Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  She pulled Gini toward her and began to whisper frantically in her ear. Gini could scarcely hear her. There was a stream of muddled accusations, and four-letter words. Lise suddenly pulled away. She regarded Gini with an odd, staring look.

  “Will you promise me something?”

  “If I can, Lise, yes.”

  “Now that I’ve spoken to you, I don’t mind leaving. I’ll go away quietly, the way he wants. Maybe it would be good for me to go somewhere quiet and have a long rest. That’s what John says.” She gave a little puzzled shake of the head, then, turning away her face, she sighed. “But if I do that, Gini, I have to know you’ll be safe. You promise me you won’t go to bed with him, will you, Gini? No matter what he says?”

  “Look, Lise, that’s not going to happen, okay? You can put it right out of your mind.”

  “You mean you’re not even tempted?” A sudden sly look crossed Lise’s face. “Are you sure? You’re not lying to me? Most women are tempted by John. John can be the most wonderful lover. So passionate. So strong…” She gave a low laugh. “You know that phrase ‘le diable au corps’? John has that. It can be quite a ride, Gini. He takes you all the way to hell and back.”

  Gini frowned and looked at her uncertainly. Lise had suddenly sounded far less mad, and far more devious. Abruptly, she glanced over her shoulder, then turned back and snatched Gini’s arm.

  “Anyway,” she went on in a low, rapid voice. “Never mind that. I just want to know you’ll be safe. So when I’ve gone…Gini, don’t go back into the house with him, will you? Don’t risk that.”

  “Lise, I do have to leave here, you know. Try not to worry….”

  “No. No! Listen to me. I mean it.” Color flared in her cheeks. The black eyes fixed Gini with a beseeching look. “Promise me. Stay in the gardens, then you can leave through the gardens. Stay where the security men can see you—where that man Malone can see you. You see that path over there? That takes you back to the front gates. Just pretend I said nothing. Oh, my God…he’s coming back.” Her face went rigid with terror. Gini looked at her with compassion. She was now hugging her thin arms around herself and fiddling in a frantic way with her watch. “Don’t tell him what I said, Gini. For the love of God, don’t tell him!”

  Lise averted her face as Hawthorne approached. She inched away from Gini, stared vacantly around the gardens, then bent again to examine her watch. As her husband reached them, his face gray with exhaustion, she sprang to her feet.

  “It’s so late,” she cried in an animated way. “Gini, I’m so glad we talked. John, I feel so much better now. So much stronger. Gini’s made me understand—I do need a good rest. So I’m going to leave now. No silly scenes, darling, and no fuss.”

  Hawthorne looked at her in a cautious way, as if this might be the prelude to a new outburst. “The ambulance is waiting outside, Lise. And that Irish nurse, you remember, the one you like? She’ll go with you. I’ll come out to see you later today.”

  “I know that. I know that. You think of everything. You’re so good.” She gave a little smile. “I’ve just been telling Gini…how good you are….Gini. Good-bye. Give my love to Mary, will you do that?”

  She bent and kissed Gini’s cheek. Hawthorne held out his hand to her, and Lise ignored it. She walked around to the far side of the bench. In the distance a radio crackled. The nurse on the terrace picked up a blanket and moved forward a few steps; she glanced at the paramedic, then nodded.

  “Let me see you to the ambulance, Lise,” Hawthorne said.

  “No. No, don’t do that.” Her voice rose.

  Hawthorne hesitated. “Are you sure, Lise? Maybe you’d prefer it if Gini—”

  “No. No,” she said shrilly. “I want to go on my own, John. I don’t want you. I don’t want anyone….”

  “Lise…”

  “Leave me alone!” She backed away a few paces. She was trembling, and beginning to pluck at her dress in a distracted way.

  “All right, Lise,” Hawthorne said gently. “It’s all right. I’ll stay here if you prefer.” He glanced away and made a discreet signal to the nurse.

  “Stay in the garden, show Gini the gardens…” Lise said on a new, brighter note. “I know she’d like that. I know you’d like that. Show her our lavender walk, and the new knot garden, darling. You would like that, wouldn’t you, Gini?”

  “Sure,” Gini said quietly, “very much.”

  That seemed to pacify Lise. She gave a deep sigh, turned, and walked away without another word. By the terrace she greeted the paramedic with a smile, and the nurse with a kiss. They stationed themselves on either side of her and disappeared into the house. Gini watched her leave, frowning. Her insistence that they remain here in the garden seemed strident, and very odd.

  Hawthorne watched this departure, his face expressionless. A few minutes later they heard the sound of the ambulances’ engines starting up. On the terrace, Frank Romero lifted his hand and spoke into his wrist mike. Malone, to their left, thirty yards away, stood there quietly, his eyes scanning the fence. The ambulances drew away. The sound of their engines receded. From the terrace, Romero gave a small hand signal, and John Hawthorne, who had been standing as still as a statue, came back to life.

  He gave a long, slow sigh. He moved a few feet away from Gini and looked up at the bright blue-white sky.

  “That’s it,” he said. “It’s over. It’s difficult to believe—but that’s it. I can begin living again.” He hesitated, looking back at Gini. “Thank you,” he said. “You do understand, I had no choice? God, I feel as if I can breathe again.” He checked himself, then gave her a glance.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Gini. My problems aren’t over yet? I still have to contend with this young woman reporter here, who may yet decide to be merciful, or who may not.” He smiled. “Even so. For the moment I feel…free, something like that. And it is the most wonderful day. So fresh. I’m too hot in this damn thing.”

  He pulled off the sweater and tossed it down onto the bench. He rolled back the sleeves of the checked shirt he wore beneath, looked up at the sky, and stretched. “It feels like spring. Come on, Gini, shall I show you the gardens? They’re not much at this time of year—and they’re nothing compared to my gardens in Oxfordshire—but the knot garden is fun. I designed the pattern myself.” He held out his hand to her. When she did not take it, he checked himself.

  “I’m sorry. I forget.” He gave a small gesture of the hand. “I feel as if we’re friends. And we’re not friends, of course. Not yet, anyway. But—” He broke off. “You don’t want to do that? Is something wrong, Gini?”

  Gini’s heart had gone cold. She stared at Hawthorne. It was the first time she had seen him in an open-necked shirt As soon as he had removed the sweater, the scar could not be missed. A long, livid scratch, claw marks, right at the base of his throat. Another mark, on his right arm, where he had rolled back his sleeve. The scars had almost healed. Gini thought: Well, they would have by now. Napoleon had been dead almost a week.

  You bastard, she thought. He was still looking at her, an expression of puzzled concern on his face.

  Mimicking his ease of manner and relaxation, she said, “Yes, I’d love to look at the gardens. Especially the knot garden, John.”

  It was the first time she had ever addressed him by his Christian name, and he seemed pleased. As he led her across the gardens, he looked down at her, then put his arm around her waist.

  Chapter 39

  PASCAL RAN FAST UP the slope, breathing hard. He ducked under the branches of the chestnut trees, pushed past a group of children, and ran out to the ring road. McMullen had disappeared.

  He glanced to his right, toward the residence. He heard first one engine, then a second, start up. He glanced to his left; a group of people were approaching the park. He ran across the road and looked over the fence into the mosque courtyard beyond. Still deserted. He hesitated, wondering if he could have been mistaken. Perhaps the man with the Barbour jacket had not been
McMullen? How far could he have gotten with a one-hundred-yard start? Not far, surely? Pascal had expected to see him in the courtyard below. He stared down, scanning the space and the main road beyond. He looked back over his shoulder, and as he did so, the first of the ambulances passed him, driving fast. A second followed fifty yards behind. They came out from the residence, lights flashing. A second later they emerged into the main road beyond. One swung north, the other west. Pascal vaulted the fence into the mosque precincts and took the slope to the courtyard very fast.

  There was nobody there. He looked this way and that, counting seconds. There was no sign of the man, no sign of anyone. The minaret’s door was solid, and it was locked. He looked up and could see nothing, just the edge of the parapet wall around the minaret’s platform, and the pillars that supported its roof canopy. He could see nothing and no one up there. He listened. Only silence, a tight, tense silence in the courtyard, a silence intensified by the hum of passing traffic beyond.

  I was wrong, he thought, and then he saw it, tucked in under the bushes at the edge of the courtyard—an old dark green rolled-up Barbour jacket. He crossed to it, moving quietly and stealthily now. The jacket was just a jacket: Whatever it had been used to conceal had been removed. Quietly, Pascal laid it back down. He edged back to the foot of the minaret tower and pressed himself against its walls. He moved around it until he was directly beneath the side of the platform that overlooked the residence gardens. He looked upward, the sun dazzling his eyes. At first he could see nothing but stone, and beyond it white sky. Then slowly something appeared. He could glimpse it only when the sun glinted on its metal. From where he was standing, so far below, it was infinitesimal, but Pascal knew what it was, this thin metal object, narrow as a blade of grass.

  He shouted then, loudly enough to give warning, loudly enough to spoil an aim. Nothing happened. He shouted again, McMullen’s name this time, and as he shouted, he ran back to that locked door.

  He hurled himself against it with his full weight. It did not move. He threw himself against it a second time, and still it did not budge. He drew in his breath. Silence sped past him. In the second before he hurled himself against the door again, he heard a minute sound from above him. It was a sound he had heard many times in the past, the click of a safety catch being released on a rifle.

  “Can you make out the pattern?” Hawthorne was saying. They were fifty yards from the bench where Lise had been sitting, with the open lawn behind them, and the low, neatly clipped box hedges that made up the knot garden directly in front of them. The sky was cloudless, the sun dazzlingly bright. Hawthorne gestured to the hedges, separated by miniature paths of immaculately kept gravel.

  “There are many different traditional patterns,” he went on. “They date back to the sixteenth century and beyond. I designed this one with a dual function. The pattern is decorative, but if you look closely, you see it’s also a maze. Mazes are very interesting, you know. Originally they appear as tiled patterns on church floors. Penitents had to negotiate them on their knees. It was an allegory of the soul’s search for redemption. …” He glanced at her with a smile. “I like that kind of thing. I’d have fared much better in the medieval world, I sometimes think.”

  “Why do you say that?” Gini asked, watching him intently.

  “Oh, I don’t know. The connection between morality and religion was very strong then. People had very clear beliefs—perdition, salvation. Damn.” He bent to examine one of the box plants. “The frost has damaged some of these….”

  He leaned forward, looking closely at the tips of the plants. Gini looked down at him-. She thought: Another minute, then I’ll speak.

  “I’ve always been interested in gardens,” he continued. “As were my grandfather and my father. Another inheritance, you see.” He glanced up at her. “Shall we sit here for a while, or would you like to go in?”

  He gestured to another white-painted bench, just on the edge of the lawn, overlooking the knot garden. As he looked up at her, the sun shone directly on his face. It lit his fair hair like a helmet. A trick of the light, Gini thought. For an instant he looked dazzlingly young and invincible, like some warrior prince.

  He straightened, and moved across to the bench. Gini watched him, then glanced over her shoulder. Two of the security men, ever vigilant, had stationed themselves twenty yards back. Shading her eyes from the sun, she saw that one was Romero, the other Malone. Romero’s eyes were fixed on her; Malone’s gaze constantly moved. She saw him check the ambassador, scan the gardens, look back toward the house.

  She followed his line of sight, taking in the lawn, the trees, the brilliant horizon. There was a gap in the screen of trees that marked the boundary between the residence and the park, no doubt the result of the pruning and felling activities she had overheard earlier that week. The day she had stood there, listening to the whine of the chain saw and Lise Hawthorne’s instructions to the workmen—that had been the day she found Napoleon dead.

  She felt her throat tighten. Through the gaps in the trees she could see the glittering gold dome of the mosque; against the bright white sky rose the thin silhouette of its minaret. A beautiful view, a fine garden, a sequestered place. The privileges of power, she thought; she crossed to Hawthorne and sat down next to him on the bench.

  “Tell me,” she said quietly. “There’s something I don’t understand. Why did you kill my cat?”

  His reaction was very quick. Just a tiny and momentary hardening of the eyes, then the puzzled smile.

  “I’m sorry. You’ve lost me. What cat, Gini? I didn’t know you had a cat.”

  “Oh, I think you did. And he scratched you, didn’t he? I can see the marks. There, on your arm. And on your neck.”

  “What, that?” He gave a gesture of bewilderment, then sighed. “You want to know how I got these scratches?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Then ask Mary.” His voice hardened. “She was there in the room the day Lise inflicted them. Didn’t she tell you about that?”

  Even then, for a moment, she very nearly believed him. It was so perfectly judged, so well timed, the tone so correct. She looked at him, and he looked back at her. She glanced down at his arm, then back at his throat.

  “No woman did that,” she said quietly. She raised her eyes to his. “You’re lying.”

  “Gini, I’m not. I told you—I’ve had enough lies to last me a lifetime.” He hesitated, then took her hand. “Can’t we move beyond this?” he went on in a low voice. “I thought you understood. I wouldn’t lie to you. Not now. You know me too well. We’ve been through too much.”

  “Oh, but you would lie,” she replied. “You’d lie to me just as easily and well as you lie to anyone else. Your wife lies too, nearly as well as you do. And your father…” She hesitated. “I’m not sure how much your father lied to me. Not a great deal maybe. You didn’t tell him did you?” She touched the scratch on his arm. “Your father doesn’t know about this.”

  There was a long silence. Hawthorne continued to hold her eyes, and Gini waited. Then, at last, there was the tiniest alteration in his face, a tightening around the eyes, before he covered her hand with his.

  “No,” he said. “You’re right. My father doesn’t know about this and he wouldn’t understand if he did.”

  He released her hand then, and leaned against the back of the seat. He turned his eyes away and looked across the gardens toward the park.

  “It was Wednesday morning,” he said in a quiet, level voice. “I had seen you at that dinner at the Savoy the previous night. I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about some of the things I’d said in that speech. I thought of you, once or twice. Early that morning, my father played me one of his damn tapes. It was you, in your apartment with Nicholas Jenkins. You agreed to drop the story on me. That didn’t satisfy my father, of course, but it should have reassured me. It had the opposite effect. I wanted to see you then, very much. I wanted to tell you some of the things I finally told you last Fri
day—about my marriage, all that. So I went to your apartment. You weren’t there, of course.”

  He glanced toward her in an unfocused, frozen way, as if he scarcely saw her. “I was in a very strange state. Desperate, perhaps—very pent up. I don’t know why. I think I wanted you to know—who I was, what I was. I wanted someone to know….” He produced a tight smile. “A lifelong Catholic, you see? It’s been a long time since I went to confession. And I can’t take communion. Maybe it was that.”

  He paused. Gini said nothing. From behind them she heard the crackle of radio static. A bird began to sing in the branches to their left, then flew off. In the distance, a very long way away, a universe away from this conversation, she thought she might have heard a shout.

  “When you weren’t there,” Hawthorne said, “I was appalled. I had to get into your apartment. It wasn’t difficult—you have locks a child could force. When I went inside, I wanted you. I started to look for you. I went into your bedroom. I touched your clothes, and your sheets. I could smell your skin and your hair. I went through all your papers, the drawers in your desk. I thought, if you weren’t there, I might find you in a letter or a diary. Then I thought that maybe I would write to you, leave you a message, or just wait, and then I looked at these things I’d found in your desk—the handcuffs, the stocking, the shoe, and I didn’t know why they were there. I knew nothing about how they’d been sent. But they made me think of my wife, of things I’ve done with my wife, and other women too, sometimes, and that…excited me, I suppose, though it never feels like excitement—it feels black. I wanted you then. And one part of my mind wanted you the way you are, but another part wanted you wearing those things, even the handcuffs, especially the handcuffs, so you were just like all the other women, and I could make you do what I like….

  “I can’t explain.” He lifted his hand, then let it fall. “It’s something that happens. I have to find out what’s on the other side, the dark side. Sometimes I can control it, but sometimes I can’t, and that day it was very intense. If you’d come in then, I’d have made you wear those things. Anything could have happened. I might have killed you. I might have killed myself. But you didn’t come in, and your cat was there, watching me, and I had the stocking in my hands, so I killed an animal instead. Then I put everything away. Then I got rid of all the pain and agony and want. Then I left.”