Cold Heart

Chapter 13

Next morning, Lorraine leaped back into action: her flight was at noon, and Rosie’s visit had taken up virtually all of the previous day. Jake had called and said that as he happened to be off duty, he would like to see her and drive her to the airport, and that today he could take Tiger for her.

Lorraine had packed an overnight bag, changed and tidied the apartment, and was now becoming impatient, afraid she would miss her plane. He was late, only arriving at ten thirty. In the car, she gave him instructions about Tiger, plus Rosie and Bill’s telephone number in case the dog was in the way, or she had to stay longer in the Hamptons than she expected. ‘You think you might?’ he asked, as they hurried through the terminal building.

‘No, but you never know, just covering all the options,’ Lorraine said. It had crossed her mind that the legacy to Sonja Nathan would not take effect until midnight the following night, and she wondered whether the next forty-eight hours might be more eventful than she was anticipating — but there was no point in worrying him. She handed over her ticket to a stewardess, who said that the flight was already boarding and she should go straight to the gate.

Jake kissed her, and Tiger almost choked himself on his lead as he tried to follow her into the departure lounge. Lorraine walked away, but then had an urge to turn back, so strong she couldn’t resist it. Jake was still standing there, and Tiger still straining at his lead. Jake waved, mouthed that he loved her, and their eyes locked. She wanted to run back to him, stay with him, but she forced a smile and hurried out of sight.

The duration of the flight was only five hours, but with the time difference between the west coast and the east, they wouldn’t arrive until almost eight thirty in the evening. Lorraine had been in such a hurry she hadn’t brought any books or magazines, so she read the inflight journal over dinner, and slept for the rest of the flight. After the plane had landed and she had retrieved her bag, she caught a taxi to Queens and waited for the last Jitney bus to the Hamptons.

It was right on time at nine fifty, and the driver smiled pleasantly as he stowed her bag in the hold, then helped her up the steps into the cool, air-conditioned interior. She chose one of the wide, comfortable seats midway up the aisle, next to the tinted windows — this was no ordinary bus, and the occupants were not ordinary people, either arty or glamorous: one woman even climbed on board with two Pekinese and a chauffeur.

Lorraine looked out of the window for a while, but then closed her eyes, not sleeping, just wrapped in daydreams about Jake, still hardly able to believe it was all true. He did love her — she had seen it at the airport. In some way if he had turned and walked away before she had said her last goodbye, it would have been a bad omen, but he had waited, and the last thing she remembered was his smile, and that he had said he loved her.

Rosie was grimly washing a mass of arugula in the little farm-style kitchen of the apartment Rooney had shared with his first wife, putting together a big salad. She and Bill had both half-heartedly decided to diet.

‘I hate this job,’ Rooney moaned, emptying the dishwasher.

‘So does everybody,’ Rosie answered.

‘Anyway,’ he said, clattering the plates into the glass-fronted dresser, ‘Jim Sharkey couldn’t believe his ears. He kept on saying I had to have it wrong, it couldn’t be Burton. Are you sure you got the name right?’

‘How many Lieutenant Jake Burtons are there, for Chrissakes?’ Rosie said, tossing the salad.

‘They don’t like him,’ Rooney said, stacking more dishes.

‘You mean Jim Sharkey doesn’t,’ Rosie said.

‘No, Jim said the boys don’t like him, said he’s a real bastard. Everyone knows there’s a bit of a trade that goes on with information — you know, a backhander here and there. Everybody knows that. We even dish dough out of our own pockets to some informers. I’ve done it, we’ve all done it, but he’s watching them like a hawk.’

Rosie started to set the table. ‘Well, that Jim Sharkey certainly had his hand out when we worked with him, didn’t he? You remember, when we needed the lists of statements taken in connection with the Anna-Louise Caley murder. And he got a four-course dinner, beer, wine, and five hundred dollars on top of it.’

Rooney took the plastic cutlery basket out of the machine and banged the knives and forks into the dresser drawer. ‘All I said was they think he’s a tight ass.’

‘You shouldn’t have been asking questions, I never told you to do that. I said find out what he looks like. That’s not the same as rapping with Jim Sharkey, is it?’

Rooney slammed the cupboard door shut, replaced the basket and closed the dishwasher.

‘So, what does he look like?’ she asked, hands on hips.

‘I dunno. I never saw him, did I?’

Rosie pushed past Rooney to the fridge.

‘Young? Old? Good-looking? Short? Tall? What kind of cop were you?’

Rooney slapped her behind. ‘He’s about fifty-five, five feet seven with a paunch, red face and bulbous nose, but... a lot of women think he’s sexy.’

Rosie laughed at his description of himself, kissed his plump cheek, and they settled to their meal.

The Jitney bus made its way through Southampton, then Bridgehampton, with few passengers getting off and none getting on. The street-lights were turned on, and the little towns looked like some magical place that time had passed by, with old-world shops selling antiques and pine furniture on every corner, along with street markets and traders offering logs for sale.

They eventually arrived at East Hampton, and the bus drew up outside the Palm Hotel. Lorraine waited as the driver fetched her bag, and pointed out the Maidstone Arms Hotel, which was just across the street.

By the time she had unpacked and taken a shower it was after one o’clock in the morning, and even though she felt hungry, she decided to go straight to bed.

Next morning, breakfast was served in the dining room, and Lorraine, dressed in a smart tan skirt, cream silk blouse, oyster tights and court shoes with a low Cuban heel, came down and sat in one of the Queen Anne chairs. She ordered scrambled eggs, brown toast and coffee, which was served promptly by an attractive blonde girl, who also presented Lorraine with the New York Times. When she had finished, Lorraine took a brisk walk along the main street. The shops were all elegant, and what prices she could see were expensive. Sight-seeing over, she returned to the hotel and ordered a taxi to take her to Sonja Nathan’s address in an area known as the Springs. The same pretty blonde girl who had served breakfast was now acting as a receptionist. She handed Lorraine a street map and said she would order the taxi straight away.

Lorraine returned to her room, and put in a call to Jake. He wasn’t at home, but when she called his office, she was told that he hadn’t got in yet, so she went downstairs to wait for her cab. She watched some of the rather elderly guests coming down for late breakfast, everyone apparently talking about the weather — it had, as Lorraine heard a number of people say, turned into a lovely clear day.

‘Mrs Page,’ the blonde girl called, ‘your taxi is here.’ Lorraine went out of Reception and turned down a narrow path that led into the car park, expecting a yellow cab but finding a gleaming limo. ‘Mrs Page?’ the driver enquired, doffing his cap.

Lorraine nodded, and gave Sonja Nathan’s address. ‘Is it far?’ she asked.

‘No, ma’am, nothing’s too far round here. Be there in ten minutes.’ They drove on in silence for four or five. ‘Turned out a real nice day,’ the driver said, smiling at Lorraine via the driving mirror. ‘You from New York?’

‘California.’

He spent the rest of the drive listing which movie star had bought which local residence, and was very proud to have driven Barbara Streisand, Paul Simon and Faye Dunaway. Suddenly he screeched to a halt, peered at a narrow gateway, marked with only a red mailbox, checked the number, then reversed about two hundred yards, stopped again, reversed again and turned into a narrow dirt-track drive.

‘This is it,’ he said, now concentrating on his driving, as the track was narrow, overhung with high hedges and brambles. He made his way slowly past yellow notices nailed to the trees stating NO SHOOTING and TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. The tall fir trees became more dense, and now there were big red notices: DRIVE SLOW — DEER. The driveway began to curve to the right, and there was yet another notice: TURTLES CROSSING.

They were crawling along now and Lorraine was finding the drive, which, she calculated, was at least two miles long, spookier by the minute.

‘Does all this land belong to Mrs Nathan?’ ‘I guess so, but it’s protected round here. This is an animal sanctuary.’ He swerved to avoid a lump of rock. Suddenly the wilderness began to appear more cultivated, and the drive widened into a tree-lined circle. Lorraine got out of the car to see a huge outdoor swimming pool, surrounded by a fence built of thick timber slabs, its margins ablaze with brilliantly coloured flowers.

The sun beat down, giving a clean dry heat, completely different from the fug of LA. She paid the driver, who asked if she would be needing him later. She said she would call.

The shingled, wood-frame house looked small, vulnerable and unoccupied, with both garage doors shut. Lorraine looked again at the garden and knew, by the flourishing, sweet-scented borders and beautiful conifers, that the garden was lovingly cared for. She tilted her head to the sun, her eyes still closed, then opened them rapidly as she thought she heard someone call. She listened, but hearing nothing more, she set off up the front steps, whose shallow treads were made of slabs of wood like stone.

The screen door was shut, as was the inner door. The bell did not work, so she tapped and waited, then knocked a little louder. The gravel crunched at the side of the house, and Lorraine turned sharply to see a tall, suntanned man with pepper and salt hair, who seemed almost as shocked to see Lorraine as she was to see him. ‘I’m looking for Mrs Nathan,’ she said.

‘Ah! She’s out in the studio. Wait a second, this’ll rouse her. It’s at the back of the house.’ He disappeared, and Lorraine heard what sounded like a ship’s bell being rung.

‘She’ll be right with you.’

Lorraine smiled.

‘When she starts working, she’s in a world of her own. We’re meant to be going to a deer meeting in town tonight if I can drag her away.’

The main door of the house opened, and the tall woman Lorraine had seen at the funeral appeared, raising one of her hands, deeply tanned with long, strong fingers and blunt-cut nails, to pull her strange white hair loose from a band which held it scraped back. She was less glamorously dressed today, in an old pair of chino pants and a deep blue linen shirt, but her intense, slightly cool presence was just as arresting.

‘Mrs Page?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry if I disturbed you. Were you working?’

‘Oh, that’s okay. I was just packing something,’ Sonja Nathan said, with a taut smile.

Lorraine walked up the steps and extended her hand. ‘It’s very nice to meet you properly. Thank you for agreeing to see me and, by the way, it’s Lorraine.’

‘It’s a pleasure,’ the older woman said, with the same quick smile, no more than a social reflex. Her eyes, Lorraine saw at close quarters, were grey-green and her gaze had a curious quality of restless abstraction, like a sea, Lorraine thought, a cold northern sea. She noticed, too, that Sonja Nathan did not invite her to call her by her first name, though perhaps that was down to preoccupation rather than hauteur.

‘Do come in,’ Sonja Nathan said, standing back to usher Lorraine into the house.

As she walked inside Lorraine gasped: nothing could have prepared her for the view. The house had floor-to-ceiling windows on all four sides, like complete walls of glass, and outside, drawing her in like a glorious living painting, was a vista of the most breathtaking seascape. ‘A woman from LA came here a few days ago. She called it awesome. Tiresome word, but it does describe it.’

Sonja led Lorraine down a flight of stairs and into a spacious kitchen with a wood and brick fireplace. The view seemed less spectacular from here than it did from upstairs, but still drew attention.

‘Now, what would you like to drink?’ Sonja said, opening the fridge.

‘Anything cool, really — water, juice, Coke.’

Sonja produced a can of Coke, a tall glass and ice from the dispenser. She poured some coffee from a percolator for herself, not seeming to notice that it looked cold, tarry and unappetizing.

‘You’re working for Mr Feinstein, did you say?’ Sonja said, moving towards the doors. ‘Let’s sit outside.’ Lorraine followed her out onto the veranda. ‘I must say, I never much cared for Feinstein,’ she continued.

‘Well, I imagine he’ll be becoming something of a fixture in your life for the next few months at least — the estate is complex, he says.’

Sonja Nathan immediately detected Lorraine’s attempt to work the conversation round to her having inherited all her ex-husband’s property, and clearly was not disposed to play ball. ‘So it is. What exactly did Feinstein tell you to ask me?’

‘Oh, he didn’t send me here, exactly. He’s retained me to investigate an art fraud, which it seems Harry and Kendall were pulling.’ Sonja Nathan did not react, but the restless movements of her green eyes stopped, and her gaze became opaque. ‘It seems they sold genuine canvases then delivered fakes. Feinstein got stung — as did a lot of other people who haven’t tumbled to it yet.’

‘That is an extraordinarily audacious piece of dishonesty,’ Sonja said. ‘They might be found out at any time if the owner had the painting valued or sold it again, or if someone who could tell wheat from chaff just happened to come to the house.’

‘I was wondering, Mrs Nathan, whether you might have fallen into that category,’ Lorraine said. ‘Did you go to Harry Nathan’s house recently? I don’t suppose you noticed anything about the paintings at any time? If I were to give you a list of the paintings, would you tell me if you ever recall seeing them at the house?’

Lorraine went back inside to find her briefcase, which she had left in the hallway. She took a quick look around the room as she picked it up: there were a number of large canvases, some carvings, wonderful pottery and antique tables. Nothing matched, but as an ensemble they worked well.

When she returned to Sonja she gave her the list, which Sonja glanced at and handed back. ‘I never went there,’ she said evenly. ‘I haven’t set foot in the house since I left LA seven years ago.’

‘Do you ever go back to LA?’ Lorraine asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Sonja said lightly. ‘I still have friends there. And the city, of course, was important to me at one time.’ She got up, looking out over the woods and water.

‘I’ve seen pictures of the work you did there — it’s very powerful,’ Lorraine said. ‘Have you been back recently except for Harry’s funeral?’

Sonja looked her straight in the eye. ‘I haven’t been there other than then for a year, and I wasn’t in LA the day Harry was killed, if that’s what you mean.’ There was a moment’s pause, and Lorraine felt that it was almost as if the other woman were defying her to prove anything different.

‘Feinstein is concerned only to make good his own losses, but it affects you too, of course,’ Lorraine went on, resisting the other woman’s efforts to close the subject. ‘I mean financially. Harry Nathan apparently pulled the same scam twice. He had the originals in the house, then switched them again, we think to cut out Kendall. The original art at the house was Nathan’s major asset. If we can’t recover it, the value of the estate, which I believe now comes to you, is greatly reduced.’

Sonja shrugged, pushing back with her arms to propel herself off the rails of the verandah. ‘I never expected to inherit a penny of Harry’s and I couldn’t care less if I don’t.’

‘Sonja.’ A deep voice spoke suddenly from inside the kitchen, and Lorraine thought she detected in it a note of warning. The man she had met earlier came out to them; he had clearly heard every word of what Sonja had just said.

‘I’m going to take the kayak out for an hour,’ he went on. ‘I’ll be back in time for lunch.’

‘Fine,’ Sonja said, glancing at him only briefly. ‘You be careful now, Arthur dear.’

Lorraine watched the couple with interest as Arthur spoke again, apparently casually. ‘You too, sweetheart.’ She did not meet his eye. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Page. I imagine you may be gone by the time I get back.’ He spoke courteously, but both Lorraine and Sonja understood his message. Lorraine was conscious of a certain relaxation in the other woman once they heard him leave the house.

‘Does Arthur... have a problem with Harry’s having left you so much money?’ Lorraine asked, with bold naturalness, assuming an intimacy with Sonja she knew didn’t exist. She was surprised when Sonja answered equally directly.

‘He has a problem with Harry. It’s just jealousy, I guess, that I shared so much of my life with Harry, that we were something to one another that Arthur and I cannot be. It’s just the way life is. One can’t go back. Can I get you another drink?’

Sonja had picked up the empty glass before Lorraine had time to say anything and disappeared into the kitchen with her own untouched coffee: it was clear she wanted an excuse to absent herself for a few moments. Lorraine would have liked a closer look at the rest of the house, while Sonja clattered with the ice-dispenser in the kitchen, but it was the studio she most wanted to see, and now that she had mentioned the art fraud, she could hardly ask to see it without as good as announcing to Sonja that she suspected her. But did she suspect her: The woman didn’t seem interested enough in money to commit such a crime — but, on the other hand, there was something about her that made one feel that death was near her.

However, by the time she came back with a tray, Sonja had readjusted her manner.

‘How well did you know Raymond Vallance?’ Lorraine ventured.

Sonja snorted with laughter as she handed Lorraine another tall glass of Coke. ‘Raymond Vallance was an albatross round Harry’s neck.’ For all her amusement, there was venom in her voice. ‘He destroyed any talent Harry might have had, convincing him that all those disgusting frat-party movies he made were worth a good goddamn. Any merit there was in that whole period of Harry’s career he drew from me. That’s where my own creativity went — he sucked it out of me and put it into his own work.’

‘I’m sure,’ Lorraine agreed. Vallance and Sonja were like a pair of bookends, she thought, perfectly matched in their unshakeable belief that the other had been Nathan’s evil genius and they themselves the true muse.

‘Raymond never forgave Harry for marrying me, needing me more than he needed him,’ Sonja went on, well into her stride now in ripping the ageing matinée idol apart. ‘He hated both of us, in a way, though he tried to get me into bed, of course. I thought, talk about obvious, darling, if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one he’s with.’

Lorraine smiled: Sonja was no slouch in the bitching department. She said, ‘He had something similar going with Cindy, it seems.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ Sonja said. ‘Poor kid — I never met her except at the funeral, though, of course, I saw pictures.’

‘I don’t suppose she ever wrote to you,’ Lorraine asked casually.

Sonja looked at her with interest. ‘Yes, she did — pages and pages. I knew why she wrote — she was embarrassed about calling, never thought she was entitled to five minutes of anybody’s time. Sometimes I wish I’d given her a little more... I don’t know, time, assistance.’ There was real sadness and self-blame in Sonja’s voice.

‘You never felt jealous of Cindy?’ Lorraine asked gently.

‘Not really,’ Sonja said. ‘Harry wasn’t the same person I had known by the time he married her. Vallance and... and Kendall had carved him up between them by the time Cindy got him. He was no longer a man... but, then, Kendall was never a person at all.’

‘What do you mean?’ Lorraine had now dropped all pretence of confining her questions to the art fraud: she was trying to find out who murdered Harry Nathan, and wondered whether the killer might be sitting right in front of her.

‘Kendall was similar to Harry in a way. There was something central missing from both of them,’ Sonja said, with some deliberation. Lorraine had the impression she was delivering verdicts she had considered for years. ‘Kendall, however, was full of insecurity, or she was to start with, whereas I don’t think Harry ever had a self-critical thought in his life. Kendall came into our lives when our relationship was hitting a transition. Harry had been eating me to keep himself alive and fuel his work for years. Perhaps if we had had children it would have been different, but... I let him do it. I suppose it took me quite a while to grow up.’ Sonja gave another wry smile. ‘Then I wanted to live my own life and create for myself, and Harry would have had to find some reason to be with me other than what... he could consume of me. Obviously that was difficult for him. Harry never liked to do anything that was difficult.’

Sonja had got up again, part of her seeming barely conscious of Lorraine, though another part of her, Lorraine somehow knew, had been waiting for years for an anonymous listener — a confessor. ‘I don’t really think Kendall set out to destroy our marriage. She loved me first, if you like. She had nothing, was nothing, knew how to be nothing when I met her.’ She was staring out to sea, as though hypnotized, her gaze drawn to the horizon like a compass needle to the north. A moment later, though, her voice seemed more normal as she went on. ‘As I said earlier, to try to repeat the past is a sort of death.’

‘But Harry must have loved you, even at the end,’ Lorraine said, conscious that she was perhaps pushing the other woman into deep water. ‘You were the constant in his life.’

Sonja shook her head. ‘Vallance was the constant. I realize that now. He was there before me and he was there after me.’

‘But Harry left Vallance nothing in the will. He must have wanted to recognize something in leaving the entire property to you.’

‘It comes to me only by default,’ Sonja said. ‘Neither he nor I could ever have predicted that both Kendall and Cindy would drop dead.’ She turned round. ‘And, of course, who knows? I might drop dead. I have another day to go, don’t I?’ There was a strange, hunted look in the back of her cat’s eyes that chilled Lorraine, as if she were waiting for an executioner to arrive, for an axe to fall.

Lorraine realized that she had been sitting very still, barely blinking. She made herself move now, swirling the ice in her glass as though to chase away ghosts with the sound. ‘I think that’s correct — but you’re most unlikely to die.’

‘Well,’ Sonja said, and again Lorraine had the sense that she was listening to the expression of thoughts that had been considered and rearranged many times, ‘there is life and life. Or, rather, there is life and there is existence without dignity, which one betrays oneself to endure. I used to think that there was some kind of other dignity in endurance, but it is better to be dead than betrayed, I think now.’ She had been talking rapidly and fell silent just as suddenly, then turned back to the sea again.

‘Who do you think killed Harry Nathan?’ Lorraine found herself asking, without really meaning to do so, as though it were the only chance she would ever have.

‘Harry Nathan killed himself,’ Sonja said, her voice low, resonant, beautiful. ‘He became a thing that someone would destroy.’

The screen door banged at the front of the house, and Sonja started and looked round. ‘Arthur,’ she said, with a smile. ‘He doesn’t trust me alone for too long.’

No wonder, Lorraine thought, glancing at her watch. He hadn’t been gone long and Sonja was already circling round the subjects of killing and death.

Sonja walked back into the kitchen and called upstairs, ‘We’re down here, Arthur.’

Did she want to warn him that she wasn’t alone: Lorraine wondered.

The big man lost no time in joining them and Lorraine saw his eyes go immediately to Sonja, as though trying to gauge her mood. ‘Mrs Page, how nice you’re still here,’ he said, with a polite smile. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I join you.’

‘Not at all,’ she said. He sat down beside her and Sonja disappeared inside, murmuring that she would bring out some wine. ‘Do you work out here?’ she asked, pretending to be making small-talk but, in fact, trying to place the man, as he well knew.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do, on and off.’

‘Are you a writer?’ She knew she sounded pushy now but she didn’t care: it was the only way she could do her job.

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m a painter.’

Well, that was interesting, Lorraine thought.

‘I don’t suppose I’m allowed to see any of your work,’ she said, with a fake, girlish laugh she suspected didn’t fool him for a minute.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve just packed virtually all of what I have out here for a show,’ he said evenly, as Sonja came back with glasses and a bottle. What a surprise, Lorraine thought, but decided to have one last try at getting into the studio.

‘I’d love to see any of your work before I go, Mrs Nathan,’ she said, ‘Though, of course, I know all artists are very private.’

‘I’m afraid even I wasn’t allowed to see the last thing Sonja did,’ Arthur said. ‘She kept me right out of the studio for a month. Fortunately I have another room at the top of the house.’

‘Do you work mainly to commissions, or speculatively?’ Lorraine asked Sonja.

‘I rarely work to commission — or, at least, not to an exact commission,’ Sonja answered, carefully opening the bottle. ‘This last piece is to open a series of shows — a women’s thing, in the new gallery in Berlin. They indicated a few months ago that they would appreciate it if I had something new, but it was up to me what it was.’

‘And what will you do next?’ Lorraine said, conscious that she sounded like some vapid celebrity interviewer. ‘Do you have any plans, or will you just wait and see what comes?’

‘I have stopped working,’ Sonja said, in an odd, unnatural tone. ‘That part of my life is over.’ Suddenly she gave a light, sweet laugh. ‘It went on far too long.’

‘I’ll drive you back into town, Mrs Page,’ Arthur said quickly. ‘I think you said you had to go.’

‘Arthur!’ Sonja said, now laughing as though she hadn’t a care in the world. ‘That’s not very hospitable — I’ve just opened the wine.’

‘No, I really must be getting back — and, in any case, I’m sorry, I don’t drink,’ Lorraine said, getting up. ‘Thank you so much for your time — and it’s been wonderful to meet you.’

‘Goodbye,’ Sonja said simply, with a slow, almost childlike smile.

Arthur led Lorraine out to an old Blazer jeep, and began to make determined small-talk as they drove the few miles into town.

‘Will you be returning to New York tomorrow or staying over?’ he said, as they pulled into the Maidstone Arms car park.

‘I haven’t decided,’ Lorraine said. ‘I may stay another night.’

‘It’s just that if you were thinking of seeing Sonja again, we do have to pack to go to Europe and Sonja needs to prepare for Berlin — she’s expected to make a speech and she needs to concentrate on that.’ It was more than apparent that he was trying to deter Lorraine from making any further visits.

‘She’s a very unusual woman,’ Lorraine said, unable to resist the temptation to fish just a little.

‘She certainly is,’ Arthur said carefully, pulling up. ‘I’m sorry if I seemed rude, hustling you away, Mrs Page, but the truth is, Sonja is not quite... herself at the moment. You know that she and Harry parted on bad terms, and she pretends that his death didn’t touch her — but, of course, that’s not true. She has been very shaken. She cared deeply about him, and, God knows, sometimes I think he was the only man she ever loved.’

Lorraine was surprised at this personal and clearly heartfelt revelation. She realized that Arthur did not dislike her, he was merely trying to protect Sonja.

‘For that reason she is blocked in her work and she imagines she will never work again. As her work is everything to Sonja, she is in a low state of mind at the moment. So, please, if I can ask you a favour, she needs to avoid strain. Going over all this stuff about Harry is just about the most painful thing there is for her. If you’ve asked her everything you need to know I’d be grateful if you’d just leave her be.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything else,’ Lorraine said, preparing to get out of the jeep. ‘Goodbye — it’s been nice meeting you.’ She smiled and waved as she watched him drive out, wondering what exactly he and Sonja Nathan had to hide.

Sonja was still sitting at the table when he returned. ‘I’m tired. I think I’ll go and lie down for a while.’

He looked at her, saying nothing, though he hated the hours Sonja spent locked alone in her room. Then he reached over and touched her face lovingly. ‘If you should see Mrs Page again, don’t talk too much.’

‘I won’t,’ she said, tilting her head like a little girl making a promise, suddenly seeming young, vulnerable.

‘I love you,’ he said softly, and she smiled. He adored the way she smiled, and it always made his heart lift, even though he knew that though she was with him and was caring and loving towards him, he was not her true love. Arthur envied Harry Nathan even though he was dead, envied that he had shared Sonja’s youth, that the mere mention of his name made Sonja’s face fill with darkness and grief.

‘You know, I think I’m too tired to go to the deer meeting tonight,’ she said. ‘I don’t really feel like going into town.’ Arthur’s heart sank: sometimes Sonja would not leave the house for weeks, withdrawing into her private shadowlands in a way that frightened and excluded him. He had been counting on the deer, a cause she cared about, to get her into town: social interactions with neighbours would do her good. ‘You go, though,’ she said, with a smile, already moving towards the stairs. ‘One of us should.’

Arthur knew, too, what that meant: she wanted to be alone, and if he didn’t leave the house she would go and range about alone outside, or take the car and drive. She was gone increasingly often, sometimes disappearing for a couple of days at a time.

‘Sonja,’ he called after her, ‘did you say you’d finished packing your thing for Berlin? If you have I’ll call the freight company — the paintings are ready to go.’

‘Yes,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Take it.’

She disappeared from sight and he heard the door of her bedroom close.

She stood at her windows, which overlooked the bay, where she watched the sun rise each morning. Another bedroom had windows that captured the sunsets and the moon’s rising: to see the beginning and end of the day made each day special, each one different. She tried to convince herself that that ought to be enough for her — just to enjoy the beauty of the seasons, to drift along with the current of time instead of trying to hold it back.

Certainly she had no intention of taking any more steps to reverse the physical signs of ageing, and booking into the clinic had been an act of folly induced by Harry’s leaving her for Kendall. She had fought the impulse to recapture physical youth for some time but finally she had chosen a surgeon and clinic with care, had known exactly what she needed doing. She had wanted a complete face-lift but with a small implant in her chin, and her nose lifted.

The clinic had been discreet, but Sonja was confident anyway that no one knew she was there because, under heavy bandages and dark glasses, she had been unrecognizable. However, the name of one patient had stuck in her memory. She had discovered that the woman was a private investigator and although she never spoke to her, she had heard a good deal of a conversation the woman had had with someone else. When she had come across the advert in Variety for Page Investigations, she had been amused by the coincidence.

She reached for the silver-backed mirror to check her profile. She was fifty-two years old and should be content to spend her time surrounded by this beautiful calm. She should be glad that the compulsion to work fifteen or sixteen hours a day was now gone, that the long torment was over. Odd that she had never realized she would miss it so much. She would go down to the studio later in the day and see if perhaps she couldn’t do something about that.