‘Your husband is a wealthy man, the president of one of Wall Street’s leading commodity brokerages with a multi-millon dollar turnover?’
‘My husband never discussed business affairs with me, only in the beginning when he borrowed a million dollars from me.’
‘A million dollars that you have no proof of drawing from any of your accounts.’
‘It was how he wanted it done, in cash.’
‘Not only is there no traceable record of it having been withdrawn from your accounts, there is no recorded entry of such a sum in the company books. How do you explain that?’
‘Easily. I told you he asked for it in cash, to avoid it showing in the books. If it were recorded it would have been taxable. Maybe it was to spend on the women I then didn’t know about.’
‘You had a Manhattan apartment costing well over a million dollars. The Long Island house is valued at four million. You had staff. A $10,000-a-month allowance. Luxury cars. All provided for you by your husband.’
‘He said the cars were part repayment of the loan, which meant I was buying them for myself.’
‘What about the rest?’
‘I would have exchanged it all for a loving husband home before ten every night. And children.’
‘Your husband paid for all those homes and luxuries, didn’t he?
‘To which I made a one-million-dollar contribution.’
‘Did you love your husband when you married?’
‘I thought I did. I thought he loved me. Now I know I was wrong on both counts.’
‘Families – dynasties – were more important to you than love, weren’t they? That’s what your marriage was, the creation of an American royal family, and you knew it, didn’t you? That’s what you’ve already told the court today. You didn’t expect love.’
‘Of course I expected love: love and respect and a family. One of the most important factors in a royal marriage is the provision of an heir, don’t forget.’
‘Which was why your husband wouldn’t consider adoption, because it wouldn’t have provided a proper bloodline.’
‘If that is the explanation you are offering for his refusal to adopt, it is total and arrant nonsense,’ rejected Alyce, as Reid returned to the court.
‘As your denial that you had a sexually infected lover is total nonsense,’ challenged Bartle.
At last, despite her robustness so far, Alyce broke into tears, at which Reid hurried to his feet and said, ‘You honour! My client should surely be allowed the protection of the court.’
‘Which I am allowing her and which you must observe, Mr Wolfson,’ warned Pullinger, as Leanne Jefferies’ attorney got to his feet.
‘The shouted, violent confrontation with your husband that you have described to the court followed your discovery that you had chlamydia?’ began Wolfson.
‘Yes,’ agreed Alyce, dry-eyed now.
‘As far as I understand your evidence, your marriage to Alfred Appleton was already profoundly unhappy? Your living in Long Island and his living most of the time in Manhattan was virtually a separation, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘But the chlamydia was the final, irreparable breaking point?’
‘Yes.’
‘You did attempt a reconciliation, though?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did it work?’
‘No.’
‘If you hadn’t been infected, would you have filed for divorce?’
‘Yes, I think I would.’
‘Just think?’ pressed Wolfson.
‘Not just think. I would have filed for divorce. My marriage – our marriage – was a sham.’
There was a line of upright exclamation marks on Beckwith’s pad, Jordan saw.
‘When you had that final, irreparable breaking-up fight with your husband did you know of Leanne Jefferies?’
‘I knew he had a mistress. I didn’t know her name.’
‘When did you learn her name?’
‘When the proceedings began… when my lawyer received the papers from my husband’s lawyer.’
‘Until that time, did you have any intention of claiming financial damages from Leanne Jefferies for criminal conversation, for being the cause of the collapse of your marriage?’
Jordan turned, at the shift in the jury box, and saw Walter Harding sliding into his accustomed seat beyond the separating rail.
‘No,’ Alyce replied to the questioned. ‘I’ve already given evidence that I did so because of the law in this state… of the availability of the provision.’
‘Did Leanne Jefferies cause the end of your marriage? Wasn’t your marriage already over before you ever learned her name?’
During the woman’s hesitation Beckwith leaned sideways and said to Jordan, ‘Good try – his only try – but it isn’t a defence.’
Finally Alyce said, ‘Yes, it was, I suppose.’
‘Bruising,’ identified Harding, from the witness stand in a bland, even, bedside voice. ‘To the upper right thigh and lower ribs. Some contusions, but no actual skin break by the time I examined Mrs Appleton. I suspected there might be internal rib bruising, too.’
‘How did you understand Mrs Appleton received those injuries?’
‘She told me she had been violently punched by her husband earlier in the day, at their Long Island home, that her ribs had been particularly painful on the flight back here, to Raleigh.’
‘Did you not consider having Mrs Appleton X-rayed at your hospital to establish whether her ribs were actually broken? Or fractured?’
‘From the external bruising I did not believe either to have happened. If either had occurred there is no medical procedure – no plastering or binding support – that could have eased the healing or reduced the pain beyond the palliative medication I prescribed.’
‘Were the physical injuries on Mrs Appleton’s body consistent with her being violently punched to the ground?’
‘The specific injuries we are discussing were consistent with a fall. But on her upper left shoulder, extending maybe three or four inches down her upper chest as far as her breast, there was further bruising, marked in such a way to indicate knuckle separation. This was consistent with her having been punched. There was another, separate bruise on her right shoulder, which could have been caused by a thumb being heavily pressed in her at this point.’
‘Violently punched?’ pressed Reid.
‘It would have to have been a heavy blow, to have resulted in the bruising I am describing. And to have knocked her to the floor.’
‘And the pressure that caused the other mark, on her right shoulder?’
‘Substantial.’
Harding agreed, under intense questioning from Bartle, that he had been in Raleigh, not Long Island, where Alyce claimed to have sustained her injuries and repeatedly agreed that he had no way to substantiate that they could have been inflicted in the way she had described to him.
‘So, she could have received the bruises and contusions by the simple act of tripping, falling, from her own clumsiness, not by being attacked?’ demanded the lawyer.
‘The bruising and contusions to her upper right thigh and side, yes,’ agreed Harding. ‘But most definitely not the bruising to her upper left shoulder and breast that was clearly imprinted with the method of its cause, a heavy punch. And it’s not possible to punch yourself to leave that severity of imprint. She was hit – hit hard – by somebody else.’
The practice was for Jordan to wait in the corridor outside the court to be collected by his lawyer and Reid to
