Cold Shoulder (41 page)

He could hear the bathwater draining away. He knocked, waited a moment, then knocked again. The softly playing classical music was turned off.

‘Come on, Steven, I have to talk to you. It’s important.’ He punched the bathroom door. ‘Okay, fucking stay in there. You can come to me, I’m not waiting any longer. But you’d better come and see me, you hear? That was Andrew Fellows, my friend from the college, the professor. He’s working with the police. He had something to tell me about you, about that Norman Hastings friend of yours. If you want to know what he told me, then… screw you, Steven!’

Brad waited another few moments, then spotted the briefcase, placed neatly at the side of the dressing table. He picked it up and tried to open it, but it was locked. He looked over the dressing table and found a thin paper-knife. He prised open the lock, removed a file of papers, and then replaced the briefcase. His brother had still not made a sound so he left.

Two minutes later the bathroom door opened and Janklow walked out, draped in a silk dressing gown, naked beneath it. He bolted the bedroom door, to ensure his privacy, then walked casually towards the dressing table and sat on the small frilled stool. He opened a bottle of lotion and began carefully to cream his hands. Every move was studied, each finger massaged, each perfectly manicured nail scrutinized. He used pointed cotton-wool sticks to wipe around the cuticles and then looked along his row of clear varnishes, choosing one and carefully painting each nail. His hands were steady; he was calm. He slipped off the robe and stood naked, surveying himself in the mirrors. His slim body was still pinkish from the bath, a pale, white-skinned body, but muscular. He never went in the sun, unlike Brad — he never did any of the things Brad did, not as a child or as a man.

He began to do his yoga exercises, studying every posture in his mirrors. His testicles were small, like marbles, and his penis flaccid. He knelt forwards, squeezing his thighs together, pushing his penis out of sight until he knelt upwards, seemingly devoid of any sex organ. His nipples were erect, pink, and he slowly massaged his breasts, breathing deeply. The only blemish on his hairless skin was the mark at the side of his neck. He had used oil of arnica, even make-up to disguise the toothmarks of the bitch who had bitten him. He had been desperate to find her again. She could hurt him much more than the bite had. He breathed deeply, not wanting to become agitated.

It was almost over, he was almost free. It had been a terrible long nightmare. He had even thought of suffocating his mother just so that she would never find out; he had done it all for her because he loved her with an all-consuming passion. But they were not like mother and son, they were one. That was why he couldn’t kill her. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, just as he could not tolerate her knowing about him.

Brad stood in his mother’s room. He wasn’t sure why he had come here, possibly because it reminded him of Steven’s. He stood at her dressing table looking at the photographs and then slipped his finger into the small drawer in the centre. Everything here had a place and not one perfume bottle was out of line. He sniffed a cut-glass stopper and recognized the same smell from his brother’s room. As he was about to replace the stopper, he accidentally knocked over the bottle, which tipped into the open drawer, perfume splashing over the leather jewel boxes. He swore, snatched a tissue from the white-embroidered box and dabbed at the leather, then took out the large, fan-styled box to make sure it was not stained. He clicked it open. The velvet-lined case that had once contained four fabulous ropes of perfectly matched pearls was empty. He closed it and then opened the other boxes. All were empty.

He whistled softly as he shut the drawers. He checked that the perfume bottle was once more in line with the others and walked out.

Just as Brad left his mother’s room, he heard the front door close. ‘Steven?
Steven?

He ran down the stairs just in time to see his brother drive out in the Mercedes.

Lorraine hadn’t seen it coming. She was totally taken aback when Dilly Fellows, midway through talking about Brad Thorburn, burst into tears. She sobbed loudly, hands over her face. ‘This is so stupid, but just talking about him hurts me so much because I love him. I don’t know what to do about it sometimes. I can usually control it but sometimes it just bursts out of me.’

Lorraine stood up. ‘Look, I’d better go. My friend’s waiting outside.’

Dilly sniffed. ‘You should have brought her in. I don’t know what’s happened to Andrew and I’m so sorry about this, I don’t know what you must think of me. Andrew doesn’t know. Oh, God, you won’t tell him, will you?’ Lorraine shook her head. ‘He’s got no idea. He knows I had a passion for Brad — well, it was obvious to begin with — but he doesn’t know just how much I care. I think about him all the time, I make up excuses to call him. I’m like a teenager — but I like it. I like this feeling. It’s like a pain, it’s almost sexual it gets so intense, and then when he comes here with Andrew, I have an orgasm just looking at him. I do, I honestly do, and it’s an incredible feeling. I put it back into my work when he’s been around, I can paint for hours. Did he touch you?’

Lorraine felt more and more uneasy. Dilly was over-bright, over-excited and her voice was verging on hysterical. ‘Why did you ask me all those questions about him? Did you fuck him?’

Lorraine picked up her purse. ‘No, I didn’t, and I have to go. Thank you for the tea.’ She couldn’t wait to get into the car.

‘Jesus, you took your time, I was just about to come in and get you. A few minutes, you said,’ Rosie growled. She was hungry and it was way past lunchtime.

Lorraine apologized. ‘That woman is freaky. I really liked her at first — she seemed so warm and friendly, so bloody normal.’

They drove off. ‘Where to next, home or what?’ Rosie asked.

Lorraine hesitated. ‘Look, we drive home, then ‘I’ve got to go some place else. I’ll take the car on alone because I don’t want to keep you hanging around any longer.’

‘Great, some fucking partner I am, I’m not in on anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about half the time.’

Lorraine jerked her thumb back at the house. ‘That was the wife of the guy the cops brought in to help solve the case. He’s a professor of psychology, working for Rooney. If you ask me, he should do some work on his wife. She just blurted out she was infatuated with Brad Thorburn, I couldn’t believe it.’

Lorraine knew she would go and see him, as soon as she got rid of Rosie, and it was strange, she had a dull, low ache in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to see him but it wasn’t just about the case. She wouldn’t admit that to herself, or that she was feeling sexually aroused. She refused even to contemplate that.

Rosie was still pissed off about being dumped back home when Lorraine dropped her off a little way from the apartment. Just as she turned the corner past the grocery store, Rooney screeched to a halt alongside her.

‘Where’s Lorraine? This is important, Rosie, there’s a warrant out for her arrest. If you know where she is you’ll be doing her a favour because they got every available officer out looking for her and if she resists arrest, she could get hurt.’ Rosie said nothing and Rooney got out of the car. ‘Come on, sweetheart, where is she? If you care anything about her you’ll tell me.’

Rosie looked down the road. ‘She’s gone off in the car.’

Rooney asked her for the registration number. Rosie was in a quandary but then she blurted it out. She’d said enough now and started off down the road.

‘Where you going?’

‘I got to go home, feed my cat.’

Rooney told her to stay in the apartment. If Lorraine came back she was to call him immediately. ‘You sure you don’t know where she is or where she was heading? When did you last see her?’

Rosie shouted that she’d told him all she knew and she hadn’t seen Lorraine since early morning. She hurried to her apartment and went up the stairs. She looked down at Rooney as he parked opposite the house watching her. ‘I don’t know where she is!’ she yelled as she let herself in and slammed the screen door behind her. She looked out of the window. Rooney was still there. She was about to call Jake when she heard Rooney’s car move off. She decided to wait for half an hour or so. If Lorraine hadn’t returned, if she hadn’t heard anything, she’d call Jake and ask him what she should do.

Andrew Fellows let himself in and called his wife. She gave no answer. In the kitchen, he noticed the two cups and saucers left on the draining board. He found her in the bedroom, huddled beneath the duvet, the TV on. ‘You had a visitor?’ She looked at him, eyes red-rimmed. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine. It’s a sad movie.’

‘Who was here?’

Dilly sat up. ‘Your friend Lorraine Page. She wanted to speak to you — waited ages.’ She swallowed and her eyes filled with tears. ‘She asked me questions about Brad and then she left. She had a friend waiting, she said.’

Fellows sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Just tell me exactly what she said, what questions she asked.’

Dilly switched off the TV by remote control. She repeated everything Lorraine had said but deleted any reference to her own outburst. Fellows went into his den. He called the police station.

Bean listened as Fellows reported that Lorraine Page had been at his home and had talked to his wife. He was very agitated and angry. Bean said he would send someone over straight away.

‘She’s not here now, she’s left.’

Bean called Rooney to let him know that Lorraine had been with Fellows’s wife. Rooney took the address; he was on his way. He’d just left Lorraine’s place, and had already put out the registration number of her vehicle. It would only be a matter of time before they brought her in.

Brad sifted through the file he had taken from Steven’s room, bank statements and other private papers. He knew it had been going on for some considerable time — it was obvious from the receipts. Steven, meticulous as ever, had carefully recorded each sale of every item he had removed from his mother’s jewel drawer. The four strands of pearls had been sold for five thousand dollars, although they were insured for three times that amount. The diamond rings, necklaces, the ruby and sapphire bracelets, the topaz ring, all had been listed but with a dash at the side of each item. Brad calculated that his brother had accrued over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, yet he had not paid it into his own bank accounts — unless he had another one somewhere.

Brad was aware that on his mother’s death she would leave the jewels to Steven. But that was no reason for him to have been selling them off without her permission — unless she knew of it. It was just after three. He decided against calling the nursing home: better to face Steven first when he came home.

He replaced the papers in the briefcase, then went back into his mother’s room. One of the wardrobe doors was slightly ajar and he opened it to close it properly. He looked at the rows of her wigs. He found them distasteful, as he found everything about her obsessive drive to retain her youth. The wardrobe was crammed with flimsy gowns and négligés, not fitting for a woman in her seventies, of an era when she had been in her prime. Brad was sweating from the overheated room and the cloying smell of her perfume. He felt slightly nauseous, also guilty. She had always hated anyone touching her things. She herself had never liked to be touched. How often as a child he had run to embrace her, but she had always held up her perfectly manicured hands as if she was scared to be held by her own child. It had been different with Steven. If anything, she had encouraged him because he was so much older than Brad. She pointedly preferred his company. Brad remembered his father in one of his rages shouting up the stairs, as she stood quivering in pale lime chiffon, that if she didn’t want him, he would find other women who did. ‘Other women?’ She had leered down at his father, her perfect red lips drawn back in a snarling smile. ‘No decent woman would come within a mile of you. Whores! You can only get a whore and that’s because you pay her!’

‘You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? Janklow picked you out of the chorus line. You were a ten-cent stripper — you think I don’t know? Movie star? The closest you ever got to a real movie was paying at the ticket window.’

She would throw things, she would rant and rage at him whenever he referred to her first husband, or her chorus line days, and he would roar with laughter, enjoying her fury, her humiliation, encouraging Brad to listen, warning him never to marry someone else’s used goods. She would become so hysterical that she would smash mirrors and crockery, and lock herself into her room for days on end. The only person who was ever able to calm her was Steven.

Back in his own room, Brad lay down, looking up at his mirrored ceiling. The mirror remained, a legacy from Tom Thorburn. Brad wondered if the other legacy was his predilection for young blondes. He had certainly married enough of them. But of late, like his father, he chose to go with whores rather than get involved in yet another relationship. It was rare for women to say no to him: on the polo field, at the racetrack, they were always available, like clutches of twittering starlings.

He was a man to whom few women said no. That was why he had liked Lorraine Page. She had said no but she had almost said yes. Just thinking about her gave him an erection. He was no longer pondering on his brother or what Andrew Fellows had hinted at. He was even able to put aside the Norman Hastings query, simply because he felt sure that the reason Steven had been so secretive was because of his systematic siphoning off of his mother’s jewellery. He wished he had just come out and asked Andrew for Lorraine’s phone number.

But even his relationship with Andrew was a mess because his wife was always wanting Brad to screw her, and she wasn’t the first — a lot of his friends’ wives wanted him. Some he had obliged but it always ended badly.

His erection dispersed as he looked over his life. He had wasted it, he knew that. Even his attempt at writing a novel was futile. He had millions at his disposal, his vast charitable donations taken care of by trustees, but there never seemed any point. He hated what he had become: a dilettante, worse, a clone of his father.