stupid joke thing that was totally unimportant. And I can’t – and won’t – believe Pullinger refused the dismissal because of it. That would be ridiculous.’ He looked at Beckwith. ‘I thought you made a convincing submission. Thank you.’
The lawyer inclined his head in acknowledgement and said, ‘It was annoying, being caught out about the ring, but I don’t think that was why Pullinger found against us, either. I think he was thoroughly pissed off by what the other side tried to pull and didn’t want to protract everything further with another possible plea on Leanne’s behalf. This way he’s tied it up in one bundle.’
‘You still estimating any finding against me as high as you did in the beginning?’ asked Jordan.
Beckwith shook his head. ‘We’re way down the scale now. We’ve got to be!’
‘I agree,’ said Reid.
‘Alyce stood up well, until it was all over,’ said Jordan. When she’d been invited to the review conference she had pleaded exhaustion and Dr Harding at once confirmed, after examining her, that medically it would be too much for her to go through any analysis, actually administering some medication in a court ante-room before yet again smuggling her from the building.
‘Now you’re going to be centre stage,’ Beckwith reminded Reid. ‘You think she’s going to be strong enough to stand up to it all? Today wasn’t even a taste of what she’s going to face from Bartle when we get to the full case.’
‘I’m glad of the adjournment,’ admitted Reid. ‘I’m seeing Harding first thing tomorrow. After what’s already happened I don’t want to throw any more medical stuff at Pullinger but I might ask for some relaxation in her attending if Harding tells me it’s necessary.’
‘You intending to have him on hand all the time?’ queried Beckwith.
‘Another reason for seeing him tomorrow,’ expanded Reid. ‘I’m hoping his function at the Bellamy clinic is more administrative than actually practising. If it is he might be able to spend more time than someone with a patient list.’
‘He looks young to be the administrator of an entire hospital?’ suggested Jordan.
‘Local boy made good,’ said Reid. ‘Very good indeed.’
‘What do I have to do now?’ Jordan asked his lawyer. ‘Do I have to be in court the whole time?’ There was a lot more use to which he could put the New York bank accounts.
‘I’ll think about that as things take their course,’ said Beckwith, cautiously. ‘We’re pretty much at the back of the bus in the immediate future. But certainly you should be in court in those early days. I’m sure we’re still ahead, as far as our part of the case has gone. But I don’t want to upset a spiky old bastard like Pullinger by making a move he’d consider disrespectful. And after his reaction to how you make a living I wouldn’t like to argue pressure of business.’
‘I don’t think much of Bartle. Or Wolfson,’ prompted Jordan. Or Reid, for that matter, he mentally added.
‘We knocked both of them way off course,’ said Beckwith. ‘Bartle did the best he could with what he had. Which was why the ring was a nuisance. Without it he really would have been floundering.’ He looked at Reid. ‘Don’t underestimate him next week. He’s got a lot of court ground to recover. Wolfson, too. Alyce is going to be put through a lot of hoops and she already needs a doctor on standby.’
‘That’s what I’m going to talk through with Harding tomorrow.’
‘Shouldn’t there be a specialist on hand, as we had over the chlamydia business?’
‘I told you, that’s what I’m seeing Harding to decide,’ insisted Reid. ‘And I think these after-court discussions are useful. I’d welcome the input continuing.’
I bet you would, thought the unimpressed Jordan. He said, ‘You’re going to need more than discussions like this if your enquiry people don’t move their asses more than they’ve done so far.’
‘The planning conference with them is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. They’re making promising noises. I’ll bring Dan up to speed before we start next week.’
And I’ll bring myself up to speed on Trojan horseback, thought Jordan.
But not here in Raleigh, he decided, recognizing the opportunity again to get back to New York, which he already knew his lawyer intended to do on the first available flight the following day.
Dinner was Jordan’s first reflective opportunity on the outcome of the day and he accepted, without admitting it to his lawyer, that he’d been too optimistic of Pullinger’s dismissal. But as objective as he always was, Jordan at once recognized that there was a potentially protective benefit from him being officially detained in America instead of remaining there of his own volition, which he’d already decided to do if they’d won the day. This way there could be no suspicion of him in any way being responsible or involved in the intended retribution against Alfred Appleton, remote though any such suspicion might be, so carefully – and so far undetected – had Jordan evolved his unfolding attack. But he would be restricted in expanding that attack if he had constantly to attend the Raleigh court. This fact created an uncertainty – a hindrance – in the mind of a man who didn’t like initiating anything about which there was the slightest doubt or difficulty.
Jordan was glad he wasn’t able to get a seat on the same flight as Beckwith, able to travel alone back to New York. So accustomed to working and being always alone, responsible only for and to himself, that, objective again, Jordan acknowledged that the constant presence of Beckwith and Reid – of so many other people – had caused something like claustrophobia in him in Raleigh. It might not have been so bad, he supposed, if things had been different with Alyce: if he’d been able to see her, be with her, sometime during the adjournment. Fragile though she was, she had been magnificent on the witness stand, doing everything that she could to prove he wasn’t guilty or responsible for her marriage collapse under ridiculous Dark Ages laws enacted by Puritans who believed in witches and burned them at the stake. He wanted – needed – to thank her: thank her for enduring the humiliation of actually admitting that it was she who had come on to him before he’d hit upon her, which he’d intended to do the night they’d got back from the prison island visit anyway. Was Beckwith right, that what Alyce had gone through the previous day was a soft prelude to what she was going to be subjected to by Bartle the following week? He didn’t want to be excused the court when Alyce was on the stand. He’d be there every day, supporting her if he could, letting her know if he could that he was there for her. As he would be. Counting. Counting every humiliation, every shitty trick or device that Bartle and Appleton imposed upon her. And by every notch in that count he’d increase the humiliation and shit he’d already started to dump on Alfred Jerome Appleton. Not just an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth: he’d figuratively dismember the man organ by organ, limb by limb, until all that was left for people to laugh at would be a hump-backed, flush-faced head on a spike.
He’d advised the Carlyle the previous night of his return to Manhattan and his retained suite was predictably immaculate, his intrusion detectors in the suit closet and dressing-room drawers undisturbed. He held back from unstabling his Trojan Horses at once, deciding that there was so much he had to cover that he needed to create a reminder list to avoid him overlooking anything. It took him an hour to compose and he was surprised at its length when he finished.
He assumed that Bartle and Wolfson would have returned as he and Beckwith had – maybe Appleton and Leanne, too – but there would have been little opportunity for the lawyers to have updated their computer case files. Working his way patiently through his reminders, Jordan decided that with the exception of DDK Investigations, Reid’s enquiry agency, within whose computers he had so far not embedded a see-all spyhole, he’d probably be premature accessing any of his already burgled sites until the following day.
Jordan was on the point of quitting the hotel for West 72nd Street and whatever mail might be waiting there for him in Appleton’s name when his telephone rang.
‘I wondered if you’d be back here,’ said Alyce.
‘You’re in Manhattan?’
‘I couldn’t stand being in Raleigh any longer. And there were television and cameramen all around the estate.’
‘How are you?’
‘It’s just the court. Once I’m out of it, not in the same room with him, I’m OK.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Just here, in the apartment. You?’
‘Just here, in the suite. There’s still time for a late lunch.’ West 72nd Street could wait.
‘That would be nice. Do you know Enrico’s, on 57th and 3rd?’
‘I can find it.’
She was there, looking through her heavy-rimmed glasses at the menu while she waited, when Jordan
