She smiled, thinking of Jake, and the home and family she hoped they would have together: her place was back in LA. But now she was still working for Feinstein, and she had every intention of winding up the case professionally. At least it looked like coming to an end – it seemed too much of a coincidence that Nathan’s brother happened to be a starving artist who perhaps wouldn’t be averse to making a little money on the wrong side of the law. Arthur had had no idea how to find him, but it was worthwhile asking Vallance what he knew.
After a few more minutes she heard his door open and stepped out of her room. ‘Mr Vallance?’ she called. ‘I thought I heard your voice.’
He stared at her, locking his door. ‘Well, well, Mrs Page.’
‘Could I have ten minutes of your time, Mr Vallance?’
‘No, it’s not convenient. I’m meeting a producer for lunch.’
‘Well, can’t you call down and tell them you’ll be there in ten minutes? It won’t take any longer.’
He glared at her, his Cupid’s-bow lips pursed into a thin line of anger. ‘I don’t think I like your attitude, Mrs Page. Just who the hell do you think you are? I don’t have to talk to you, you’re not with the police, and I know the case has been closed. You have no right to question me.’ He started to walk away.
‘Apparently Harry Nathan had millions salted away in a secret bank account, and his lawyer has retained me to try to trace it,’ Lorraine called after him. ‘If you could help me in any way, I am sure that he would come to some arrangement.’
That stopped Vallance in his tracks. Lorraine leaned against the door frame, watching him thinking about what she had just said. ‘I can’t see how I can help you.’
‘Well, why don’t we just sit down for a few minutes and see? You never know, Mr Vallance, there might be something, and if there is, Mr Feinstein will be generous.’
‘Ten minutes,’ he agreed.
Vallance followed Lorraine into her room and she shut the door behind them. He didn’t sit down, but wandered around the room, clicking keys.
‘Have you any idea where Harry Nathan’s brother Nick is?’ she asked.
‘God, no. Last I heard he went to some hippie commune in Santa Fe.’
Lorraine tapped her notebook. ‘How good a painter was he?’
‘I have no idea. Sonja bought some of his work, I think.’
‘Do you know anything else about him – or about the rest of the family?’
‘Nick was totally unstable, and Harry behaved pretty bizarrely when he and Nick were together, screaming and giggling like ten-year-olds.’ Once again, Lorraine heard an unmistakable note of jealousy. ‘The mother doted on both of them, wanted them to stay little kids for ever, but the father was different – he couldn’t come to terms with Nick. He was a striking man, the father . . .’ Vallance paused, and laid a languid finger against his brow. ‘But I was never that interested in Harry’s family.’
‘Just him,’ Lorraine said softly, and Vallance turned, a glint in the famous wide-set eyes.
‘He was the only one who was worth it.’
‘I’m investigating a possible art fraud Harry and Kendall seem to have been pulling out of the gallery—’
‘You mean Kendall was pulling,’ Vallance cut in. ‘Harry would never have thought up anything like that on his own, but she was as crooked as they come.’
‘What do you know about the gallery?’
Vallance turned his mouth down and lifted his shoulders. ‘I went once or twice, more, I suppose, to show my face for them when they had an exhibition. Artists need press like everyone else, and I’d bring in as many faces as I could, but I didn’t have the finances to buy anything from them.’
Lorraine opened her notebook and began to read out the names of some well-known film stars, part of the list of people who had bought paintings she now knew to be fakes. She flicked a glance at Vallance as he nodded at name after name. ‘So you introduced buyers too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you paid a commission for doing it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know any of these other names?’ Lorraine mentioned producers, bankers and other professionals who had been approached by Feinstein with the suggestion that they have their paintings revalued. Vallance nodded only occasionally, and she ticked each name he acknowledged, but his contacts had mostly been the show-business buyers.
‘Do you know who Nathan’s contacts would have been in the banking world, for example?’
‘No, that was Kendall’s department. She made sure she knew anyone who might have the cash to cough up for her art.’
‘How about any contacts in Europe?’
He twisted his keys. ‘She made it her business to know foreign buyers. She was a real nose to the grindstone, in the early days I think because she could see Harry more by making the gallery her life. But she was a hustler by nature.’
‘Did he ever mention any banking facilities he used, either here or in Europe?’
‘No.’
‘But he did travel abroad a lot. Did you go with him?’
‘No, but during the past year he went away a lot. Just a week here or there, though he’d never take Cindy. Maybe Kendall went – I’ve no idea. But you’re not much of an investigator if you haven’t checked his passport – surely that’ll tell you where he was sliding off to.’
‘It doesn’t. As he used so many aliases to open the bank accounts we’ve traced so far, we can only presume he also had a number of passports in different names.’
‘Well, that’s quite possible. Harry had picked up a few unsavoury friends along the way – I kept my distance from them.’
‘Can you think of anyone in the art world who might have been working with him in the last few months before he died? Not Kendall, someone else.’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Lorraine said.
It was a moment before Vallance realized that she was saying the ten minutes were up. His jaw slackened. ‘Oh – was that of any use?’
‘Maybe. If you could give me an address where I could contact you, I’ll let you know if I make headway.’
He swung his keys round a finger. ‘I’m between residences at the moment.’
‘What about your agent?’
The keys swivelled faster. ‘Let’s say I’m between agents too. Why don’t I contact you, say in a couple of weeks? Just to see how you’re progressing.’
Lorraine passed him her card, and he slipped it into his pocket without looking at it and walked out. Lorraine called Feinstein, who hadn’t arrived at his office. She spoke to his secretary, listing what she would need on her return. ‘One, can you find a recent address for Nathan’s brother, Nick, plus his mother. Two, see if any passports have been issued in any of the other names Nathan used. There may be more than one. Three, will you run by Mr Feinstein that if I were to get assistance from someone, which led to either the money or the art works being recovered, it would help if I could hint at a few bucks going their way, okay?’
‘Yes, Mrs Page. I will pass on those messages to Mr Feinstein as soon as he comes in,’ the exquisite Pamela answered.
‘Thank you.’ Lorraine hung up, then went down to Reception to check out. It was now almost lunchtime. She realized she would now have to catch the three-fifteen Jitney, and might as well get lunch in East Hampton before she left. Somehow she couldn’t face eating in the hotel with Vallance and his friend, so left her bag at Reception and walked out to a small seafood place down the street. She installed herself in a corner booth with the doom-laden New York Times and a platter of shrimp and crab, thinking of the dinner Jake had cooked for her at his apartment. It would be Thanksgiving soon, she thought. She would have him, Rosie and Rooney round for dinner at her apartment – she had never had more to be thankful for as this had turned out to be the best year of her life.
She got up, paid her bill, tossed the unread paper into a trash can and walked back to the hotel, her thoughts drifting again to the f
uture and to images of where she and Jake would live. Her place was too small, though she loved being near the ocean, and neither of them was crazy about his apartment. They must have a proper engagement party too, she thought, suddenly wanting to do things right, to feel the warmth of tradition and ritual around her, wondering if maybe Mike and Sissy and the girls would come. She thought about her daughters every day, and it had never been lack of feeling that had kept her away from them for so long. She had been so afraid that the craziness and chaos that surrounded her would somehow enter their lives. She focused again on the idea of introducing Jake to them. She wanted him to meet them, and for them to see their mother happy and relaxed, supported and loved.
Lorraine turned into the Maidstone’s driveway. A paramedics van, lights flashing, was parked in the hotel car park, with two patrol cars and a pale blue Rolls-Royce Corniche. She continued into the hotel reception, but halfway across the lobby she was stopped by an officer, who asked if she was a guest, and only allowed her to go and collect her overnight bag when she confirmed that she was. Then she saw the pretty receptionist weeping hysterically, being comforted by the barman. The blowsy blonde woman, whom she had seen earlier with Vallance, was sitting in one of the Queen Anne chairs. She screamed, sobbed and hyperventilated, and wailed the same words again and again. ‘Why? Oh, dear God, why?’
Lorraine looked around more carefully. The police were keeping everyone from going upstairs, and preventing non-residents from entering the hotel. She was just about to ask one of the officers what had happened, when she overheard the pretty girl say, ‘I just can’t believe it, he was talking to me earlier. I got his autograph for my mother, and I served him lunch, and . . .’
Lorraine was about to go over to her, when the manager appeared. ‘I’m so sorry about this, Mrs Page.’
‘What happened?’ she asked.
The manager’s fingers were shaking as he touched his collar. ‘Mr Vallance . . . Raymond Vallance committed suicide.’
Lorraine looked upstairs, and the manager clasped her elbow, lowering his voice. ‘No, it didn’t happen in the hotel, but in that poor woman’s car.’
Lorraine glanced at Vallance’s companion, whose thickly applied make-up had now smeared over her face. ‘How did he do it?’ she asked quietly.
‘He shot himself,’ the manager answered.
He had shown no suicidal intentions when she had seen him earlier. It seemed too much to believe that he had killed himself, particularly as he had been talking of going to see a woman who had said she would shoot him. Lorraine had seen Vallance just before he went downstairs, and the waitress said she had served him lunch. How could Sonja have driven into town, caused Vallance to get up from the lunch table and go and sit in someone else’s car so that she could shoot him, unobserved by anyone – and then drive back to the Springs: Hadn’t Arthur said he was going straight back to the house? She would have to call them and make some more enquiries in the hotel too, Lorraine thought, but she was determined not to get too far drawn into the Nathan murder again. She was going back to Jake and LA that evening. But she had time, she figured. She’d just have to catch the later bus.
CHAPTER 16
SONJA WAS sitting quietly, looking out over the bay, the telephone still on her lap, when she heard a car draw up outside. Arthur, she thought, with a pang of conscience. She would have to apologize to him for the scenes of the night before. He did his best, but he only irritated her with his childish insistence that the world was really good and beautiful, that things could change. It was like talking to a six-year-old, she thought, and, anyway, it was pointless for anyone to talk to her when she got into a dark state. She was the only one who could deliver herself from it. But it was gone now, she had acted to discharge it: she would teach Vallance a lesson he would never forget. She felt as peaceful as the sheet of blue water in front of her, if a little tired . . .
To her surprise she heard someone knock loudly on the front door. Arthur must have forgotten his keys – it was possible, in view of the frame of mind in which he had left the house. Glancing out of the window on her way to the door, however, she saw not the jeep but a police car. Her limbs weakened and trembled and her throat constricted.
Outside was Officer Vern Muller, an old friend: she had known him since she moved to the Hamptons, seven years ago.
‘Mrs Nathan,’ he said, ‘I have some bad news for you, I’m afraid.’ His expression was grim. Oh, God, she thought, not Arthur . . . ‘Can I come in?’ Muller asked.
‘Certainly,’ she said, standing back to let the thick-set policeman walk past her into the hall. She followed him, her stomach turning over. Arthur, oh, Arthur, she cried silently, images of his lifeless, mangled body, mingling with those of Nathan’s dead body. Everything she touched she killed, she thought.
‘Do you want a drink?’ she said to the policeman as they reached the kitchen, wanting to put off the moment when he told her and a new phase of her life really had begun.
‘No – but maybe have one yourself,’ Muller said. He waited, saying nothing, while she poured herself out a measure of whisky and sat down.
‘Mrs Nathan, I have something to tell you which I didn’t want you to hear on the news,’ he began. ‘I just heard it myself from the station and I came right up. Raymond Vallance is dead. He shot himself in town. I know you were friends for many years.’
‘Vallance is dead?’ Sonja repeated.
She knew she sounded stupid and the police officer gave her a strange look.
‘Yes, Raymond Vallance. He was staying at the Maidstone Arms with some woman, and . . . they’re not exactly sure what happened. He just walked outside and shot himself.’
Relief raced through Sonja like a rip-tide: she felt giddy with happiness and had to fight to keep it from blossoming in her face.
‘When was this?’ she managed to ask, a second realization dawning, hard on the heels of the first.
‘Just minutes ago. I heard it as I was driving past the gate and I thought I’d turn in.’
God, she thought. When she had called Vallance to tell him that, if he was so keen on reliving old times, he should be delighted to hear that she intended releasing the real record of those old times – Harry Nathan’s videotapes – to the press, she had not anticipated what he would do. Had he killed himself out of shame at the prospect of his own humiliation being made public, or of Harry Nathan being seen at last for what he was? She would not have been surprised if it was the latter, and it gave her a certain, almost aesthetic, pleasure to think that the sick hero-worship that had dominated Vallance’s life had finally killed him.
‘You’re sure you don’t want a drink?’ she said. She didn’t feel a flicker of remorse at Vallance’s death but she did her best to seem saddened and shaken by what Muller had just told her. He detected, though, that the news was less of a blow to her than he had thought it would be.
Well,’ he said, ‘perhaps just a small one.’
The whole thing was perfect, Sonja thought, as she got out a glass for him. She knew that both Arthur, and possibly Lorraine Page, might suspect that she had had something to do with Vallance’s death – and she had a perfect alibi, a large, solid, unimpeachable policeman sitting right here in her kitchen within minutes of it.
‘He was more my ex-husband’s friend than mine,’ Sonja said – she needed to offer some explanation for her lack of distress at Vallance’s death. ‘I hadn’t seen him since my divorce.’
‘Yeah, I was sorry to hear about . . . your ex-husband.’ Muller took the glass, looking at her, Sonja thought, just a touch too intently. Surely he could not connect her with a murder on the other side of the country. ‘It was all over the papers and everything. I guess Vallance will be too – he was a pretty big star at one time.’
‘At one time,’ Sonja repeated. ‘Poor Raymond, he hadn’t worked in anything you could take seriously for years.’
‘The boys are wondering whether that might have been why he shot himself – he’d
been bragging all over the hotel that he had some big movie or something coming up, and apparently he got some call or other while he was eating, got up to take it, then walked out back and . . . Goodbye, cruel world.’
‘He must have lost the deal, I imagine,’ Sonja said, lying effortlessly, a skill she was not proud of but had had all her life.
‘You can’t think of anyone around here could have called him?’ Muller asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sonja said, ‘I can’t help you. I haven’t had any contact with that whole world in years.’
‘Well,’ Muller said, draining his glass, ‘I’d better not keep you.’
‘I’m sorry if I seemed a little . . . strange when you came in,’ Sonja said with a charming smile. ‘It’s just that Arthur and I had a slight disagreement last night and I just got the idea that something might have happened to him.’
‘Arthur!’ the officer said, with a laugh. ‘He’s asleep in the jeep a mile up the road. I drove past him, but I didn’t have the heart to wake him up.’
The hotel was full of a mixture of shock and excitement, as people sat at tables or in the bar, discussing Raymond Vallance’s career as though they had known him, waiting for the press to arrive and, Lorraine thought, secretly as thrilled as children to be caught up in events that would make news. The East Hampton Star had already sent a reporter, and people were talking eagerly to him. Police officers were interviewing staff in one of the conference rooms, and Reception was presently unattended. It was the manager himself who appeared and signalled to Lorraine as she stood at the door of the bar. ‘Mrs Page, there’s a call for you.’ Lorraine was surprised, and followed him to the desk. ‘You can take it here if you like. I almost said you’d checked out, but then I saw you.’
‘Thank you.’ She took the phone, and he backed away politely, leaving her alone. ‘Lorraine Page,’ she said into the receiver.
‘Feinstein here.’ Her heart sank. ‘I got your messages,’ he continued. ‘You know I tried to call you earlier?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’ve located three passports – we’ve sent copies to your office. The brother’s a bit of a fruitcake, so I’ve put in a call to Abigail Nathan, the mother, and she’ll be calling me back. Now, about this other thing, if you get any information about missing funds or the paintings themselves, by all means agree to some payment, but discuss it with me first. Any further developments?’ he demanded.
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