“a party girl”, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And there is something similar in the New York Observer, isn’t there? On the marked line of the cutting, numbered two, she is described as “a regular party person”, isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you take “party girl” and “regular party person” to mean, Mr Appleton?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think it means anything.’
‘That is you in the background of the cutting from the New York Observer, isn’t it, Mr Appleton?’
‘Yes.’
‘The date of that cutting is February eighth last year, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you were already aware of Ms Borowski before you formally met in March?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that affair with party girl Sharon Borowski began the first time you met her in late March, presumably at yet another party?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you agree with me that “an affair” is a consensual relationship – a sexual attraction – between two people?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You suppose so,’ mocked Reid. ‘You had sex with Ms Borowski on the first night of your meeting, that’s right, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve already told you that I did,’ said Appleton, his temper flaring for the first time.
‘Did you envisage a long-term relationship?’
‘I do not intend letting this continue much longer, Mr Reid,’ warned the judge.
‘I…’ started Appleton, but stopped. Then he said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘But you do know – remember – that you continued to sleep with Ms Borowski – and have sex with her – over the course of four or five weeks?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you pay to sleep with Sharon Borowsk, the regular party girl?’
Bartle rose to protest yet again but before he could Appleton said, loudly, ‘No, I did not pay her! She was not a hooker!’
As Bartle sat, Pullinger said, ‘Have we laboured this point sufficiently, Mr Reid?’
‘I have just one further question on this particular matter, your honour. Tell the court, sworn under oath as you are to tell the truth, Mr Appleton, did you give Sharon Borowski any gifts? Jewellery, for instance? A bangle, perhaps?’
‘I think…’ stumbled Appleton. ‘I gave her a bracelet, that’s all.’
‘Let me move on to another part of your evidence-in-chief,’ said Reid. ‘You were working hard to establish your new business – despite apparently having time to party – your wife was living in the country, which she preferred but you were trying for a baby, were you not?’
‘Yes.’
‘But without success?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you saddened, disappointed, that your wife did not conceive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your wife suggested adoption, did she not?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you argued against that. Why?’
‘I wanted our child to be biologically ours. To carry the bloodline of our two families. It was important.’
‘Your wife also underwent medical examinations and tests to discover if there were some medical or physical reason why she was incapable of bearing children, did she not?’
Appleton had precariously lodged the newspaper cuttings on the corner of the witness stand and in reaching out yet again to grip its edge he knocked them off. Some fell inside, others outside, of the box. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, stooping to recover those inside as the usher collected those beyond. Having retrieved what he could Appleton stood uncertainly with them in his hand until the usher reached out to take them.
‘Mr Appleton?’ urged Reid.
‘Yes,’ agreed Appleton, rigidly maintaining his minimal script.
‘But you refused to undergo any medical examination, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’ demanded Reid, matchingly short.
‘There is no biological or physical impediment in my becoming a father!’ insisted Appleton.
Reid strained the maximum silence from the remark before saying, ‘Without undergoing any medical examination you know there is no biological or physical impediment to you becoming a father?’
Bartle was sitting with his head bowed, although not as deeply as Alyce and Appleton stood flushed on the witness stand, washed away by a tide he couldn’t fight against. Eventually he said, ‘That is what I believe.’
‘Believe because of some internal conviction?’ pounced Reid. ‘Something of which this court is unaware? Or because you have already been the father of a child?’
‘Your honour!’ exploded Bartle, coming finally to his feet.
Before Pullinger could respond, Reid said, ‘I am finished for the moment, your honour.’
‘What in the name of fuck was that?’ demanded Jordan, as they settled in Reid’s office. There were glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels on the desk. Once more Alyce had insisted she couldn’t withstand a review.
‘I’ll tell you what that was,’ offered Beckwith. ‘You remember me telling you that courts were theatres, in which people performed? You’ve just witnessed a performance deserving more Oscars than there are Academy Award categories. You were brilliant, Bob. Absolutely fucking brilliant.’
And I never believed the man capable of opposing a speeding ticket, thought Jordan, still needing time to properly assimilate it all. ‘We never discussed any of this! I never knew you had so much to throw at him!’
‘I don’t remember our agreeing to talk about – to discuss – everything,’ said the resistant Reid, pointedly.
Looking between the two of them Beckwith sniggered and said, ‘You play a lot of poker, Harvey, as a professional gambler?’
‘Some,’ allowed Jordan, further confused.
‘Then you know about bluff.’
Jordan looked from one lawyer to the other. ‘Will someone – either of you – tell me what the hell you’re talking about?’
‘All Bob had were the newspaper cuttings,’ explained Beckwith. ‘We don’t expect there to be any surviving toxicology evidence from Sharon Borowski. Which was why Bob delayed until the last minute asking the coroner for it, because we didn’t want to be told there isn’t any. It gives Bob the chance to recall Appleton, with whatever might arise during the hearing. Appleton and Bartle will be shitting rocks that we know more – have something – which was what I meant by Bob’s Academy Award performance.’
‘What about Appleton already having fathered a child?’ persisted Jordan.
‘Who knows whether he has or he hasn’t,’ shrugged Reid. ‘He’s admitted to not undergoing a fertility test. What more did I need?’
‘But you knew about a bracelet?’ persisted Jordan.
‘No I didn’t,’ denied Reid. ‘I just tossed it into the pond to see if I could make ripples. And I did.’
‘You mean there wasn’t any evidence for any of the inferences and innuendoes you spread around in there today?’ demanded Jordan.
‘Every question was justified from the evidence available before the court,’ insisted Reid. ‘We can’t be caught out, like the other side was caught out with chlamydia. And the opposition don’t know where we’re coming from next.’
Jordan wasn’t sure where he was coming from next, either. He’d been too confident of being dismissed from
