Divas (28 page)

‘And the bad news?’ Lola asked.

‘There isn’t a chance in hell Greene will dismiss this indictment, ’ he told them grimly. ‘The case against you is very strong indeed. I was just grandstanding in there
to try to rattle his cage. But with that nurse’s testimony—’ he shook his head. ‘We have an uphill battle ahead of us.’

‘But he’s
lying!
’ Lola said furiously. ‘Carin’s paying him to lie!’ She caught her breath. ‘Oh my God, it’s worse than that – Carin
set me up!’

She played that scene back in her head, the time she spent with the nurse by her father’s bedside. Various details that had struck her as odd at the time now had a totally plausible
explanation. Joe, the nurse, had handed her the syringe, and asked her to take the insulin out of the fridge, because they wanted to get her fingerprints on both of them.

Plus, the sharps container had always been kept in her father’s private bathroom: why had Joe gone to the main bathroom to dispose of the needle? Carin wouldn’t have wanted an ugly
yellow sharps container in her bathroom when there was a much better, and customary, place to keep it.

Lola had heard a rustle in the bathroom as Joe went in, a small noise that hadn’t struck her at the time as noteworthy. But now she realised that it hadn’t been made by Joe: she had
heard the sound of his white coat over his trousers, and it hadn’t rustled at all. Which meant that someone else had been in there.

Carin. Watching through the door, which had been ajar. Checking on how the plan was going, seeing Lola duly handle both the syringe and the insulin, approving Joe’s actions in carrying out
her scheme . . .

Which meant, inevitably, that Carin had killed her father. Whether he had died of the injection Joe had given him before Lola’s eyes, or whether another, lethal injection had been
administered after she left, Carin had murdered him and planned to pin the blame on Lola.

Gasping for breath, she was speaking so fast, Lola poured her theory of the case out to the three occupants of the limo. Jean-Marc and David gawped at her, dumbstruck by the idea that Carin
could have orchestrated something so Machiavellian.

‘Because I was challenging her for control of my trust fund!’ Lola gabbled finally. ‘She knew I was going to win – George said we had a really strong case! So she thought
if she killed Daddy, and pinned it on me, she’d get everything!’

‘I thought you inherited half, ’ Jean-Marc pointed out.

‘No!’ Lola said triumphantly. ‘You can’t profit by the proceeds of a crime! So if I’m convicted, then I can’t inherit, and it would all go to Carin! I saw
that on a Lifetime TV movie, ’ she explained, as Jean-Marc looked baffled by her unexpected command of the laws of inheritance. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

She looked eagerly at Simon Poluck.

‘Absolutely, ’ he said. ‘But you do see how difficult this is all going to be to prove? It’s going to come down to a he-said, she-said, and Mrs Fitzgerald and the nurse
will deny everything. And as it stands, you have a much more plausible motive for killing your father than she does.’

Lola leaned forward in her seat, pounding her fist on her thigh.

‘I don’t care!’ she said furiously. ‘I didn’t do it! I didn’t kill my father! I loved him more than anyone else in the world!’

This was a new Lola, truly her father’s daughter, determined and fearless. Not a victim any more.

‘And I know that nurse is lying, ’ she concluded. ‘So I’m going to find a way to prove it!’

‘D
avid, this looks . . .’

Lola was lost for words as she stared at herself in the mirror.

‘I
know!
Hideous!’ David said excitedly. ‘But
just
the kind of hideous I was going for – not
actively
hideous, so nasty you can’t take your
eyes off it.’ He picked up a fake silk scarf and started knotting it around her neck. ‘I wanted
dull
hideous. Where if you kept looking at it, you’d pass out with boredom
and crack your head on the way down.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly managed that.’ Lola fingered the scarf. ‘What’s this
made
of?’

‘Eww! Polyester!’ David giggled happily. ‘It’s probably
completely
flammable! Don’t light up a cigarette when you’re wearing it, for God’s sake,
or you’ll go up like a firework!’

Lola had to admit that the scarf was an excellent touch. She did a full 360-degree turn, examining her grey wool trouser suit, with its pleated trousers that pulled at the crotch and bagged at
the knees. The jacket had narrow sewn-in shoulderpads, unnecessary pockets on the chest, and loose threads already straggling from the buttonholes. The buttons themselves were cheap plastic made to
look like bone. Under the jacket, David had chosen a thin cotton-mix sweater in a putrid shade of pale green, and he had even insisted, for total verisimilitude, that she wear her tightest bra on
the tightest set of hooks, so it cut into her and made her look a little lumpy. The flammable scarf was patterned in white, orange and a similar-but-different green to the colour of the
sweater.

David had also done her make-up. He’d trowelled on much heavier base than she usually wore, which made her usually glowing skin look dull and greyish; a hard line of brown pencil
completely circling each eye; no mascara; and cheap pink blusher.

‘I look like a temporary secretary in an accounting firm, ’ Lola summed up.

‘
Exactly!
’ David clapped his hands with pride. ‘That’s
exactly
what I was going for! But wait for it . . . final touches coming up . . .’

With the excitement of a conjuror about to pull off a major trick for the first time, he reached into his large shopping bag and produced what looked like the cut-off toe of a pair of beige
support tights.

‘It’s a wig cap, ’ he explained, seeing Lola’s bafflement.

He smoothed down her hair and pulled the wig cap over it, carefully tucking in each blonde strand till it was perfectly smooth. Then he produced a pale brown wig, and, his expression as serious
as if he were performing a heart transplant, hooked it over his thumbs, positioned it on her forehead, and flipped it over her skull, patting it down with his palms until it was just right. He
secured it with a couple of bobby pins and stepped back, his expression quietly triumphant.

The wig was the ugliest thing Lola had ever seen. It made the cheap trouser suit look like Balenciaga by comparison. David’s bobby pins had taken the shoulder-length hair back on either
side, pinning it up above her ears, which succeeded, eerily, in making the wig look all too authentic.

Carefully, she put up a hand to touch it.

‘It’s real hair, ’ David said proudly. ‘Cost a fortune, believe it or not.’

‘Eww . . .’ Lola said in repulsion. ‘I’m wearing someone else’s hair on my head?’

‘Darling, it
has
to be real! That acrylic stuff looks so fake! We’ve got to get you past the paparazzi and, believe me, your disguise has to be perfect!’ David’s
eyes were gleaming with excitement. ‘Let’s show Jean-Marc!’

Jean-Marc, who had been forbidden from watching Lola’s transformation from beautiful princess into Cinderella secretary, so that he could comment on the post-makeover effect, was where he
was usually to be found these days: lying on the sofa watching daytime TV on the gigantic built-in plasma screen. Right now, it was Judge Judy, who was telling a woman severely never to lend a
jailbird boyfriend her credit card. Jean-Marc, tucked up in a pale blue cashmere throw which exactly matched the colour of his eyes, sipping vitamin water, looked enthralled by Judge Judy and her
no-nonsense attitude: he looked up briefly as David and Lola came into the sitting-room, his eyes flicking over Lola and ignoring her as being too dull to notice. He actually turned back to the
screen for a second before snapping his head back again.

‘
No
. . .’ he breathed incredulously, his handsome face the picture of surprise.
‘Lola?
’

David jumped up and down in glee.

‘She’s our secretary, ’ he pronounced. ‘What shall we call her?’

‘Gloria McUgly, ’ Jean-Marc said instantly.

‘Patty McHideous, ’ David chorused.

‘Jennifer Smith, ’ Lola said firmly.

‘Perfect, ’ David agreed. ‘That’s so boring you can’t even remember it while you’re saying it. Jean, ring down and tell security she’ll be going in and
out. Tell them she came in through the garage by mistake, but she’ll be using the front exit now.’

‘Should I really use the main door?’ Lola started. ‘There’s so many photographers and news crews out there—’

‘And believe me, sweetie, there are plenty of them staking out the garage and the staff exits as well, ’ David said wisely.‘They’ll be
much
less suspicious of
someone just walking in and out of the front and not looking like they have anything to hide. I’ve got you a nasty cheap tote too, so you look even more secretary-ish. There’s your
Citizens For All Humanity jeans and your Missoni cashmere sweater tucked inside, so you can change when you get there. It’s over by the door.’

‘You think of everything, David, ’ Lola said, impressed.

‘Stay for dinner, ’ Jean-Marc begged him. ‘I just ordered in your favourite!’

‘Kobe beef burger with truffle fries and arugula?’ David said excitedly. ‘No!’

‘Yes!’

‘OK, but darling, I can’t sleep over, ’ David said, pulling a face. ‘I’m going to have to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, so I’ll eat with you but then
I have to go home and hit the sack.’

‘Oh,
darling
. . .’ Jean-Marc pouted. ‘I get so lonely without you!’

‘Jean, we’ve been over this, ’ David sighed. ‘I have a job. I need to go to it. Being a motion graphics designer, I work on ads and TV promos and corporate stuff, and
sometimes I have to start really early or work till really late. Plus, I have daily Narcotics Anonymous meetings to go to. I can’t be with you every moment of the day, darling.’

Jean-Marc dragged the corners of his mouth down.

‘Can’t you just quit your job?’ he said pettishly.

‘No, I can’t!’ David said rather crossly. ‘You need to respect that I’m earning my own living!’

‘And Jean-Marc, isn’t that a good thing?’ Lola chimed in. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t want him to live off you completely, would you?’

‘Of course I would!’ Jean-Marc wailed, grabbing a pillow and clutching it to his stomach for comfort. ‘I have so much money, I might as well share it with him! We could travel
everywhere, have such a lovely time – how am I going to
cope
with him going to an office every day and being tired in the evening, when I’m just waking up? What am I going to
do
with myself?’

‘Jean—’ David began, an edge to his voice.

‘Honestly, Jean-Marc, ’ Lola jumped in quickly, ‘I think you should be grateful that David doesn’t want to take advantage of you. I mean, most people who’d bagged
someone as rich as you would give up work immediately, and that would be all wrong. You should—’

Jean-Marc currled up in the corner of the sofa, still clutching the pillow.

‘If there’s one thing I learned in rehab, ’ he said with great dignity, ‘it’s that one should never tell other people what they should and shouldn’t do. It
doesn’t help
at all
.’

Lola forebore to point out that he had just done exactly that himself.

‘I have my pride, Jean, ’ David said quietly.

‘I know!’ Jean-Marc moaned. ‘And it’s killing me!’ His face crumpled. His periwinkle eyes were awash with tears, like overflowing fountains, water pouring over
bright blue tiles. ‘The trouble is when I’m with you, I couldn’t be happier. I never want to do anything naughty, apart from drink a little champagne. But when you go, I feel so
awful! So lonely! And
that
makes me want to go out and get high.’

‘Oh
no
. . .’ Lola began.

‘That’s when you go to a meeting, ’ David said to him. ‘Or call your sponsor. I can’t be with you every second of the day, darling. You’re the one that has to
keep yourself safe.’

‘I know, ’ Jean-Marrc said sadly, still hugging the cushion. ‘I just wish you could.’

‘I won’t be late, ’ Lola promised. ‘It’s just a girls’ night in. I’ll be back by midnight.’ She looked at him, now wiping his tears away, and had
second thoughts. ‘Or should I cancel and stay with you?’

‘No, ’ David said firmly. ‘You can’t run your life around Jean-Marc, and neither can I. He’s an adult, he has to look after himself.’

‘You’re so mean, ’ Jean-Marc said, kissing him. ‘I
hate
it when you tell me I’m an adult.’ He managed a watery smile for Lola. ‘Off you go,
sweetie. Are you going to be all right? I mean, are you sure about what you’re doing tonight?’

Lola nodded determinedly.

‘I need to feel I’m
doing
something. There’s nothing I can do about Daddy and the trial – we haven’t even got a date for that yet, and Simon Poluck’s
got a whole team of private investigators tracking down that nurse and seeing if they can trace the money Carin must have paid him to lie to the grand jury. I’m going mad shut up in here,
waiting.’ She gestured towards the windows. ‘This at
least
gets me out of the apartment for a little while. Plus, I get to do some sleuthing of my own.’

‘Make sure you keep all those lies straight, ’ David recommended.

‘Do it just like we worked it out. And be careful, Lo, ’ Jean-Marc emphasised.

‘Believe me, ’ Lola said, setting her jaw martially, ‘I know what I’m doing.’

As Lola stepped out of the lift, her heart was beating faster than usual with nerves. It was the oddest experience crossing the lobby of the Plaza: even before her arrest,
everyone had turned to look at her, or at the very least been unable to resist a swift glance in her direction, checking out in the flesh the beautiful blonde socialite who was a staple of the
glossy magazines.

And now she might as well have been invisible. She was a ghost of her former self, a girl with ugly hair and dowdy cheap clothes, completely out of place in this smartest of New York addresses.
Head ducked, her leather-effect tote under her arm, she looked exactly like the part for which David had so expertly costumed her – a low-level secretary, not worthy of any notice.