‘Okay, I’ll call you at your office. Are you going in today?’
‘Yes. I’ve got a few odds and ends to sort out.’
‘You’re not still working on the Nathan case?’
‘Well, not really — there isn’t a case to work on.’
He grinned. ‘You’ll be touting for work.’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, see you later.’ He went out, and she stayed in the bedroom doorway, listening to his footsteps going down the stairs. She crossed to the window and looked out, wanting to see him walking to his car, wanting just to watch him as he unlocked it. He turned, as if he knew she was there, and smiled up at her, stood for a few moments, just looking, before he got in and drove away.
‘Right, Tiger, soon as I’m dressed we go walkies,’ she said, and couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
Lorraine was singing as she walked into the office. Decker was sitting at his desk as she breezed past him with a loud ‘Good morning.’
‘It’s better than you think,’ he said, picking up his notebook.
‘You can say that again, it’s a...’ She was about to say something silly, but instead burst out laughing.
‘My, my, you got out of bed the right side.’
‘I did, I most certainly did.’ She sat in her chair and swung from side to side as he put a memo in front of her. ‘Mr Feinstein... urgent, three messages on the answerphone. I called him back, but he insisted that he could only speak directly to you, and would you call him as soon as you got in.’
‘Maybe they’ve got the autopsy results,’ she said, dialling Feinstein’s number.
‘I doubt it. Two of the calls came in last night, and one at eight this morning.’
Decker went into his section to get coffee for Lorraine, and some bagels with cream cheese, which he had also bought. As he came back with them, Lorraine was tapping her desk with a pen. ‘He won’t discuss it on the phone, wants me to go round to his office. When I asked if it had anything to do with Cindy Nathan’s death, he said it was an entirely different matter.’
‘You want breakfast before you go?’
‘No, thanks, I had scrambled eggs.’ She was already collecting her purse and running a comb through her hair.
‘You’re looking very... relaxed,’ Decker said, cocking his head appraisingly to one side.
‘I am, and I might take off early this afternoon. Can you book me a hairdressing appointment and a manicure?’
‘Got a date?’ he asked jokingly.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.’
‘Ohhh.’ Decker scuttled after her. ‘So I was right!’ Lorraine bit her lip and giggled, more feminine, girlish even, than he had ever seen her.
Lorraine was half out of the door. ‘You just might be,’ she tossed over her shoulder, and then she was gone.
Decker chucked her bagel to Tiger, who caught it and wolfed it down in two gulps. ‘She got laid last night, didn’t she?’ he asked the dog, whose jaws chomped in reply. ‘Well, well, well... I thought he was a pretty hot number myself.’
Clearly today was not one of Feinstein’s good days. He was dishevelled, his tie askew, and he was sweating as he paced up and down the sea of carpet. ‘I’ve had another art expert in, just to make sure, and he confirmed it. They are fakes, every single fucking one of them.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Lorraine said lamely, glancing behind him at a large painting on the wall. A letter-opener, made from the top ten inches of a narwhal tusk, protruded from the middle of it, stabbed through the canvas.
‘Not as sorry as I am. Have you any idea how much money I’ve lost? My life savings were in those fucking paintings.’ His voice cracked, and he almost broke down. Then a fit of rage seized him as with a sudden sweep of his arm he dashed pens, blotter, designer candy-dispenser and executive toys off his heroically proportioned desk. ‘That shit Harry Nathan, that two-faced bastard! When I think of everything I did for that son-of-a-bitch, I’m telling you, if he was to walk in right now I’d shoot him — I’d kill the bastard.’
‘What does Harry Nathan have to do with all this?’ Lorraine asked, as Feinstein seized the letter opener from the canvas and slashed at it, using all his strength in an effort to rip the thing apart.
‘I bought all my art through the Nathan gallery. These are fakes, right? So somebody, somewhere, has my paintings, and Harry Nathan has my money stashed somewhere, because I’ve been through every fucking bank account he had and the cheque I gave him never showed up in any of them!’
Feinstein began to hurl pages of bank statements across to her. So much for client confidentiality — as soon as he was personally affected, all he cared about was himself. ‘You trace those paintings, you trace his fucking secret accounts — I’m talking about millions, millions.’
Lorraine watched as Feinstein threw more files across the room, and waited until at last he sat down in his throne-like swivel chair. ‘I will need to ask you some particulars, Mr Feinstein, and we will also have to discuss my fees.’
‘I’ll pay you whatever you want — just get me my paintings. My wife will divorce me? He sank his head in his hands.
‘I’ll need to take some notes,’ she said, opening her briefcase and taking out her pad.
Feinstein flicked a switch on his intercom, which had been flashing on and off since Lorraine had arrived. ‘No calls, Pamela — period.’ He flicked the switch off again, and patted his pockets for his cigar case. He found it, chose one, and ripped off the wrapper. ‘Fucking start with Harry Nathan.’ He snapped on a lighter.
‘That might be a little difficult,’ Lorraine said, smiling.
‘You think this is funny, Mrs Page? I’m down two and half million and it’s fucking destroying me.’ He huffed and puffed at his cigar, then bit off the end and spat it across the room. ‘Find out anything you can on Nathan’s bank accounts. I can tell you some aliases I know Harry used — I want them checked out.’
‘So Harry Nathan actually sold you the paintings?’ Lorraine enquired innocently.
Feinstein looked at her, then at the ceiling. ‘Who the fuck did you think sold me them? Sure, Kendall Nathan handled it, arranged delivery and stuff. Check her out — she wouldn’t take a leak without his permission. The two of them pulled this off together and I want the slimy bitch fucking charged. I bought them through the gallery, right? I had them authenticated there, and Kendall — or somebody who worked for her — hung them for me here. So start with her.’
‘Did Kendall benefit significantly under Harry Nathan’s will?’ Lorraine asked, knowing it wasn’t strictly relevant to the art fraud but unable to resist the temptation to take advantage of Feinstein’s temporarily uncontrolled state to try to find out what he had refused to tell her before.
‘Well, she got the other half of the gallery,’ Feinstein answered. ‘Little pay-off for services rendered, by the looks of things.’
‘But what about the art collection at the house?’ Lorraine went on. ‘Does that come to Kendall now that Cindy’s dead?’
Feinstein was off on another tack. ‘The police asked me for a specimen of her handwriting. I could have given them ten fucking specimens of suicide notes if they had wanted them, but they didn’t ask. Cindy was always threatenin’ to kill herself. She used to write letters to practically anyone she knew about how fucking miserable she was with Harry. What the fuck she thought I was going to do about it is beyond me.’
Lorraine felt another pang of grief for the tormented girl, calling out for help to everyone around her, only to meet with indifference and rejection. But it was interesting that she had apparently written letters mentioning suicide to quite a number of people. Lorraine couldn’t see Feinstein killing her himself, but the idea of him perhaps selling a letter that might help in getting rid of Cindy didn’t seem beyond the bounds of credibility. Or if Cindy had written to Harry’s lawyer for advice on her emotional problems with him, it was not impossible that she had written to one or both of his ex-wives...