Cindy’s acting — as she pretended Lorraine was a masseuse — was as bad as it had been in her TV roles. She gestured for Lorraine to follow her into an adjoining room. It was a gym, very professional with weights, sit-up bars, medicine balls and leg stretchers. Close to a boxing punch-bag, in the centre of the space, was a row of different-sized gloves in bright red leather. ‘I always used to call this Harry’s toy cupboard. He was always in here when he was home, working out.’
‘He must have been fit.’
‘Yes, he was. Well, so he should have been. He spent enough time looking after his body.’ She giggled, and covered her mouth. ‘I reckon the reason he was so obsessive was...’ she held up her little finger and waggled it ‘...he was kind of small. Some parts of the body you can never build up.’
Lorraine perched on one of the black leather-covered benches, irritated by the girl’s innuendo. ‘Did you kill him, Cindy?’ she asked.
‘No, I did not. I did not.’
Lorraine smiled encouragingly at her. ‘Good. Now, can we talk in here or not?’
‘Yes, it’s safe.’
‘Safe?’
‘Ah... yes. Harry used to record stuff,’ Cindy said, colouring slightly, and Lorraine had the impression that the girl had said something she hadn’t meant to. ‘But down here was his private place. Nobody came down here but him,’ she chattered on. ‘I used to have to go out to my classes — he wouldn’t let me work out down here.’
‘What kind of thing did Harry record?’ Lorraine asked.
‘Oh... just conversations. He taped phone calls, and there were cameras in all the rooms in the house. For security, you know, the art.’
‘You knew about that, though.’
‘Oh, yes, I knew.’
Again Lorraine felt that Cindy wasn’t telling the full truth, and she wondered whether the presence of a pornographer, an ex-actress and a large number of cameras under the same roof had had the inevitable consequence. ‘He didn’t make any other sort of recordings?’
‘No,’ Cindy said, a shade too quickly. ‘He was just paranoid, even about personal things. I mean, he hated anyone to know he’d had a face-lift, and he dyed his hair — plus he took his drugs down here.’ It was a titbit thrown out to shift the conversation away from a subject Cindy clearly didn’t want to discuss.
Lorraine asked, ‘What drugs did he use?’
‘Oh, stuff for body-building mostly. Sometimes he’d have a few lines of cocaine, but mostly it was steroids, or speed — he was a real speed freak. But he was careful. He’d never over-indulge — he always knew exactly what he was taking.’
‘Did you take drugs?’
‘Me?’ Cindy gave a goofy grin, suddenly the little girl again, as if it were all a game. ‘Oh, yeah, I’d do anything that was going, mostly cocaine. But I haven’t touched anything since I knew about the baby. I’ve got to take care of myself. You have to when you’re pregnant.’
Cindy gazed at her reflection in the mirrors, and Lorraine considered how to question her. She would like access to the tape recordings Cindy had mentioned. ‘Can I just take you through the events up to your arrest?’ she said.
‘Sure. Do you want a drink?’
The girl’s butterfly mind digressed into trivia — either she didn’t realize the seriousness of her situation, or she was trying to hold on to some kind of normality. She wandered off to a small kitchen area, tucked away at one side of the gym by the showers.
‘Just water for me,’ Lorraine said, following her.
Cindy opened the fridge and selected a can of Diet Coke for herself. She opened a cupboard and took out a glass. Having forgotten, it seemed, Lorraine’s water, she opened the can and poured out the contents.
‘Where exactly were you on that morning?’ Lorraine asked, sitting down on a work bench and taking out her notepad.
‘I was lying on the balcony, over there.’ Cindy waved her hand. ‘I fell asleep.’
‘Would that be at the front of the house?’ Lorraine asked.
‘Sort of. There’s balconies all over the house, but I kind of move around with the sun, you know, so I was on that one.’ She pointed to indicate which side of the house she meant.
‘And the swimming pool is where exactly?’
‘Behind you,’ Cindy said.
‘Is there access from here to the pool?’
‘Of course. Behind the mirrors, they slide back.’
‘Right. So what time were you sunbathing?’
‘Oh, the usual time.’ She took a slug of her Coke, draining the glass.
‘Yes, but I don’t know your usual routine, so if you would just take me through it.’ Lorraine tried not to sound irritated.
‘Okay. I get up usually about nine, sometimes earlier, sometimes a lot later, shower, then work on my tan for a couple of hours — just my body, I don’t do my face.’
‘Do the servants all know your routine?’
‘Of course, I’ve been doing it since I got married — get up, shower, sunbathe, swim, get dressed for lunch.’
Cindy started doing half-hearted t’ai chi exercises in front of the mirror.
‘So on the day you discovered your husband’s body, you were sunbathing as usual and you fell asleep. A loud noise woke you — about what time would that have been?’
Cindy wrinkled her nose. ‘Maybe eleven. I was asleep the first time, then I heard it again. At first I thought it was a car backfiring. It was just one loud bang. Then I saw all these birds flying up, from the garden by the shrubbery. You can’t see the pool from the balcony, just the edge of the garden, so I called Harry, wondering if he was messing about.’
‘Messing about?’
‘Yeah. Sometimes he’d take pot-shots at the birds. It used to make me mad as hell, because once he killed one.’
Lorraine doodled on her pad as Cindy went into a long monologue on how she loved all of nature’s creatures. Finally she interrupted, ‘You know, Cindy, if you’re found guilty of murdering your husband, you’ll be locked up in a prison and you’ll be hard pushed to hear a single tweet. Now I know it may be tedious, but I have to ask all these questions so I know exactly what I should—’
‘I never killed him,’ the girl said, red-faced with anger.
‘I know you didn’t, but you’re to stand trial for it, unless—’
‘I never killed him. I found him, that’s all.’
‘So, will you close your eyes and tell me exactly what you did, from the time the noise woke you to the moment you discovered your husband’s body?’
Cindy covered her eyes with her hands. ‘You mean, like creatively visualize?’ Clearly this was something she was familiar with.
‘Just tell me what happened.’
‘After the bang, I called out his name,’ Cindy began. ‘When I got no reply, I picked up my towel, and my sun creams and my straw hat. I went into the bedroom and decided I’d have a swim. I didn’t have anything on — I sunbathe naked — so I put my swimsuit on and got a big outdoor towel. Then I heard another bang — I was pretty sure it was a gun this time, so I put on my mules and went downstairs...’ She withdrew her hands from her face, and her big blue eyes stared ahead. ‘I went to the pool and put my towel on the chair by the table. I saw Harry’s towel, his sandals, and his cigarette packet. I looked around because one cigarette was smoked down — there was a long line of ash on it.’
Cindy blinked, and Lorraine noticed that she was looking at herself in the mirrors again as she spoke.
‘I was about to dive in so I went to the deep end. First thing I noticed was the water was kind of pink, and then I saw him. I called out his name — he was lying face down, arms outstretched — but I knew something bad had happened, and I started to scream. I screamed and screamed.’