She smiled. ‘What can I do for you, Mrs Page? I’m rather busy.’ Kendall obviously did not recognize Lorraine from the funeraclass="underline" she had been far too concerned with her own performance to take note of who had attended. She eased into her uncomfortable chair and crossed her legs.
Lorraine looked down — even the woman’s feet, in leather sandals, were long and thin. Lorraine perched on the edge of the desk. This annoyed Kendall, who recoiled, angling her body away.
‘I’m working for Mrs Nathan.’
The eyes flicked up, then down.
‘Mrs Cindy Nathan,’ Lorraine explained. She had noticed that the woman didn’t like hearing the words ‘Mrs Nathan’ unless they referred to herself. ‘Mrs Nathan, as you are aware, was arrested for the murder of her husband, your ex-husband.’
‘Yes, I knew that,’ Kendall said briskly. ‘Are you a lawyer?’
‘No,’ Lorraine said. ‘I’m a private investigator.’ She took out her card and handed it to the other woman, who looked carefully at it, then set it down on the desk.
‘Well, I’m so sorry, I really can’t help you,’ Kendall said, with a quick, false smile.
‘You haven’t really heard what I’d like to discuss,’ Lorraine pointed out.
Kendall pushed up her sleeve and looked at her Rolex. ‘I have an appointment shortly, Mrs Page. This will have to be brief.’
‘Would you mind telling me where you were on the morning Mr Nathan was shot?’ Lorraine asked. ‘Cindy says you told her you were at home.’
‘I was at home,’ Kendall said, her eyes scanning Lorraine as she wondered what else Cindy had told her.
Was anyone with you?’
‘No — not unless you count my cats. I had nothing whatsoever to do with Harry’s death, though, so if that’s what you’re getting at, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.’
‘Though I understand you do benefit under Harry Nathan’s will,’ Lorraine went on casually. ‘He retained an interest in the gallery, which now passes to you, is that right?’
‘Cindy gets a damn sight more than anyone else,’ Kendall said, and Lorraine could hear the bitterness in her voice. ‘And Sonja Nathan gets something too — you’ll be treating her as a suspect too, of course?’ she sneered.
‘Do you think she should be treated as one?’ Lorraine asked, almost matching Kendall’s sarcastic tone.
‘Why not? East Hampton’s not that great a distance. Maybe she flew in for the day from New York, killed Harry, then flew home.’
Here we go again, Lorraine thought. Wife three says it was wife two, and wife two says it was wife one. Presumably Sonja would say Harry’s mother had killed him. Still, Sonja Nathan had remained something of a shadowy figure so far, and Lorraine was interested to hear more about her. She made a mental note to check out her address in East Hampton.
‘You and Sonja didn’t get along?’
Kendall gave a light, brittle laugh. ‘Well, considering Harry left her for me, we weren’t best friends. But before Harry and I married we were... business associates.’ This was clearly an edited version of events, and Lorraine made another mental note to check out the facts. ‘I know Sonja quite well. She is not a normal person, I would say, an unbalanced woman, and cold at the core. She never got over Harry’s leaving her for me — never. Of everyone around Harry, the two people I would say most capable of murder are Sonja and Harry’s good friend Raymond Vallance.’
‘Really?’ Lorraine said, sceptical as ever of information so readily volunteered, and attempts to throw suspicion on others. ‘So you don’t think Cindy killed him?’
Kendall shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘How did you and Harry get along after you were divorced?’
Kendall’s eyes hardened like stones. ‘We had a mutually beneficial relationship. We were business partners in this gallery, and I relied a great deal on Harry’s knowledge and judgement of art.’ She paused, as though flicking channels on a television, to give Lorraine a quick flash of the downcast, heartbroken friend, then clicked smartly back to business. ‘We also collected together privately, and it was agreed between us that what we bought should be jointly owned. We decided to keep it at Harry’s house so that we wouldn’t have to install a lot of security at two locations, but I paid the insurance premiums. Half the collection is therefore mine,’ she declared, as though speaking from the Supreme Court. ‘And that, Mrs Page, is not any kind of an advantage I have derived under Harry’s will. It was my property, whether he was living or dead. In fact it is to my detriment that Harry died when he did, before we had... clarified the arrangements about the collection.’
Arrangements Kendall Nathan had probably made up the moment her ex-husband was dead, Lorraine thought. ‘I see,’ she said, with a bright, fake smile of her own. ‘Well, let’s leave that one for the lawyers to fight out. I was really wondering about your personal relationship with Harry.’
‘Our relations were cordial,’ Kendall said curtly.
‘Did you see one another socially, as well as in a business capacity?’
‘We had lunch or dinner from time to time. Sometimes we went to art markets or sales. We did not travel together. We did not continue a marital-type relationship, if that’s what you’re trying to suggest.’
‘Oh, no, of course not,’ Lorraine said, with another false smile. ‘But while we’re on that subject, Harry used to record, well, a lot of things that happened at the house, didn’t he?’
‘Cindy mentioned there were telephone recordings,’ Kendall said guardedly.
‘I believe he also recorded some... fairly private activities, while you were married.’
In an instant Kendall knew that Lorraine had seen the tapes, and rose nervously from her desk. She walked a few paces towards the window and looked out into the street. ‘Harry liked to go to the edge — a lot of film people do. I was very young at the time’ — Lorraine stifled a smile: Kendall Nathan had married Harry in her mid-thirties, and must now be at least forty — ‘and I went along with some things which, of course, I wouldn’t have any involvement with now. Harry did make some tapes,’ she admitted. ‘I assume Cindy has told you about them too.’
We’ve discussed them.’ Lorraine was deliberately evasive.
‘Mrs Page, I won’t waste your time or mine,’ Kendall continued, cutting straight to the chase. ‘I realize you’ve seen these tapes and I’m concerned about what is going to happen to them now. You haven’t shown them to any of your associates?’ Her dark eyes bored into Lorraine’s.
‘Of course not,’ Lorraine said, and saw the light of calculation enter Kendall’s eyes.
‘I’d be prepared to compensate you, naturally, if some of those tapes happened to go missing,’ Kendall said, moving back to her desk and apparently studying some notes on her phone pad.
‘I’m sorry, but any evidence relevant to the case will have to be passed on to the police,’ Lorraine responded. ‘The tapes aren’t mine to dispose of, and they may form an important part of Cindy Nathan’s defence.’
‘I see.’ Kendall Nathan gave Lorraine a look that would have cut sheet steel.
‘What are your relations with Cindy like?’ Lorraine said, as much to change the subject as anything else.
Kendall shrugged. ‘Our paths crossed, obviously, but I’d call her just an acquaintance, and one I wouldn’t go out of my way to see.’
‘So you don’t like her?’
‘I didn’t say that. I have no feelings with regard to her.’ That was a lie: Kendall was clearly as burned at being left by Nathan as she claimed Sonja had been.