The Namedropper (47 page)

He'd never ever lived in reality, thought Jordan. Always the opposite, the unreality of living – being – somebody else, with somebody else's name and persona. He said, ‘I'm not sure that's an apt description, either.' He saw Alyce had moved away from her lawyer and immediately excused himself to join her.

Alyce said at once, ‘I didn't realize Pullinger was delaying the media release until tomorrow.'

‘Neither did I.'

‘By which time I shall be back at the house, beyond any camera lens.'

‘Is that what you're going to do?'

‘There's no better place to hide.'

‘For how long?'

‘For as long as I choose, although the judge put a pretty effective lid on it becoming a long-running saga, didn't he?'

‘So what after you come out of retreat?' pressed Jordan.

She smiled at the expression. ‘Regain my life. I've already arranged to get my place back on the board of the Bellamy Foundation.'

‘As well as?'

‘That's as far as, for the moment,' said Alyce. ‘There was something you were going to say, just before Walter arrived at the house yesterday?'

‘Maybe later,' said Jordan. ‘Not now.'

‘Call me.'

Thirty-Two

J
ordan tried the moment he got into his Carlyle suite the following morning, before even bothering to unpack after a delayed New York arrival from Raleigh. At the Bellamy North Carolina estate, Stephen – after having established who Jordan was – told him Alyce wasn't there and that he didn't know when she would be returning; she hadn't given a date or a location, although he didn't think it was Manhattan. Jordan told the butler where he was – even stipulating his suite number – and to pass on a message for Alyce to call if she made contact. And did the same when, despite the butler's doubt that Alyce was in New York, he got the answering service at her West 84th Street apartment.

During the returning flight Jordan had scoured as many newspapers as were available at Raleigh airport. Both the
New York Times
and
Wall Street Journal's
coverage was relegated to deep into the inside pages, boosted beyond the strictly limited factual release from Pullinger's court by photographs of both Appleton and Alyce and the inevitable historical background of both families. Jordan was named only once, without either a photograph or an indication, even, of his English nationality. There was nothing in any international edition of any English newspaper collected for him by the hotel's customer service department. He'd alerted Lesley Corbin during his earlier call from Raleigh and when he telephoned again she confirmed there was no reference either to the case or to him personally in any of that morning's London editions. Neither had there been on any national British television or radio bulletin or any Internet news source she'd accessed.

‘Why should there have been?' she asked him, rhetorically. ‘You were found not guilty of any involvement in the case.'

Jordan waited until after he'd unpacked before mounting his daily monitor of the Appleton and Drake computers. There was a further challenge, again from a Manhattan broker, to a shortfall on another of the earliest copper trades he'd raided, and evident growing alarm in the continuing email conversations between the two earlier questioned metal traders at their inability to discover the cause of their individual problems through any of the personal enquiries they had so far conducted. One, Colin Nutbeam, complained of not being able to look any further or differently than he already had and his colleague, George Sutcliffe, agreed that if they didn't identify the cause of the disparities in the next twenty-four hours there was no alternative but to officially report it to their respective financial supervisors. From the now extensive communications between the originally challenged John Popple and his financial controller there were gaps indicating either personal interviews or internal telephone conversations, culminating the previous day in the latest email from the fiscal manager, not to Popple but to Alfred Appleton, asking for the earliest possible meeting upon his return from Raleigh to discuss an apparently inexplicable financial discrepancy in an onwardly traded pork belly future. In an attempt to trace the error before the requested meeting, the controller intended conducting an audit of every buy and sell contract in which Popple had been involved in the preceding six months. Until the matter was resolved it was suggested that a specific accounting be made of every buy and sell trade in which Popple had engaged.

Jordan unsuccessfully tried Alyce's number again before leaving the hotel, delaying any more raids upon Appleton and Drake holdings until he had made room in the five bank accounts. Even though the banks were comparatively close to each other it took him almost four hours to move between them, keeping to the same strict routine. He first withdrew all but between $2,000 to $3,000 from each account, carrying the cash to the separate securities divisions, where in the locked seclusion of their individual private rooms he emptied the already well filled safe-deposit boxes into the two briefcases he carried with him.

Both for continued security against the unlikely irony of a street mugging and to necessarily relieve the physical strain of carrying the two now very heavy cases, Jordan hailed a taxi when he emerged from the last bank to take him back to the Carlyle hotel. There he re-entered the computers of Appleton and Drake and spent almost a further hour plundering previously untouched accounts, moving a total of $22,000 into the five banks in which he had been earlier that afternoon. There was no new correspondence in any of the Appleton and Drake sites he accessed, including the personal station of Alfred Appleton.

Jordan again got Alyce's answering service when he tried the Manhattan apartment and Stephen insisted there had been no contact from her since Jordan's previous call, promising to pass on his message and location the moment there was.

The low table in the suite's sitting room was substantial, running virtually the entire length of the two couches it divided, but it was still too small to accommodate the money when Jordan tried to tip out the contents of both briefcases, even though he had mostly stipulated $100 notes every time he had made a cash withdrawal. Jordan worked carefully and with practised professionalism, assembling the money in individual, one-thousand-dollar bundles before moving the piles from the table to the floor to make room for what was in the second case. At that moment the haul amounted to $530,0000, which meant that after Pullinger's reduced costs decision in his judgement that Jordan had more than sufficient to settle his account with Daniel Beckwith, even if the final bill exceeded the attorney's ballpark figure of $250,000. Jordan managed to fit $10,000 in the suite safe, concealed inside the bedroom closet. Neatly stacked as the money now was it was easy to assemble in envelopes of $10,000 each to transport it all in just one briefcase to the cashier's office, where he rented three more safe-deposit boxes in addition to the two already in his genuine name.

Jordan resisted his impatience to telephone the Manhattan apartment too early the next morning, waiting until just before ten before calling Alyce again, not bothering to leave another message when he again got the answering machine.

Why had she suggested he call if she hadn't intended to be at either of the numbers she'd given him!

It wasn't until his settlement meeting with Daniel Beckwith, after a further two days without any contact from Alyce, that Jordan learned Alyce had changed her mind about hiding in North Carolina and flown instead to Antigua.

‘According to Bob she didn't want to be kept a prisoner there by the media: they've set up camp outside, despite Pullinger's warnings,' said Beckwith.

‘You know where in Antigua?'

‘No,' frowned the lawyer. ‘Why?'

‘I didn't properly say goodbye,' improvized Jordan.

‘When are you going back?'

‘In a day or two,' said Jordan. He really did need to go back to England, he told himself. There could be a lot of correspondence at the Hans Crescent flat, quite apart from what might be waiting for him in Marylebone.

‘I guess it's still possible that Appleton might appeal, despite Pullinger's warning,' said Beckwith. ‘He could, I suppose, apply for a retrial
because
of the comments. Or argue separately against the costs apportionment. Whatever, I don't see how or why you should be enjoined, apart from the matter of costs, but if anything comes up that you need to know about I'll liaise through Lesley, OK?'

‘Fine,' agreed Jordan. ‘What are those costs?'

‘Exactly what I gave you as a ballpark figure,' said Beckwith. ‘But by the judge's order, your liability comes down to $50,000.'

‘Cash OK?' questioned Jordan. He could settle what remained outstanding of the Carlyle bill the same way and still have a lot left over, he calculated. Enough, even, for a short detour to Antigua.

‘Cash is always OK, ‘ smiled the lawyer.

When Jordan called the North Carolina house yet again, Stephen insisted he did not know where Alyce was staying in Antigua – know even that she was on the island – and repeated that there had still been no contact. Jordan decided against telephoning Reid in Raleigh for the number at the same time as realizing he was verging upon making himself appear ridiculous pursuing the woman as he was doing.

When he'd explored Appleton and Drake before leaving for his appointment with Daniel Beckwith there had been no new email exchanges but it was very different when he entered again that afternoon. There were two fresh broker enquiries on discrepancies on metal trades, as well as the decision to alert their financial managers by the two traders who'd failed to solve their individual shortfall problem. And a blizzard of correspondence to and from Alfred Appleton, including four of increasing animosity, between Appleton and his partner, Peter Drake, demanding to know why an in-house investigation had not been initiated earlier. It was difficult for Jordan to assemble a fully comprehensive understanding of everything that was unfolding in the Wall Street office, because of the obvious breaks in the sequences by telephone or personal meetings, but towards the end of the day Jordan knew Appleton had ordered a total internal audit of their previous six months business upon every trader, in addition to imposing supervision upon every future trade until the cause of the apparent errors was traced. There were also emailed instructions – with the assurance of personally signed letters to follow – against allowing anything of the problems leaking outside the office to undermine the reputation or confidence of the firm. Any such disclosure would be investigated with the tenacity with which the financial irregularities were being pursued. Any uncovered whistle-blower would face civil litigation for commercial infringement of the confidentiality clauses of their contact, as well as instant dismissal.

It was time to close down, Jordan concluded. It was still short of the time he'd originally allowed himself and far shorter still of the inevitable outcome that would engulf Alfred Appleton. Jordan's decision had nothing whatsoever to do with any belated regret. And certainly not pity, for how badly the outcome of the case had gone for the commodity trader. Appleton had set out to damage and inconvenience him as much as Appleton would eventually be damaged and inconvenienced in return. Nor was it Jordan's fear of discovery, because after today's final closure the risk of his being caught would no longer exist. It was, rather, that Jordan had lost interest, virtually to the point of boredom, in any future retribution. Jordan believed he had his priorities in their carefully arranged order and Alfred Appleton no longer featured on the list.

Except for this one last, explosive time.

From a selection of Appleton's personally held but unmoved trades Jordan switched a total of $12,000 into the account he'd taken out in Appleton's name in the Chase Manhattan and in which $2,000 still remained, although the safe-deposit box was now cleared. Directly after that he ordered by email that $10,500 be transferred into the Caribbean hedge fund that had advised him their minimally acceptable opening investment was $10,000, well aware, too, that the Chase were required automatically to report the transfer and that such reporting would just as automatically trigger the sort of official enquiry – and attendant publicity – that Appleton was so anxious to avoid.

Jordan then patiently severed all connection and trace of his Trojan Horse stables throughout every computer and ancillary link-line in the Appleton and Drake system. After electronically ending the lease on the West 72nd Street apartment and settling all out-standing bills, electronically again, he telephoned the concierge at the Marylebone flat and Lesley Corbin just off Chancery Lane, advising them of his return the following day, leaving until last his final call to North Carolina, leaving with Stephen the message that he was going back to England and would call Alyce from there sometime in the future. He managed to book a conveniently timed mid-morning flight to London the following day and that night, after dinner, took a taxi to the 23rd Street marina and seaplane port into which Appleton had flown during his daily commute from Long Island, enjoying the irony when, judging the moment, he dropped the much-used and incriminating laptop into the East River.

As he settled his outstanding and substantial bill in cash the receptionist said, ‘We hope you'll be coming back soon to stay with us again.'

‘So do I,' said Jordan, meaning it.

Thirty-Three

I
t 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.