Lovers and Liars Trilogy (88 page)

He swung around to look at her, gave a gesture of the hand, then broke off. “Then, inevitably, the illusion wore off. Meantime—before you rush to judgment, and I can see you judging me, Gini—just remember. Your friend and lover continued to take his photographs. So, just ask yourself: Whatever I am, is he so very different? Is he somehow better, or equal, or worse?”

Gini did not reply. She moved past Hawthorne and looked out of the window toward the mosque. The streetlamps had been extinguished, and the sky was brightening. It was still relatively early, and today was a Sunday, of course; even so, the absence of cars on the ring road below puzzled her. She listened, but could hear nothing pass.

“The ring road is closed.” Hawthorne had moved to her side. “They won’t allow traffic through until the ambulances have left.”

“Why are there two of them?”

“Oh, standard procedure. They take different routes. There’s a security alert, thanks to McMullen, as you know.” She felt him glance at her. He hesitated, then touched her arm. “It’s all right, Gini,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to elaborate on my own feelings. What I wanted to say, I’ve said. I said it the other night. I do know when not to press a point.”

She looked up and met his gaze. He looked into her eyes, then touched her face lightly.

“I wonder,” he said, “if it would have been different in different circumstances. Probably not. So”—he moved away—“tell me.” He picked up his glass and took a swallow of whisky. “Did my father do my explaining for me? He usually does.”

“Yes, he did.” Gini turned and watched him closely. “He exonerated you—more or less. Was that the truth?”

“Probably. It will have been factually accurate. My father’s very good on facts.”

“Did you know what he was doing?”

“No. Only after the events. By which time it was too late. He’s careful about that.” He took another swallow of whisky. “Did he tell you,” he went on in the same flat tone, “how long he has to live?”

“I asked him that question.”

“Did you?” A dry smile. “That will have amused him. But he didn’t tell you?”

“No. He explained it would make no difference as far as I was concerned. He was threatening me at the time. He said he could reach out beyond the grave, and you would insure that.”

“Is that what he said?” Hawthorne gave a small shake of the head. “I wonder if he actually believes that. He probably does. He’s wrong, Gini. And in any case, he doesn’t have much longer. There are the heart problems. He also has cancer, but he doesn’t know that.”

A shadow passed across his face. With an odd, almost defiant shrug he said, “It could be as long as five years. It’s likely to be a lot less. And just for the record, I have no intention of carrying out any of his threats. If you want to expose me for what I am, Gini, you’ll be able to do it with impunity in due course.” He looked at her closely. “I wonder what you’ll decide. No, don’t tell me. You know most of it now. You can destroy me or spare me. It will be your choice.”

He broke off; Gini gave a start and swung around. From a distance, muffled by walls and corridors, came the sound of a woman’s scream, then silence, then a noise like shattering glass.

“Goddammit!” Hawthorne exclaimed. Then his mouth tightened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Lise. There are paramedics here, nurses—she’s supposed to be sedated. Excuse me a moment, will you?”

He opened both doors and went out into the corridor. Before they swung shut, Gini glimpsed the large figure of Malone. He began speaking in a low voice. She caught the word
Italy,
then the doors closed.

Gini crossed to the desk swiftly. She looked at the telephone, tempted, but knew it would be unsafe. She looked at the pictures Pascal had taken the previous night, then turned away and covered her face with her hands. She felt exhausted, drained, and confused. Even if she could walk out of his house now, she thought, even if S. S. Hawthorne had made no threats and she were free to write her story, would she do it?

Despite all that had happened, John Hawthorne had protected both her and Pascal. They owed him their lives—she had believed his father when he said this, and she continued to believe it now. He had deliberately put his fate in her hands. Was she now ready to condemn him to public shame and humiliation? She turned back to the window. The activity below had increased. There was an air of agitation now: She glimpsed a male paramedic, two uniformed nurses. The doors of the ambulance were opened, a stretcher passed out; then the doors shut. She heard the sound of raised voices—John Hawthorne saying something indistinguishable, followed by the sound of running feet.

A few more minutes passed, then the double doors were flung back and Hawthorne strode across to her. The strain on his face was even more evident.

“Gini,” he began, “I’m sorry. It’s mayhem down there. Security people, medical staff. I’m going to need your help.” He crossed swiftly to the window, and looked out. “The British security people think they’ve located McMullen,” he said. “Apparently, he flew out on a false passport from a Midlands airport around eight last night. They think he’s in Rome now—at the same hotel as that ex-tutor of his, Knowles. It shouldn’t be long before they catch up with him. An hour or so, maybe less.” His hand swept the room in an angry gesture. “Meantime, two trained paramedics and two highly qualified nurses can’t damn well cope with my wife. Either they failed to give her the sedatives, or what they gave her didn’t work….I had hoped, I had
prayed,
that just this one time we could avoid a scene. I wanted Lise to leave here with some dignity. The last thing on God’s earth that I wanted was this. Come with me, look.”

He took her arm and led her quickly out into the now-empty corridor. He halted at a window that overlooked the rear gardens of the residence, and the park beyond.

“Look,” he repeated, “look.”

Gini could see Lise clearly. She was seated in the very center of the residence lawns, on a white-painted bench. The sunlight was strengthening now. It would be another bright day, but a bitterly cold one. Lise was wearing a thin, sleeveless summer dress. She was shivering convulsively. Behind her, at a distance, was an anxious huddle of security men, paramedics, and nurses.

“She won’t come in,” Hawthorne said. “She won’t let them touch her or go near her. She won’t put on a jacket or a coat. She’s done this before. If they try to move her, she’ll get very violent…dear God! All I want,
all
I want is to avoid that. The shame and the humiliation—for Lise.” He sighed. “For myself, too, of course, I admit that.”

He turned to look at Gini. “It began, Gini, at that house last night. I finally closed the shutters. I could see what was happening. I didn’t want anyone to witness that, least of all Lamartine.” He turned away tiredly. “It’s gone on all night. It will continue for the rest of the day if I don’t do something. Will you talk to her? She’s been saying she wants to talk to you since two o’clock this morning. I think, if you did, she might leave quietly. I think she might do that.”

“If
I
talked to her?” Gini stared at him in astonishment. “Why on earth would she want to talk to me—especially now?”

Hawthorne’s face became shadowed. He shrugged hopelessly. “Can’t you guess? She thinks we slept together. Just, for God’s sake, tell her we didn’t. She won’t believe me, but she might believe you. Please, Gini. I may not have the right to ask any favors from you, but I am asking you to do this….”

“All right. If you think it will help. I’ll talk to her. But I’m not going to lie.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to. We’ve both had enough of lies.” He turned and began to descend the stairs. Gini followed him. On the first landing they passed a tall and very beautiful longcase clock. Gini hesitated and looked at Hawthorne.

“Is that the clock—the one your father gave you?”

Hawthorne nodded, and hurried on down the stairs. Running footsteps passed outside. Gini looked at the clock, then turned and followed him.

On the clock face were Roman numerals, a sun, and a moon. The hands of the clock, exquisitely shaped, had just reached the ten and the twelve. As she and Hawthorne reached the hall, the clock’s mechanism whirred, and it began to strike.

A
T EIGHT PASCAL WAS
in Hampstead. He watched the slow dawn. At eight-fifteen, he was back in Gini’s empty Islington apartment. At eight-twenty he was back outside in his car.

He drove south fast, then turned west toward St. John’s Wood. He felt as if he had been driving and telephoning for centuries. He had not slept or eaten. His mind felt as white as the lightening sky.

He had had all night to look at his fears. He had had all night to listen to unhelpful people with no knowledge of Gini’s whereabouts, and all night to alternate between dialing Islington and this rented house he was now approaching. His mind rang with the sound of unanswered questions and unanswered telephones.

As soon as he reached the St. John’s Wood house, and pulled fast into its drive, he could see that the lights, like the telephone, were back on. There was a band of light just visible at the edge of the closed downstairs curtains. Pascal felt a fugitive hope. Calling Gini’s name, he ran inside.

The emptiness of the house hit him at once. He could smell, feel, see, hear she was not there. Very well, he told himself, he would leave for Oxford, right now—that was what he had planned. Then, turning, feeling disbelief, he saw the flashing light on the phone.

His heart leapt. He felt a second’s sweeping optimism, then a fear. It would not be Gini, he told himself—warned himself—as he pressed the playback control. It would be another trick or warning or deception. Then he heard her voice, and the air felt bright.

He listened intently. He replayed her message five times. Her voice sounded almost as usual, strong and warm: She did not sound as if she were in trouble. She told him she was well, that she was safe and returning to London. Then—distinctly—Pascal heard a man’s interjection. He said, “Ma’am.” There was a brief pause, during which something was said that Pascal could not hear. What followed was strange. Gini mentioned Beirut, the places where she used to meet him. This part of her message was abruptly cut off, and was again interrupted by a polite but firm interjection from the man.

She must have been calling from outside London, then, presumably from Oxfordshire. The man with her could only have been one of Hawthorne’s bodyguards—who else with an American accent would address her as “ma’am”? Pascal stared at the phone. He had no way of knowing when the message had been recorded, but he was sure that Gini had been trying to communicate something to him, something she was certain only he could understand.

The places we used to meet in Beirut…Pascal stood there, tense and alert; he listed the places one by one in his mind. Sometimes that café by the harbor, sometimes her hotel, sometimes his own room, to which he had given Gini a key that first day. Where else? Several times outside his local mosque, which was a few blocks from his room, on the edge of a shady, tranquil square. He could remember seeing Gini, sitting on a bench in that square, waiting for him to arrive. Then, twice, at least twice, he had met her outside an Arab school, midway between her hotel and his room, and he could remember the voices of the children at play behind the school walls as he ran, and she ran, and he took her in his arms. Was there anywhere else—anywhere he had forgotten? He could replay the geography of those three weeks day by day. Where, where did she mean? And then it came to him:
the mosque.
There was a mosque here too, almost opposite the ambassador’s residence—and driving fast, it was two and a half minutes away.

He ran out to his car, reversed out into the street. He reached the park at a quarter to nine, slowed, and stared. The park entrance, and its ring road, were closed.

Closed to traffic perhaps, but not to pedestrians. He drew up at the junction opposite the park gates. The gates had barriers across them, and two uniformed policemen on guard. No cars were being admitted, but, as Pascal watched, a jogger and a woman with a small dog were allowed through. He turned left, then left again, and parked. He ran back toward the entrance gates. As the police came in sight, he slowed to a more inconspicuous pace; he made sure that the camera slung around his neck was inside his leather jacket, and concealed.

He walked past the two policemen, who gave him a cursory glance, and turned right along the ring road. As soon as he was out of sight of the policemen he began to run fast. Ahead of him now, around a bend in the road, was the mosque and the residence. Next to the residence lodge was the pedestrians’ gate into the main acres of the park. Pascal slowed as he passed.

The lodge gates were firmly closed. He could see little of the residence itself as he passed it, for it was shrouded from the road by trees and thick evergreens. Through gaps in the foliage he could glimpse white vehicles. He checked himself. It was difficult to be certain, but what looked like two ambulances were drawn up outside.

Pascal quickened his pace. He jogged the sixty yards or so to the mosque the other side of the ring road. On this, the side facing the park and residence, there was no entrance. A low fence divided the mosque from the road. No one was standing there; no one passed. He looked over the fence and saw that the area surrounding the mosque, its outbuildings, and its interior courtyard, was large. To his immediate left was the mosque itself, with its glittering dome; directly in front of him was the courtyard and the high, very high, minaret, and to his right were further buildings, all deserted, their doors closed.

The entrance to the courtyard, mosque, and minaret was eighty yards ahead, fronting a main road. Pascal looked to the right and left, then vaulted the dividing fence easily and dropped down to the ground. It was a few minutes past nine when he reached the courtyard. He stood below the minaret and looked around him. There were a few pedestrians on the main road beyond. Cars passed there, and people, but the courtyard was deserted. He looked around him; he glanced up at the height of the minaret, squinting against the strengthening sun. No one. Nothing. Did Gini really mean him to wait for her here?