Lovers and Liars Trilogy (155 page)

Cautiously, Pascal moved around the table so the distance between them was slightly reduced. Star did not react. He had begun to touch Gini again. In a clumsy and ill-coordinated way, he began to squeeze her breast.

Gini flinched. “Star—let me just check the tape…”

She kept her eyes fixed on Pascal’s face. She could see his reaction to this mauling from Star; his expression was murderous. She tried to signal him with her eyes—don’t move, don’t protest. “Star—the first tape’s about to run out. It’s okay—I have plenty more. Let me insert a new one…”

“No. We don’t need it. It’s over. That’s it…”

“No, Star—it can’t be. I—there’s so many things I want to ask you. People will want to know how Maria reacted when you told her who you were—because you must have told her, Star, surely?”

“Yeah. I told her.”

“They’ll want to know what she said. And then they’ll want to know what happened next…” She kept her eyes on Pascal and frowned. “They’ll want to know why you decided to kill Jean Lazare—and what happened when you did…”

Pascal did not move a muscle. He could see she was trying to give him information and buy time as well. Was the blood still daubed on Star’s face and hands Lazare’s?

“People will want to know the facts, Star,” she went on. “Pascal’s a good judge—you think they’d be interested, don’t you, Pascal?”

“Sure.” Pascal kept his voice even. “It’s the details that make the difference.”

“Why I killed him?” Star laughed. “How I killed him? How I would have fucking killed her if I’d had half a chance? Sure, I’ll explain that…”

He flourished the gun, then jabbed it back in Gini’s neck. His reaction delay was now lengthening, Pascal thought. It had taken him nearly fifteen seconds to answer Gini’s question, yet he was clearly unaware of the time lapse, of Pascal’s own interjection. His mind was
shorting,
Pascal thought.

He was now allowing Gini to bend to the recorder and change the tapes. Pascal watched for an opportunity. None came. About twenty seconds after Gini pressed record, he pulled her back in front of him and began speaking again.

“You know what? He
pleaded
with me…” His voice rose.

“The great Jean Lazare. The emperor himself, down on his fucking knees, begging, offering me anything I wanted, if only I wouldn’t shoot. I liked that. Let me tell you—I
enjoyed
that. My fucking father, crawling on his knees to me. I’ve waited so long for that.”

It had been, Pascal saw, the wrong approach, an unwise, perhaps even fatal choice of topic. Star was excited again. There seemed to be a direct line in his head between the humiliation he was describing and sex.

He stopped speaking, pulled Gini roughly back against him, and began to ran his hands up and down her body. He rubbed himself against her back, his gaze never once leaving Pascal as he did this. He smiled, and his eyes took on a fixed, glittering look.

“Don’t try it, Pascal. The safety catch is off. The gun’s
cocked.
You know anything about guns? This is a fifteen-round magazine. Nasty bullets. You can really get off on these bullets. You can really spray them around… She’d be dead, and you’d be dead, before you’d moved two fucking feet…” His voice rose. “You don’t like that, Pascal? It upsets you, huh? Makes you feel a bit inadequate, a bit
impotent,
maybe? Well, too bad. I had
years
of that. Years of being pissed on and dismissed and ordered around and locked up. Years crawling to those cocksuckers, in the homes, at night, jerking those fucking bastards off—you know how fucking old I was? Five years old the first time, up the ass, in my mouth, I had ten, twelve fucking
years
of that, treated like I was shit, like I was some fucking nobody—”

Pascal froze. Gini gave a low moan and clamped her hand across her mouth. Pascal started to move; he knew Star was about to start shooting; he watched his face contort. The telephone rang. Star was jamming the gun at Gini’s mouth—then suddenly, five rings in, he seemed to hear the phone and stopped. A shudder ran through his body; he drew back; his face became blank and tight, then he seemed to relax. He jabbed the gun in Gini’s ribs.

“Get back over there. With him. The far side of the table, where I can see you both. Neither of you move. I have to take this call…” He shivered, then laughed. “I have to talk to my shrink.”

He watched Gini stumble across the room. He waited until they had both reached the far side of the table, twenty feet back. Keeping his eyes and the gun trained on them both, he picked up the receiver and cradled it on his shoulder. He listened, smiling. Pascal could just hear the voice of the man addressing him, a quiet, even voice.

Pascal drew Gini tightly into his arms. Whoever the man on the telephone was, he prayed to God he was good, and he prayed he would realize that they had to be quick.

He locked his arms around Gini. He kissed her tears, kissed her upturned face, tried to still the tremors of fear in her body. When Star began speaking so the sound of his own voice was drowned, he pressed his mouth against her ear and her hair and began to whisper, so she could only just hear him. He felt her body go rigid in his arms. He knew, and she knew, he thought, that this might be their last conversation. So little time, and so much to be said.

“Gini. We haven’t got very long…”

“I know. I thought he was going to fire then.”

“He was. He’s right on the edge. But he wants those photographs—and there’s something I could try…” He waited until Star began speaking again, then continued whispering. Gini listened, her eyes fixed on his. She could feel his lips against her skin and her hair. His suggestion terrified her.

“No.” She pressed her lips to his face. “No, Pascal—please, he’ll kill you. He wants to kill you first. We should wait—keep him talking.”

“We have to try. You can see how unstable he is. The police will try to tire him, wind him down. We don’t have time for that…”

He stopped as Star laughed, listened, then began speaking again. Pascal looked down at Gini’s blanched face. How long did they have? Ten minutes, fifteen?

“Pascal.” Her hand closed over his. “Why didn’t you run? Out in the street, with Marianne. You had time—you could have gotten away—oh, Christ…”

She stopped. She already knew the answer in any case, and had she doubted it, she could read it in the tenderness that flooded his face.

“The question didn’t arise,” he said simply; she heard his voice catch. “Gini—nothing is altered. I love you so much. You know that.” As he said this, he bent and kissed her mouth, turning her away so she was shielded from Star’s view. Her mouth opened under his, and her eyes closed. He could feel the love and the desperation to communicate love in her embrace.

He kissed her deeply, thinking it might be the last time he would ever do this. He listened to the language of her response. He looked down and could read the alteration, the new resolve in her face.

Star’s voice rose; he laughed again. Pascal drew back a little; he said, against her throat, his words only just audible to her: “The pink bedroom, Gini. In there. I want him in the room that upsets him the most. The room with the least light.”

In the communications van, Rowland adjusted his headphones. The police psychologist, who had introduced himself to Star by his first name only, Lucien, had been talking to him now for almost five minutes. Rowland could see exactly what the man was doing—trying to calm and extract information at the same time, trying to delay, trying, more specifically, to establish a relationship of dependency and trust. It was Rowland’s impression—and the psychologist’s, he suspected—that Star knew precisely why he was doing this.

Star was being too cooperative, Rowland thought—but his cooperative replies—they had both switched from French to English—were being made in an increasingly insolent, mocking tone of voice.

“Food?” Star said now, and laughed. “Oh, hey—yes. I mean food would be really good. There’s a larder here, and a fridge, and they’re both stuffed with food, so I guess, if I wanted, I could stay on here for days—even weeks. I mean, I wouldn’t
starve,
right? And neither would Gini or Pascal. We’d
share.
But when you say food, I guess you have something pretty special in mind, yes? You know what I really like? Langoustines. There’s a restaurant in St. Germain,
L’Age d’Or,
it’s called—it does langoustines this really special way. Now, if you got some of those sent in… Not immediately. Maybe in an hour. If you called me back in an hour. No—half an hour. No—twenty minutes. No, let’s take a rain check on it, okay?”

The psychologist glanced at Martigny and frowned.

“Of course. That can be arranged,” he said, still in the same calm voice.

“And the car,” Star laughed. “Don’t forget the car. I’ll be needing that. I want Jean Lazare’s 1938 Rolls to take me out to the airport. But I don’t want it yet. I’m enjoying myself too much. Then—let me just run down the list again…”

He began to enumerate the list of absurd demands already made; the psychologist switched his microphone to mute. He glanced at Martigny, then at Rowland, then shook his head.

Martigny turned and spoke to the GIGN officer next to him; Star’s voice continued. When there was silence in the van once more, the psychologist switched off the mute button. Rowland watched the tapes revolve. His sense of powerlessness and fear increased by the second.

“Meantime”—Star paused—“it’s too bad—but we’ve got the shades closed, and the drapes, so we can’t see out, and, of course, your snipers can’t see in…” He giggled. “So you’ll have to tell me—this is causing a stir, right? You’ve got the press there now? The camera crews? No—don’t bother answering. I mean, you’re a straight guy, I can tell that, but you just might lie. That’s okay. Tell them I’ll be making a personal appearance, on the balcony out front, later tonight. Meantime, I’ll get Gini to take a look—don’t shoot or anything, will you? Gini—you want to do that? The far window. What? CNN? And—all the others? That’s great. Really great. You can go back to Pascal. Slowly. That’s it. Smart girl. It’s okay. Don’t cry. Pascal—you want to kiss her again? Don’t mind me. Go right ahead. You can fuck her if you like. You first. Me next… Only kidding. It’s these little pills I take, you see. They give me this—lust for life. I might just take a top-up right now… Oh,
excellent.
Oh, these are seriously good… Look, Pascal—I hate to say this to a Frenchman, you know—but your technique, it’s not so good. It’s too gentle. You know what really turns women on? Rough stuff. They really really like it when you smack them around.”

Rowland bowed his head. The psychologist interrupted.

“Christophe,” he said. “Christophe? Can I make a suggestion? Wouldn’t it be easier, better all around, if you could make a gesture of goodwill? In return for arranging the car, say, you release one of your hostages…”

“Gini?” Star laughed again. “You want Gini, right? I’m not so sure. She and I—we get along. I’d need to think about that.”

The psychologist made a small sign to Martigny; one finger held up.

“Then what I suggest is this. I call you back in exactly twenty minutes, okay? That gives you time to consider my proposals. You may think of some other things you need. There might be someone you’d like to talk to, and if there is, we can arrange that.”

“I don’t think so.” Star giggled again. “Not too likely. They’re all dead.”

“Fine. Twenty minutes. I’ll call you then. At precisely two o’clock.”

He cut the connection and turned back to Martigny and the GIGN officer.

“Can you be ready to go in before that? Say fifteen minutes from now?”

The other two men had a brief muttered conference.

“Half an hour would be better,” Martigny said. “Forty-five minutes would be better still.”

“I wouldn’t advise that.”

“You don’t think you can persuade him to release Genevieve Hunter?”

“He has no intention of releasing either of them. Or using the car, or the plane. You heard him. He’s excited. He’s playing games.”

Rowland watched the decision be made. He watched the GIGN officer leave; he heard movement outside the van, the shouldering of weapons, the sound of footsteps moving off.

The psychologist passed his hand across his forehead. Martigny, sitting down, lit a cigarette.

All three men sat in silence. They watched the second hand of the clocks move forward; they watched the banks of tapes. They listened to the quiet relayed voice of the movement tracker, then a burst of static. Rowland froze: he had just heard Gini’s voice.

Martigny gave a sigh. “At last. They have the listening devices in place. When they go in—they’ll go in front and rear simultaneously. Thirty seconds before they go in, the telephone will ring. Fifteen seconds after that we kill every light in that apartment. Then…”

He did not need to continue. Rowland knew, in essence, what happened next. They would rappel down from the roof. Diversionary noise and blinding light; GIGN operatives, helmeted, in full body armor, each man with night sights and each man audio-linked. In theory their training enabled them to enter a strange room in darkness, at top speed, yet still distinguish who were the hostages and who was not. Rapidly, using automatic weapons, they would take Star out—and only Star. Sometimes this technique was successful, sometimes not.

Both Pascal Lamartine and Star, he thought, were of similar height; both had dark hair; one man was holding a weapon, the other was not.

He fixed his eyes on the clock face set into the side of the van above the banked tapes and equipment. The reception from the apartment was intermittent—like listening to a badly tuned radio station. Suddenly, after a burst of static, he heard Lamartine’s voice; he sounded cool, even relaxed.

“Not in here,” he said. “In your mother’s room—the pink room. There’s a wall of her pictures in there. If you stood back against that… I can try some long shots. It’s just—”

“What? What’s the problem?”

“For covers, I need a head shot. I’d need just one good close-up.”

“Covers?”

“Sure.
Time. Newsweek. Paris Match.
I need monochrome and color—monochrome for newspapers, color for magazines.”