Brian Freemantle - The Namedropper

‘I think we’ve got them running scared,’ said Beckwith. ‘I can’t remember a lot of times when I could have dropped everything to confront an unspecified, out-of-town court challenge like the other side’s lawyers have done here. Neither can Bob.’

‘You’re talking lawyers appearing,’ said Jordan. ‘What about Appleton and Leanne being here personally?’

‘We won’t know that until tomorrow, when the court convenes. If either were my clients I’d keep them away.’

‘Could you call them, as witnesses, if they do turn up?’

‘I haven’t officially listed them. If they do show I could apply for Pullinger’s discretion. Which I might well do, even on a minor point. There’d obviously and very definitely be a legal argument which I’m sure I could use to move Pullinger into our favour.’

‘What are our chances of a complete dismissal?’ demanded Jordan, bluntly.

‘I’ve been through this with Bob,’ said Beckwith.

‘I want you to go through it with me!’

‘Slightly less than fifty percent. Which, as a gambler, you’ve got to accept as pretty good odds.’

For the briefest of seconds Jordan was disorientated by the reminder of how he was supposed to make his living. ‘I try for better.’

‘I can’t offer you anything better.’

It was a desultory dinner between two people brought together beneath the same roof who had already talked out all there was to discuss, each striving for conversation until the very end, when Beckwith suddenly said, ‘To use an expression that you’re more familiar with than me, we could be on the home straight here. I don’t want any surprises, OK?’

‘What’s that mean?’ demanded Jordan, genuinely bewildered.

‘You haven’t had any contact with Alyce, not since that night in New York?’

‘You know I haven’t.’

‘I don’t know you haven’t. That’s why I’m asking you.’

‘I haven’t.’

‘Not even by telephone.’

‘No.’

‘You’ll be on a witness stand tomorrow, on oath. I don’t want any outbursts.’

‘If there was going to be an outburst – if I didn’t have the anger locked away – I’d have already shouted you down for what you’ve just asked me about Alyce.’

‘Bob thinks you’re carrying a torch for her.’

‘After the mess she’s got me into! You’ve got to be joking! Bob Reid’s talking through his ass.’

‘There’s too much in what you’ve just said for me to handle all at one time,’ ended Beckwith, getting up from the table. ‘Breakfast tomorrow at eight, OK?’

Having steadfastly and successfully avoided any criminal proceedings so far in his life, Harvey Jordan had prepared himself for an understandable uncertainty at actually entering a court for the first time and was pleased – as well as relieved – that none came. On their way from the hotel Beckwith had talked expansively of courts being theatres in which people – lawyers particularly – performed but that wasn’t Jordan’s most positive impression, although he conceded that there could be some comparisons. There was certainly a formidable cast being assembled, their fixed expressions befitting impending drama.

As the appellants on that initial day, Jordan and his lawyer had the first table to the left of the court, just inside the separating rail. Directly behind that rail, in the public section, was George Abrahams, with whom Beckwith was at that moment hunched in head-bent, muttered conversation. The width of the entry gate through the rail separated Jordan from the position of Alfred Appleton and his lawyer, David Bartle. Beyond them, at another table, were Leanne Jefferies and Peter Wolfson. Behind the rail, on the right of the court, were a group of motionless, silent people among whom Jordan presumed to be the Boston venerealogists. Half turned in their direction as he was Jordan was instantly aware of the entry into the court of Alyce, Reid attentively at her arm. Alyce wore a neutral coloured, tailored suit and very little make-up and came through the court and the final gate looking directly ahead, to take her place at the separate table beside Jordan’s, on the far left of the court. As she finally sat Alyce looked at Jordan. But not as far as the opposite side of the court to her husband and his lover. Jordan smiled. Alyce didn’t, turning away.

Reid leaned towards Jordan and said, ‘You get in OK, avoiding the photographers?’

‘I think so. You?’

‘I’m sure we did.’

‘Alyce OK?’

‘It’s the first time she’s been near Appleton since it all began. She’s a mess.’

‘Tell her it’s OK.’ What on earth did that mean? Jordan wondered, as he said it. Alyce looked very pale.

‘I have already. She thought she’d be all right. She’s not.’

Beckwith returned through the gate and asked Jordan, ‘What was that about?’

‘Alyce is nervous.’

‘So am I,’ said Beckwith, jerking his head back towards the public area. ‘We’ve got a hell of a point to make. Choosing the moment to make it is the problem.’

‘What the…? started Jordan, to be overridden by the loudly demanded, ‘All rise!’

If this were theatre then Judge Hubert Pullinger was already wearing his costume for the role, thought Jordan, as the man upon whom so much depended entered the court. Pullinger’s raven-black gown hung shapelessly around a stick-thin, desiccated frame, an appearance denied by the scurrying quickness of his movements. The head came forward, though, when he sat, reminding Jordan of a carnivorous hunting bird, complete with the disease-whitened face Jordan remembered from a television documentary on vultures, ripped off flesh hanging from its beak. Halfway through the court clerk’s official litany identifying the hearing there was an impatient, head twitch towards Beckwith, an appropriately bird-like pecking gesture.

Beckwith hesitated until the clerk’s recitation ended before rising, with matching, head-nodding deference, to name himself, his client, and his purpose in making his application under the provisions of statute Section 1-52(5) of the North Carolina civil code.

‘Which I do, your honour, with some difficulty and trepidation,’ Beckwith added.

The pause was perfectly timed to allow Pullinger’s interception. ‘Both of which problems I can understand from having read the advanced case papers,’ said the man. The voice was not bird-like, but surprisingly strong from such a dried-out body.

‘Papers in which, in my submission, some of the facts are incomplete and because of which I am seeking the leniency of the court properly to provide,’ picked up Beckwith, no satisfaction at his timing in his voice.

‘This is a procedural hearing, on behalf of your client, for dismissal as I understand it of both the claims for alienation of affections and for criminal conversations,’ interrupted the judge, yet again. ‘Should I not hear and consider your applications before being asked to show leniency?’

Jordan’s concentration was more towards the right of the court than to the judge, at once alert to the half smiled, head-together exchange between Appleton and his lawyer to the judge’s persistent intercessions. Jordan acknowledged that despite the impression he’d earlier formed from photographs of the man, he had totally misjudged Appleton’s size and appearance. Appleton seemed much taller than the stated six foot three inches, the fleshy stature heightened by his overall, clothes-stretching heaviness. There was no longer anything of the sportsman Appleton had once been. The weight, oddly, appeared to bunch at his shoulders and neck, pushing his head forward, actually bison-like, over a belly bulged beneath a double breasted jacket opened to release its constraint and enable the man to sit, legs splayed, again for comfort. His face was red, mottled by what Jordan guessed to be blood pressure, the fading hair receded far more than it had seemed in the photographs. The marked difference in their appearance dictated that he restrict to the absolute minimum his personal visits to the banks in which he had opened accounts in Appleton’s name, Jordan reminded himself.