THE NEXT MORNING THEY were at the ICD offices at nine. Susannah quickly gave them the information they needed.
“Handcuffs?” She looked first at the woman journalist, then at her photographer companion. Both seemed pale and strained, as if they had slept little the night before. The woman worked for the News and this little episode was not the kind of publicity ICD needed.
“I’m most awfully sorry,” she began. “Obviously, if I’d had any idea…And she seemed such a nice woman as well. Anything I can do, in the circumstances…Of course. I remember her very well. And I have the details on computer, right here.”
The meeting lasted half an hour. Pascal and Gini were in Belgravia shortly after ten. It was raining again. Pascal parked the motorbike. They walked the length of Eaton Place twice before they admitted the obvious. The beautiful blonde claiming to be Mrs. J. A. Hamilton had given a plausible but false address. There was no 132 Eaton Place. They tried Eaton Square and Eaton Terrace without success. They returned once more to Eaton Place. The rain stopped, then started again.
“Merde,” Pascal said, looking along the line of discreet, expensive white-stuccoed houses. “Merde. We might have known it. I’ll check the phone number that Hamilton woman gave—if her name was Hamilton, which I doubt. You try knocking on doors. Describe her, mention the coat. It’s worth a try. She could live in the neighborhood. Something might jog people’s memory.”
There was a telephone booth across the street. Pascal made for that. Gini walked slowly along the street. She examined the houses to the right and left. Their white façades were immaculate, their iron railings perfectly preserved. There were window boxes here, expensive curtains and shades, an atmosphere of affluence. A few minutes’ walk from the fashionable shops of Sloane Street, a brief taxi ride to Harrods or Harvey Nichols, it was the perfect address, no doubt carefully selected, for a woman delivering parcels dressed like a fashion plate in Vogue.
An idea was coming to her, a route she could explore next. Meantime, she would try knocking on doors. She could see Pascal down the street, on the telephone, gesturing. When he had arrived at her apartment that morning, he looked tense and exhausted, and she wondered if he, as she had, had spent a wakeful night. Now, even at a distance, she could see the familiar energy returning. He seemed to be arguing with someone; she saw him slam down the receiver and redial. She smiled to herself, and turned into the gate of the end house. Like its neighbors, its paint was new, its curtains crisp.
Its owner finally answered on the third ring: a slender, well-dressed woman with short, dark hair.
“If it’s about the jumble sale,” she said rapidly, “you’re too late. I did ring and explain. We spent weeks waiting for you to collect them. Now I’ve taken them to Oxfam. Including the Ozbek evening dress which is really the most awful waste….”
“It’s not about the jumble sale,” Gini began.
“Oh, God, it’s not religious, I hope?” The woman looked harassed. “If you’re one of those Mormons, or those Witness people, I’m afraid it’s no good. We’re all C of E here.”
Gini explained. The woman looked inclined to close the door, but grew more interested as Gini described the coat.
“Sable? Good Lord…Tall and blond-haired?”
“Very recognizable.” Gini smiled. “We roomed together in college. She always was vague. Such an idiot, giving me the wrong address…”
The woman frowned. “Well, it could be one of the other Eatons, I suppose. There’s quite a few. Eaton Square, Eaton Terrace…”
“I know. I already tried them. No luck.”
“Well, we’ve lived here three years, and there’s certainly no one like your friend in this street. Actually, most of the neighbors are getting on—or foreign. You know how it is—oh, sorry, I don’t mean American.” She smiled. “Arab. Quite a lot of Japanese. That sort of thing.”
“Could she have stayed here some time—or visited?…”
“Well, of course, it’s always possible. Hamilton? No, I’m sure there’s no one of that name that I’ve met. Why don’t you try Lady Knowles across the street? She knows everyone. She’s lived here yonks….”
“Yonks” turned out to be thirty years, and Lady Knowles knew no resident by the name of Hamilton either. The description evoked no response. Gini tried five other houses, then returned to the bike. Pascal was astride it, the helmet under his arm. He looked gloomily up at the sky.
“Does it ever stop raining in this country?” he said.
“Not in January. No.”
“No luck?”
“None. A total blank, just as we expected. You?”
“Nothing. The number she gave doesn’t exist. No listing for any J. A. Hamilton, male or female, anywhere in London. So. That’s that.”
“Never mind. That girl at ICD was very useful. We’ve got an address for McMullen now.”
“In Venice.” Pascal sighed. “That’s three hours away, minimum—and I’ll bet he’s not there.”
“And Johnny Appleyard. I told you, I know Appleyard. I can always get hold of him.”
“He’s a gossip columnist?”
“No. Not really. A tipster for gossip columns, among other things. The kind who keeps in touch with Hollywood gynecologists so he can tell the National Enquirer a movie star’s pregnant about one hour before she gets the results of her tests.” Gini made a face. “A real creep.”
“Appleyard. Appleyard.” Pascal frowned. “Why send a parcel to him?”
“I don’t know. But I can call and ask him. He knows me. Jenkins is always using his stuff. I’ve talked to him on the phone several times. I’ve met him once—no, twice.”
“And McMullen? In Venice? In January? Why would he go there when Lise Hawthorne was so eager to keep him in London?”
“He might have connections in Venice. Besides, it’s a quiet place in winter. A good enough hiding place, if he wanted to disappear.”
“He hasn’t disappeared.” Pascal met her eyes. “Or not effectively enough. Someone knows where he is. And sent him a parcel. Just like us.” He ran his hands through his hair. The worried look returned to his face. “Who’s the puppet master?” he said. “I would like to know who’s pulling the strings. Someone is.”
“Who’s jerking us around, you mean?” Gini smiled. “No one perhaps. It could all be coincidence.”
“I think not. I feel maneuvered.” Pascal glanced away. Farther along the street, a black car pulled into the curb. Its engine was left running; no driver or passenger emerged.
“I feel watched.” Pascal frowned.
Gini shivered, and drew her coat tighter around her. She glanced toward the black car; she could just make out two occupants, a man and a woman. As she watched them, the man took the woman in his arms.
“We shouldn’t be paranoid,” she said, turning back to Pascal. “It’s an occupational disease. Let’s concentrate on what we do next.”
“I think I know what we’re supposed to do,” Pascal began. “Go chasing off to Venice, the same way we came chasing over here. I get the feeling that someone’s trying to delay us, or waste our time. Now, we could go to Venice—except it’s Friday today, and we’re supposed to be meeting the Hawthornes tomorrow at your stepmother’s house. I don’t want to miss that.”
“Neither do I. I want you to meet Hawthorne. In the flesh.”
“So, first I’ll check if this Palazzo Ossorio has a telephone. I have a friend who works for the Italian phone company.”
“And at least we do know the Palazzo Ossorio exists,” Gini put in, “unlike Mrs. Hamilton and her house here. It must be a real place, it must be there—that parcel was delivered, after all.”
“Exactly.” Pascal frowned. “I suppose we could go to Venice today. But if we did, we’d be very tight on time. I suppose it’s just possible we could go to the palazzo and find McMullen there—but I doubt it. It’s too simple by far. And if he isn’t there, we’d have no time to make inquiries, we’d have to get back. One problem with the flight—fog, delays—and we miss Hawthorne. No. It’s not worth it.” He paused. “Better to go the day after, Sunday morning, we could take an early flight, stay over in Venice, return Monday….”
His expression altered; a shadow passed across his face. “If we did that,” he went on, “I’d have to return via Paris. It’s my visiting day. I cannot miss that. I see Marianne then.”
There was a silence. Gini looked away up the street. She was tempted to question him; she would have liked to offer consolation, even if it was only the opportunity to talk. She had tried that the previous evening, on their way to the restaurant. It had been a mistake. All personal questions met a wall of silence. Eventually, sensing bitterness and pain, she had stayed away from the subject. Pascal’s defenses were formidable: She could see he preferred them unbreached.
“All right,” she said at last, turning back. “Let’s plan on that. Venice on Sunday, why not?” She hesitated. “Meanwhile, I think we should split up. I want to go back to the office. I want to check out Appleyard plus one or two other things….”
“What other things?”
“Nothing. Just an idea I had.”
Pascal looked reluctant to accept this. He argued against it for a while, then eventually, with an air of resignation, gave in.
“Very well. Maybe you’re right. We save time that way. I’ll go back to my hotel. Make some telephone calls. Try and fix up a meeting with McMullen’s sister. Then I’ll meet you back at your apartment. Around three?”
Gini glanced at her watch. “Better say four. If you get there before me, you can let yourself in, unless you feel like burgling me, of course—”
Pascal gave her a cool glance. “It wouldn’t be exactly difficult. I’ve looked at your windows and doors. You know how long it would take me to break in? Five seconds flat.”
“Well, you won’t need to,” Gini said sweetly. “Because there’s a spare key. I keep it there for my upstairs neighbor. Sometimes she pops down to feed Napoleon. It’s under the third flowerpot from the left.”
“And I suppose it was there all last night?”
“Yes, it was. I forgot. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You can’t open a door with a key when the person inside has shot the bolt.”
“You are impossible,” Pascal said. He paused, about to put on his helmet. He looked into her face. He lifted his hand. With one finger, gently, he wiped the rain from her cheeks. “Impossible,” he repeated. “Headstrong. Obstinate. I thought that the very first day I met you. Twelve years later, and what do I discover? You’re unchanged, Gini. And I was right.”
He put on the helmet. Gini confronted a black glass visor, an invisible face. He lifted his hand in a half-wave, then kicked the starter pedal. The engine fired; he wheeled, and roared off down the street.
Gini waited until he was out of sight. She watched him round the corner, and for a moment his absence was intense in the street. Gini stood there for a while in the rain, waiting for the sensation of loss to abate. When she was sure she had it under control, she took the tube to Baker Street. From there, she walked north to Regent’s Park, entering it at its southwestern corner, through Hanover Gate.
The park was ringed by an outer circle road. She stood there, looking to right and left. To her right was a terrace of serene and beautiful Nash houses; to her immediate left were the buildings of the London Central Mosque. Beyond its pale stone, and the copper gleam of its dome, the road curved. On the opposite side of that road, actually within the park itself, was Winfield House, official London residence of the U.S. ambassador. It was no more than seventy yards to her left, shrouded from the road by a thick belt of shrubbery: John Hawthorne’s home.
Crossing the street, she entered the park. She wanted to take a closer look at that residence, but she approached it discreetly, by a circuitous route. She wound her way through Regent’s Park first, passing the boating lake and making for the bandstand, where, in summer, military bands sometimes played. The rain fell heavily; the park was almost deserted. Only a few stalwarts walked their dogs. The gaily painted bandstand, and the Guards’ band playing in it, had been an IRA target once, years before. Several men had died there. She walked on.
She approached the ambassador’s residence from the rear, where its large gardens bellied out into the park. From there, too, the house was almost invisible. She could glimpse only its roofs and chimneys through the trees and evergreen shrubs that had been planted inside its tall, spiked perimeter fence.
She circled the gardens, then returned to the road. She walked along the sidewalk directly in front of the house. There were two entrances, she saw, one barred off with reinforced gates, an entrance that looked unused. The other, to the north of the house itself, was flanked by a low lodge-type building. Aerials bristled from its roof; security cameras were trained on the gates and driveway; a window of greenish bulletproof glass confronted anyone seeking admission to the house.
She was beginning to feel conspicuous. There were the watching cameras, and there were also security men. She glimpsed them to the side of the entrance lodge, in the driveway. They were wearing dark suits, and dark raincoats. There were two—no, three—leaning up against a black limousine, ostentatiously ignoring her as she passed.
At her desk in the features department, walled in by word processors, and by the babble of other people’s work, she telephoned. Mary first.
Her stepmother seemed surprised to hear from her again; she was rushing out to see friends, but she did have time to confirm that, yes, The Ivy was certainly a restaurant she’d recommend.
“Oh, yes, darling,” she said. “Do take your friends there. I’m sure they’d love it. Try those little tomato tart things they do. Scrumptious.”
“I know it’s always full in the evenings….” Gini pushed a little harder. “What’s it like for lunch?”
“Oh, I love it, I often go there before matinées. It’s always full of actors, writers—lots of chums.”
There was a pause. Gini said nothing. Sometimes it was better not to prompt.
“When was I last there at lunchtime?” Mary went on. “Let me think…I know! I took Lise there, that’s right. It was just before Christmas. I remember, because she was going down to the country the following week. She’d never been there, for some reason, and she adored it—so it has her recommendation too. I knew it would be her kind of place. Not John’s perhaps, but—what, darling? Your other line? Fine. I’ll see you and your Pascal tomorrow night.”
Gini hung up. This she had expected, but it was as well to check. Appleyard next.
She flicked the cards on her Rolodex. Appleyard. There were two numbers, she remembered, two lines to his Gramercy Park apartment. She tried the first. She let it ring for a long time. Just as she was about to hang up, the receiver was lifted.
The answering voice was wary. It was male, and sounded young. “Yes?” it said. “Who is it?”
“Hi. This is Gini Hunter. I’m calling from the News. Is Johnny in?”
There was a pause, a scrabbling sound. Then the voice said, “Could you spell that, ma’am? The News? Which News is that? I’m just writing that down….”
Gini could hear the broad accent now. Midwest, she thought. She spelled her name, and explained she was calling from London. For the boy to take this down took an age. He sounded so pathetically eager to be efficient that Gini was patient.
“I guess Johnny’s out, then?” she said finally. “Do you work for him? Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Oh, no. I don’t work for him. Not exactly. I mean, I get to take messages, that kind of thing. I’m Stevey. Stevey with a ‘y.’ I’m Johnny’s roommate, his friend. I guess we haven’t spoken before, but I’ve been living here a real long time.”
Of course: It came back to her then, some malicious reference Jenkins had made to Johnny Appleyard’s current toy-boy, encountered on Jenkins’s last New York visit: A face like a young Rudi Nureyev, my dears. Semiliterate, and oh-so-eager to please. He spent an entire evening telling me about pig breeding—sorry, breeding hawgs. Tedious? It was fucking tedious. Johnny picked him up at Penn Station, yes, straight off the train. Couldn’t resist his bum, apparently. I said, Johnny, give me a break. He’s straight out of a Steinbeck novel. He’s still got straw in his hair.
Gini hesitated. She said: “Stevey? Of course. That’s right, I remember now. The last time I saw Johnny, on his last London trip, someone mentioned your name.”
“They did?” The boy seemed pleased by this. “That would be the trip Johnny made last fall, I guess…I nearly came along on that trip. I was real excited. I’ve never been overseas. But then Johnny changed his mind….”
Indeed, Gini thought: Given Appleyard’s rumored behavior on trips to London, a devoted farm boy might have cramped his style. She felt a shaft of pity for the boy.
“So, tell me, Stevey, when do you expect Johnny back? I need to talk to him urgently.”
“Well, that’s kind of difficult to say….” He hesitated, and his voice took a dip. “You see—I don’t know where he is right now. He just took off real suddenly, and since then, he hasn’t phoned.”
“Oh, I see.” Gini could hear unhappiness and anxiety in Stevey’s voice. Gently, she said, “He just took off, Stevey? You mean he’s been gone—what? A couple of days?”
“More than that, ma’am. He left December twenty-seventh. I was expecting him back that evening. He’s been gone now ten, eleven days….”
Gini wrote down the date; she tensed. An absence of a few nights might be understandable enough, given Appleyard’s predilections, but ten days? “That’s quite a while, Stevey,” she said, keeping her voice casual. “I guess you must be getting pretty anxious. Maybe some story came up….”
“I don’t reckon so, ma’am,” he said cautiously. “He’d have told me, he always does. And then he’d have phoned. He always phones to collect his messages. Even when he’s out of town.”
“You mean you’ve no idea where he is, Stevey? I really do need to get hold of him. You’ve no idea at all?”
There was a long silence. Eventually the boy said, in a reluctant way, “Well, he did send me a fax. But that was five days ago. And it was a weird kind of fax too.”
“Weird in what way, Stevey?”
“He didn’t tell me where he was—just said he’d be in touch. It was typed, and Johnny always writes his faxes by hand. Also, he spelled my name wrong. He put ‘ie’ on the end, not ‘ey.’ Johnny would never do that.”
Gini frowned, and made a note of these details. She said quickly, “Well, I’m sure there’s an explanation, Stevey. Maybe he was in a hurry and got some secretary to send the fax.”
“Maybe. I guess so.”
“Do you know where the fax was sent from, Stevey?”
“No. There was just a whole lot of numbers along the top. When I read it, with my name wrong and all, I figured someone else sent it. Maybe someone Johnny was with, you know….”
Gini could hear the misery in his voice clearly now. So Stevey feared he had been ditched—and that was always possible, of course. A new lover was one explanation for ten days’ absence—but it was not the only explanation. “I imagine some new story’s come up,” she said carefully. “You’ll see. Something big—some exclusive, and he had to drop everything, rush off. You know how it is.”
“I guess so. You could be right….”
The attempt at cheerfulness seemed to have worked. Stevey now sounded less miserable.
“Next thing you know, he’ll be walking in the door,” Gini went on in an encouraging voice. “Meantime, Stevey, if I can’t speak to Johnny, you might be able to help. You’ve been at home all this week?”
“I sure have.”
“Was Johnny sent a parcel? It would have arrived Wednesday morning, by courier. Sent from England. A neat-looking package, brown paper, string, sealed with red wax?”
“A package? Yes, he did. Wednesday—yes, Wednesday, that’s right.” He broke off. “How d’you know about that? Was it you who sent it? Why? That wasn’t a funny thing to do. No way! It was sick. I—”
“Hold on a second, Stevey.” His voice had risen angrily. “I didn’t send that parcel and I don’t know who did. But I was sent one too, exactly the same, special delivery. And mine wasn’t amusing either.”
“It wasn’t?” he said in an uncertain way.
Gini hesitated; sometimes, to acquire information, you had to provide some yourself. “Stevey. They sent me a pair of handcuffs, no message. I live alone. I wasn’t laughing either when I opened it up. That’s why I’m calling Johnny now, because I’ve had a big fight with the courier company, and they said he was sent a parcel too. …” She paused, but the boy made no response. “I wanted to find out what they sent Johnny. Whether he had any idea who was playing games….” She paused again. Still silence. “Stevey,” she said, gently again. “I really want to find out who did this, and why. You said it was ‘sick,’ so you must have opened it. Please, Stevey, tell me what was inside.”
Another long silence. “I did open it,” the boy finally replied in a hesitant way. “I guess—well, I was anxious about Johnny. And on the form with it it said ‘birthday gift.’ Johnny’s birthday isn’t in January, it’s in July. So I looked at it, and I looked at it, and Johnny still didn’t call. I left it a whole day. Then I opened it. I thought it might explain where Johnny was.”
“Stevey…” Gini paused. This would have to be coaxed out of him, she could tell. “Was there a message with it, Stevey?”
“No. No card. No message. I looked.”
“Was it handcuffs, the same as mine, or something else?”
“Something else.”
“Something similar, Stevey? Something that might have made Johnny upset?”
“I don’t know. It might have made Johnny mad—or he might have laughed. I—” He hesitated. “It’s kind of embarrassing, ma’am….”
“Stevey, stop calling me ma’am. It’s Gini, all right? And I can promise you, I won’t be embarrassed. I’m a reporter. I don’t embarrass easily. Please, Stevey. I really need to know. I want to nail them—the person who did this.”
“Okay, Gini. If you put it like that…” He lowered his voice; Gini could almost hear the blush.
“It was underwear. Ladies’ underwear. You know—with frills, black lace. Panties, ma’am. The kind they advertise in the little ads in the back of magazines. Or you can send for them out of a catalogue….”
It was years since Gini had encountered Midwest prudery. She was amused, and touched. That any boy exposed to Johnny Appleyard’s world could remain this naive and unsullied was remarkable.
“It’s okay, Stevey. I’m getting the picture. Do you have sisters, Stevey?”
“I do, ma’am.”
“And these weren’t the kind of underwear your sisters would wear, right?”
“My sisters?” His voice rose in indignation. “No way, ma’am. These were whorehouse stuff, fancy, slit all the way up the front, and—” He broke off. There was a ringing noise in the background, then a pause, then Stevey came back on line. “I’m sorry, ma’am. That’s someone at the door. I’ll have to go now.”
“Fine. One last thing, Stevey. I still need to talk to Johnny urgently. When you next see him or speak to him, will you ask him to contact me? This is my home phone number, and my fax….”
It took a painfully long time for these numbers to be taken down. Gini could hear a doorbell continuing to peal in the distance.
“I’ll be right there,” Stevey shouted. He read the numbers back.
“That’s great,” Gini said. “Thank you, Stevey, for all your help.”
“You’re welcome, ma—Gini,” he said, and hung up.
Gini sat for a while, considering this information. A ten-day silence from Appleyard; whorehouse panties. What, if anything, could she deduce from that?
Her next call was the fashion department. Someone there could surely help with an aspect of this story that had been bothering her ever since the interview with Susannah. Why had the mysterious woman delivering the parcels been so memorably dressed?
On her way to the fashion department she passed the picture editor’s office. Its door was open, and the room beyond was crowded with men. Half the art department was in there, together with a large and raucous contingent of editors and rewrite men. Men spilled over into the corridor, blocking her path. Something was being passed from hand to hand. There were whistles, catcalls, and whoops.
Gini stopped. One of the men, slightly sheepishly, handed her some photographs.
“Lamartine.” He grinned. “We’re finalizing the layout. Jenkins has just given the okay. We’re running them tomorrow. What d’you think?”
“Come on, Gini,” someone shouted from beyond. “Give us the woman’s viewpoint. Hot or not?”
There was more laughter. Gini looked down at the pictures. Sonia Swan was instantly recognizable, and so was the well-known French cabinet minister in her embrace. The movie star’s platinum hair was tousled. Her lips, newly injected with silicone, according to the latest gossip column reports, were parted. Her throat was arched back. She was naked to the waist. The cabinet minister was cupping her right breast to his mouth; his tongue lapped her nipple.
“This one we can’t run on the front,” said the picture editor, emerging from his office and peering at the picture over Gini’s shoulder, an assessing look on his face. “Alas. Inside, maybe. Jenkins can’t decide. He thinks it’s a bit hot. We’re running them over six pages. Dynamite, yes?”
“Pascal Lamartine took these?” Gini said, feeling sick.
“Who else? The whole place was guarded. Guards, fucking Dobermans, would you believe? God knows how he got in there, but he did.”
“Well, the frog can kiss good-bye the presidency after this.” The picture editor grinned. “Serves him right, arrogant little shit. Hey, hey, there might be a headline there….” He turned to his companions. “Sonia Swan—and the minister is a writeoff. Swan Song, how about that?”
Groans greeted this attempt. The crowd of men ebbed back into the picture editor’s office. Gini handed the pictures back. She offered no comment, but made her way down the corridor to the elevator.
When its doors opened, she found herself face-to-face with Nicholas Jenkins. Jenkins radiated importance: His senior minion, a Glaswegian by the name of Daiches, stood next to him, adoring and taking notes.
“It’s okay,” Gini said. “I’m waiting to go down.”
“No, you’re not.” Jenkins beckoned. “Up. In my office. Five minutes. Daiches, tell them I need that quote from the Elysée in the next fifteen minutes. Is the minister’s position secure, yes or no? They’ve had all fucking day. If they can’t get a statement, then fucking well invent one. Just say ‘spokesman’ but make it convincing. Who does frogspeak?”
“Holmes can do the Elysée style. Or Mitchell.”
Daiches, widely known in the offices as Jenkins’s representative on earth, was mild of manner. This was deceptive. He was Jenkins’s eyes and ears. When Jenkins decided to dispense with a journalist’s services, a not-uncommon occurrence, it was Daiches who did the firing. His pale eyes fixed on Gini as she entered the elevator. He had never liked her, and she detested him. He acknowledged her presence with a slight inclination of the head.
“Mitchell,” Jenkins said. “Put Mitchell on to it.”
Daiches nodded, and made a note. They had reached the fifteenth floor. Jenkins strode across the Wilton. Through the outer office, through the inner office, where a number of waiting hacks leapt to their feet.
“Not now. Not now. No time. Daiches, deal with this.” Jenkins brushed them aside. He strode ahead into the sanctum, Gini at his heels. One of his telephones was ringing. Jenkins snatched it up. With exquisite politeness, he said, “No fucking calls for the next fucking five minutes, all right, Charlotte?” and slammed the receiver back in place.
He sat. Gini stood at the other side of the desk. Jenkins acted power energetically for another minute or two, consulting papers on his desk. Then he looked up.
“Progress?” he said.
“Yes. Quite a bit.”
“You’ve found McMullen?”
“Maybe. We have another address. I—”
“No time. Never mind the details. Check back with me Monday when all hell isn’t breaking loose.” He moved a piece of paper half an inch. “What about telephone sex?”
Gini hesitated. “I’ve put that to one side for the moment. I thought you wanted me to concentrate on the Hawthorne story. You said—”
“Jesus. You can walk and chew gum at the same time, can’t you?”
“Sure, Nicholas.”
“Then do it. Work on them both.” He looked down at his desk in an irritable way. “Anything else?”
It was characteristic of Jenkins when in this mood to summon employees, then behave as if they had sought him. Gini, who knew this, ignored his tone.
“There is one thing,” she said. “Who else here knew about the Hawthorne story, Nicholas? Anyone?”
“I told you. You, me, Pascal. That’s it.”
“Daiches doesn’t know, for instance?”
“How many times do I have to say it? No, he does not. This was my lead and it’s my story. I’ve nursed it along, and I’ve kept it under wraps. …What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing, Nicholas. I just thought it might be my story too. And Pascal’s, of course.”
“So it is. So it is. So just don’t fucking well cock up on it, that’s all I ask.” He paused. “And tell Pascal to watch his fucking expenses, this is a newspaper, not the Royal Mint.”
“Sure. I’ll tell him that, Nicholas.” She began to move toward the door. Jenkins gave her a sharp look.
“You and Pascal? You’re getting along all right? Good chemistry?”
“Fine so far. Yes.”
“Well, just keep it that way. I need teamwork on this. You could learn a lot from Pascal.”
“I’m sure I could.”
“You’ve seen the Sonia Swan pictures?” He gave her a sudden smile of entirely fake benevolence.
“I saw them just now.”
“Great, aren’t they?” He rose to his feet, crossed the carpet, and put his arm around her shoulders. “Give Pascal a message from me, will you? Tell him I’m increasing the print run tomorrow by another hundred thousand. That Sonia Swan—we’ve got her going down on that minister, you know, right in front of his bodyguard. Can you believe that? Pascal got the whole thing. We can’t run those pictures, obviously, but we can hint.” He patted Gini’s shoulder. “Meantime, word’s out. The Mail and the Express are pissing gallstones. Tell Pascal. Another hundred thousand on the print run. Tomorrow we wipe those assholes off the streets.”
The fashion department was in chaos, as usual. They were arranging a big shoot.
“Ball gowns in Siberia?” Gini said.
“Not quite.” Her friend Lindsay, the fashion editor, smiled. “Bondage clothing. Couture bondage. In Martinique.”
“Lindsay, listen. I need a favor. Would you call Chanel for me? They know you. They’ll talk to you. Chanel, and a couple of other places. There’s some details I need to check on a sable coat. …”
“A sable coat? Bloody hell.” Lindsay grinned. “You do know there’s virtually no furriers left in London, don’t you? Not even Harrods sells fur coats now.”
“There must be some, Lindsay.”
“Yes. One or two. What else?”
“Nothing difficult. Chanel accessories. A Chanel suit. This Chanel suit, and these accessories.”
Gini produced the relevant page from the December Vogue. Lindsay looked at it.
“Oh, I remember that. It’s lovely. Classic stuff.”
“Yes. Well, I want to know who bought it. Ditto the coat. And I can give you a pretty exact date.” Gini explained the details. When she had finished, Lindsay gave her a speculative look.
“Why?” she said.
“Never mind why, Lindsay. Just help me out. Please. If I try, they’ll clam up. If you try, it’ll take you ten minutes. Less.”
“Oh, very well. Since it’s you—” She paused. “Hey, I hear you’re working with Pascal Lamartine, is that true?”
“Who said that?”
“I can’t remember. Someone. I thought—Gini gets all the luck. Tall, dark, handsome, smoldering. Deeply sexy.”
“Cut it out, Lindsay. He’s not my type.”
“I’d load his film for him anytime.” Lindsay laughed. “D’you think I could persuade him to do a fashion shoot?”
“No, Lindsay. I don’t.”
“Pity. It could be interesting. Seriously. It’s erotic. Snatched photographs, the paparazzi approach. Have you seen his Sonia Swan stuff? Unbelievable. Can you imagine, lying in the undergrowth, shooting that? D’you think he gets turned on by it?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Defensive, defensive…okay, okay. I’ll say no more. I know when to back off. I thought you said he wasn’t your type?”
Lindsay gave Gini a close look, then made a gesture of mock surrender. “Not another word. I swear. Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Lindsay, just call those stores for me, would you?”
“Right, right. I’m doing it now. Don’t bite my head off.”
Lindsay began to work the phones. While she did so, Gini leafed through the directories of fashion models. Susannah at ICD was a good witness, she thought, an exceptionally good witness, and what had been her first reaction when the woman delivering the parcels walked into reception? That she might have been a model. Gini frowned: The woman wasn’t Mrs. J. A. Hamilton. Susannah’s instincts might have been correct.
The pile of directories was thick: Models One, Storm, Elite. Face after beautiful face. She stared down at the pictures. The ease with which these women could transform themselves was unnerving; here was Evangelista as a blonde, a redhead, a brunette. …
After a half-hour Lindsay completed her calls. She crossed to Gini and handed her a sheaf of notes. She was looking pleased with herself.
Gini read down the notes with astonishment and with mounting excitement. She made no comment. When she had finished, she said: “You’re totally certain about this?”
Lindsay nodded. “One hundred percent. I know the manager at Chanel well. I spoke to him personally. There’s no mistake.”
“Would they often make an arrangement like that?”
“For a famous customer? A good customer? Sure, what do you think?” She looked at Gini closely. “You look excited, Gini—and I know that look. Is this important? Something big?”
“No, not really,” Gini said hastily. “Just background. Thank you, Lindsay. Oh, and don’t mention to anyone that I was asking, all right?”
“Not a word, I promise.”
Lindsay began to turn back to work, then glanced at Gini, who was now gathering up her various belongings. She frowned: She could see that there really was something wrong, for Gini’s features wore a tight, closed, angry expression, as if she were concentrating on her work, yes, but also fighting something else. It was unusual for Gini to be irritable, she thought. They were good friends; in fact, Gini was her closest friend at the News, and she could rarely remember seeing Gini this tense.
As Gini reached out for her coat, Lindsay stopped her. “Hey, slow down,” she said. “Gini, are you okay?”
“No. Not really. No. I’m not.” Gini gave her a quick look, then shrugged. “You know how it is. This damn place…”
“Coffee?” Lindsay looked at her closely. She and Gini were used to speaking in a kind of female shorthand in which the offer of coffee was also the offer to talk.
Gini hesitated. “I shouldn’t…maybe ten minutes…”
“I could use a break myself. Come into my office. It’s less like bedlam in there.”
“All right. Thanks, Lindsay. I forgot about lunch. Coffee would be good. But ten minutes only, then I must rush.”
Lindsay smiled. “You rush too much,” she said. “One of your problems, Gini. What are you afraid of? Actually having some time to think?”
As soon as they were in Lindsay’s office, and the door was closed, Gini began to pace. She had just put on her overcoat. Now she took it off again, and threw it down on a chair. It was followed by the scarf she had been wearing, by the overflowing bag she always carried, by a pair of scarlet gloves. Lindsay watched this divesting take place, and put the kettle on to boil. In the cruel fluorescent lighting, Gini’s fair hair took on a silver tinge; the light sharpened the planes of her face.
“Christ, Lindsay,” she said, still pacing. “I can’t stand it much longer. This place, the men who work in this place…”
Lindsay said nothing. Gini appeared oblivious of her in any case, and she had never, on any occasion in the past, seen Gini behave like this. Normally, Gini kept herself on the tightest of reins. Lindsay had often wondered how much that cost her. Well, now she saw, she thought.
“How can you bear it, Lindsay?” Gini swung around to look at her, then began pacing again. “The endless looks, the sniggers, the language, the innuendo, the little pats when you’re at the Xerox machine, the taking orders from men like Nicholas Jenkins, and all the time you can never ever say what you truly think, because you’re a woman, and so you have to tread so damn carefully, can’t lose your temper, can’t speak your mind, because if you did, if you did—then that would just prove all their points?”
She swung around again. “Don’t you think you’d like to speak the truth, just occasionally, tell them what you really think of them, and not care that then they’ll put you down as hysterical, or having your period—or being a ball breaker. Oh, Lindsay, don’t you ever wish you could stop acting, just for once?”
There was a silence. Lindsay made the coffee. She put it on her desk. Gini continued pacing. With a sudden angry gesture she undid the band tying back her hair so it fell over her shoulders and across her face. Lindsay watched her toss that hair back, and continue to pace, as if this office were a cage. She looked a little crazy and a little magnificent, Lindsay thought, like a maenad, like some wonderful and anarchic embodiment of female force.
“I have my own domain, Gini,” she said eventually. “It’s a female domain, so I’m safe. They don’t trespass in here, and if they do, I can tell them to fuck off. They don’t mind. Fashion doesn’t threaten them.”
“Oh, God, oh, God.” Gini suddenly banged her hands down hard on the desk. “Sometimes I’d like to blow it all up, this entire place.”
“What brought this on? Come on, Gini, if you’re so keen to speak your mind, do it for once.”
“What brought it on? Jenkins brought it on. I loathe and detest and despise him. And I loathe and detest and despise myself for working for him. I should have walked out, months ago, and I didn’t. I should never have listened to all those lies and promises of his. Next month, Gini, maybe then we’ll send you overseas…” She did a vicious and accurate impression of Jenkins. “Meantime, Gini, if you’d just get on with this really key story. It’s about telephone sex lines, for God’s sake. …”
“Okay.” Lindsay lit a cigarette. She could not quite believe this was happening, that Gini—quiet, cool, controlled Gini, who rarely so much as lost her temper—was acting like this. “Okay,” she said. “What else?”
“What else? What else? Those damn voyeurs for a start, passing those Sonia Swan pictures around. ‘Hey, Gini, hot or not?’ They make me sick. Sick. Not one of them has the nerve to stand up to Jenkins and say why the hell are we running this stuff? Who cares if Sonia Swan screws the entire French Cabinet, so what?” She drew in a deep breath and swung around to look at Lindsay once more. “They don’t have the courage—and neither do I, do you see? I could have said that to Jenkins. I had the perfect chance up there in his office, and did I? No. I kept my mouth shut. Why? Because I’m frightened of him?” She paused, and then shook her head. “No. It isn’t even that. Because I’m working on something right now that I actually want to work on. And I didn’t want to risk losing it. So I toed the line yet again. Yes, Nicholas. No, Nicholas. I hate myself.”
“And?” Lindsay said.
Gini met her eyes. She hesitated. Lindsay watched her fight herself, watched some angry internal struggle take place.
“All right,” she said finally. “All right. It’s Pascal Lamartine. Him above all. He took those Sonia Swan photographs and I mind. I mind passionately about that.”
“Why?” Lindsay said, although she already knew the answer. It flared in Gini’s eyes, it sprang from every feature of her face.
“Why? Because he’s better than that. Much better. You know the kind of work he used to do. You know the kind of pictures he used to take. And now he does this. And he hates himself for doing it—I can see that he does, Lindsay. It’s destroying him. It’s his own very special way of committing suicide, and I can’t bear to watch it.”
She pressed her hands to her heart as she said this. Then she made a wild and angry gesture, as if she were relinquishing something, or giving up. She moved her head, and that astonishing hair flared with a bluish-white fluorescence. Lindsay waited, one beat, then two. Gini’s gaze met hers, then faltered. She looked away.
Lindsay gave a sigh. She hesitated, then said: “Okay, Gini. Tell me. When?”
She was expecting Gini to say nothing at all. Or, if she admitted it, something like, last year, or six months ago. She did not.
“Twelve years ago,” she said, and began pacing again.
“Twelve years?” Lindsay stared at her. She could not remember Gini’s having mentioned Pascal Lamartine’s name, ever.
“Twelve years? You mean you were fifteen?”
“Yes. But he didn’t know that. I lied about my age to him.”
“Where was this?”
“In Beirut.”
“How long, Gini?”
“Three weeks.”
“That’s all?”
Gini swung around angrily. “It was enough. Believe me, it makes no difference. He’s still here.” She pressed her hands against her chest. “He’s in my heart and in my head. I can’t get him out. I never could.”
Lindsay hesitated. She was ten years older than Gini; she suddenly felt that the age gap was much greater than that.
“So what happened, Gini?” she said more gently, and thought: How can I explain, how do you talk someone down from this?
“What happened? My father happened. He found out.” Another turn, another wild gesture of the hand, another swirl of hair.
“And that was it?” Lindsay said. “Nothing afterward?”
“Just silence,” Gini said. “Silence. I met him once, by accident, in Paris. But that was all. Just silence, until I met him again this week.”
“The kind of silence that talks?”
“On my side. Not on his. He married. He had a child. He divorced—”
“Did he contact you then?”
“No.”
“Did you hope he would?”
“When I let myself. Yes.”
Pride flared in her face. She turned away. There was a long silence. The lights flickered. Outside, the rain lashed the windows. Several stories below, a truck passed. In the outside office a telephone rang.
“Three weeks, then twelve years of silence?” Lindsay said slowly, “Gini, do you want to get hurt? Again?”
“No. I want God to intervene and make everything wrong come right.” Her voice dipped, then rose more strongly. “Failing that—if it comes to a choice, something happening and getting hurt, or nothing happening and I stay safe—then I’d risk getting hurt. I’d even rather get hurt. I wouldn’t care.”
“That’s not very sensible.”
“Sensible?” She turned and stared at Lindsay. Her face contracted for an instant. “I don’t even know what that means anymore. It isn’t part of the equation. I can’t go through this inch by inch, measuring this, accounting for that.”
“So tell him, then,” Lindsay said a little sharply.
“No. No. I can’t do that. That’s the one thing I can’t do. You don’t know what he’s like. He’s just been through a horrible divorce. The last thing he needs is more problems.”
“Rubbish.” Quite suddenly Lindsay lost sympathy and patience. “He sounds like a first-class bastard to me, Gini.”
There was absolute silence. Gini’s face went white. “Why do you say that?”
“Oh, come on, Gini. Grow up. Three weeks in a war zone and a twelve-year silence? That sounds like indifference to me. Exploitation and then indifference.”
“You’re wrong. Totally wrong. It wasn’t like that. He was never like that. He isn’t like that now.”
“You’re sure?” Lindsay said more kindly. “Or is that you, Gini, writing his script?”
There was another silence, briefer this time. Then Gini whirled around. She began putting on her coat, her gloves, her scarf. She picked up her bag.
Lindsay said nothing. Gini had not touched her coffee, and was now hesitating by the door, a stricken look on her face.
“Lindsay…”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you with all this. It’s—it’s not something I’ve ever talked about before.”
“I can see that.”
“You won’t tell anyone else? You promise me?”
“Come on, Gini. You know I won’t.”
Gini did know that; she hesitated again, then made a little half-pleading gesture of the hand. “Lindsay, what you said about indifference—is that really what you think?”
Lindsay sighed. She rose, and they hugged each other. “Come on, Gini,” she said. “You know I can’t judge. Outsiders never can. But just reading the facts—no, they don’t look good. I’d be lying if I said they did.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Gini’s face took on a closed, blank look. “I mean, I always knew, in a way. Twelve years of silence. I had been dealing with it. Really, Lindsay, I’d almost put the whole thing right out of my mind. It’s just meeting him again, so unexpectedly. It brought all the past back.”
“As long as you remember it is the past, Gini.”
“Yes. Except we are our pasts. He is a part of me. …”
Lindsay began to protest, and Gini gave herself a shake. She smiled. “No. No. You’re right. Grow up. That’s just what I should do. Thank you, Lindsay. Have a wonderful time in Martinique.”
A few minutes later Gini left. She took with her the directories for the model agencies. She crammed them into a shopping bag and hurried out of the building.
It was past four o’clock. Rain was falling heavily, sluicing the streets. If she was quick, she could make it easily to the City and the ICD offices before Susannah left. Perhaps the woman who had delivered those parcels had indeed been a model, just as Susannah had assumed, a model hired to do an unusual job. Perhaps, if Susannah went through these directories, she would recognize the woman’s face.
It was a long shot, but worth trying. Then, when she returned home to Pascal, she would have made more progress still. Another part of this puzzle would have slotted into place.
She stopped abruptly, in the middle of the street. Home to Pascal—why had she allowed herself to think that? She would be going home, to her apartment, and Pascal might be there, but she was not returning home to him: It was vital she remember that.
She stood for a moment, the rain beating down on her head. Throughout the conversation with Lindsay she had known that Lindsay was correct in all she said, that she gave sensible and good advice. Her mind did not doubt that, but her heart did. I loved him, she said to herself. She let the words repeat, and repeat, until they were just a refrain, utterly meaningless, a fifteen-year-old girl’s delusion, a delusion she should have had the strength to discard years ago.
When she was certain she saw that delusion for the foolish thing it was, she began to walk. There were no taxis. All the buses were full. She walked the whole way back to the City, and she discarded the illusion, tossed it aside like a physical thing, into the gray water of the Thames, as she passed by Tower Bridge. She felt light, unburdened, and empty, insubstantial. She felt a quick furtive sense of betrayal, then walked on. The pain was intense.