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
It 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 r
eturn for several weeks. She would have no comment to make upon that return.
Jordan had made four unsuccessful attempts to contact Alyce from England, in between working to restore the far too long neglected routine in his life, although stopping short of actively selecting a new persona to adopt. There remained, of course, the already researched operation as Paul Maculloch, in whose name the Hans Crescent apartment was leased and whose every personal detail he knew. Also existing, in the Maculloch name, were the Royston and Jones bank accounts and the unbreakable rule against carrying over from one job to another an already established facility. Jordan accepted that he was stretching the protective rule to its breaking point but that’s what restraining rules were: protective. And for this reason they had to be strictly observed.
That decision made long before the eventual Tuesday revelation about Appleton, Jordan moved both to guard his existing savings as well as severing all links to the little used Maculloch identity, even though in doing so he breached another forbidden barrier.
Within two days of his return from America he loaded half the money in the Royston and Jones deposit boxes into a crammed suitcase, far more than he had ever moved before, and went directly from Leadenhall Street to the Jersey ferry port to put it beyond any discovery or court power in the bank secrecy haven of St Helier. Two weeks later – far more quickly than any previous asset transfer – Jordan risked the repeated trip and crossed the English Channel again with the remainder of the London money. Jordan closed the Leadenhall Street facilities and the Hans Crescent flat rental the same day and spent the majority of his evenings in casinos in which, over the course of the four weeks he lost close to £20,000 of his total £70,000 stake which, although he refused to admit to any gambler’s superstition, not regarding himself as one, he regarded as a bad omen, although he still collected the necessary winning receipt certificates on the £50,000 that remained.
Dinner with Lesley Corbin on his first week back was a highlight, largely because he had so much background to recount of the Raleigh hearings – during which she pointedly reminded him there’d been a loose, unfulfilled arrangement for her to attend as a legal observer, adding that she’d already heard from Beckwith how much he’d contributed – but he’d declined her invitation to a nightcap when he delivered her home to her Pimlico flat. He paid Lesley’s bill, in cash, by return the following week and she telephoned to thank him and Jordan responded as he knew he was expected, with another dinner invitation. Afterwards he took her to a Mayfair casino and overrode her protests to stake her with five hundred pounds. She doubled it and he lost £2,300. He declined the nightcap invitation that night too. She promised to call if there was any contact from Beckwith about an appeal by Appleton and Jordan said there was a message service with which he kept in contact if he wasn’t at the Marylebone flat, lying that there was a possibility of his soon going on a gambling sweep through Europe. He did actually go to Paris for the Arc de Triomphe race meeting, briefly sorry that he didn’t invite her but regretting more losing £5,000.
It was the publicity of the Appleton investigation that brought Jordan out of denial to confront the fact that he’d done virtually nothing whatsoever constructive to re-establish anything like a proper working regime but that, to the contrary, he was positively avoiding doing so.
Jordan used the excuse of that publicity to telephone Daniel Beckwith, who responded at once with the demand, ‘Would you fucking believe it?’
‘Never in a million years,’ said Jordan, wondering the colour of the other man’s cowboy shirt that day. ‘You heard anything about an appeal?’
‘With the shit he’s now covered in! Forget it!’
‘You think he really did it?’ asked Jordan, to justify the conversation.
‘The story is they’re running book on Wall Street. You should get back over here, win yourself some easy money.’
With what he knew he could probably do just that if what Beckwith said was true, reflected Jordan. ‘You heard how Alyce is reacting? Spoken to Bob maybe?’
‘Don’t expect to,’ dismissed Beckwith. ‘I’d imagine she’s turning cartwheels and setting off fire crackers in celebration. I’ll keep in touch, if there’s anything.’
Jordan mulled over the idea for almost an hour before calling Reid in Raleigh.
As Beckwith had done, the North Carolina lawyer took the call at once, although more controlled. ‘There’s a guy with a whole bunch of trouble,’ the lawyer agreed. ‘The late night talk shows are competing for the best jokes.’
‘I’ve tried calling Alyce, to see if she’s OK,’ said Jordan, honestly. ‘I read in one of the papers that she’s abroad and won’t be back for some time?’
‘A smokescreen,’ dismissed Reid. ‘She’s mostly down here on the estate just outside the city. Best place to be if she wants to hide, which she does. And she can fly in and out when she wants from the airstrip they’ve got there.’
‘You speak to her a lot?’
‘Not a lot. No reason to, now it’s all over.’
‘If you do, will you do me a favour? Tell her I’ve tried to call, to see if she’s OK. That I’d like to hear from her.’
There was a pause from the other end of the line. ‘I’ll pass it on, if we speak again.’
Jordan’s phone rang two days later.
‘I’ve tried to call,’ said Jordan.
‘Bob told me.’
‘And before I came back.’ He thought her voice was flat, as if she were depressed.
‘Stephen told me that, too.’
‘How are you?
‘Pissed off with all the media hanging around again, since Alfred’s arrest.’
‘I guess he’s in deep trouble.’
‘I guess,’ she agreed, disinterestedly.
‘I’m thinking of coming across.’
‘What for?’
‘Just a trip,’ Jordan pressed on. ‘I thought maybe we could meet up?’
‘I told you, I’m under siege again down here.’
‘Bob said you could get in and out by air when you wanted to. We could get together in New York, if they haven’t found your apartment there.’
Alyce didn’t respond.
‘Alyce?’
I am going up for a foundation meeting next week. It’ll be the first time since my re-establishment on the board.’
‘It was next week I was thinking of coming over,’ improvised Jordan. ‘When will you be there?’
‘Tuesday onwards.’
‘I’ll be at the Carlyle again. I’ll call you from there.’
‘Wednesday,’ said Alyce. ‘Make it Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday,’ agreed Jordan.
Remembering his jetlag Jordan caught a weekend flight. The Sunday edition of the New York Times reported in a front page story that the FBI had encountered some ‘unusual features’ in the Appleton investigation.
Jordan didn’t once leave his Carlyle suite on the Sunday -eating from room service – and only walked as far as Central Park the following day. It was in the park that he read that day’s New York Times and Wall Street Journal, both of which reported, without much more detail, that the Justice Department were possibly convening a Grand Jury to investigate the Appleton affair.
He reached only Alyce’s answering service on his two Tuesday calls, asking her on both occasions where she wanted to eat, to enable him to make the reservation, but it wasn’t until the Wednesday morning that she finally answered, personally, suggesting lunch, not dinner, and at the hotel.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jordan finally asked. She was as flat voiced as she had been when she’d called him in London the previous week and since then he’d thought about little else but her obvious lassitude.
‘You really do sometimes have the strangest aptitude for asking the most stupid questions!’
‘As you sometimes have the strangest aptitude for responding with the most confusing answers.’
‘You want to call it off?’
‘No!’ said J
ordan, urgently. ‘The last thing I want to do is call anything off. I want to see you. Talk to you.’
‘At lunch,’ Alyce insisted.
‘I’ll make the reservation; we can have a drink first. I’ll be waiting in the lobby again.’
Which he was, a table booked in the bar as well as the restaurant, the half bottle of champagne already in its cooler. Alyce came into the hotel with the same commanding confidence as before, attracting the same attention as before, although Jordan judged it to be because of how she was dressed – a long coated white trouser suit with a floppy-brimmed matching white hat – and so perfectly made up, the too bright red lipstick replaced by paler pink, the colour to her face more natural than applied. She accepted the champagne and extended the flute for the glass-touching toast and said, ‘I almost didn’t come again but now I have I’m glad and it’s good to see you.’
‘And I’m even more confused than ever,’ said Jordan.
‘Which I guess I am, too. And don’t want to be, not any longer.’
‘Then I’m glad I made the trip here because I don’t want any more confusion or misunderstandings,’ said Jordan. ‘From this moment on I want both of us to understand everything, know everything about the other, although I’m not sure it’s going to come out as straight as I want it to.’
‘You sure about that, my darling?’
Jordan smiled at the word, the relief surging through him. ‘I think so … I think I know so.’
‘And I think I should speak first, before—’ started Alyce.
‘No!’ refused Jordan. ‘You spoke ahead of me when we said goodbye in France and I stupidly agreed because I didn’t understand … didn’t know … and I’m not going to let it happen again. Nothing’s going to be easy, because of what and who you are and because of what I am, although what I am – really am – isn’t going to be any barrier because I’m all set for another career change that’s going to get that out of the way. I love you, which is something I never thought I’d ever tell anyone again. I want us to be together. Married together, although God knows how that’s going to happen but I’ll make it happen. I guess you’ll want to continue living here – working here -which is fine. And I don’t want you to imagine I want to live off you and your money and your position. I’ve got a lot of money … enough money … and we can give all yours to yet another charity. And—’
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