Chapter 16
Sonja was sitting quietly, looking out over the bay, the telephone still on her lap, when she heard a car draw up outside. Arthur, she thought, with a pang of conscience. She would have to apologize to him for the scenes of the night before. He did his best, but he only irritated her with his childish insistence that the world was really good and beautiful, that things could change. It was like talking to a six-year-old, she thought, and, anyway, it was pointless for anyone to talk to her when she got into a dark state. She was the only one who could deliver herself from it. But it was gone now, she had acted to discharge it: she would teach Vallance a lesson he would never forget. She felt as peaceful as the sheet of blue water in front of her, if a little tired...
To her surprise she heard someone knock loudly on the front door. Arthur must have forgotten his keys — it was possible, in view of the frame of mind in which he had left the house. Glancing out of the window on her way to the door, however, she saw not the jeep but a police car. Her limbs weakened and trembled and her throat constricted.
Outside was Officer Vern Muller, an old friend: she had known him since she moved to the Hamptons, seven years ago.
‘Mrs Nathan,’ he said, ‘I have some bad news for you, I’m afraid.’ His expression was grim. Oh, God, she thought, not Arthur... ‘Can I come in?’ Muller asked.
‘Certainly,’ she said, standing back to let the thick-set policeman walk past her into the hall. She followed him, her stomach turning over. Arthur, oh, Arthur, she cried silently, images of his lifeless, mangled body, mingling with those of Nathan’s dead body. Everything she touched she killed, she thought.
‘Do you want a drink?’ she said to the policeman as they reached the kitchen, wanting to put off the moment when he told her and a new phase of her life really had begun.
‘No — but maybe have one yourself,’ Muller said. He waited, saying nothing, while she poured herself out a measure of whisky and sat down.
‘Mrs Nathan, I have something to tell you which I didn’t want you to hear on the news,’ he began. ‘I just heard it myself from the station and I came right up. Raymond Vallance is dead. He shot himself in town. I know you were friends for many years.’
‘Vallance is dead?’ Sonja repeated.
She knew she sounded stupid and the police officer gave her a strange look.
‘Yes, Raymond Vallance. He was staying at the Maidstone Arms with some woman, and... they’re not exactly sure what happened. He just walked outside and shot himself.’
Relief raced through Sonja like a rip-tide: she felt giddy with happiness and had to fight to keep it from blossoming in her face.
‘When was this?’ she managed to ask, a second realization dawning, hard on the heels of the first.
‘Just minutes ago. I heard it as I was driving past the gate and I thought I’d turn in.’
God, she thought. When she had called Vallance to tell him that, if he was so keen on reliving old times, he should be delighted to hear that she intended releasing the real record of those old times — Harry Nathan’s videotapes — to the press, she had not anticipated what he would do. Had he killed himself out of shame at the prospect of his own humiliation being made public, or of Harry Nathan being seen at last for what he was? She would not have been surprised if it was the latter, and it gave her a certain, almost aesthetic, pleasure to think that the sick hero-worship that had dominated Vallance’s life had finally killed him.
‘You’re sure you don’t want a drink?’ she said. She didn’t feel a flicker of remorse at Vallance’s death but she did her best to seem saddened and shaken by what Muller had just told her. He detected, though, that the news was less of a blow to her than he had thought it would be.
Well,’ he said, ‘perhaps just a small one.’
The whole thing was perfect, Sonja thought, as she got out a glass for him. She knew that both Arthur, and possibly Lorraine Page, might suspect that she had had something to do with Vallance’s death — and she had a perfect alibi, a large, solid, unimpeachable policeman sitting right here in her kitchen within minutes of it.
‘He was more my ex-husband’s friend than mine,’ Sonja said — she needed to offer some explanation for her lack of distress at Vallance’s death. ‘I hadn’t seen him since my divorce.’
‘Yeah, I was sorry to hear about... your ex-husband.’ Muller took the glass, looking at her, Sonja thought, just a touch too intently. Surely he could not connect her with a murder on the other side of the country. ‘It was all over the papers and everything. I guess Vallance will be too — he was a pretty big star at one time.’
‘At one time,’ Sonja repeated. ‘Poor Raymond, he hadn’t worked in anything you could take seriously for years.’
‘The boys are wondering whether that might have been why he shot himself — he’d been bragging all over the hotel that he had some big movie or something coming up, and apparently he got some call or other while he was eating, got up to take it, then walked out back and... Goodbye, cruel world.’
‘He must have lost the deal, I imagine,’ Sonja said, lying effortlessly, a skill she was not proud of but had had all her life.
‘You can’t think of anyone around here could have called him?’ Muller asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sonja said, ‘I can’t help you. I haven’t had any contact with that whole world in years.’
‘Well,’ Muller said, draining his glass, ‘I’d better not keep you.’
‘I’m sorry if I seemed a little... strange when you came in,’ Sonja said with a charming smile. ‘It’s just that Arthur and I had a slight disagreement last night and I just got the idea that something might have happened to him.’
‘Arthur!’ the officer said, with a laugh. ‘He’s asleep in the jeep a mile up the road. I drove past him, but I didn’t have the heart to wake him up.’
The hotel was full of a mixture of shock and excitement, as people sat at tables or in the bar, discussing Raymond Vallance’s career as though they had known him, waiting for the press to arrive and, Lorraine thought, secretly as thrilled as children to be caught up in events that would make news. The East Hampton Star had already sent a reporter, and people were talking eagerly to him. Police officers were interviewing staff in one of the conference rooms, and Reception was presently unattended. It was the manager himself who appeared and signalled to Lorraine as she stood at the door of the bar. ‘Mrs Page, there’s a call for you.’ Lorraine was surprised, and followed him to the desk. ‘You can take it here if you like. I almost said you’d checked out, but then I saw you.’
‘Thank you.’ She took the phone, and he backed away politely, leaving her alone. ‘Lorraine Page,’ she said into the receiver.
‘Feinstein here.’ Her heart sank. ‘I got your messages,’ he continued. ‘You know I tried to call you earlier?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’ve located three passports — we’ve sent copies to your office. The brother’s a bit of a fruitcake, so I’ve put in a call to Abigail Nathan, the mother, and she’ll be calling me back. Now, about this other thing, if you get any information about missing funds or the paintings themselves, by all means agree to some payment, but discuss it with me first. Any further developments?’ he demanded.