The Namedropper

Thirty

There were two more challenges, both from Manhattan brokers this time, both highlighting shortfalls, one on a $200,000 copper disposal, the other on an aluminium trade that should have resulted in a $130,000 profit. The combined deficit for which Jordan was responsible – both one of his early hits – was $3,400. As with the Chicago query, the approaches from both brokers imagined a miscalculation and the Appleton dealers’ replies promised immediate enquiries.

It was the internal email correspondence upon which Jordan concentrated.

In sequence they began between the two metal dealers but within the space of three messages grew to include John Popple, the dealer to whom the Chicago complaint had been made. Popple’s pick-up to his two colleagues was that the initial back office investigation had failed to discover the disparity in his sale, to which the copper broker, George Sutcliffe, replied suggesting the three of them immediately report the situation to their financial control division. The third man, Colin Nutbeam, warned against an overreaction before making their own essential enquiries. ‘We’ll look fools if there’s a simple explanation like a misplaced digit or a dropped decimal point, with no cause for panic.’

Popple countered that he was going to bring it before his section leader. ‘I’ve been trying to track it down for days and can’t. It’s time I made it official.’ Both the other traders asked Popple not to mention their problems until they’d had the chance to make their own checks. Popple wished them luck.

Still no cause for him to panic, Jordan judged. There was no way, short of a professional electronic sweep, of discovering his illegal presence within the Appleton and Drake computers. And when that eventually happened, weeks away from now, the embezzler’s name uncovered would be that of Alfred Appleton, not Harvey Jordan. But before that there would have to be a full scale and individual trader audit to establish the embezzlement in the first place and after that a criminal investigation mounted to trace its source to Appleton.

It was still moving faster than Jordan had expected. But then, although he knew his way through the labyrinth of computer hacking, he hadn’t actually worked such a complicated scam as this before. So he didn’t precisely know what to expect. Except, of course, to win. Which he would because he always did.

Jordan phished Appleton and Drake’s trades with the delicacy of an angler dancing a fly on a trout stream, taking his time, undecided between gold or silver, eventually choosing to split between the two. He raided three gold holdings and two silver, switching a total of $18,500 in bank transfers. The tranche brought him close to his self-imposed banked limit, making essential withdrawals from all the accounts into the unrecorded safe deposits. In which, including the $18,500, his profit currently stood at $195,000.

He hadn’t confirmed the possibility of their meeting that night but decided there was a need, suggesting by telephone to Beckwith that they go again to the out-of-town restaurant to get away from the incarceration of the hotel. Both stopped, momentarily startled, at the sight, already at a table although not yet eating, of Appleton and Bartle. Both, briefly, seemed equally surprised.

It was the bejeaned Beckwith who recovered first. He gave a stilted half wave, to which Bartle awkwardly responded, told the bell captain they needed their reserved table to be at the opposite side of the room and as they walked towards it said to Jordan, ‘It’s a free country and there ain’t any law against it.’

They ordered martinis in preference to the heavier Jack Daniels and a recovered Jordan said, ‘You know what baffles me? How someone as -’ he had to pause, for the word – ‘as delicate as Alyce could have shared the same bed with someone like him. I’ve never actually seen one, but with that funny hump of his he reminds me of that bison on your belt buckle.’

‘You’ve got the inside track to make that sort of comparison, which I guess makes you biased,’ said the lawyer and smiled. ‘But he sure as hell doesn’t give Tom Cruise any competition, does he? It make you uncomfortable, being in the same room?’

‘Not at all,’ said Jordan, meaning it. At that moment, he reflected, he knew more of the inside workings of Appleton’s business than Appleton himself.

‘Miserable looking son of a bitch as well,’ said Beckwith. ‘But then at the current state of play he’s got every reason to be. I’d still like to hear what they’re talking about.’

‘What Leanne’s going to say would be a good guess,’ suggested Jordan. Coming to the first reason for his invitation, he went on: ‘You heard from Bob, about what he and Wolfson talked about?’

Beckwith shook his head. ‘Didn’t expect to. We’re hugger-mugger about everything involving you and Alyce because of the obvious mutual interest. Anything concerning him and Wolfson – and Leanne, I guess – is outside the loop.’

‘What bargain has Wolfson got to offer Bob?’

Beckwith shrugged again. ‘Beats me. The only purpose of bargaining meetings is mutual co-operation and I can’t imagine what there is to co-operate about between Alyce and Leanne.’

‘Wouldn’t it also be…’ Jordan has to pause again, for the word. ‘Illegal, un-professional maybe, for them to talk like this?’

‘It’s coming pretty close to the fence,’ allowed the lawyer. ‘But it’s not forbidden. And if you can’t stop the express train coming at your client at 100 miles an hour – which Wolfson can’t – it doesn’t hurt to negotiate.’

‘About what?’

‘I just told you,’ said Beckwith, with a flare of impatience. ‘I don’t know! And can’t think of a reason.’ He looked across at the other table. ‘They’re really not very happy to see us.’

Jordan followed his lawyer’s concentration across to the other table, from which both Bartle and Appleton were looking at them and talking at the same time. Bartle took a cell phone from his pocket, dialled and abruptly slammed the lid shut. Appleton half rose but sat when Bartle held out a restraining hand.

Jordan said, ‘Looks like an argument. As well as a telephone call that didn’t connect.’

‘I’d say so,’ agreed Beckwith.

Jordan turned away at the arrival of the wine waiter. As the host he tasted and agreed to the Napa Valley burgundy, although he would have preferred a French wine. Coming to the second point he wanted to establish, he said, ‘Let’s talk about something you might be able to speculate on. The way it’s going I don’t think it’ll get anywhere near your estimate.’

‘No way,’ agreed Beckwith, at once. ‘We’ve got Leanne tomorrow. Maybe some recalls, although I’m not going to apply for any at the moment. I don’t think Bob has got anyone else, now that his enquiry people have been cut off by Pullinger. I don’t think he needs anyone else.’

‘So what’s your new estimate?’

‘Middle of next week, tops.’

Everything was definitely moving faster – coming up to the speed of light – than he’d expected, acknowledged Jordan, ‘I know it will only be a ballpark figure. That’s all I’m asking for. Keeping everything else out of the equation, how much am I into for costs?’

Beckwith waited for their meal to be served, cut into his inevitable steak but held it on the fork before him, as if examining it. ‘We got a problem here, Harvey?’

‘Absolutely not, apart from moving necessary funds across from England,’ assured Jordan. ‘Which is why I’m asking the question. I may need to go back to withdraw some more… make plane reservations, stuff like that.’

‘Ballpark?’ heavily qualified Beckwith.

‘Ballpark,’ confirmed Jordan.

‘Two hundred and fifty thousand,’ estimated Beckwith. ‘And don’t even think of anything extra for an appeal.’

From his conversations in London with Lesley Corbin, Jordan had imagined it would be much higher. ‘Maybe I won’t need to go back to England.’ Just hit Appleton far harder, after making room in the open-mouthed accounts, he thought.

With a better view of Bartle’s table from where he was sitting, Beckwith said, ‘And baby makes three!’

Jordan turned again to see Peter Wolfson approaching Bartle’s table. At something that Bartle said the other lawyer looked across towards them before he sat. Beckwith gave another hand gesture, which Wolfson did not acknowledge.

Beckwith said, ‘Like the wise man said, shit happens! They go to all the trouble of finding a little, out-of-town hideaway for their council of war and we walk in. No wonder they look so pissed off.’

‘You think Wolfson’s come straight from seeing Bob?’

‘Hardly need the help of Sherlock Holmes, do we?’ said Beckwith. ‘I can hardly wait for tomorrow.’

But they had to, longer than they’d expected. After rigidly sticking to his early morning routine, which produced nothing beyond what he’d already read on Appleton and Drake’s computers, Jorden went down for breakfast to be told that by the time Beckwith called him, Reid had already left to collect Alyce from the Bellamy estate.

‘Earlier than usual?’ queried Jordan.

‘Two hours earlier than usual,’ agreed Beckwith. ‘They obviously had things to talk about.’

And they were still talking, already at their table, when Jordan and his lawyer arrived at court. There was only the briefest moment, before the judge’s entry, for any conversation between Alyce’s lawyer and Beckwith, before Peter Wolfson called Leanne Jefferies to the stand. Jordan managed eye contact with Alyce as the other woman was being sworn. Alyce looked back at him blankly. On his pad Jordan wrote, ‘What?’

Beckwith scribbled back: ‘Leanne’s ours!’

Led by Wolfson, with Appleton and Bartle both intently forward over their separate table, Leanne confirmed her age to be thirty and described herself as a senior partner in the Wall Street commodity firm of Sears Rutlidge. Not once looking at him, Leanne testified she had known Alfred Appleton by reputation over a period of five years as the senior partner of Appleton and Drake, a rival firm of commodity dealers. Thirteen months earlier she and Appleton had begun a brief relationship, which she estimated to have lasted no longer than two months. At that time she had understood Appleton to be coming to the end of an unopposed divorce. Her relationship with Appleton had ended when she contracted a sexually transmitted disease, which Appleton told her he had, in turn, caught from his wife during a failed reconciliation before their relationship began. She would not have engaged in such a relationship if she had known that divorce proceedings had not, at that time, even been initiated. She had not regarded their affair as a serious commitment on either side and now deeply regretted it.

‘How many commodity firms are there in Wall Street?’ demanded Reid, as he rose to cross-examine. As always, when he was on his feet in court, there was no trace of asthma in his voice.

‘I’m not sure.’ There was a discernible uncertainty from how she had responded to this questioning.

‘Ten? Twenty? Thirty?’ suggested Reid.

‘I really am not sure,’ Leanne insisted.

‘Would you say it was a comparatively limited community, most dealers knowing other dealers?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘But you knew Alfred Appleton for what, almost four years, before your affair began?’

‘Yes.’ When she wasn’t talking Leanne had her lips drawn in tightly between her teeth.

‘Wasn’t he someone particularly well known in Wall Street because of his family antecedents?’

‘Not particularly,’ she repeated.

‘Did you know of the family history?’

‘I may have heard something of it.’

‘Did you or didn’t you?’ demanded Reid, brusquely.

‘I’d heard something about it,’ conceded Leanne, defensively.

‘What about the historically well known Bellamy family?’

‘I didn’t know anything about a Bellamy family,’ protested the woman.

‘You didn’t know that your lover, Alfred Appleton, was married to Alyce Bellamy, uniting two of the best known families in America’s founding history?’

‘No,’ said Leanne. Before every answer she looked hopefully towards Wolfson although still steadfastly refusing to look at Appleton, so close at the adjoining table.

‘When did you discover the identity of Alfred Appleton’s wife?’

‘I don’t remember. Not until we became close, I don’t think.’

‘How did you become close? When did it happen? Who approached whom?’

Leanne took several moments to reply. ‘It was at a seminar in New Jersey. Went over two days.’

‘When did it begin, the first night or the second night?’

There was another pause. ‘The second night.’

‘Before you went to bed with Alfred Appleton the second night, you knew he was a married man, didn’t you?’

‘He told me he was divorced.’

Appleton thrust sideways to talk to his lawyer at Leanne’s answer.

‘ Was divorced? Or getting divorced?’ pressed Reid.

‘Was divorced,’ insisted Leanne. ‘Just waiting for the decree to become absolute.’

‘That’s exactly what he said, that he was waiting for the decree to become absolute?’

‘Yes,’ blurted Leanne, before seeing Wolfson shaking his head. ‘I mean… I think… yes…’

‘By then you knew who Appleton was… the history, didn’t you?’

‘Something had been said… I had an idea,’ the woman stumbled on.

‘You saw yourself as the second Mrs Appleton, didn’t you, marrying into one of America’s oldest families?’ pounced Reid.

‘No!’ Leanne denied, flustered. ‘That wasn’t how it was… what it was… I told you, it wasn’t a commitment.’ She looked at Alyce, beside her interrogator. ‘Like her’s wasn’t a commitment. Didn’t mean anything. Just something that happened…’ She twisted, looking for the first time to Appleton and managed, ‘You… you bastard…’ before collapsing back into her chair, sobbing.

To Jordan, Beckwith finally said, ‘If I can only get the chance!’

First Bartle and then Wolfson objected to Beckwith taking up the cross-examination, Wolfson even pleading that Leanne was incapable of continuing despite her obvious recovery on the witness stand, but Pullinger dismissed both arguments that further questioning was unnecessary.

‘You did believe Alfred Appleton’s marriage was over, didn’t you?’ began Beckwith, softly encouraging.

‘Yes.’

‘Because that was what he’d told you?’

‘Yes.’

‘So he lied to you?’

‘Your honour!’ Bartle tried to protest but Pullinger gestured him down.

‘Yes,’ said Leanne. She no longer appeared uncertain.

‘As he lied about catching chlamydia from his wife?’

‘I suppose so… from what I’ve heard here, in court.’

‘Why didn’t you go to a doctor, a venerealogist, in New York?’

‘He said he knew people in Boston who could help… that he had influence there.’

‘Alfred Appleton persuaded you to go to Boston because he had influence there!’ said Beckwith. ‘What did you understand he meant by that?’

‘I don’t really know… that they were good doctors, I suppose.’

‘Why weren’t you treated by the same venerealogist who treated him, Dr Chapman?’

‘He said it would be best if we were treated separately.’

‘Did you ask him why?’

‘No, not really. I was very upset, at having been infected. He said I wasn’t to worry. That he’d fix everything.’

‘Your honour,’ objected Bartle, again. ‘I really must protest at this! My client-’

‘Is here, in court, able to refute anything that this witness says if you choose to call him,’ stopped Pullinger. ‘As you are to cross-examine in an attempt to obtain contrary evidence if you choose, Mr Bartle.’

‘He told you he would fix everything,’ picked up Beckwith. ‘Is Alfred Appleton a dominant man, Ms Jefferies?’

‘Very much so.’

‘Who dislikes opinions contrary to his own?’ finished Beckwith.

‘Who refuses opinions contrary to his own,’ said the woman. She was sitting forward in her chair now, looking directly at Appleton.

‘When was the first time you heard of a person named Sharon Borowski?’

There was a falter from Leanne Jefferies. ‘When I was served with the court papers, ordering me to appear here.’

‘You hadn’t expected them? Been warned to expect them?’

‘Of course not!’ replied Leanne, indignantly.

‘Because you believed the divorce was already resolved: over?’

‘Exactly!’

‘What did you do?’

‘Called Alfred. Asked him what was happening.’

‘What did he say?’

‘That there had been a mix-up: a mistake. That he’d fix it.’

‘That he’d fix it,’ repeated Beckwith, for the second time. ‘How did he say he was going to fix it?’

‘He made me go to his lawyers in Boston who said-’

‘Stop!’ sharply ordered Pullinger, from the bench. ‘Do you intend pursuing this, Mr Beckwith?’

‘In view of the suit that has been brought against my client I believe it is incumbent upon me to pursue it, your honour,’ said Beckwith.

‘Mr Bartle?’ asked the judge.

‘I would respectfully submit that this is far beyond any grounds of admissibility,’ said Appleton’s lawyer.

‘Mr Wolfson?’ repeated Pullinger.

‘With equal respect, your honour, I would make the same submission,’ said Leanne’s lawyer. ‘And would further seek to approach your honour either at the bench or in chambers if your honour feels there is benefit to your court or to yourself from such discussion.’

Pullinger slumped reflectively into his high-backed chair, leaving three of the four attorneys on their feet. Leanne looked around her, confused. Alyce stared directly ahead, unmoving. Appleton’s bison’s head was forward, over his table. There were the sounds of shifting from the jury box.

Pullinger came slowly forward, further than he normally sat, immediately bringing to Jordan’s mind the imagery of a watchful predatory vulture. ‘To permit the continuation of this examination, while permissible within the bounds of law, would seriously invite the possibility of my having to dismiss this jury and declare a mistrial upon the grounds of undue and prejudicial bias. To deny its continuation provides Mr Beckwith with the opportunity to seek an appeal on behalf of his client, as indeed it does Mr Bartle and Mr Wolfson on behalf of theirs. So be it. This has been the most contentious and most unsatisfactory hearing I believe I have ever been called upon to adjudicate. I further believe, however, that at this stage it is still possible for me to direct the jury, subject to consultation with the respective attorneys about further potential witnesses, to a fitting and legally satisfactory conclusion. Which it is my intention to do. It is also my intention to release the jury from their responsibilities for the rest of this day, be available in chambers for individual or combined discussion with counsel about witnesses to whom I have already referred and subject to those representations, address the jury at the opening of the court tomorrow.’

‘We’ve won!’ declared Beckwith.

‘There can’t be any doubt,’ agreed Reid.

They’d gone together to see Pullinger in chambers, to announce neither had any remaining witnesses nor objection to the hearing being closed and waited back at their tables to be recalled by the judge if the separately attending Bartle and Wolfson had raised a question needing a fuller discussion, which seemingly they hadn’t. Reid telephoned his office from the courtroom corridor, before helping Alyce into his car, and the ordered champagne – French, not American – was waiting when the four of them arrived.

Alyce hesitated at the toast and said, ‘You heard what Leanne said, about his always needing to dominate. Which I’d already told you he does. Alfred will appeal. The judge actually invited him to!’

‘Not even a control freak like your soon-to-be ex-husband could risk having paraded in open court, to be reported every day, what’s come out here,’ insisted Reid. ‘And it would come out, if you retained me to appear on your behalf at an appeal. I’d object to any closed hearing and make that clear to whatever attorney he engaged. And it wouldn’t be David Bartle. I don’t think he would take the case even if he were offered it. Which I don’t think he would be able anyway because I think Pullinger is going to report both him and Wolfson to their bar council for professional misconduct. Which in my opinion Wolfson’s move last night definitely was.’

‘I’m still waiting to hear what that was!’ protested Jordan.

‘He offered a deal, an out-of-court damages settlement of $500,000 to Alyce from Leanne if we agreed not to call her. She’d told Wolfson, who’d told Bartle, that she’d be a hostile witness because of the crap Appleton dumped on her.’

‘But I said no,’ added Alyce. ‘I didn’t – don’t – want her money. I want Alfred just once to be shown he’s not God.’

Which she would, although not immediately, thought Jordan. ‘Where was Leanne going to get $500,000?’

‘Appleton, I guess,’ said Reid. ‘Wolfson insisted the money was there, if we agreed.’

‘She wouldn’t have done,’ said Alyce. ‘The bastard would have cheated her, like he cheats everybody.’

‘Are we going to get around to drinking to victory?’ complained Beckwith.

They finally drank, Alyce hesitantly. She said, ‘Thank you. Thank all of you. I can’t believe it’s virtually all over. And it is, isn’t it? Virtually all over? We can behave like normal people again?’

‘All over but for the formalities,’ promised Reid, bringing out the Jack Daniels from his desk drawer in preference to the champagne.

Alyce shook her head against her glass being refilled, as Jordan did, moving with her away from Reid’s desk.

‘What are you doing this afternoon?’ asked Alyce.

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ lied Jordan. He’d already calculated that at only just past one he had more than sufficient time to get to Manhattan to empty the overflowing bank accounts to make room for more transfers and be back in Raleigh long before tomorrow’s court opening.

‘Why not spend it back at the house?’ invited Alyce.

‘I’d like that very much,’ accepted Jordan. The bank accounts could wait, overflowing or not.