‘I manage to fill in the time,’ said Jordan.
When they got back from the restaurant, which they’d enjoyed and decided to use again, Jordan declined Beckwith’s offered nightcap, anxious to complete his nightly computer check.
He’d been at his screen less than an hour when he came upon the query from a Chicago broker and accepted that the hunt to find the Appleton and Drake intruder had begun.
Twenty-Eight
There was the briefest stomach lurch at his detection: if there hadn’t it would have meant he had become complacent, which Jordan had always regarded as the greatest sin possible in his profession. But that was all it was, brief, as quickly acknowledged and just as quickly compartmentalized because there was not the slightest risk of the investigation that would now laboriously unfold ever connecting him to what had already happened or with what was going to continue happening until, Mr Invisible once more, he chose to disappear at the split-second click of a computer key. A gambler, which Jordan most very definitely was not, would have bet upon it taking two months from this moment for Appleton and Drake to go thoroughly through their back office trades for them to begin to recognize how completely they had been invaded and by how much they had been looted. Jordan set himself a month to complete what he had started. Even if, by the sort of miracle in which Jordan did not believe, the investigation within a month traced the intrusion to Darwin he was still not in any personal danger. The Trojan Horse in the Darwin cut-out system was in Appleton’s name and contained all Appleton’s identifying details, none of Jordan’s.
Jordan was nevertheless disappointed – and irritated – at being discovered. He’d been particularly careful not to siphon money from any ‘wash trades’ – buy-and-sell futures purchases upon which an immediate profit was likely, sometimes within the space of twenty-four hours – but those instead intended to be held for a longer period for the price to go up. Jordan’s mistake, which he at once and fully acknowledged, was not sufficiently following the market movement in all the commodities through which he’d moved collecting, figuratively with his basket in hand. He’d concentrated upon metals, the primary trading activity of Appleton’s company. The five-hundred dollars he’d skimmed from the order placed by a Chicago-based broker named David Cohen was for pork belly, predictable from the Chicago exchange being dominated by meat trades, the movement of which, unlike metals, he hadn’t consulted daily and in which there had obviously been a sudden upward price jump to trigger the sell. Like all objective men, Jordan accepted it as a lesson to be learned and a mistake not to be repeated: from now on he had daily – even twice daily – to monitor the price shifts of every commodity deal he raided.
A month then, Jordan rationalized. More than sufficient time in which to achieve everything – more maybe – that he wanted. No reason, yet, for him to break the American financial regulations by opening, in Appleton’s name, the intended hedge fund portfolios. His only current pressure was to move the visible money from the New York bank accounts into the safe-deposit facilities to make available space for fresh infusions from the Appleton and Drake client list. During the four weeks Jordan estimated he could accumulate between $500,000 and $750,000 to offset any court award and lawyer costs; possibly more if his monitoring of the impending investigation disclosed that it was moving more slowly than he’d estimated. No! Jordan warned himself, at once. To go beyond his time limit would be to risk the gamble he had already decided against.
Jordan awoke by six, wrongly believing the Chicago challenge to be the only leftover surprise of the day. There had been insufficient movement over the preceding three days to prompt profit selling in either copper or steel and he decided to restrict himself entirely in both, going through previously untouched accounts and distributing a total of $5,000 between the five New York accounts. The transfers completed, Jordan came across a letter from the Chicago broker, which was not addressed to Appleton but to a junior partner in the firm, John Popple, who had carried out the futures purchase, smiling at the confirmation of its tone. It was not phrased as a complaint but as an enquiry, inferring that the five-hundred-dollar disparity was a bookkeeping or accounting mistake, which was the manner in which Popple replied, promising a records check of the back office buy and sell comparisons, with the undertaking to get back to Cohen within days.
He’d underestimated the time it would take for a proper investigation to get underway, Jordan decided, upon reflection. It was far more likely to be three rather than two months. But he’d stick to his schedule. Unless, that is, something came up that he hadn’t anticipated.
How long would it be before Appleton learned of the Chicago enquiry? Jordan wondered, gazing fixedly at the hunched, dour-faced commodity trader as the court assembled. Certainly not this week. Maybe not until a full blown criminal enquiry, by which time the divorce case could be over and he, conceivably, back in England evolving another, overly delayed new operation. Or would he be? Wrong question, he corrected himself. Did he want to go back to London directly after distancing himself both from the divorce and the retribution against Alfred Appleton? All of it had been – and would continue to be – work: unaccustomed work far harder and more demanding than that upon which he was normally engaged. And in between which he usually allowed himself a recovering break, if not a proper vacation. Didn’t he deserve a period of rest, just he and…? Jordan stopped the drift, very positively refusing it, turning to the other side of the court for the first time that day. Alyce was in black again, her paleness accentuated, and she had turned back to the separating bar towards which Dr Harding, in turn, was stretched forward in nodded conversation, along with a greying, bespectacled woman. In the same row, although not directly alongside, sat the three venerealogists. Because of how she was twisted to look behind her Alyce became aware of Jordan’s look and turned to smile, briefly, at him. Beckwith and Reid were also stretched between their separated tables in huddled discussion and as they rose for the familiar opening ritual of the judge’s entry Beckwith muttered, ‘Could be another good day.’
Reid remained on his feet as the rest of the court settled and to Pullinger’s enquiring look said, ‘I wish to inform your honour at this earliest opportunity, and prior to the expert medical evidence for which this court was adjourned yesterday, that I have received this morning, by courier, the requested medical examination report on Sharon Borowski, after her fatal automobile accident. I have had that report duplicated for distribution, with your honour’s permission, before the calling of today’s medical experts, whose interpretation I believe will be necessary.’
‘You are not seeking yet another adjournment, are you, Mr Reid?’ demanded the judge, threateningly.
‘Subject to any representation from other counsel – and of course to your honour’s guidance – I am prepared to ask doctors Abrahams, Chapman and Lewell to respond from the witness stand. If it would further assist the court, there are also present today Dr Walter Harding and Mrs Appleton’s gynaecologist, Dr Brenda Stirling, whose addition to my witnesses list I have already advised.’
Instead of addressing the other lawyers individually, Pullinger looked between the three of them and curtly said, ‘Well?’
Bartle was first on his feet to agree, followed by the other two and while the medical examiner’s report was being circulated Beckwith said, quietly, ‘Shit!’
‘What’s the problem?’ Jordan whispered back.
‘If whatever’s in the report on Sharon Borowski goes against Appleton, there’s room for a mistrial appeal – intervention at least – on the grounds of insufficient consultation.’
‘Why didn’t you object?’
‘It’s better as far as you are concerned to go ahead. You’re the guy I represent, remember?’ said Beckwith, rising as George Abrahams was called to the stand. Because it was the first time the jury were to hear the evidence referring to the chlamydia, the beginning of Beckwith’s examination was a virtual repetition of the previous closed court hearing establishing that Jordan was clear of any such infection.
Beckwith got as far as: ‘Can we now turn…?’ before Pullinger’s interruption.
‘Not yet,’ stopped Pullinger. To Abrahams he said, ‘I require you to answer in the briefest manner possible some questions I wish to put to you, which have to be introduced into the public record. You have already given evidence before me, in the absence of a jury, upon chlamydia, have you not?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed the venerealogist.
‘During the course of that evidence you were asked to comment upon the findings of two other expert witnesses, Drs Chapman and Lewell?’
‘Yes.’
