Royston and Jones bank accounts and the unbreakable rule against carrying over from one job to another an already established facility. Jordan accepted that he was stretching the protective rule to its breaking point but that’s what restraining rules were: protective. And for this reason they had to be strictly observed.
That decision made long before the eventual Tuesday revelation about Appleton, Jordan moved both to guard his existing savings as well as severing all links to the little used Maculloch identity, even though in doing so he breached another forbidden barrier.
Within two days of his return from America he loaded half the money in the Royston and Jones deposit boxes into a crammed suitcase, far more than he had ever moved before, and went directly from Leadenhall Street to the Jersey ferry port to put it beyond any discovery or court power in the bank secrecy haven of St Helier. Two weeks later – far more quickly than any previous asset transfer – Jordan risked the repeated trip and crossed the English Channel again with the remainder of the London money. Jordan closed the Leadenhall Street facilities and the Hans Crescent flat rental the same day and spent the majority of his evenings in casinos in which, over the course of the four weeks he lost close to?20,000 of his total?70,000 stake which, although he refused to admit to any gambler’s superstition, not regarding himself as one, he regarded as a bad omen, although he still collected the necessary winning receipt certificates on the 50,000 that remained.
Dinner with Lesley Corbin on his first week back was a highlight, largely because he had so much background to recount of the Raleigh hearings – during which she pointedly reminded him there’d been a loose, unfulfilled arrangement for her to attend as a legal observer, adding that she’d already heard from Beckwith how much he’d contributed – but he’d declined her invitation to a nightcap when he delivered her home to her Pimlico flat. He paid Lesley’s bill, in cash, by return the following week and she telephoned to thank him and Jordan responded as he knew he was expected, with another dinner invitation. Afterwards he took her to a Mayfair casino and overrode her protests to stake her with five hundred pounds. She doubled it and he lost?2,300. He declined the nightcap invitation that night too. She promised to call if there was any contact from Beckwith about an appeal by Appleton and Jordan said there was a message service with which he kept in contact if he wasn’t at the Marylebone flat, lying that there was a possibility of his soon going on a gambling sweep through Europe. He did actually go to Paris for the Arc de Triomphe race meeting, briefly sorry that he didn’t invite her but regretting more losing?5,000.
It was the publicity of the Appleton investigation that brought Jordan out of denial to confront the fact that he’d done virtually nothing whatsoever constructive to re-establish anything like a proper working regime but that, to the contrary, he was positively avoiding doing so.
Jordan used the excuse of that publicity to telephone Daniel Beckwith, who responded at once with the demand, ‘Would you fucking believe it?’
‘Never in a million years,’ said Jordan, wondering the colour of the other man’s cowboy shirt that day. ‘You heard anything about an appeal?’
‘With the shit he’s now covered in! Forget it!’
‘You think he really did it?’ asked Jordan, to justify the conversation.
‘The story is they’re running book on Wall Street. You should get back over here, win yourself some easy money.’
With what he knew he could probably do just that if what Beckwith said was true, reflected Jordan. ‘You heard how Alyce is reacting? Spoken to Bob maybe?’
‘Don’t expect to,’ dismissed Beckwith. ‘I’d imagine she’s turning cartwheels and setting off fire crackers in celebration. I’ll keep in touch, if there’s anything.’
Jordan mulled over the idea for almost an hour before calling Reid in Raleigh.
As Beckwith had done, the North Carolina lawyer took the call at once, although more controlled. ‘There’s a guy with a whole bunch of trouble,’ the lawyer agreed. ‘The late night talk shows are competing for the best jokes.’
‘I’ve tried calling Alyce, to see if she’s OK,’ said Jordan, honestly. ‘I read in one of the papers that she’s abroad and won’t be back for some time?’
‘A smokescreen,’ dismissed Reid. ‘She’s mostly down here on the estate just outside the city. Best place to be if she wants to hide, which she does. And she can fly in and out when she wants from the airstrip they’ve got there.’
‘You speak to her a lot?’
‘Not a lot. No reason to, now it’s all over.’
‘If you do, will you do me a favour? Tell her I’ve tried to call, to see if she’s OK. That I’d like to hear from her.’
There was a pause from the other end of the line. ‘I’ll pass it on, if we speak again.’
Jordan’s phone rang two days later.
‘I’ve tried to call,’ said Jordan.
‘Bob told me.’
‘And before I came back.’ He thought her voice was flat, as if she were depressed.
‘Stephen told me that, too.’
‘How are you?
‘Pissed off with all the media hanging around again, since Alfred’s arrest.’
‘I guess he’s in deep trouble.’
‘I guess,’ she agreed, disinterestedly.
‘I’m thinking of coming across.’
‘What for?’
‘Just a trip,’ Jordan pressed on. ‘I thought maybe we could meet up?’
‘I told you, I’m under siege again down here.’
‘Bob said you could get in and out by air when you wanted to. We could get together in New York, if they haven’t found your apartment there.’
Alyce didn’t respond.
‘Alyce?’
I am going up for a foundation meeting next week. It’ll be the first time since my re-establishment on the board.’
‘It was next week I was thinking of coming over,’ improvised Jordan. ‘When will you be there?’
‘Tuesday onwards.’
‘I’ll be at the Carlyle again. I’ll call you from there.’
‘Wednesday,’ said Alyce. ‘Make it Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday,’ agreed Jordan.
Remembering his jetlag Jordan caught a weekend flight. The Sunday edition of the New York Times reported in a front page story that the FBI had encountered some ‘unusual features’ in the Appleton investigation.
Jordan didn’t once leave his Carlyle suite on the Sunday -eating from room service – and only walked as far as Central Park the following day. It was in the park that he read that day’s New York Times and Wall Street Journal, both of which reported, without much more detail, that the Justice Department were possibly convening a Grand Jury to investigate the Appleton affair.
He reached only Alyce’s answering service on his two Tuesday calls, asking her on both occasions where she wanted to eat, to enable him to make the reservation, but it wasn’t until the Wednesday morning that she finally answered, personally, suggesting lunch, not dinner, and at the hotel.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jordan finally asked. She was as flat voiced as she had been when she’d called him in London the previous week and since then he’d thought about little else but her obvious lassitude.
‘You really do sometimes have the strangest aptitude for asking the most stupid questions!’
‘As you sometimes have the strangest aptitude for responding with the most confusing answers.’
‘You want to call it off?’
‘No!’ said Jordan, urgently. ‘The last thing I want to do is call anything off. I want to see you. Talk to you.’
‘At lunch,’ Alyce insisted.
‘I’ll make the reservation; we can have a drink first. I’ll be waiting in the lobby again.’
Which he was, a table booked in the bar as well as the restaurant, the half bottle of champagne already in its cooler. Alyce came into the hotel with the same commanding confidence as before, attracting the same attention as
