Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  “Perhaps you’re not quite so stupid as I thought, Ms. Hunter,” he said. “That question gets to the heart of the matter. As I say, I think you know the answer already. But if you want confirmation, don’t turn to me. Ask someone you like and admire rather more, Ms. Hunter. Ask my son.”

  Chapter 37

  JOHN HAWTHORNE CLOSED THE door behind his father. He leaned against it and stood silently, looking at Gini. He moved across the room and drew back the curtains, looking out to the darkness beyond.

  “What time is it?” Gini said.

  “Eight. Nine. Between the two. Morning—and still not dawn.”

  He turned back to face her then, and they looked in silence at each other. It was the first time she had ever seen him informally dressed, Gini realized. He was wearing a dark high-neck sweater and black corduroy pants, the kind of clothes Pascal might have worn. Beyond that, the alteration in him was profound. He emanated none of the energy she associated with him. His face was pale and drawn with fatigue. There was no verve or vitality. He looked like a man who had spent nights without sleep, a man who had moved into some dead zone on the other side of despair.

  “How long were you speaking to my father?” he asked.

  “A long time. And he did most of the speaking.”

  “I see.”

  “Were you listening to us? Or watching us?”

  Gini gestured toward the mirror as she said this. Hawthorne glanced at the glass, then frowned. Her question seemed neither to surprise nor to annoy him.

  “No, I wasn’t.” He hesitated. “I hadn’t realized that my father planned to do this.”

  She saw him look at the tape recorder, and the pile of tapes. He moved across to the table, picked up the envelope of photographs, drew out the bundle with its covering letter, glanced at it, then replaced it in the envelope. He tossed it back on the table, as if it did not concern him at all, then, moving slowly, crossed the room. He came to a halt a few feet in front of her. She saw him look at her hair, and her scratched face. He took her right hand in his and examined the cuts gently, turning her hand this way and that. He released her hand and looked at her.

  “I want to say two things first,” he began in a quiet voice. “This evening, when you believed me to be in some danger, you tried to warn me. I’m grateful for that. Under the circumstances, it was more than I had any right to expect. And second—” He paused and looked wearily around the room, then back at her. “You may well not believe me—but I am sorry, truly sorry, that you became involved in this.” He gave a sigh. “I’m sorry about a great many things—I should have dealt with this whole situation my way, and much sooner. Lise should have been hospitalized. I should not have held back. I know there’s no point in apologizing, but I would like you to understand. This has come very close to destroying me. These past few weeks, I came very close to wanting to die, closer than I have for many, many years. There seemed no point—no reason—in living like this.”

  He moved away from her, then turned back. “I do still want to talk to you. Will you let me do that?”

  “Yes,” Gini said. She glanced over her shoulder at the mirror. “But I don’t like this room.”

  Hawthorne gave a half-smile. He picked up her bag and her coat. “We’ll go to my study. It’s safe, clean—if anywhere is. There’s something I want to show you in any case.”

  He held the door for her, and then led the way along a corridor. In the distance, Gini could hear the sound of voices. The corridor curved toward the front of the house, and at a window there, overlooking the front drive, Hawthorne paused, gestured to her to join him, and looked out.

  “The ambulances are arriving,” he said.

  Gini looked down. Two white unidentified ambulances were parked in the driveway, she saw. As she looked out, their doors opened. Footsteps crunched on the gravel below.

  “That’s partly why I couldn’t join you earlier,” Hawthorne said. “I had to finalize the arrangements for Lise. She’ll be taken to the sanitarium this morning. It’s over. It can’t go on. Now it’s just a matter of formalities. I have to sign the commitment papers, which I’ll do later today, once she’s been admitted and examined. The doctors say I should be able to do that around noon. And then it will be finished.” He paused and glanced at her. “Maybe then I’ll feel relief.”

  He went to take her arm, then drew back. “I’m sorry. It’s just through here.” He opened a door. “I’m probably not thinking too clearly, Gini. You must forgive me. I’ve had Lise to deal with, and the security people—McMullen still hasn’t been found…I haven’t eaten, I haven’t slept. Neither have you, I imagine. Come and sit down. Would you like coffee? Some sandwiches? A drink?”

  The room into which he led her was almost monastically plain. It had both an outer and an inner door, both of which he closed. The window blinds were raised, and the windows, Gini saw, overlooked the front gardens, the park ring road, and the mosque.

  She had refused his offer of a drink. While he moved away to pour one for himself, Gini stood by this window. She looked intently at the mosque, and tried to see the road that ran between it and this house, but her view was obscured. She frowned: Would Pascal have received her message, and would he have understood it, if he had? She turned back to look at Hawthorne.

  “Is Pascal safe?” she asked.

  Hawthorne met her eyes. “Oh, yes. Neither you nor anyone who matters to you will be harmed. I give you my word on that.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. My father probably does. You should have asked him.” He moved across to a desk at the far end of the room. “However”—he picked up something—“I do know where he was earlier—as you must understand by now. I let him take his pictures, Gini. In fact, I made it as easy for him as I could. Obviously, our opinions of Lamartine differ. I felt—put it this way—I felt I owed him that. I’m even with him now. Look.” He moved toward her, and Gini saw that in his hands he was holding a sheaf of photographic prints. “Lamartine won’t be needing these,” he continued in an even voice, a voice in which there was now a detectable edge. “He cannot use them. At around one o’clock this morning he left that house you’d rented. He left his camera equipment behind, and also his film. That was an unexpected bonus, from my point of view. I had intended to explain to you what he had done. But now I don’t need to. You can see for yourself.”

  He handed her the photographs, which were in black and white, still sticky from the developing process. Gini looked at a woman with Hawthorne who was almost herself; she looked at Lise with blond hair and with black. She handed the pictures back.

  “Do you understand?” Hawthorne was watching her closely.

  “No. Not entirely. I don’t.”

  “Lise likes role-playing. Particularly in the context of sex.” He turned away and tossed the pictures back on his desk. “In fact, Lise finds sex very difficult unless some role-playing is involved. She has a great many scenarios, performing fellatio on rough-trade hired help is only one of them. She also likes to believe that she can reawaken my interest in her as a woman—and her efforts to achieve that are sad. They involve her becoming someone else—someone she believes I find more attractive than I find her. Last December, when she was trying to substantiate that foolish story McMullen fed your newspaper, it was a blond-haired call girl—you’ve interviewed her, I think?”

  “Yes. I have.”

  “The girl left me stone cold. I imagine Lise realized that.” He gave her a cool glance. “So, this month, when she was becoming desperate, when she realized that she was finally going to have to provide you and Lamartine with some actual evidence, she decided that the best way to make sure I kept an appointment with a hired blonde was to play the woman herself. I know, I know…” He gave a quick gesture of the hand. “It couldn’t possibly have worked. But Lise knows nothing of modern camera techniques, and she was not expecting to go into a room with open shutters in full light. She was probably expecting that some quick hazy shots
of a blond-haired woman on a doorstep with me would suffice. Once she was actually in the room with me—well, Lise is not good at controlling her own behavior, especially in that situation.” He looked off into the middle distance. “In one sense, as I expect my father will have explained, that part of Lise’s schemes was not of major importance in any case. If she could discredit me, well and good—it was less important than insuring that McMullen had the time and the opportunity to kill me, widowhood being infinitely preferable to annulment or divorce.”

  He looked back at Gini, and his gaze became intent. “But apart from that, Lise had become very obsessed by you—had you not realized that?”

  “No, I hadn’t.” Gini looked at him in surprise. “Why was that?”

  “Because her instincts are acute.” He turned away. “Lise and I have known each other since childhood. We’ve been married ten years. She is attuned to me. She watched you with me very carefully, at Mary’s party. She knew at once what I felt.”

  Gini stared at him. “Are you telling me that’s what provoked the scenes with her the next day—and the ones Mary witnessed?”

  “That—and my decision to send my sons home. Yes.”

  “But that’s crazy! It was a party, we were simply talking, that’s all.”

  His mouth tightened. He turned away. “Perhaps that was how you saw it. It was not my reaction and Lise knew that. So, after a few days of hysterics, she set about removing the threat. She did that by becoming you, you understand? She copied your hair, talked to Mary, acquired the same dress—” He broke off. His voice hardened. “In short, I had you by proxy tonight. And if you want to know the truth, look at Lamartine’s photographs. There was a short while, five minutes maybe, when the illusion nearly worked for me. I thought, if I can’t have the real thing, maybe a copy will suffice.”

  He swung around to look at her, gave a gesture of the hand, then broke off. “Then, inevitably, the illusion wore off. Meantime—before you rush to judgment, and I can see you judging me, Gini—just remember. Your friend and lover continued to take his photographs. So, just ask yourself: Whatever I am, is he so very different? Is he somehow better, or equal, or worse?”

  Gini did not reply. She moved past Hawthorne and looked out of the window toward the mosque. The streetlamps had been extinguished, and the sky was brightening. It was still relatively early, and today was a Sunday, of course; even so, the absence of cars on the ring road below puzzled her. She listened, but could hear nothing pass.

  “The ring road is closed.” Hawthorne had moved to her side. “They won’t allow traffic through until the ambulances have left.”

  “Why are there two of them?”

  “Oh, standard procedure. They take different routes. There’s a security alert, thanks to McMullen, as you know.” She felt him glance at her. He hesitated, then touched her arm. “It’s all right, Gini,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to elaborate on my own feelings. What I wanted to say, I’ve said. I said it the other night. I do know when not to press a point.”

  She looked up and met his gaze. He looked into her eyes, then touched her face lightly.

  “I wonder,” he said, “if it would have been different in different circumstances. Probably not. So”—he moved away—“tell me.” He picked up his glass and took a swallow of whisky. “Did my father do my explaining for me? He usually does.”

  “Yes, he did.” Gini turned and watched him closely. “He exonerated you—more or less. Was that the truth?”

  “Probably. It will have been factually accurate. My father’s very good on facts.”

  “Did you know what he was doing?”

  “No. Only after the events. By which time it was too late. He’s careful about that.” He took another swallow of whisky. “Did he tell you,” he went on in the same flat tone, “how long he has to live?”

  “I asked him that question.”

  “Did you?” A dry smile. “That will have amused him. But he didn’t tell you?”

  “No. He explained it would make no difference as far as I was concerned. He was threatening me at the time. He said he could reach out beyond the grave, and you would insure that.”

  “Is that what he said?” Hawthorne gave a small shake of the head. “I wonder if he actually believes that. He probably does. He’s wrong, Gini. And in any case, he doesn’t have much longer. There are the heart problems. He also has cancer, but he doesn’t know that.”

  A shadow passed across his face. With an odd, almost defiant shrug he said, “It could be as long as five years. It’s likely to be a lot less. And just for the record, I have no intention of carrying out any of his threats. If you want to expose me for what I am, Gini, you’ll be able to do it with impunity in due course.” He looked at her closely. “I wonder what you’ll decide. No, don’t tell me. You know most of it now. You can destroy me or spare me. It will be your choice.”

  He broke off; Gini gave a start and swung around. From a distance, muffled by walls and corridors, came the sound of a woman’s scream, then silence, then a noise like shattering glass.

  “Goddammit!” Hawthorne exclaimed. Then his mouth tightened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Lise. There are paramedics here, nurses—she’s supposed to be sedated. Excuse me a moment, will you?”

  He opened both doors and went out into the corridor. Before they swung shut, Gini glimpsed the large figure of Malone. He began speaking in a low voice. She caught the word Italy, then the doors closed.

  Gini crossed to the desk swiftly. She looked at the telephone, tempted, but knew it would be unsafe. She looked at the pictures Pascal had taken the previous night, then turned away and covered her face with her hands. She felt exhausted, drained, and confused. Even if she could walk out of his house now, she thought, even if S. S. Hawthorne had made no threats and she were free to write her story, would she do it?

  Despite all that had happened, John Hawthorne had protected both her and Pascal. They owed him their lives—she had believed his father when he said this, and she continued to believe it now. He had deliberately put his fate in her hands. Was she now ready to condemn him to public shame and humiliation? She turned back to the window. The activity below had increased. There was an air of agitation now: She glimpsed a male paramedic, two uniformed nurses. The doors of the ambulance were opened, a stretcher passed out; then the doors shut. She heard the sound of raised voices—John Hawthorne saying something indistinguishable, followed by the sound of running feet.

  A few more minutes passed, then the double doors were flung back and Hawthorne strode across to her. The strain on his face was even more evident.

  “Gini,” he began, “I’m sorry. It’s mayhem down there. Security people, medical staff. I’m going to need your help.” He crossed swiftly to the window, and looked out. “The British security people think they’ve located McMullen,” he said. “Apparently, he flew out on a false passport from a Midlands airport around eight last night. They think he’s in Rome now—at the same hotel as that ex-tutor of his, Knowles. It shouldn’t be long before they catch up with him. An hour or so, maybe less.” His hand swept the room in an angry gesture. “Meantime, two trained paramedics and two highly qualified nurses can’t damn well cope with my wife. Either they failed to give her the sedatives, or what they gave her didn’t work….I had hoped, I had prayed, that just this one time we could avoid a scene. I wanted Lise to leave here with some dignity. The last thing on God’s earth that I wanted was this. Come with me, look.”

  He took her arm and led her quickly out into the now-empty corridor. He halted at a window that overlooked the rear gardens of the residence, and the park beyond.

  “Look,” he repeated, “look.”

  Gini could see Lise clearly. She was seated in the very center of the residence lawns, on a white-painted bench. The sunlight was strengthening now. It would be another bright day, but a bitterly cold one. Lise was wearing a thin, sleeveless summer dress. She was shivering convulsively. Behind her, at a distance, was an an
xious huddle of security men, paramedics, and nurses.

  “She won’t come in,” Hawthorne said. “She won’t let them touch her or go near her. She won’t put on a jacket or a coat. She’s done this before. If they try to move her, she’ll get very violent…dear God! All I want, all I want is to avoid that. The shame and the humiliation—for Lise.” He sighed. “For myself, too, of course, I admit that.”

  He turned to look at Gini. “It began, Gini, at that house last night. I finally closed the shutters. I could see what was happening. I didn’t want anyone to witness that, least of all Lamartine.” He turned away tiredly. “It’s gone on all night. It will continue for the rest of the day if I don’t do something. Will you talk to her? She’s been saying she wants to talk to you since two o’clock this morning. I think, if you did, she might leave quietly. I think she might do that.”

  “If I talked to her?” Gini stared at him in astonishment. “Why on earth would she want to talk to me—especially now?”

  Hawthorne’s face became shadowed. He shrugged hopelessly. “Can’t you guess? She thinks we slept together. Just, for God’s sake, tell her we didn’t. She won’t believe me, but she might believe you. Please, Gini. I may not have the right to ask any favors from you, but I am asking you to do this….”

  “All right. If you think it will help. I’ll talk to her. But I’m not going to lie.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to. We’ve both had enough of lies.” He turned and began to descend the stairs. Gini followed him. On the first landing they passed a tall and very beautiful longcase clock. Gini hesitated and looked at Hawthorne.

  “Is that the clock—the one your father gave you?”

  Hawthorne nodded, and hurried on down the stairs. Running footsteps passed outside. Gini looked at the clock, then turned and followed him.

  On the clock face were Roman numerals, a sun, and a moon. The hands of the clock, exquisitely shaped, had just reached the ten and the twelve. As she and Hawthorne reached the hall, the clock’s mechanism whirred, and it began to strike.