The Namedropper

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘A silly joke that meant nothing but which you continued to wear throughout your time together in France, even on the plane coming back here for your divorce action that you didn’t finally initiate until you met Harvey Jordan?’

  ‘I’ve answered your question,’ said Alyce.

  ‘Not quite,’ argued Bartle. ‘You began answering but changed your mind about what you were going to say. What was that, Mrs Appleton, that you originally intended to say?’

  ‘I said what I intended to say,’ insisted the woman.

  ‘Did you set yourself a time limit, to take a lover in France?’

  ‘My purpose in going to France was to get as far away as I could from a man of whom my contempt and disgust was absolute, not to take a lover.’

  ‘She’s holding up well,’ Beckwith leaned sideways to whisper to Jordan. ‘He’s trying to run her down like a truck but she’s not letting him.’ Beside his lawyer Jordan was burning with fury, hands tightly gripped together beneath the court table.

  ‘You do not like love – sex – do you, Mrs Appleton?’ persisted Bartle. ‘From the very moment of your marriage you were reluctant to share your husband’s bed.’

  ‘It was not until I met Harvey Jordan in France that I learned the joy of sex. What I did not like was rape, which is how I came to regard my sexual encounters with my husband very early on in my marriage.’

  ‘You loved your husband, though, didn’t you?’

  ‘I imagined I did, at the very beginning. It did not take me long to realize that was all it was: imagination. Which is why this action against Harvey is so ridiculous. How can a man alienate affection when no affection exists?’

  ‘You’ve rehearsed your story well, the two of you, haven’t you? Practically the same phrases, the same denials?’

  ‘There has been no rehearsal, no preparation, between Harvey and myself to defend this preposterous accusation. There didn’t need to be. All we both needed to do was to tell the truth. Which we both have.’ The flush was going from her face; Alyce even appeared to have resettled, more relaxed, in her seat.

  ‘Where’s the ring you wore throughout your time with Harvey Jordan in France?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You’ve no idea of the whereabouts of the love token that was so precious to you?’

  ‘I have no idea where the joke ring is, no.’

  ‘Isn’t it somewhere at home, in one of those boxes in which women keep things, trinkets, that they treasure more than diamonds or gold? Things of the greatest sentimental value?’

  ‘I do not have such a box.’

  ‘You do remember him buying it and giving it to you in St Tropez, don’t you?’

  ‘I had forgotten, until I was reminded by your photographs.’

  ‘But now you do remember?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he say when he took your hand and slipped it upon the finger from which you had so recently discarded your husband’s wedding ring?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Did he say it was a token of his love?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Did he ask you to marry him, when you were divorced and free to do so?’

  ‘I think I would have remembered, if he had. I don’t remember.’

  ‘Surely he didn’t say something like: “this is a plastic ring I want to put on your wedding finger as a joke!”?’

  ‘I really don’t remember,’ repeated Alyce. ‘It is you attaching such great importance to the ring. We didn’t.’

  ‘Except that you wore it all the time you were together.’

  ‘Look at your own photographs,’ invited Alyce. ‘You’ll see in most of them that I wore the sun hat and sandals I bought there. It was very hot. That was all I thought them to be, a hat and a pair of sandals.’

  There was an isolated snigger from Dr Harding, from behind the rail.

  ‘I can see that you did, Mrs Appleton,’ agreed Battle, resuming his seat. ‘But as you’ve just told the court, you bought the hat and sandals yourself. Harvey Jordan bought the ring for you and you didn’t wear that most of the time. You wore it all the time.’

  Beckwith waited until Alyce got back to her table to sit beside her lawyer before rising, and as he did so the judge said, I trust this will not be a lengthy concluding submission?’

  ‘I see no reason for it occupying very much more of your honour’s time, because I believe the evidence you have heard speaks for itself,’ responded Beckwith. ‘This was no instant love match, the stuff of fiction and movies. This was a brief, adult affair between two people, one a single, unattached man on vacation, the other a lonely woman about to divorce a husband for whom affection, if it had ever existed, had long ago died. Mr Bartle has attempted, with very obvious desperation, to make much of the giving of a ring as proof of his client’s claim against Harvey Jordan. Both Harvey Jordan and Alyce Appleton have described the ring episode as a silly joke, which was all it was. I submit to you, your honour, that Mr Bartle’s efforts to make it appear otherwise is an even sillier joke and an indication of his desperation, although far less sinister than the efforts to which the other side appeared prepared to go with the medical evidence of chlamydia. About which I will say nothing further, knowing as I do that your honour has reserved judgement upon it. What I do invite you to find upon the evidence is that under Section 1-52(5) of the North Carolina statute is that Harvey William Jordan is not guilty of alienation of affections, nor of criminal conversations, and dismiss him from the proceedings.’

  Judge Hubert Pullinger had listened to the submission slumped back in his chair, not appearing to make any notes. He remained that way for several moments before coming forward over his notation ledger, his throat rumbling, as it had earlier, to clear it before making a pronouncement. ‘You have, Mr Beckwith, forcibly made a submission of some substance – some passion even – which I would be ill treating with a snap ruling, without the benefit of proper reflection: a snap decision which might, even, provide you with ground for an appeal. I choose to remind you of the legal application open to me on charges of alienation of affection and criminal conversation, between which there is an important division. The date of separation of the parties is important to prove alienation of affections and I have yet to hear sworn evidence to prove the depositions that have already been provided to the court. Essential to that is the malicious conduct of your client, Harvey Jordan, in contributing or causing such loss. The parties to the marriage must still be together in order to prove this claim. I have yet to hear further about that, although there is every indication that by the time Mrs Appleton met and engaged in admitted adultery with Harvey Jordan the contesting parties were not together.

  ‘The action of criminal conversation, however, is more complex. It is a lawsuit sounding in tort – an injustice to the person – based upon sexual intercourse between the defendant, your client, and the plaintiff’s spouse, Mrs Appleton. Further to define the law, a criminal conversation is a strict liability tort, because the only thing the plaintiff, Alfred Appleton, has to establish is an act of sexual intercourse, the existence of a valid marriage between the plaintiff and the adulterous spouse, and the bringing of a lawsuit within the applicable statute of limitations. It is not a defence that the defendant did not know his sexual partner was married, which indeed, Mr Beckwith, you did not advance. Nor is it a defence that the adulterous partner consented to the sex, which again you have not advanced. Nor is it open to you to plead that a separation already existed, that the marriage was unhappy or that the defendant’s sex with the spouse did not otherwise affect the plaintiff’s marriage. Most important among other caveats, which I will not at this stage explore further, is that the plaintiff had also been unfaithful …’

  There was the familiar pause, for further throat clearing. Beckwith, expressionless, was sitting tensed forward, leaving the judgement to be recorded by the court stenographer. Bartle was doing the same but there was already a satisfied smile se
ttling on his face. On that of Alfred Appleton, too.

  ‘None of which diminishes the submission that you have made before me today. It is my function to interpret and administer the law, as it has been proscribed. Even before the full and proper beginning of this action, matters arose which greatly disturb me and upon which I have yet to adjudicate. I do not believe that I would be properly administering the law, which is my duty, if I found for your submission and dismissed your client from this matter. As I have, in the matter of the medical evidence, I intend to reserve my judgement, pending the full hearing.’

  ‘Fuck it!’ Jordan heard his lawyer say. It was what Jordan thought, too.

  Twenty-Five

  After granting David Bartle’s instantly sought, and unopposed, application on behalf of Appleton for the divorce hearing to be in closed session, Pullinger adjourned until the following week, citing his need to use the intervening days to ‘tidy the loose ends of this wholly unfortunate beginning’, and once more Jordan and the two lawyers gathered in Reid’s Raleigh office to review the judge’s rejection.

  ‘We should have known about that goddamned ring,’ complained Reid at once, openly accusing.

  ‘If I’d remembered it I would have told you,’ said Jordan, no longer deferring to either lawyer, although glad now that he and Beckwith hadn’t split after their earlier disputes. ‘It was exactly as Alyce and I told the court: a stupid joke thing that was totally unimportant. And I can’t – and won’t – believe Pullinger refused the dismissal because of it. That would be ridiculous.’ He looked at Beckwith. ‘I thought you made a convincing submission. Thank you.’

  The lawyer inclined his head in acknowledgement and said, ‘It was annoying, being caught out about the ring, but I don’t think that was why Pullinger found against us, either. I think he was thoroughly pissed off by what the other side tried to pull and didn’t want to protract everything further with another possible plea on Leanne’s behalf. This way he’s tied it up in one bundle.’

  ‘You still estimating any finding against me as high as you did in the beginning?’ asked Jordan.

  Beckwith shook his head. ‘We’re way down the scale now. We’ve got to be!’

  ‘I agree,’ said Reid.

  ‘Alyce stood up well, until it was all over,’ said Jordan. When she’d been invited to the review conference she had pleaded exhaustion and Dr Harding at once confirmed, after examining her, that medically it would be too much for her to go through any analysis, actually administering some medication in a court ante-room before yet again smuggling her from the building.

  ‘Now you’re going to be centre stage,’ Beckwith reminded Reid. ‘You think she’s going to be strong enough to stand up to it all? Today wasn’t even a taste of what she’s going to face from Bartle when we get to the full case.’

  ‘I’m glad of the adjournment,’ admitted Reid. ‘I’m seeing Harding first thing tomorrow. After what’s already happened I don’t want to throw any more medical stuff at Pullinger but I might ask for some relaxation in her attending if Harding tells me it’s necessary.’

  ‘You intending to have him on hand all the time?’ queried Beckwith.

  ‘Another reason for seeing him tomorrow,’ expanded Reid. ‘I’m hoping his function at the Bellamy clinic is more administrative than actually practising. If it is he might be able to spend more time than someone with a patient list.’

  ‘He looks young to be the administrator of an entire hospital?’ suggested Jordan.

  ‘Local boy made good,’ said Reid. ‘Very good indeed.’

  ‘What do I have to do now?’ Jordan asked his lawyer. ‘Do I have to be in court the whole time?’ There was a lot more use to which he could put the New York bank accounts.

  ‘I’ll think about that as things take their course,’ said Beckwith, cautiously. ‘We’re pretty much at the back of the bus in the immediate future. But certainly you should be in court in those early days. I’m sure we’re still ahead, as far as our part of the case has gone. But I don’t want to upset a spiky old bastard like Pullinger by making a move he’d consider disrespectful. And after his reaction to how you make a living I wouldn’t like to argue pressure of business.’

  ‘I don’t think much of Bartle. Or Wolfson,’ prompted Jordan. Or Reid, for that matter, he mentally added.

  ‘We knocked both of them way off course,’ said Beckwith. ‘Bartle did the best he could with what he had. Which was why the ring was a nuisance. Without it he really would have been floundering.’ He looked at Reid. ‘Don’t underestimate him next week. He’s got a lot of court ground to recover. Wolfson, too. Alyce is going to be put through a lot of hoops and she already needs a doctor on standby.’

  ‘That’s what I’m going to talk through with Harding tomorrow.’

  ‘Shouldn’t there be a specialist on hand, as we had over the chlamydia business?’

  ‘I told you, that’s what I’m seeing Harding to decide,’ insisted Reid. ‘And I think these after-court discussions are useful. I’d welcome the input continuing.’

  I bet you would, thought the unimpressed Jordan. He said, ‘You’re going to need more than discussions like this if your enquiry people don’t move their asses more than they’ve done so far.’

  ‘The planning conference with them is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. They’re making promising noises. I’ll bring Dan up to speed before we start next week.’

  And I’ll bring myself up to speed on Trojan horseback, thought Jordan.

  But not here in Raleigh, he decided, recognizing the opportunity again to get back to New York, which he already knew his lawyer intended to do on the first available flight the following day.

  Dinner was Jordan’s first reflective opportunity on the outcome of the day and he accepted, without admitting it to his lawyer, that he’d been too optimistic of Pullinger’s dismissal. But as objective as he always was, Jordan at once recognized that there was a potentially protective benefit from him being officially detained in America instead of remaining there of his own volition, which he’d already decided to do if they’d won the day. This way there could be no suspicion of him in any way being responsible or involved in the intended retribution against Alfred Appleton, remote though any such suspicion might be, so carefully – and so far undetected – had Jordan evolved his unfolding attack. But he would be restricted in expanding that attack if he had constantly to attend the Raleigh court. This fact created an uncertainty – a hindrance – in the mind of a man who didn’t like initiating anything about which there was the slightest doubt or difficulty.

  Jordan was glad he wasn’t able to get a seat on the same flight as Beckwith, able to travel alone back to New York. So accustomed to working and being always alone, responsible only for and to himself, that, objective again, Jordan acknowledged that the constant presence of Beckwith and Reid – of so many other people – had caused something like claustrophobia in him in Raleigh. It might not have been so bad, he supposed, if things had been different with Alyce: if he’d been able to see her, be with her, sometime during the adjournment. Fragile though she was, she had been magnificent on the witness stand, doing everything that she could to prove he wasn’t guilty or responsible for her marriage collapse under ridiculous Dark Ages laws enacted by Puritans who believed in witches and burned them at the stake. He wanted – needed – to thank her: thank her for enduring the humiliation of actually admitting that it was she who had come on to him before he’d hit upon her, which he’d intended to do the night they’d got back from the prison island visit anyway. Was Beckwith right, that what Alyce had gone through the previous day was a soft prelude to what she was going to be subjected to by Bartle the following week? He didn’t want to be excused the court when Alyce was on the stand. He’d be there every day, supporting her if he could, letting her know if he could that he was there for her. As he would be. Counting. Counting every humiliation, every shitty trick or device that Bartle and Appleton imposed upon her. And by every notch in that
count he’d increase the humiliation and shit he’d already started to dump on Alfred Jerome Appleton. Not just an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth: he’d figuratively dismember the man organ by organ, limb by limb, until all that was left for people to laugh at would be a hump-backed, flush-faced head on a spike.

  He’d advised the Carlyle the previous night of his return to Manhattan and his retained suite was predictably immaculate, his intrusion detectors in the suit closet and dressing-room drawers undisturbed. He held back from unstabling his Trojan Horses at once, deciding that there was so much he had to cover that he needed to create a reminder list to avoid him overlooking anything. It took him an hour to compose and he was surprised at its length when he finished.

  He assumed that Bartle and Wolfson would have returned as he and Beckwith had – maybe Appleton and Leanne, too – but there would have been little opportunity for the lawyers to have updated their computer case files. Working his way patiently through his reminders, Jordan decided that with the exception of DDK Investigations, Reid’s enquiry agency, within whose computers he had so far not embedded a see-all spyhole, he’d probably be premature accessing any of his already burgled sites until the following day.

  Jordan was on the point of quitting the hotel for West 72nd Street and whatever mail might be waiting there for him in Appleton’s name when his telephone rang.

  ‘I wondered if you’d be back here,’ said Alyce.

  ‘You’re in Manhattan?’

  ‘I couldn’t stand being in Raleigh any longer. And there were television and cameramen all around the estate.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘It’s just the court. Once I’m out of it, not in the same room with him, I’m OK.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just here, in the apartment. You?’

  ‘Just here, in the suite. There’s still time for a late lunch.’ West 72nd Street could wait.

  ‘That would be nice. Do you know Enrico’s, on 57th and 3rd?’

  ‘I can find it.’