Cold Heart

by Lynda La Plante

  CHAPTER 4

  LATER, LORRAINE realized that the discovery of the bullet might mean nothing, because Nathan had been known to shoot at birds. It was quite possible that there would be a number of bullets in the grounds. But if this one fitted the murder weapon, Cindy had told the truth. The question still remained as to whether or not Cindy had fired the gun.

  Lorraine showered, changed, and put some disinfectant on the scratches that covered her arms and legs, and the two on her face. Tiger had been disgruntled – he’d been left alone most of the day – but Lorraine had fed and walked him now. He had perked up when she decided he could ride with her to the hospital. It was after ten by the time she turned off San Vincente Boulevard and drove between the imposing towers of Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, lit up like a liner at night. She went to the emergency rooms to enquire about Cindy Nathan, and was told that Cindy had been admitted to a medical ward on the eighth floor.

  When Lorraine asked at the nurses’ station if she could see Mrs Nathan, they refused. Cindy had been sedated and was not allowed visitors. ‘If you would like to leave your number, Mrs Page, I will tell her you came to see her when she wakes,’ the night nurse said authoritatively, a challenging look in her eyes. The unit was frequently used by celebrities and their families, and it was clear that the staff were well versed in keeping unwanted attention away from them. Lorraine checked her watch, thought about waiting around, but decided to go home. She had a lot of new developments to get on top of, and she was tired.

  ‘What time can I see her in the morning?’

  ‘That will depend on the doctor and the patient. She’s in a private room with a phone, so I’m sure she’ll call you if she wants to. Now, if you will excuse me . . .’ and the nurse set off down the corridor.

  Two clerical staff were behind their desks at the administration station, and Lorraine moved closer. ‘Excuse me, do you know if Mrs Cindy Nathan has had any visitors since she was admitted?’

  One woman, with permed hair, looked over her half-moon glasses, apparently irritated to be distracted from her copy of the National Enquirer. ‘Are you a relative?’

  ‘No, I spoke to you earlier.’

  ‘I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to give any personal details to anyone not related to the patient.’

  ‘What if I said I was her sister?’

  ‘But you just said you weren’t related,’ the woman snapped.

  Lorraine threw up her hands. ‘I’m a close friend, and she’s just miscarried her baby. At a time like this she’ll need a lot of comfort and, above all, the support of her friends, right? And I would like to contact—’

  ‘No visitors,’ the perm said.

  ‘Thank you for your co-operation,’ Lorraine replied sarcastically, and walked out. She was, she thought, probably the only person who did care about poor little Cindy, for she felt genuinely sorry for her, but at the same time, she was relieved to be going home again.

  Back at the car, Tiger had eaten his leather lead, and Lorraine was so absorbed in scolding him that she didn’t see the two-toned Mitsubishi jeep pull into a space just a short distance away. She was still berating Tiger as a woman got out, carrying grapes and a bunch of flowers. But Kendall Nathan had seen Lorraine and stood in the shadows, keeping well out of view, watching her drive out.

  Kendall did not get such short shrift from the receptionist: as she had the same surname as Cindy, the perm presumed she was a relative and allowed her to talk to the night nurse monitoring Cindy. She was told that Cindy was still sleeping, and, although not critically ill, in a deeply depressed state. Kendall was about to leave her gifts and go, when the nurse offered to check if Cindy was awake.

  She showed Kendall into the plush private room, with its dimmed lights, controlled atmosphere and television mounted on a bracket on the wall. Kendall leaned over and smiled: Cindy was awake, but very drowsy.

  ‘I came as soon as I heard. I talked to Jose and he told me – I’m so sorry.’

  Slowly Cindy turned away her face. ‘I bet you are,’ she whispered, so softly as to be barely audible.

  Kendall turned and smiled sweetly at the nurse. ‘I’ll just sit with her for a few moments.’

  The nurse hesitated, but Kendall looked hard at her, and she nodded. ‘I’ll check on the other patients and come back, but you mustn’t stay long.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Kendall said softly. As soon as the door closed the sickening smile froze on her mouth. She moved to stand at the end of the bed, unhooked the notes attached to the foot and flicked through them before she spoke.

  ‘How are you, darling? I was so sorry to hear you lost the baby.’ She put the clipboard back. ‘You must really regret the abortions now.’

  Cindy glared at her. ‘I never had any abortions.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kendall smiled, ‘it must be a mistake. I’ll tell the nurse to alter this “previous pregnancies” thing on my way out.’

  Cindy said nothing.

  ‘I didn’t even think it was true, the baby,’ Kendall continued. ‘Whose was it?’

  Cindy closed her eyes.

  ‘It wasn’t likely to be Harry’s, you little whore. You screwed anything in pants.’

  Cindy opened her eyes again. ‘You mean like you did to get yourself pregnant? That was why he married you, wasn’t it?’

  Kendall’s eyes slanted like a snake’s as she cocked her head to one side. ‘If you hadn’t shot him he’d have kicked you out, and you know it.’

  ‘The way he kicked you out?’

  ‘You’re a poisonous little bitch, aren’t you?’

  ‘Takes one to know one.’

  ‘My, my, that was quite a fast retort – unusual for you. That chemical garbage you stuff yourself with usually makes you totally fucking off the wall. But I’m sorry, really I am. It won’t be quite so heart-rending now, will it? “Pregnant wife on trial for her husband’s murder” would have been quite a sexy angle.’

  ‘Go away. Leave me alone.’

  Kendall pursed her lips. ‘Was it Harry’s?’

  ‘Yes. And that must have really pissed you off.’

  Kendall recomposed her features into what she hoped was a pleasant smile. ‘Look, Cindy, that’s all water under the bridge. I’m sorry for . . . teasing you – I guess I’m just jealous, you know, about you and the baby and all.’ She gave a sigh, as though of sorrow at the realization of her own human weakness, and her expression grew still more saccharine-sweet. ‘Let’s you and me not fight,’ she went on. ‘I mean, we’ve both suffered such a terrible loss and we’re both in the same boat about a lot of things – Harry, and the will, and . . . well, you know there’s just a few little videotapes out at the house I think both of us would rather not watch with our moms.’

  ‘What?’ Cindy said weakly. ‘Harry . . . did stuff with you too?’

  ‘Harry did stuff with the Koi carp and the juice extractor, darling.’ Kendall’s voice was more businesslike now. ‘Did you get the key to the office?’

  ‘No. But somebody else did. Somebody broke in – there were tapes all over the floor, but just his movies and stuff, they didn’t take any. I can’t find the private ones. I looked all over.’

  ‘They must be still at the house, and Feinstein’s in charge now while you’re lying here, Cindy. You don’t want him finding them and sitting around whacking off to them, now do you?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  Well, then, call Jose and Juana and tell them to let me in to collect them. I won’t take anything else.’

  ‘Like fuck you won’t, Kendall.’ Even Cindy was not too dumb to be taken in by that ploy. ‘I know you’d walk out with a couple of Jackson de Koonings, or whatever they are, tucked in your tights.’

  ‘Cindy, I don’t intend to discuss this with you at this time,’ Kendall said prissily. ‘You got my attorney’s letter and you know that the collection of art works at the house, which Harry and I built up, was jointly owned. My paintings do not form part of the contents of the house, and
I can prove it because I paid the insurance premiums – which shows Harry acknowledged before he died that I had a proprietary interest. And what the fuck would you do with a lot of Jackson Pollocks!’

  ‘Sell them, Kendall, same as you. And I have news for you. If you’re banking on that premium business to set up your case, you’re in a whole lot of trouble because he never paid the insurance. I just found that out.’

  ‘What?’ Kendall said, her expression reverting to its former undisguised anger and greed. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I found the letters telling him that the policy had expired, last chance to renew kind of thing. He never paid a penny in insurance in the last two years.’

  Kendall was speechless with rage and shock. ‘But I gave him about two million fucking dollars in that time. What did he do with it?’

  ‘The usual things, I guess,’ Cindy said succinctly. ‘His dick or his nose. And I have something else to tell you—’

  ‘What?’ Kendall snapped.

  ‘I’m kind of tired now, Kendall,’ Cindy said, with a yawn. ‘Maybe I’ll tell you some other time.’

  Kendall jolted the bed. ‘You straighten out with me right now, Cindy, or I’ll slap your face!’

  Cindy struggled to sit up. ‘You lay one finger on me and I’ll scream the place down. I just lost my fucking baby, for Chrissakes.’

  Kendall returned with an effort to sweet-reason mode. ‘Look, Cindy, we’re just playing into the lawyers’ hands by fighting each other. If there’s some other problems with the art, I think you should tell me. Otherwise it will just go to Feinstein and he’ll make ten billion dollars while we get zip.’

  Cindy could never stand up to a more aggressive person for long. ‘Well,’ she said, sinking back on her pillows, ‘you know that Chinese vase? The family of roses or whatever? In his bedroom? It fell off its perch.’

  ‘You broke it?

  ‘Not on purpose, but . . . how old did you say it was? Only, for something so old, how come it’s got a sticker inside?’

  Cindy enjoying seeing Kendall froth at the mouth. ‘Yeah, a sticker with a dealer’s name on it, right inside the thing. Some company called Classic something or other.’

  ‘Classic Reproductions,’ Kendall said, between gritted teeth.

  ‘Oh, that’s it.’ Cindy faked surprise with all her Paradise Motel skill. ‘I knew you’d have heard of them.’

  Kendall picked up her purse. ‘Look, there’s no point in us talking any more now, I have to go. I’ll check things out with the insurance brokers tomorrow and call you.’

  As the other woman turned away Cindy said, ‘I didn’t kill him, Kendall. I don’t think I did, an’ that’s the truth. I even thought that maybe . . .’

  ‘Maybe what?’ Kendall was heading for the door.

  ‘Maybe you did. Where were you when he got shot?’

  ‘I was at home.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ Cindy said quietly. ‘Got a witness, have you?’ She turned back to her pillow and closed her eyes. Before Kendall could reply the nurse walked in, hurried to Cindy’s bedside, and turned in surprise at the sound of the door slamming shut.

  Cindy gave a weak smile. ‘If Mrs Nathan comes again tell her I’m too tired to see her – she drains my energy centres. Can you get me something to help me sleep?’

  ‘I’ll check with the doctor. Oh, you had another visitor, a Mrs Lorraine Page. She left her card.’ The nurse handed it to Cindy and went to see about sedation.

  Kendall Nathan sat in her jeep, gripping the steering wheel. She was sure Cindy was lying about the vase, but the only way to be certain was to go to the house and see for herself. She knew Harry was a thief and a conman, but would he have conned her, too, after all she had done for him? She had a terrible, sinking feeling that he just might have.

  Half an hour later she was still shaking as she sipped hot water and lemon juice, and paced the black Astroturf with which she had carpeted her bedroom; the building’s beautifully preserved thirties exterior had not deterred Kendall from filling her apartment with screamingly modern design as near to the décor of the Nathan house as she could afford. The sight of all these things now, which had previously given her such satisfaction, filled her with fury as the possibility of Harry Nathan’s treachery sank in.

  She wanted to scream, wanted to get back into the jeep and get over to the Nathans’ house, but she knew she had to be calm. If the famille rose vase was a fake, what had happened to the original, worth three quarters of a million dollars? She had to find out without betraying how important it was to her. And it was important: the vase represented part of an art collection worth twenty million dollars, half of which she knew was hers. Eventually she slumped onto her bed, and nausea swept over her.

  Lorraine was in her bathrobe, eating chicken with spinach and walnut salad. She had just settled down in front of the video recorder to play some of Harry Nathan’s tapes when the phone rang. She looked at the clock – it was almost eleven, and she wondered who was calling so late.

  ‘Lorraine? It’s me, Cindy Nathan.’

  ‘Oh, hello. I came by the hospital earlier – how are you?’

  ‘I’m okay. They give me somethin’ for the pain, but it’s the one in my heart that hurts more. I lost my baby.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So am I, and I would have liked to talk to you.’

  ‘I’ll come by tomorrow -1 need to talk to you too.’

  ‘There’s a reason I called, but I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. It’s just I know something about, well, I think I know somebody with a motive for shooting Harry. I think it might be Kendall.’

  Lorraine reached for her cigarette pack. ‘Can you just answer me one thing? You know the telephone tapes, the ones you sent over to my office? Who else did you tell that you were sending them to me?’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone else – well, not exactly. You see, there’s a locked room, Harry’s office, and I couldn’t find the key. It’s one of those plastic card things, you know – some hotels use them. I couldn’t find it, an’ I didn’t know how to get into the room.’

  ‘Did Jose and Juana know?’

  ‘Hell, no. I wouldn’t tell those two nothin’. I called Harry’s wife, Sonja, and she said she didn’t even know there was a locked room. Well, she wouldn’t have, she hadn’t been living there for a long time, so then I called Kendall.’

  ‘Did you mention the telephone recordings to either of them?’

  ‘Yes, well, maybe I did, I can’t remember.’

  Lorraine wondered if this was true, or whether the girl was trying to throw suspicion on the other two wives – she had seemed certain before that nobody else knew about the tapes. ‘I’m sorry, I got to go now. I’m too tired to talk. They give me something to help me sleep.’

  ‘Well, I’ll come by in the morning. You sure only Mr Nathan’s ex-wives knew about the tapes?’

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t tell anyone else. G’night now.’

  The phone went dead. Lorraine moved back to her new white sofa, which Tiger was now occupying. ‘Get off.’ He gave a low growl. ‘Hey, man, cut that out. You’ve moved in on the office and don’t try it here. Get off.’ He got up and padded into the bedroom. ‘Not on the bed either, Tiger,’ but he had already disappeared.

  She pressed Play on the remote control and settled back, only noticing as she lifted the fork to eat her supper that the chicken leg had been removed. She was about to go after Tiger when the tape started, a shot clearly set up in Nathan’s bedroom. Cindy was spreadeagled naked and face down on the bed, and Nathan was working her over.

  Lorraine felt sick as she watched three more videos, two showing explicit sex acts with Cindy, one with Kendall, each more violent and degrading than the last. Cindy was made to beg on all fours, while Nathan beat her with a thonged leather strap. He was into S and M in a big way, screwing her so violently, every muscle straining, that the sweat dripped from his body and matted his dark hair. He had tied Kendall
over the back of a chair in a way that enabled him, with a jerk of the rope, to splay her legs wide apart, then insert a selection of objects, animal, mineral and vegetable, into various orifices, while some unknown female friend shrieked in the background with hyena-like laughter.

  Worse was to come. Threesomes featuring not only Cindy but other very young girls were next on the tape, then a sickening sequence starring Raymond Vallance. In this session, Nathan sat watching, grinning and jerking off as the girls strapped on black, studded dildoes and forced Vallance down on all fours. Lorraine couldn’t watch another minute of it and went to bed. What she had seen might provide Cindy with a provocation defence, or at least a position from which to bargain down the charge, but it also gave both her and Kendall Nathan a motive and a half: both women had been subjected to the grossest abuse.

  Tiger lay sprawled across one side of the bed and didn’t move an inch when Lorraine got under the duvet. He sighed with contentment when he realized that she wasn’t going to push him off.

  It was the first time in her life that Lorraine had owned a dog, and she understood now what it meant to have something that asked nothing from her but a half-share of her bed. Tiger had the love she found so difficult to give elsewhere, but he could not fill the void inside her - and it was a void. Lorraine was more lonely than she had ever been, and although she was financially secure, it frightened her to think about her future. Only Tiger heard her fears, and only he saw the vulnerable side of Lorraine that she showed to no one else - so in need of love, and so afraid she would never find it.

  Decker had swept up the nightly shower of ficus leaves, had placed a fresh vase of lilies in Reception, and a jug of coffee was percolating. He had already sorted the office mail, mostly bills and circulars, when Lorraine arrived at eight thirty.