Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  “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.
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  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.

  “Remember our appointment Sunday,” he said. “You know where to come, Gini. Come after dark. And wear the black dress, Gini….”

  There was a click, then the dial tone. Pascal stared across the shadows of the room, and fear for Gini rose up in him, he felt it clench around his heart. He replaced the receiver and took her in his arms. Her body was taut with tension and fear.

  “What did he say? Pascal, what did he say?”

  “Darling, nothing. Very little.” He began to stroke her hair.

  “The same as before?”

  “Yes. And then he hung up. Darling, don’t think about it. I’m here….” And then, because he knew it always calmed her, he switched to his own language, all those soothing phrases that he had used to her years before in Beirut—Soyez calme, tu sais que je t’aime, reste tranquille.

  This gentle incantation worked for her: Her breathing became regular and quiet as she became calmer and then slept. They did not work for Pascal. He lay awake, staring into the dark.

  Chapter 28

  AT ELEVEN FORTY-FIVE ON Friday, Gini was sitting in the downstairs bar at The Groucho. At twelve the first customers began arriving: a cluster of advertising people; one or two journalists she knew; an actor who was currently king of advertising voice-overs…but not the man she was here to see. Jeremy Prior-Kent, McMullen’s close friend at school and at Oxford, was not a punctual man.

  She ordered a mineral water, opened her newspaper, and flicked quickly through its pages. The front page led on the current round of IRA bombings; continuing royal scandals occupied pages three and four; on page five was a photograph of the U.S. ambassador’s wife. Lise Hawthorne had visited Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital the previous day. She was currently chair of its fund-raising committee. There was a photograph of her looking radiant and concerned, with a group of young leukemia victims.

  Gini folded up the paper. A group of new arrivals had entered the bar, but none approached her table. It was now a quarter past twelve; Prior-Kent was already fifteen minutes late. She glanced down at the photograph of Lise once more, the woman McMullen had described as a latter-day saint. That morning, after returning from Oxford, she and Pascal had spent hours on the telephone at the Hampstead house, trying to check out the few details McMullen had let slip.

  They had established that his claim to a connection with Lise Hawthorne’s distant cousins, the Grenvilles, was true, but they had been unable to discover any more about the illness McMullen had mentioned, which had led to his stay with them in 1972. That “illness,” coming after his abrupt and unexplained departure from Oxford, interested her: Why had McMullen thrown up his studies so quickly? What had been the exact nature of that illness, and how long had it lasted? This, she hoped, was a question Prior-Kent might be able to answer—if he ever showed.

  She glanced down at her watch. Pascal was due back to get her at one-fifteen. While she was here, he was continuing his checks into McMullen’s firearms license, and his past army career. He would pick up the keys to the St. John’s Wood house before meeting her, and intended to move in there to set up his cameras the next morning. Gini felt a familiar sense of frustration. Sunday was now very close, and although she had not said this to Pascal, she was not optimistic that he would obtain the pictures they hoped for. Was it really likely that Hawthorne would turn up at the gothic house, that he would conveniently stand there on the doorstep with the latest hired blonde? No, it seemed to her it was extremely unlikely—in which case they would be back to square one, still attempting to prove or disprove this story by other means.

  Later that afternoon they were meeting the woman Suzy from the escort agency, and it was possible that either she, or even Prior-Kent, would provide some sudden breakthrough, but if neither of them produced strong leads, then she and Pascal were still thwarted: All this work, and still no absolute proof. She looked up as a new group of people entered the bar, but none was Jeremy Prior-Kent. It was another group of journalists, whose faces she knew. One of them was Lindsay. Her friend saw her at exactly the same moment, and quickly crossed to her side.

  “Hi, Gini. D’you want to join us? We’re just going in for lunch.”

  “I can’t, I’m afraid. I’m meeting someone. How was Martinique?”

  Lindsay made a face. “Idyllic. Fraught. I got back yesterday—and all hell is breaking loose at the News. Have you heard?”

  “No, I haven’t been in the office for a couple of days.”

  “Well, you should go.” Lindsay grinned. “High drama. It’s getting to be like some Jacobean play—heads rolling, murder and mayhem on the fifteenth floor.”

  “Murder?”

  “Not literally, just a sort of night of the long knives. You mean you really haven’t heard?”

  “Not a word. What’s happened?”

  “Well, first—Daiches was fired. By Jenkins himself.”

  “No! Daiches. I can’t believe it.”

  “Well, apparently they had some huge bust-up. Practically came to blows. Nicholas accused him of going behind his back to Melrose. According to Charlotte, there’s some big story Jenkins had been nursing along. Melrose told him to kill it, and Jenkins pretended to play ball. Then he went on with it behind Melrose’s back. And dear Daiches, like the loyal lieutenant he is, thought Melrose ought to be informed.” Lindsay’s smile was a perfect blend of joy and malice. “Unfortunately, Nicholas had ordered up all these files or something, so Daiches could prove what he said was true. Anyway, the upshot was that Daiches was fired, and stayed fired for about three hours, then Melrose turned up, and stormed into Jenkins’s office—”

  “This was when?”

  “Yesterday. Raised voices behind firmly closed doors. Shortly after Melrose finally left, Dai
ches was back in his office. Reinstated. The company Cassius. All smiles.”

  “And Jenkins?”

  “I don’t know.” Lindsay grinned. “We’re all just going in to discuss it now over lunch—but the word is, Jenkins could be out of the building by the end of this afternoon. We’re opening a book on it. You want to place a bet? We’re giving odds on whether Jenkins will be fired, and who will succeed him.”

  “What’re the odds on Daiches?”

  “Fifteen to one originally—now down to nine to one and shortening all the time.”

  “Oh, great. If Daiches gets the job, I’m unemployed.”

  “Me too. We can resign together. Sign on together at the labor exchange. On the other hand”—Lindsay gave her a dry glance—“we could start putting out feelers elsewhere. I’m going to hit the phones after lunch. You should do the same.”

  “I can’t. Not today. No time.” She gave a shrug. “Still, maybe this is good news in disguise. It concentrates the mind wonderfully. There’s no way I’m staying at the News to work for Daiches.”

  “Me neither.” Lindsay turned round to wave at her friends.

  “I must go, Gini. See you soon. Oh. By the way”—she looked at Gini closely—“did it resolve itself—that Pascal Lamartine business?”

  “In a way. Yes.”

  “I thought so.” Lindsay smiled, this time with genuine warmth. “It shows, you know. Just a kind of light, in the eyes. …See you, Gini.”

  She turned away and disappeared with her friends to the restaurant upstairs. Gini sat there, quietly considering this news. Suppose Jenkins were fired? She began to run down a list in her mind of other newspapers or magazines she could approach with this story, should she need to do so. She was halfway through making this list, when at twelve-thirty, some thirty minutes late, the door opened, and a man came into the bar. A tall man, a familiar man, not a man you would forget: He was thin with reddish hair tied back in a ponytail. As before, he was wearing a flamboyant mustard-yellow Armani suit. She saw him scan the tables, then begin to move across to her. So McMullen’s old friend had not, it seemed, spent the last three days scouting for film locations in Cornwall. He had been otherwise engaged, directing a sex education video, overseeing an escort agency, making sure Bernie dealt with eighty-six telephone sex lines.