‘You employed a lot of people to watch your wife in France, didn’t you?’ demanded Beckwith.
‘I engaged an enquiry service,’ said Appleton.
‘But not specifically for France?’ insisted Beckwith. ‘You’d engaged them long before that, hadn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ conceded the commodity dealer.
The man had reverted to his single-word answers, Jordan recognized, although Appleton appeared more at ease in the witness box than he had the previous day. Alyce did, too, despite Dr Harding not being in court. Leanne looked strained, her face drawn.
‘Why?’ asked Beckwith, matching the brevity.
‘I told the court yesterday,’ said Appleton, determined against saying too much.
‘Not to my recollection,’ refuted the lawyer. ‘Why did you put your wife under surveillance before she went to France?’
Appleton’s face flushed, very slightly. ‘I wanted to discover the man with whom she was having an affair. The man from whom she contracted the venereal disease that I caught.’ His voice had risen, too.
Beckwith was proving as good as Reid, the previous day, thought Jordan. Within minutes he’d irritated Appleton out of his attempted stonewalling answers, which he guessed Appleton now realized, and by so doing unsettled the man. The lawyer stoked the unease by letting Appleton’s reply settle in the minds of the jury before saying, ‘What was the outcome of that surveillance here in the United States?’
‘Nothing,’ Appleton was forced to admit.
‘I didn’t quite hear that,’ said Beckwith, settling into his performance.
‘They didn’t discover the man.’
‘They didn’t discover the identity of any man with whom your wife was having an affair,’ expanded Beckwith. ‘How long was your wife under surveillance here in America?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Appleton tried to avoid.
‘Of course you’re sure!’ insisted Beckwith. ‘You employed them: paid them money for the period during which they tried but failed to find anyone with whom your wife was sleeping. How long was your wife watched here in America before she went on vacation to France?’
‘A month.’
‘Your enquiry agents will be called, to give evidence,’ warned Beckwith. ‘Do you want to think again how long a period it was?’
‘Maybe six weeks. It ran on, over into the time they spent in France. It may have been six weeks here.’
‘Are they experienced enquiry agents?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yet over a period of six weeks, they failed to discover the lover with whom you were sure your wife was sleeping?’
‘Am sure!’
Beckwith let Appleton’s blurted, angry answer hang in the air for several moments before asking, ‘Your investigators failed to find any evidence of a lover here. What other evidence – other source – do you have to make that assertion?’
‘The infection I caught.’
‘That’s your proof?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much did six weeks unsuccessful surveillance here in America cost you, Mr Appleton?’
‘It wasn’t broken down in the bills I have so far paid.’
‘All right. Then tell the court the amount you have so far paid.’
‘Two hundred and twenty thousand dollars.’
There was a stir among the jury and Beckwith waited for it to subside. ‘A huge sum of money, the majority of which I assume to have been incurred on air fares and expenses in sending your investigators to France?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where they discovered the affair between my client and your wife?’
‘Yes.’ Appleton smiled.
‘Were you relieved?’
Appleton moved to speak but stopped. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘A reputable investigation agency had failed after six weeks of twenty-four-hour surveillance to find that your wife had a lover in this country. In France they found my client. Your suspicions were vindicated, weren’t they?’
‘It proved she was promiscuous.’
‘Did it?’
‘Of course it did.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t be … it did. What else could it prove?’ Appleton was almost shouting when he finished.
Today was unfolding just like yesterday, thought Jordan. And without the slightest input from him. He saw Alyce was leaning forward in her seat, head slightly to one side, her entire concentration upon her husband. Leanne Jefferies’ attention was also focussed intently at the overpowering commodity trader.
Instead of responding to Appleton’s demand Beckwith said to Pullinger, ‘With your permission, your honour, I would like to introduce into the court the birth certificate of Harvey William Jordan, the copy of the passport of Harvey William Jordan and a venerealogist’s report upon Harvey William Jordan prepared by an American specialist, Dr George Abrahams.’
To Pullinger’s nodded agreement, the court usher collected the itemized material for distribution; as Reid had done the previous day, Beckwith personally handed the individual packages along the attorney tables.
‘The first document before you, numbered one, attests the birth of Harvey William Jordan in Paddington, London, England, on June tenth, 1966, does it not?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Appleton.
‘Will you turn to the final page of the copy of the United Kingdom passport, numbered two on its attached sticker, and read aloud to the court the surname on the first line of the man photographed in it?’
‘Jordan.’
‘And the given names on the next line?’
‘I am being lenient here, Mr Beckwith,’ cautioned the judge, making his first interruption.
‘Which I appreciate while asking your honour to accept the importance of this pedantry to my client,’ said Beckwith.
‘Keep it within bounds,’ ordered the black-robed man.
‘The given names, Mr Appleton?’ prompted Beckwith.
‘Harvey William,’ dully responded Appleton.
‘Go now, if you will, to the front of the document, in which are recorded the visas and entry dates into countries outside the European Union,’ guided the lawyer. ‘What is the last entry stamp that you can find for an entry into the United States of Harvey William Jordan, a copy of whose passport you now hold?’
‘January thirteenth, 2004.’
‘Endorsed for what period of time?’
‘Ninety days.’
‘From which it is beyond question that Harvey William Jordan could not have remained in the United States of America beyond April thirteen, 2004?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Will you now go to the diagnostic page of the medical report prepared by Dr George Abrahams, numbered three, that you hold. Does that conclusion read that Harvey William Jordan does not, nor ever has, in the opinion of Dr George Abrahams, suffered from the sexually transmitted infection chlamydia?’
‘Yes,’ sighed Appleton.
‘You spent the majority of $220,000 having your wife followed more than three thousand miles to the South of France to find her with the lover your detective team had failed to identify after six full weeks of surveillance here in this country, didn’t you?’
‘It proved she was promiscuous.’
‘It proved she engaged in one, brief and immediately terminated affair after contracting a venereal infection from you, who admits to at least two extra-marital relationships, doesn’t it?’
‘I did not infect my wife.’
‘Neither could Harvey William Jordan, could he, from the irrefutable evidence you hold there in your hand?’
‘She did not contract it from me!’ In his shouted anger Appleton leaned forward over the rail he had the previous day needed for support.
‘Who did she catch it from?’
‘Her other lovers,’ insisted Appleton, wildly.
‘Other lovers your detectives failed to discover.’
‘She’s very clever: knew I was having her watc
hed.’
‘How did she know?’
‘Because I told her!’
Jordan was aware of David Bartle shifting noisily at his table to attract Appleton’s attention, the only way possible to warn the man of his loss of control. Jordan saw, too, that for the first time since she had been in court that Alyce was smiling.
‘When, how, did you tell her?
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You don’t remember when you told a wife with whom you wanted a reconciliation that you were having her watched!’ spelled out Beckwith, spacing every word to stress his incredulity.
‘We were arguing.’
‘Over what?’ seized Beckwith.
Appleton shifted, too late realizing the trap snapping closed behind him. ‘When she accused me of infecting her.’
‘Which you did, didn’t you?’
‘No!’ denied Appleton, loudly again. ‘She infected me!’
‘Go on.’
Appleton shrugged. ‘That was it.’
‘No it wasn’t it, was it, Mr Appleton? You were arguing about who had infected whom and you told her you were having her watched. Tell the jury of that occasion.’
‘She said I’d given her a complaint and wanted a divorce and I said I’d got it from her and that I was going to find out who her lover was and that I was going to have her watched. And she said she was having me watched.’
Jordan saw Alyce suddenly come close to Reid as Beckwith said, ‘Was going to have her watched? Not that you already had her under surveillance?’
‘I don’t remember the precise words.’
‘What was the date of that confrontation?’
‘I don’t remember that, either.’
Beckwith paused as Reid passed him a note, smiling up from it. ‘Can I help you with the date? It was April fifth last year, wasn’t it?’
‘It might have been.’
‘You really can do better than this, giving testimony on oath, can’t you, Mr Appleton?’ persisted Beckwith, sorting through papers and material in front of him. He came up, a diary in hand. ‘April fifth was a Saturday. You would have been home in Long Island on a Saturday – a weekend – trying for your much sought reconciliation with your wife, wouldn’t you?’
‘It could have been April. I don’t know the actual date.’
‘You can’t remember the date when you still wanted a reconciliation with your wife?’
‘No.’
‘How many days are there in the month of March?’
Appleton looked anxiously to his lawyer, who shook his head. Appleton said, ‘Thirty-one.’
‘And April?’
‘Thirty.’
‘Yesterday you admitted to the court that during March – the precise date you couldn’t remember it starting – you were in a sexual relationship with Sharon Borowski?’
Appleton nodded.
‘The court requires an audible reply,’ said Beckwith.
‘Yes,’
‘For six weeks?’
‘Yes.’
‘So at the same time as desperately trying for a reconciliation with your wife, you were committing adultery with the party girl, Sharon Borowski?’
‘I’d ended the relationship with Sharon Borowski when we agreed to a reconciliation.’
‘Yesterday you told his honour and the jury that your affair with Sharon Borowski extended over six weeks.’
‘That was a mistake. I meant we slept together maybe six times, all during March.’
Beckwith didn’t hurry shuffling again through his papers, all the time keeping the note that had been passed to him by Reid very obviously in his hand. Beckwith finally stopped at something among the documents. ‘Sharon Borowski was the first of the two women with whom you admit adultery. The second is Ms Leanne Jefferies, who is a defendant in the criminal conversation claims brought by your wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘I really do need your help in establishing a time frame, as I am sure the court does,’ said Beckwith, once more consulting the note that had been passed from the adjoining table. ‘Even giving you the benefit of your corrected recollection that your sexual relationship with Sharon Borowski began and ended in March, we’ve still got your confrontation with your wife on April fifth. At which you each accused the other of transmitting a sexual disease to the other. When, exactly, did you fit in your affair with Ms Jefferies?’
‘It’s wrong!’ shouted Appleton.
‘Something is very definitely wrong,’ commented the lawyer. ‘What, very exactly again, is wrong, Mr Appleton?’
‘All the dates. All the dates are wrong. It all didn’t happen in as short a period as you are suggesting.’
‘Suggestions to which you have agreed, under oath, Mr Appleton.’
‘I was confused. Am confused. Not thinking properly.’
‘Isn’t the confusion caused by you lying about the sequence of events and trapping yourself into a time frame that is too tight for you satisfactorily to fit in two separate affairs at the same time as supposedly trying a reconciliation with your wife?’ demanded Beckwith.
‘No!’
‘And isn’t the only way to make it work to tell the truth, that there was no sequence but that you were conducting your affair with Sharon Borowski and Leanne Jefferies not separately but simultaneously? And at the same time as you claim you were attempting a reconciliation which your wife rejected because she contracted chlamydia from you?’
‘No!’
‘And isn’t it also the truth that trying to suggest that my client, Harvey Jordan, gave your wife chlamydia is blatant nonsense, because at the time that you, she and Leanne Jefferies suffered the infection, Harvey Jordan – who is not a sufferer of the disease – had not even met your wife!’
‘It proves she is promiscuous.’
‘And isn’t it also blatant nonsense that Harvey Jordan caused the breakdown of your marriage, which by the time he met your wife had already irretrievably broken down?’
‘No!’
‘You were honest, when you admitted affairs with Sharon Borrows and Leanne Jefferies, weren’t you?’
Appleton didn’t reply, genuinely confused on this occasion.
‘The court requires an answer,’ insisted Beckwith.
‘Yes,’ Appleton finally said.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t understand what you’re asking me.’
‘Why did you tell the truth about those two affairs before you had been accused of them?’
‘Because … it’s the truth … I believed I had to.’
Beckwith glanced at the paper that had been handed to him and which he still held. ‘Isn’t it that having contracted chlamydia your wife told you at that confrontation on April fifth that she already had you under surveillance? That you knew you had been caught conducting your simultaneous affairs and decided to admit to them in the hope that those two admissions would be sufficient and you wouldn’t be accused of any others?’
‘No!’
‘So, before being challenged, you told the truth.’
‘Yes.’
‘The truth with which you are having so much difficulty now.’
‘Your honour!’ said Bartle, rising at the first available protest.
‘It is for the jury and myself to decide the truth or otherwise, Mr Beckwith,’ rebuked Pullinger.
‘Quite so, your honour. I withdraw the comment, with apologies,’ said Beckwith. ‘I believe I have taken my examination as far as I am able at this stage but I would refer to the submission that Mr Reid made yesterday. To my understanding there has still not been a response from the coroner who conducted the enquiry into Ms Borowski’s death. I would, therefore, officially request your agreement to me resuming my examination of Mr Appleton in the light of whatever that response may be.’
‘In principle I agree, subject to the arguments upon admissibility that might be made by either Mr Bartle or Mr Wolfson upon the contents of the coroner’s reply.’
‘I w
ould also ask your honour’s agreement to my approaching the bench upon the subject that occupied this court before the swearing in of the jury.’
‘No!’ refused the judge. ‘I will, instead, see all four attorneys in my chambers.’
The court stenographer, together with her machine, was positioned directly alongside the judge, still in his robes, and again Pullinger kept them standing, extending the schoolboys-to-headmaster analogy by not speaking for several moments. When he eventually did he said, ‘My court – this court – is being reduced to a vaudeville parody against which I have already warned. I will neither tolerate nor allow this to continue unchallenged. What I will permit is this one final – and I mean final application from Mr Beckwith. I will also consider any belated applications from the rest of you here before me. Which – and make no mistake of my seriousness and determination – will be the end of the nonsense to which I suspect myself and my court to have been subjected. All four of you know my disquiet at what emerged during the closed hearing. Already in my mind is the possibility of me reporting each of the four of you to your respective bar authorities, which is why a verbatim record of this meeting – and this warning – is being made. Do any of the four of you have the slightest misunderstanding or doubt about what I am saying?’
Led by Beckwith, each lawyer recited, ‘No, your honour.’
‘Mr Beckwith?’ invited the cadaverous man.
‘I believe it is incumbent upon me to recall Dr Abrahams, to provide in open court his expert testimony in the defence of my client. It was therefore equally incumbent upon me to advise the court to give Mr Bartle and Mr Wolfson the opportunity to recall their expert witnesses who gave evidence before you in closed court, your honour.’
‘This is preposterous after what happened earlier, your honour,’ protested Bartle, at once and without being invited to speak.
‘What happened earlier was equally preposterous,’ responded Pullinger. ‘Are you objecting to the application?’
‘I am, most determinedly,’ said Bartle.
‘Mr Wolfson?’
‘No, your honour. I am not objecting, anxious as I am for my client’s case to be opened before you.’
‘Mr Reid?’
‘Not to the recall of Dr Abrahams, your honour. But I also seek to call on behalf of my client both Dr Walter Harding, the administrator of the Bellamy clinic, and her gynaecologist, neither of whom are on my original witnesses’ list.’
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