had been more productive than that with Reid.
‘That neither he – nor Appleton – had expected you to defend the action,’ replied Beckwith, smiling. ‘I played it for him to come to me. Which he did. He seemed surprised that you were here in New York, that I wasn’t representing you in absentia.’
So surveillance still hadn’t been re-established, Jordan immediately deduced. ‘Is that good or bad?’
‘Good, for us. Opens the door for me to challenge everything that’s claimed against you as well as against Alyce, if my dismissal is rejected and the main hearing proceeds with Leanne Jefferies additionally brought into the action. We don’t actually have an outright defence: you’ve both admitted the adultery. But it strengthens the point – provides the strong mitigation – that Bob hit on in Raleigh, that as far as you were both concerned Alyce’s marriage to Appleton was over.’
Jordan hesitated, his mind on what he’d illegally read in Patrick O’Neill’s report of the Watchdog agency’s failure to find any evidence of Alyce having lovers in Manhattan or Long Island. ‘You know who Appleton’s enquiry agency is?’
‘Still waiting to be told,’ said Reid.
Jordan held out a calming hand towards the North Carolina lawyer. ‘We’re not in competition, remember? But whoever they are they must have been watching Alyce here, in America. And found nothing. Which they would have done, if there was anything to find, judging from the completeness of their observations in France. That’s surely in Alyce’s favour: part of the mitigation even?’
‘I’m not sure it goes as far as the mitigation, but it’s a point I thought we’d already touched on,’ said Reid. ‘Nothing’s going to go unchallenged but there’s a danger in the very word you used – completeness – in what they achieved in France. It’ll be a narrow path to walk. But I’m obviously going to walk it…’ The man paused, looking at the other lawyer. ‘I’m not sure whether it does more harm than good to your case.’
‘Neither am I,’ agreed Beckwith, philosophically. ‘But the rules are the rules. Your primary responsibility is to your client, my primary responsibility is to mine. We both do what we have to do.’
That hadn’t ended up as he’d intended, acknowledged Jordan. There was still more than enough time to improve upon it. He was encouraged at Appleton’s lawyer being wrong-footed by him personally contesting the claims, if indeed Bartle had been wrong-footed; he only had Beckwith’s impressions from one end of a telephone conversation.
The two lawyers had continued talking during Jordan’s reflections, but to all practical purposes they were technically establishing between themselves – although always consulting Alyce and Jordan on their availability – the precedence of prehearing submissions and unfulfilled exchange demands to Bartle to be made individually between the two of them. Twice, when they weren’t part of any discussion, Alyce smiled at Jordan, on the first occasion mouthing ‘thank you’, which Jordan didn’t understand.
It had gone six before they finally broke off, Jordan holding back for Alyce and Reid to leave the building separately and ahead of him. Still in the annex, Beckwith said, ‘I thought everything went very well.’
‘I want everything to go better than very well,’ said Jordan. ‘I want everything to go completely in our favour.’
‘He’s an arrogant son of a bitch,’ accused Reid. ‘Suddenly he’s a trial lawyer!’
‘I told you he was arrogant before you met,’ reminded Beckwith. ‘The points he made were valid, though.’
They were eating in a restaurant in Little Italy, a cavern filled with noise making it difficult for them to hear each other and impossible to be overheard by others.
‘We’d have got it covered,’ insisted Reid.
‘He covered it first,’ said Beckwith. ‘I prefer clients who think for themselves instead of expecting me to do everything for them.’
‘You really think Bartle was surprised at your third-party involvement?’
