their seats: Appleton was gesturing with Bartle but Leanne was pulled away from her lawyer, as if she wanted physical separation. Beckwith didn’t sit but continued on to Reid’s table for a huddled discussion until the shouted announcement of Pullinger’s re-entry. The judge didn’t hurry this time, pointedly re-arranging his robes around him. Having done so, he said, ‘Counsel will approach the bench.’
The four lawyers arranged themselves in front of the judge in the order in which they sat. Pullinger said, ‘Well?’
‘My client wishes the hearing – and the case in full – to continue before your honour,’ said Bartle. ‘But my expert witness, Dr Chapman, wishes to address the court.’
‘My client also wishes to continue before your honour,’ echoed Wolfson. ‘Dr Lewell also seeks to address you, your honour.’
Pullinger nodded in dismissal and as he retook his seat Beckwith hissed, ‘We’re going on! Christ knows why, but we are.’ Looking towards his lawyer as he was, Jordan saw Reid hunched towards Alyce, who showed no response – no awareness even – of what she was being told.
‘Dr Chapman and Dr Lewell will stand,’ ordered Pullinger. When both did the judge continued, ‘For the record I will repeat what I know, upon my instructions, has already been communicated to you by your respective lawyers, for whose clients you appeared before me, as well as providing written medical opinion. It is that I intend reporting to your governing, licensing body my displeasure at the manner and lack of professionalism of both your evidence and your written opinions. I am, in turn, advised that you both wish to make representations before me. I am refusing to hear those representations: this is not the court to hear or adjudicate upon your professional conduct. For me to hear whatever it is you wish to say could prejudice any future enquiries in which you might be involved. You will both be provided with a full transcript of all the proceedings in which you have featured thus far, as well as a copy of what I write to your licensing authority.’
‘That isn’t fair!’ protested Chapman.
‘This will not be argued and neither of you will make outbursts in my court, which I order you to leave, immediately. Usher, escort the two doctors from the premises!’ Switching his attention to the other side of the court, Pullinger said, ‘Let’s get on, shall we, Mr Beckwith?’
Jordan was aware of a flicker of interest from Alyce as his lawyer stood, reminder notes in his hand. He was aware, too, of Beckwith’s pause: the actor preparing himself for his opening speech.
Beckwith said, ‘As your honour has already had cause to remind us, this is a court of law. It is not, despite the evidence that might be brought before it, a court of morals. It is the law, its interpretation and its administration, upon which I seek to address this court…’ Alyce had definitely emerged from her private world, Jordan decided. He was encouraged, too, by what he inferred to be several nods of approval from the judge.
‘I submit for your honour’s ruling that the North Carolina statute Section 1-52(5) is an inextricably connected hybrid of two parts,’ continued Beckwith, using his reminder notes more as a gesturing prop than a memory prompt. ‘From the first comes the accusation, if proven to your honour’s satisfaction, of alienation of affection, which surely requires the intercession between spouses of a third, destructive party, with the result that the marriage irretrievably breaks down. The second support to Section 1-52(5) is the offence of criminal conversation, which I further invite your honour to interpret as the intentional, alienating seduction by a destructive third party. I seek to prove, to your honour’s satisfaction and agreement, that my client, Harvey Jordan, is not liable to the accusation of criminal conversation because at the moment and time of the admitted affair with Mrs Alyce Appleton there no longer existed in Mrs Appleton any affection whatsoever to be alienated. Therefore there can be no case for criminal conversation. In the submitted papers before you Alfred Jerome Appleton admits adultery with at least two different women. At no time during their marriage, in which considerable difficulties arose, did Mrs Appleton betray her marriage vows. Indeed, there will be evidence produced before you that Mrs Appleton did everything in her power to save her marriage from irretrievable collapse, even attempting a reconciliation and resuming conjugal relations with her husband. It was during this attempted reconciliation that Mrs Appleton contracted chlamydia that has become the subject of so much discussion already and upon which I will not dwell further at this point, although there are points I intend to raise in my closing arguments. Any lingering affection – the remotest possibility of a lasting reconciliation – vanished when Mrs Appleton discovered she had contracted a venereal infection from her husband, who could have been the only source or cause of that infection. She initiated divorce proceedings, the intention of which was communicated to her husband before her departure for a lengthy vacation in the South of France. At the time of that departure Mrs Appleton considered herself married to her husband in name only, a name she sought to divest herself of as quickly as possible. In France she was a lonely woman, a betrayed and humiliated woman only recently cleansed of a sexual disease uncaringly passed on to her by her promiscuous husband…’
Alyce was listening intently now to every word, Jordan saw, actually with a pen in her hand although she did not appear to be taking notes. Both opposing lawyers were, as well as Pullinger. Appleton and Leanne Jefferies were gazing directly ahead, as if oblivious of each other.
‘And in France this lonely, betrayed and humiliated woman met my client, Harvey Jordan-’
‘A gambler!’ broke in Pullinger. The inference was of accusation.
Beckwith managed to pick up practically without pause. ‘That is indeed how Mr Jordan makes his living, which some might regard as an unusual career: certainly out of the ordinary to those of us who follow a more mundane profession. But I would suggest that at this very moment those working on the trading floors of Wall Street – Mr Appleton himself, as a commodity trader – could be described as gamblers. The very men who made America the world leader it is today, the Astors and the Vanderbilts and the J.P. Morgans, were chance-taking entrepreneurs, which is an interchangeable word for a gambler…’
‘Quite so,’ nodded Pullinger.
‘Harvey Jordan was an entirely innocent party in a long ago divorce, the papers of which are before you,’ resumed Beckwith. ‘He was on vacation in the South of France, a region he knows well and in which he vacations most years. He always stays, when he is in Cannes, at the Carlton Hotel. Where, by total and absolute coincidence, Alyce Appleton was also staying. Their meeting was not pre-arranged. It was a chance encounter, like so much is in life. Harvey Jordan took Alyce Appleton on the shortest of excursions along the coast. They had an affair, the briefest of episodes which ended with her return to her country, his return to his country. They did not exchange addresses or telephone numbers. Neither considered it as anything more than what it was: a holiday liaison. Harvey Jordan was not engaged in criminal conversations, intent upon alienating the affection of Alyce Appleton from a husband in name only, for whom her only attitude of mind was contempt for what he had inflicted upon her. To be judged guilty – liable – for an offence, your honour, there surely needs to be evidence produced that a law has been contravened. Here I respectfully submit that there is nothing in law that supports the accusation against my client.’
For several minutes after Beckwith sat – which seemed to catch the opposing tables by surprise – there was the necessary silence for everyone to digest what Beckwith had said. Pullinger broke it. He said, ‘That was an address too eloquent to have been kept from a jury, which must, I suppose, forever remain their loss. What you have told me is, of course, based upon the pre-hearing statements of Mr Jordan and Mrs Appleton. Do you not intend calling them, to support what you just said?’
Jordan’s impression was that for the first time Beckwith was disconcerted, although he concealed it well. Quickly rising again the lawyer said, ‘My address was upon the admitted and uncontested facts, your honour. They require, of course, to be subjected to the examination of the other side.’
For someone who had always until now existed as Mr Invisible, never to be seen and even more importantly never to be recognized, Harvey Jordan’s feeling at being the sole object of everyone’s unrelenting attention lurched into the surreal. He was confident that he had his hand upon the Bible and was correctly reciting the oath, but his mind suddenly blanked of everything he had so carefully memorized to word-rehearsed perfection. The bewildering out-of-body experience remained throughout the early, officially required formalities and only began – and then very slowly – to ease when, straining for concentration, Jordan forced himself to respond to Beckwith’s gentle, yes or no confirmation, of his already provided statement.
Beckwith’s abrupt departure from that statement: ‘Did you consciously, predatorily, set out to seduce Alyce Appleton?’ – finally brought Jordan back to the reality of his surroundings.
Every answer had to be thought through, although without any obvious hesitation, Jordan warned himself: he couldn’t risk once being caught out in a lie. ‘No, I did not.’
‘How, then, did you look upon Alyce Appleton?’
Jordan gave an uncertain gesture, to give himself time. ‘As a fellow guest at the hotel, someone with whom I
