Lovers and Liars Trilogy (46 page)

Do you remember those three books I leant you? Could you let me have them back when you’re next in Oxford? Need them for revision—ugh! Thanks for the pasta the other week. You make a great
bolognese
—the best! See you soon. Don’t work too hard. Take care.

Lots of love,

Jacob.

Gini stared at the card. She knew no one named Jacob, she knew no one studying at Oxford; she had borrowed no books from anybody recently, and it was at least a year since she had served anyone—it had been Lindsay in any case—spaghetti with bolognese sauce.

She turned the card this way and that. An Italian painting though it was not identified as such on the card;
three
books. Could it be? Was this McMullen’s way of contacting her? She looked at her other mail—the bills, the brochures. They showed no signs of being tampered with, but then, they wouldn’t, of course. If he had wanted to contact her, what could be more apparently innocuous than an open postcard, a postcard with a cheery, inconsequential message from some friend, little different from that other postcard from Australia.

She looked at the card more closely, and then realized: of course—
Jacob.
And her mind slid back to her hated English boarding school, to the Latin lessons, to the history lessons. The Latin form of the name James was
Jacobus.
It had been used by English kings, James I, James II—
Jacobus rex.

It was cunning, she thought—too cunning. If this was some form of coded message, it was not one she understood. Which sentences carried hidden meanings, and which were there purely for decoration? She seemed to be being pointed toward Oxford, that was simple enough, and back yet again to those three books left out on McMullen’s desk. But what did “revision” mean? Were the references to Italian food important, or unimportant?

Puzzled, she retrieved the piece of paper she had found in McMullen’s apartment. She looked at the numbers, she considered the three books, she looked back at the postcard. It still made no sense. One of the books had been
The Oxford Book of Modern Verse.
Oxford again—and Milton twice, if she included the paperback found in Venice. Milton and Oxford, a Carson McCullers novel. Perhaps the first set of numbers were page references, she thought, and the second referred to words on those pages. If so, she was thwarted; to check, she needed those editions, those books. Surely it had to be simpler than that? She sat there for an hour, and she could feel her brain starting to lock.

At midnight she gave up. She left all the lights on in the living room—it felt safer—and went to bed.

Even then, she could not sleep. She lay in the semidarkness, light drifting through the doorway, Napoleon curled up on her feet She stared at the ceiling, and the details of this story went around and around in her mind. She saw those brass buttons on Frank Romero’s jacket, then Lise Hawthorne’s anguished white face. She went back to that first conversation with Nicholas Jenkins, and remembered a phrase he had used then.

The patterns of obsessive behavior,
he had said. It was not a comforting phrase, Gini thought. She had interviewed some people in the past who might be described as obsessives, and she thought of them now. The man serving a life sentence in Broadmoor Prison for the Criminally Insane, for instance, who had lived alone with his dog in a North London flat, and who always photographed himself embracing his victims’ bodies before he dismembered and disposed of them.

He had had his rules: All his boy victims were under twenty, all were white; they had to have dark hair, and he picked them up in the same bar, always on a Saturday night.

The woman who believed an eminent surgeon was passionately in love with her, when the man had encountered her on only two occasions, at a conference, but had unwisely replied to one of the woman’s letters, explaining he was devoted to his children and his wife. That woman, too, had been an obsessive, and had approached Gini herself. She thought Gini should tell the world that this distinguished man was, in reality, a liar and a cheat. She had showed Gini, with cold indignation, the love letters the surgeon had written her: They were in her own handwriting. Gini had half pitied the woman, but the surgeon feared her. On one occasion she had broken into his home and slashed his suits to ribbons with a knife.

So, yes, Gini had some experience of the patterns of obsessive behavior—and it was not the kind that induced peaceful sleep. Obsession unraveled reason and blurred the edges of life. To talk to an obsessive was to step into the mirror and watch truth reverse. Every person she had ever encountered who fitted this category shared one characteristic. For the most part, the madness did not show. Until you knew the truth, these people were ordinary, no more alarming than the next person in the supermarket, or the bus. They lied with quiet conviction because they were truly convinced their lies and their inversions were the truth.

So, had Lise Hawthorne been lying that evening? Gini could not tell. Had Hawthorne himself, the previous Saturday, been acting and disguising his true self? Again she did not know. But there was one factor besides Pascal’s arguments, besides the mounting evidence, that counted against Hawthorne, and it was this: Famous and powerful men often seemed to court danger and the destruction of their careers. Every week newspaper stories gave evidence of this. She and Pascal had discussed it in a café in Venice. These days such instincts provided Pascal with much of his work. How else could you explain the long succession of eminent men who risked a career they’d spent a lifetime building, for a night with a call girl, an affair with a gabby actress who ran straight from the bed to the tabloids? How else could you explain a man who prosecuted corruption in public life, then cheated on his taxes, or accepted a kickback?

She had asked this question, and Pascal had sighed. “Because they enjoy the risk,” he said. “They crave the danger, they must. Perhaps they can value their achievements only when they know that one word in the wrong quarter, and everything’s lost. Maybe they simply get bored with the safety of success.” He paused. “They
seek
self-destruction, Gini. I think it’s that”

It was a viable theory, Gini thought. It explained the phenomenon as well, and as little, as anything else. It might explain Hawthorne—perhaps.

She closed her eyes. The house was quiet It was well past midnight now. She felt herself begin to drift at last toward sleep.

It was two in the morning when she woke. She sat up and listened. Something had awakened her and her cat. Napoleon lifted his head. He turned his green eyes in the direction of the bedroom window. Gini tensed. From the yard beyond, she heard the wood of the fence creak. A twig snapped outside. She sat rigid: She could hear footsteps now. Slowly and stealthily they approached her window, then stopped. They moved toward the rear kitchen door. There was a rustling sound, a small rattle, then silence.

Gini stifled a cry. Carefully and quietly, she pushed the bedcovers aside and stood up. She listened. The footsteps were retreating now. She heard their muffled progress across the yard; there was another creak from the fence. She clenched her hands to stop them trembling. Had he gone, or was he selecting an alternative route?

In bare feet, making no sound, she pressed herself against the wall, and edged toward the lights of the living room. The curtains there were drawn well across. No one could see in, surely no one could see in? She listened. She heard the creak of the iron gate opening at the top of the area steps. She tensed. She crept silently to the front door and pressed her ear against it. The footsteps were descending the area steps.

They came down slowly, then paused. She heard them move toward the window. She braced herself for the sound of breaking glass, or the catch being forced.

It did not come. There was a shuffling sound, then the footsteps approached the door where she stood. And stopped.

Whoever was there was as close to the door as she was. Two inches of flimsy wood separated them. Through the panels she could hear his breathing: a quiet inhalation and exhalation of breath.

Her limbs felt leaden with fear. She thought:
I should have switched off the lights, and now it’s too late.
She thought:
I must decide, now, what to do when he comes in.
Her mind worked with a slow clarity; it was like watching a sixty-mile-an-hour car crash slowly approach. She told herself:
I must move, so I’m behind the door when it opens.
She took one step, then another. The lights in the apartment flickered, and went out.

She gave a low moan of terror. The darkness was thick, she could see nothing. She backed away from the door, and collided with a table behind her. A vase crashed to the floor and smashed. Outside, someone moved. The footsteps hesitated, then moved off. They remounted the steps, crossed the sidewalk above in the direction of the square’s central gardens. The footsteps were rapid now. They faded into the distance. The silence was intense.

She was flooded with relief. It coursed through her like blood. She inched forward, and broken glass cut her foot. Carefully, feeling for glass, she fumbled her way across the room. There was a flashlight in her desk. She could see nothing. She felt space, then the handle of a desk drawer. She opened the drawer and felt around its contents. A leather glove brushed her hand. She felt the cold metal of the handcuffs. She scrabbled frantically at the back of the drawer: She could not bear this absence of light. She was crouching down, feeling in the drawer, when the telephone rang next to her face. The sound was sudden and loud; she started, and almost knocked the instrument to the floor.

Who would call now, at this hour? She fumbled in the dark for the receiver, and as she did so, relief flooded her body again. Pascal. She was sure it was Pascal. Her hand closed on the receiver and she eagerly snatched it up.

A man’s voice, but not Pascal’s, began to speak.

“Gini,” he said. “Gini, is it you?”

Her skin went cold. The voice was low, unrecognizable, and thick.

“Gini. I know it’s you. I got you out of bed. Listen, Gini, it’s late—and it’s time for us to talk. …”

“Who is this?” Gini said. “What do you want?”

The man continued speaking, right across her question. The voice was whispery, the line poor. “Are you wearing your nightdress, Gini? I think you are. The white one, with the blue ribbon at the neck? I like it. It’s pretty. The material’s thin. …”

“Listen, whoever you are,” Gini began. She heard the fear in her own voice. She
was
wearing a white nightgown; its ribbon was blue. It was made of fine thin cotton voile.

“Stand still,” said the voice, riding over her words again.

“That’s right. Now I can see your breasts through the cotton. You have beautiful breasts, Gini. You know what they do to me? They make me hard…. All the blood goes straight to my cock, Gini. It’s stiff.”

Gini’s hand had closed over the flashlight. She drew it out and switched it on. Light made her feel stronger. She held the receiver at arm’s length and heard the voice whisper on. She brought the receiver closer.

“Listen, you creep,” she said distinctly. “Do us both a favor. Go screw yourself, okay?”

She replaced the receiver on its cradle. As soon as the room was silent once more, she went to the bathroom and threw up.

She was pretty sure he’d call back again, whoever he was. When he did, fifteen minutes later precisely, she was ready for him—or as ready as she could make herself. With the aid of the flashlight and some candles, she had banished as much darkness as she could. On the desk, next to the telephone, she had placed her tape recorder. She had connected its microphone and inserted a new tape.

This was not the best way to record a call, but it was the only method available. When the telephone rang, she picked it up, spoke briefly. As soon as the man began speaking, she pressed her microphone tight to the earpiece. She could not avoid hearing some of what he said. She tensed, listened. The same words, the same sentences, in exactly the same order as before….

This was no ordinary caller, no ordinary man. She was listening to a
tape.
That was why he spoke over her words as he did: because this call was prerecorded. And with whom had she discussed prerecorded telephone sex lines not two days before? John Hawthorne. She listened, frying to block out the words and hear only the intonation of the voice. It was not Hawthorne’s, she felt, though she was uncertain. The voice was slow, and neither English nor American, but somewhere between the two. It sounded muffled, as if the man spoke through a piece of material, as if he had something pressed against his mouth. It was muffled, filtered, recorded—even so, the man was becoming aroused as he spoke. She could hear his breathing grow rougher as his script grew more direct.

“Let me suck your breasts,” he said on and on in that low, whispery voice. “Then I’ll tie your hands behind your back. You got the handcuffs, Gini? I’ll use those I think. Then I want you to kneel down in front of me, like you’re in church. I want you to watch me take it out…” There was a deep sigh, a rustling sound, then the whispering went on.

“Then, then—I’ll do all the things I like. I’ll rub my cock on your hair, on your face, on your lips. Over your breasts, where the skin’s soft. It’s hard, and it’s big, bitch—can you feel it yet? Open your mouth and suck me off. Then maybe I’ll fuck you, like you’ve never been fucked. …”

Gini could feel the anger begin. It was like something red in her mind. It drove out the fear and even the disgust. It was useful, this red anger: It felt good. Very carefully, she placed the receiver and microphone on the desk. She let him continue, and her tape ran. She wouldn’t listen, but she would record tape to tape.

She let him continue for ten minutes. Standing at a distance of five feet, she couldn’t make out the words, but she could hear the scratch of his voice. Ten minutes was enough.

She approached the desk again and disconnected the microphone. The man was approaching climax on the tape; she was afraid to hear what came after that—another woman’s scream, perhaps. She put the receiver down on the man’s groans. She switched the machine to answer mode. She went back to the bedroom and held Napoleon close. The rest of the night seemed interminable. She scarcely slept. The man did not call again.