Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  All three men sat in silence. They watched the second hand of the clocks move forward; they watched the banks of tapes. They listened to the quiet relayed voice of the movement tracker, then a burst of static. Rowland froze: he had just heard Gini’s voice.

  Martigny gave a sigh. “At last. They have the listening devices in place. When they go in—they’ll go in front and rear simultaneously. Thirty seconds before they go in, the telephone will ring. Fifteen seconds after that we kill every light in that apartment. Then…”

  He did not need to continue. Rowland knew, in essence, what happened next. They would rappel down from the roof. Diversionary noise and blinding light; GIGN operatives, helmeted, in full body armor, each man with night sights and each man audio-linked. In theory their training enabled them to enter a strange room in darkness, at top speed, yet still distinguish who were the hostages and who was not. Rapidly, using automatic weapons, they would take Star out—and only Star. Sometimes this technique was successful, sometimes not.

  Both Pascal Lamartine and Star, he thought, were of similar height; both had dark hair; one man was holding a weapon, the other was not.

  He fixed his eyes on the clock face set into the side of the van above the banked tapes and equipment. The reception from the apartment was intermittent—like listening to a badly tuned radio station. Suddenly, after a burst of static, he heard Lamartine’s voice; he sounded cool, even relaxed.

  “Not in here,” he said. “In your mother’s room—the pink room. There’s a wall of her pictures in there. If you stood back against that… I can try some long shots. It’s just—”

  “What? What’s the problem?”

  “For covers, I need a head shot. I’d need just one good close-up.”

  “Covers?”

  “Sure. Time. Newsweek. Paris Match. I need monochrome and color—monochrome for newspapers, color for magazines.”

  “I don’t like that room. It’s my mother’s room. I don’t want—”

  “Fine. Okay. We’ll do it here. It’s not as good—”

  “No. No. We’ll go in there—just don’t try anything, okay, or I fucking fire, and she…”

  The voices faded again. Inside the communications van there was absolute silence.

  “What in God’s name does he think he’s doing?” Rowland burst out. Martigny gripped Rowland’s arm. The psychologist shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t have recommended that room. Or any mention of the mother.”

  “Or cameras.” Rowland rose. “Cameras least of all. He loves cameras. He loves publicity—you saw that. He’s perfectly capable of killing Gini on camera. It’s the worst thing Lamartine could possibly do. Call Star again. Call him now. You have to stop this.”

  Both Martigny and the psychologist looked at the clock. Five minutes had passed.

  Martigny began flicking switches, speaking into a microphone; the tapes clicked, began to whirr.

  In Madame Duval’s apartment the telephone began ringing. All three men adjusted their headphones and listened. In the apartment, no one picked up.

  “Let it ring,” Star said. “Let it ring, and get on with it. Hurry up…”

  Pascal was reading him, trying to read the room. On entering it, as he had anticipated, Star’s unease had immediately increased. Watching him, Pascal had the impression that Star was still watching some private movie, and that it was unspooling before his gaze very fast. The faster the movie, the slower his reaction speed seemed to be. He was now backed up against the wall Pascal had indicated, his body framed by pictures of Maria Cazarès. He was clutching Gini in front of him, the gun wedged against her neck. The lighting in here was even dimmer than in the sitting room beyond. Pascal raised one of his cameras and looked through the viewfinder. He focused on Star’s curious eyes. He could not rush this; he had to wait for Star’s eyes to adjust to this poor lighting, for the pupils to dilate.

  Fixed to this camera was a device he rarely used, known as a ring flash. When fired, it produced an intense burst of blinding light. Fired straight into the eyes at close range, that light might gain him fifteen, twenty, thirty seconds of advantage—which might or might not be enough. It was certainly not enough while Gini remained in this position with a gun to the neck.

  He lowered the camera. Star’s eyes were now fixed on the huge pink bed behind Pascal. Pascal sighed. In a calm, regretful voice, he said: “It’s no good like that. Gini’s too tall. I’m not getting your face…”

  “Fuck you. How about like this?”

  With one quick violent movement he shoved Gini down on her knees, holding the gun to the side of her head.

  “No”—Pascal met his eyes—“I won’t take that picture. And no one would print it if I did.”

  “Fuck you both. I—what was that?”

  Star had begun to shiver. His eyes swiveled around the room. Gini gave a low moan of fear. Pascal, who had also heard the noise—a slithering sound—gave Star a blank look.

  “What? I can’t hear anything….

  “You can—there!” Star’s face became rigid. “Something’s moving. I can hear something—stirring. It’s over there—by the bed.”

  Pascal knew perfectly well that the sound was above them, and came, almost certainly, from the roof. He half raised the camera, took a step forward. Star was pressed against the wall now, his face distorted with fear. He was beginning to make a low choking sound in his throat. Pascal felt time freeze, then speed up. He thought: one more sound and he’ll start firing.

  “She’s come back… My mother’s come back. She—I should have washed. I wanted to wash. She can smell the blood on me. She’s here…” His eyes jittered away, turned back to Gini, turned back to the bed.

  “You…” He gave Gini a kick. “Check the bed. Pull that cover back—the pink one. It’s moving—Christ, it’s fucking moving…”

  Now, Pascal thought as Gini rolled out of Star’s reach and sprang to her feet. As she moved to the bed, and reached for the cover, Pascal lunged forward fast, two feet, three feet. Star was still pressed back against the wall, white to the lips. He was trembling from head to foot, the gun wavering back and forth. He opened his mouth in a silent scream. From above them came a long bumping, slithering movement. Gini was twitching the pink bedcover aside. In a low voice she said, Oh my God, and one split second before Star pulled the trigger, Pascal fired the flash.

  The room exploded with light and noise. The room was splitting apart. Pascal dived. He felt his right shoulder crunch into Star’s rib cage. He had started firing before Pascal hit him, and he went on firing as he fell. Pascal was blinded by the noise, the bursts of fire, the horrible abattoir screaming from Star’s mouth. As he fell, Pascal kicked his gun arm and Star gave a scream of pain. There was a burst of fire, an explosion of glass. Metal spun through the air as the gun flew out of Star’s hand, then Star’s fist was smashing into his mouth.

  He tried to shout to Gini—he couldn’t see Gini, and she might have been hit—then Star slammed into him again, grabbing at his throat, digging his fingers into the artery in his neck. Ten seconds of that pressure and he’d lose consciousness: Pascal jerked his knee hard up into Star’s crotch, felt him sag and grunt with pain, and the grip of his fingers relaxed. He got in one more good punch, low in the throat, and Star reeled, then grabbed. They crashed back against the pictures on the wall, slammed into a chair, into one of the small fragile tables with which this apartment was filled, then crashed to the floor. Pascal fell awkwardly, one leg twisted behind him—and that second’s disadvantage was all it took. In an instant Star was on his feet again. He kicked out viciously, and pain shot down Pascal’s arm, across his ribs. He almost blacked out, started to rise, watched the room spin and tilt, then a woman’s voice, a voice he hardly recognized, said: “You kick him again, and you’re dead.”

  Pascal thought: merciful God, poor Gini. He was trying to push himself to his feet, pain shooting through his arm. He knew the arm, his right arm, was broken, and the film was slowing,
he could see with a hideous slow-motion clarity what was going to happen next. Star had become still, and suddenly intent. A slow smile lit his face.

  “Sweet…” he said. “Go on, then—shoot. You can’t touch me, the cards told me. You fire and you’ll miss.”

  She would miss—through a mist of pain, Pascal could see that: Gini, who hated and feared guns, who did not even know how to hold a gun like this.

  The Beretta needed a two-handed grip. She was holding it, Pascal saw, in the worst possible way, a woman’s way, backed up against the end of the bed, the gun in one hand, her arm fully extended, so the weight of the gun and her terror made the barrel waver and shake. He could see she was rigid with fear, her eyes fixed, her face white. When Star took one slow step forward, she flinched. From somewhere very distant, Pascal heard sounds, footsteps, low commands, new urgency. He thought distantly—fine, but they’re too late. He tried to haul himself to his feet, and Star took one more step forward. He radiated confidence now, it came off him like heat.

  “You dumb fucking cunt,” he said in a low voice. “You know what I’m going to do? What I was about to do earlier. And your fucking boyfriend there can fucking watch. Find out how it fucking feels—both of you. Because when I come, I’m going to blow your fucking brains out. Get down on your knees, cunt, give me that fucking gun, bitch…”

  Backed against the bed, Gini watched the centuries it took him to walk ten feet. She could see all this detail, the smashed room, Pascal’s smashed arm, the blood streaking his white face. He was still trying to rise, and Star was approaching with that wet, ugly smile on his extraordinary face.

  She understood: she could hear what the small voice in her head was saying: Pascal could not reach her in time, no one was going to burst through the doors or the windows in time, so it was just her and this approaching shape, and this heavy instrument in her hand, which might be nearly out of ammunition, so if she fired, she had to be very careful not to miss.

  Star was still moving, words were still spilling out of his mouth, and then as he moved, he made just one little mistake. As he stepped past Pascal, he aimed one final kick at his legs—and then it was easy. As she curled her finger around the trigger, she was back on a bridge in Amsterdam, and soaring right through her body was a current of astonishing force. All that latent female power, in Anneke’s mother, in herself. The power blacked out the panic and the pity, so when he was four feet away from her, she fired.

  The gun kicked like a live thing, and she kept on firing, and she could see she must have missed, though he was so huge a target and so close, because he was still coming at her, so she held the gun closer, clutched it with two hands, and as he reached for her, she fired straight at the bloodstains on his chest.

  What happened then was horrible. He reeled back, his eyes opened wide with surprise, and his body began to dance as she kept firing, little jerking spasmodic movements, like a marionette. She waited for him to stop this terrible puppet dance, and come at her again. She pulled the trigger again, and nothing happened, just a series of little clicks, so she waited for him to stop dancing and grab her, and as she waited, she thought: I’ve failed, and now Pascal and I, we’re both dead.

  She began to turn to Pascal, then Star made a retching, gargling noise. She stared at him. He jerked forward onto his knees and clutched at himself, as if something live, some animal, were inside him, moving around his body, in his stomach first, then his chest, then his throat. He fixed his eyes on her face and opened his mouth wide to say something, but the words seemed to clot in his throat.

  She could see Pascal rising, feel him reach her side at last, and quietly take the gun from her hand. She thought he threw it down; but she couldn’t take her eyes from Star’s face. She waited for the words, watched his lips form them, then he vomited, and a great gush of blood spewed out of his mouth. He fell forward, facedown, arms outspread, and Gini continued to stare at him. She was waiting for him to get up.

  Pascal was drawing her into his arms. It was dark, no light, the telephone was ringing, and she could hear the smash and crash of glass.

  “Gini, don’t look,” Pascal was saying. “Just stand still. Let me hold you.”

  “Did I kill him?” she said.

  Several times over, Pascal thought, but he did not say this. He drew her to one side. The room was filled with shouts. He pressed her back against the wall, shielded her with his body, and let the aftermath take its course.

  They put the power back on eventually. Gini looked back once as black-clad men hustled them out.

  Dead Star was lying on a pile of smashed wood and china and glass, arms outflung, fists clenched. By his left hand was a small headless china figurine, and a crucifix; by his right was a torn photograph of Maria Cazarès. In the fight, various objects had fallen from his pockets: one was a packet of much-used tarot cards; another was the container with Star’s last three unused White Doves.

  Chapter 21

  ROWLAND STOOD WAITING IN the street. Brightness had begun to fade from the air; a thin rain had begun to fall. The incipient darkness was pooled with the artificial brilliance of arc lamps. He frowned into their rainbow dazzle, then, moving into the shadows by the police vans, took up his vantage point. From here, despite the crowds of reporters and police operatives, he had a clear view of Madame Duval’s building and its portico steps. He knew that Gini was safe, but he wanted to see with his own eyes that she was safe. That, he felt, was the next and necessary step.

  Waiting in that cool, quiet hinterland that lies beyond shock and violent emotion, he could watch the unraveling of his own predicament as if he watched on film the sequences of some other man’s life. He was thinking, in a distanced way, about the nature of heroism—in which quality he believed, although he knew that belief to be old-fashioned, and to most minds suspect. He admired courage, whether spiritual or physical. Perhaps it even required a certain small measure of courage on his own part now to acknowledge that since Gini was safe, he himself owed Pascal Lamartine a debt.

  “They’ll be down in a few minutes.” Martigny had materialized at his elbow, stamping his feet in the cold and drawing on a cigarette. He exhaled, gave Rowland a sidelong glance.

  “Women. They’re so unpredictable. You know—when we were listening, when we thought she wasn’t going to fire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, something must have got to her. She pumped twelve bullets into him. When they get him to the morgue—I wouldn’t like to do the autopsy.”

  “I imagine not.”

  “Skin, and inside…” He shrugged, and tossed the stub of his cigarette into the gutter. “And I thought it was all over. I wonder, was it fear, you think?”

  “Or anger.”

  “I guess.”

  He moved off a few paces, then turned back.

  “You look—You want a drink? I can get you something. Some cognac? A whiskey?”

  “No thanks.”

  “You can’t talk to her.” Martigny gave him a kind glance. “You do realize that? They both have to go for medical checks. Then debriefing. Lamartine’s a hospital case. Cracked ribs and his arm’s badly fractured. She—it depends how deeply she’s in shock. You won’t be seeing her before tomorrow morning at the earliest. You understand that?”

  “I do. Yes.”

  “Meantime, I owe you. So if you want to stick with me when we start going through that apartment…” Martigny jerked his thumb at the mob of reporters beyond the barriers. “I’d rather you got the full story. Those bastards have been getting in my way all day. They’re about to discover just how uncooperative my department can be. So, what d’you need? Six hours? Eight? Overnight? Let them chase their own tails until we hold a press conference tomorrow morning, because I certainly won’t be holding one tonight.”

  They exchanged glances. Rowland gave a wintry smile.

  “Overnight would be more than generous. I’d certainly like to see that apartment. I have to get on to my news desk, get copy through
to them.”

  “No problem. There’s a load of his papers up there. Notes, letters, some weird kind of diary he kept. Plus there’s your colleague’s tapes, of course. All evidence, naturally.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Not for release to the press until a much later stage. So, should any journalist happen on some of that evidence—in the melee, when my back was turned… I’d have to launch an inquiry, of course.”

  “Without doubt.”

  “Though the trouble with such inquiries is—they tend to get nowhere. Too much paperwork… You know how it is.”

  “I’m grateful.”

  “No need.” Martigny shivered, and drew his overcoat around him. “You want to join me for a meal later? My wife will cook us something.”

  “I’d like that.” Rowland gave him a glance. “And then we could always share that brandy.”

  Martigny laughed. He slapped Rowland on the shoulder, then made a gesture which was expressive and deeply French.

  “They’re bringing them out now. I’ll leave you alone until they’ve gone.”

  “Is it that damn obvious?” Rowland averted his face.

  Martigny gave Rowland one last glance of quiet and half-amused sympathy, then moved away. An astute man, Rowland thought, and also a tactful one. The next instant, tensing, he forgot him. There was movement by the portico, shouts from reporters, a sudden blaze of TV lights.

  A police car had drawn up at the foot of the steps. Gini and Pascal Lamartine were ushered out fast, flanked by police. Rowland caught a glimpse of a woman’s white face; Lamartine’s left arm was around her shoulders; her fair head was bent. Lamartine paused as she ducked into the waiting car first. For one brief instant Rowland could clearly see his face. Etched upon it was an expression of love and of concern that spoke to Rowland across the distance that separated them: it said married. It marked a boundary that Rowland was not prepared to cross.

  Or so he told himself then, frowning into the fine rain, forcing himself to remain in the shadows, invisible; the honorable thing to do. Rowland watched the car pull away fast. Sirens curled through the damp air. His own decision—made then, made earlier?—angered him, but he accepted its ethics even as he felt the first cut of sharp and bitter regret.