Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  Gini gave a low cry. She rose, almost stumbled, and moved blindly away from the bench. Hawthorne came after her and took her by the arm. He pulled her around so she was facing him. She stared at him. Her eyes were blurred with tears, but just for an instant she thought she saw light move against his face.

  “That is what I am,” he said in a low voice. “You knew earlier anyway. You were asking my father—I heard you, your last question when I came into the room. Who was with my wife once a month, last year? Who watched her with her strangers? I did. Because she liked to watch me watching her, and because that’s the point I’ve reached. I want to know, if you go down far enough, whether you get to a place where you’re really damned, where you’re finally beyond reach.”

  He released her and stepped back. Again something moved, glanced, against his face.

  “You know it all now,” he said in a dead voice. “All in all, for better and worse, you know me more than anyone does.” He smiled. “Except for God, of course. If there is a God. He sees. And I don’t imagine he forgives.”

  There was a silence then. Gini stood very still. Hawthorne moved away from her, then moved back. Behind them, at a distance, were his two security shadows. She heard a crackle of radio static; she saw one of the men swing around, look toward the boundary, swing back. But that was far away, outside this tight little cone of silence in which she and Hawthorne stood.

  “Why,” she began in a low voice, “why did you let this happen to you? You could have been so different. You were given so much. Who made you this way—was it your father? Lise? Why couldn’t you fight back?” She broke off. She could see it quite clearly now; something was moving on Hawthorne’s face.

  “Neither of them is responsible,” Hawthorne was saying. “I made myself. I found out what I was in Vietnam. Gini, listen to me….”

  But Gini could not listen to him. She was mesmerized by this tiny moving mark on his face. It reminded her of a game she’d played as a child with a pocket mirror, reflecting the sun’s beams into a tiny patch of dazzling light, then directing them onto a friend’s hand or face. Except this moving thing was not white, not dazzling. It was a small red circle, no more than a centimeter across, moving across Hawthorne’s face.

  Hawthorne seemed not to be aware of it. He moved and it disappeared, then he moved again and it came back. It wavered across his cheekbones, moved up to his hair. Hawthorne was continuing to speak. He was saying something about her father, and something about My Nuc, and something about how her father had not witnessed what happened there, though had possibly guessed.

  “What?” Gini said. “What’s happening here?”

  Someone behind them was moving. Hawthorne glanced away, then back. The red circle reappeared in the center of his forehead. He gave a sigh.

  “Gini, I killed that girl,” he was saying quietly. “She was a communist agent. Most of my platoon were dead. She was being interrogated inside this hut. It was hot. It wasn’t the way McMullen claims. It was war, Gini. One woman and fifteen men who’d just watched their friends die. I was twenty-three years old. So, yes, it all went wrong and yes, she was raped, and when it was over, I killed her. She wanted to die, she died holding my hand. I shot her once in the back of the neck—”

  “Wait,” Gini cried. “Stop. Something’s wrong. Your face—”

  She stared at him. The red circle moved fractionally. Hawthorne’s expression became puzzled. He frowned, and she saw his eyes take on a look of concern.

  “Gini, what is it?” he said. “Shall I take you back inside?”

  He made a small movement toward her, then stopped. The red circle reappeared. His frown deepened, and time, already slow, was slowing even more, so the frown took a long time to form, and the shout from twenty yards away took hours to reach them, and the fact that someone was running, both Malone and Romero were running, that too seemed to Gini to be happening very slowly and somewhere else. There was the mark, like a caste mark just between Hawthorne’s brows, and as Gini stared at him and the silence lengthened, she saw him start to understand. For one tiny second something flared in his eyes, a knowledge, perhaps even a relief. She saw his lips move. She felt him start to push her away, and then his face split.

  Redness misted the air. Something red spouted, drenching her face and her hair and her clothes. She was covered in this terrible copious red liquid. Time was immensely slow now, space huge. It was warm, this liquid that came out of the air. It smelled of iron. When she looked down at herself, she saw she was soaked with the stuff and also something else, some vile creamy pulpy matter. She started to jerk away, to pull away. Hawthorne was reeling backward; the wet air was filled with motion. Then she heard the crack of the rifle, the whine of an event already over.

  “Get down, get down, and get d—”

  Malone cannoned into her. He knocked her to the ground. She lay on the damp grass, staring at a white sky.

  After a while it seemed safe to turn her head, so she did turn it, just a fraction, and she could see Hawthorne. He was lying a few feet from her. Malone was crouching beside him. Frank Romero was lying half on top of Hawthorne in a tangle of limbs. He was talking over and over into his wrist mike, his voice breaking with shock. He was saying, “It’s a hit. He’s been hit. Scorpio’s down.” Gini wanted to reach across and tell him that it was more than this, that Hawthorne was dead, but her limbs and her lips would not move.

  Did Romero understand? She was not sure he did. Shock could affect even professionals, even killers, even ex-soldiers, and he started to do a terrible thing. He was sobbing, trying to scoop brain spillage from the grass and replace it, cram it, back inside the cranium.

  Gini closed her eyes. She began to retch. She rolled away, closer to the box bushes, closer to Hawthorne’s knot garden, to his penitential design.

  “Get down. Leave him. Christ, get down!”

  She heard Malone say this. Moaning, she covered her ears with her hands. There was a huge silence, then the crack of the second shot.

  The door gave at last. Pascal heard the first shot as he reached the foot of the stairs. He began to run up that tight, endless one-hundred-foot spiral. The second shot came about forty seconds later, as Pascal reached the last turn. He cried out. He thought: Hawthorne, and who else? Fear clamped around his heart. He ran faster, his steps echoing on the stone stairs. There was silence above him. He thought: Is he reloading, or doesn’t he need to reload? How many will he shoot?

  He could see light above him now. When he reached the minaret platform, McMullen was standing facing him. His rifle was pointing directly at Pascal’s heart.

  He said in a calm, quiet voice, “Oh, it’s you. Don’t move. I’ve no reason to kill you, but if you move, I will.”

  Pascal froze. The rifle was a serious weapon, an advanced weapon. A Heckler and Koch PSG1. It had laser sights. At this point-blank range the bullet might pass straight through him, doing little damage—or it might not. It would depend on the ammunition, on luck, on God.

  “Who?” he said. He could scarcely speak. “Why did you fire twice? Who did you kill?”

  McMullen looked first puzzled, then impatient. “Hawthorne, obviously. And Frank Romero.”

  “You hit them both?”

  “At a seven-hundred-yard range? From this height? Of course I hit them. Hawthorne’s dead. Both of them are dead. Once I had them in the center of the garden, it was an easy shot. A textbook line of fire.”

  McMullen glanced over his shoulder, then back. He had heard the sound of running feet below, as had Pascal. “If you’re worried about that woman reporter friend of yours,” he said, “she’s safe. She’s over there in the gardens. She was talking to Hawthorne just now.”

  “What?” Pascal went white. “Gini was with him—she was with him then?”

  “Sure.” McMullen gave him a cool glance. He lowered his rifle slightly. “She wants to cover wars, doesn’t she? That’s her ambition? Well, now she knows what modern weapons do to people.”

 
; Pascal stared at him. McMullen was slightly pale, but absolutely calm.

  “How do you know that?” Pascal said. “That was never mentioned. How do you know that?”

  McMullen gave a slight shrug. He raised the rifle again. “I know more than you suppose. Stand over there, would you? No, farther to your right. Up against the parapet wall.”

  Pascal moved. Glancing down, he could just see into the courtyard behind the mosque. Two black-clad male figures moved fast across the courtyard and took cover.

  “Are they armed?” McMullen said.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine.” He moved toward the stairs. At the top of them, he paused.

  “Did you get those photographs of Hawthorne?”

  “No. Nothing that was usable.”

  “He went to the house as planned?”

  “Yes. He did. But it wasn’t an assignation with a stranger. He went there with his wife. With Lise.”

  McMullen, who had been moving, became very still. “You mean he compelled her to go there with him?”

  “I saw no signs of compulsion, The reverse. She took the initiative. She was clearly there of her own free will.”

  There was a silence. McMullen moved his hand very slightly. His finger was now on the trigger of the rifle. He said, “Are you telling me she went there to make love to him? That can’t be true.”

  “I can’t deny what I saw,” Pascal said quietly, and waited. The odds were about sixty-forty, he thought, whether McMullen would fire, whatever answer he gave. The silence lasted only a few seconds, but it felt to Pascal very long. In the distance, sirens began to wail.

  McMullen hesitated. He took one step back, closer to the stairs. He could hear, and Pascal could hear, that there was movement below. “You’re mistaken,” he said. “Wrong. It couldn’t have happened that way.”

  “I have photographs,” Pascal replied.

  “Photographs? Photographs prove nothing. Hawthorne’s father sent me photographs he claimed were of Lise. I wasn’t taken in. They were faked. I never intended to rely on photographs, interviews, evidence. Did you realize that?”

  “I realize now.”

  “You can fake such pictures, can’t you?” McMullen suddenly shot him an almost pleading look.

  “Yes, you can,” Pascal answered truthfully. “The only photographs I trust are my own.”

  He hesitated, looking at McMullen’s face. He was fighting back his doubts, Pascal could see, fighting down his emotions. More noise came from below.

  “Are you intending to die for Lise?” Pascal asked quietly. “Because if you stand here asking questions much longer, that’s exactly what you’ll do.”

  “You think so?” McMullen gave a tight smile. “Why would I want to die now? Lise is free. She can’t be committed unless Hawthorne signs the papers. He’ll never sign them now. I shall be with Lise, driving her away from that hospital, two hours from now.”

  “You will?” Pascal moved behind one of the platform pillars and looked cautiously down. “There are five men in that courtyard. You’ve heard the ones at the foot of the stairs. I doubt you’ll get more than halfway down. Especially with a Heckler and Koch in your hands.”

  “Maybe.” McMullen smiled again. “I think you’re wrong. Shall we see? You could be right about the rifle. And I won’t be needing it anyway. Here.”

  He tossed the rifle to Pascal. The movement was so swift and so unexpected, Pascal reacted instinctively. He reached forward and caught hold of the rifle stock. There was a blur of movement as it traveled through the air, and in that split second, McMullen was gone.

  Pascal listened to the sound of his footsteps descending the stairs. He bent forward and carefully placed the rifle on the stone floor, at a distance. Crouching, he approached the staircase and listened intently. He could still hear McMullen’s footsteps echoing down the stairs. He must have been running, making no attempt at caution. Pascal listened, and then he heard the car. He straightened up, pressing himself against a pillar and looked down onto the ring road below.

  The car was there, engine running, doors open, one black-clad man in the driver’s seat, one already out on the sidewalk by the open doors. Two others must have been waiting for McMullen at the base of the stairs, because they came out with him, all three men moving fast. McMullen was clearly identifiable. Although he wore black also, he was the slightest of the three in build, the only one with his head uncovered. He was running fast between them. Pascal saw him glance back once, over his shoulder. He seemed to know the men with him.

  From the base of the stairs to the car took the first of the men about fifteen seconds. He vaulted the fence, was across the sidewalk and into the car. As he slid into it, he shouted, “Now.”

  McMullen was no more than twenty yards behind him, the second man immediately on his heels. Pascal thought afterward that McMullen never once guessed that there was anything wrong. The man behind him shot him once, in the back, just as he reached the fence. McMullen slumped against it. His companions were inside the car, and the sedan had disappeared with a screech of rubber before McMullen twisted. He coughed up a long spurt of bright arterial blood, and fell to the ground.

  Pascal moved fast. He wiped the rifle stock clean of his own prints. He removed his camera and wound on some fifteen frames of unused film. He moved silently and very fast down the stairs. The sirens were closer now, and very loud.

  It would have been timed, he knew, so the police cars arrived about a minute and a half after it was all over. He might have about thirty seconds; he needed no more than fifteen.

  The door at the bottom of the stairs was open. No one was visible in the courtyard now. Pascal walked out, his hands raised, holding the camera above his head. Five yards from the entrance he bent and carefully placed the camera on the ground. The sirens were very loud now, whooping and wailing. He could see the flash of blue lights in the corner of his vision, to his left, near the entrance to the park. Keeping his hands to his sides, he walked away from the lights, across the courtyard, and out into the main road beyond. He thought he was probably safe, because a dead French photographer would be an inconvenience, an unnecessary complication to whatever cover story had been planned, but even so, as he walked, he could feel vulnerability the length of his spine.

  He reached the main road two seconds before the first of the police cars drew alongside. He could not see his camera from here, but he knew it would already have been removed. He began to walk away at a fast pace, heading for the rough open ground beyond the mosque and immediately opposite the residence lodge. There he vaulted the railings, ran fast across the rough grass, and crossed the road.

  He reached the residence lodge a few seconds after the mayhem began. Men were running in all directions. The driveway was blocked by cars. The first of the ambulances had already arrived; white-coated men were running in the direction of the rear gardens. The air was flashing, alarms were ringing, and out of the havoc and confusion, Pascal saw the white-haired man appear. He was in a wheelchair which he was propelling along the path from the gardens. He burst through the group of paramedics, wheeled the chair around fast, began to follow them back toward the gardens, then seemed to change his mind. He wheeled to his left, then his right, then spun around to face the ambulance. He came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the drive.

  He sat there in magnificent isolation amid the running figures and the shouts and the sirens and flashing lights. His hands gripped the arms of his chair. Then two men in black blazers ran up to him. One bent over him; the other, who was weeping, knelt by his side.

  A second ambulance was arriving, and a third. The gates were jammed open with vehicles and people. Pascal was about to pass through in the confusion, when a hand touched his arm. He swung around, to find Gini and that huge security man, Malone, at her side.

  “Get her out of here,” Malone said. “Get her out of here fast.”

  Pascal took off his jacket and wrapped it around her. She was drenched in blood, and scarcely abl
e to move. As he began to guide her away, he looked back one last time through the havoc.

  The man in the wheelchair had arched back and lifted both his arms. His face was distorted with rage and grief. As Pascal watched, he began to scream abuse at the sky.

  Chapter 40

  THE LONDON MEMORIAL SERVICE for John Hawthorne was, as Pascal had expected, perfectly stage-managed: held at the Roman Catholic cathedral in Westminster, it was a somber but magnificent affair.

  Mary and Gini had both insisted on attending. Pascal went less willingly—he saw it as the culmination of weeks of cover-up, weeks of misinformation and lies.

  “All right,” he had said to Gini angrily in her apartment the night before. “I can see that Mary has to attend. But, darling, we don’t. They gave him a hero’s funeral. Now they’re giving him a statesman’s memorial service. I know what he truly was. You know what he truly was. Why should we participate in their lies?”

  “Because I don’t see it that way,” Gini had said in the same quiet, obstinate way she adopted whenever Pascal mentioned Hawthorne’s name. “You wouldn’t either, not if you’d been there when Hawthorne died.”

  Pascal could hear the rebuke at the back of her tone, and he remained silent. He gave up his protests and arguments because he could see they hurt Gini; he agreed to accompany her here.

  They were seated halfway down on the left-hand side of the cathedral’s massive echoing nave. An organist was playing a Bach toccata and fugue. There must be, Pascal estimated, some seven or eight hundred people attending this ceremony, which was due to begin in ten minutes. As yet the seats in the nave were three quarters taken, groups of people still arrived. In front of him, toward the high altar, was an array of famous faces; he could recognize many distinguished men here—British politicians and diplomats, including the prime minister, and most of the cabinet. Men who might have been senior civil servants, or captains of industry, a number of army and naval officers, three newspaper proprietors including Hawthorne’s friend, Henry Melrose, several newspaper editors, familiar faces from broadcasting, and groupings of other celebrities, writers, filmmakers, a conductor, an opera singer, who were, Pascal knew, family friends.