Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  Seating herself at the bar, and arming herself with a Herald Tribune from the rack, she ordered coffee and bided her time. The Tribune had run the story of Mina’s disappearance, and Cassandra’s death, as a small item on page three, rather as Gini had expected. Missing-girl stories took time to build. If the girls concerned were in their teens, editors assumed they were runaways, and there were too many runaways to make headlines. It would be days, she judged, possibly weeks, before Mina’s story became front-page tabloid news—unless her father used his position and influence to make waves, of course.

  Folding the paper, she looked around the café. It was now five in the afternoon, and the Antica was in a pre-evening lull. It was less than half full, and the clientele was mixed, in terms of age, gender, and nationality. Most of the customers had the air of habitués; there were several student types, two older men playing chess, a quiet girl reading a book, a louder group of men in the far corner, arguing in German. She turned back, and kept her eye on the bar staff, wondering whom to approach.

  They appeared to be working shifts; shortly after she arrived, the first two, who had been Dutch and Australian, departed. They were replaced by two Americans, one a tall, blond young man in his late twenties, the other a slightly older woman with dark hair and a warm laugh. Both were wearing a uniform of white shirt, red vest, and black pants. Both dealt with the other bar customers in a bewildering range of tongues, Dutch phrases, Italian, French. Catching her eye, the woman smiled.

  “More coffee?”

  “Thanks. I’m admiring your language abilities… Oh, and some cigarettes…”

  “You’re sure cigarettes?”

  “Yeah.” Gini strengthened her own accent. “You have Gitanes?”

  “We sure do. And as for the languages… Don’t be too impressed. I can say ‘The men’s room is on the right’ in about ten languages. Not too useful, huh?”

  She leaned up against the bar and looked at Gini.

  “You’re new here, right? I haven’t seen you before. Your first time in Amsterdam?”

  “Yes, it is. I’m just passing through. I don’t know the city too well…”

  “It’s a great city. Freedom city—right, Lance?” She grinned across at her partner. “Lance is a surfer. From L.A. A wave freak. But even he thinks it’s cool.”

  “So what’s a surfer doing in Amsterdam? It’s a bit low on beaches.”

  “Making loot. Seeing the world. Same way I am. You?”

  “No such luck. I had a job waiting tables in London. I just got fired. I came here to see a friend, and I think I’ve missed him. I’ve had it with Europe. I’m thinking of going home.”

  “I know the feeling. Stick it out. I was pounding the sidewalks for weeks before I got this job.”

  “You were? How long have you been here?”

  “A couple of months. Came late last fall. Lance here holds the all-time record. He’s been here six months.”

  “He has? Hey, I don’t suppose either of you could help me? It’s just, this friend I’m looking for—I’m pretty sure he said he came here. You might know him, maybe? Know where I might find him? Tall, long dark hair, really good-looking.”

  “I like it. Tell me more.”

  “Mid-twenties. People call him Star.”

  “What—just Star?” She frowned, then shook her head. “Nope. No bells ringing. Hey, Lance, you know a guy comes in here, name of Star? A hunk, dark? Sounds like the man of my dreams?”

  Lance grinned, and approached, polishing glasses.

  “Star? What, the cokehead? Sure I know him. Comes in from time to time. Haven’t seen him in a week though—more. No way is he the man of your dreams, Sandra. I mean, we are talking like seriously out to lunch.” He rolled his eyes and clutched his temples, then abruptly stopped this clowning.

  “Bad news,” he said. “Not your type, Sandra. Not your type at all.”

  “A cokehead?” Gini said. “Oh, come on…”

  Lance shrugged and moved away to serve another customer. Sandra laughed.

  “Take no notice. Lance is a health nut. You take Tylenol, he thinks you’re into substance abuse. Still, I guess you’re out of luck.”

  “Story of my life. What do I owe you?”

  She paid, and waited a short while, until Sandra had moved off to clear some tables. She had one more try with Lance, but got nowhere. Lance said Star showed up every month or so, or had recently. He didn’t know where Star might stay, didn’t know any friends of Star’s, but he did know this really great brasserie that Gini would love.

  “How about it?” He leaned across the bar. “I’m free at nine. You have the most fantastic eyes. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “It’s been mentioned. In similar situations. Sorry, Lance. Another time.”

  “No worries. Stay away from the cokehead. See you around.”

  With a wave of the hand to Sandra, Gini left. She returned to her hotel. It was large, international, and anonymous. She felt she could move around it blindfolded; she might have been anywhere in the world; the room made her feel rootless and displaced.

  This was the danger period, she knew—when she slowed down. She stood there, fighting the loneliness that kicked in the second the door closed. It was six-thirty. She tried calling Rowland—it would be five-thirty in London—but his secretary had just left and he was not answering. She tried the features desk, then news: the copy editor she spoke to there said McGuire was somewhere in the building and he would pass on the message, but some kind of crisis had blown up, so it might be a while before Rowland called back.

  “What kind of crisis?” Gini asked.

  “Have you ever seen McGuire when he’s angry?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “Well, it’s that kind. Scorched-earth time. So watch out.”

  Gini next tried Pascal, but tonight was one of the bad nights. She redialed a score of times, but she could not get through. She had given Pascal the number here when she called him the previous day; if he was able to call her, he would. Maybe it was better not to reach him at this exact moment anyway. Each time they spoke, Gini was finding it harder and harder not to say—Pascal, please come home. Tonight the phrase might easily slip past her guard. No, wait, she told herself: it was Marianne’s birthday next week. Maybe Helen would be proved right, maybe he would return for that: a fine thing, she thought angrily—she was now reduced to taking comfort from the predictions of Pascal’s ex-wife.

  She rang room service and ordered some food. Then she took out Anneke’s address book, set it down on the dressing table, where the light was brightest, and began going through it line by line.

  It was a wearying task. Anneke had a tiny handwriting; these pages were crammed with insertions, crossings-out, arrows to changes of numbers, scribblings, and doodles of hearts and flowers and faces. At first she hoped Anneke might have used these hearts as a sign to indicate boys she favored; gradually she realized they were random. She could imagine Anneke on the telephone, pen in hand, this book in front of her as she embarked on protracted teenage telephone talks, doodling as she spoke, scattering these untidy pages with a myriad of tiny misleading signs, with graffiti that made Gini’s eyes ache.

  After an hour she gave up and ate her room service dinner. She had some coffee, and thought longingly of a hot bath, a mindless TV movie, an early night. Then, remembering Fricke and feeling guilty, she returned to the book. She had already flagged the pages that contained French addresses. Now, taking out her own notebook, she copied them out. There were eighteen of them, some typed, some handwritten. From those she extracted the seven with Paris addresses and stared at her list. All seven were the addresses of girls, presumably pen pals of Anneke’s: Lisette, Chantal, Suzanne, Marie, Christine, Mathilde, Lucile.

  This was not helpful. It must be here, she thought, perhaps disguised, perhaps coded. Why else would Anneke have been so protective of this book? Why else ask Fricke to hide it? On the other hand, although Anneke might have met Star in Paris
, there was no way of knowing whether she also wrote to him there. Fricke had said he moved around. Maybe Paris was misleading, she thought, yet Mitchell’s BMW had been abandoned there too. She stared at the seven girls’ names in her list, and suddenly her memory unlocked.

  The French Connection, she thought. Maybe it was not a false trail: not only Anneke but also Cassandra had made school trips to Paris the preceding year—one of the friends Gini had talked to had mentioned it in passing. Supposing Cassandra, like Anneke, had met Star there? That would mean that all three girls associated with Star before Mina were linked to France. The first girl, the one whose face Star had cut with a razor—she had been French, according to Mitchell. And she and Rowland had neglected that girl, she realized: they had concentrated on the two who were dead. But this French girl had been Anneke’s immediate predecessor in Star’s affections—if affections they could be called. Could it be, was it possible, that when Anneke was writing to Star, Star, who constantly moved around, she wrote to him care of that girl at her Paris address?

  But what was her name? Gini could not remember. I must have asked Mitchell, she thought, rising quickly and taking out Mitchell’s interview tape. Surely I asked him?

  For a moment, rewinding then advancing the tape, she was afraid the question had not been asked. It had been a very difficult interview to keep on course: Mitchell had been spaced out, and kept sidetracking… She stopped. She had found it, just a brief exchange, before Mitchell had veered off on some other subject. And it was not she who had asked the vital question, but Rowland McGuire. The interjection was his, and the sound of his voice, here in this hotel room, startled Gini. She replayed the section twice:

  —And the French girl, the one he cut up with a razor. What happened to her?

  —Search me. God only knows. Went home? Took off somewhere? Look, I need another drink.

  —You’re not getting one. Concentrate. Can you remember her name? Any details? For God’s sake—he cut her face open. What were you doing then? Standing around watching? You couldn’t have stopped him?

  —Look, it happened fast—all right? Sure, I was shocked. I’m not an animal…

  —No, but you are a coward. It makes me sick, listening to this…

  —All right, all right—cool it, okay? I don’t want any trouble. Christ, Gini, what is it with this guy? I’m trying to help…

  —He’s angry, that’s all. He gets like that…

  —Well, tell him to fucking well back off. He lays one finger on me, and I’m back in that police station, making a complaint. A formal complaint…

  —You think so? Listen, Mitchell, by the time I’d finished with you, you wouldn’t be able to walk across to the station, let alone talk when you got there. You smile once more, and I’ll knock your teeth down your throat…

  —Okay, okay—I’m nervous, that’s all. I smile when I get nervous. I told you—I’m not feeling so good. I’m thinking. I’m trying to remember. She was a pretty girl. She’d known him some time, I think. What was her name? Something beginning with ‘C’? Cecile? Claire? No—I’ve got it. Chantal, that was it. Brown hair. Brown eyes. About eighteen. That’s it…

  The anger in Rowland’s voice had been perfectly genuine, Gini thought. He had exaggerated the threat, yes, and had produced the required effect; they had both slipped into the good cop/bad cop routine with ease, without prior discussion, and it had worked. But Rowland’s loathing for Mitchell, his banked anger, had been almost palpable. She had felt it radiating in the bar as Mitchell talked; she had watched it darken his face, and she could hear it again now. Indeed impetuous, not as controlled as he liked to pretend, she thought—and his anger had obtained a vital name, Chantal.

  She felt a quick dart of excitement, rose, and turned back to Anneke’s address book. She riffled quickly through the pages, found the entry for Chantal again, and there, staring her in the face, but faint, right on the edge of the page so it was easy to miss, was the sign she had been looking for.

  Her telephone was ringing. Gini half rose, turned back, stared at the entry. There, next to the address for Chantal, an address that was typed, was a tiny asterisk: an asterisk or a star, she thought with a sense of triumph. The telephone was still ringing. She crossed and picked it up.

  It was Rowland McGuire, though he did not pause to identify himself. His voice was icy with anger.

  “How many bars and cafés did you try before the Antica?” he said. “How many did you try after it? You’d like to put up a billboard, advertise on TV, perhaps? Maybe you’d be good enough to explain what in hell you thought you were doing? You gave me your word on this.”

  He continued to speak. Gini stared at the wall as Rowland McGuire, gifted at invective, proceeded to take her apart stitch by stitch. She felt confused, then humiliated—and furious with herself. She knew there was no point in even trying to interrupt at this stage, and she was thinking hard.

  Someone must have called him direct from the Antica very shortly after she had left. It could have been only one of two people. She had assumed his contact in Amsterdam was a man, and Rowland, she realized now, had played along with that foolish assumption. He might have been misleading her; he might not. Whichever of the two it was, she thought, they were good.

  “Sandra?” Gini said as he paused for the first time. “Or is your contact Lance?”

  She expected she would receive no reply to that question, and she did not.

  “That wasn’t your concern before—and it certainly isn’t now. I spelled this out to you, not once, but twice. You gave me your word, and I trusted you… Apart from the fact that you lied, it was unprofessional behavior of the worst sort.”

  “Rowland. I can explain…”

  “Sure you can explain. In London. Meanwhile, you’re off this story as of an hour ago, you understand?”

  “Rowland, will you listen? I went only to the Antica. I didn’t go anywhere else…”

  “You expect me to believe that? Out of God knows how many bars and cafés in Amsterdam, you happen to pick the one where your appearance is guaranteed to cause maximum trouble? Don’t waste my time and my intelligence. I suggest you get the first plane out in the morning. Better still, get one tonight.”

  “I went there because it’s where Anneke used to go.” Gini’s temper snapped. “Nothing to do with your damn contact, Rowland. What is this? I had a lead, and I followed it up. Do you want this story, or don’t you?”

  “Yes. I want this story. I want this story more than you’re ever likely to understand.”

  “Fine. I want it too. I want to find Star. I want to find Mina. And I’ll do that a whole lot quicker without you breathing down my neck.”

  “This is sensitive. You knew it was sensitive. If you had a lead, you could have called me. But no, you just went chasing off. You do understand what you’ve done, don’t you? You’ve compromised me. You’ve ignored my explicit instructions. You’ve put someone I know at risk. As a result, you’ve not only prejudiced this story, you’ve prejudiced others.”

  “The hell I have!” Gini’s voice rose. “I don’t know what your precious source has been saying to you—”

  “My precious source, as you put it, has given me a very clear and accurate account. Don’t try and damn well shift the blame. I know exactly what you did, and exactly what you said. Maybe those tabloid techniques suited the last paper you worked on—but they don’t suit me.” He broke off. “Look, I don’t have the time or the inclination for this. I didn’t expect to have to go through the rule book to someone with your experience. If I have the time, you can explain in London. Which gives you a while to come up with a better excuse.”

  “I’m not coming back to London,” Gini interrupted furiously. “I’m going to follow up this story my way, at my pace. Which will give you time, Rowland, to work on your apology.”

  “What did you just say?”

  “You heard. The hell with this—who in God’s name do you think you are? Do this. Do that. Call back every f
ive seconds. No one works like that.”

  There was a silence. When he next spoke, Rowland’s voice was very cool and dangerously polite.

  “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. You seem to have some problem in understanding what I say. You’re off this story—you’ve got that? And I very much doubt, given the circumstances, that you’ll work for me again. I had my doubts about you, and the way in which you operate—”

  “What?” Something in his tone made Gini tense. “What do you mean—the way I operate?”

  “I thought—I was fool enough to think—I was a good judge of character. I see now…” His voice was becoming angry again. “All those apologies of yours, that sob story you gave me in the car about how you’d lost confidence—it didn’t mean a damn thing. Dear God—I should have known. I blame myself. You used me to get this story the same way you used Pascal Lamartine to get you to Bosnia. Why did you do that? It wasn’t necessary. I told you—”

  “What did you just say?” Gini had gone very cold. “I used Pascal? How dare you say that? No way is that true.”

  “Oh, it isn’t? Fine. My mistake. Look, I have to go. Just get that plane.”

  “No. You wait. Don’t you dare hang up. You’re going to explain that, Rowland, and explain now. And don’t damn well tell me what to do and where to go.”

  “Goddamn it, I’m your editor. I put you on this story—God only knows why—and I can take you off it anytime I choose.”

  “Don’t pull rank on me—Lindsay was right about you. She said you were arrogant. Sitting in London, passing judgment, leaping to conclusions… You know nothing about my going to Bosnia. Why don’t you check? Ask Max…”

  “Oh, I’ve already asked Max. You knew Max would never agree to send you to Bosnia, didn’t you? You tried everything, even played him off against the Times, and when that didn’t work, you sent your boyfriend in to clinch the deal.”