himself and Alyce in France, Jordan didnât detect any brief signals between people entering or leaving the restaurant during what might be a change of possible observation shifts. He had the bell captain order a taxi that was waiting for him at the kerbside when he left, altering the given destination of Euston as the taxi was travelling north up Regent Street, and reached the newly rented service apartment in Hans Crescent just before 4 p.m.
Waiting there for him were all the credit and store cards â one from Harrods, which he could see from the apartment window â credit reference file replies and pin and ATM withdrawal numbers, everything heâd applied for in the name of plastic surgeon Paul Maculloch. Jordan put it all in his combination-locked briefcase, pausing at the moment of leaving to look around the flat he was never going to use, thinking how comfortable his brief stay there might have been.
John Blake hurried from behind his reception desk the moment Jordan entered the Marylebone apartment block. âNo oneâs enquired after you all day,â the man reported at once. âThere havenât been any telephone calls, either.â
âIâm hoping to hear something soon,â said Jordan, caught by how honest he was continuing to be.
All the intrusion traps inside the apartment were undisturbed. Jordan was on the verge of shredding everything in Paul Macullochâs name when a sudden need to keep the rental overtook him, a warming and satisfying confirmation that he had definitely recovered from the understandable shock of the recent news. It still took the increasingly confident Jordan an hour to minutely shred most of what heâd accumulated to pass himself off as Paul Maculloch and which now had a very important although quite different purpose. At the end of that hour he was left with a copy of the manâs birth certificate, parental marriage certificates, passport, proof of rental occupancy of the Hans Crescent apartment and a single Al credit reference file. With difficulty he managed to get it all into the already over-crammed bedroom concealed safe in the closet, containing, in varying denominations, the £154,000 profit from his countrywide tour as Peter Wightman.
There would be substantial inroads into that, Jordan accepted, his mind now fully concentrated upon the financial cost with which he was confronted. The short let and now very necessary rental of Hans Crescent would amount to £21,000, which objectively he didnât begrudge as a complete loss. The further £200 heâd spent getting all the Maculloch credit information wasnât totally wasted, either. The big uncertainty â although objectively again perhaps not the biggest â was how much all the legal advice was going to cost him. This was why he had to bury the tax-free profit from fifteen years of identity stealing as deeply and as untraceably as possible.
Harvey Jordan had left Lesley Corbin with the understanding that she would find an American attorney fully licensed and qualified to protect â and if necessary represent â him at every degree and level of every linked North Carolina claim. And as he insisted on the best he would have to wait for her to come back to him after a careful selection. Jordan hadnât waited upon the convenience of others for more years than he could remember and had already decided not to allow Lesley Corbin more than one more full day before calling her back, irrespective of any agreement. But, now he needed the time, maybe even more than one day, to keep things in the satisfactorily protective sequence he had to establish.
While he was still at school Jordan had mentally tested himself â and invariably won â against chip-speeded computers to work out complicated arithmetical percentages and currency fluctuations and aggregates, and from his early programming career, concentrating on internet gambling games, he knew to
Waiting there for him were all the credit and store cards â one from Harrods, which he could see from the apartment window â credit reference file replies and pin and ATM withdrawal numbers, everything heâd applied for in the name of plastic surgeon Paul Maculloch. Jordan put it all in his combination-locked briefcase, pausing at the moment of leaving to look around the flat he was never going to use, thinking how comfortable his brief stay there might have been.
John Blake hurried from behind his reception desk the moment Jordan entered the Marylebone apartment block. âNo oneâs enquired after you all day,â the man reported at once. âThere havenât been any telephone calls, either.â
âIâm hoping to hear something soon,â said Jordan, caught by how honest he was continuing to be.
All the intrusion traps inside the apartment were undisturbed. Jordan was on the verge of shredding everything in Paul Macullochâs name when a sudden need to keep the rental overtook him, a warming and satisfying confirmation that he had definitely recovered from the understandable shock of the recent news. It still took the increasingly confident Jordan an hour to minutely shred most of what heâd accumulated to pass himself off as Paul Maculloch and which now had a very important although quite different purpose. At the end of that hour he was left with a copy of the manâs birth certificate, parental marriage certificates, passport, proof of rental occupancy of the Hans Crescent apartment and a single Al credit reference file. With difficulty he managed to get it all into the already over-crammed bedroom concealed safe in the closet, containing, in varying denominations, the £154,000 profit from his countrywide tour as Peter Wightman.
There would be substantial inroads into that, Jordan accepted, his mind now fully concentrated upon the financial cost with which he was confronted. The short let and now very necessary rental of Hans Crescent would amount to £21,000, which objectively he didnât begrudge as a complete loss. The further £200 heâd spent getting all the Maculloch credit information wasnât totally wasted, either. The big uncertainty â although objectively again perhaps not the biggest â was how much all the legal advice was going to cost him. This was why he had to bury the tax-free profit from fifteen years of identity stealing as deeply and as untraceably as possible.
Harvey Jordan had left Lesley Corbin with the understanding that she would find an American attorney fully licensed and qualified to protect â and if necessary represent â him at every degree and level of every linked North Carolina claim. And as he insisted on the best he would have to wait for her to come back to him after a careful selection. Jordan hadnât waited upon the convenience of others for more years than he could remember and had already decided not to allow Lesley Corbin more than one more full day before calling her back, irrespective of any agreement. But, now he needed the time, maybe even more than one day, to keep things in the satisfactorily protective sequence he had to establish.
While he was still at school Jordan had mentally tested himself â and invariably won â against chip-speeded computers to work out complicated arithmetical percentages and currency fluctuations and aggregates, and from his early programming career, concentrating on internet gambling games, he knew to
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