“WAIT,” MARKOV SAID TO Lindsay. “I promise you. This is the place Quest always comes. And she always eats late…”
“This late? It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning.”
“Trust me. One-fifteen—no later. You could set your watch by her. That’s what she’s like.”
“Markov, I know what she’s like. She doesn’t talk, for a start. About the most I’ve ever heard her say is ‘Hello’ and ‘Good night.’”
“She talks to me…If anyone knows anything about Maria Cazarès’s death, Quest will. She’s Jean Lazare’s favorite model. He found her. Come Wednesday, come the Cazarès show—”
“Which will be canceled. Come on, Markov.”
“—she’s due to be the star of the show. I’m telling you—she’ll know something. What’s the alternative? You want to sit around the hotel with a whole pack of airheads listening to rumors half the night? With Quest, we mainline, right? We tap right into the power source.” He paused; his dark glasses turned in Lindsay’s direction. “What’s the matter with you, Lindy? You’ve been as jumpy as a cat all night.”
“I’m upset. Shocked. That’s obvious, surely? Who wouldn’t be? I can’t believe she’s dead. It doesn’t seem possible.”
“And?”
“And I ought to call the hotel again. Markov, I told you. I need to talk to Rowland McGuire.”
“Lindy. You have tried five times this evening to reach McGuire.”
“He was out, Markov. He might be back now.”
“—And when you call him, Lindy, there’s these little signals I’m picking up. Like, serious agitation…”
“He’s my editor. I need to talk to him.”
“Sure.” Markov gave a huge yawn. “And editors edit. They sit at a desk—in London, in his case—and they edit away. Ring, ring, fax, fax, kill those Markov pictures, I don’t like waifs… I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, Lindy, but I seem to remember that around fifteen seconds ago it was war. I seem to remember you were going to wipe him out.”
“That was last week, Markov. I’ve changed my mind.”
“Just your mind, Lindy? And how about McGuire? I mean, how come he’s abandoned his desk, how come he’s suddenly on a plane, in Paris? I’m revising my ideas of this man, Lindy. Like I had the wrong angle before, the wrong aperture, wrong shutter speed, wrong film. What’s brought him hotfooting to Paris, Lindy, my love? Is it work? Is it a woman? Fill me in.”
“Don’t be so damn stupid, Markov. Of course it’s not a woman. I’ve no idea where you get these ideas.”
“Looking at you, sweetheart, that’s where I get them.”
“Well, if you knew McGuire better, you’d know you were wrong. It’s work, Markov—pure and simple. And I’m not sure why he’s here. His deputy is holding the fort in London. I spoke to Max, not Rowland.”
Lindsay hesitated. She had finally reached Max about an hour before, and Max had been in diplomat mode. According to him, someone now needed to be in Paris urgently, and since Gini was unavailable, it had been jointly decided by Max and Rowland that Rowland should go.
“What d’you mean, Gini’s unavailable?” Lindsay had said. “According to Pixie, she was flying here this evening—at least that was the plan.”
“Sorry, Lindsay. You’ll have to ask Rowland. My other line’s ringing. I have to go.”
When Max had mentioned Gini’s name, Lindsay had detected some froideur. With a sigh, and a glance at Markov’s maddening dark glasses, she rose.
“Look, Markov, let me try the hotel again. Rowland must be answering now.”
“Lindy. Lindy. Never chase them. It’s a very bad idea, you know.” Markov wagged a finger and gave her a look that might have been motherly.
“I’m not damn well chasing him.” Lindsay hesitated, then sat down again. “Get this straight, Markov. I work with him. I need to talk to him about work. About Maria Cazarès. That’s it. End of story. That’s all.”
“You can’t lie to me, Lindy. You never could. I see it all. I see the light in the eyes, the flush in the cheek. You know Aphrodite, the goddess of love? You know she had children? You know what those children were called?”
“No, I don’t. I never even knew she had children.”
“Well, she did. As a result of an adulterous affair with Ares—the god of war. She had five children by him, Lindy. You know what they were called?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“You bet I am. They were called Eros and Anteros—that’s love, and reciprocal love; Harmonia—that’s easy enough to understand. And then there were two others. Their names were Deimus and Phobus.”
“Meaning?”
“Terror and fear.”
Markov gave her one of his small, sad, flickering smiles. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
“Worth remembering, yes? The children of love. I think about that particular union from time to time. I think about the offspring of that union. Terror and fear.”
“Are you giving me a warning, Markov?”
“Sure. Oh, sure. You won’t listen, no one ever does. So, I’m just kind of sliding in a little reminder. On account of the fact that I can’t stand most women, but I’m pretty fond of you. Also, you’re unhappy, aren’t you?”
There was a silence. Lindsay considered Markov. It did not surprise her that he should be so well acquainted with Greek myth. It would not altogether have surprised her had Markov leaned across the table and begun speaking Greek. Markov might go to extreme lengths, both in his appearance and in his manner of speech, to suggest he was a fool, a gadfly, a fashion victim: in reality, he was none of these things. Markov was astute, sensitive, gifted, and intelligent, also both resilient and brave. His long-term partner had died of AIDS two years before; Markov had nursed him through the final stages of his illness. Markov was indeed in a position to understand why terror and fear should be the offspring of love.
Watching her now, as the minutes ticked by, he was wearing his habitual disguise. Black clothes, head to foot, black sunglasses despite the fact that this restaurant allegedly favored by Quest was a small, dingy neighborhood place on a Montmartre back street, with lighting rather worse than that of most cellars. On his head, as usual, was a hat—Markov was rarely seen without one, and this, Lindsay thought, was a particularly ridiculous example, wide-brimmed, velvety, a fin-de-siècle hat, an Oscar Wilde hat. From beneath it escaped long, fair, wavy tresses. The final touches were two silver crucifix earrings and a fistful of silver rings. Markov, who hailed from Los Angeles but claimed to have been born on a jumbo jet, had been, since the death of his lover, rootless. He spent his life moving around the world, from shoot to shoot. He could make any woman he photographed look ten times more beautiful than she actually was. Some of his pictures, transcending fashion, haunted Lindsay, who considered him the best fashion photographer in the world—not a view that was widely shared, for Markov’s work was too subversive, too strange for many tastes. In Lindsay’s view, as man and photographer, Markov was a kind of enchanter. Looking at him now, she realized with a sense of surprise that not only was he almost certainly her closest friend, but that she wanted to talk.
“Oh, very well. You’re right,” she said, giving Markov a troubled look. “I like Rowland. Maybe more than like him. The other day—I went to his house. I was just talking to him, and—something happened. You know, Markov. One of those little rebellions of the heart.”
“Sure. I know those. Go on.”
“There is nothing more. I thought I’d cured myself—it’s been years, Markov, years since that happened. I’m not a child. I’m not a fool. I’m almost thirty-nine years old. I have a son who’s seventeen. I have stretch marks, Markov. If I go to bed with someone, I make sure the lights are turned down low.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Lindy…”
“It’s true. I know it’s stupid. I tell myself, it doesn’t matter, there must be someone out there who doesn’t care about all that. Someone who won’t mind about the lines on my face, because he’s not looking at my face, or my bottom, or my breasts, he’s looking at me, at the person inside.”
Lindsay stopped; she could feel distress inches away, and she despised herself for that. She gave an angry gesture. “You don’t want to hear this. I can feel self-pity coming on.”
“I do want to hear it. I understand.”
“Well, I don’t meet them, that’s all. If they exist, these miraculous men, I never get an introduction. The men I meet fall into three categories: they’re already married; they’re liars; or they’re bores. It’s my age, Markov. Only the rejects and the walking wounded are left. At least that’s what I thought. And then I met Rowland McGuire.”
“The dark, tall, and handsome McGuire?” Markov smiled.
“Yes. But that’s not the reason. I hope it’s not the reason…”
“So give me a few others.”
“He’s intelligent—very. I think he’s kind. He’s amusing. He has an edge to him.”
“Very good. And the main reason?”
“Oh, all right. He’s been hurt. Something’s happened to him, and I don’t know what it is, but I can sense it. He needs love. He deserves love. He needs the right woman, Markov, the right partner.”
“Don’t we all?”
Markov glanced down at his watch; Quest, late now, if she was ever coming, had still not appeared.
“So why shouldn’t you be the right partner?” Markov removed his dark glasses and met her eyes. He gave her one of his quick, squirrelly looks, then replaced the glasses. “You’re smart. You’re kind. I like the way you look. Plenty of people like the way you look. You look—boyish, peppy, you’ve got these really honest eyes. You’re funny—you make me laugh. You’ve got this sunny nature, you don’t sulk, you don’t have moods, you give a lift to the day. You’re interested in other people, you’re not some fucking egomaniac like most people I know. You’re generous, Lindsay, you’re not tight, you’re not mean—and I’m not talking about money, right? You give. I remember. You gave a whole lot to me two years ago.”
Lindsay was touched by this. She took the hand Markov held out to her and squeezed it. “Thanks, Markov. That’s the nicest testimonial anyone’s ever given me. Maybe you should pass it on to McGuire.”
“If he’s what you say he is, he wouldn’t need a testimonial. He’d just have to use his eyes.”
“No.” Lindsay shook her head and looked away. “I wish that were true, but I’m afraid it isn’t, Markov. Things don’t work that way. And anyway, I’m not right for him.”
“Why not? And don’t mention stretch marks again.”
“Because I’m not—oh—difficult enough, maybe. If he had me, he’d always be chasing something more. He’d want—something I could never provide.”
“I see.” Markov sighed, and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “You mean he’s that type?”
“I told you he had an edge, Markov. Think, dark side of the moon.”
“Sexually?” Markov said.
“Almost certainly. Emotionally as well. Intellectually too. Forget it, Markov. I’ve had time to think about this. I’ve been thinking about it for most of the day. Rowland and I—it would be like mixing wine and milk.”
“It might be fun…” Markov gave another of his sad, flickering smiles. “With that kind, it might be a whole lot of fun for a while.”
“Excitement, sure. Also heartbreak. I don’t want to know, Markov. I’ve been down that road once or twice.”
“Me too.”
“And he’d take me too far. Those would be his terms. Either that, or I’d get dropped off at the first turn. I’m nearly thirty-nine, Markov. Approaching forty! I don’t want that now. I want—” She broke off, then smiled. “Peace. Security. Tranquillity. Harmony, if you like…”
“And McGuire wouldn’t provide those?”
“Not for me. No.”
“Come on, Lindy. You’re not convincing yourself. You’re not convincing me. I can see this little ray of hope way back there in the eyes.”
“The hell you can. With those damn glasses, I doubt you can see me at all. I’ll test you. Who came in about two minutes ago?”
“Quest did,” Markov replied, despite the fact that he had not turned his head once during the conversation. “And the magnificent one is now at her usual table, table five, right behind me in the corner. She’s just got her usual waiter to bring her usual carafe of vin ordinaire, and she’s just lit the first of the many Gauloises she will smoke throughout her meal. Excuse me, Liebling. I have work to do…”
Lindsay watched as Markov rose and crossed to the table Quest occupied, in the darkest corner of this dark bistro. Lindsay did not expect Quest to acknowledge her own presence, although they knew each other. She was correct. As Markov rose, Quest turned her beautiful blind stare in their direction, then looked away. As Markov, uninvited, sat down opposite her, and—being Markov—at once drank some of her wine, and lit one of her cigarettes for himself, Quest yawned. In her guttural voice, and in an affectionate tone, she said, “Markov, piss off.”
Markov looked delighted at this reception. He leaned closer and began to talk; Quest responded, inaudibly to Lindsay. Lindsay watched her with fascination. Her real name was Russian, and unpronounceable. She had been born in Smolensk, the daughter of a steelworker and a factory hand. She had come to the West four years before; she was over six feet tall, thin, and big-boned for a model. She was Garboesque in that her build was mannish, with wide shoulders, long legs, narrow hips, and large hands and feet. She had the most haunting face Lindsay had ever seen, with gaunt high cheekbones, strong vivid brows, and huge angry eyes of a brown so dark it caused lighting difficulties in the studio, for her eyes photographed too black, too deep. It was for this reason that despite her discovery by Lazare, and despite the use Cazarès made of her as their star runway model, magazines had been slow to use her.
It was Markov who had seen her possibilities. Quest obeyed none of the rules—which had interested Markov from the first. She was solitary, gruff, profoundly indifferent to money, fame, and—it was rumored—either sex. She was without the plasticity usual in most successful models; she never attempted to act or to adapt. She simply turned up, on time, allowed herself to be dressed, coiffed, made up with an air of sublime indifference, then she stood towering in front of the camera and glowered at the lens. She had one expression only, of distrustful and magnificent contempt. Markov adored her. He said, in his more extravagant moments, that she was half man, half woman, a female for the twenty-first century. “When she’s milked the decadent West of enough money,” he’d said with delight, “she’ll go back to Smolensk. She wants a farm. She wants to keep sheep and cows. Seriously. She’s astonishing. She knows exactly who she is, what she wants, and how to get it. I love her. I learn from her. I worship at her shrine.”
His regard was, Lindsay knew, returned. And his promise that Quest would talk to him but no one else seemed now to be confirmed. Lindsay could not hear what Quest was saying, but she was speaking rapidly, with emphasis.
Lindsay hoped she was coming up with some useful information, since the quest for Quest had used up an entire evening. She and Markov had begun by canceling the Grand Vefour—the headwaiter had not been amused. Then they had chased around Paris, visiting what Markov claimed were Quest’s favorite evening haunts. Lindsay had followed Markov up and down a particularly lonely stretch of the Seine; she had shivered in the medieval streets of the Île St. Louis, and shivered again in some tiny Russian Orthodox church, where Quest—according to Markov—came every evening to pray.
“What does she pray for, Markov?” Lindsay had asked.
“Don’t know.” Markov lit a candle—for Maria Cazarès, he claimed. “Spiritual enlightenment? Cows?”
“For heaven’s sake, Markov. I’m freezing. Can we go? I’m giving up on Quest. She’s not going to know anything anyway.”
“She will. You should get to know her better, Lindy. You’d like her. You could learn from her too.”
“Learn what?” Lindsay started moving off to the door.
“How to be alone. That’s valuable.”
Lindsay had not replied; she eased back the huge door of the church, and the wind gusted. Behind her, pyramids of candles guttered, the gold of icons burned. Lindsay could smell incense, that tang of religion; she was not a churchgoer, and she occasionally found Markov too Californian.
“Hurry up,” she said, making for the street and the city air. That church had been their penultimate port of call. Then they had come here, to this back-street restaurant, high on the hill of Montmartre, down an alleyway, with a slanting view up to the floodlit white dome of Sacré-Coeur.
The visitations, the delays, seemed to have been fruitful. Lindsay could feel the odd journey they had made, five hours plus of searching, working in her mind; she could feel Markov’s earlier comments too, bubbling away like yeast. He was returning to her table now, his face bright with discoveries evidently made.
“Let’s go,” he said, taking Lindsay’s arm. “You’re not going to believe this. I’ll drive you back to the hotel. We can talk in the car.”
In the car, the CD kicked in as soon as he started the engine. “My Foolish Heart” had been rejected, it seemed, in favor of an old Annie Lennox number, a great Annie Lennox number: Lindsay heard that love was a stranger in an open car. She leaned forward and switched off the sound.
“That isn’t a message I want to hear right now,” she said.
“Why not? Great song. Great singer. Great lyrics. The essential impetuosity of l’amour. I feel it speaking to me, Lindy…”
“So do I. That’s the problem. Anyway, I want you to talk. Come on—what did she say?”
“She said… some very interesting things.” Markov, who drove fast and well, and who could provide information fast and well when he chose to do so, accelerated.
“I tell you this, Lindy, despite the fact that Quest swore me to secrecy, because you’re one of the four people I like in the world. And because I know you’ll be careful whom you tell. If you have to, tell McGuire. But don’t blab it around.” He paused. “First: the Cazarès collection isn’t canceled. It goes ahead, the day after tomorrow, Wednesday, eleven A.M., precisely as planned. Tomorrow morning Lazare is giving a press conference—and all the passes to that are being sent out now. The line will be that Wednesday’s show is un hommage. What Maria Cazarès herself would have wanted. Moving, isn’t it?”
“Actually, it is. And?”
“And now—get this—guess where Quest has been all night? At the Cazarès workshops. Getting fitted for three very special ensembles, three new ensembles…”
“What? Tonight? It’s less than two days to the show. That can’t be right, Markov. All the clothes for the collection will have been finished a week ago. Lazare always insists on that. The most they’d be doing is small last-minute adaptations—trimmings, accessories…”
“Sure. But I told you—these outfits are special. They’re Maria Cazarès’s last work. Her final designs. As drawn by her own pen, this last weekend. Lazare’s idea. He was there, in the workshops, Lindy, tonight, putting the fear of God into everybody. Quest was sent for within one hour of Cazarès’s being pronounced dead.”
“What? I can’t believe that.”
“There’s more. Think, Lindy—what time did I first hear? Around eight. And when you checked back with Pixie, what time did she say it came through on the wires?”
“About seven forty-five.”
“Exactly. So work out just how long Lazare took to release the news. Quest was summoned at five this afternoon. If it’s true that Cazarès had died an hour before, she died at around four. So what was happening for the next three and three-quarter hours?”
“I don’t know.” Lindsay gave a shiver. “They were getting the security in place, oiling up the press machine, making sure everyone put out the right story, the right way…”
“Sure. That’s certainly what the courtiers and minions were busy doing. But not Lazare. I’m telling you, Lindy, Cazarès is dead one hour, she’s not cold yet, and he’s there, in the workshops, raising hell. They’re cutting the material for the dresses on the model, the way Chanel used to work, because there’s no time to make toiles. Every tiny little detail has to be just so. Quest is standing there, getting pins stuck in her, getting slices taken off, because the cutters are so damn terrified they can’t hold the scissors steady, and there’s Lazare, in the middle of mayhem, people scurrying in all directions, and he won’t compromise, he’s going through fifteen, sixteen, seventeen samples of materials, he’s got them running down to warehouses, and bringing back bales, he’s got embroideresses, he’s saying no, those buttons won’t work, they’re one eighth of an inch too big—and all the time, Lindy, all the time, he’s in emperor mode. Like—no tears, no grief, no condolences given or accepted, just this white, set face and that voice that makes your blood run cold.”
“An hour after she died? I cannot believe this, Markov. He loved her. I’m sure he loved her. You’re sure he loved her. She was the one thing he cared about—”
“Oh, true.” Markov braked at a tight corner, then accelerated again. “If you’d seen them at the airport, Lindy—I told you. Like my hair is standing on end, I’ve got goose pimples the length of my spine, because any second Lazare’s going to spot me, and then I’m history, because this guy, I mean—he makes me think about crucifixes, Lindy. About stringing garlic around my neck and praying hard. I mean, all the time I’m standing there, quaking behind this palm, I’m thinking, oh, no, it’s after nightfall and before dawn…”
“Come on, Markov, stop exaggerating. Lazare looks fit, active, tanned.”
“Not Friday night, he didn’t. White, Lindy—his face was white. He had a desperate kind of thirsty look. Definitely but definitely one of the children of the damned. And then, when she started in on children, babies…”
“You’re sure she said that, Markov? You couldn’t have misheard?”
“I speak French, Lindy. I know the French for baby. And child. And son. And she kept repeating it, over and over—I want my baby back, I want my son—and he was desperate to shut her up, calm her down…” Markov hesitated. His voice became quiet. “He kissed her, Lindy.”
“You didn’t mention that before.”
“I know. It felt a bit blasphemous—discussing it. I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have seen it. I felt excited—and then I felt cheap for getting excited.”
“It didn’t stop you phoning me, I notice.”
“I know. Sainthood eludes me. But if you’d seen the way he kissed her.” Markov hesitated again. “It was to stop her talking, partly. But not just that. You could see—he wanted her, and he loved her. He looked like he’d die for her, or he thought she was dying, maybe, I’m not sure.”
“Markov, you can’t know that…” Lindsay began as they rounded a corner and the lights of the St. Vincent came in sight. “You’re reading too much into it.”
“No. I’m not.” Markov stopped the car. He turned to her and removed his dark glasses. Lindsay was allowed to read the expression in his eyes.
Ashamed, knowing she had been misled by his tone, Lindsay took his hand. Markov gave a wry smile.
“I just knew, okay?” he said. “I recognized that country. I speak its language. I was there myself, just over two years ago. It’s not a language you forget.”
“No. You don’t,” replied Lindsay, who had circumnavigated similar territory herself. She leaned across and kissed Markov good night.
“Watch out for McGuire. Watch what you say to him,” he called as she stepped out of his car. “I’ll see you at Chanel tomorrow afternoon.”
In the still-crowded lobby, Lindsay hesitated. She wanted to tell Rowland this, and she wanted to see Rowland very much, but it was now nearly two in the morning. She stared at the telephone booths, and in the end dialed his extension; he picked up on the second ring.
“No, no, come up,” he said, interrupting her apology. “I’m working. Gini’s here with me, working. She just got in from Amsterdam. Room 810.”
Lindsay was surprised to hear this, but not that surprised. Presumably Gini had not been unavailable, as Max had thought: Rowland must have tracked her down; and Gini, of course, was more than capable of working through the night on a story once she had locked into it. For Gini, when at work, two A.M. was early, she thought, and smiled as she entered Room 810, to find Rowland at the fax machine and Gini talking fast on the telephone in French.
Both of them seemed energetic, hyped up, Lindsay thought. Rowland began explaining that there had been a provisional sighting of Mina Landis earlier that day. News of this had taken time to be relayed back, via the British police, and the Correspondent news desk: Gini was just trying to check the details now.
He led Lindsay to a sofa at the far end of the room; Lindsay sat down, but he did not. Lindsay began explaining what Markov had told her, and Rowland listened with close attention. Once or twice he looked back at Gini, then interjected a question. Lindsay continued her story, and it was only as she reached its end that she sensed something wrong.
The room had a careful feel. On the far side of it was a door that presumably led into a bedroom. It was shut. There was a tension beneath the surface here. She looked at Rowland in puzzlement: his demeanor seemed much as it always was. She glanced across at Gini, who was twisting the telephone cord as she spoke. She had been about to ask which floor Gini was on, whether Pixie had found her a room in this hotel, or somewhere else—and then she realized: this was a question better not asked, a topic it would be unwise to discuss.
Gini had come to the end of her conversation. She put the telephone down. She glanced at Rowland, then away, and began to explain. There had been a sighting of Mina Landis. It was still unconfirmed, but a girl answering her description, and a man resembling Star, had been seen by a plainclothes policeman in the sixth arrondissement. She reached for a map of Paris and laid it out on the desk.
“Here,” she said. “They were seen in this street here, in the Faubourg St. Germain area…” She frowned. “I know that neighborhood. It’s only a few streets away from the place where Maria Cazarès died. How odd.”
Rowland was already moving toward the desk.
“Do they now know where she died?” Lindsay said.
“What?” Rowland glanced back at her in a distracted way. “Oh—yes, apparently so. It was on the late TV news bulletins. She’d been visiting some elderly maid of hers—now retired. They were having tea together and she suddenly collapsed. According to the first reports, she was dying by the time the ambulance got there.”
“Oh, then they’ve released that much…” Lindsay said.
“I imagine they had no choice. Some French journalist will have been handing out hundred-franc bills to the ambulance crew within half an hour of her death’s being rumored, let alone announced. There were paparazzi crawling all over that hospital—that was on the news too.”
Rowland bent over the desk. He angled the light. Gini, who had not looked up once during this exchange, still kept her eyes on the map. Rowland began to trace streets with his right hand; he rested his left on the back of Gini’s chair, then removed it.
“You’re right,” he said. “It is very close…”
Their hands were now, Lindsay saw, lying side by side on the map, about four inches apart. Gini remarked in a low voice that it was an expensive area of Paris, not an area where you would expect retired maids to live. Rowland agreed that this was so. He glanced at his watch and drew back. A series of utterly unremarkable movements: Lindsay rose, intent only on disguising her shock and distress.
Had her evening with Markov been less strange, she thought, had she not had that conversation with him about love and sex, she might even have been deceived by those unremarkable movements and accepted them as such. As it was, she could sense the electricity and tension they were designed to disguise; she could sense that it was Rowland and Gini’s united wish that she leave—and that she do so at once.
Meanwhile, she had to pretend that Rowland’s urgent desire to take Gini in his arms was not as nakedly visible to her as if the act had been performed. Luckily, neither was paying her much attention, and she could dissemble, when required, well enough. She rose, stretched, and said she must get some sleep, that there were two shows tomorrow—Chanel and Gaultier as well as the Cazarès press conference.
Gini nodded and gave her a dazed look.
Rowland, who also looked half blind, escorted her to the door. He said he would certainly try to be at that press conference; Gini said she would too, if she had time, though it was unlikely to be useful.
“Party-line stuff,” she said. “Still, if Lazare himself is going to speak… I’ll try and come with you, Rowland.”
“Good night, Lindsay,” Rowland said, opening the door, and closing it behind her at once. Lindsay stood for a second in the corridor; she was shaking; she pressed her hands against her face. This couldn’t be true, she thought. Rowland, perhaps—but not Gini, surely not Gini?
She heard Rowland engage the lock and chain before she was two feet away. She returned to her room, paced, found herself unable to sleep. She tried very hard not to imagine what might have been said behind that locked door after she left.
Very little, in fact, was said. As the door closed, Gini bent again to the map; she did not dare to look up. She heard the lock engage; she heard Rowland approach, then stop.
For Rowland, distance was a last resort. If he remained here, two feet away, he thought, and if she did not look up, or meet his eyes, then he might be able to disguise what he felt. Once, she had said at a point when he had already made love to her twice. Throughout this evening, in the cab, in the rue St. Séverin, here in this room, while she telephoned and he used the fax, she had moved through his thoughts. In his mind he had continued to touch her, kiss her, make love.
Perhaps she did not feel this, he thought. He stood at that safe distance, just those two feet from the desk. His body had begun to stir the instant he locked the door. He looked at Gini’s bent head, at the pale curve of her neck, at the ordinary white shirt she was wearing, the ordinary black skirt. She was extraordinarily slender; he could span her waist with his hands, yet she had full and very beautiful breasts, their areolae wide and dark. He closed his eyes, fighting the memory of his own hands, and his mouth, pressed against those breasts. He felt her hands on his skin, the soft openness of her mouth. He swore in a low voice, looked blindly around the room, half turned, then moved back to the desk.
He stood immediately behind her, then, when he could resist the impulse no longer, rested his hands against her shoulders and her throat. He felt her body become rigid with tension at once. Even then, he thought later, even then he might have been able to retain control, but she tilted her head back and met his eyes. He bent forward and kissed her mouth, and in that instant he was lost. She caught hold of his hands and drew them forward inside her blouse. She gave a moan that might have been desire or despair, then twisted up out of the chair and into his embrace.
He could read the need and the desperation he felt in her eyes, and in that moment was certain that she had been as desperate to continue something unfinished as he had been.
He began to undo her blouse as she fumbled first with the buttons of his shirt, then his belt. As he caught her to him, and her bared breasts touched his bared skin, she gave a low cry and shuddered against him.
She rested one of her hands against his thigh, then his groin. She gave a moan, clinging to him and seeking his mouth. Rowland could think of nothing but entering her again. He pulled her down beside him, murmuring her name; she lay back among scattered papers and scattered clothes, drawing his hand down between her thighs. She was very wet; his fingers could slip inside her easily; she arched back in a quick ecstasy of pleasure.
She parted her legs, frantic for him to enter her. Rowland thrust up into her deep, knowing she would come almost immediately. If he moved a very little, he thought, just once, just twice. Lifting himself on his arms, looking down at her face, he watched her astonishing eyes, watched the waves of abandonment move like light across her face. He waited, withdrew, thrust again, and began to move carefully, because they were still not familiar to each other, and he wanted her to adjust her rhythms to his. It took her a little while; at first, as he fucked, he thought she was resisting him, deliberately mistiming her response to his strokes. He thought he knew the reason for that, as he waited, moved, waited again, although this was hard for him, because he was very aroused, and his own climax was close. He used all his skills, every pleasure device, and at last he felt that odd female resistance begin to give. Her eyes opened and met his. He bent his head and kissed her breasts, moving deep inside her.
“Darling, I can’t—don’t fight me,” he said in a low voice, and at that all her resistance melted away. She began to move with him, perfectly in time, and it was inutterably sweet. He watched her face, for that tiny second of stillness which he was beginning to know, and which meant she was just on the edge. Then he could no longer watch because the pleasure was too sharp, the desire too intense. He caught her to him as they came, and said her name. There were other things he wanted to say, and in the next moments was very close to saying, but he forced himself to leave them unspoken. He clasped her hand, trusting that the language of the body would have spoken to her instead.
Later, when they lay beside each other in bed with faint predawn light edging the curtains, she turned to him, her mouth lax with pleasure and her eyes languorous with sexual fatigue. She rested her hand on his stomach, laced her fingers in his pubic hair, and watched him stir, become erect.
An instant tremor of response ran through her body. She leaned across so her breasts brushed against his penis; she bent, and took him in her mouth, and Rowland shuddered at the touch of her tongue and lips.
“We taste of each other,” she said, lifting her head, then kissing his mouth. “Of each other, and of too much sex. We said once—I said once…”
“It was already too late when you said that.” He clasped her hand, and their fingers interlaced. “Once. Five times. Six. A hundred. Does it make a difference?”
“Maybe not. I still want you so much. I can see you, feel you wanting me. In the rue St. Séverin?”
“Yes.” Rowland smiled. “And outside the church too.”
“In the taxi?”
“It was particularly bad in the taxi. Here too. While I was trying to listen to Lindsay, and you were on the phone—I couldn’t really hear what she was saying….”
“I couldn’t hear that policeman. All I could hear was you. Your hands. This.”
She moved so that the lips of her sex brushed the tip of his penis. Then, slowly, her eyes holding his, she lowered herself onto him, as if she were impaling herself on his flesh. There were tears in her eyes.
Drawing her down to him, Rowland kissed her tears. He felt desire for her, and also a profound tenderness.
“Are you sad? Darling, are you?” he said against her mouth. “Don’t be. I understand. It can still be once—in a sense. Just this one night…”
“Yes, that. One night. A time out of time, and…”
She could not continue. She began to tremble. Rowland came with a sense of painful release and an immediate sadness. After that she curled into the curve of his arm and fell asleep, and Rowland lay there, holding her close, listening to her breathing, counting the hours left to them and waiting for the late winter dawn.
Several times during the night the telephone had rung, and the front desk had picked up. At six-thirty, as the first thin city light stole into the room, Rowland rose and went through into the sitting room beyond. As was the hotel’s practice, the messages had been placed in an envelope and slipped beneath the door. The calls had all been for Gini and there must have been several, more than he had realized, for the envelope was bulky. He placed it on Gini’s desk, picked up some of the scattered papers, and looked down at the map of this city he and Gini had scanned the night before.
Where next? he thought, and tried to focus on the demands of this story, this piece of work. He looked at the objects spread out on the desk: the map, Anneke’s address book, his notebooks, Gini’s notebooks, a tape recorder and tapes. The objects would not connect; their links were unimportant to him. He passed his hands across his face; he felt sexually spent, jagged with exhaustion, with the speed of events. Could change, decisive change, occur overnight?
He stopped. He was lying to himself. It was not simply a matter of hours. These events did not begin when he led Gini into this room for the first time the previous night and suddenly felt a surge of acute desire for a woman he scarcely knew. When did it begin? How long had he been being prepared, shaped, for an event he did not expect?
He stared down angrily at the map on the desk, trying to fight these uncertainties. The telephone rang. Rowland picked it up.
There was a buzzing; he listened to silence, then more interference, then a humming of wires.
“Yes?” Rowland said impatiently. “Who is this?”
“It’s Pascal Lamartine,” said a voice, coolly enough but with edge. “Could I speak to Genevieve Hunter, please?”
Rowland took a fraction of a second too long to reply, he thought, but when he did so, he felt his tone was well judged.
“Sorry—I’m afraid you’ve been put through to the wrong room,” he said.
“Is this Room 810?”
“Yes, it is. And Genevieve Hunter was using it yesterday, but they moved her out when I arrived. I’m her editor. I think they put her on the sixth floor, near Lindsay Drummond. You know Lindsay?”
“Yes. But the desk said—”
“Oh, the front desk’s useless,” Rowland said in easy tones. “They don’t seem to know where anyone is. The hotel’s full, the Correspondent has umpteen rooms. Get them to check again. It might be the sixth floor. I think some people are up on the twelfth. Unless they moved her to another hotel, of course.”
“Very well. I’ll try the desk again.”
“The thing is…” Rowland said quickly. “I’m not sure if you’ll catch her. She said she’d be making an early start. Some interview, I think…”
“This early?” The man’s tone sharpened. “It’s not seven o’clock yet.”
“You might catch her. I could be wrong. I can give her a message later if you like. I’m supposed to be meeting her at a press conference around eleven. Does she have your number? You want her to call you back?”
“No. No message. Damn—” Lamartine broke off; the line crackled. “She can’t call me back. I have to go. Look—if you do see her, will you tell her I’ll call again this afternoon? Around three or four?”
“Fine. I’ll try to get that message to her…” Rowland began, then realized he was listening to the dial tone.
The effort of these lies had not left him unmoved. He felt a moment’s self-disgust, then anxiety. Was Lamartine in Sarajevo, or elsewhere in Bosnia? Could this call mean he was planning on coming back?
In the bedroom Gini was sitting up in bed, her face white, her eyes wide and dark.
“It was Pascal, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It was.” Rowland hesitated. “Did he know you were coming here?”
“No.” She had begun to tremble. “He must have called the hotel in Amsterdam. He might have called Max. Once he knew I was in Paris, he’d probably guess I’d be in Lindsay’s hotel. He—I couldn’t reach him from Amsterdam. He isn’t in Sarajevo. He’s gone back to Mostar—”
“Gini, don’t.” She was now shivering uncontrollably. Rowland put his arms around her. “Gini, listen. It’s all right. You heard what I said? I had to lie…”
“I know you did. I could hear some of it. It’s just—you lied so well. Oh, Christ…”
“Gini, listen to me. He accepted what I said. He’s going to call back around three or four. I’ll have you in another room within the hour, I promise you. It’s all right—we have time. Let me call the desk. I’ll ask about rooms. I’ll get some coffee sent up.”
Rowland reached for the telephone. Gini watched him, her eyes wide with anxiety and pain. She was shivering violently and seemed unable to move or speak.
“There,” Rowland said, turning back from the telephone. “The coffee’s on its way. They think they may be able to find a single room somewhere, there’s some guest who may be checking out a day early. They’ll call back. Gini, listen. Get up. Take a shower. Get dressed. By the next time he calls, we—”
Rowland stopped. She could not meet his eyes; she crossed her arms over her breasts. Gently, Rowland took her hand.
“Gini, don’t,” he said in a quiet voice. “You’re making it very hard for me. If you cry—you can see how that affects me. If we can just—if we get on with our work. That is still what you want?”
“It has to be. It has to be…” She gave a low cry and then wrenched her hand away. “I don’t know what I want anymore. I don’t know who I am. I can’t think…”
She buried her face in her hands. Rowland hesitated, fighting the temptation to speak, then he finally said what he had been wanting to say for hours. Within the words a resentment was contained, he realized, an anger at Lamartine that had been building for days and which he could no longer suppress.
“Gini,” he said, “I don’t sleep with married women. For better or worse, I make that a rule. You’re not married. You have a choice.”
“You’re wrong.” She jerked her face up to meet his gaze. “I am married. I feel married. You don’t have to wear a ring to feel that. You don’t need a piece of paper, witnesses, any of those things.”
“I know that.”
“I know you thought it was over. I know Max thought that, and Lindsay and Charlotte—but you’re all wrong. It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be. Pascal is my whole life…”
Rowland drew back sharply, as if she had just struck him across the face. He rose, and stood looking down at her for a few moments in silence. There was a rap at the door to the suite. Rowland ignored it. His green eyes rested on her face.
“You’re certain of that?”
“Yes. No. I’m not certain of anything. If it was true—I couldn’t do this.”
“I would imagine not.” The green eyes had become cold. He suddenly shrugged. “That will be the coffee. I’ll get it. You get up, get dressed. Then—”
“Then, what? We do what we said? Rowland, the lies have already started. You’ve already lied. I’ll have to lie this afternoon. I hate this.”
“We brought this upon ourselves. Now we have to extricate ourselves.” He was already turning away. “It’s damage control.”
He left the room, pulling on a bathrobe. As he reached the door to the corridor, he was asking himself just how deep that damage was.
“I’ll take that,” he began as the door opened, then stopped.
Standing outside was a tall, dark-haired man dressed in black jeans and a black leather jacket. Rowland knew instantly from his expression who he was.
“Can I help you?” Rowland said, placing one hand on the doorjamb.
The man gave him a hard, cold, gray-eyed stare.
“I would like to see Gini,” he said in a tight voice. “Is she asleep? Perhaps you’d tell her I’m here.”
Rowland, thinking fast, gave him a blank look. He was weighing the fact that he had been taken in, that Lamartine was, if need be, as determined a deceiver as himself.
“Gini? What, you mean Genevieve? I’m sorry—didn’t we just speak on the phone? I recognize your accent.”
“Yes. We did.”
“I assumed—hell, never mind. I can’t be awake yet. Didn’t I explain? There’s been chaos over rooms. They shunted me in here last night. They shunted Genevieve somewhere else. The Correspondent has most of the sixth floor. Have you tried that?”
“Can we stop this, and stop it now?” The man’s eyes glinted. “I haven’t spent two days traveling to end up in some Feydeau farce. Would you move aside, please?”
Despite the politeness of his tone, Rowland could feel the anger; he knew a physical fight was very near.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said pleasantly, “but you’re making a mistake. This is my room. Take it out on the front desk. I’m about to take a shower.”
“I heard the shower come on,” Lamartine replied less pleasantly. “I was wondering how you managed to turn it on from here.”
“Did I claim I was taking a shower alone?” Rowland hesitated, gave him a rueful smile, then lowered his voice. “Look, this is a little embarrassing. I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t mention it to Genevieve. Office gossip, you know. It’s just—well, this is Paris, and my secretary’s with me. I’m a married man. I’m sure you understand…”
For a moment he thought it had worked. He saw doubt register on Lamartine’s tense face, then hope, then scorn. Rowland, watching these reactions, felt a sense of dislocation. Another spin of the wheel, and this man could be himself. Lamartine was almost as tall as he was; he had a similar build, had the same color hair, was approximately the same age: the emotions he saw in Lamartine’s face now would have been his own under these circumstances. Rowland felt rivalry but also kinship: we are alike, he thought, then tensed: Lamartine was about to hit him. He saw the preparatory move, braced himself to make the counterblow, then, as the blow never came, he saw one last facial change. Upon Lamartine’s features came an expression of love and pain that only one person could have evoked. In acknowledgment of that expression and its claim, Rowland dropped his arm and quietly stepped aside.
Gini had put on a bathrobe, he saw, but her feet were bare. She was standing about fifteen feet back from the door, her eyes fixed on Lamartine’s face.
“Don’t lie anymore, Rowland,” she said in a low voice. “I can’t let you do that. It’s wrong.”
There was a silence like glass, then Lamartine walked into the room, passing Rowland without a glance. He came to a halt in front of Gini. He neither touched her nor raised his voice. Speaking in French, he suggested that Gini get dressed and leave at once. He would wait five minutes, and no longer than five minutes, by the elevator, in the corridor, and he would be grateful if she would hurry, since it was evident—and here he glanced at Rowland—that they had matters to discuss.
Under extreme stress, he was quick-witted, Rowland thought. At the door he paused, and their eyes met.
“Are you married?” Lamartine said sharply.
“No,” Rowland replied, and before the door closed, he watched Lamartine take in the implications of this.