The Namedropper

Thirty-Three

It was a Tuesday, a month after Jordan’s return to London, when his retribution against Alfred Appleton became public knowledge with headlines in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, both of whose websites Jordan monitored daily, doubting that the announcement of a police investigation into the affairs of Alfred Appleton would be carried in English newspapers. It was, though – in the Independent and the Daily Telegraph – when the FBI were called in after the additional discovery of the apparent hedge fund application, and even then the coverage was based more upon the recent divorce that had broken the ten-year bond between two of America’s oldest historical families. The Telegraph even carried a wedding day photograph of Alyce and Appleton. There was a second photograph of Appleton being escorted from Appleton and Drake’s Wall Street building by Federal agents, above a company statement denying any knowledge or involvement in alleged embezzlement of client funds and attempted illegal monetary transfers into offshore funds. The English coverage was short lived and Jordan relied upon the continuing coverage in the American newspapers, extending his monitoring to the New York Daily News as the initial story grew with the uncovering of the five New York bank accounts in easy walking distance of the commodity dealers’ building and the West 72nd Street apartment leased in Appleton’s name. Jordan’s concentration remained upon any reference or comment concerning Alyce, which he found towards the end of the first week. An unnamed spokesperson from what was described as the Bellamy North Carolina compound was quoted as saying that Alyce was out of the country at an undisclosed location on an extended vacation from which she was not expected to return for several weeks. She would have no comment to make upon that return.

Jordan had made four unsuccessful attempts to contact Alyce from England, in between working to restore the far too long neglected routine in his life, although stopping short of actively selecting a new persona to adopt. There remained, of course, the already researched operation as Paul Maculloch, in whose name the Hans Crescent apartment was leased and whose every personal detail he knew. Also existing, in the Maculloch name, were the 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 before, although Jordan judged it to be because of how she was dressed – a long coated white trouser suit with a floppy-brimmed matching white hat – and so perfectly made up, the too bright red lipstick replaced by paler pink, the colour to her face more natural than applied. She accepted the champagne and extended the flute for the glass-touching toast and said, ‘I almost didn’t come again but now I have I’m glad and it’s good to see you.’

‘And I’m even more confused than ever,’ said Jordan.

‘Which I guess I am, too. And don’t want to be, not any longer.’

‘Then I’m glad I made the trip here because I don’t want any more confusion or misunderstandings,’ said Jordan. ‘From this moment on I want both of us to understand everything, know everything about the other, although I’m not sure it’s going to come out as straight as I want it to.’

‘You sure about that, my darling?’

Jordan smiled at the word, the relief surging through him. ‘I think so… I think I know so.’

‘And I think I should speak first, before-’ started Alyce.

‘No!’ refused Jordan. ‘You spoke ahead of me when we said goodbye in France and I stupidly agreed because I didn’t understand… didn’t know… and I’m not going to let it happen again. Nothing’s going to be easy, because of what and who you are and because of what I am, although what I am – really am – isn’t going to be any barrier because I’m all set for another career change that’s going to get that out of the way. I love you, which is something I never thought I’d ever tell anyone again. I want us to be together. Married together, although God knows how that’s going to happen but I’ll make it happen. I guess you’ll want to continue living here – working here -which is fine. And I don’t want you to imagine I want to live off you and your money and your position. I’ve got a lot of money… enough money… and we can give all yours to yet another charity. And-’

‘Stop!’ insisted Alyce. ‘Please stop! I don’t want you to go on misunderstanding… saying things I don’t want to hear you say, although I do want to hear you say them-’

‘You’re not making sense,’ halted Jordan, in turn.

‘Then let me,’ pleaded Alyce. ‘Let me talk, try to explain as best I can, without stopping me. Without stopping me and hating me because I never want you to hate me, not now and not ever. I know who you are, Harvey. Know what you are. Which means I know what you’ve done to Alfred. How I guessed you paid all the bills and didn’t want my money

…’ She stopped, gulping too deeply at her drink and having to cough when it caught her breath.

‘I tricked you, my darling,’ she started again. ‘Tricked you and now I am so very, very sorry. I never intended it to happen, none of it. I never imagined Alfred would invoke that stupid fucking criminal conversation claim; never thought I’d ever see you again, which made everything worse, because I wanted to, so much, after France.’

‘You’re not-’ Jordan started again but sharply she interrupted him.

‘No! I’ve got to finish because I don’t think I can say it all a second time. Of course I knew Alfred was having me watched here because I was having him watched long before he put his private detectives on to me. I knew all about Sharon Borowski and Leanne Jefferies, and had two other women if I needed to cite them. But here, in America, he was getting too close. He had to be diverted, get the co-respondent he needed for the divorce. Which is why I went to France and found you. You were only ever supposed to be a necessary name to get him to pull his people off. I didn’t even know of something called criminal conversation. Or guess in a million years that you would fight it. Never thought I’d ever see you again although by the time I flew back I wanted to, so very much…’

Jordan took advantage of another gulped drink. ‘How do you know what I do?’

‘That extra week, when I extended the vacation? That was to get my own enquiry people to France: those I’d personally employed to watch Alfred, not the DKK agency that Bob engaged.’ She sniggered a humourless laugh. ‘You know why I did it? I did it because I really didn’t want you to get in the situation you ended up in. But you confused us so much, back in England. Changing from Harvey Jordan to Peter Thomas Wightman. It didn’t take long to work out why, though. Then we thought you’d caught us out, all those evasion tricks when you went back to your own apartment…’ She raised her hand towards him. ‘Don’t worry, darling. What you did when you got back to England wasn’t breaking any American law, not that I’d have blown the whistle on you if it did. And I’m certainly not going to tell anyone about what you’ve done to Alfred.’

‘You keep calling me darling.’

‘Why do you think I wore that stupid plastic ring all the time, after you gave it to me… even wore it back here on the plane? I loved you by then… like I love you now. Which is why I’m going to end it now and marry Walter, who’s kind and gentle and who I came to France to protect from Alfred’s people. And who I think I love enough, just enough, to marry.’

‘No!’ refused Jordan. ‘We could make something work. I don’t know what or how but there’ll be some way…’

Alyce shook her head. ‘It might have worked, maybe, if Alfred hadn’t sued for criminal conversation. And if you hadn’t beat him in court, as you did. Somehow, somewhen, it would come out if we got together. And when it did Alfred would have every grounds for appealing the court’s decision. Alfred would employ every private detective he could, although he wouldn’t need many to show your photograph to the banks in which you opened the accounts in his name and the realtor from whom you leased the apartment on West 72nd Street that all the newspapers have identified, would it? And then you’d go to prison – which I couldn’t bear – and all the Bellamy Foundations and trusts would be disgraced because I’d be linked – possibly even charged with complicity with you – and I couldn’t expose the family to that, as much as I love you. It’s over, my darling. It’s got to be over. We got too clever, both of us. And ended up beating ourselves.’

Jordan reclined the back of the First Class seat and adjusted the eye shades against being disturbed by the cabin staff, even though he’d already told the supervisor he didn’t want anything to eat or drink, just to be left alone. Which he was, he acknowledged; alone again, with only himself to consider or think of, which he’d once considered the perfect way to be, but didn’t any more.

Alyce was right, of course. He’d known that all the time he’d argued with her – close to pleading with her – that they could work out a way to stay together, be happy together, to her head-shaking adamant refusal that they’d end up hating each other, unable to hide from Appleton. Which meant, he supposed, that in a way Appleton had won, after all. Too convoluted, Jordan corrected himself: too much self-pity. He had to accept what had happened – not yet, but eventually – and move on, as he’d eventually moved on after that other long ago collapse into self-pity.

Except that he didn’t want to. The sudden awareness surprised Jordan; confused him even and he forced himself to confront exactly what it was he didn’t want any more To go on as he was, doing what he did, he answered himself, further surprised at another potential, self-imposed upheaval in his life. What life? he asked himself, continuing the personal analysis. What – where – was the life in becoming someone with a different name every two or three months, turning some poor bastard’s existence on its head as his had been turned by what had just happened to him? Compartmentalizing everything between himself and Alyce, Jordan recognized he’d been lucky escaping as he had, remaining undiscovered for what he was by Appleton’s surveillance team. Harvey Jordan, the man who never gambled, acknowledged that his luck couldn’t last.

What could – would – he do then? Not a decision to be rushed, although he’d once done well enough running his own legitimate computer programming business and there was more than sufficient money squirreled away in Jersey to start again. There was no need or reason to rush the decision, he thought again. Maybe something to think about, refine in detail, on another vacation. But then again, maybe not: the vacation that is, not the detailed consideration on his future. The weather in the South of France was uncertain in October.

He slept dreamlessly and undisturbed during the flight and disembarked in London actually excited at the thought of doing something new. The immigration officer was a blonde girl who reminded him vaguely of Alyce. She looked between him and his passsport photograph and said, ‘Harvey Jordan?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, to his own satisfaction. ‘Very definitely Harvey Jordan.’