“You mean those photographs?” Gini gestured across the room at the envelope.
“I mean those photographs, yes.” He gave her a cold smile. “Lise has always had rather unusual sexual tastes. John is simultaneously repelled by that and attracted by it—I think he neglected to mention that to you the other night, but it was one of the reasons he married her. In those days, Lise’s little exploits were rather tamer, more predictable. She liked the milder forms of bondage, being tied up, beaten—you can imagine the kind of thing—”
“I don’t want to hear these details,” Gini interrupted.
“You don’t?” The cold eyes moved from her mouth to her hair. He shrugged. “As you like. John found that erotic, briefly. Then he became bored, then repelled. From then onward, his marriage was much as he described it to you. He sought solace elsewhere. What he did not explain to you is that Lise did likewise; in fact, there is a slight question as to the paternity of their second son, but never mind that. In the last four years Lise’s tastes have hardened—I had once warned both her and John that they would. Those seeking satisfaction by such routes inevitably become more desperate, and more disappointed. In the last six months or so, Lise has become very desperate indeed. Hence those muscular young men.” He gestured toward the photographs. “Lise gave a garbled account of her own tastes to McMullen and claimed her own weaknesses were John’s. McMullen, who is a fool, believed her. So, last fall, they launched themselves on their very amateurish and feeble campaign against my son, first via that gossip columnist whose name I forget, then via your newspaper and you.” He paused and frowned. “To begin with, I was a little puzzled by that.”
“You were? Why?”
“Well, McMullen may be gullible where Lise is concerned, but he has had some discipline, some training—and Lise, while being profoundly stupid, as John said to you, has a certain manipulativeness, a certain cunning. It was obvious to me that their scheme would not succeed. If it advanced a little way, it could be easily dealt with,” he continued with brutal nonchalance. “Lise would take an overdose. Simple. Quick. Lise would be no loss to the world whatsoever, and John would be free of her for good. But then I began to understand—and I wonder whether you have yet, Ms. Hunter? All of this, the allegations about blondes, the approaches to newspapers, McMullen’s alleged disappearance, those four parcels Lise dreamed up and he sent out—all of that was designed to give credence to Lise’s allegations of sexual misconduct. Yet it was also designed to distract from the main event. James McMullen and Lise intended to kill my son, and that was their intention from the first.”
Gini began on a question then, but he held up his hand.
“Oh, yes, Ms. Hunter,” he said. “I shall explain. How I knew, when I knew, what their plan was. Before that, however, there are some details I want to make clear to you. I want you to understand that from last summer onward, I took action. Apart from those actions I have already described, my son did not. I arranged, first, that when Lise kept her monthly appointments with these virile young men, she would do so in a place of my choosing, where she could be clearly photographed doing so, in flagrante.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the fireplace and gave a narrow smile. “She met with them in hotel rooms, and those rooms all had mirrors not so very different from this one. Frank Romero may not be a Pascal Lamartine, but put him on the other side of two-way glass with the right equipment, and he can perform perfectly well.” He stopped and looked hard at Gini, then continued. “I had my insurance, I was monitoring the situation, and I knew that after staging his disappearance, McMullen remained in contact with Lise. At that point, when Frank and his helpers were finding it difficult to keep track of McMullen, when in fact, they lost him—you and Mr. Lamartine appeared on the scene. Then I indulged myself a little, I’m afraid. I did tell you. I like games.”
He gave her a wintry smile. “So you have me to blame, Ms. Hunter, for a number of things. For the break-in at your apartment, as I mentioned before, for those additional parcels, a continuation of the four sent by McMullen and devised by Lise. What else…let me think. Ah, yes, the little games with the lights in your apartment, and certain telephone calls, which Frank scripted and recorded—another task he enjoyed. Sometimes I was helped, by information about you given to me by John—the touching importance you attached to events in Beirut, for instance, or the fact that you were working on a story about telephone sex lines. But before you interrupt—John knew nothing of how I used that information. And when he found out about the calls, for instance, the other night—well, you saw. John has an unfortunate romantic streak. He was very angry indeed.” He paused. There was a silence. He leaned forward and adjusted the wheels of his chair.
“I hope you’re clear,” he said, still in that same cold, clipped East Coast voice, that voice so like his son’s, “had I had my way, you would have been dispensed with, Ms. Hunter—you and your photographer friend. I’d have wiped you out as easily as those two men in Venice, or that model in Paris. And be very sure, Ms. Hunter, five minutes later I’d have forgotten you. I don’t have a conscience—it’s an indulgence I dispensed with years ago. I have always believed that the ends justify the means. So I would have gotten rid of you, and when I was dissuaded from doing so by my son, I decided to indulge in a little harassment campaign. A pity you didn’t heed it, but there you are. I was amusing myself—and also using you, of course, as your lover duly noted. I hoped you might lead me to the elusive Mr. McMullen.”
He smiled. “It took you long enough. But in the end, my confidence in you both paid off.”
“Are you sure about that?” Gini said sharply. “That’s not the way I read it at all. I think McMullen gave you the slip. Maybe he’s not quite the fool you took him for.” She met his gaze. “You should watch yourself. You’re arrogant. And arrogant people underestimate others. That can be a mistake.”
“You think so?” He appeared unruffled, almost amused. “Well, I certainly don’t overestimate you, Ms. Hunter, or that lover of yours. You’ve been comparatively simple to deal with.” He shrugged. “You made things rather more difficult once you moved into that Hampstead house. But not impossible. You led me to Oxford, Ms. Hunter, for which I’m grateful. By that time, both you and your photographer friend were learning. Unfortunately, by the time you actually met with Mr. McMullen you’d managed to give Frank the slip.” A low laugh here, and again, a hand held up to silence her. “But not entirely.” He gave her a cool stare. “As you will know, he located you again later that night. At your Oxford hotel, you recall?” He smiled. “In any case, it was a minor inconvenience, losing you. It told us McMullen was almost certainly in the Oxford region, and sure enough, Lise finally made a mistake. She made two calls to McMullen the evening you saw him. One to his mobile phone, to tell him her husband had just left London, and a second, several hours later, to his ex-tutor’s rooms. Both calls were made from the same phone booth. It was one she had occasionally used before. A mistake.”
He sounded, Gini thought, not just arrogant, but also self-satisfied. It seemed to her more than possible that Lise had intended these telephone calls to be picked up, and that this device was a precursor to McMullen’s staging of his own death. But it was not her purpose to assist S. S. Hawthorne, so she said nothing. She hesitated, then looked across at him.
“So, do you know where McMullen is now?”
“No. Not for certain. Not yet.” He glanced down at his watch. “It was a mistake on his part to kill. Now even the British police have stirred themselves. My instinct is that he will have tried to leave the country, shortly after his encounter with you this evening, Ms. Hunter. He may or may not have succeeded. He will have had an escape route planned.” He sighed in an impatient way. “I’m increasingly eager for Mr. McMullen to be silenced permanently. Within the next few hours, I hope.”
He frowned, and looked away from her. A thought had evidently just come to him, and it appeared to irritate him. Gini watched him become a little disconcerted; his ha
nds plucked at his blanket.
“Do you know when McMullen planned to kill John?” he said abruptly. “It was discussed with Lise in the second of their phone calls. Indirectly discussed, but their intentions were clear enough. At the party to be held for my son’s forty-eighth birthday next week in Oxfordshire. After the dinner, during the fireworks display. The fireworks were to be timed to coincide with the actual hour of John’s birth—a family tradition. Lise knows about my ambitions for John, and when I had always hoped to see them fulfilled—as do you, of course, since John discussed them with you the other night. So I imagine it was Lise who selected the date, and McMullen who saw the opportunity the celebrations would provide for a marksman.” He leaned forward. The blue, diamond-hard eyes met hers.
“I find that malicious, Ms. Hunter. And I shall punish that malice in due course.” He leaned back and gave a sigh. “Meantime, McMullen will be found and dealt with, and Lise—”
“Lise will take her overdose?” Gini said sharply. She glanced toward the door. Hawthorne smiled.
“No. Unfortunately not. My son has overruled me there. As he himself told you, he is concerned for his sons, and when he said that, he genuinely meant it. Perhaps he would find it difficult to face his children with that on his conscience—I don’t know. I sometimes suspect that there is a bond between Lise and my son that even I cannot understand, and he remains reluctant to sever it finally. Who knows? John is a very complex man. So Lise will not overdose, unless she does it by accident. No, she will be dispatched to a nice, quiet, secure private mental home, as the doctors have been advising for many months. She can tell her fantasies to the walls there, Ms. Hunter, while receiving the most excellent care. She really is not sane. I think even you can see that my son has no choice.”
Gini looked away. If all this were true—and on the whole she believed it to be true—she could see that indeed, as far as Lise was concerned, John Hawthorne was probably making the only possible choice. She wondered how long he would succeed in protecting Lise—and she wondered, glancing back at his father, what definitions of sanity or insanity meant anymore.
“So, Ms. Hunter”—he leaned forward once more—“that brings us up-to-date, I think. And it leaves us with just one outstanding problem. You, Ms. Hunter—and your photographer friend. Now, what, I wonder, should I do about that?”
There was a silence. They looked at each other. Gini met those blue, ice-chip eyes.
“These are my terms,” S. S. Hawthorne said. “First, there is no way you’ll now be able to print a word of this in a British newspaper. I have too many friends. McMullen has killed once, and I have incontrovertible evidence that he was intending to kill my son. McMullen is a British Army officer with a somewhat intriguing, and impressive, military career. An attempt by such a man to kill the American ambassador—” He smiled. “Now, that makes the British, very nervous, indeed. You try to print a word against my son in any paper in this country, and you’ll get an injunction slapped on you and on your paper before you can move. This is now a security matter—so, here at least, I know you’re foiled.”
He paused, smiling grimly. “I’m not happy with that situation. I like to be thorough. You might talk, you might try to sell your story abroad. So listen to me very carefully, Ms. Hunter. You’re paying attention now, I hope? If you do that, or attempt to do that, I shall know. And I won’t touch you—not immediately anyway. But I shall finish the job I began the other night with your French friend. On Friday my driver missed him by exactly six inches. He was spared, because my son had certain plans for him that involved his remaining alive until today, until Sunday.”
Gini went white. She rose to her feet and began speaking. Hawthorne gave a bored gesture of the hand to cut her off.
“Listen, Ms. Hunter. Mr. Lamartine has never been my primary concern. I knew he would never obtain his photographs—even he could not photograph assignations with blond women that never took place. You worried me rather more because—with Mr. Lamartine’s gallant assistance, of course—you might have come up with evidence that would damage my son. And now, unfortunately for you, John has been unwise enough actually to present you with evidence. However”—he paused and gave her another cold, glittering look—“my son has also won you a stay of execution. But understand this: If you give me any further problems, any at all, this is what I shall do. First, Mr. Lamartine’s daughter, Marianne, will die. Give him that message from me, if you’d be so good. Second, I’ll have Mr. Lamartine killed, and you afterward, you understand? I shall make sure he dies under unpleasant circumstances, and I’ll allow you enough time to contemplate your own responsibility for his death. Then I shall take care of you as well.” He smiled. “Frank Romero has taken a liking to you, Ms. Hunter. I know he’ll find an interesting way of dealing with you.”
He looked at her closely. “I hope you understand? I hope you don’t doubt me—because, I can assure you, I wouldn’t hesitate. It would be like squashing some insect, some fly. Unlike my son, I do not like you, Ms. Hunter. You are one of the little people. And you are getting in my way.”
There was a silence. Gini watched him. He had been speaking clearly and concisely, in the tone of voice a man might use when dictating a business letter. Looking at him, she realized that she felt as cold, and as exact as he evidently did. There had been, she now understood, one central question behind this whole investigation: What was the true nature of John Hawthorne? The answer to that question lay in the man now seated opposite. She looked down at the black blanket covering his paralyzed legs.
“I understand,” she said, “and I don’t doubt you for a moment. How long do you expect to live?”
That amused him. He laughed. “Long enough, Ms. Hunter. Long enough, I assure you. And don’t imagine you’d find safety after my death. I shall operate very well from beyond the grave, Ms. Hunter. My son John will see to that.”
He pressed the switch on the arm of his chair. There was a low hiss, a low whine; he began to move forward. Gini stepped in front of his chair. He stopped.
“Ms. Hunter,” he said. “This interview is over. Get out of my way.”
“This interview isn’t over,” Gini replied. “There are things I want to know. Things you are going to tell me.”
That delayed him. He gave her a glance that was suddenly filled with both malice and contempt, and the merest trace of admiration. He glanced over his shoulder toward the fireplace and the mirror above it. He looked back at her, then at the door.
“My cat,” Gini said.
There was a silence. He frowned, and for just one second she thought he seemed confused.
“That is what you want to know?”
“Yes, I want to know which of your brave hit men tortured and killed my cat?”
“I have three men here.” He shrugged. “Any one of them. Frank Romero will have issued the instructions. But I wouldn’t advise cross-examining him. His temper…his tastes—you understand?”
“All right. Then, let’s go on. What really happened in Vietnam?”
“Not what McMullen claims. The account John and your father gave you is the true one.” He paused. He gave her an amused, considering look. “Those were the questions uppermost in your mind? I’m surprised.”
Once again he looked her up and down. He gave a small, supercilious smile. When she did not speak immediately, his smile broadened. “Come now, Ms. Hunter. Something’s bothering you—which little detail do you need me to explain?”
“I want to know who the man was in that hotel room with the call girl and with Lise,” Gini began. Hawthorne gave a bark of laughter.
“Of course. I might have known. These are a woman’s questions, not a reporter’s, Ms. Hunter, aren’t they? You’re a whole lot more fascinated by my son than you’re admitting to yourself—you do realize that?”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, but I think it is. By my reckoning, Ms. Hunter, John gave up too quickly the other night in your apartment. You’re easier t
han you look. Play you the right way, and John could have you anytime he chose.”
“Who was the man with Lise and that call girl?” Gini repeated steadily. Hawthorne shot her another amused glance.
“I did warn you, Ms. Hunter. It was my son,” he said dryly.
Gini hesitated. It was the answer she had been expecting, but it disappointed her all the same. She would have liked to believe that John Hawthorne was above such sordid encounters. She gave a small shrug and held his father’s gaze.
“In that case,” she said quietly, “there’s only one more question I want to ask. In those pictures you sent McMullen, in the third of them, the December shot…” She hesitated, and remembering the details of that photograph, felt herself blush. S. S. Hawthorne noted this.
“Yes, Ms. Hunter?” he prompted.
“In the December photograph, Lise is looking out of frame. There was someone else in the room with her and that man. Someone who watched her go through that whole performance…”
“Indeed. Lise liked to have an audience, I understand. So, yes, there was someone with her, that December, that November, that October—and on similar occasions as well.”
“Who was it?” Gini said sharply, and at once regretted the tension she betrayed.
S. S. Hawthorne lowered his eyes; the complacent smile still remained. “Oh, Ms. Hunter,” he said in a half-playful, half-reproachful tone. “I think you already know the answer to that question.”
He looked down at the black blanket across his lap, and adjusted it. The door was opening. In the doorway stood John Hawthorne. He looked from his father to Gini in silence. S. S. Hawthorne gave her one last amused malicious glance, then maneuvered his chair past her to the door. There, he looked back at Gini over his shoulder.
Lovers and Liars Trilogy Page 68
