Cold Heart (8 page)

The men had mostly confined themselves to dark jackets and ties, but Lorraine noted one with a straggling ponytail in a black Nehru jacket over dirty black jeans and Birkenstock sandals – a sort of ageing rock star ensemble completed by little round John Lennon sunglasses. As he turned his head to speak to the older woman beside him, his resemblance in profile to Harry Nathan was striking. They must be the family, Lorraine thought, an impression confirmed when she saw that Kendall Nathan was standing in front of the pair making exaggerated expressions of sympathy and grief.

She, too, was dressed like a Christmas tree, in a fussy black evening dress with chiffon yoke and sleeves, and dowdy pleated skirt. Apart from Lorraine, Harry Nathan’s mother, in a conventional dress and coat in black wool crêpe, was the only person whose appearance had been influenced by the sombreness of the occasion. She also seemed to be the only person genuinely distressed by Harry Nathan’s death.

Lorraine turned to watch as a limousine drew up, followed by an ordinary taxi-cab. The cab disgorged its occupants first, the middle-aged Mexican woman who had let Lorraine into the Nathan house and a Hispanic man, evidently her husband, who made their way straight into the church, ignored by everyone. As soon as the staff were out of the way, the limousine door opened to reveal Cindy Nathan in a long black sleeveless dress – Empire line to accommodate her undetectable pregnancy – and black velvet platform boots. Her blonde hair was elaborately dressed into a plaited coronet on top of her head, her wrists laden with pearl and jet. A silver snake bracelet encircled one of her slim upper arms, perfectly matching the black cobra tattooed around the other. She looked like a young pagan goddess, and all the nearby long lenses were immediately trained on her.

The girl stood motionless in front of the crowd. No one approached or spoke to her – in fact, Nathan’s family and Kendall looked away pointedly. My God, she must have been crying all night, Lorraine thought, as she observed the deep shadows around Cindy’s eyes. But as she got near enough to the girl to smile and greet her, she realized that the effect was deliberate: Cindy’s startling blue eyes and full, flower-like mouth had both been expertly made up in fashionable metallic pink.

Cindy did not speak, but gave Lorraine a strange, controlled smile, like that of a beautiful alien, and carefully arranged a black lace mantilla over her head. With a gesture bizarrely reminiscent of a wedding, she took Lorraine’s arm and the crowd parted in front of them as they made their way into the church, leaving a wake of exquisite lily scent and audible hisses of outrage.

‘Fuck ’em,’ Cindy said, under her breath, as they reached the porch. Her lovely face remained immobile as she spoke. ‘Fuck the whole damn lot of them.’

They made their way up the aisle towards the front pew, and the clergyman approached, rearranging his amazed stare into an expression of sympathy. Lorraine also noticed a tall, grey-haired man give the young widow an icy glance and immediately move way.

‘Who was that?’ Lorraine asked, when they had sat down.

‘Raymond Vallance,’ Cindy said coolly, staring straight ahead at the enormous wreath on her husband’s coffin.

The rest of the mourners began to file in, the Nathan family occupying the front pew on the other side of the church from Cindy.

Once everyone was settled, the minister announced a hymn, which no one bothered to sing. Most of those present were more interested in craning their necks to see who else was there. They were eventually brought back to the purpose of the gathering by the clergyman’s invitation to remember Harry in silence for a few minutes while they listened to one of his favourite songs, a rendition of ‘Light My Fire’, arranged as elaborately as an oratorio and played like a dirge on an electronic organ.

Then the minister paid tribute to Nathan’s personal charm, energy and talent. As he moved on to talk about his civic virtues and unstinting support for many good causes, Lorraine was conscious of a stir at the back of the church. She turned to see a tall woman with strangely white hair, elegant as a borzoi, who had walked in alone. She came slowly up to the front of the church, her high heels clicking on the stone floor, and sat down with great dignity in the front pew, some six feet away from Cindy. She inclined her head, smiled slightly at the girl, and Lorraine caught a glimpse of a pair of remote, unnerving eyes.

She immediately recognized Sonja Sorenson, the first Mrs Nathan, and tried to study the older woman unobtrusively. She was about fifty, Lorraine guessed, and although her immaculately cut, jaw-length hair was white, her lashes and brows were still dark. Her clothes were formal and elegant, a military-style black wool suit worn with black gloves, hose and shoes, and no visible jewellery. She stared straight ahead, ignoring the congregation’s scrutiny.

When the service ended, Vallance, Nathan’s brother and four other men advanced to lift the coffin and carry it out. The congregation filed after them, to form a group around the grave. Lorraine dropped back to let Cindy and Sonja stand at the front, noticing that, the minute they got outside, the older woman had put on a pair of dark glasses. Kendall, determined not to be outdone, elbowed her way up to stand between Nathan’s other two wives, clutching a single white rose. She beckoned to Mrs Nathan senior to follow her, but the old lady shook her head as though in distaste.

The minister read in a sonorous voice from scripture while the pall-bearers pushed the coffin carefully into the space in the wall and stepped back. As soon as the reading was over, Kendall moved forward to thrust her flower into the tomb, wailing theatrically, then stepped back as though challenging the other women to cap her performance. Sonja did not move, but Lorraine froze as Cindy took a step forward, calmly removed her wedding ring and laid it on the end of the coffin. There was an audible gasp as people wondered how to interpret the gesture: did Cindy mean that her heart was buried in the grave with Harry, or that she wanted her last remaining tie to her husband to be severed in the most public way:

The tomb door was closed and people turned away. Lorraine scanned the crowd for Raymond Vallance and saw that he was in surprisingly heated conversation with Jose and Juana. He was certainly making a point of keeping his distance from Cindy, Lorraine thought, to whom he had not addressed a word. But as his exchange with the two Mexicans came to an end and they drifted away, she saw him glance in the girl’s direction. Sonja, she noted, was still beside the tomb.

Cindy was looking bored by whatever the minister was saying to her and Kendall, and Lorraine decided to rescue her. ‘Cindy, I wonder if I could speak to you for a second,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I’m just going.’

Cindy left Kendall with the clergyman. ‘You and me both,’ she said. ‘Jesus – I can’t stand to listen to Kendall saying she hasn’t eaten a thing since he died when all I can think about is how soon I can get a tuna melt. It’s the baby,’ she said, and Lorraine saw her eyes lock momentarily with Raymond Vallance’s. ‘It makes you crave weird things.’ Lorraine wondered whether it was just food she was talking about, but the girl said nothing more.

Lorraine breezed into the office just before lunchtime to find Decker showing out two men in overalls. Half the beige carpet had been taken up in the reception area.

Decker’s expression was uncharacteristically grim. ‘Lorraine,’ he said, ‘there’s been a . . . problem. Sit down for a moment. Somebody broke in and sprayed fucking acid over the tapes.’ He decided not to tell her about the photograph yet.

‘I see,’ Lorraine said, pushing her hand through her hair. ‘Well, that’s interesting. Cindy said no one else knew about them.’

‘Well, maybe she changed her mind about letting you listen to them,’ Decker said.

‘Maybe,’ Lorraine said, meditatively. ‘I can’t quite imagine her going to these lengths, though.’

‘Perhaps she has some more . . . extreme friends,’ Decker suggested. ‘Who was she with at the funeral?’

‘Nobody. Though she was breaking her neck not to be seen looking at Mr Ageing Romeo himself, Raymond Vallance. Pouting and glowering on both sides, though – sexual tension you could cut with a knife.’

‘Raymond Vallance?’ Decker pulled a face. ‘I thought he was already planted out there. He must be about two hundred – the oldest living really terrible actor.’

‘Looks every day of it,’ Lorraine said. ‘Though perhaps the shock of losing his close friend Mr Nathan was affecting his looks. He and the mother were the only people to shed a tear.’

‘Actually,’ Decker began, serious now, ‘something else happened in the break-in.’ He picked up the photograph. ‘They did this.’ Lorraine’s face remained expressionless as she registered the damage. ‘It looks like a get-the-fuck-off-this-case message, wouldn’t you say?’

Lorraine shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe something else. Maybe somebody who knows you,’ Decker went on. ‘It’s a really creepy thing to do, Lorraine. I knew you wouldn’t want me to call the police until you got back, but I really think you should. I mean, it’s like a threat.’

‘Well, thanks for the concern, Decker, but there’s no way I want the police knowing about either me or the tapes or that Cindy sent them here. I wish we’d got to listen to them, though. There must have been something on them that somebody didn’t want us to find.’

‘Well, we still have some . . .’ Decker said. ‘I took twenty home last night. But there’s nothing on any of the ones I’ve listened to so far.’

‘Sit down, boy wonder, I’ll make you some coffee – you deserve it.’ She smiled broadly. Clearly, as far as Lorraine was concerned, the subject of any personal danger was closed.

But the knowledge that Cindy Nathan had lied to her burned at the back of Lorraine’s mind, and as soon as the office was back in shape she called her, only to be informed by Jose that Mrs Nathan was lying down after the stress of the funeral and could not come to the phone. He suggested she call again the following day.

Decker assembled the tapes in date order as far as he could, but some had only a number. ‘How do we want to start – backwards, or at the beginning?’ he asked.

Lorraine pursed her lips. ‘In whatever order we can. We’ll list any names mentioned, anything that may be useful. There’s nothing else to do, apart from searching Harry Nathan’s garden, and we’ll have to do that at night.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier in daylight?’

‘Of course, but we’d be seen doing it. The police won’t be there at night.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I was a cop, Decker, just take my word for it.’ She pressed Play and sat on the cherry-coloured sofa, Tiger’s perch. She could smell him on it.

‘Hi, how you doing?’ The voice was warm, easygoing, with a nice smoker’s edge. It was Harry Nathan.

Lorraine leaned forward to catch the low volume. Decker turned up the sound.

‘I’ve been better. I didn’t get the fucking part.’

‘I’m sorry, I thought it was in the bag.’

‘So did I, pal, so did I, but they said they felt they needed a name. I said, “I have one,” and this kid, no more than twenty years old, says to me, “I meant a name anyone under forty has heard of.” I wanted to say, “Go fuck yourself,” but what can you do? They need a fucking name to sell toothpaste nowadays. That’s what I hate about this industry, no respect.’

‘Mm, yeah. So, you on for tonight?’

‘I guess so. I’m going down to Hollywood Spa this afternoon.’

‘You spend more time in the sauna than you do in your own home.’

Their conversation droned on but, to Lorraine’s irritation, Nathan never once used the caller’s name.

The rest of the tape consisted of equally boring calls, as Nathan arranged his day between his masseur, his personal trainer and his yoga guru, and had a long discussion with someone about colonic irrigation. Four further tapes were just as mind-numbingly dull, but Nathan’s personality was emerging clearly: he seemed to have little interest in work as every call was of a personal nature, ranging from haircuts to manicures and massage – even an eyelash tint.

‘Jesus, is this guy for real?’ Decker asked.

‘You’re listening to him, darlin’,’ Lorraine answered, as bored as Decker.

Decker inserted another tape and leaned back, doodling on his pad as the tape whirred and scratched before the connection was made.

‘Hi, it’s Raymond.’

Lorraine and Decker looked at each other – it was the sauna and steam-bath caller, Mr Raymond Vallance.

‘Listen, I’ve just met this chick – she’s beautiful. I was having lunch and she was at the next table, man. She is
stunning.
She has a body you’d cream yourself over, and she’s got this blonde hair, like, man, it’s down to her waist, and she’s got to be five eight, maybe even taller. She’s cover-of-
Vogue
class, so I won’t be coming over.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Trudie. And she was giving me the real come-on. I mean, man, I could
feel
her looking at me. I’m seeing her tonight.’

They continued discussing the nubile blonde, their conversation more like that of two teenage boys than middle-aged men. That Nathan even bothered to record the entire tedious conversation was extraordinary. Decker saw that Lorraine was fast asleep, so he rewound the tape, put on some fresh coffee and inserted the next one. He would wake her if anything of interest came up. He listened to more of Nathan’s grooming arrangements and more of Vallance’s lectures about diet. Then a female voice, enquiring nervously if Mr Nathan wanted to see the dailies, to which Nathan replied that he wanted them sent over, that he would look at them in the evening. No date or time was stated, but Decker listed the call: it suggested that Nathan did occasionally do some work and that some movie was being shot. The next call made him listen intently.

‘Harry? It’s me, and I’m pissed – you got a fucking nerve. You don’t like the dailies, well, fuck you. If you could spare a second to come on the set you’d know we got a fucking brain-dead male lead. I warned you the script sucked, but this is puerile shit and I’m walking.’

Nathan’s angry voice retorted that he didn’t give a shit if he walked or not, and there was an angry altercation between the two men that resulted in Nathan screaming that the man could sue him, but as he was broke he’d never get a cent.