Broken Heart (52 page)

It was the first movie AKI adapted from one of Kerekes’s stories. Then more posters appeared, one after the other, showing all the films which had been inspired by her stories. Over the top of it all, Hosterlitz was talking softly about her, referencing her abilities, the way she was a woman ahead of her time, and how she rose to prominence in a world dominated by men. ‘Her talent, beauty and single-mindedness, brought her to the attention of the Hollywood elite.’

Snap to black.

‘I met her at the Blue Orchid, the same night Glen Cramer did.’

And, for the first time, Hosterlitz appeared onscreen.

He was poorly lit. I thought maybe he was in the council garage he’d bought, but wherever he was, it was hard to look at him. He was desperately ill. He’d thinned right down to the bone, his colour gone, his clothes hanging off him. He was staring into the camera. It looked like he’d been crying.

‘She was beautiful,’ he said, and the hint of a smile ghosted across his face. ‘Her beauty wasn’t a thing she used as a crutch or a weapon, to stand out or to get on. I wouldn’t have blamed her for using it that way, because Hollywood was – is – a monster waiting to eat you up, and you have to use any advantage you can. But it was more than that. She was more than that. Her beauty was just there. It was in everything she did – as a storyteller, as a mother, as a friend.’
He stopped and then began to cough, softly at first, and then harder, his face creasing up in pain. When it was over, silence rang out and he sat there, looking into the camera, shoulders rising and falling. ‘I think I loved her from the first moment I saw her.’

It cut to a photograph of the Blue Orchid nightclub, as it was back in the early 1950s. He was doing the lead-up to her death. I reached forward and pushed the Fast-Forward button, conscious of the sirens closing in now. For a while, Hosterlitz mostly used a mix of still photography and stock footage, until the night Kerekes died, when the film returned to the interview with Ray Callson.

I reached forward and pressed Play.

They were talking about the scene in the hotel room. I wanted to watch more of Callson – he was compelling, heartfelt – but I didn’t have the time. After a couple of minutes, I hit Fast-Forward again.

The action sped through more of Callson, and then – like a punch to the throat – there was a series of photographs from the crime scene, which he must have kept, even after retiring from the LAPD. Pictures of Martin followed too – front on, his shirt, his fingers, the scratch marks on his arms. The empty whisky bottle. The sleeping pills. It moved to his mugshot. He looked younger than sixteen, his fingers small around the placard that listed his name, age, date of birth and booking ID.

Then they were gone.

There was more Super 8 footage – which Hosterlitz must have shot during the same 1984 trip – of the duck pond at Franklin Canyon, where the three men had met afterwards, and then Hosterlitz appeared onscreen again. I hit Play. He must have recorded these to-camera sections late on, because
there was a stark difference between his voice here and his voice in the interview with Callson.

‘Zeller made me believe I’d killed her,’ Hosterlitz said, almost wheezing the words into existence. You could hear the sickness in his voice, vibrating in the timbre of his words. ‘And I believed him. I didn’t doubt him for even a second. I think, perhaps, a part of me even felt I wanted to carry that burden. I wanted to feel the full impact of what I’d done. I’d hit her. I’d knocked her out. I’d laid hands on a woman who had allowed me into her home, who had trusted me with her kids.’ He raised his head, eyes on the camera. ‘Cramer made me believe she found me weird and creepy, but I should have known. I should have known.’ He shook his head, and the tears came again, and then it became hard to watch. He was a frail old man crying for what he’d done and what he’d lost. ‘She wouldn’t have said those things,’ he whimpered. ‘That wasn’t Elaine. I should have known.’

For the first time, through the open doorway of the annex behind me, I saw a faint hint of blue light in my peripheral vision.
Shit
. The police. They were in the valley now. I could see them coming as well as hear them.

I pushed Fast-Forward again.

More of Callson, who must have been talking about the investigation, the way it was solved, then a shot of the
National People
front page:
SEX-OBSESSED HOSTERLITZ OUTED AS A RED
. Photographs of Zeller and Cramer followed, which didn’t need explaining – they’d planted the story. From there, the action showed the slow descent of Hosterlitz’s life. There was a mix of stills and archive footage of him in London, in Germany, and then back in the US in 1966. More photos of Cramer from the mid 1960s – which I guessed must have been a reference to the conversation
he’d had with Hosterlitz, the ‘joke’ Cramer had made. Finally, there was a fade to black and a slow fade in again: we were back in Van Nuys, watching the same Super 8 footage of Hosterlitz travelling in the direction of the orphanage.

But then something went wrong.

76

The movie came to an abrupt halt and, onscreen, a picture of the wooden angel appeared – one from the album at Korin’s place. Over the top of the image, there were four words:
PLACEHOLDER – FOOTAGE TO COME
.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, don’t do this.’

I rewound it to the last moments of the Pierre Street footage and pressed Play. Hosterlitz was on voice-over: ‘I’ve been so weak all these years. I should have confessed to my part in this and taken my punishment, not waited until I was dying. I know I’ve wronged. I know I deserve everything that’s coming to me. But I have, at least, acknowledged it.’ He paused as, onscreen, the car slowed to a halt outside the orphanage. ‘Zeller will never admit to what he did.’

The Ring of Roses building came fully into shot.

‘So I have to try and make him.’

The film cut to the picture of the angel and the placeholder text, and as the seconds ticked by on the DVD player, it dawned on me: Korin only got this far.

I could only have you begin to look for me when I was ready for you to start looking.
She meant once she’d edited this much of the film.
It took me ten months to get to that stage, because Robert left instructions. But they were so hard. It’s so hard
. He wasn’t only asking her to read through his confession and to sort out the detritus of his life, his secrets. He was asking her to piece it together for him.

He was asking her to make
Ring of Roses
.

She’d had to learn how to edit, how to follow his instructions, his wishes, his script. If sorting through the boxes had taken months, this had taken longer. It was why Korin had disappeared and never come up for air. Alex Cavarno had wondered why Korin, knowing what ‘Ring of Roses’ meant, never took what she knew to the police or the media. This was why. She was seeing out her husband’s dying wish. She’d been trying to finish the film because she knew that if she finished it, presenting the authorities with a movie – detailing the whole story, the evidence, in a format that would grip them – would be the most powerful testimony of all.

Even so, a sinking feeling grabbed hold of me. All of this, all of Korin’s efforts, and how did it help? Hosterlitz was dead. Korin was dying. There was still nothing here that could bring down Zeller.

Inside the silence of the annex, I heard more sirens – louder, closer, their blue lights painting the edges of the farm. I could see blue on the walls to my right and left, as if they were actually in the room. As I stared at the placeholder text, at the picture of the angel, I thought of how Hosterlitz had called the angel ‘the answer’, and how Korin had never been able to work out why. She’d hired me to find out what he meant. But I had no idea.

I
still
had no idea, even now.

But then suddenly, unnervingly, as if a ghost were talking from the corner of the room, Hosterlitz’s voice started up again, speaking over the placeholder image. ‘Instructions for loading film on to the flatbed editor are as follows …’

He started going through the process.

I was completely thrown by it – confused, off balance.

What the hell was this?

Instinctively, I glanced back at the door to the annex, wondering when the police would find me, when the net would close in on me completely – but instead my eyes came to rest on the angel. It was sitting where I’d left it. I looked at the placeholder image of it on the DVD screen, and then back to the real thing. Hurrying to my feet, I scooped it up off the floor – and, for the first time, something struck me about it.

Something that had never seemed important before.

It was hollow.

And not only that: the chips on it, the hairline cracks across it, what I’d thought had been evidence of its age – it wasn’t that at all.

It was where it had been glued back together.

In the background, Hosterlitz’s audio instructions continued – step five, step six, step seven.

I looked down at the ornament cradled in my hand.

The answer
.

Gripping it, I brought the bottom half of the angel down hard against the solid oak of the bookcase. The impact levered open the crack, splintering it.

The bottom of the ornament fell away.

Inside was a roll of 8mm film.

77

As I took it out, some of the sirens outside stopped altogether, engines were switched off and there were shouts in the distance.

But I hardly heard them.

Hosterlitz had called the angel ‘the answer’ – but not just because of its history and what it meant to him and Korin.

Because he’d used it as a hiding place.

He knew, whatever happened, Korin would take the angel with her – she’d had it her whole life. When he deliberately broke it, inserted the film, and glued it back together, he must have spun some story for her, apologized for damaging it, acted like it was an accident. But it wasn’t an accident, it was an insurance policy.

He needed to ensure the safety of the film.

And whatever was on it
.

Rewinding Hosterlitz’s instructions on the DVD, I started loading the film on to the flatbed editor. I had no idea what I was doing, but Hosterlitz’s audio instructions helped – their softness, their composure. He was precise and detailed, and as I looked closer at the flatbed, I saw that Korin herself had stuck masking tape to individual rollers and plates, adding arrows and explanations and warnings of what not to do. At one stage, she’d followed these same instructions herself.

I didn’t know much about looking after film like this, but I knew enough: damage it, and it stayed damaged. Because
of that, I went more slowly, more carefully, than I might have done otherwise, even as I heard the voices in the distance grow nearer. A way into the film, I saw evidence of splice tape on it. This suggested that it had been cut and reassembled at some point – edited in some way.

Finally, I had loaded it in.

I paused there, terrified it would unravel straight away, or break up, or tear. But I knew I didn’t have a choice. It was now or never.

I started up the editor.

With relief, I saw the film image appear on the viewer. From speakers set into the top of the editor, there was a series of pops and then a soft, steady hiss.

It took me a second to work out what was I seeing.

The camera had been placed in between what looked like two plants.
It’s in a flowerbed
. I could make out a driveway, a closed gate, and then a figure on the floor, slumped under a tree next to a gatepost. I leaned in closer.

The figure was Hosterlitz.

The footage jumped a little, cracks and specks visible on the film, and then – from out of shot – a car pulled into the driveway. It was a Ferrari 288.

That was when I understood.

The car was a mid 1980s model. The house was in Los Angeles. Both of them belonged to Glen Cramer.

This was the night Hosterlitz had doorstepped him, drunk.

This was December 1984.

Hosterlitz had recorded it all.

78

The headlights from the Ferrari washed over Hosterlitz’s slumped frame. I leaned in closer to the picture viewer. Cramer got out, leaving his door open. ‘Bobby?’ he said, his voice crystal clear. ‘
Bobby?
’

There were spots and scratches on the film, the condition of the negative having deteriorated over time, but it was good enough to see what was going on. It was the sound that remained more impressive, though: even from this distance away, it was easy to hear Cramer. Hosterlitz must have used an external microphone.

He’d thought it all through.

‘What the hell are you doing here, Bobby?’

Cramer dropped to his haunches next to Hosterlitz, who moaned. When he got no response, Cramer used a hand to rouse Hosterlitz, to try and stir him. When he still got no reaction, he said, ‘Bobby, how much have you had to drink?’

As he asked that, I suddenly thought of something that Korin had said to me. I’d asked her about Hosterlitz being drunk when he’d turned up at Cramer’s house that night.
They told all sorts of lies to him, and about him,
she said.
That was just another one. I told you already, Robert never took another drink after 1976
.

Hosterlitz had turned the lie around.

He wasn’t drunk that night – he was just pretending to be.

On the film, Cramer helped Hosterlitz to his feet. Hosterlitz stumbled a little, and then reached out to the wall for
support, one hand planted against it, the other rubbing his face. For that night only, he must have drunk enough for the smell to stick to him, or maybe he’d sunk a non-alcoholic beer. Either way, it wasn’t enough for him to lose any control. He knew exactly what he was doing.

‘I’m dying,’ he said quietly.

Cramer stepped closer. ‘What?’

‘I’ve got cancer, Glen.’

‘Shit.’

Hosterlitz stood there, saying nothing.

‘Shit, I’m so sorry, Bobby,’ Cramer said, staring at the back of Hosterlitz’s head. You could hear the authenticity in his voice, the shock. ‘I can’t believe it.’