the case and had even more grossly misconceived how fully he’d thought he was being included by the two lawyers. He wasn’t the driving force any longer, he accepted. And then he further accepted that perhaps he never had been.
Twenty-Seven
‘B ody language,’ said Jordan, his approach – and hopeful recovery – mentally rehearsed from the ill- tempered email exchanges he’d read between Bartle and Wolfson. And he did have to restore himself in the lawyers’ judgement, Jordan decided: recover a lot and not allow his overconfidence to imply – the overconfidence verging on conceit – that he could do Beckwith and Reid’s job better than they could.
Beckwith frowned and looked up from his Jack Daniels, with which they’d both continued at the hotel after the initial celebration in Reid’s office. ‘You want to help me with that?’
‘You asked me earlier if I played poker. There are two essentials to win at the game. You need to be able to memorize every discard, to narrow down what your opponent might be holding. And read his body language.’
‘And bluff, which Bob did so well today,’ added the lawyer.
‘I’ve been watching Leanne Jefferies,’ said Jordan, doggedly. ‘All day today she’s actually sat as if she’s trying to distance herself from Appleton.’
‘Are you surprised?’ exclaimed Beckwith. ‘If the jury finds against her she’s going to go down for big bucks. She’s got every reason to hate the guy. Certainly to despise him.’
‘Which I think is a new hate,’ urged Jordan. ‘Her lawyer’s from the same firm as Appleton’s and she went along with using a Boston venerealogist, both of which has got to be under pressure from Appleton. My impression is that she didn’t realize the shit he’d dropped her into until she ended up in court. She doesn’t know yet which way Pullinger’s going to go with what they tried with the venerealogists, and today she heard, my guess is for the first time, that before her Appleton was screwing a hooker whose infection she caught.’
Beckwith, whose cross-examination of Appleton was to begin the following day, appeared to consider the argument. ‘Could be you’re right.’ He smiled. ‘Maybe an idea to widen the rift a little, before we get her on to the stand?’
‘Better to widen it a lot.’
‘Trust me, Harvey,’ sighed Beckwith.
He was trying too hard again, Jordan accepted. Quickly he said, ‘There’s something I don’t understand.’
‘There’s a lot I still don’t understand,’ remarked Beckwith, gesturing for refills.
Jordan hoped the lawyer wasn’t getting drunk on the basis of that day’s success. ‘Why did Appleton volunteer his affairs with both women, actually providing Alyce with the grounds for divorce? And for the claim against Leanne?’
‘I’m there ahead of you,’ insisted Beckwith, vaguely mocking. ‘It’s on my reminder list for tomorrow. But thanks.’
‘Why didn’t Bob go for it, today?’
Beckwith sighed again. ‘Because it’s not the strategy we’re following.’
Which he didn’t know about, acknowledged Jordan, wondering if it had been decided when he’d been at the ante-room window with Alyce. ‘Which is?’
‘Re-examination,’ disclosed Beckwith. ‘Bob achieved it today on a limited point. If something comes out tomorrow, he can stretch – or try to stretch – the remit. As I can if Appleton slips between his replies to me and the replies he’s already given to Bob. And we can do it all over again with Leanne when we get her on the stand.’
‘What about Alyce?’ demanded Jordan, at once. ‘Won’t she be exposed to a double act, from Bartle and Wolfson?’
‘If they work out our game plan,’ agreed Beckwith. ‘As you will.’
‘Were you going to warn me, if I hadn’t asked?’
‘Of course.’
Jordan didn’t believe the other man. ‘Is Bob going to warn Alyce?’
‘It would make good sense to do so. I don’t like how shaky she is.’
Neither did he, thought Jordan. ‘Bob should try to get her excused from the court.’
‘Too soon,’ insisted Beckwith. ‘Pullinger will have seen a lot of women break up in pieces far worse than Alyce has done so far. Divorce is never a walk in the park.’
He had all his illegal sites still to access, Jordan remembered. And he hadn’t yet helped himself to that day’s tranche of Appleton and Drake’s money. That thought prompted another. He said, ‘Are things going more slowly than you anticipated?’
‘Largely because of what the other side tried to pull,’ said Beckwith. ‘With Pullinger’s adjournment built in, an entire week has been added.’
‘So are we still looking at a month, from now?’
The lawyer shrugged. ‘How the hell do I know? When I gave you that estimate I didn’t imagine us encountering anything of what we have so far. You got a problem?’
Yes, thought Jordan. On his current rate of the Appleton embezzlement, he could possibly amass a further half a million by the end of a month, but that was to offset any damages that might be awarded against him. But he didn’t imagine he could continue for a month without some financial controller or individual trader realizing Appleton and Drake was being milked like a milch cow. Which wasn’t the most pressing problem; even after it was suspected or proven by a snap audit it would still take at least another month – maybe even two – for an official criminal enquiry to begin, by which time he would have distanced himself untraceably from all the illegally established Appleton bank holdings, leaving only their existence as evidence of Appleton’s theft and money diversion from his own company. But Jordan intended far more. And an in-house investigation could very easily – and badly – impede his next move. To avoid his plans being disrupted he had to siphon off – although to different destinations – larger sums than his usual daily collection. But by increasing those amounts he correspondingly increased the danger of earlier discovery. Another week of simple bank transfers, Jordan decided. After that he had to begin, much more aggressively, undermining Appleton’s very foundations.
Belatedly responding to Beckwith’s question Jordan said, ‘No real problem. I undertook to stay until everything was over if we lost the dismissal and I will. I just don’t want everything to limp on, open-ended, which it seems to be doing.’
‘Pullinger won’t let anything that he controls “limp on, open-ended”,’ declared Beckwith. ‘If he suspects for a moment he’s being manipulated – as he clearly thinks he was with the venereal disease busisness – there’ll be hell to pay.’
How, wondered Jordan, could he create a situation that would appear to the judge to be precisely that, motivated by Appleton? He didn’t, at that precise moment, have the remotest idea. But he was confident he’d be able to think of one. Confident, Jordan at once qualified: not over confident.
‘You employed a lot of people to watch your wife in France, didn’t you?’ demanded Beckwith.
‘I engaged an enquiry service,’ said Appleton.
‘But not specifically for France?’ insisted Beckwith. ‘You’d engaged them long before that, hadn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ conceded the commodity dealer.
The man had reverted to his single-word answers, Jordan recognized, although Appleton appeared more at ease in the witness box than he had the previous day. Alyce did, too, despite Dr Harding not being in court. Leanne looked strained, her face drawn.
‘Why?’ asked Beckwith, matching the brevity.
‘I told the court yesterday,’ said Appleton, determined against saying too much.
‘Not to my recollection,’ refuted the lawyer. ‘Why did you put your wife under surveillance before she went to France?’
Appleton’s face flushed, very slightly. ‘I wanted to discover the man with whom she was having an affair. The man from whom she contracted the venereal disease that I caught.’ His voice had risen, too.
Beckwith was proving as good as Reid, the previous day, thought Jordan. Within minutes he’d irritated
