The Namedropper Read online

  Overnight, questions that he should have asked – were essential he ask – Daniel Beckwith or at least obtain guidance from Lesley Corbin crowded in upon him and Jordan spent the morning listing them, prompted as he did so to add others. The biggest imponderable factor was what exactly the American enquiries in France had discovered and which could be put to him. It was also vital that he remember everything he had told Alyce Appleton, whom it was logical to assume would have told her legal team and with which he could be confronted, either by her or her husband’s lawyers. There’d been his lie that he was independently wealthy, from a family inheritance which he successfully utilized as a venture capitalist investor. And the sympathy-seeking improvization built around his divorce. Beckwith hadn’t minimized the financial implications of the damages claims, which made his income and its source directly relevant. None of which Jordan could substantiate beyond the returns accepted by the British Inland Revenue as a professional gambler. Jordan couldn’t imagine the lost love of his life nonsense being introduced in any court examination or record, except for its connection with his supposed occupation and income, but it was something not to ignore but rather to be explained away if it were raised. He couldn’t think of any awkward personal information in the South of France, apart from his address lodged at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes which Appleton’s side appeared already to have obtained, by which he could be confronted. Neither did he imagine any of his previous conquests about whom Beckwith had questioned him being traced: he couldn’t himself remember all of their names and he’d determinedly avoided being photographed with or by any of them. Alyce hadn’t carried a camera and shunned the approaches from any of the restaurant photographers as forcefully as he had, although there were those that he’d already anticipated having been snatched of them together. And he’d paid every bill in cash, the deposit for the car rental going against his hotel bill.

  Jordan was at Lesley Corbin’s Chancery Lane office fifteen minutes before the appointed time, his query list memorized but in his inside pocket if he needed any reminders, together with all the official personal documents she’d asked him the previous day to bring, which he had although reluctantly, professionally aware of their illegal usefulness.

  The package Daniel Beckwith had couriered from New York appeared the same size as he remembered Alyce Appleton completing at the hotel, although substantially thicker, topped by a copy of the lawyer’s terms and conditions of engagement.

  ‘I’ve never heard of agreeing contracts with lawyers?’ said Jordan. It was one of the questions on his list.

  The woman shrugged. ‘It’s sometimes done here between solicitors and barristers, on behalf of clients. Maybe it’s to do with the particular circumstances of this situation, different jurisdictions and regulations in different countries, in addition to different American states being involved. I’ve gone through it. I didn’t find any reason why you shouldn’t sign: it’s as much for your protection in an American court as it is for his being paid his fees.’

  ‘You think they’re reasonable?’ seized Jordan, wanting to concentrate on finance as quickly as possible.

  ‘I warned you about costs,’ reminded the woman. ‘The court refreshers are $2,000 a day. What can’t be quantified at the moment from what Beckwith provided – or what he hasn’t yet been provide with, from the other sides – is exactly how many days the case might take. It’s obviously a contested case – you contesting the claims against you, presumably as Alyce will be doing even if they are conniving – so it definitely won’t be a short hearing.’

  ‘Give me a ballpark figure,’ demanded Jordan.

  ‘Impossible,’ refused the lawyer. ‘You want to do some sums on the back of an envelope, allow a month …’ She paused. ‘A minimum of a month.’

  ‘Presuming the court won’t sit on a Saturday or Sunday, that will be something like $40,000 in court refreshers alone?’

  ‘And there’s the hourly $500 for all the preliminary consultations,’ added Lesley. ‘There’ll also be search fees, impossible at this stage to estimate. And if you’re going to have to go back and forth, possibly several times, and pay hotel bills while you’re in New York and Raleigh, you’ve got to calculate travel and living expenses. Also impossible to estimate. And my fees and expenses, which I haven’t got around to thinking about yet. That’s why I can’t give you a ballpark guess. But I did warn you that it wasn’t going to be cheap.’

  ‘What if all the claims are dismissed, that I’ve been forced to defend myself against marriage destroying allegations that aren’t justified?’

  ‘In this country a judge would have the discretion to apportion costs, according to culpability. I’ll raise it with Dan when I respond to all the stuff he’s sent over for us to complete today. But you’ve got to bear in mind that you did sleep with her. And that you knew she was a married woman.’

  ‘That was surely her decision?’

  ‘I said I’ll raise it with Dan. You ready to start on his stuff?’

  ‘That’s what I’m here for.’

  The woman isolated a document several pages thick and said, ‘OK, let’s learn all we can about Harvey William Jordan.’ She smiled up. ‘You brought your birth certificate, as I asked you?’

  His hesitation at handing it across the desk to her was instinctive at parting with such an essential tool of his trade.

  ‘What is it?’ She frowned.

  ‘I don’t particularly like surrendering personal documents.’

  The frown remained. ‘It’ll be copied, here today, like all the other stuff he wants. And couriered, in the possession of a messenger from the time it leaves here until it’s handed over to Dan’s firm in New York.’

  Another silly lapse, Jordan thought, self-critically. ‘Sure. Stupid of me. I’ve not been involved in anything like this before.’

  ‘We have to know, with supporting details, what you do for a living,’ she went on.

  ‘I need to understand something,’ said Jordan, coming to the most highlighted note on his reminder list. ‘There’ll be lawyers acting separately for Alyce as well as those acting for Appleton? And Dan acting for me, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ the woman agreed, curiously.

  ‘I read somewhere that statements are exchanged between lawyers, in advance of cases beginning?’ Jordan was inwardly churning at having a lie to explain away.

  ‘That’s the system.’

  ‘Are facts checked, before cases begin? So that they can be contested in court, if they’re doubted?’

  The frown came back. ‘Sometimes. What’s your problem?’

  ‘I told Alyce I was a venture capitalist, from a family inheritance.’

  ‘And you’re not?’

  ‘I’m a gambler,’ announced Jordan, the vocation long accepted by the British tax authorities.

  ‘You mean you don’t have a job, an occupation or a business? That that’s all you do, gamble professionally?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s not as easy as you seem to imagine. To succeed as a professional gambler you’ve got to win more than you lose, as I do.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell her what you really did?’

  ‘I thought venture capitalist sounded better, I guess,’ Jordan said as he shrugged, wishing what he was telling Lesley Corbin sounded better. The agreement with the British tax authorities had taken almost three years, but always through correspondence, never personal encounters like this. Verbally it didn’t sound very convincing. Jordan had perfected a method of providing what the British Inland Revenue finally recognized as legal proof of income but needed to know if it would be accepted by an American court and American lawyers. Even if it was it was going to require great more physical effort. And a lot more dodging and weaving to avoid it being discovered that he was duplicating to satisfy two, not just one, demand. He wished he could better gauge Lesley Corbin’s thoughts from the quizzical expression on her face.

  ‘You make enough from gambling to live at the best hotels for months at a time, a
s you did in France?’ she pressed.

  ‘It fluctuates. I haven’t starved so far.’ Because I very rarely wager any actual money, he thought. She was never going to accept it! She’d see through it as a lie, and a bad one at that, as if through polished glass.

  ‘Dan wants some financial information,’ she said, flatly.

  ‘I guessed he might,’ said Jordan, constantly bemused by his unusual honesty. Heavily he went on: ‘I can’t produce audited books, if you know what I mean.’

  The woman smiled, as Jordan hoped she would. ‘Or income tax returns?’

  ‘I could produce copies of those,’ Jordan promised, glad he’d taken duplicates to remind himself from year to year.

  ‘So there are tax accepted records, if they’re demanded?’

  ‘I’d prefer them not to be,’ admitted Jordan, edging forward.

  ‘Let’s leave official interest for the moment,’ she said. ‘I could accept a cash deposit, to be held in a client account.’

  She wasn’t going to challenge him! It was going to work! ‘Information of which will be made available only to America?’

  ‘It’s only applicable and required by America,’ she pointed out. ‘I will accept your cash deposit, as I am verbally accepting your instructions. I am not required to know anything more about a source of that cash; that’s Dan’s responsibility. I will talk personally, by telephone, to Dan – not set out the question by letter – and when you get to New York you’ll need to talk in more detail to him. We’ve got to keep in mind how important it is to minimize any publicity. Do you understand?’

  ‘Very clearly,’ assured Jordan. ‘As I’m sure you understood my concern. How much will you want that deposit to be?’

  ‘That’s what I’ll talk to Dan about.’

  ‘I’m glad we’re having this conversation.’

  ‘To cover as many eventualities as possible is why we’re having this conversation.’

  ‘I’m feeling more comfortable about it now.’ How easily those who practised law were prepared to bend it. Maybe becoming a lawyer would be his next career change.

  ‘When I speak to Dan he’ll want to know if you can adequately defend the action? Financially, I mean.’

  ‘I can.’ Because ultimately I won’t be paying the money, thought Jordan, the decision hardening in his mind. He had a lot to set up as soon as he got to America – if he got to America.

  ‘We’ll need to meet – meet, not even talk on the phone – after I’ve spoken to him.’

  ‘I understand.’ He’d been lucky, finding Lesley Corbin. Jordan hoped it was another omen.

  Lesley flicked the edge of the document from which she was working. ‘This is very much a pro forma. Dan will need more in these new circumstances. How do you gamble? On what, I mean?’

  ‘Professional gamblers don’t gamble,’ lectured Jordan. ‘They only ever put their money on certainties.’

  ‘Don’t go polemic on me. What do you gamble on? Where do you gamble?’

  ‘High stake rooms at casinos: poker, blackjack, roulette, backgammon,’ he said, reciting the games he’d been one of the first to programme for Internet use. ‘Horses, too. I’ve got the maximum £30,000 Premium Bond block, which in the four years I’ve held it has produced a return of an additional £20,000. I consider that a gamble. But definitely not the lottery: the odds aren’t good for anyone.’

  ‘I think it would be wise for us to be careful,’ said Lesley, lecturing in return. ‘The law is that receipted proof of casino profits can be issued for tax purposes. I presume you provide those, with your tax returns?’

  Jordan only just stopped himself laughing outright at being told of the system he’d bled dry for so long. ‘Some.’

  The woman smiled again. ‘We’ll maybe need some; as many as you can produce,’ insisted Lesley. ‘Supported by dates, places and amounts. For horse race winnings we’ll need courses, the actual names of horses, winning slips if they can be kept.’

  The duplication of which Jordan had anticipated. ‘I’m sure I can manage that.’

  ‘Start collecting them from now on. I don’t want you unable to face a challenge about income source.’

  ‘I will. See if I’ve got anything hanging around, as well,’ promised the man who never left anything financial hanging around.

  ‘What we’ve talked about so far makes a lot of Dan’s other questions irrelevant at this time,’ decided the woman, going back to her list. ‘I’m going to leave the occupation question blank, until I’ve talked to Dan.’

  ‘You’re the lawyer.’ And am I glad, he thought.

  ‘You are not married?’ Lesley started again, briskly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you ever been?’

  ‘Divorced, a long time ago.’

  ‘You’ve got the papers to prove that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jordan, uneasily.

  ‘Children?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you in a relationship that makes you responsible for any dependants?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you suffer any permanent illness or disease?’

  ‘What?’ questioned Jordan, surprised.

  ‘You had sexual relations with a married woman. According to what Dan has set out here, if you are suffering from AIDS or any sexually transmittable disease you didn’t tell Alyce about before you entered into a relationship you could be criminally charged with assault, as well as giving Alfred Appleton grounds for several additional claims. Murder or manslaughter even, if Alyce becomes infected with AIDS from which she subsequently died.’

  ‘I am not suffering from AIDS or any other sexually transmitted disease.’

  ‘That will have to be attested by a sworn medical statement.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘I thought we’d agreed there is nothing amusing about the circumstances in which you find yourself.’

  ‘I’ll arrange the tests.’

  ‘I’ve already made your appointment for eleven o’clock tomorrow, in Harley Street. A Dr Preston.’

  ‘Thank you.’ How close, Jordan wondered, would Dr Preston’s consulting rooms be to those of plastic surgeon Paul Maculloch, whose stolen identity was proving to be so useful, although not in the way originally intended.

  ‘Did you give – or exchange – gifts with Alyce Appleton?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Exchange addresses?’

  ‘You know we didn’t!’

  ‘For the record.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she provide any details of her husband’s business?’

  ‘She told me he was a commodity dealer.’ The rest was for him to find out, Jordan promised himself.

  ‘That’s a generalization.’

  ‘She didn’t specify. Just told me the name of the firm, Appleton and Drake.’

  ‘Did you independently enquire into what they specifically traded?’

  ‘I had no reason. I wasn’t interested.’ But now I am, mentally added Jordan. How long would it take him to find out all that he needed about Appleton and Drake?

  ‘Did you have any prior knowledge of or about Alyce Appleton?’

  ‘I don’t understand that question,’ protested Jordan.

  ‘It’s not difficult,’ retorted Lesley Corbin. ‘The common thread through every claim Appleton is making is that you’ve intentionally stolen his wife.’

  Jordan was momentarily halted by the irony. ‘I do not steal other men’s wives. Neither am I a gigolo.’

  ‘That wasn’t part of the question but I’ll include it in your answer. It might be apposite. Did you know before you began the affair that Alyce Appleton was rich?’

  Harvey Jordan’s hesitation now was to keep his reply as honest as possible, following the golden precept that the fewer the lies the fewer there were to remember and by which to be trapped. Cautiously he replied, ‘Her jewellery was obviously expensive. And she was staying in a suite in an expensive hotel. But then so was I. I didn’t pick her out
for either of those reasons. I didn’t pick her out at all! We got into conversation. Things developed.’

  ‘As things developed with other women before, according to what you’ve already told me, already told Dan?’

  ‘You’re making me sound like a gigolo!’

  ‘Remember what Dan said about training you to respond properly to questions! Look upon this as an early lesson. Questions can be phrased to make you lose your temper, which you came close to doing there.’

  ‘I did not get into conversation with Alyce Appleton because I thought she was rich, nor to take advantage if she were rich,’ said Jordan, pedantically. ‘I paid for every hotel room, meal and yacht trip we shared.’

  ‘You got receipted bills, in your name?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  ‘No, I do not have receipted bills in my name.’

  ‘Credit card counterfoils?’

  ‘I paid for everything in cash. I thought I’d already told you that.’

  The woman looked up from her documents. ‘Everything in cash! That surprises me, in this day and age of convenient plastic’

  ‘I’m not part of “this day and age of convenient plastic”.’ Only other people’s plastic, came the thought.