There was a palpable tension between the three of them in Reid’s office annex on that deserted Saturday. Dividing them, on Reid’s desk, were the finally supplied medical reports on Alfred Appleton and Leanne Jefferies, as well as covering letters and copies of the woman’s rebuttals to Alyce’s criminal conversation damages claim. There were, also for the first time, photographs of Appleton’s supposedly brief mistress. Jordan was not surprised that, although older by six years, Leanne closely resembled Alyce in appearance and physique, confirming the adage that men always chose lovers that reminded them of their wives.
Reid gestured towards the documentation and said, ‘So there it all is, as far as my cases are concerned. A heap of shit.’
‘Not helped by continuing cosy hotel meetings between you and Alyce,’ came in Beckwith, whose criticism of Jordan’s Carlyle dinner with Alyce had concluded the review meeting in advance of the forthcoming court hearings. They’d flown down on the first available flight and this time there hadn’t been any tourist detours, just a fifteen-minute delay booking into the Hilton hotel. Reid had alerted them that Appleton intended to stay at the Sheraton during the hearing.
‘Let’s right now get some of that unnecessary shit out of the way to concentrate on what’s really important,’ demanded Jordan. ‘I don’t see and won’t concede that Alyce and I having had an innocent dinner, before or after which nothing occurred to resume our affair, could be any great big deal. Neither do I see the necessity to volunteer it to the court. I volunteered it to you so you wouldn’t be caught out. Neither of you will be under oath to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth if this goes the whole way. I will be. Alyce will be. If it gets brought out, it gets brought out. Let’s deal with it then. I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t meet her as I did and I still don’t. And I don’t – and won’t – believe either of you haven’t sat on your hands in the past about something you knew but didn’t want to come out in court and therefore didn’t say anything about. You both still with me?’
‘And wish I wasn’t,’ said Reid.
‘I’m not your immediate problem,’ insisted Jordan, waving his hand towards the separating desk and what was on it. ‘Those medical reports are your immediate problem. What does Alyce say about them?’
Both lawyers had fixed expressions on their faces, but only Beckwith was visibly flushed.
‘What she’s said from the beginning,’ replied the heavily breathing Reid. ‘That she’s only had sexual relationships with her husband and with you. Which has-’
‘OK,’ stopped Jordan. ‘So what do your enquiry people say? I know you’re employing them, because you’ve told me. What you haven’t told me is anything that they’ve so far discovered to help, in any way whatsoever. Appleton’s people failed to find any proof of Alyce’s cheating, until France. At the moment your opposition snoops are doing more for you than your own people are doing for you, don’t you agree?’
‘I’ve no reason nor cause to defend those I’m employing,’ rejected Reid, awkwardly. ‘But as you’ve raised it again I certainly intend bringing out Appleton’s failure to discover any lover other than you.’ The man looked sideways, to the other lawyer. ‘But I don’t intend mentioning the Carlyle dinner. Alyce hasn’t told me about it; you have. We’re co-operating for mutual benefit, not disadvantage, and at this precise moment I don’t need any more disadvantages than I’ve already got.’
‘I’m listening to what everyone’s saying,’ assured Beckwith, dully. ‘Maybe I won’t volunteer the Carlyle episode either. But can we establish here and now – ’ he turned to include Reid – ’and you get the specific undertaking from Alyce, that there’s no more social meeting, not even if the Pope is in the same room with you. I don’t care if you think it’s a childish insistence, or whether Alyce thinks it’s a childish insistence, or what the fuck either of you think about the divorce statutes of North Carolina. Like it or not, they are the statutes, the rules, by which you’re being judged.’
‘I think we went through this yesterday, in New York,’ dismissed Jordan.
‘And before yesterday in New York we very specifically went through it down here in Raleigh. And you – and she – ignored the advice,’ persisted Beckwith. ‘It happens again, I’m definitely withdrawing.’
This time Jordan didn’t respond with the direct challenge of the previous day.
Instead, he said, ‘So what about the most immediate problem?’
Turning again to the other lawyer, Beckwith said, ‘To get Harvey dismissed I’m obviously going to have to call Alyce on Wednesday. And hit her as hard as is necessary to prove she’s both promiscuous as well as being prepared to lie.’
‘I’ve already told her that – told her the impossible position these medical reports put her in,’ said Reid. ‘I thought it was the way to get an admission about who else she slept with and who gave her the infection.’
‘What did she say?’ asked Jordan, disregarding any professional protocol. There was an incongruity – yet another nagging inconsistency – hovering in Jordan’s mind but it wouldn’t harden into a positive thought.
‘I already told you,’ snapped Reid. ‘She insists there’s only ever been two men, her husband and you.’
‘She can’t maintain that in court, confronted with this medical evidence,’ said Beckwith.
‘I told her that, too. And late last night I heard from Wolfson. He’s filed for Leanne’s dismissal; he told me he’s subpoenaing Alyce. He’s obviously going to use Leanne’s medical report.’
‘I think your client’s going to be massacred,’ said Beckwith, unsympathetically.
‘I think so, too,’ agreed Reid.
‘Isn’t it your job to prevent that happening?’ demanded Jordan.
‘The moment she tells me the truth I’ll start trying,’ said Reid, just as belligerently.
‘You’ve got two days to persuade her,’ Beckwith told the other lawyer. ‘Until you do convince her your case isn’t worth a bucket of piss.’
‘It still won’t be, even if she does change her story,’ said Reid.
‘You’ve got three days,’ corrected Jordan. ‘She told me at the hotel she was coming down this weekend, which gives you tomorrow, Sunday, to talk to her if she’s already arrived.’
Reid looked casually at his watch. ‘Maybe I’ll give her a call when we’re through.’
The man was giving up before any fight began, looking for a mitigating escape, just as he was, Jordan decided. ‘What about the Carlyle meeting? If you both decide not to mention it in court, unless she or I are directly challenged, you’d better tell her not to say anything about it either, hadn’t you?’
‘I’m definitely not going to mention it now,’ confirmed Beckwith, talking not to Jordan but to Reid. ‘You’d better do what Harvey suggests.’
‘Of course I’ll warn her!’ said Reid, irascibly.
‘What about those missing three years after Appleton’s graduation?’ pressed Jordan, already knowing there was no computer correspondence between the lawyer and any enquiry agency, although accepting that it all could have been done by written letters, formal reports and telephone calls. He began concentrating upon what lay on the separating table. As nothing there was directly linked to him he didn’t have the automatic legal right to copies of his own. Reid had only paraphrased everything, not offering facts he could study and memorize in detail. All he could make out were the different names of the supplying venerealo-gists and their different addresses, both of which were in Boston.
‘What the hell good is anything that long ago going to provide?’ demanded Reid, repeating his earlier objection.
‘You won’t know until you find out, and from where I’m sitting you don’t seem particularly anxious to find out.’
‘I don’t need to share these conferences with you!’ retorted Reid. ‘Get out!’
‘You sure you don’t?’ said Jordan, not moving from his chair. ‘The way I recall it I’ve so far thrown most of the positive ideas into the pot.’
‘You know fuck all!’ erupted Reid.
‘Which is what you’re complaining about, knowing fuck all,’ said Jordan. ‘Maybe you need to change the direction of your enquiries as well as changing the people you appoint to make them for you.’