The Namedropper (43 page)

‘I don't know. When I told him I wanted a divorce he said I wouldn't win. That he'd destroy me.'

‘How was he going to destroy you?'

‘Begin divorce proceedings against me, first. And make my life a misery.'

‘The lover you never had: the lover his investigators failed to find?'

‘Yes.

‘Did your husband ever physically attack you?'

‘He actually hit me twice. Once was at that time, during the argument. He slapped me, across the face. Told me to pull myself together.'

‘Were you bruised? Marked in any way?'

‘Not really.'

‘You didn't need hospital treatment?'

‘Oh no!'

‘When was the other occasion?'

‘Soon after, when I told him I was going to France and that he would be hearing from you, my lawyer, about the divorce. That I was finally getting away from Long Island and the marriage and from him. He punched me … said …' Alyce stopped.

‘Said what?' pressed Reid. ‘The words he used?'

‘Told me to fuck off, right then. Never to think of coming back. He actually said crawling back, like the sad bitch I was.'

‘Were you hurt when – and how – he punched you?'

‘I wasn't expecting it. I fell over, hit my leg and side against a table.'

‘So you were hurt?'

‘I was bruised.'

‘Did you need hospital attention?'

‘Dr Harding looked after me. I left Long Island right then. For the last time.'

Beckwith had started taking proper notes but stopped when Reid said, ‘You told your husband that I was going to initiate divorce proceedings
before
you left for France?

‘Yes. I took the papers I needed to sign with me'

‘Weeks before you met Harvey Jordan, the defendant in your husband's claim under the criminal conversation provisions in the alienation of affections statute in force in this state?'

‘At least six weeks before. Which is why the accusation against Mr Jordan is so ridiculous.'

‘What was the likelihood of your crawling back, after discovering you had contracted venereal disease from him?'

Alyce snorted a laugh. ‘As ridiculous as him citing Mr Jordan. Only one person is responsible for the breakdown of my marriage to Alfred Appleton. And that is Alfred Appleton.'

‘You're not telling the truth, are you, Mrs Appleton?' demanded David Bartle.

‘I am telling the truth, which I swore to do when I took the oath.'

‘He never hit you, did he?'

‘He slapped me when he was drunk and I told him I was beginning divorce proceedings. And threw me over, as I have just told the court.'

‘Neither of which needed any medical treatment?'

‘Dr Harding looked after me after I was punched. There was bruising, as I told you. Some grazing.'

‘Yet Dr Harding, who has attended you remarkably closely so far because of what is claimed to be the stress of these proceedings, is not in court on the day of your major evidence?'

‘I did not want to take them but he prescribed some pills when he knew he would not be able to be here today.'

‘Your honour,' broke in Reid, rising before Bartle could continue. ‘Dr Walter Harding is not in court today because of something that unexpectedly arose at the hospital at which, as you know, he is the administrator. I could make contact to see if the situation at the hospsital has been resolved, for him to come here, if your honour wishes.'

‘I think it is essential, in view of your questioning, don't you, Mr Bartle?'

‘I would have thought it essential for him to be here in the first place,' complained Bartle, tightly.

‘Quite so,' said the judge. ‘We find ourselves with another lapse in the presentation of the case. But it can easily be remedied. You are excused the court in the hope of bringing Dr Harding to us before we end today, Mr Reid.'

Jordan saw Beckwith had arranged question marks on his pad. Some were at an angle instead of being upright.

‘Your husband didn't admit to two affairs, did he?' resumed Bartle. ‘You told him you'd had him under surveillance, because you suspected he was being unfaithful. And that you were going to cite Sharon Borowski and Leanne Jefferies?'

‘That is not the correct sequence,' rejected Alyce. ‘It was as I have described it. I had not organized surveillance and had no idea who the whores were with whom he was sleeping: I just knew he was sleeping around because that was how I had become infected.
That
was what I told him.'

‘It was you who first mentioned the divorce statute of criminal conversation here in North Carolina, not him,' insisted the lawyer.

‘Until I engaged Mr Reid – and learned the totally unfounded case brought against Harvey Jordan by my husband – I had no idea of any such law or divorce provision. How could I have done?'

‘Yet you initiated proceedings against Ms Jefferies!'

‘I was advised by Mr Reid that it was a course open to me. And that it was one that I should take. '

‘You had suffered a disease, which you claim your husband gave you. You had told him you were divorcing him. Yet you took the papers with you to France, instead of signing them here. You were still unsure about the divorce, weren't you?'

‘No!' denied Alyce. ‘The papers weren't complete, particularly the criminal conversation claim against Leanne Jefferies. They were posted to me in France. I took what was already prepared. I was going to be by myself. I had time to read everything very thoroughly.'

‘But you weren't by yourself, were you?'

‘I wish I had remained so, not for my own sake but for Mr Jordan's. I very much regret his entrapment by my husband.'

The exclamation marks on Beckwith's pad were all upright now.

‘Your husband is a wealthy man, the president of one of Wall Street's leading commodity brokerages with a multi-millon dollar turnover?'

‘My husband never discussed business affairs with me, only in the beginning when he borrowed a million dollars from me.'

‘A million dollars that you have no proof of drawing from any of your accounts.'

‘It was how he wanted it done, in cash.'

‘Not only is there no traceable record of it having been withdrawn from your accounts, there is no recorded entry of such a sum in the company books. How do you explain that?'

‘Easily. I told you he asked for it in cash, to avoid it showing in the books. If it were recorded it would have been taxable. Maybe it was to spend on the women I then didn't know about.'

‘You had a Manhattan apartment costing well over a million dollars. The Long Island house is valued at four million. You had staff. A $10,000-a-month allowance. Luxury cars. All provided for you by your husband.'

‘He said the cars were part repayment of the loan, which meant I was buying them for myself.'

‘What about the rest?'

‘I would have exchanged it all for a loving husband home before ten every night. And children.'

‘Your husband paid for all those homes and luxuries, didn't he?

‘To which I made a one-million-dollar contribution.'

‘Did you love your husband when you married?'

‘I thought I did. I thought he loved me. Now I know I was wrong on both counts.'

‘Families – dynasties – were more important to you than love, weren't they? That's what your marriage was, the creation of an American royal family, and you knew it, didn't you? That's what you've already told the court today. You didn't expect love.'

‘Of course I expected love: love and respect and a family. One of the most important factors in a royal marriage is the provision of an heir, don't forget.'

‘Which was why your husband wouldn't consider adoption, because it wouldn't have provided a proper bloodline.'

‘If that is the explanation you are offering for his refusal to adopt, it is total and arrant nonsense,' rejected Alyce, as Reid returned to the court.

‘As your denial that you had a sexually infected lover is total nonsense,' challenged Bartle.

At last, despite her robustness so far, Alyce broke into tears, at which Reid hurried to his feet and said, ‘You honour! My client should surely be allowed the protection of the court.'

‘Which I am allowing her and which you must observe, Mr Wolfson,' warned Pullinger, as Leanne Jefferies' attorney got to his feet.

‘The shouted, violent confrontation with your husband that you have described to the court followed your discovery that you had chlamydia?' began Wolfson.

‘Yes,' agreed Alyce, dry-eyed now.

‘As far as I understand your evidence, your marriage to Alfred Appleton was already profoundly unhappy? Your living in Long Island and his living most of the time in Manhattan was virtually a separation, wasn't it?'

‘Yes.'

‘But the chlamydia was the final, irreparable breaking point?'

‘Yes.'

‘You did attempt a reconciliation, though?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did it work?'

‘No.'

‘If you hadn't been infected, would you have filed for divorce?'

‘Yes, I think I would.'

‘Just think?' pressed Wolfson.

‘Not just think. I would have filed for divorce. My marriage – our marriage – was a sham.'

There was a line of upright exclamation marks on Beckwith's pad, Jordan saw.

‘When you had that final, irreparable breaking-up fight with your husband did you know of Leanne Jefferies?'

‘I knew he had a mistress. I didn't know her name.'

‘When did you learn her name?'

‘When the proceedings began … when my lawyer received the papers from my husband's lawyer.'

‘Until that time, did you have any intention of claiming financial damages from Leanne Jefferies for criminal conversation, for being the cause of the collapse of your marriage?'

Jordan turned, at the shift in the jury box, and saw Walter Harding sliding into his accustomed seat beyond the separating rail.

‘No,' Alyce replied to the questioned. ‘I've already given evidence that I did so because of the law in this state … of the availability of the provision.'

‘Did Leanne Jefferies cause the end of your marriage? Wasn't your marriage already over before you ever learned her name?'

During the woman's hesitation Beckwith leaned sideways and said to Jordan, ‘Good try – his only try – but it isn't a defence.'

Finally Alyce said, ‘Yes, it was, I suppose.'

‘Bruising,' identified Harding, from the witness stand in a bland, even, bedside voice. ‘To the upper right thigh and lower ribs. Some contusions, but no actual skin break by the time I examined Mrs Appleton. I suspected there might be internal rib bruising, too.'

‘How did you understand Mrs Appleton received those injuries?'

‘She told me she had been violently punched by her husband earlier in the day, at their Long Island home, that her ribs had been particularly painful on the flight back here, to Raleigh.'

‘Did you not consider having Mrs Appleton X-rayed at your hospital to establish whether her ribs were actually broken? Or fractured?'

‘From the external bruising I did not believe either to have happened. If either had occurred there is no medical procedure – no plastering or binding support – that could have eased the healing or reduced the pain beyond the palliative medication I prescribed.'

‘Were the physical injuries on Mrs Appleton's body consistent with her being violently punched to the ground?'

‘The specific injuries we are discussing were consistent with a fall. But on her upper left shoulder, extending maybe three or four inches down her upper chest as far as her breast, there was further bruising, marked in such a way to indicate knuckle separation. This was consistent with her having been punched. There was another, separate bruise on her right shoulder, which could have been caused by a thumb being heavily pressed in her at this point.'

‘Violently punched?' pressed Reid.

‘It would have to have been a heavy blow, to have resulted in the bruising I am describing. And to have knocked her to the floor.'

‘And the pressure that caused the other mark, on her right shoulder?'

‘Substantial.'

Harding agreed, under intense questioning from Bartle, that he had been in Raleigh, not Long Island, where Alyce claimed to have sustained her injuries and repeatedly agreed that he had no way to substantiate that they could have been inflicted in the way she had described to him.

‘So, she could have received the bruises and contusions by the simple act of tripping, falling, from her own clumsiness, not by being attacked?' demanded the lawyer.

‘The bruising and contusions to her upper right thigh and side, yes,' agreed Harding. ‘But most definitely not the bruising to her upper left shoulder and breast that was clearly imprinted with the method of its cause, a heavy punch. And it's not possible to punch yourself to leave that severity of imprint. She was hit – hit hard – by somebody else.'

The practice was for Jordan to wait in the corridor outside the court to be collected by his lawyer and Reid to go on to their after-hearing conference and assessment but that night Beckwith emerged alone to announce there wasn't going to be one.

‘Why not?' demanded Jordan.

‘Wolfson wants a meeting with Bob.'

‘What about?'

‘Bargaining's my guess,' said Beckwith. ‘That's the usual reason for opposing lawyers to get together during a hearing.'

‘To whose benefit?'

‘It's got to be Alyce's. It's Wolfson who's come to Bob.'

‘You think the case is collapsing?'

‘Something's shaking, at least.'

‘Did you notice Alyce was wearing her wedding and engagement rings?'

‘And kept them visible all the time,' expanded Beckwith. ‘Oldest trick in the world in a divorce hearing. A constant reminder to the jury of what they're there for and the punishment the wronged wife has suffered. And don't tell me it's cynical. I know it is. But if I'd been representing Alyce that's exactly what I would have told her to do. Don't forget …'