While Kendall was pregnant things hadn’t been too bad — the prospect of the child had interested Harry more than its mother — but after she had her daughter the marriage went downhill fast. Now that Kendall was preoccupied with the baby, clucking endlessly about the contents of bottles and diapers, she bored Harry and got on his nerves.
She was baffled by the deterioration of their relationship, as though they had fast-forwarded, somehow, through what was meant to be the honeymoon period and had settled down into the stress, irritation and distance that longer-term marriages seemed to wallow in.
Then their little girl died suddenly, inexplicably, at seventeen months old, and neither of them was ever the same again. Kendall never forgave Harry for his insensitivity to her at the funeral, spending more time with that low-life closet case Vallance than with her, and he became embittered, his humour blacker and sicker, his lifestyle tackier and more decadent by the hour. Kendall knew they were in trouble now, but when she tried to talk to her husband on the odd occasions that she saw him, he said his actions were fuelled by anger at the child’s death.
It was in the weeks following the funeral that Harry had developed his interest in adult parlour games. Kendall hung on grimly, no matter what she had to go along with and how much of a blind eye she had to turn to his other playmates. She refused to become a member of the army of divorced and discarded women the city was thronged with. Vallance’s revenge for Kendall’s hostility had been to introduce Harry to Cindy and — after they had been married a little less than four years — Kendall knew she had lost him.
As her divorce settlement, he gave her a half share in the gallery and although she thought maybe she could have got more, she was glad to have the link of a business partnership with him, just to retain some contact. Devoid of sexuality herself, she had never been able to understand its power over others, and she was certain that the Harry-Cindy alliance would last no longer than her own marriage.
On the other hand, Kendall had always had a keen business mind, and unencumbered by the tasks of parenthood, she soon put her mind to making money again. The gallery did well enough, but she figured that to make serious money, you had to bend the rules a little. Harry had jumped at the idea of the forgeries, and if it was his money that financed the scam, it had been her brains that set it up.
Everything had gone sweetly up until now, and as Harry grew predictably disenchanted with Cindy and stories of the couple’s rows and public slanging matches circulated around the city, Kendall permitted herself to fantasize that he would realize what an asset she had been to him — how transitory the delights of the flesh, how enduring the joys of bank accounts containing seven-, even eight-figure sums. Kendall had convinced herself that when the fraud came to fruition and the paintings were sold on elsewhere, Cindy would be kicked out in the cold and she would be reinstalled as Harry Nathan’s wife.
All those dreams were now in ruins around her. She had nothing: he’d cleaned her out, just as he had Sonja, and he had dumped her for good, just as he had Sonja.
Kendall took another swig from the bottle, but she didn’t feel drunk. Harry had used her and lied to her, but she knew him well enough to be sure he wouldn’t have been able to arrange this latest deal alone — hadn’t had the intelligence. He must have had someone assisting him. Vallance? Cindy was out of the question, and she wondered if Sonja could have played any part in it. She began to pace up and down the room, drinking and stumbling around over the floral parterre rugs, which were meant to make the green carpet look like a garden, a witty allusion to the black Astroturf beyond. Sonja was the obvious person: she knew more about art than either Kendall or Harry. Was it possible that she had come back into Harry’s life?
Kendall wouldn’t allow herself to believe it. What about Harry’s brother Nick? He was an artist, he could have been behind it, and there was Harry’s mother — she had a considerable interest in art and antiques.
Abigail Nathan had been so friendly when Harry and Kendall were married, so pleased that Harry had got rid of Sonja, and overjoyed about her first grandchild. But Kendall had known in her heart that Abigail cared only about her sons. In her eyes they could do no wrong, and Kendall wondered if the whole Nathan family had ganged up against her. She remembered Cindy saying that someone had broken into the house and Abigail had keys, so the family could have taken the paintings, but how could she prove it without implicating herself?
Kendall began to search her desk drawers: Harry might not have kept up the house insurance premiums, but she had always paid the insurance of the gallery personally. Now it was all she had, and she knew what she would do: torch it, and claim the insurance. At least she would come out with something, and the more she thought about it, the better she felt. It could be done easily enough — the workshop was full of inflammable spirits, canvases and wooden frames and would catch fire quickly. As it was attached to the gallery, the whole site would go up.
She hurled everything out of the desk drawers, until she found the documents: the gallery was well insured, and the stock valued at two million dollars. She checked the insurance papers, just to make sure that, in the event of fire, she was fully covered, then crammed the rest of the documents, including the mass of crazy notes she had received from Cindy Nathan, back into the drawer. Those were certainly best out of circulation — she didn’t want anyone thinking she had had anything to do with that fucked-up bimbo’s death.
Kendall hurried out of her apartment to her Mitsubishi jeep. She loaded the cans of white spirit she kept in her garage into the back of it, muttering drunkenly that nobody was ever going to treat her like a doormat again. She would show that bastard and his family, and she was laughing as she drove out past Lorraine Page, who had parked a few yards from her front door, and whom she did not see. She was too intent on planning her revenge. Kendall wouldn’t be left penniless like Sonja, wouldn’t walk away without a fight.
Lorraine adjusted her driving mirror and watched the two-toned Mitsubishi jeep career down the road. She had hoped to challenge Kendall about Jose’s statement that he had seen her car on the morning of Harry Nathan’s death as well as Cindy’s suggestion of some fraud to do with the paintings, and her subsequent mysterious death. She tried to follow the jeep, but lost it after a few minutes. Kendall was going somewhere and fast: Lorraine wondered if Feinstein had already called her.
Lorraine returned to her office and tossed the car keys to the valet parking attendant, who gave her a wide grin. ‘Hi there. Nice day. You having one?’
‘Yep. How about you?’
‘Could be better,’ he said, getting into the Mercedes.
She rode the elevator up to her floor, headed for her office, and was about to enter when she heard voices.
Decker was serving coffee and chocolate madeleines, which he must have rushed out and bought, to Lieutenant Jake Burton. Lorraine hesitated, then smiled. ‘Hello.’
Burton stood up with a smile. ‘Off duty. Wondered if I could have a few moments?’
‘Sure, go into my office. I’ll just get rid of my coat.’
Decker ushered Burton into Lorraine’s office and closed the door behind him. ‘He just called in. Been here a few minutes,’ he whispered. ‘Single white male his age — don’t pass him up. I’d pull him.’