Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
"Any idea why he might have killed himself, then?"
"Not
specifically," said the sergeant.
"I've quite a few
people
to
see yet.
But the ones I've spoken to so far said he
was very intense, very moody.
Apparently
there were some difficulties with his family in
He's from a place called
"It's the
Swiss capital," said Fitzduane.
"Ever
been there?" asked the sergeant.
"No,
although I've changed planes in Zurich God knows how many times.
My business is photographing wars, and the
Swiss have this strange affection for peace."
"Well,
the pathologist will conduct his examination tomorrow, I should think,"
declared the sergeant.
"The inquest
will be a day or two after that.
You'll
have to attend.
I'll give you as much
warning as I can."
"Thanks,
Tommy."
They rose to
their feet and shook hands briskly.
It
was cold in the library, and the fire had gone out.
As he was about to open the door, the
sergeant turned to Fitzduane.
"It
doesn’t do to make too much fuss about these things.
Best soon forgotten."
Fitzduane
smiled thinly and didn't answer.
As he rode
back to Duncleeve, Fitzduane realized that he had forgotten to raise the small
matter of his missing goat with the policeman.
A goat gone astray wasn't exactly a police matter in itself, but the discovery
a few days earlier of its decapitated and eviscerated carcass at the site of an
old sacrificial mound up in the hills raised a few questions.
He wondered
what had happened to the animal's magnificent horned head.
3
She looked
down at him.
She could feel him move
inside her — the faintest caress of love.
Her thighs tightened in spontaneous response.
His hands stroked her breasts and then moved
around to her back.
She could feel a
tingling along her spine as he touched her.
Her head fell back, and she thrust against him, feeling go deeper inside
her.
Their bodies
were damp with sweat.
She licked her
thumb and forefinger and then reached down to her loins and felt through their
intertwined pubic hair for where his penis entered her body.
She encircled the engorged organ and rotated
her fingers gently.
His whole body
quivered, and then he controlled himself.
She removed her fingers slowly.
"That's cheating," he murmured.
He smiled, and there was laughter and love in
his eyes as he looked at her.
"That
is a game two can play."
She
laughed, and then her laughter turned to gasps as his finger found her clitoris
and stroked her in the exact same place and with the rhythm and pressure she
liked.
She came in less than a minute,
her upper body arched back and supported by her arms, her loins thrust against
her lover.
He pulled her
down to him, and they kissed deeply and slowly.
She ran her fingers across his face and kissed his eyelids.
They stayed interlocked, kissing and
caressing.
He remained hard inside
her.
He had already climaxed twice in
the last hour and a half, and now it was easier.
They separated
and lay side by side, looking at each other, still joined together at their
loins.
She felt him move again.
Her juices began to flow once more.
She felt sensual and sore, and she wanted
him.
He is, she thought, the most
beautiful and sexy man.
He was a big
man.
He didn't look it at first glance
because his face was finely chiseled and sensitive and his green eyes were
gentle, but as he rolled on top of her, she could feel the power and weight of
his physique.
She drew up her knees and
wrapped her legs around him.
He kissed
and sucked each of her nipples in turn.
He was still holding back, but she could sense his control going.
Her hands dug into his back as his thrusts
increased.
She bit the lobe of his ear
and reached down to his buttocks and pulled him into her.
He raised himself slightly to increase further
the friction of his penis against her clitoris.
She gasped as he did so and thrust her forefinger into him.
She could feel herself coming and began to
moan.
He lost all semblance of control
and came with frantic bursts into her body.
He stayed on top of her and in her when it was over, his face nuzzled
against her neck.
She hugged him tightly
and then stroked him like a child.
Now
and then she could feel the contours of the scars on his body.
They slept
entwined for several hours.
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane was
entertained by the contrast between a naked woman in the throes of lovemaking
and the same woman in the cool, clothed image she presented to the rest of the
world.
The thought was not without
erotic content.
He wondered if women
have similar thoughts.
He thought it
likely.
In the morning
Etan was the armored career woman once again:
ash blonde hair swept back and tied in a chignon; silk blouse with
Russian collar, tailored suit from Wolfangel, accessories perfectly
coordinated; the glint of gold on ears, neck, and wrists; a hint of Ricci.
"It's as
well I know you're a natural blonde," he said.
"Or rather,
how
I know it.
Otherwise I'd
feel distanced by that getup."
He
gestured at the laden table on the glassed-in veranda.
"Breakfast is ready."
He had bathed
and shaved but then concentrated on preparing the meal.
He was wearing only a white terry-cloth
bathrobe.
The name of its original — and
presumably still legal — owner, faded from numerous washings, could just be
discerned on the breast pocket.
In the
distance, muted by the thick glass, there was the sound of a late-waking city,
of traffic grinding through the expensive
"A little
distance is necessary at times," she said with a smile.
"I've got a professional image to
maintain.
I don't want to climax on
camera."
He raised an eyebrow.
She kissed him and sat down across the
table.
She could see scrambled eggs and
smoked salmon, and there were bubbles in the orange juice.
They had met
some three years earlier when Radio Telefis Eireann,
broadcasting organization, had sent a camera crew over to do a magazine piece
on Fitzduane exhibition of war photographs in the Shelbourne Hotel.
Fitzduane had disliked being on the receiving
end of a camera and had been clipped and enigmatic during the interview.
Afterward he had been annoyed with himself
for making the interview more difficult and less interesting than it might have
been.
He went over to apologize and was
mildly surprised when Etan had responded by inviting him out to dinner.
They were
lovers who had become friends.
It might
have become more, perhaps
had
become
more — neither admitted it — but their careers kept them apart.
Program deadlines kept Etan confined to the
studios in
Fitzduane was out of
Though Etan was very fond of
Fitzduane and had a growing sense that this might be more than an affair, she
found it hard to understand how a man of such apparent gentleness and
sensitivity engaged in such a dangerous and macabre occupation.
He had once
tried to explain it.
He had a beautiful,
rich voice with scarcely a trace of an Irish accent — a characteristic of his
class and background.
It was his voice
above all, she thought, that had attracted her initially.
She had rejected his rationale with some
vigor, but she remembered his exact words.
"War is
about extremes," he had said, "extremes of violence and horror, but
also extremes of heroism, of compassion, and of comradeship.
It's the ultimate paradox.
It's feeling utterly, totally alive in every
molecule of your body because of — not in spite of — the presence and the
threat of death.
Often I hate it, and
often I'm afraid, yet after it's over and I'm away from it, I want to go back.
I miss that sense of being on the edge."
He had turned
to her and stroked her cheek.
"Besides," he had added with a grin, "it's what I
know."
He decided he
would take a raincheck on pointing out to her that virtually every day, she
presented, from a warm, safe studio, the sort of violent news stories she
criticized him for covering.
But then
again, maybe she wasn't being so inconsistent.
Eating meat didn't automatically make you want to work in a
slaughterhouse.
She remembered
her temper flaring and her sense of frustration.
"It's like hearing a drug addict trying
to rationalize his heroin," she had said.
"To me it doesn't make sense to make your living out of
photographing people killing each other.
It's even crazier when that puts you at risk as well.
You're not immune just because you carry a
press card and a camera, you know that bloody well.
I miss you horribly when you go.
Like a damn fool, instead of putting you out
of my mind, I worry myself sick that you may be killed or maimed or just
disappear."
He had kissed
her gently on the lips, and despite herself she had responded.
"The older I get, the less chance I have
of being killed," he had said.
"It's mostly the young who die in war; that's the way the system
works.
You mightn't be considered old
enough to vote, but they'll make a paratrooper out of you."
"Bullshit,"
she had retorted, and then she had made love to him with tenderness and anger,
sobbing when she had climaxed.
Afterward
she had held him in her arms, her cheeks wet, while he slept.
It didn't change anything.
*
*
*
*
*
Etan finished
her coffee and looked at her watch.
She
would have to leave for the studios in a few minutes.
Even though RTE in Donnybrook was not far
away, she would be driving in traffic.
Fitzduane had
scarcely touched his breakfast.
He
smiled at her absentmindedly when she got up, and then he went back to staring
into the middle distance.
She stood
behind his chair and put her arms around his neck.
She pressed her cheek to his.
Beneath the banter and the tenderness he was
troubled.
"You're
doing your thousand-yard stare," she said.
"It's the
hanging."
"I
know," she said.
"We cut
him down, cut him open, put him in a box, and sent him airmail back to
age, and all we seem to want to do is
get
rid of the
scandal.
Nobody cares why."
She held him
tightly.
"It's not that people
don't care," she said.
"It's
just that they don't know what to do.
And what's the point now?
It's
too late.
He's dead."
"But
why," he persisted.
"Does it
make a difference?"
He moved his
head so he could look at her and suddenly smiled.
He took her hand in his and moved her palm
against his lips; it was a long kiss.
She felt a rush of love, of caring.
"Maybe
it's
male menopause," he said, "but I think it
does."
"What are
you going to do about it?"
"Lay the
ghost," he answered.
"I'm
going to find out why."
"But how?" she said, suddenly afraid.
"What will you do?"
"I'll
follow the advice of the King to