Lovers and Liars Trilogy (61 page)

“And you weren’t believed?”

“No. They didn’t even make any investigation, except of the most cursory kind. They told me the pictures came from a suspect source—the former enemy, in other words. Hawthorne was a congressman by then. No. I wasn’t believed.”

“Anyone else?” It was Gini who spoke now. She rose. “Why didn’t you make contact with the journalist who was cut off with that platoon? He was a living witness, after all….”

“I did make contact with him.” McMullen met her gaze with a cold blue stare. “I wrote to your father three times. You can ask him. He replied once, to the final letter. He informed me I was wrong. The next time I wrote, the reply came via his lawyers. I didn’t write again.”

There was a silence. Pascal quietly began to gather up the pictures and return them to their envelope. Gini continued to look straight at McMullen.

“Why did you never mention this aspect of the story to Jenkins?”

“Because I knew what would happen if I did. I’d be dismissed as a lunatic, the way I was before. Who gives a damn about something that happened twenty-five years ago in some little village on the other side of the world?”

“Oh, I see. Whereas if you came to my paper with a sexual scandal about an eminent man, everyone would leap to attention—is that it?”

“Didn’t you?” McMullen replied coldly. “Didn’t Jenkins? Didn’t Appleyard?”

“Did you plan it that way?” Gini’s voice had sharpened, and Pascal swung around.

“Gini…” he began on a warning note, and put a restraining hand on her arm.

“No. Let’s just take a closer look at this…” Gini pushed his hand aside and faced McMullen. “You fed us precisely the kind of story designed to make us sit up and pay attention. It was lurid enough. You then lent credence to that story by organizing that whole parcels fiasco, on which Pascal and I wasted an immense amount of time and as a direct result of which three people died. Why? What was the point of that if it wasn’t just to wind us up further? You deliberately made it look as if Hawthorne might have sent those parcels—”

“Gini.” Pascal moved between her and McMullen. “Not now.”

“This is pointless. And I don’t have the time.” McMullen was already moving away.

Gini thrust herself between him and the door. “Then you can damn well make the time,” she said. “We’ve waited long enough for this meeting. Doesn’t it occur to you that we might like to ask some questions? Or are we just supposed to accept all this because you tell us it’s so? So far, you’ve produced the name of one doctor, and that’s all. You’ve produced photographs that could have been taken anywhere in Southeast Asia at any time—”

“That’s
not
all I’ve produced.” McMullen had come to a halt in front of her, Pascal just to his side. “You haven’t even looked at the other evidence in there. There are statements, testimonies, eyewitness accounts.” His voice was choked with emotion. “What does it take to convince you people of
anything!
You’ve witnessed what Hawthorne is. You’ve witnessed three deaths. Do you need any more?”

“Stop this.” Pascal moved swiftly between them. “Can’t you see? You’re both wrong and you’re both right. This achieves nothing—”

“No. Nothing at all,” McMullen interrupted. He attempted to push Pascal to one side, but Pascal held his ground. “I was a fool to believe either of you would help,” McMullen went on, “least of all her.” He gestured angrily at Gini. “You’re like every other damn journalist I’ve ever met. Cynical. Blasé. You wouldn’t recognize the truth if you saw it with your own eyes. I’m wasting my time. We’re leaving. Now.”

“No. We are not leaving.” Pascal moved Gini to one side and stood blocking the door. His voice was suddenly very cold. “You can listen to me first, before we do. It’s not our job to help you publish allegations. It’s our job to discover the truth. And we’ve been trying to do that, for eight days. You have no right to speak to Gini in that way. You know what she’s been through this past week? Obscene phone calls at night, her apartment ransacked, and yesterday, when you had her chasing around the museum—”

“Don’t, Pascal. Leave it. There’s no point.”

“Oh, but there is.” Pascal swung back to look at McMullen, his eyes angry and his face set and pale. “You think someone feels cynical, blasé, do you, when they’re threatened in that way? Sent handcuffs anonymously. Then sent further identical parcels. Parcels that contain a pair of shoes that fits them exactly? Or a black silk stocking? Or has a man on the phone in the middle of the night when the lights have failed, talking filth, describing what she’s wearing at the exact moment he calls? You think Gini takes that in her stride, just dismisses it? Well, think again. And don’t speak to her that way.”

There was silence. McMullen stepped back. He gave a gesture of bewilderment.

“Shoes? Stockings? What phone calls? I don’t understand. What happened while we were at the museum yesterday?”

“Someone broke into my apartment, again.” Gini spoke flatly, and turned away. “I have a cat. I had a cat. They strangled him. Then…they hung him up on a hook on the back of the door. That’s what they did. Someone did. And Pascal’s right. When I found him, I didn’t feel blasé. You know what I felt?” She rounded on McMullen again. “I felt angry. The same way I felt when I walked into that Venice apartment and saw the way two men had been killed. I could have backed off from this damn story anytime I chose. So could Pascal. But neither of us did. Why in hell do you think we’re here now? Because we do want to know the truth. And because neither of us intends to give up until we do.”

McMullen had moved farther off as she spoke, though he listened intently. When she had finished, he hesitated, then turned away. He bent and relaced the rucksack, moved across, and turned off the heater.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a stiff way. “I knew none of that. I had nothing to do with it. I sent the four parcels as an interim measure. A way of giving you a trail, a lead, a way of keeping you both on the story until I could make contact with you. I had no idea what the repercussions would be, and I had no idea then that it would take this long to see you. I’m sorry, but I’ve told you all I know. There’s nothing more I can add. I have no astonishing proofs to produce. I give you my word that everything I’ve told you about John Hawthorne I believe to be true. And now I have no more time. I’ll drive you both back to Oxford. I have to go.”

He spoke in a cold, clipped, final way. It was evident that further argument would be wasted. He moved across to the door, switched off the lights, then opened it. He had parked his car so it faced back down the slope of the track. When they were inside it, he slipped the gears into neutral and allowed the car to coast down to the road without lights. There, he switched them on, and started the engine. Only when they were beyond Hawthorne’s village, and approaching the main road back into Oxford, did he speak again.

“You said you had questions,” he began. “Ask them now.”

Gini was about to speak, but Pascal restrained her with a quick touch of the hand.

“I have a question. When Jenkins first suggested Gini for this story, did you know who her father was?”

“Not at first, no. I noticed the similarity in the name—but it’s a common enough surname. Then, later on”—he glanced back at Gini—“Jenkins mentioned that you had indirect links to the Hawthornes, through your stepmother. He said you were American. Finally he mentioned your father’s name.” He paused. “He was trying to sell me on the idea of using you. I was opposed to the idea of a woman working on it. I’d told him so.”

“And when you realized who Gini was, why didn’t you block the idea? You must have known then that you intended to produce this evidence.” He indicated the folder, which McMullen had handed to him silently as they walked out to the car. “It must have worried you, that connection, surely? You must have known that Gini would react badly to the suggestion that her father was part of a cover-up?”

“Of course it occurred to me. But Jenkins said she never saw her father. He said they were estranged, that they hadn’t been in contact for years. By the time he mentioned all this, events were moving fast. It was mid-December. I had to make a decision quickly. Besides, the writer seemed less important at that stage. What we had to do first was get the photographic proof of Hawthorne’s activities. Once it was
proved
what kind of man he is, I thought any honest journalist would be prepared to investigate him and his family properly—expose it all, right back to those events in Vietnam. That’s what I believed. Until tonight.” His voice hardened. “Now, of course, I’m beginning to see that I was wrong.”

Gini leaned forward between the two seats.

“In that case,” she said quietly, “I’ll spell one thing out for you. If we ever prove your current allegations about John Hawthorne, if there proves to be any truth in this story about blondes, I won’t stop there, and neither will Pascal. We’ll go back and investigate everything. I’ll take Hawthorne’s past apart. Believe me or not—I don’t give a damn. But this matters to me. Hawthorne is an American politician. I’m an American. Born in the U.S.A. I care.”

McMullen did not answer her. She saw his eyes flick up and fix on her in the rearview mirror. He shifted gears fast, and took them up onto the dual highway into Oxford, a different route, Gini noted, from the one he had taken before. She watched him make these maneuvers. She could just see the side of his face, and his hands gripping the wheel.

“Meantime,” she continued, “there are some questions I want to ask. Concerning the sending of those four original parcels. Let’s assume for the moment that the further two sent were part of a campaign of intimidation. But about those four—”

“Do we have to go over this?” McMullen sounded irritable. “Why? Is it that important? I already told you, it was a stopgap, a ploy. Why don’t you concentrate on Hawthorne? He’s your story, not me.”

“Even so. I don’t understand Appleyard’s exact involvement. Why did you use him to contact Lorna Munro?”

“I had to be careful with Appleyard,” he replied. “I’d tried to get him off the story, but he wouldn’t leave it alone. Once Jenkins was involved, I had to find a way of keeping Appleyard quiet. I hoped to hold him off until Jenkins’s story ran. All he knew was that John Hawthorne had a weakness for blond-haired women. Appleyard thought Lorna Munro would be meeting Hawthorne, and that I’d report to him on Hawthorne’s reaction. He paused. “I think ‘honey-trap’ was his term.”

“I see.” Gini waited, but McMullen said nothing more. “So you decided to use the parcels ploy, as you call it. When exactly?”

“After I left London. I planned it then. I’ve already told you. I can see it was foolish. I regret it now.”

“Did you plan it on your own?”

“Yes, I did. Why?”

“It just seems—
feminine
in some ways. I wouldn’t expect a man to get the details right as you did. The clothes Lorna Munro wore, for instance…”

“Oh, that was simple. I happened to be visiting my sister earlier that month. I’d glanced at her magazines. I’d seen that issue of
Vogue.
”

Gini said nothing. Another lie, she thought, more definite this time; his sister had told Pascal she had not seen McMullen since the summer of the previous year. “But it must have been quite difficult to set up, surely,” she pressed on. “To obtain that coat, the necklace, the Chanel suit—”

“It wasn’t that difficult. Not at all.” His eyes flicked again to the rearview mirror. He pulled out into the fast lane. Gini waited.

“In that case,” she said. “Who called Chanel?”

“I’m sorry? Wait just a minute, will you? We’re coming up to the Headington roundabout. The traffic’s heavy here.”

He accelerated onto the Oxford ring road at the roundabout, and then turned off and began weaving his way through a network of back streets toward the center of town. He still had not answered her question. Gini glanced at Pascal, whose silence now she found surprising. His gaze was fixed straight ahead. He gave no indication that he was even listening to this at all.

“Look,” Gini leaned forward again. “I’m sorry to press the point, but I need to know. You see, I…”

“Leave it, Gini,” Pascal turned around. He spoke lightly, but he caught hold of her hand and pressed it hard against his seat back, as if in warning. “Leave it, there isn’t time.” He glanced across at McMullen. “These details concern us,” he went on, addressing him, “because we spent a great deal of time checking them out. I am now sure that Gini and I have been under surveillance from day one. I think our phone calls and conversations have been listened to much of the time. Now, that may explain certain aspects of what’s happened, but it doesn’t explain it all. Why, for instance, if you intended us to follow that parcels trail, did you send a package addressed to Venice, to yourself?”

“I told you. Originally, I hoped to meet you both there. My main desire was to keep you on the story, to keep you occupied, and keep you keen.”

“All right. Then how did Appleyard know about that apartment in Venice? Who gave him the address? He went there before you even
sent
the parcels.”

“I don’t know.” McMullen seemed glad to have moved away from the question of Lorna Munro’s clothes. He gave every appearance now of trying genuinely to help them. “I never gave him that address, though the apartment is mine. I’ve rented it for years. I can only think that someone tipped Appleyard off, told him he might find me there. He couldn’t trace me in London, he wouldn’t leave the story alone. So he went there—and got himself killed.”

“So who tipped him off? This would have been just after Christmas. John Hawthorne?”

“Not in person, obviously. He would have used one of his men—Frank Romero possibly. The Palazzo Ossorio address was in Lise’s address book—I know that. She’s written to me there in the past. Years ago. Also, I had been in Venice. I went there directly when I left England. Possibly I was followed, or traced. I’m not sure. I knew it was not safe to stay there long. I was there only a day, maybe a day and a half. Then I moved on.”

“Would you like to tell us where?”

“No.”

“In that time—at any point between leaving London and now—were you able to make contact with Lise? You must have been very eager to see her.”