Lovers and Liars Trilogy (42 page)

Dog, who had settled himself on the hearth rug, began to snore lightly and to dream. He scrabbled with his paws and woofed. Gini heard the clock outside strike the half-hour, then chime three. Her eyelids felt heavy. The fire was warm. She thought of Pascal, and of how each passing hour brought his return closer. By now he would be with Marianne, perhaps playing with her, or reading to her, or taking her out for a walk. Then he would be on his way to the airport, on the plane, and then…She sighed, tried to waken herself, failed, and drifted into sleep.

She woke, startled, from deep sleep. The room was dark. There was a horrible banging and ringing. For a moment, deceived by travel, and tiredness, and darkness, she could not think where she was. Then she remembered. She was at Mary’s, of course, and that noise came from the front door, where someone was knocking and ringing the bell. She stumbled to her feet, almost falling over Dog. Then she saw the fire had burned low, was almost out. How long had she slept? Where was Mary? She felt her way to the nearest table and switched on a lamp. Dog was now alert, his head raised, his hackles up. A low growl came from his throat. It was dark outside. She looked at her watch, saw it was almost five, and felt a dart of alarm. Where was Mary, and why had she not called as she’d promised she would?

The knocking at the door had stopped. She crossed into the hallway and listened. Had the person outside left, or was he still there? She felt a sudden fear. She was alone in this house; it was dark outside. For an instant she saw that room in Venice, two dead bodies. She saw Stevey’s blank blue-eyed stare, that small wound at the back of his neck, all it took to end a life. And she heard Pascal’s warning voice:
It can be subtler than that, a road accident, a fall from an underground train, a little contretemps with an elevator shaft…

Fighting down the fear, and despising herself, she opened the door, gave a cry of alarm, and stepped back. There was a rustling, some electricity in the air, then that familiar crackle of radio static. A strange man, dressed in dark clothes, blocked the doorway. He was very tall, and powerfully built. He was wearing a dark overcoat and black gloves.

Gini hesitated, began to say something, changed her mind, and made to close the door.

A large foot in a black oxford shoe was inserted in the gap.

“Ms. Hunter? One moment, please,” said an American voice, and the door was pushed back.

Pascal arrived at his ex-wife’s home at twelve-fifteen. Helen opened the door herself.

“You’re late.”

“Fifteen minutes, Helen. The flight was slightly delayed. I had to pick up my car.”

“It’s not very convenient, never knowing what time you’ll turn up.” She gave him a pinched look. “I’m going out, it’s the nanny’s day off. You’ve delayed me. Well, as you’re here, you’d better come in, I suppose. I can’t think what you propose doing. The weather’s foul, and Marianne’s being difficult today. It unsettles her, these visits of yours.”

Pascal answered none of this. Helen had led him into what she called the television room. It contained numerous expensive overstuffed chairs and too much chintz. Marianne was sitting on the floor in front of the television set. She was watching an American cartoon, a series of brightly colored animals engaged in a noisy and violent fight.

She greeted Pascal, but did not go to him, or stand up. Pascal looked at her, and his heart ached. These afternoons were often strained. Three hours was not long enough to build bridges with his daughter. It was hard, week after week, to think of new expeditions they could make.

In the summer months, when he could take her for swimming lessons or to parks, it was easier—but in the winter? He looked out the window. It was cold and windy, but not raining as yet.

“I thought you might like to go to the playground, Marianne,” he began, thinking of the small park nearby. “You like the swings there, and the roundabouts….”

Marianne rose obediently to her feet. “Yes, Papa,” she said without enthusiasm. “That would be nice. I’ll get my coat.”

She left the room with a hesitant glance at her mother as she passed. Helen shrugged.

“What you imagine you’re going to do in the park all afternoon, I can’t think. It’s freezing cold….”

“We’ll go there, then I’ll take her somewhere for tea,” Pascal began. Helen cut him off.

“Well, if you want. It’s your choice. I’d better give you the key. I’ll try to be back by three, but if I’m delayed, you can let yourselves in.”

“Delayed?”

“For heaven’s sake, Pascal, I am entitled to go out occasionally. As a matter of fact, I’m seeing friends for lunch. I’ll try to get back by three, obviously.” Her eyes slid away from his face.

“Fine,” Pascal said. “Perhaps you’d better let me have their number?”

She gave the response he expected, a cold, impatient glance.

“I can’t do that. We’re going to a restaurant somewhere—and no, I don’t know which. Surely you can manage, Pascal, for three hours. It’s not asking so very much.”

Pascal was calculating time in his head. If Helen returned at three, he could catch the five o’clock flight without problems. If she delayed him, however…He hesitated. He was about to mention the plane, then stopped himself. Knowing he needed to be somewhere else urgently would probably ensure Helen was late.

“Here’s the keys. Double-lock the doors, won’t you? I’ll see you around three. Good-bye, Marianne. Don’t let Daddy tire you out.”

At the playground, Marianne allowed Pascal to push her on the swings for a while, but she seemed not to enjoy it very much. She climbed onto the merry-go-round at his suggestion, and sat there politely while Pascal set it in motion. As soon as it slowed, though, she climbed off. Hand in hand they walked down to the small lake at the edge of the playground to watch the ducks. Pascal had forgotten to bring bread to feed them.

“It doesn’t matter, Papa,” Marianne said. She let go of his hand, walked across to a bench, and sat down.

Pascal followed her and sat down also. He felt a sense of despair. Only half an hour had passed. “Is anything the matter, darling?” he said gently. “Is something wrong?”

“My ear hurts a bit. My throat’s sore,” she replied, and rubbed it. “I feel cold.”

Pascal examined her face. Her forehead and lips were pale, but her cheeks were flushed. She shivered as he looked at her. He touched her forehead. It felt warm.

“Does your ear ache, darling?”

“It hurts. And I can’t hear very well.”

Pascal hesitated. He looked despondently around the park. No other children had ventured out.

“Perhaps it’s just the cold,” he said in a cheerful voice. “We’d be better off inside on a day like this, don’t you think, Marianne? I wonder, would you like to go to that café where we went before, do you remember? The one with the excellent ice cream?”

Marianne gave a wan smile. “No, thank you, Papa. I’d rather go home.”

This was unprecedented. Pascal felt the stirrings of alarm. He felt her forehead again, then took her hand. “That’s a very good suggestion. We’ll go home and make some tea. We can watch television together—how would that be?”

This prospect seemed to please her. She brightened.

“I’d like that,” she said. “I always watch television on my own.”

“Doesn’t Mummy watch with you, darling? Or the nanny—the new nanny? What’s her name?”

“Elizabeth. She’s English. Yes, she watches sometimes. Mummy always says she will, then she’s too busy.” She clasped his hand more tightly. “On Monday afternoon it’s Dangermouse, I think. I like him.”

“Good, then Dangermouse it shall be,” Pascal said.

It was not a long walk, but Marianne’s pace grew slower and slower. She began to lag behind. Pascal felt her forehead again. It now felt very hot. He carried her the rest of the way home.

Indoors, he tucked Marianne up on a couch in the television room and put a blanket around her knees. He switched on the television set, and lit Helen’s gas fire. He went in search of aspirin, and found them eventually in the third bathroom he checked, Helen’s own. It was an elaborate bathroom fitted out in rose marble. A long shelf was cluttered with cosmetics, with antiaging skin creams, and bottles of scent The aspirin were in the medicine cabinet, along with the horseshoe-shaped box containing Helen’s diaphragm, and several tubes of spermicidal jelly. The box was open, and the diaphragm gone.

Pascal closed the cabinet, feeling guilty at having seen this. He fetched a glass of water and went back to Marianne. He had been away no more than five minutes, but in that time, to judge from her face, her temperature had risen. She was now scarlet, and very hot to the touch. The act of swallowing the aspirin caused her pain.

“Papa, my throat hurts,” she said.

Pascal stroked her hair. He put a cushion behind her head and gently unbuttoned the fastening of her dress. Her chest and neck were covered with a mottled rash. Pascal rebuttoned the dress. It was still only one o’clock.

“What time does your nanny—does Elizabeth come home on her day off, Marianne?”

“In the evening. After tea. To give me my bath.”

“Doesn’t Mummy do that on Elizabeth’s day off?”

“No. Elizabeth always does it. Then she reads me a story and puts me to bed. …”

Pascal frowned. Careful to keep his voice calm he said, “Listen, Marianne, I think maybe Papa should call a doctor. See if he can give you something for that throat of yours, okay? Now, would you like me to call my doctor, or the one you usually see?”

“Your doctor, Papa. Our doctor’s horrid. He’s old, and he’s always in a hurry. He’s cross.”

The doctor was on the other side of Paris, treating an emergency—cardiac arrest. He would come after that, his receptionist said, but Pascal should not expect him for two hours at least.

Pascal returned to the television room. Marianne had fallen asleep. He sat by her side and watched her anxiously for a while. Her breathing was regular, and her skin felt a little cooler—the aspirin taking effect.

Pascal rose and began to pace the room. He felt restless, worried, and unable to settle. He picked up one of Helen’s fashion magazines, then tossed it aside. There was never anything worth reading in this house. He looked across at the telephone and considered calling Gini. It was past two now. He looked at Marianne, still sleeping. He began to acknowledge to himself that he might not catch that five o’clock flight. Sometime after two, still restless, he went out to the street. There was still no sign of the doctor’s car.

He returned inside and sat down opposite Marianne. To calm himself, he tried to think of work, but that did not have a calming effect. He remembered the Palazzo Ossorio, and he felt torn between two fears—fear for Gini, fear for Marianne. From his pocket he took out the small brass button he had found the previous evening beneath the pile of Stevey’s clothes. It had been lodged in a crack in the floorboards, almost invisible. Did it belong to the assassin? It certainly looked new, bright, and untarnished. He turned it this way and that. The design was well worked. Examining it more closely, he saw it represented the kind of garland made to adorn a hero’s brows, or a victorious general’s. Bay, oak—whichever leaf indicated triumph—that.

He peered at the tiny thing closely, then put it away. From his camera bag he took out the book Gini had found. An old, battered paperback, a Penguin edition, available in thousands of shops. On the cover was a portrait of a young John Milton; inside, the pages were discolored by age, and spotted with damp.
Paradise Lost.
The same book Gini had found on McMullen’s desk. Did it indicate more than a taste for Milton, for epic poetry—or not? The likelihood, he supposed, was that it did belong to McMullen, which indicated that at some point, McMullen had been in Venice. But it told him no more than that.

He glanced across at Marianne, who still slept. For want of anything else to do, he began to read, but he quickly found himself in difficulty. Pascal’s spoken English was excellent—his father had taught languages in the village school, the village where Pascal grew up. His father had died when Pascal was ten, and his memories of him were blurred, but he could remember the evenings, long ago, when his father had read to him, little extracts of English, little samplings of greatness, some Shakespeare, yes, he could remember that, and some Dickens. Not Milton that he could remember. He turned the page. The extraordinary clotted syntax here was beyond him; his English might be good, but not good enough for this. He turned another page, stiffened, then held the book up to the light.

Along the side of the verse there was a faint pencil mark: no words, but one passage had been marked, singled out. Pascal traced the words carefully:

For now the thought

Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments him.

Pascal frowned. The words reverberated in his mind. He applied them, briefly, to his own life. Did they fit McMullen’s also? He closed the book. Across the room, Marianne had begun to murmur. She pushed the blanket aside restlessly. Pascal felt her forehead again. The aspirin must be wearing off; her skin was burning hot.

He ran out into the hallway, opened the front door. Still no sign of the doctor’s car. Anguish and alarm gripped him. He returned to the room, removed the blanket covering his daughter, turned off the fire, and opened the window a crack. He must reduce her temperature; somehow he must reduce her temperature.

He knelt down at his daughter’s side and began to stroke her forehead. He wondered if he dared give her more aspirin yet. On the bottle it said the dose should be given at four-hour intervals. He looked at his watch. What time had he given her the aspirin? Around two, he thought. It was now nearly four, too soon to give her more, surely?

He felt an agonized indecision, realized he had now missed the flight, then forgot the flight at once. Marianne had awakened. She asked him for some water. When he brought it, she sipped, but seemed unable to swallow. Pascal laid her down again, went through into another room, and called the doctor’s once more, his voice unsteady with anger and alarm.

“Don’t worry, Monsieur Lamartine,” said the receptionist in a soothing tone. “I’m sure she will be fine. Children do develop these high fevers suddenly. Keep her cool. The doctor will be with you shortly. Don’t alarm yourself. She will be perfectly all right.”