Lovers and Liars Trilogy (98 page)

“A hit,” he said. “A palpable hit. However”—he leaned across the desk—“the ghastly girl retained her critical faculties. She gave the béarnaise sauce the thumbs-down.”

“Big deal.”

“… And our motoring correspondent got tough over the Aston’s instrumentation design—”

“Give me a break. He drooled over that damn Aston.”

“The olive oil article, however—now, there I’m with you. Appalling. Unreadable. Precious beyond belief.”

“And you’ve done something about that, have you? In your capacity as features editor?”

“Sure I have.” He met her gaze levelly. “You hadn’t heard? I fired that columnist this week.”

There was another silence, longer this time. Lindsay sat very still. She looked at the green eyes and the tweed jacket and the piles of books. She thought briefly of school fees and mortgage payments and leaking pipes.

“Is that a threat?” she said eventually, enunciating the words clearly in her calmest voice.

McGuire seemed astonished. He gave her a blank look, ran his hands through his hair, then began to speak rapidly.

Lindsay was not listening. She rose. She felt as if she were trapped in some cold, icy place, where the air was too thin, so it was hard to breathe.

“… Because if it was a threat,” she went on in that calm, flat voice, “I’d better call Gini and delay my appointment with her. I should be meeting her in about an hour, and, of course, I’ll be late.”

“Late? Late? What are you talking about?”

“Gini will have to wait. If it’s of any interest to you, which it probably isn’t, so will my mother, and my son, and the shopping and the plumber—”

“Plumber? What plumber?”

“So will the garage and the damn shop where they might, just
might,
have one last pair of the size twelve football cleats my son Tom says he desperately
has
to have. So will all the many tedious, trivial matters I have to deal with in addition to my work, which—in case you’re wondering—is finalized for this week. They’ll all have to wait, Rowland, because I’ll still be upstairs, in this building. I’ll be talking to Max. I won’t work like this.”

Lindsay, pleased with the controlled sarcasm and dignity of this speech, moved to the door. She felt she was timing the exit well; McGuire coughed.

“Soccer or rugby?” he said.

Lindsay stopped. She turned and gave him her most withering look.

“The football cleats,” he repeated. “Soccer or rugby?”

“Soccer. And don’t try to ingratiate yourself with me. It’s too late.”

“Size twelve? He must be tall.”

“He’s six feet two. He’s seventeen. Does that help your calculations?”

“I wasn’t calculating, but I am surprised. I thought you were around thirty. Thirty-one, maybe.”

“Too late for flattery,” Lindsay, who was secretly gratified, said. “Too late to extricate yourself. I—”

“It wasn’t a threat,” McGuire interrupted, now speaking rapidly and rising to his feet. “I’ve approached this wrongly. I didn’t ask you up here to threaten you, or criticize you. I don’t like fashion. I don’t pretend to understand fashion…” He suddenly gave her a broad smile of great brilliance, and took her arm. “I don’t like Aston-Martins much either. Or two-hundred-pound lunches. I’m compromised. I admit that.”

Lindsay stood still. She looked down at McGuire’s hand, which was large, tanned, and beautifully shaped. She wondered distantly if she was experiencing arrhythmia, if the peculiar flutterings beneath her Cazarès carapace were the result of overwork, anxiety, poor diet, and stress. She was later to wonder if it was at this point in her relationship with McGuire that she made her first, and crucial, mistake. She could, after all, have detached his hand and continued her brave exit, but she did not Instead, she met that amused glance, and she started to relent.

“Why did you ask me up here, then?” she asked, and allowed McGuire to lead her back to his desk.

He picked up the green file again, undid its ties, and handed it to her.

“Because I need your help,” he said, “with this.”

The directness and simplicity of the appeal surprised Lindsay. She searched his face for further signs of duplicity and guile, but failed to see them. It occurred to her that McGuire, when not in the ascendant, might conceivably be a man she could like.

She looked down at the folder, which was thick, heavy, and unlabeled.

“Is this a fashion story?”

“No. Only indirectly. It’s bigger—and nastier—than that.”

“Are you going to explain?”

“I can’t explain fully, no. Not yet.”

“It’s confidential?”

“You could call it that.”

Lindsay opened the file. A familiar face stared up at her, a famous face. The photograph, one of the very few in existence that had been posed, not snatched, had been taken by Cecil Beaton. It dated from the seventies, and once seen was not easily forgotten. Maria Cazarès was captured at the height of her beauty. Black-haired, black-eyed, she was laughing, her hand half lifted, as if about to shield her face. Her hair was cropped; she looked, as Beaton had famously said, like the most beautiful boy in the world; she wore a small gold crucifix around her neck.

Lindsay frowned, and began to flick through the file. It was composed of press clippings; all concerned Cazarès and Lazare. They spanned almost three decades. The file was four inches thick.

“I want you to read through it,” McGuire said. “Everything my researchers could find is in there. The American clippings, the British, the Italian, the French. Could you do it this weekend?”

“It’s that urgent?”

“Yes. It is. I thought…I thought you might fit it in at Max’s. After dinner, maybe. In bed…”

He gave her another greenish glance. To her surprise, Lindsay realized that McGuire had other talents she would not have suspected; when it suited his purposes, he could flirt.

“It might help,” she said, “if I knew what I was looking for.”

“Gaps.”

“There’ll be hundreds of gaps. You mentioned a few of the obvious ones yourself, earlier. This whole file will be supposition. Rumor and counter-rumor. Legend. Myth.”

“Never mind. Anything you know, or have heard, no matter how unlikely, how unsubstantiated—if it isn’t in that file, I want to know about it.”

“Even gossip?”

“Especially gossip.”

“Report back Monday?”

“Er—yes.” He glanced away. “Before you leave for Paris? If you have time, if you’ll let me, I’ll buy you a thank-you lunch.”

“Maybe.”

McGuire looked injured. “Haven’t we made peace?”

“No. Not yet.” Lindsay met his gaze. “I still think you’re manipulative. Devious. I don’t trust you an inch.”

“But you will help me?”

“You’re marginally more bearable when you ask favors. So—yes.”

Lindsay rose, and turned to the door. McGuire, in a surge of gallantry, also rose and opened it for her. In the doorway he asked one final question. Had Jean Lazare any known connection with Amsterdam?

“No. Why would he?” Lindsay asked, puzzled. “Whatever nationality he really is, it isn’t Dutch. And Holland hardly features on the international fashion circuit.”

“No,” said Rowland, whose telephone was ringing. “No. I thought that…”

He picked up the telephone; Lindsay lingered in the doorway. She could just hear a female voice from the receiver, speaking rapidly. Rowland frowned.

“I’ll see you Monday, then, Rowland…”

“Monday?” He gave her a blank look.

“Our
lunch,
Rowland. Your
apology
lunch.”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Monday. Sure.”

Lindsay glanced back as she left. Rowland’s female caller was still speaking—indeed, had continued speaking all this while, without pause. Rowland, believing himself unobserved, gave a sigh. He placed the receiver gently on his desk, picked up the volume of Proust, and began reading. As Lindsay closed the door, Rowland’s caller gave a cry of apparent anguish. Rowland, unmoved, turned a page.

At one, just when Lindsay was finally ready to leave, Markov called. He had called twice during her meeting with Rowland. He was more than capable, Lindsay thought wearily, of calling every five minutes for the rest of the day and night. Markov was like that.

“So, sweetling,” he said as she picked up the phone. “Give me the lowdown. Did you plunge in the knife?”

“You bet,” Lindsay replied mendaciously.

“Darling, well
done.
Straight through the aorta, or was it a more lingering death?”

“Lingering. Now, go
away,
Markov. I’ll give you the details in Paris, all right?”

“Can’t wait. I’ve been picturing the scene, beloved, all morning. This McGuire—describe him. He’s short? Fat? Receding hair? No testicles to speak of?”

“As a matter of fact, he’s six feet five. Black hair. Mean green eyes. Leaks testosterone…”

“Darling! Why didn’t you say? He sounds
exactly
my type.”

“Not a prayer, Markov.”

“You’re sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Ah, well. Life’s a bitch. Introduce me sometime anyway. Oops, call on my other line. Maybe it’s Barbados.
À tout à l’heure,
my museling,” Markov added in a very bad accent, and hung up.

At one-fifteen Rowland McGuire moved to the windows of his editor’s twelfth-floor office, checked his watch, and looked out at the Thames, the buildings of Canary Wharf, and the parking lot below.

“Right on schedule,” Rowland said.

Max Flanders, munching one of his favorite cheese and pickle sandwiches, put down the file Rowland had brought him and joined him at the window.

Both men watched as a small, slender woman emerged from the building and threaded her way between parked vehicles to a new, gleaming Volkswagen Golf. The woman’s hair, short, curly, and unruly, was as black and shiny as the paintwork of her car. She was wearing black high tops, black leggings, a black sweater, and a voluminous black coat. She was carrying a briefcase, a canvas tote, a bundle of books, and a large green file sealed with tape. She was having difficulty balancing these articles, and as she reached the car, several fell. The woman gave the canvas tote a hefty kick. She glared up at the sky. Her lips shaped a succinct expletive, interpretable from twelve stories above. Rowland smiled.

“What a shame,” he said. “She’s changed out of that suit. And it was such a splendid suit too.”

“Not the Cazarès?” Max grinned. “She wore that for your meeting? In that case, it’s definitely war, Rowland. You haven’t a prayer.”

“You’re wrong. She’s off to collect Genevieve Hunter now. Everything’s going according to plan.”

“She didn’t suspect?”

“Of course not. I told you. I charmed her. I made her coffee. I complimented her on that suit. It’ll be a piece of cake, Max.”

“You hope. You don’t understand women, Rowland. You never did.”

“Have faith.” Rowland ignored Max’s remark. He watched the black Volkswagen accelerate to the exit, where, signaling right, it turned left. It narrowly avoided a large truck, whose brakes screeched. Max closed his eyes.

“Just never drive with Lindsay,” he said. “That’s my only advice, Rowland. Whatever damn fool plans you may have—avoid that. It’s dicing with death. Especially when she’s in a temper.”

“She isn’t in a temper.” Rowland turned away from the window. “I told you. Two days ago it was war. Now it’s détente. It’s easy to win a woman like Lindsay over, once you set your mind to it.”

He picked up one of Max’s sandwiches and began to nibble on it in a contemplative way. Max, repressing a smile, lit a cigarette.

There was a brief companionable silence during which Rowland, whose mind never left work for very long, flicked through the contents of the file he had brought Max, and Max, watching his friend—his extraordinarily handsome friend, who had never understood his own effect on women—had plenty of time to savor the latest development in the ongoing tragicomedy of Rowland McGuire’s life.

“Listen, Rowland,” he began, deciding on a word of warning, “about Lindsay. She isn’t nearly as invulnerable as she pretends, and Charlotte and I are both very fond of her. I know how important this story is to you, and I understand why her help could be useful…”

Rowland was not listening. He was rereading the latest report from his U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency contact in Amsterdam, submitted to Max a short while before. Max did not know the name of this contact, and was unlikely to be given it: that was the way Rowland worked.

“Sure, sure,” he said, closing the file and waving Max’s remarks to one side. “Stop fussing, for God’s sake, Max. Next you’ll be asking me what my intentions are.”

“Unlikely. You wouldn’t tell me if I did.”

“Work,” Rowland said in an impatient tone, picking up a sheaf of photographic prints from Max’s desk and leafing through them. “My intention is to work. To get this whole story tied up. Lindsay’s peripheral. If she’ll condescend to help, fine. If she won’t—too bad. I’ll continue the charm offensive—”

“Give me strength.”

“These pictures…” Rowland laid them back on the desk. “They’re the latest from Pascal Lamartine?”

“Yes.” Max picked them up. “I want to use one tomorrow. Page one. Photo editor wants this one.”

“He’s wrong.” Rowland indicated the photograph in Max’s left hand. “You should use that one. People are getting complacent about Bosnia. Shock them out of it, Max.”

“Maybe,” Max replied, knowing that Rowland was right. He looked down at the picture Rowland had recommended. A group of mourning women were clustered around the body of a boy; the boy’s right hand still grasped a Kalashnikov; his left lay, outflung, in a pool of blood. The boy’s face, mercifully, was hidden, but the faces of the women were not. Lamartine would have had less than thirty seconds in which to capture this grief; this was his great gift, Max thought, the gift that put him in a class by himself: technical brilliance, informed by compassion. The photograph had haunted Max all morning. If one of my own children were to die, he thought, that is how I would feel, that is how my wife would look.

He glanced up, met the understanding in Rowland’s eyes, nodded, and pushed the photograph to one side.

“How much longer is Lamartine staying out there?” Rowland asked, rising and beginning to prowl Max’s office. “I thought he was coming back with Genevieve Hunter?”