Lovers and Liars Trilogy (53 page)

“I think I will fit in the Melrose lunch. Then I’ll fly off somewhere exotic. God, what a great idea. Sun, after all these months of rain.”

Jenkins patted her shoulder, then moved to the door. “I knew you’d see it my way,” he said. “Well done, Gini. Smart girl.”

When he had gone, Gini went to bed, and lay there turning the components of this story back and forth. She was tense, because she feared that her telephone might ring, that she might hear the whispering muffled male voice once more. But there were no calls that night. When she woke in the morning she wondered if it was her conversation with Jenkins that had won her that reprieve.

She hoped that, at eight, Pascal might telephone to let her know if he was returning to London, but Pascal did not call. This was a disappointment, but it probably meant only that he distrusted her phone. She would call him, she decided, from a pay phone later that day. Meanwhile, she had that appointment with Lise Hawthorne in Regent’s Park.

She sat for a while, preparing herself for this meeting, even though she thought Lise might be unable to keep the appointment She stroked Napoleon, who was curled on her lap. He purred, and narrowed his eyes with pleasure. She traced the pink elegance of his paw pads, and the delicate patterns of his marmalade fur.

Shortly before nine she left her apartment and set off through the rain and the morning rush hour, taking a roundabout route until she was reasonably certain that she was not followed. Then she headed south. She parked at some distance from her destination, continuing her journey on foot. Fifteen minutes ahead of the appointed time, she entered the gates of Regent’s Park.

T
HE PARK WAS ALMOST
deserted. She could see a few determined joggers in the distance. She passed a few people, heads bent against the wind, walking their dogs. She followed the main path in the direction of the residence gardens, then struck off onto the grass; mud squelched underfoot.

Lise Hawthorne had not been very exact in her directions. The residence gardens were large; they cut into the park itself in a deep horseshoe-shaped curve. For a time Gini patrolled this curve, back and forth. Then, although no one seemed to be paying the least attention to her, she moved a little farther off. She chose a well-positioned bench, fifty yards away, in the midst of open lawns. The minutes ticked by: ten, ten-fifteen, ten-thirty. She was becoming very cold, and she felt very conspicuous. It had not occurred to her at the time Lise made the arrangement, because she had been too shocked by the pallor and anguish in Lise’s face, but now that she was actually here she saw the oddness of Lise’s instructions. This was hardly a covert or discreet place to meet.

Could it really be true that she had, in the past, met McMullen here? Gini considered: Perhaps she had been referring to a much earlier period, five or even six months earlier, sometime before Hawthorne’s suspicions were aroused. She wondered again about the exact nature of the relationship between McMullen and Lise, and whether they had been lovers or not. Then, shivering, she rose to her feet.

She would give it one more try, she decided, one slow pass along the perimeter of that high horseshoe-shaped fence. Half an hour more: It was useful to remind herself, she thought, of what a citadel it was, this place where Lise Hawthorne lived. Turning back to the north of the house, to the rear of the entrance lodge with its bristling aerials and cameras, she began to follow the fence around the deep curve of the gardens, to where it met the ring road to the south of the house.

This fence, completely encircling the rear gardens, was a formidable one. It was constructed of metal bars ten feet high, each with three curved spikes on the top. The bars themselves were shaped so as to make any purchase on them almost impossible; they were coated in anticlimb paint, and were narrowly spaced. There was no crossbar low enough to be used to wedge the feet. Through the bars she could occasionally catch a glimpse of the house, and the wide lawns behind it, but for the most part the view was obscured by tall evergreen shrubs ten or twelve feet deep. This cover, Gini knew, would contain other less visible security devices: The care with which this boundary was protected was obvious—wherever the shrubbery gave insufficient cover, camouflage netting had been erected, yard upon yard of it, slung inside the bars of the perimeter fence.

The rain was easing off now. A jogger passed her, and a woman with a red umbrella walking a tiny, delicate dog. Gini was approaching one of the park lakes; here two conduits ran off and formed an additional barrier, a moat that forced her some fifty yards away from the residence fence.

Ahead of her there were two small ornamental bridges, and a children’s playground. A man and a woman stood on the farther bridge, ignoring the rain and feeding bread to the ducks. Gini looked at them as she passed, and they smiled, made a comment about the weather; both were sixty at least.

She walked on past the deserted playground. She was now on the southern side of the residence gardens; they lay to her right, the circle road was straight ahead. In front of her, and just to her left on the far side of the road, was the large copper dome and the tall minaret of the London Central Mosque. She was struck, as she always was when passing it, by the unlikeliness of its placing. In this most English of parks, flanked by the Nash terraces at Hanover Gate, this Islamic exoticism was arresting. The minaret was just over a hundred feet high, an Arabian Nights landmark visible for miles. The beautiful copper dome was crested with a sickle moon. Within an English park Arab territory and American territory were cheek by jowl. Less than one hundred yards separated Moslem devotions from the American ambassador’s private home.

Gini stood between the two buildings, beneath a grove of young chestnut trees. Their bare branches dripped; she saw that she was on a slight rise, a knoll, with the ground falling away to her right. From here she could walk down to her right and stand alongside that barred perimeter fence. She did so, and touched the bars with her hand. Beyond the camouflage netting, thick here, and the shrubbery, she could see nothing, but she could hear voices.

Men were working in the gardens beyond. She could hear the sound of spades, then the whine of a chain saw. Some of the older trees on the edge of the gardens were being pruned. The noise of the saw stopped, and suddenly, to her astonishment, she heard Lise Hawthorne’s voice. She was giving instructions to the workmen.

“No,” Gini heard. “That branch there must go, and the large ones just above. It’s casting too much shade, nothing will grow there as it is. Then that large sycamore must come out. It seeds itself everywhere, and my husband would like the small Himalayan birches in its place. Now, shall we take a look at the lavender walk? Or what’s left of it after all this rain, which isn’t a great deal. …”

Her voice faded into the distance. The whine of the chain saw recommenced.

Gini began to turn away, puzzled. She glanced back at the fencing, turned, then gave a gasp. The jogger who had passed her earlier was now standing two feet behind her. She had not heard him approach. He was wearing a black track suit; its hood was up, and she could scarcely see his face.

She took a quick step backward, then stopped. The man looked threatening, but was making no move toward her. She looked at him more closely. He was breathing lightly. He lifted a hand to adjust his track-suit hood slightly; she saw he was wearing a signet ring on his left hand. He had fair hair.

“Are you looking for Jacob?” he asked. He had an even, pleasant English voice.

Gini hesitated. “I came here to meet his friend,” she said. “But I have been looking for Jacob, yes.”

As she stared at him, he lifted his head; the hood fell back just a little. He was older, obviously, but his features were imprinted on her memory. She had studied his photograph long enough. She gave a low exclamation: It was James McMullen.

She was about to speak, when he glanced over his shoulder and lifted his finger to his lips. A man had just come into the park, through the ring-road gate.

“The British Museum in an hour,” he said in a low voice. “Wait there. I’ll meet you there. If it’s safe.” The man was now walking toward them. McMullen raised his voice slightly. “Can you give me directions?” he asked.

“Sure,” Gini replied. “Across the park. Aim south. Then take a left….It’s a pretty long way from here.”

“Thanks, I’ll find it.”

Without a backward glance he jogged off. He covered the ground very fast. Gini turned back to the ring road, passing the man, who was wearing a dark overcoat, but who was no one she recognized. He did not even look at her. When she reached the road, she looked back. He was continuing along the path at a measured pace. He paused by the elderly couple on the bridge in the distance, the couple who were still feeding the ducks. Then he continued on. Some way beyond them, he lifted his hand to his face.

It was too far away for Gini to be sure: It might have been an innocent gesture. He could have been consulting his watch; he could have been adjusting his tie; he could have been speaking into a wrist mike. She began to walk rapidly away. The street was deserted. When she next looked back, she was passing the mosque, and the man in the park and James McMullen were both out of sight.

“I want Gini taken off this story,” Pascal said. He was in Nicholas Jenkins’s fifteenth-floor sanctum, with its view of the new emerging docklands London. He could see towers and scaffolding through the plate glass behind Jenkins’s head.

Jenkins was smiling, nodding, all amiability. It was eleven
A.M.
Pascal had come straight here from the airport. He had been expecting a fight with Jenkins over this, yet Jenkins gave no indication of opposition. He continued to smile and nod, and give Pascal small devious looks.

Pascal tried to force out of his mind all memory of black Mercedes cars; he tried not to think of Lorna Munro’s beautiful dead face. He had had all night to decide how to approach this, and exactly what lies to tell Jenkins, yet now he had the impression that Jenkins was several jumps ahead of him, and knew it. Pascal leaned across his desk.

“I’m getting through to you, am I, Nicholas? I won’t work with Gini on this story. I want you to take her off it. You understand, yes?”

There was a small flicker of amusement behind the nuclear-physicist-style spectacles. Jenkins sighed.

“Oh, dear,” he said in a sweet-toned, innocuous voice. “What went wrong, Pascal? Bad chemistry? Or was it more dramatic than that?”

“Give it a rest, Nicholas. She’s fine. She works hard, she’s very thorough. But I work better on my own. I always have.”

“I did warn you.” Jenkins gave him a reproachful look. “I told you she was good. I also told you she was a pain in the neck.”

“I didn’t find that.” Pascal looked at him coldly. “I don’t need her anymore, it’s as simple as that. She was”—he hesitated—“slowing me down. Just let me carry on at my own pace, I can get this sewn up by the end of the week.”

“By Sunday, you mean?” Jenkins looked at him intently.

“If you’re asking can I get the pictures then, the answer is yes. I think I can. And I’ll do it a whole lot better and more efficiently on my own. This isn’t a suitable story for a woman.”

Jenkins gave a little smile. “I did wonder about that,” he said, “when I heard Appleyard was dead.”

Pascal gave him a sharp glance. He was not about to be drawn, however: He had decided last night. He trusted no one on this story, including Jenkins, and he had no intention of giving Jenkins any further details until it was over.

“Look,” he continued. “I’m in a hurry, Nicholas. You give me a decision here and now. If you want those pictures, you take Gini off this story. It’s as simple as that.” He gave a shrug. “I did try to persuade her myself, and I got precisely nowhere. There’s a chance she’ll listen to you. Pull rank, Nicholas. Do whatever it takes.”

“Oh, but I already have.” Jenkins’s smile was now broad and complacent. “I did it last night. You just don’t know how to handle her, Pascal. I had no problems at all. A piece of cake.”

There was a silence. Pascal stared at him.

“You took her off this story last night?”

“I most certainly did. And in the end, she agreed. She argued first, of course—in fact, she was fucking rude to me, but never mind that.” Jenkins gave him a small gleaming look. “Gini’s never liked me, I’m afraid. She accused me of bowing to pressure from outside, from our dear proprietor Melrose, and Melrose’s friend, the ambassador.” He paused, eyeing Pascal. “I told her I was killing this story, so I suppose she had some justification.”

“And
are
you killing this story?”

“No, Pascal. I’m not.”

He rose, moved across to the large plate-glass windows, looked out thoughtfully for a while, then turned back. The light winked against his spectacles. He gave Pascal a sharp look. “Gini seems to think I’m a pushover. Some kind of poodle. Well, she’ll learn in due course. You don’t get where I’ve gotten by being weak. And you don’t advance your career long-term by bowing and scraping when some boring old fart like Melrose snaps his fingers. What you do is, you smile, and you say
yes, Lord Melrose, of course, Lord Melrose
—and then you carry right on. Only you take a more devious approach. Save the direct confrontation for when it really counts….” He smiled. “Like, about fifteen seconds before the presses start rolling. Or even later, when the papers actually hit the streets. That way, if the story’s good enough, he doesn’t dare to fire you. And if he does, you’re still a hero, the fearless editor.” He grinned suddenly, “Eat shit, Melrose, because I’ve got five other job offers. That’s my general approach.”

There was a silence. Pascal extinguished one cigarette, then lit another. He said slowly, “I think you’d better bring me up-to-date. Obviously, a lot has been happening that I’ve missed.”

“Oh, a very great deal.” Jenkins gave a knowing smile and returned to his desk. He sat down. He picked up one of the phones on his desk. “Hold all calls for fifteen minutes, Charlotte.
All
calls, you’ve got that?” He replaced the receiver and gave Pascal a long, assessing look. “When did you last get some sleep?” he said. “You look like hell, do you know that?”