Lovers and Liars Trilogy (63 page)

“I’ve noticed that. Just recently…”

“Darling, come over here. Sit beside me.” He held his hand out to her.

Gini smiled. “You’re sure? It might not be such a good idea….”

“No. You’re right. You’re right.” He dropped his hand. “We should think first. Work first, I know that. It’s just—sometimes I can’t wait for this story to be over. When it is, finally…” He hesitated. “Gini, would you come away with me then? Come somewhere with me where we could be alone together, somewhere quiet, somewhere where we can forget all these things?”

“You know I will. And do you know where I’d like to go?”

“Name it and we’re there. India? South America? A Caribbean island? The middle of some wonderful desert? That would be good. We could just pitch our tent in the middle of the sand dunes and stay there all day and all night. We’d have camels, obviously. Oh, and a well nearby. Maybe a few palm trees. And at night we’d come out of our tent, and look up, and there would be millions upon millions of stars. You see the best stars above the desert….”

“No. None of those places. Despite the stars. I want you to take me where you always promised to take me. To Provence, to your Provence.”

They looked at each other, and Pascal’s face became gentle. “Then that,” he said, “is exactly what we’ll do. I’ll show you my old house, and the farm nearby, and the little church. We’ll drink red wine in the cafés, and then we’ll dance all night in the square….”

“In winter?”

“Winter, summer, spring, autumn. I don’t care. …” He held out his hand to her once more. Gini hesitated, then rose.

“Ten minutes…”

“Fifteen,” he replied. “I just want to hold you. Fifteen, I swear.”

An hour later, Pascal rose. He poured himself more coffee, and took it across to the window. He drew the curtain aside.

“I hope this fog lifts,” he said. “We need to get back to London first thing in the morning.”

“We will. Meanwhile, work. Where were we? I seem to have lost track there. …”

Pascal smiled. He crossed the room and sat down at some distance from her. He lit a cigarette. “McMullen’s house,” he said. “That’s where we’d gotten to. The living room. What did you find there?” Gini told him. Pascal listened intently.

“Did you have time to check the newspapers?”

“Yes. They date back to July of last year. That chimes with what he said. He’s been collecting them, and noting the reports on Hawthorne since Lise first told him her story. Which makes me wonder, among other things, when and why he moved into that house.”

“He’s watching Hawthorne, obviously,” Pascal said thoughtfully. “Sometimes here, sometimes in London. He claims he was in Venice. I wonder where else he went?”

“Wherever it was, I think Anthony Knowles must have known. Maybe he helped him disappear.”

“The rucksack…was it laced closed?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“You wouldn’t have had time to look at it anyway. And McMullen was listening all the time we were in the kitchen.”

“Was there anything significant there?”

“Only two things. There was a stick of camouflage cream by the sink—he would have put that on his face and hands when he was up there in the woods tonight. But it was half used, which suggests that nighttime surveillance of Hawthorne’s property is something he’s done before.” He paused. “Then there were some shelves by the back door. Canned foods, some plates and cups. Plus a small container of gun oil.”

“Gun oil?”

“It’s used to lubricate the barrels of guns after cleaning them.”

“You think he had guns—a gun—there?”

“Yes. I do.” Pascal was frowning. “Think, Gini. We haven’t paid enough attention to something very obvious here. One of those friends I talked to, you remember? He mentioned joining a shooting party with McMullen last August. And what was one of the things Dr. Knowles mentioned to you on the telephone, when he was detailing McMullen’s intellectual and sporting prowess? Cricket, rowing—what else?”

“
Shooting!
Rifle shooting. Of course. He did mention that. Competition shooting. McMullen was outstanding, both at school and at Oxford. His shooting ability earned him a blue.”

“Meaning?”

“It means he was good enough to represent the university at the sport. Pascal—”

“I know. I know. Let’s take this slowly.” Pascal rose, and began to pace as he spoke.

“First, this man is an ex-commando. Then there’s the details of that army career, which still don’t add up. You remember what he said about the Falklands?”

“Yes. He was there, but not with the Parachute Regiment. I didn’t understand that.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if McMullen moved across, from the Paras to something much more secretive. The SAS, for instance. You join the SAS by invitation only. They often recruit from the Paras, and a man of outstanding weapons ability would interest them.”

“If he
was
SAS, we won’t be able to check. Nothing. A blank wall…”

“Not necessarily. If he was part of an SAS team in the Falklands—you heard. I worked out there. I covered that war. And I still have contacts from it too. I could try. Anyway.” He frowned. “Let’s go back to where we were. McMullen is an ex-commando—that much is certain. He has been, and presumably still is, an outstanding shot. The presence of gun oil in his kitchen suggests he keeps a gun. Whatever kind of weapons he has—shotguns, rifles, handguns, they have to be licensed. Tomorrow I’ll check that. Meanwhile”—he turned back to look at Gini, his face now intent—“if he does have a gun there—in a place which is quite obviously a stakeout—what does that suggest, Gini?”

Gini hesitated. “It suggests there’s another way of interpreting this story,” she said carefully. “It suggests McMullen could be the hunter, and the ambassador the hunted, the quarry.”

“Let’s turn this story inside out, look at it from a new point of view,” Pascal said. “McMullen is a man with a grievance against Hawthorne that goes back twenty-five years, to Vietnam. McMullen loves the woman who becomes Hawthorne’s wife. Let’s say the marriage
is
an unhappy one—maybe there even are some infidelities on Hawthorne’s side. So, together, Lise and McMullen plan a smear campaign. They invent the story about the blondes, because they know a newspaper will respond. They set up some circumstantial evidence to make it look as if that story could be true—they send out those four parcels, for instance, maybe even call that agency you went to. They remain in touch, even after McMullen has staged his disappearance, and Lise continues to give McMullen information. What
she
does not realize, meanwhile, is that McMullen’s intentions go much further than a smear campaign. He does not intend merely to blacken Hawthorne’s reputation—he intends to destroy the man. You remember what he said in the car tonight, Gini? How Lise would never contemplate divorce, how the only way she could ever be free to marry him would be if Hawthorne died?”

“McMullen plans to kill him, you mean? Some kind of harassed assassination attempt?” Gini shook her head. “I can’t believe that, Pascal. Apart from anything else, you’ve seen Hawthorne’s security. He wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Are you sure? No security is ever one hundred percent. McMullen is a marksman, he’s army trained. Northern Ireland, the Falklands. Gini, it’s very likely he’s killed in the past. Could he not kill again? Both British and American security obviously consider him a risk—why? Because he’s threatening Hawthorne’s past reputation, or because he’s actually a threat to Hawthorne’s life? Think, Gini. Why, of all places, if he’s in hiding, would he choose a place that close to Hawthorne’s country home? Why all those newspapers? He could be building up a pattern of Hawthorne’s movements.” Pascal gave a quick, excited gesture. “Maybe he thinks Hawthorne’s security here is less good than in London. It’s much more difficult to protect the ambassador in a house surrounded by open fields and woods. When he’s in the country, Hawthorne attends Mass—every Sunday morning, the same small church. He throws open his splendid gardens to the public, and McMullen keeps a clipping on just that event.”

“You’re overreacting, Pascal.”

“No. I’m just putting forward a hypothesis—and it’s one that makes more sense than I realized, that’s all.”

“All right. It’s a scenario. But it leaves too much unexplained, you know that. Are you suggesting McMullen killed Johnny Appleyard and Stevey? What about that button you found?”

“Lise gave it to him. McMullen planted it.”

“All right—I don’t buy it, but still. Did he also kill Lorna Munro?”

“It’s not impossible. Unlikely, I agree.”

“Who sent the other parcels, after the first four?”

“McMullen sent all of them. When you mentioned them tonight, he was just acting surprised.” Pascal broke off. “It’s all right, Gini—I don’t believe it either. It’s worth remembering, how you can read all these events more than one way, it helps to stop us jumping to conclusions. But no, I don’t believe McMullen was behind all those events. Besides…when he explained his motives, I believed him. I liked the man.”

Gini looked away. “I almost liked him then—I certainly believed him. But I didn’t like him earlier, at the cottage, when I confronted him on the question of Vietnam. He was so angry, so bitter and unrealistic. But everything I said was true. Those photographs he produced, they’re no evidence at all….”

“You didn’t look at them,” Pascal said.

“No. I could see he wanted to exclude me. I thought it was better to stay out of it and let him talk to you. I don’t really want to look at them, even now.” She paused, and turned to him. “Were they conclusive evidence, Pascal?”

“On their own—no,” Pascal replied. “But they explained the anger and the bitterness he showed. If you genuinely believed a crime of that magnitude had been committed, and no one would listen to you, no one would investigate it, if you got closed off by officialdom and corruption and laziness, wouldn’t you be angry and bitter? I think you would.”

He had spoken quietly, but Gini could hear the gentle reproof in his voice. She looked away, then sighed.

“Very well. That’s fair. You’re right. But it was a strange story, Pascal, you have to admit that. What possible connection could there be between McMullen and that event? A young man at Oxford and a village in Vietnam? Even when you asked him directly what that connection was, how he came to know of the woman concerned, he wouldn’t answer you.”

“It wasn’t ‘know
of.
’ He
knew
her. Did you see his face, Gini?”

“No, not all the time. He turned away.”

“Well, I did see his face,” he said quietly. “Gini, I’m hardened to that kind of thing, but it was a terrible picture. That young woman—it was someone McMullen had known, and
loved.
I knew it the instant I looked at him. Even before, when he started talking, when he put those pictures down on the table. He was trying to distance himself.” Pascal broke off. He crossed the room, knelt beside her, and took her hand in his.

“Gini, listen. For the moment, whether what he told us is true or false makes no difference. The point is, it’s what McMullen
himself
believes. Passionately. Just as he now believes passionately the story of Lise’s sufferings at Hawthorne’s hands. There are powerful emotions at work here, deeply powerful emotions. Love and anger; hatred, jealousy.”

“A desire for revenge?”

There was a brief silence; Pascal met her gaze, then sighed and rose to his feet. “That too. Yes. I’m afraid so.”

He began to pace the room again. Gini sat in silence, trying to force herself to be just. This was not easy, for she was no longer impartial, she knew that. Her impulse now was to discredit all that McMullen said; if she could prove to herself that McMullen was lying about Hawthorne’s actions now, then the possibility that he had also been lying about Hawthorne’s earlier actions strengthened. And she wanted to believe that he was lying, or at best mistaken, about those events in Vietnam: Oh, yes, she passionately wanted that.

After some time had passed, she looked up at Pascal. She knew he was waiting for her to speak.

“It’s all right, Pascal,” she said. “I believed McMullen, too, for much of the time. This
can’t
all be fabrication. Too much has happened—and McMullen can’t possibly have been responsible for it all, I do know that. There has to be some truth in his allegations. This whole past week—Hawthorne has to be behind it. Unless his father is. Or that Romero man is working independently. McMullen wouldn’t have made the telephone calls to me. He wouldn’t have—couldn’t have—broken into my flat and carefully arranged all those things I kept from Beirut. He doesn’t even
know
about Beirut—how could he? McMullen wouldn’t do any of those things.” She paused. “Put it this way. I didn’t think he was cruel. I think he could kill and I presume you’re right, given his army record, that he
has
killed. But not torture an animal. He wouldn’t have done that to Napoleon, I’m sure.”

“I thought of that too,” Pascal said. “I looked, Gini. No scratches on his hands. No scratches on his face or neck.”

“I know. I looked too.” Gini glanced away. “Napoleon would have struggled. I hope he managed to inflict a little damage. I’d like to think he did.”

Pascal crossed to her then and took her in his arms. He persuaded her that she should sleep, that they should both get some sleep. And so they did. But their sleep was not uninterrupted.

At four in the morning the telephone rang. The telephone was on Gini’s side of the bed. She reached sleepily for it, located it, and picked it up. Pascal heard her give a low cry. He was instantly awake. He took the receiver from her. He recognized it at once—that slow, scratchy, muffled voice. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Gini. She was huddled, white-faced, against the pillows.

“How can he know where we are? We didn’t use our names, Pascal. We didn’t make any prior reservations.”

Pascal turned away. He listened for a second or two. The man was describing what he wanted Gini to do to him once she had put on the black gloves.

“All the way in,” he said. “Swallow it. Now.”

Pascal was about to speak or to hang up. His mind had frozen and he could not decide which to do, when the man’s tone suddenly altered.