Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  He passed his hand across his face and tried to force his thoughts elsewhere. Some five minutes later Max emerged. He looked gray-skinned and exhausted. Pulling on an old Barbour shooting jacket, he took Rowland by the arm.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Come on, Rowland. I need to think. I need some air.”

  Max’s first action, when they returned to his Land Rover, was to try to call Charlotte on his car phone. Both numbers were busy. He tried several times, then gave up.

  “Let’s get home.” He glanced at Rowland. “Look, would you mind driving? I’m feeling—I feel like hell.”

  When they were in the car, neither spoke for a while. Max lit a cigarette.

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No. I don’t mind. In fact, you can give me one.”

  “You don’t smoke. You haven’t smoked for years.”

  “Come on, Max. Just give me one, okay?”

  Rowland drew on the cigarette, which Max gave him without further comment. Instantly, the nicotine steadied him; it was as familiar, and welcome, as it had ever been before.

  “The thing is,” Max began in an abrupt way a few miles farther on, “I’ve never seen a dead body before. Not even a stranger’s, let alone someone so young, someone I knew. Pathetic, isn’t it?”

  “No. And it’s not unusual now.” Rowland kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Your parents are still alive. So are Charlotte’s. Besides—these days death gets tidied away. It takes place in a hospital, behind a screen. Don’t feel guilty, Max. What are you supposed to do? Take it in your stride?”

  “I’ve led a sheltered life,” Max replied. “I suppose that’s what I’m saying. Just now… I rather despise myself for that. You wouldn’t understand. It doesn’t apply to you.”

  Rowland said nothing. He was thinking of his father, then of his mother dealing with her death as grimly as she had dealt with her life, in a North London hospital cancer ward. He thought of the two climbing accidents he had witnessed in the Cairngorms, of the drug murders he had covered in Washington. He did not think, would not allow himself to think, of a summer’s day in the chill of a Washington police morgue. If you could just make the identification, Mr. McGuire. She’s… you’re prepared?

  “Do you know what they told me?” Max still had his eyes on the road. “They said they’ve had drugs flooding into this area recently.”

  “They told me that as well.”

  “Jesus Christ, Rowland. Ten years from now, it could be my children buying that stuff. Ten years? It’s even less—Alex is eight. Cassandra was just sixteen years old.”

  “I know.”

  “When we bought this place, we thought—” Max gestured angrily at passing fields. “We thought, bring them up in the country, keep them away from London. Give them an old-fashioned upbringing—dogs, walks, a village school, fresh air… We thought it was safe. We thought—I suppose we thought values were different here.”

  “Nowhere’s safe now, Max. You know that.”

  “There’s too much money around here. Large estates, private schools, second homes. Too many rich children, too many careless parents. Cassandra Morley’s damn mother was never there half the time. Her father swans around Europe with a new wife half his age.”

  “Come on, Max. There’s plenty of victims from very different worlds. Visit a few housing projects sometime. Rich, poor—it doesn’t make any difference these days.”

  “I know that. Of course I know that—” Max hesitated. He gestured out the window.

  “You see that track there? That leads up to that barn. Some of the travelers are still up there, the police said. They’ll keep them there another twenty-four hours. Maybe less, because I gather they’re not being too communicative. I want to cover this story.”

  “So do I.”

  “I want to get someone up there. You could do it, of course.” Max gave him a speculative glance, except you’re an editor, not a reporter now. You have to get back to London tomorrow night, and we really need someone who could stay down here a couple of days. Someone who could talk to the travelers, talk to Cassandra Morley’s school friends, find out what they know. Someone young, someone whom they might open up to.”

  “I know what you’re thinking, Max. I’d say no.”

  “Why? She’s a good reporter. She’s on the spot. She’s here right now. You were keen enough to use her yesterday.”

  “That was yesterday,” Rowland replied curtly. “This is now. Come on, Max, you’re not blind. You saw her last night. She’s operating on autopilot half the time.”

  “She can snap out of it, presumably. Charlotte thinks she has broken up with Pascal.”

  “Max, the reasons are irrelevant. She looks ill. She’s like a bloody sleepwalker. I don’t intend to use her on the Lazare story or any other, I’ll tell you that now.”

  Max said nothing. He was used to Rowland’s instant prejudices, and to his sometimes precipitate judgments, and on this occasion, felt he might share them. He shrugged.

  “Let’s get back to the house anyway. I need to talk to Charlotte. Then we can decide. Right here, then left…”

  Rowland accelerated past the manor, where several police cars were parked, and turned into Max’s drive. It was only as they entered the house that he remembered Lindsay, and the argument the previous evening. Today he was due to apologize to her, or grovel, as she had put it. He could hear women’s voices coming from the kitchen: neither apology nor groveling seemed relevant now.

  Entering the kitchen, it was at once obvious to him and to Max that something had happened in their absence. The atmosphere was tense. Charlotte was white-faced, Lindsay looked as if she might have been crying. Gini was standing at some distance from the others, her back to the room. When Max and Rowland entered, she did not look around.

  Before Max could even begin speaking, Charlotte was in his arms. She began spilling out her story, how Susan Landis had arrived, and then her husband, how the police had finally stirred themselves and made inquiries.

  “Max, it’s not just Cassandra,” she finished. “It’s Mina Landis too. She was with Cassandra last night. They both went up to that barn.”

  “Mina did? Then where is she now?”

  “That’s the point, Max, no one knows. She’s disappeared. She’s not at home, she’s not at the manor, she’s not with the travelers, she’s not at the barn. Robert Landis just telephoned again. Apparently, the travelers are now claiming she left the place last night. In a car. With some man.”

  Charlotte was close to tears. Max put his arms around her and drew her quietly aside.

  “Darling, don’t,” Rowland heard him say. “You mustn’t. Think of the baby.”

  Rowland turned away. The closeness of Max and Charlotte at such moments always moved him, and left him at the same time with a sense of exclusion, of bleakness. It was as if they spoke a private language, a married language, not one he had ever spoken, he thought, not one he was ever likely to learn. He noted that Lindsay, too, turned away at the same moment and began busying herself with the kettle at the stove. One of the dogs whined. Max and Charlotte continued to speak to each other in lowered voices.

  Rowland leaned up against the window and stared out across the garden. A clock ticked; he felt a leaden exhaustion. Lindsay was making coffee; Max and Charlotte continued speaking, Max holding her closely to him, then persuading her to sit down. Genevieve Hunter, Rowland thought, looked ill; her face was white with strain. She was now watching Max and Charlotte. Max’s concern for his wife seemed to cause her some unaccountable pain.

  “May I say something?” she began abruptly, interrupting Charlotte and speaking in a brusque, ill-judged tone. “We’re all wasting time. In the first place, Robert Landis wants Max to call him. He’s with the police in Cheltenham now.”

  “Look, Gini, just leave it, okay?” Lindsay banged down the kettle and swung around. “Don’t let’s have another row. Just let Charlotte explain in her way. Give her time. She’s seven mon
ths pregnant, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “It would be hard not to notice,” Gini snapped. Charlotte gave her a look of reproach and surprise. Max frowned.

  “Look, Gini,” he began quietly. “You don’t quite seem to understand the situation. And remarks like that don’t help. So, if you wouldn’t mind…”

  “Fine.” The warning went unheeded; Gini’s mouth tightened. “But all this speculation is pointless. It’s been going on for an hour now—more.”

  “Gini, it’s not just speculation.” Charlotte took Max’s hand. “Lindsay and I were just trying to understand what could have happened. Mina could have been abducted. She could be dead too. There’s a hundred possibilities and they’re all horrible.”

  “Abducted? That’s not what the witnesses say.” Gini turned back to Max. “Max, will you listen to me? The witnesses who spoke to Landis and the police were specific. Mina wasn’t drugged. She wasn’t unconscious. She wasn’t dragged into some car by some B-movie villain. Unless they’re lying, what happened is very clear.”

  She hesitated; Charlotte had begun to cry. Max bent over her, and Rowland, seeing Gini’s face become pinched and obstinate, felt the first strong stirrings of dislike. His hostility was shared by everyone present, and he could see she sensed that. Color came and went in her face. Ignoring the others completely, she addressed herself again to Max—an exclusion that enraged Rowland even more.

  “Max, it’s obvious what happened. A fifteen-year-old girl lied to her parents. She went up to that barn in the certain knowledge that it was the last thing they’d let her do. She probably smoked some grass—she was seen smoking—”

  “Her mother says she wouldn’t do that, Gini,” Charlotte began. “Marijuana? I keep telling you—it’s not possible. She didn’t even touch cigarettes. Susan Landis said so.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Gini gave a gesture of exasperation. “And you believe that? Her mother would be the last to know. Max, listen. The witnesses are definite. She left around midnight in a car with a man. All right, they claim they can’t describe the car or the man—but the point is, they say she left with him willingly. Thanks to the lies she told, no one realized she was missing. So whoever was driving that car had a ten-hour start. If Mina’s going to be found, it won’t help to indulge her parents’ fantasies about what a sweet, obedient child she was. Fifteen-year-old girls don’t behave the way their parents hope. If they did, no one would be dead now.” Her voice had risen and her tone had sharpened. Rowland’s temper snapped.

  “For God’s sake,” he began in a voice cold with anger. “What in hell’s the matter with you? Other people have feelings, even if you don’t. You don’t sound too damn charitable, you know—”

  “Charitable? I’m trying to be realistic.”

  “Then think before you speak. A young girl is dead. I found her body. Max and I have been up all damn night. Charlotte’s trying to help. This was someone she and Max knew…”

  “I know that. And she’s dead. None of us can help Cassandra Morley now. We’d help Mina Landis more effectively if we didn’t stand here weeping and wasting time.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Rowland gave her a look of contempt. “Why in hell don’t you just keep quiet and stay out of it? Judging from your behavior yesterday, that’s what you usually prefer to do.”

  There was a silence. Genevieve Hunter took a step back as if he had hit her. Blood rushed into her face. She looked at him, then looked blindly around the room. Then, bending her head and averting her face, she fumbled for a coat thrown over a chair, picked it up, and pushed past Rowland to the door. Lindsay began to move forward with a low exclamation of distress.

  “Gini, wait—where are you going?”

  “I’m going for a walk. I need some fresh air.”

  The door slammed behind her. There was another, longer, silence. Rowland watched her walk rapidly across the garden and out of sight. Lindsay, with a glance at Charlotte, gave a sigh.

  “Rowland, you shouldn’t have said that. Gini hasn’t been well. She didn’t mean—”

  “I don’t give a damn. Someone had to say it. Let her go for her walk. If she walks the whole way back to London, I won’t grieve. Max—let me call John Lane. Or Chris Huxley. One of them should be available. If he left London now, he’d be here in an hour and a half.”

  “Use the phone in my study. I’ll come with you. I’d better speak to Landis.”

  Max followed Rowland from the room. In the kitchen, Charlotte and Lindsay exchanged glances. Lindsay crossed the room and sat down next to her.

  “Oh, Lindsay.” Charlotte gave a sigh. “I wish I’d never invited her. That may not be too charitable either. But I do.”

  “I don’t blame you. Charlotte, don’t get upset. She’s being impossible, she’s been impossible all morning. This is the worst I’ve ever seen her.”

  “She was up at six.” Charlotte gave her a worried glance. “I heard her moving around. Then I went back to sleep. Lindsay, she claimed she’d slept well, but I’m sure she hadn’t. And she’d been trying to call Pascal again.”

  “She didn’t get him?”

  “No.” Charlotte hesitated, then met Lindsay’s eyes. “Is it over, Lindsay? Has she said anything? I think it is over. As soon as I saw her yesterday, I knew.”

  “I’m not sure. It’s what I’m beginning to believe. Why would he stay away so long? First he was staying for two weeks, then it was four. Then he was coming back for Christmas… Charlotte, it was going to be their first Christmas together. She bought a tree, she bought all these presents for him—I can’t tell you how happy she was. Like the old Gini used to be.”

  “And then he didn’t come?”

  “No.” Lindsay gave her a troubled look. “I didn’t find out until afterward. I assumed he was there as planned. But he wasn’t. She spent the whole Christmas holiday alone.”

  “Alone? But what about her stepmother?”

  “She’s away. Gini claimed she’d spent the time with some friends I’ve never heard of. I know she was lying. She can’t stand being pitied, Charlotte.”

  “I know.” Charlotte shook her head sadly. “Well, Rowland didn’t pity her anyway. Lindsay—I wish he hadn’t said that. I know he was upset, and I know he’d had no sleep, but Rowland can be so harsh.”

  “It might do her some good. You never know.” Lindsay frowned, glanced at Charlotte. “You know what she said, when she mentioned fifteen-year-old girls?”

  “How they could behave? Yes. I may not want to remember, but I do.”

  “Well, there were reasons for that, Charlotte. Very personal reasons. I’m sure she identifies with Mina. Do you know how old she was when she first met Pascal?”

  Charlotte did not; and Lindsay then told her. She described their first meeting in Beirut, and their six-week affair. She described the intervention of Gini’s father. She was aware that in telling this story she was breaking Gini’s confidence, and as she came to the end of it felt ashamed.

  Charlotte listened quietly and with mounting dismay. “Fifteen?” she said. “She had an affair with Pascal then?”

  “She lied to him about her age.” Lindsay sighed. “Now do you understand? It isn’t just that she loves Pascal now. It isn’t just that she’s been living with him this past year. It’s deeper than that, Charlotte. It goes back such a long way.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  Charlotte rose, her kind face clouded with unhappiness. She gave a helpless gesture.

  “I hate this, Lindsay. Poor Cassandra, and Mina. Gini. Love affairs. Lies. All this anger and misery. Us having dinner last night, and all the time Cassandra was up there, lying in some field. It’s so terrible. So ugly. And it makes me so afraid.”

  She began picking up mugs and plates from the table, as if to restore order to the room would be to restore order to the world.

  “I’m going to take the boys out,” she said abruptly. “I can’t expect them to play upstairs all day. I’ll t
ake them around to a friend in the village. Then I’m going to see Susan Landis. She shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Charlotte…” Lindsay began on a warning note.

  “I know. I know.” Charlotte was again close to tears. “But you have a child, Lindsay. You must understand. And I have to do something. I can’t bear it here, Lindsay. It doesn’t feel like home.”

  Chapter 8

  FOR AN HOUR AFTER Charlotte left, Lindsay tried to occupy herself. Max and Rowland remained closeted in Max’s study. She could just hear the sound of their voices, the sound of telephones. She felt excluded and useless. Gini had not come back.

  She could not settle. She tidied the kitchen, went outside and walked around. She went as far as the gate to the fields, hoping she might see Gini returning, and intercept her, try to talk some sense into her, but there was no sign of her anywhere, and it was bitterly cold.

  She returned to the house, picked up Rowland’s file, and tried to concentrate on the rest of the press cuttings, but their subject seemed frivolous and remote: not for the first time in her life, Lindsay thought how much she loathed the fashion world. Not her actual work, not her actual job, but its milieu, its atmosphere, its bitchery and waywardness, its reckless obsession with the new. A young girl was dead, she thought, and closed the file impatiently; beside that fact, what did any of this matter? A truly trivial pursuit, she thought, unsmiling, and one on which she had spent seventeen years. The idea unnerved her: it was one thing to pursue this work when it provided a home and income for Tom, but in another year, two years, Tom would be going to university, leaving home. What will I do then, Lindsay thought, will I go on, measuring out my life with the collections every year?