Lovers and Liars Trilogy (135 page)

“It might be fun…” Markov gave another of his sad, flickering smiles. “With that kind, it might be a whole lot of fun for a while.”

“Excitement, sure. Also heartbreak. I don’t want to know, Markov. I’ve been down that road once or twice.”

“Me too.”

“And he’d take me too far. Those would be his terms. Either that, or I’d get dropped off at the first turn. I’m nearly thirty-nine, Markov. Approaching forty! I don’t
want
that now. I want—” She broke off, then smiled. “Peace. Security. Tranquillity.
Harmony,
if you like…”

“And McGuire wouldn’t provide those?”

“Not for me. No.”

“Come on, Lindy. You’re not convincing yourself. You’re not convincing me. I can see this little ray of hope way back there in the eyes.”

“The hell you can. With those damn glasses, I doubt you can see me at all. I’ll test you. Who came in about two minutes ago?”

“Quest did,” Markov replied, despite the fact that he had not turned his head once during the conversation. “And the magnificent one is now at her usual table, table five, right behind me in the corner. She’s just got her usual waiter to bring her usual carafe of vin ordinaire, and she’s just lit the first of the many Gauloises she will smoke throughout her meal. Excuse me,
Liebling.
I have work to do…”

Lindsay watched as Markov rose and crossed to the table Quest occupied, in the darkest corner of this dark bistro. Lindsay did not expect Quest to acknowledge her own presence, although they knew each other. She was correct. As Markov rose, Quest turned her beautiful blind stare in their direction, then looked away. As Markov, uninvited, sat down opposite her, and—being Markov—at once drank some of her wine, and lit one of her cigarettes for himself, Quest yawned. In her guttural voice, and in an affectionate tone, she said, “Markov, piss off.”

Markov looked delighted at this reception. He leaned closer and began to talk; Quest responded, inaudibly to Lindsay. Lindsay watched her with fascination. Her real name was Russian, and unpronounceable. She had been born in Smolensk, the daughter of a steelworker and a factory hand. She had come to the West four years before; she was over six feet tall, thin, and big-boned for a model. She was Garboesque in that her build was mannish, with wide shoulders, long legs, narrow hips, and large hands and feet. She had the most haunting face Lindsay had ever seen, with gaunt high cheekbones, strong vivid brows, and huge angry eyes of a brown so dark it caused lighting difficulties in the studio, for her eyes photographed too black, too deep. It was for this reason that despite her discovery by Lazare, and despite the use Cazarès made of her as their star runway model, magazines had been slow to use her.

It was Markov who had seen her possibilities. Quest obeyed none of the rules—which had interested Markov from the first. She was solitary, gruff, profoundly indifferent to money, fame, and—it was rumored—either sex. She was without the plasticity usual in most successful models; she never attempted to act or to adapt. She simply turned up, on time, allowed herself to be dressed, coiffed, made up with an air of sublime indifference, then she stood towering in front of the camera and glowered at the lens. She had one expression only, of distrustful and magnificent contempt. Markov adored her. He said, in his more extravagant moments, that she was half man, half woman, a female for the twenty-first century. “When she’s milked the decadent West of enough money,” he’d said with delight, “she’ll go back to Smolensk. She wants a
farm.
She wants to keep sheep and cows. Seriously. She’s astonishing. She knows exactly who she is, what she wants, and how to get it. I love her. I learn from her. I worship at her shrine.”

His regard was, Lindsay knew, returned. And his promise that Quest would talk to him but no one else seemed now to be confirmed. Lindsay could not hear what Quest was saying, but she was speaking rapidly, with emphasis.

Lindsay hoped she was coming up with some useful information, since the quest for Quest had used up an entire evening. She and Markov had begun by canceling the Grand Vefour—the headwaiter had not been amused. Then they had chased around Paris, visiting what Markov claimed were Quest’s favorite evening haunts. Lindsay had followed Markov up and down a particularly lonely stretch of the Seine; she had shivered in the medieval streets of the Île St. Louis, and shivered again in some tiny Russian Orthodox church, where Quest—according to Markov—came every evening to pray.

“What does she pray
for,
Markov?” Lindsay had asked.

“Don’t know.” Markov lit a candle—for Maria Cazarès, he claimed. “Spiritual enlightenment? Cows?”

“For heaven’s sake, Markov. I’m freezing. Can we go? I’m giving up on Quest. She’s not going to know anything anyway.”

“She will. You should get to know her better, Lindy. You’d like her. You could learn from her too.”

“Learn what?” Lindsay started moving off to the door.

“How to be alone. That’s valuable.”

Lindsay had not replied; she eased back the huge door of the church, and the wind gusted. Behind her, pyramids of candles guttered, the gold of icons burned. Lindsay could smell incense, that tang of religion; she was not a churchgoer, and she occasionally found Markov too Californian.

“Hurry up,” she said, making for the street and the city air. That church had been their penultimate port of call. Then they had come here, to this back-street restaurant, high on the hill of Montmartre, down an alleyway, with a slanting view up to the floodlit white dome of Sacré-Coeur.

The visitations, the delays, seemed to have been fruitful. Lindsay could feel the odd journey they had made, five hours plus of searching, working in her mind; she could feel Markov’s earlier comments too, bubbling away like yeast. He was returning to her table now, his face bright with discoveries evidently made.

“Let’s go,” he said, taking Lindsay’s arm. “You’re not going to believe this. I’ll drive you back to the hotel. We can talk in the car.”

In the car, the CD kicked in as soon as he started the engine. “My Foolish Heart” had been rejected, it seemed, in favor of an old Annie Lennox number, a great Annie Lennox number: Lindsay heard that love was a stranger in an open car. She leaned forward and switched off the sound.

“That isn’t a message I want to hear right now,” she said.

“Why not? Great song. Great singer. Great lyrics. The essential impetuosity of
l’amour.
I feel it
speaking
to me, Lindy…”

“So do I. That’s the problem. Anyway, I want you to talk. Come on—what did she say?”

“She said… some very interesting things.” Markov, who drove fast and well, and who could provide information fast and well when he chose to do so, accelerated.

“I tell you this, Lindy, despite the fact that Quest swore me to secrecy, because you’re one of the four people I like in the world. And because I know you’ll be careful whom you tell. If you have to, tell McGuire. But don’t blab it around.” He paused. “First: the Cazarès collection
isn’t
canceled. It goes ahead, the day after tomorrow, Wednesday, eleven
A.M.
, precisely as planned. Tomorrow morning Lazare is giving a press conference—and all the passes to that are being sent out now. The line will be that Wednesday’s show is
un hommage.
What Maria Cazarès herself would have wanted. Moving, isn’t it?”

“Actually, it is. And?”

“And now—get this—guess where Quest has been all night? At the Cazarès workshops. Getting fitted for three very special ensembles, three
new
ensembles…”

“What? Tonight? It’s less than two days to the show. That can’t be right, Markov. All the clothes for the collection will have been finished a week ago. Lazare always insists on that. The most they’d be doing is small last-minute adaptations—trimmings, accessories…”

“Sure. But I told you—these outfits are
special.
They’re Maria Cazarès’s last work. Her final designs. As drawn by her own pen, this last weekend. Lazare’s idea. He was there, in the workshops, Lindy,
tonight,
putting the fear of God into everybody. Quest was sent for within one hour of Cazarès’s being pronounced dead.”

“What? I can’t believe that.”

“There’s more. Think, Lindy—what time did I first hear? Around eight. And when you checked back with Pixie, what time did she say it came through on the wires?”

“About seven forty-five.”

“Exactly. So work out just how long Lazare took to release the news. Quest was summoned at
five
this afternoon. If it’s true that Cazarès had died an hour before, she died at around four. So what was happening for the next three and three-quarter hours?”

“I don’t know.” Lindsay gave a shiver. “They were getting the security in place, oiling up the press machine, making sure everyone put out the right story, the right way…”

“Sure. That’s certainly what the courtiers and minions were busy doing. But not Lazare. I’m telling you, Lindy, Cazarès is dead one hour, she’s not
cold
yet, and he’s there, in the workshops, raising hell. They’re cutting the material for the dresses
on
the model, the way Chanel used to work, because there’s no time to make
toiles.
Every tiny little detail has to be just so. Quest is standing there, getting pins stuck in her, getting slices taken off, because the cutters are so damn terrified they can’t hold the scissors steady, and there’s Lazare, in the middle of mayhem, people scurrying in all directions, and he won’t compromise, he’s going through fifteen, sixteen, seventeen samples of materials, he’s got them running down to warehouses, and bringing back bales, he’s got embroideresses, he’s saying no, those buttons won’t work, they’re one eighth of an inch too big—and all the time, Lindy,
all
the time, he’s in emperor mode. Like—no tears, no grief, no condolences given or accepted, just this white, set face and that voice that makes your blood run cold.”

“An
hour
after she died? I
cannot
believe this, Markov. He loved her. I’m sure he loved her.
You’re
sure he loved her. She was the one thing he cared about—”

“Oh, true.” Markov braked at a tight corner, then accelerated again. “If you’d seen them at the airport, Lindy—I told you. Like my hair is standing on end, I’ve got goose pimples the length of my spine, because any second Lazare’s going to spot me, and then I’m
history,
because this guy, I mean—he makes me think about crucifixes, Lindy. About stringing garlic around my neck and praying hard. I mean, all the time I’m standing there, quaking behind this palm, I’m thinking, oh, no, it’s after nightfall and before dawn…”

“Come on, Markov, stop exaggerating. Lazare looks fit, active, tanned.”

“Not Friday night, he didn’t. White, Lindy—his face was
white.
He had a desperate kind of
thirsty
look. Definitely but definitely one of the children of the damned. And then, when she started in on children, babies…”

“You’re
sure
she said that, Markov? You couldn’t have misheard?”

“I speak French, Lindy. I know the French for
baby.
And
child.
And
son.
And she kept repeating it, over and over—I want my baby back, I want my son—and he was desperate to shut her up, calm her down…” Markov hesitated. His voice became quiet. “He
kissed
her, Lindy.”

“You didn’t mention that before.”

“I know. It felt a bit blasphemous—discussing it. I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have seen it. I felt excited—and then I felt cheap for getting excited.”

“It didn’t stop you phoning me, I notice.”

“I know. Sainthood eludes me. But if you’d seen the
way
he kissed her.” Markov hesitated again. “It was to stop her talking, partly. But not just that. You could see—he wanted her, and he loved her. He looked like he’d
die
for her, or he thought
she
was dying, maybe, I’m not sure.”

“Markov, you can’t know that…” Lindsay began as they rounded a corner and the lights of the St. Vincent came in sight. “You’re reading too much into it.”

“No. I’m not.” Markov stopped the car. He turned to her and removed his dark glasses. Lindsay was allowed to read the expression in his eyes.

Ashamed, knowing she had been misled by his tone, Lindsay took his hand. Markov gave a wry smile.

“I just knew, okay?” he said. “I recognized that country. I speak its language. I was there myself, just over two years ago. It’s not a language you forget.”

“No. You don’t,” replied Lindsay, who had circumnavigated similar territory herself. She leaned across and kissed Markov good night.

“Watch out for McGuire. Watch what you say to him,” he called as she stepped out of his car. “I’ll see you at Chanel tomorrow afternoon.”

In the still-crowded lobby, Lindsay hesitated. She wanted to tell Rowland this, and she wanted to see Rowland very much, but it was now nearly two in the morning. She stared at the telephone booths, and in the end dialed his extension; he picked up on the second ring.

“No, no, come up,” he said, interrupting her apology. “I’m working. Gini’s here with me, working. She just got in from Amsterdam. Room 810.”

Lindsay was surprised to hear this, but not that surprised. Presumably Gini had
not
been unavailable, as Max had thought: Rowland must have tracked her down; and Gini, of course, was more than capable of working through the night on a story once she had locked into it. For Gini, when at work, two
A.M.
was
early,
she thought, and smiled as she entered Room 810, to find Rowland at the fax machine and Gini talking fast on the telephone in French.

Both of them seemed energetic, hyped up, Lindsay thought. Rowland began explaining that there had been a provisional sighting of Mina Landis earlier that day. News of this had taken time to be relayed back, via the British police, and the
Correspondent
news desk: Gini was just trying to check the details now.

He led Lindsay to a sofa at the far end of the room; Lindsay sat down, but he did not. Lindsay began explaining what Markov had told her, and Rowland listened with close attention. Once or twice he looked back at Gini, then interjected a question. Lindsay continued her story, and it was only as she reached its end that she sensed something wrong.