Cold Heart (9 page)

Lorraine woke with a start.

‘Listen to this. Seems Nathan wasn’t the rich man we think he was.’

Decker replayed the tape.

‘You’re a piece of shit, Harry.’

‘Yeah, so tell me somethin’ new.’

‘I’m telling you straight, an’ no amount of fucking blackmail and threats will make me stay on this garbage.’

Nathan laughed. ‘You threatening me?’

‘No, but you do whatever your dirt-bag mentality wants. I am through making second-rate porno shit.’

From then on, the tape was all business, one call after another from the studio as the film was halted. The director had walked and the cast and crew were threatening to quit unless they got paid. Then came a series of calls made by Nathan as he replaced the director, raised further finances to cover the production costs, and another when he suggested that certain incriminating photographs of Julian Cole be released to the gutter press, to teach the son-of-a-bitch a lesson – that nobody messed with Harry Nathan. The astonishing thing throughout the flurry of calls was how relaxed and easy Nathan sounded as he cajoled and bullied everyone he spoke to. Last on the tape came a pitiful call from Julian Cole, the director who had walked off the set, begging Nathan not to release the photos.

‘Listen, my friend, you owed me a favour. You quit on me and caused a lot of aggravation. I warned you . . .’ Nathan said airily.

There was a deep intake of breath on the line and then the weeping man hissed, ‘You bastard! I’ll make you sorry.’

‘Try it. Many have before, Jules, but they’ve always failed. Screwing under-age kids’ll make headlines. You’re finished. You’ll never get a gig in this town again.’

The tape ended and Lorraine looked at Decker. ‘You ever heard of this Julian Cole?’

Decker nodded. ‘He made some movie about a whale and a mermaid – Oscar nomination years ago – but I think he’s got one hell of a habit. Disappeared, or his later movies did.’

Lorraine got up and stretched her arms above her head. ‘Maybe he could be a suspect – maybe half the callers we just listened to could be. Seems a lot of people wanted Harry Nathan dead.’

Decker agreed. ‘What a sleaze-bag. I’ll run a check on all the callers we got.’

‘Mm, yes, but first run a check on Nathan’s finances – let’s see how broke he was. Something tells me he’s the kind of man that has stashes of cash but won’t touch a cent of his own money if he can blackmail, or whatever else, to make some other poor schmuck pay up.’

Decker rewound the tape and reached for the next. By tape five they had Raymond again, still talking about his latest nubile love. The calls were as tedious as the rest, until the last one on the tape when Nathan suggested that, as Raymond’s career was going nowhere, he should do a small favour for him.

‘You must be joking, I haven’t reached that level.’

Nathan laughed. ‘I’m talking private tapes, man.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘I don’t follow, Harry,’ Raymond said, fear audible in his voice.

‘Yes, you do. You know about my wires, my little personal kicks.’

‘Jesus Christ, are you serious?’

“Fraid so. I need money, and . . .’

‘But you wouldn’t, I mean . . . They’re just between you and me.’

‘They were. But, like I said, I need cash. I got a studio to run, a movie about to go down, which will cost me, so—’

‘I can’t – you know, I can’t.’

There was a long pause.

‘Harry? You still there?’

‘Yeah, man.’

‘Don’t do this to me.’

‘Then you do somethin’ for me.’

‘I can’t. Jesus Christ, I can’t. I’ve got my career to think of.’

Nathan sighed, and his voice changed. ‘What career, Raymond? You are dead meat in this town – both you and your career, if you get my meaning.’

‘I thought you were my friend,’ came the plaintive response.

‘Raymondo, nobody is my friend when I’m tight for cash, and right now I’m tight. So, friendship apart, I need you to star in
Likely Ladies.
And I’ll release my private films if you don’t agree to wave your flaccid dick around in it. Now, you got that?’

‘If I refuse?’

‘Then I just release the private videos.’

The call cut off, and Lorraine looked at Decker. ‘My God, all those calls we listened to – he was just waitin’ to pounce.’

Decker nodded. ‘We got another suspect, right?’

Lorraine reached for the next tape. ‘Yes, sir, we do. And now it’s understandable.’

‘What is?’

‘The acid bath. Any one of the callers we just listed wouldn’t want these tapes released, and Raymond Vallance is moving up the list.’

Decker looked at his notes. A lot of people wanted, or might have wanted, Harry Nathan dead and for good reason: blackmail.

The next tape was disappointing, but just before it ended, Decker and Lorraine pricked up their ears.

‘Cindy, it’s me.’ It was Vallance’s voice.

‘Oh, hi. Harry’s not at home.’

‘Oh, really?’ There was an artificial brightness in Vallance’s voice. ‘When would be a good time to call?’

‘Oh – I’d say if you were to call . . . Harry, between three and four, that would be a good time.’ As usual, Cindy’s acting wasn’t up to much, and she suddenly dropped back into more natural tones. ‘Though I’m real sick. I think I got flu.’

‘It’s important.’

‘But I’m feeling real sick.’

‘I have to call
Hurry
, Cindy.’

‘Well, OK. Between three and four. I’ll tell him you called,’ Cindy said, in the arch voice of the chambermaid in
Paradise Motel.

Vallance hung up, and Lorraine made a note, looking at Decker. ‘Bit of a code going on there, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Mm, let’s play it again.’

They did so, and came to the conclusion that Raymond Vallance and Cindy Nathan were using a code to arrange meetings of their own. The last tape they played recorded Nathan talking about the reshoot of his film, with Raymond Vallance now as the ‘star attraction’. Finances were in place, and the film could continue shooting. At the end of the tape Nathan laughed. ‘I’m out of the shit,’ he said to an unknown caller, ‘and I have pre-sales that’ll keep me out of it. We’re back on schedule.’

‘I sincerely hope so, Harry,’ said a low, clipped male voice.

Lorraine rewound the tape. ‘That’s his lawyer, Feinstein. I recognize his voice,’ she said.

‘Shall I put him on this ever-growing list?’ Decker asked, pen poised.

‘No, lawyers don’t get involved in the dirt. They just get their clients out of it.’

Decker held up the last tape. ‘Ready for one more?’ He inserted it and pressed Play.

‘Harry, this is Kendall.’

‘Hi, honey, how you doing?’

‘I’m doing fine, but we need some publicity for the gallery. How’s Cindy, by the way?’

‘Got flu,’ Nathan replied.

‘I’m really sorry.’ Kendall seemed to be laughing.

‘I bet you are.’

‘No, I really am.’ There was a slight lisp in the woman’s voice.

‘I’d better come over and see you.’

‘I’ll be expecting you.’ There was an almost mocking note in the sexy voice. The phone went dead.

‘Put her on the list,’ Lorraine said, then looked at her notes. On paper, it still looked like a Raymond/Cindy inside job, but there was something about both ex-wives that had made her suspicious at the funeral. ‘I want to see Kendall Nathan and maybe I should speak to Sonja Sorenson, too. They’re the ones we know least about,’ she said.

‘I don’t follow. Shouldn’t you be seeing all these other names?’

‘Right. I do want to see them, especially Raymond Vallance. Blackmailers’ victims don’t usually murder, but—’

‘But?’ Decker butted in.

‘I think Harry Nathan was killed by one of his ex-wives. Question is, which one?’

Decker smiled. ‘Well, darling, I’ve heard all the tapes, and I’d say my main suspect would be Raymond Vallance.’

Lorraine grinned back at him. ‘That’s because you’re a man. I think Harry Nathan blackmailed or screwed everyone he ever came across. We could have endless lists of possible suspects, but he was killed – murdered – by someone close to him. Call it female intuition. It was either Cindy, Kendall or . . .’

‘Sonja,’ Decker interjected.

‘Yes. The murder was carefully premeditated by someone who knew his routine. Nathan lived by blackmail, he got what he wanted by fear and intimidation, so he would have been wary of strangers. Therefore, whoever killed Harry Nathan had to be someone he trusted.’

The office phone rang, and Decker picked it up. ‘Page Investigations,’ he said curtly. Then he covered the mouthpiece. ‘It’s Cindy Nathan, and she sounds hysterical. You want me to put her through to your office?’ he asked.

Lorraine hurried to her desk. ‘Tape it,’ she said, but he’d already switched the phone on to record.

‘Mrs Page, it’s me, Cindy Nathan. Can you come over, and hurry – you got to come over here.’ She was crying.

‘Cindy? Are you all right?’

Lorraine signalled to Decker, who looked over. ‘You want your car brought round?’

Lorraine nodded and returned her attention to the phone. ‘Cindy, I can’t hear you. Tell me what’s happened.’

‘I was only out for ten minutes. Somebody’s been here. I don’t know what to do, I’m all by myself and I’m scared.’

Cindy eventually calmed down enough to explain that the house had been broken into. The housekeeper and her husband were out and Cindy had not called the police, but when Lorraine suggested that she do so, she became even more hysterical, shouting that she had to see Lorraine first.

‘I’ll be right over.’

It took Lorraine no more than twenty minutes to get to the house. The gates were wide open, as was the front door, and Lorraine ran from the car into the house.

‘Cindy?’ she called, and her voice echoed round the vast hallway. There was no reply. First she went downstairs into the basement, then made her way up the wide open-tread staircase to the first floor. ‘Cindy?’

All the bedroom doors were closed, the polished wooden floor giving way to white thick-pile carpet, which bore the marks of painstaking vacuuming. On a white marble plinth against one wall a massive pre-Columbian ceramic piece was balanced precariously, as if it had been knocked or pushed to one side.

‘Cindy?’ Lorraine called again, but still there was no response. Lorraine hesitated, and chose a door at random. Without a sound, she turned the glass handle of one of a pair of ten-foot-high polished pine double doors, and stepped tentatively into the room.

The bedroom was a sea of white: white carpet, white walls. The only colour in the room was in the centre of the bed – where there was a dark red pool of blood.

Lorraine almost had heart failure as Jose appeared from behind her. ‘What are you doing in here?’

Lorraine whipped round. ‘I got a call from Cindy—’

‘She’s not here.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘Who are you?’

Lorraine opened her purse and handed the man her card. He glanced at it, then looked back to the landing at his wife. ‘She’s a private investigator.’

The woman gave Lorraine a hard stare. ‘I thought you said you came to give her a massage?’

‘Cindy asked me to say that,’ Lorraine said, silently cursing the girl for making her go through the silly charade. ‘She wanted to consult with me in private and was . . . feeling insecure.’

There was a pause, while the housekeepers registered that they were clearly the source of Cindy’s mistrust. Then Lorraine asked, ‘Where is she?’

Juana came closer. ‘Hospital. We had to call an ambulance.’

‘What happened? Was she attacked?’ Lorraine said impatiently. They looked at each other. ‘For God’s sake, answer me. She was hysterical when she called me and now . . .’ Lorraine looked at the bed as Juana went to remove the stained cover. ‘Leave that and tell me what happened.’

‘Mrs Nathan started to have a miscarriage. We found her in here, and dialled 911.’

‘Didn’t you go with her?’

‘She didn’t want us to,’ Juana said, pulling the coverlet from the bed and bundling it up with a look of disgust.

‘I think you should leave,’ said Jose.

Lorraine studied him: he was very nervous, his dark, thick-lashed eyes constantly straying to his wife’s. It was obvious to Lorraine that the pair knew more than they were prepared to admit about the sequence of bizarre events in the house.

‘What about the police?’ Lorraine said flatly. ‘Mrs Nathan told me the house had been broken into.’

‘What?’

Lorraine sighed. ‘When she called me, she said someone had been in the house, that she’d only been out ten minutes.’

Jose shook his head. ‘No, we have been here all afternoon. We only left to do some shopping earlier. Nobody has been here.’

‘Are you sure?’

There was yet another furtive exchange of glances. ‘Have you looked around the house?’ Lorraine asked. ‘Because if you haven’t, I suggest you do.’

Juana crossed to the doors with her bloody bundle, calling back, ‘You show her round, Jose.’

Lorraine turned back to Jose. ‘Is this the master bedroom?’

‘No, this is a guest suite.’

She asked to see Cindy’s bedroom, and Jose indicated that it was the next room along the corridor. According to him, it was Mrs Nathan’s own suite. When Lorraine asked if Cindy had slept alone or with her husband he shrugged. ‘I think it depended on how Mr Nathan felt.’

There were no photographs or knick-knacks in the ice-blue bedroom, but Cindy’s wardrobe made Lorraine gasp. She had never seen so many designer labels, not even in the smartest department store, row upon row of evening gowns, daywear, a whole closet of beach and casual wear, and racks of shoes. The walk-in wardrobe was more like a room, the size of her own bedroom, and from the sales tickets still attached it was obvious that many of the items had never been worn.

‘Mrs Nathan likes to shop,’ Jose said, with humour.

‘Obviously,’ Lorraine murmured, and looked around. ‘She’s surprisingly neat and tidy.’

Jose raised an eyebrow. ‘Tell that to my wife and she’d split.’ He gestured to her to follow him from the dressing room. ‘My wife spends hours every day just tidying up after her.’

Lorraine looked back at the pale blue room. It felt cold, empty and unused. It was hard to imagine Cindy sleeping in there, let alone dressing and . . . ‘What about her bathroom?’