The screen door was shut, as was the inner door. The bell did not work, so she tapped and waited, then knocked a little louder. The gravel crunched at the side of the house, and Lorraine turned sharply to see a tall, suntanned man with pepper and salt hair, who seemed almost as shocked to see Lorraine as she was to see him. ‘I’m looking for Mrs Nathan,’ she said.
‘Ah! She’s out in the studio. Wait a second, this’ll rouse her. It’s at the back of the house.’ He disappeared, and Lorraine heard what sounded like a ship’s bell being rung.
‘She’ll be right with you.’
Lorraine smiled.
‘When she starts working, she’s in a world of her own. We’re meant to be going to a deer meeting in town tonight if I can drag her away.’
The main door of the house opened, and the tall woman Lorraine had seen at the funeral appeared, raising one of her hands, deeply tanned with long, strong fingers and blunt-cut nails, to pull her strange white hair loose from a band which held it scraped back. She was less glamorously dressed today, in an old pair of chino pants and a deep blue linen shirt, but her intense, slightly cool presence was just as arresting.
‘Mrs Page?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry if I disturbed you. Were you working?’
‘Oh, that’s okay. I was just packing something,’ Sonja Nathan said, with a taut smile.
Lorraine walked up the steps and extended her hand. ‘It’s very nice to meet you properly. Thank you for agreeing to see me and, by the way, it’s Lorraine.’
‘It’s a pleasure,’ the older woman said, with the same quick smile, no more than a social reflex. Her eyes, Lorraine saw at close quarters, were grey-green and her gaze had a curious quality of restless abstraction, like a sea, Lorraine thought, a cold northern sea. She noticed, too, that Sonja Nathan did not invite her to call her by her first name, though perhaps that was down to preoccupation rather than hauteur.
‘Do come in,’ Sonja Nathan said, standing back to usher Lorraine into the house.
As she walked inside Lorraine gasped: nothing could have prepared her for the view. The house had floor-to-ceiling windows on all four sides, like complete walls of glass, and outside, drawing her in like a glorious living painting, was a vista of the most breathtaking seascape. ‘A woman from LA came here a few days ago. She called it awesome. Tiresome word, but it does describe it.’
Sonja led Lorraine down a flight of stairs and into a spacious kitchen with a wood and brick fireplace. The view seemed less spectacular from here than it did from upstairs, but still drew attention.
‘Now, what would you like to drink?’ Sonja said, opening the fridge.
‘Anything cool, really — water, juice, Coke.’
Sonja produced a can of Coke, a tall glass and ice from the dispenser. She poured some coffee from a percolator for herself, not seeming to notice that it looked cold, tarry and unappetizing.
‘You’re working for Mr Feinstein, did you say?’ Sonja said, moving towards the doors. ‘Let’s sit outside.’ Lorraine followed her out onto the veranda. ‘I must say, I never much cared for Feinstein,’ she continued.
‘Well, I imagine he’ll be becoming something of a fixture in your life for the next few months at least — the estate is complex, he says.’
Sonja Nathan immediately detected Lorraine’s attempt to work the conversation round to her having inherited all her ex-husband’s property, and clearly was not disposed to play ball. ‘So it is. What exactly did Feinstein tell you to ask me?’
‘Oh, he didn’t send me here, exactly. He’s retained me to investigate an art fraud, which it seems Harry and Kendall were pulling.’ Sonja Nathan did not react, but the restless movements of her green eyes stopped, and her gaze became opaque. ‘It seems they sold genuine canvases then delivered fakes. Feinstein got stung — as did a lot of other people who haven’t tumbled to it yet.’
‘That is an extraordinarily audacious piece of dishonesty,’ Sonja said. ‘They might be found out at any time if the owner had the painting valued or sold it again, or if someone who could tell wheat from chaff just happened to come to the house.’
‘I was wondering, Mrs Nathan, whether you might have fallen into that category,’ Lorraine said. ‘Did you go to Harry Nathan’s house recently? I don’t suppose you noticed anything about the paintings at any time? If I were to give you a list of the paintings, would you tell me if you ever recall seeing them at the house?’
Lorraine went back inside to find her briefcase, which she had left in the hallway. She took a quick look around the room as she picked it up: there were a number of large canvases, some carvings, wonderful pottery and antique tables. Nothing matched, but as an ensemble they worked well.
When she returned to Sonja she gave her the list, which Sonja glanced at and handed back. ‘I never went there,’ she said evenly. ‘I haven’t set foot in the house since I left LA seven years ago.’
‘Do you ever go back to LA?’ Lorraine asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Sonja said lightly. ‘I still have friends there. And the city, of course, was important to me at one time.’ She got up, looking out over the woods and water.
‘I’ve seen pictures of the work you did there — it’s very powerful,’ Lorraine said. ‘Have you been back recently except for Harry’s funeral?’
Sonja looked her straight in the eye. ‘I haven’t been there other than then for a year, and I wasn’t in LA the day Harry was killed, if that’s what you mean.’ There was a moment’s pause, and Lorraine felt that it was almost as if the other woman were defying her to prove anything different.
‘Feinstein is concerned only to make good his own losses, but it affects you too, of course,’ Lorraine went on, resisting the other woman’s efforts to close the subject. ‘I mean financially. Harry Nathan apparently pulled the same scam twice. He had the originals in the house, then switched them again, we think to cut out Kendall. The original art at the house was Nathan’s major asset. If we can’t recover it, the value of the estate, which I believe now comes to you, is greatly reduced.’
Sonja shrugged, pushing back with her arms to propel herself off the rails of the verandah. ‘I never expected to inherit a penny of Harry’s and I couldn’t care less if I don’t.’
‘Sonja.’ A deep voice spoke suddenly from inside the kitchen, and Lorraine thought she detected in it a note of warning. The man she had met earlier came out to them; he had clearly heard every word of what Sonja had just said.
‘I’m going to take the kayak out for an hour,’ he went on. ‘I’ll be back in time for lunch.’
‘Fine,’ Sonja said, glancing at him only briefly. ‘You be careful now, Arthur dear.’
Lorraine watched the couple with interest as Arthur spoke again, apparently casually. ‘You too, sweetheart.’ She did not meet his eye. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Page. I imagine you may be gone by the time I get back.’ He spoke courteously, but both Lorraine and Sonja understood his message. Lorraine was conscious of a certain relaxation in the other woman once they heard him leave the house.
‘Does Arthur... have a problem with Harry’s having left you so much money?’ Lorraine asked, with bold naturalness, assuming an intimacy with Sonja she knew didn’t exist. She was surprised when Sonja answered equally directly.
‘He has a problem with Harry. It’s just jealousy, I guess, that I shared so much of my life with Harry, that we were something to one another that Arthur and I cannot be. It’s just the way life is. One can’t go back. Can I get you another drink?’