Broken Heart (9 page)

It was at this point that Collinsky began to talk about Korin’s own career, in particular the years after she married Hosterlitz. She seemed open and honest in her responses, always giving a straight answer to a straight question – but then Collinsky asked her about what had attracted her to Hosterlitz in the first place.

She thinks about it. ‘He was clean by 1976 – he’d even given up smoking – and it was hard to tell he’d ever had a stroke. But there remained a sadness about him, and I guess that drew me to him. He wasn’t attractive in the way I’d always
thought
of people as being attractive; not chiselled, or even that confident. I think his confidence had been beaten out of him by then. But he was mysterious. I used to think, “I bet he’s got a secret to tell.” And the more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to know what that secret was.’

‘Did you ever find out?’

She doesn’t answer.

‘Is that a no?’ I ask her.

Korin just looks at me. ‘Next question,’ she says.

I read the rest of the article but didn’t find anything as interesting as what she’d said about her husband; about her belief that he was harbouring some sort of secret. When Collinsky had pressed her on what it was, she’d sidestepped it.

Why?

I read and reread the same section again, trying to figure out if it was directly relevant to this case, relevant to finding out what had happened to Lynda Korin after she’d driven down to Stoke Point ten months ago. It seemed unlikely, given that Hosterlitz had been dead twenty-six years by then.

But that didn’t mean it was impossible.

12

At a couple of minutes before 1 p.m., Marc Collinsky emerged from an elevator on the ground floor of his office building. He may have been writing about film, but he looked like every music journalist I’d ever known: boots, skinny black jeans, a mop of messy hair and a leather jacket, despite the heat. He was about thirty-five, his blue eyes bright and youthful, his face covered in a fine scattering of stubble.

We shook hands.

‘Thanks for sparing me the time,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘I don’t know if I can help.’

He was Scottish and quietly spoken.

‘Well, I appreciate it all the same,’ I told him, and then asked where was good for lunch. He suggested a deli on Earlham Street, five minutes’ walk away.

We headed there and he managed to find a table at the window, and once I’d paid for our food, I returned to him with two overpriced sandwiches and a couple of bottles of still water. Shrugging off his leather jacket, Collinsky uncapped one of the bottles and chugged most of it down in one gulp. ‘Thanks for this,’ he said, then pushed it aside, unwrapping a ham and pickle sandwich.

‘I just finished your article on Hosterlitz.’

He looked up. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘I thought it was brilliant.’

His gaze lingered on me for a second, as if he thought he
might be the butt of some elaborate joke. ‘Thanks,’ he said, clearly still uncertain.

‘I mean it.’

‘Well, I appreciate it.’ He shrugged. ‘For me, it was about scratching an itch. Hosterlitz was a genius, a bona fide genius, and we’re supposed to be a magazine about film, not just the last
year
of film. Sixty years on, those film noirs he made are works of art. Sixty years from now, they’ll
still
be works of art.’

I got out a pen and a pad, and started to steer the conversation around to Lynda Korin. I gave him some background on who I was, why I wanted to speak to him and who I was working for. He listened, asking the occasional question, but mostly remained silent.

When I was done, I said to him, ‘I don’t think this is about some falling-out with her family, because her sister is back in the US. It’s not about friends either, because – to be frank – Lynda didn’t have that many. She seemed happy at work, didn’t have any enemies, was in good health, physically and financially. So far, the thing that’s most interesting to me is that, five days after your article was published, Lynda disappeared. That might be important or it might not. But if it was a catalyst for her going missing, I need to find out why.’

‘Why would it be a catalyst for her going missing?’

I shrugged. ‘That’s what I was hoping to find out from you. Can you start by telling me how the article came about?’

He didn’t reply straight away, clearly concerned that his article might be directly linked to Lynda Korin’s disappearance.

‘Marc?’

‘Uh, well, I guess ultimately it came about because I met
her at a convention in 2011,’ he said. ‘Have you heard of Screenmageddon?’

‘That’s the horror and science-fiction expo, right?’

‘That’s right. Back then, I was a freelancer for a horror magazine, so, when I managed to get some time with her, I mostly spoke to her about the
Ursula
films. But, after we were done, she gave me her card. A couple of years later, in 2013, I got in touch with her again, because I was working for
Cine
by then, and it was the sixtieth anniversary of
The Eyes of the Night
, and I thought it might be cool to do a retrospective on it, and to have her talk about Hosterlitz, about his films, about him as a person. She wasn’t keen on the idea at first, especially about inviting me into their marriage. I got the sense … I don’t know, I just got the sense that her marriage was sacrosanct.’

‘What makes you say that?’

He paused, tapping a finger against the table. ‘I figured it had something to do with how she honoured her husband’s memory. You know, that she wanted to protect the things they did in their marriage, certain special moments between them, and she didn’t feel comfortable talking about any of that with a stranger. I understood that.’ He stopped again, flicking a look across at me, clearly weighing up whether to say whatever was coming. ‘When my dad was still around, he used to take me to Tynecastle to watch Hearts, and I’d come home and write these match reports for him, and I’d read them out to him – it was our little thing. I didn’t show them to anyone. Those moments were between him and me and no one else.’

I could relate to that too, locking away the things that mattered from parts of your life you could never claim back.

‘But then she changed her mind?’ I asked.

‘Eventually, yeah. We kept in touch, on and off, and last
summer I again floated the idea of doing a celebration of Hosterlitz’s career. She was still reluctant, but she at least agreed to have a chat, and so I went to her house, and we got on really well, and it developed into something much bigger. In the end, it turned out to be the first of two interviews. She was brilliant, basically – really open about everything, surprisingly honest. I just kept pushing and she kept answering questions. She never batted an eyelid.’

‘So you found her likeable?’

‘Yeah, definitely. She was smart, witty, generous. She was confident and interesting. And, well, she was …’ He smiled, but seemed uncomfortable for a moment. ‘Basically, she looked bloody good for her age.’

I thought of the photograph I’d seen of Korin, taken for the magazine. He was right about that.

‘Have you ever heard of a Lake Calhoun?’ I asked, keeping things going. ‘It may have been a place Lynda mentioned to you during your interviews.’

‘Calhoun?’

‘Yeah.’ I spelled it out for him. ‘That ring any bells with you?’

He shook his head. ‘No, none.’

‘It’s probably nothing,’ I said, although I didn’t really believe that. The name hadn’t been carved into a tree by chance. But, before we could get bogged down in a guessing game, I shifted things forward again: ‘There’s a section three-quarters of the way through your feature where Korin talks about what attracted her to Hosterlitz in the first place.’

‘I remember that, yeah.’

‘She said she thought he may have had a secret.’

Collinsky nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Did she ever say if she found out what that secret was?’

‘No, she didn’t.’

‘Because she dodges the question in the interview.’

‘Or she’s embarrassed that she never found out.’

I studied him. ‘Is that what you believe?’

He took a long breath. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. I just never got the impression she was lying to me. Not once. I’ve had lots of people lie to me during interviews, and I didn’t get that vibe off her. I mean, why would she lie?’

Because people lie all the time
, I thought.

‘Was there anything you left out of the article?’

‘I used most of what Korin gave me, especially about her years in Spain with Hosterlitz. That period of time – 1976 to 1984 – it’s a big black hole, information-wise. They did all those films together, then they came back to England when he retired, he got cancer soon after that, and he was dead by 1988. But there
was
one thing.’ Collinsky stopped and started to frown again. ‘I don’t suppose Lynda’s sister ever mentioned the name “Ring of Roses” to you, did she?’

I shook my head. ‘Should she have?’

‘No. She wouldn’t have known about it. I don’t think
anyone
knows about it. That’s the point.’

He stopped. Around us, the crowd in the deli had started to thin out.

‘What’s “Ring of Roses”?’

He didn’t answer immediately, as if he were still trying to figure out the answer. ‘I did two interviews with Lynda, and she mentioned it in the first, but only as I was just about to leave. By then, I’d already stopped recording. Anyway, I was heading out and she points to the window, the one into her back garden, at this big old shed she had out there. It was more than a shed, actually – more like a garden room. It had windows and hardwood walls, and the roof was tiled.
Anyway, she said to me, “In the years before Robert died, he started getting itchy feet. He missed it – the writing, the directing. So he’d sometimes take his typewriter out there, and he’d lock the door and he’d write – play around with ideas, experiment, whatever else. Those moments made him happy, even when he was ill.” ’

‘Did she ever see what he was working on?’

‘That’s what I asked her. She said, no, she didn’t.
Then
she says, “But he was always
talking
about this one idea.” ’ Collinsky paused. ‘Actually, I’m not sure if she called it an “idea” or a “project”, but whatever it was, she said it was similar to the type of stuff he was making in the fifties, when he was winning all those Oscars. She said it had the title “Ring of Roses”. At this point, obviously my eyes are lighting up, and I’m thinking, “I’ve got a potential scoop here.” But, actually, that was it. That was all she remembered. I think it must just have been a concept Hosterlitz was playing around with.’

‘Is that why you don’t mention it in the article?’

‘I thought seriously about writing a boxout on it. Like a “What is ‘Ring of Roses’?”-style thing. And, when I did the second interview with her, I pressed her on it again. I mean, even if it was just a few lines on the back of a napkin, it was still a great exclusive – this idea that Hosterlitz had gone back to the beginning, to the type of film he was making at the height of his powers.’ Collinsky stopped and took a drink of water. He shrugged. ‘But she didn’t know anything more than the name of it. I asked her if I could have a look at the shed, maybe take a few pictures, and she agreed, but it was just this dumping ground. There were still a few old movie props in there – a clapperboard, some bags of old junk with guff like vampire teeth, and blood, and make-up in them – but no sign of any scripts or equipment.’

‘So you didn’t do anything with that information?’

‘With the “Ring of Roses” stuff? The second time I interviewed her, a photographer came along with me, and while she was having her picture taken I went online for the seven billionth time to try and see if I could find anything on “Ring of Roses”. I’d spent the entire week preceding that trying to dig around for background on the name, to see if Hosterlitz had mentioned it before, or talked about the idea. I called up American Kingdom in LA – because they were who he worked with on
The Eyes of the Night
,
Connor O’Hare
and
Only When You’re Dead
– and someone there put me in touch with the archivist they had here in London, at the European office. So then I spoke to
him
– but that was another dead end.’

‘He’d never heard of “Ring of Roses” either?’

‘No. I’ve got his details if you’re interested.’

I told him I was and he found me the number for the archivist. I wasn’t sure what he could give me that Collinsky hadn’t already, but I was definitely starting to think that Korin’s marriage to Hosterlitz, their time together, their history, wasn’t the wild goose chase I feared it might be. While everything else in Korin’s life was a dead end, there were unanswered questions about her career, about her husband’s, about their years together and what he was doing in retirement. And all the time, something continued to rub at me: that five-day gap between the publication of the
Cine
article and Korin’s disappearance.

‘So what did you do after that?’ I said.

‘What
could
I do? For a while, I had this grand idea of making “Ring of Roses” the centre point of the feature, to kind of bring everything full circle: all the Oscars that Hosterlitz won, the lean period, the shite he was peddling in the seventies and
eighties, the drugs, his depression, and then the promise of a new start. But I couldn’t find anything about “Ring of Roses” anywhere. And even if I
had
managed to dig something out, from some corner of the Internet, I’d have got nowhere with Korin. She didn’t know anything. That’s the point.
No one
did.’

Collinsky shifted on his seat, his finger tracing patterns through the crumbs on the table. ‘In the end,’ he continued, ‘I decided, without something meatier, vague speculation about what he may or may not have been working on in retirement didn’t belong in the magazine. The magazine needs to be better than that. Or, at least,
I
believe it does. But then, me and my editor were chatting a few days after the issue went to press, and I happened to mention the thing about “Ring of Roses”, and he said, “Why the hell didn’t you put that in the mag?” ’ Collinsky rolled his eyes. ‘So much for the integrity of print.’