Read Online Lovers and Liars by Sally Beauman - Free Book Online

arrangements, cancel them. You have to meet some photographer and it must be important. I overheard his secretary making the arrangements. Editor’s diningroom stuff.’
    Genevieve groaned. She stood up. ‘That’s the afternoon blown. You’re sure he said me? Since when did you become his messengerT
    The news-desk man gave her a languid salute. ‘Aren’t we alITHe turned and threaded his way down the room, through the ranked word processors, the ranked desks.
    When God summoned, you went. Gini took the lift to the fifteenth floor. She stepped out onto thick Wilton carpeting.
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    From here the large windows overlooked docklands: there was a grey view of cranes, girders, the river and Thames mud.
    She made her way through the outer office, through the in,ner office. As she approached the sanctum itself, the door was thrown back and Nicholas Jenkins emerged looking powerful, pink, complacent and svelte.
    ‘Ah, there you are at last, Gini/ he said. ‘Come in, come in. Charlotte, get Gini a drink.’
    Charlotte, his senior secretary, made one of her rude minion faces behind his back. She moved between Gini and the open doorway. Gini remained rooted to the spot. She was staring into the office beyond, where a tall darkhaired man stood by Nicholas Jenkins’s desk. The office became silent; the air moved, A’ckered, became excessively bright.
    -, ‘Come in, come in.’ Nicholas bustled around her. He drew her through the door. He was leading her across to the man, who ,had turned and was regarding her equably.
    ‘Gini, I want you to meet Pascal Lamartine. You’ll have heard him, of course … ‘
    t,“Zini took the hand that was being held out to her. She could fieel the blood draining from her face. She shook Lamartine’s hand, and released it quickly. She had to say something - Nicholas was
    4taring.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve heard of him. More than that - we’ve t , .,
    Jy,,-.`A long time ago,’ Lamartine put in, in a polite neutral tone.
    4*s accent was unchanged. Gini could still feel Jenkins’s eyes iesting curiously on her face.
    ‘Years ago,’ she said rapidly, taking her tone from Lamartine.
    41 was still at school. Pascal is an old friend of my father’s.’
    6o ‘Oh, I see/ said Jenkins - and to Gini’s relief lost interest at
    Years ago, in Beirut. And he had never been a friend of her father’s ‘requite the reverse. Her father might have won that Pulitzer for his *Yietnarn work, but by that time fame and bourbon had made him :4,4 ‘An old warhorse/ he would say, easing himself into the first
    of the day, holding court in the palm bar at Beirut’s ikr-star Hotel Ledoyen, surrounded by cronies, surrounded by -:,j#*Jftophants quick to prompt. There was her father, sluicing I., ,
    &Urbon and anecdotes, and there she was, silent, ignored and
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    embarrassed, averting her eyes from the spectacle, watching the ceiling fans as they rotated above his head.
    An old warhorse, an old news hound, a forty-six-year-old boozer. Her father, a living legend, the great Sam Hunter - worshipped by the rest of the press corps. These days he relied on stringers, helpers. Once a week he took a taxi to what he called the front.
    And there, on the edge of the group, was a young photographer. He was French, introduced by an Australian reporter, flanked by the man from UPI. Pascal Lamartine, aged twentythree and already on his third Beirut trip. She had seen his photographs, and admired them. Sam Hunter had also seen them and dismissed them at once.
    ‘Pictures? Who gives a damnT It was one of his favourite refrains. ‘Spare me the Leica leeches, please God. One story’s worth a thousand pictures, I’ll tell you that. This stuff - today it rates an easy tear, tomorrow it’s wrapping trash. But words - they stick. They lodge in the goddamn reader’s goddamn brain. Genevieve, remember that.’
    The contempt was mutual, she had known that at once. The Frenchman was introduced; he made some polite remark. He stood