‘You OK?’ Jordan asked, coming up behind her.
She half turned, smiling wanly. ‘That’s not the most intelligent question you’ve ever asked, is it?’
‘I called over the weekend, like I told you I would,’ said Jordan. He thought the lipstick was still too heavy.
‘I know. I was there.’
‘Why didn’t you pick up the phone?’
‘We talked everything out in Enrico’s.’
‘I’m not sure that we did.’
‘I wanted to talk about the money. That was all. It went on beyond that.’
‘I believe I misunderstood a lot of things in France. I don’t think I do now.’
‘Stop! Please stop! What’s happening now – going to happen now – is all I can handle.’
‘It’s going to end. You’re going to win, be rid of him, and we’ll be back where we were.’
‘We weren’t ever anywhere!’
‘I told you I misunderstood. Let’s talk about it again when this is all over.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about! I got you entrapped and I hate myself for getting you caught up in it and I want you to change your mind and take the money, however much it might be.’
‘Stop talking about the damned money! I’m not interested in that. I’m talking about us.’
‘You two OK over there?’ called Beckwith.
‘Just chatting,’ Jordan called back, not realizing that he’d raised his voice.
‘I’m not,’ said Alyce, lowering hers as well. ‘All I want to think about – get through – is this case. I can’t think – won’t think – about anything else.’
Jordan saw she was shaking, hands clenched tightly by her sides. ‘Hey! Let’s calm down. That’s what we’ll do, get through this. Then we’ll talk some more.’
‘But not now! Nothing more now! Promise me. Just promise to be here, doing what you’ve been doing,’
The shaking had worsened and Jordan reached out towards her. Alyce hesitated and then came into his arms, although keeping her own at her sides. He said, ‘I promise.’
‘You got a minute, Harvey?’ Beckwith called again, from across the room.
When Jordan reached the lawyers, leaving Alyce at the window, Reid said, ‘What was that all about?’
‘She’s wound up tighter than a spring,’ said Jordan. ‘No reason why I can’t talk to her now that the judge has ruled against my dismissal, locking me into the case, is there?’
‘I guess not,’ allowed Beckwith. ‘But let’s leave the physical support to the doctor, shall we? The huggy stuff wouldn’t look good outside this room.’
‘How did your meetings go after the adjournment?’ Jordan asked Reid directly, anxious for his inclusion to be automatically accepted.
Reid hesitated and it was Beckwith who answered. ‘Bob’s people think they might have something about what you picked up on – Appleton’s withdrawal from that Olympic selection, remember?’
‘And why he seemed to drop out of Boston’s social life,’ added Jordan, building on the reminder. ‘What was it?’
‘They haven’t fully pinned it down, not completely. But a woman, a girl, seems to have been part of it.’
Alyce had talked of something involving a girl, Jordan at once recalled. What he couldn’t remember was when and then he did: when they’d first met in New York with neither of them sure whether or not it legally endangered them. Cautiously he said, ‘That’s not going to impress Pullinger, from what I’ve seen so far.’
‘That sort of observation is not why you’re being included in these conversations to provide,’ dismissed Reid.
Those words of Reid’s echoed in Jordan’s ear like the clearest of warning bells. Too softly for her to hear from where she stood at the window, he said, ‘Ask Alyce.’
‘I already have. She says she doesn’t know what it could mean.’
‘Ask her again,’ insisted Jordan.
The pony-tailed Beckwith let out an exaggerated sigh. ‘We going to have to beat this out of you, Harvey?’
It had to remain vague, Jordan decided. ‘Alyce told me something that sounds familiar, about Appleton and a girl, before she and Appleton got together.’ Jordan was conscious of his lawyer looking pointedly at him as Reid walked across to the window at which Alyce stood.
Beckwith said, ‘You got something more to tell me, just the two of us?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t want to be caught out again, like I was with that fucking ring.’
‘I explained that! You agreed it wasn’t important.’
‘I accepted how it might have happened. I won’t accept getting caught with my pants down a second time. You and Alyce got an agenda I don’t know about?’
‘No!’ denied Jordan, again. He was walking backwards into a cul-de-sac, he decided.
‘Where did Alyce talk about this? In France? Or here?’
‘Here.’
‘When?’
‘Before the dismissal application.’
‘A meeting you also forgot to tell me about! After I’d told you – Bob had told you, as well – to stay away from each other!’
‘It’s in the past! Over!’ said Jordan, inadequately. ‘Now it could help.’
‘You want to do me a favour, Harvey? I want you to stop thinking – behaving – like a gambler and more like a defendant in a court case that could still cost you a whole bunch of money. You’ve contributed a lot and I recognize that. Appreciate that. As Bob does. Don’t risk losing everything we’ve so far won by trying too hard.’
He had to capitulate, Jordan accepted, reluctantly. And was relieved, too, that Reid was walking back across the ante-room towards them. Jordan said to his lawyer, ‘I’ll tell you every time I piss, too,’ and wished he hadn’t the moment the words were out.
‘Make sure you do it in the pan and not all over your feet,’ scored Beckwith, easily, increasing Jordan’s regret.
‘She doesn’t know much more,’ announced Reid, getting to them.
‘How much more?’ demanded Jordan.
‘Alyce thinks the girl belonged to the same yacht club as Appleton, in Boston. And that she lived in Lexington: it’s a suburb of Boston with a lot of history,’ said Reid, continuing on. ‘I can get that enquiry underway before the court resumes.’
More than Alyce had volunteered to him, thought Jordan. But then he hadn’t pressed her very hard on it. ‘Should be a good enough lead,’ he remarked to Beckwith. He didn’t add that he’d started to discover the story of other people’s lives from much less.
Jordan, who was walking behind, was conscious of Alyce looking anxiously around for her doctor as, rejoined by Reid, they filed back into court. Jordan couldn’t see Harding either and before they passed through the gated rail he came as close as he conveniently could and said, ‘He’ll still be on the phone. Don’t worry.’
She gave no indication of having heard him. The Appleton group followed into the court directly afterwards and virtually as they sat Pullinger began addressing the recalled jury. As was in his power, the judge said, the court was to be closed to reporters and photographs, either old or new, forbidden from publication until they had reached their verdict. For that reason they were prohibited from discussing with anyone outside the court anything they heard in evidence, including members of their families or friends. If they were approached by strangers seeking information they were to obtain as best they could – a telephone number, for instance – the identity of that stranger and report it at once to a court official. Their sworn and therefore legally required function, having heard his concluding directions, was to decide which of the petitioning parties was primarily responsible for the breakdown of the marriage. Their second function, according to a law which North Carolina remained one of the few states within the Union still to observe, was to decide the financial culpability of the two co-respondents, separately cited by each of the petitioning parties. Here again, insisted Pullinger, the jury was to be guided by his very specific concluding guidance, before retiring to reach their verdicts. If there was anything whatsoever that they did not understand, or by which they were confused, they were immediately to contact a court official, for those doubts and uncertainties
