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 — I 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 spread-eagled 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.
‘Morning. Another lovely sunny day,’ he said brightly, watching Tiger set off in search of a blue rubber boxing glove Decker had bought him, which he adored chewing and flinging about. ‘He seems fit and well.’
‘Yeah, so he should. He had a good two miles’ walk this morning, ate half my supper last night and demolished his own.’ She threw her hands up. ‘Shit! What is happening to me? He’s a goddamned dog! He’s taking up too much of my life!’ The boxing glove was hurled across the room, and Lorraine laughed.
‘You know, Mrs Page, you have a wonderful laugh,’ Decker said.
‘Yeah, just not a lot to laugh about. You want to come in with the coffee and I’ll give you an update, before I go to see Cindy. She’s in hospital.’
‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘Get the coffee and I’ll tell you.’
The curtains had been pulled back from the windows that formed one whole wall of Cindy Nathan’s hospital room, giving her a beautiful view of the early-morning haze clearing from the Hollywood Hills. In daylight, the room looked even more like a luxury hotel to Lorraine, and the breakfast on the tray table could certainly have come straight from room service.
Cindy was sitting up, a bed-jacket draped round her shoulders, eating orange and date muffins and fruit compote.
Lorraine drew a chair close to the bed. ‘Right, tell me about Kendall Nathan.’
‘She’s a vicious bitch for a start-off. She claims she owns half of Harry’s art collection, so I don’t get it along with the house.’
‘Has Feinstein told you the value of the estate?’ Lorraine asked.
‘Well, there’s not nearly as much money in the company as anyone thought — Harry hadn’t made a film that did any business since Mutant Au-Pairs, so the art’s likely to be the big thing.’ Lorraine waited, noting that the girl seemed much recovered and even quite cheerful. ‘Means I don’t have as much of a motive, do I?’ she said cheerfully. ‘Assuming I knew he was pretty broke, which I didn’t, of course.’ Cindy was a prosecuting attorney’s wet dream.
Lorraine waited as she carried on with her breakfast, pouring some juice and drinking it thirstily before she lay back on the pillows.