got into casual, passing conversation.’
‘Yet you lunched together the first day of your meeting?’
Jordan gave another delaying shoulder movement. ‘She’d prevented me losing the book I was reading. It was a snack rather than lunch. It was entirely inconsequential.’
‘What gave it consequence?’
‘Nothing happened specifically to give it any consequence. We talked about books and writers. I knew from my knowledge of the area that Alexander Dumas’ novel, The Man in the Iron Mask, was based on fact and that the victim was at one time imprisoned on an island just off the coast of Cannes. I invited her on a surprise trip to see it.’ Beckwith was building up to how he and Alyce went to bed that first time, Jordan accepted. It hadn’t been ugly, as it would sound here now, in a cold court. It would make Alyce appear a whore, which she wasn’t. Abruptly Jordan remembered Beckwith’s ballpark estimate of the potential damages if Pullinger found against him and Beckwith’s angry insistence that Alyce’s words made her out to be the pursuer, not the pursued.
‘You chartered a yacht, sailed to the Ile St Marguerite and saw the prison in which the man in the iron mask was incarcerated?’
‘Yes.’ He’d limit his answers as much and as best he could, Jordan decided.
‘Then what did you do?’
‘We had lunch.’
‘On the yacht?’
Beckwith was looking very directly at him, Jordan saw, with what he gauged the beginning of a warning frown. ‘It was a catamaran. And yes, that’s where we lunched.’
‘What happened after that?’
‘We swam.’
‘To do which you had to change. Did you change together, in the same cabin? Or separately?’
‘Separately.’
‘You didn’t suggest that you should undress together?’
‘No.’
‘Did it not enter your mind that you might suggest it, Mr Jordan?’
‘No.’
‘Did you not find Mrs Appleton attractive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sexually attractive?’
Jordan hesitated, looking at the woman, who looked directly and expressionlessly back at him. ‘Yes.’
‘Yet it did not occur to you, in the circumstances in which you found yourself, to suggest you undress together: make a sexual approach to her?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It did not seem… I don’t know… I didn’t.’
‘Did you fear that she would rebuff you?’
‘I didn’t think about whether she would rebuff me or not.’
‘And in the early evening you sailed back to Cannes, arriving around dinner time?’
‘Did you suggest dinner?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she accept?’
Jordan felt hot, hotter than he had when he’d first stepped, his mind blank, on to the witness stand. ‘No.’
‘What were her precise words?’
‘As best as I remember, she said she was not hungry after the lunch.’
‘What else do you remember her saying, Mr Jordan?’
‘That she was tired.’
‘And?’ demanded Beckwith, the frown deepening.
‘That she wanted to go to bed.’
‘And…?’
Jordan did not immediately reply. Alyce was still looking at him without any expression whatsoever.
‘Mr Jordan?’ demanded Beckwith.
‘But not by herself,’ Jordan blurted.
‘Mrs Appleton told you she wanted to go to bed but not by herself?’ insisted the lawyer.
‘Yes.’
Twenty-Four
‘You stalked her, didn’t you!’ demanded David Bartle, loudly. ‘You sought out Alyce Appleton in the South of France and pursued her until you got her into your bed!’
Totally unaware of any of the detailed evidence that Appleton’s enquiry team might have assembled to incriminate him, Jordan recognized that under cross-examination he had to test every word and innuendo, to avoid stumbling into traps. And never lose his temper. No danger from this first, exaggerated opening. ‘No, I did not.’
‘You knew Alyce Appleton was a married woman?’
Too easy to be caught, Jordan thought. ‘She wore a wedding ring.’
‘And a particularly obvious engagement ring, given to her by her husband.’
‘I did not know from whom she obtained the engagement ring,’ qualified Jordan, believing he saw a safe avoidance. ‘I believe widows – divorcees even – still sometimes continue to wear their rings.’
‘She told you she was married?’
‘Yes.’ He needed to repeat that he and Alyce had parted without any intention to meet again, one of the several points with which Beckwith had concluded his examination, minutes earlier.
‘But not until after you’d seduced her!’
‘Not until after we’d slept together,’ said Jordan, qualifying again.
‘At your persistent urging!’
‘I have already told this court the circumstances in which the affair began.’ Very slightly, although not easing any of his self-imposed safeguards, Jordan began to relax. He didn’t think Bartle was a particularly good interrogator but very positively refused to lapse into any false security.
‘You’re telling the court that Alyce Appleton was prostituting herself up and down the French Riviera?’
Jordan felt the burn of anger but quickly subdued it. ‘I am telling you nothing of the sort and you – and the court – know it!’ He should have stopped after the initial denial! Shit!
‘Before this examination is over I shall know a great deal about everything,’ threatened the lawyer. ‘Did you find Alyce Appleton attractive?’
Jordan hesitated, trying to anticipate the subsequent question. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you fall in love with her?’
Jordan managed to avoid the hesitation. ‘No.’
‘Did you think she might fall in love with you?’
Too obvious, thought Jordan. ‘No.’
‘What would you have done if she had indicated that she was falling in love with you?’
‘It wasn’t that sort of situation.’
‘Answer the question,’ Pullinger ordered, sharply.
‘I would have made it clear that the feeling was not reciprocated.’
‘But gone on sleeping with her?’
‘No,’ insisted Jordan.
‘What would you have done?’ persisted Bartle.
