'Of course, Harry's mother,' Vallance continued, well into his stride now - Lorraine had been waiting for them to get to old Mrs Nathan - 'hated Sonja's guts, and she rammed Kendall down his throat. Kendall started sweet-talking the old lady, and Abigail thought she was just the sweetest girl, and so maternal. Every time Sonja went out of town, Kendall would just suggest to Harry that he invite his mother, so diplomatic'

'How long did this go on?' Lorraine asked.

'Well, they had a thing behind Sonja's back for a long time, but Harry wouldn't leave Sonja until Kendall announced she was pregnant. He had to tell her then.'

'How did she take it?'

Vallance dug his hands into his trouser pockets. 'I don't know. She just left. All I knew was she flew to New York, and she never came back. She tried to claim some share in the gallery, but his lawyers made such a fucking production out of the whole thing that she backed down. That was the way Sonja was. If she didn't get what she wanted immediately she just walked away.'

A full two minutes passed. Then Lorraine asked, 'So he remained at the house, Sonja went to New York, and they started divorce proceedings?'

'Yes. Harry and Kendall got married and had their kid, but the kid died and Harry was losing money. He changed. He was never the same again.'

'Why did you hang on?' Lorraine asked.

'Jesus Christ . . . you want me to spell it out?'

'I guess so.'

He sighed and looked at a point above Lorraine's head, then back to her. His wide-set eyes were like a sick dog's.

'I loved him, and when he didn't need me any more I let him use me. When he ditched Kendall for Cindy, I went through it all again. He used me, just as much as he used Cindy, used everyone he ever knew. But I still loved him.'

Loved him enough not to want anyone else to have him? Lorraine wondered suddenly whether Vallance could have killed Harry. In a way, he had loved Nathan longer than anyone else, had been obsessed by him and, in his own mind, been betrayed by him too.

'Anyway,' Vallance said, seeming to drag himself with an effort back into the present, 'I guess I'd better go.' Lorraine stood up to walk to the door with him, sorry for him in spite of her revulsion. He had walked in like a movie star, and was walking out so weak and jaded.

'Can I just ask you one final thing?' she said, as she opened the door and Vallance fumbled with his shades. 'Were you at home last night?'

He knew at once that she was asking him if he had an alibi for the time at which Cindy Nathan had died, and he was not so emotionally battered that he could not reply at once.

'Yes, I was,' he said. 'A number of my friends called, as it happens.'

He had put on the dark glasses now, and Lorraine could not see his eyes. 'Okay,' she said. She walked with him past Decker's desk, and showed him out. He left without a smile or a handshake, and without looking back.

Lorraine raised one eyebrow at Decker. 'Well, guess who the most beautiful man in the world wanted to shove his dick up?'

'Jesus Christ, you can be so fucking crude,' Decker said huffily.

Lorraine leaned on his desk, and grinned. 'He was in love with Harry Nathan himself Then she gestured towards her office. 'Come in and chat to me. I want to discuss a few things that came up this morning.'

Decker collected his notebook, and asked her whether she was doing all this work pro bono or if they were going to be paid.

Lorraine sighed. 'Oh, shit, I forgot. I have to go talk to Feinstein.'

Vallance drove out of the garage, unaware that the smiling, bowing valet had given his car a thorough going-over. He was on his way now to play Prince Charming to Verna Montgomery, to get his rent money out of her. She had to be sixty years old, though she insisted she was no more than forty-four. He hadn't even bothered to rearrange the white wisps of his hair because he knew that if Nathan's videos ever got out any last shred of hope he had of resurrecting his career was gone. As he drove onto Sunset he was crying, his white hair blowing in the wind Raymond Vallance, the most beautiful man in the world.

CHAPTER 9.

DECKER GO'I Lorraine an appointment with Feinstein almost immediately. His address in Century City was certainly impressive, on one of the smartest blocks of the Avenue of the Stars. The building had only recently been opened, and Lorraine had to concede that it was a truly handsome piece of modern architecture, a soaring tower of golden granite and blue glass that seemed to cut the sky.

Lorraine went up the steps and into a lobby whose sheer moneyed lustre exceeded anything she had seen, even in Los Angeles. The commissionaire directed her to the forty-third floor, and she made her way to the bank of elevators.

She emerged from the elevator car into another lobby bathed in light, streaming in through semi-transparent blinds of fine white cloth. Feinstein's receptionist was a beautiful, long-limbed girl, wearing a straight tunic dress in mint green crpe-de-chine and a pair of transparent plastic court shoes, whose four-inch heels made her well over six feet tall. She introduced herself as Pamela, with a charming smile, and asked her if she would mind waiting a moment. Lorraine sat down in one of four low armchairs with curving black backs and white leather upholstery ranged round a table of quaking-leaf fern.

Feinstein kept Lorraine waiting only a minute, then she was shown into an enormous office carpeted in a smooth silver grey like whaleskin, full of beautifully crafted wooden furniture whose dignity and majestic scale jarred with the bald, weasel-like lawyer. He only bothered to rise a couple of inches from his chair and motioned Lorraine to a lower seat placed in front of his huge desk. She began to thank him for seeing her, but his intercom blinked and his voice rasped loudly, making her jump: she had not noticed the transparent plastic speaker plugged into his right ear or the mouthpiece at the corner of his lips.

'Just tell her I'm in conference, Pamela, and that goes for the rest of the week!' He listened to whatever Pamela said in reply, then snapped, 'I am not talking to her, Pamela!' and detached the headset. He began to shuffle files on his desk, avoiding Lorraine's eye as he asked what she wanted to see him about and reminded her that he was a busy man. He opened a drawer and took out a foot-long cigar, sniffed it before unwrapping it, then sniffed again and clipped the end.

'I'm a private investigator,' Lorraine began, and Feinstein sighed, sucking on the unlit cigar end.

'Yes, Mrs Page, I know who you are.' He patted his pockets, looking for his lighter.

'I was acting for Mrs Nathan,' she said. He ran his lips around the fat cigar and puffed it alight, the smoke forming a blue halo round his head.

'Just get to the point. I'm inundated with calls from Kendall Nathan, and so I'll tell you what I've told her and keep on telling her. Until I've had time to assess the Nathan estate, I can't give any personal or financial information to anyone.'

'I wanted to discuss Cindy Nathan's-'

Feinstein cut her off. 'Suicide? Well, I'm sorry, obviously. Is that why you wanted to see me? Or - don't tell me - you, like everyone else concerned with Nathan, want a pay-off? Worried you won't get your fee, is that it?'

'I wanted to ask you for some details about the art gallery, and specifically Mr Nathan's art collection,' Lorraine said, controlling her temper - she would have liked to punch the cigar down his throat.

'I'm not prepared to discuss anything with you, Mrs Page. Like I said, I'm sorry about Cindy, but it doesn't come as a shock. I mean, you threaten to do something often enough, kinda takes away the element of surprise.' He gestured in the air, one hand clutching the cigar.

'Cindy had threatened suicide before?'

Feinstein looked at his watch. 'She made it public knowledge often enough, and I got enough faxes and notes from her, threatening the same thing, to paper the walls with. She was . . .' He twisted his finger at the side of his temple.

Would it be possible for me to see them?'

'No, it would not. If however, the police require them, that is a different matter.'

'And I suppose Harry Nathan had nothing to do with Cindy's previous suicide attempts?'

'Maybe, maybe not. I don't know the ins and outs of my clients' domestic set-ups - it's tough enough getting the business side of their lives sorted out.' He sighed. 'I know she was young, but she'd been around and, to be honest, I couldn't stand the girl. Never could understand why my client put up with her hysterics, but then, once a man gets involved with these bimbos, what can you expect? Money's all they're after. I see a lot of greed in my profession. I've even got Harry's goddamned domestics calling, plus his entire family, all like vultures, all wanting to know how much. I have to protect my clients.'

'But not all your clients are murdered, I hope,' Lorraine said quietly.

Feinstein examined his manicured hands. The cigar stuck in his wet lips as he dragged heavily on it and blew a wide ring of smoke behind his head, his voice halting with false emotion. 'Harry Nathan was my client, and he was also a man I admired and respected. Whatever he did in his private life was none of my concern. If you submit your account to my assistant, I will endeavour to see that it's paid. Now, as I said, I'm a very busy man, Mrs Page, so if there's nothing else . . .'

'What will Kendall Nathan inherit now under the will?' Lorraine asked.

Feinstein started at her, his gaze studiedly blank. 'I don't see that that is any concern of yours, Mrs Page. Do I have to repeat myself about client confidentiality?'

Lorraine persisted, 'Does she get anything now that might have gone to Cindy like the art or anything?'

Feinstein wagged his finger. 'Listen, honey, you just lost one client, so this, I presume, is a fishing trip for another. You wanna work for Kendall Nathan, go talk to her. Now, please, I'd like you to leave.'

Lorraine got up and picked up her briefcase, smoothing down her skirt. 'Is that one of the Nathan gallery paintings?' She indicated a massive canvas on the wall, and Feinstein moved round his desk, impatient to show her out. 'I notice you had one similar in Reception.'

The lawyer was now opening the office door. 'Mrs Page,' he said curtly, sweeping one hand in a mock-gallant gesture towards the door, but Lorraine had moved closer to the painting, a huge composition of brightly coloured, but somehow warlike shapes, and saw a small gold plaque on the wall underneath that named Frank Stella as the artist.

'Very impressive,' Lorraine murmured, then walked towards him. 'Are you a collector?'

Feinstein turned away from her as Pamela appeared outside the open door. 'Kendall Nathan has called again she's on the phone now,' she said in a low voice. 'She says it's very urgent, Mr Feinstein.'

'Get rid of her, and show Mrs Page out.'

Lorraine was now close to the attorney, who reached to just below her shoulder. What little hair he had left was dyed black and slicked backwards, making his weasel's eyes, under arched and, if Lorraine was not mistaken, plucked brows, seem even smaller and beadier. With his silk suit and Gucci shoes, Feinstein smelt of money as strongly as of his overpowering cologne, but no amount of polish could disguise the coarseness of the personality underneath.

'Is it an original?' she asked sweetly.

'What?' He blinked.

'The painting. Did you buy it from Nathan's gallery? It's just that the real reason I came to see you was that I had a conversation with Cindy, shortly before she died, and she seemed to think that her husband, and probably his ex-wife, Kendall Nathan, were involved in some sort of art fraud.' Feinstein frowned, and looked past her to the painting as Lorraine continued in the same saccharine tone. 'But, then, as you're a collector, I'm sure you would have had any work you purchased properly authenticated.' The false sweetness of her smile matched her voice as she walked past him out into Reception.

Feinstein followed. 'Cindy Nathan told you about a fraud. What fraud?'

Lorraine paused at a canvas that covered most of one wall, and tapped the frame. 'Well, it appears that a lot of the paintings, not only in Nathan's house but also sold through the gallery, were probably only copies. This must have cost a fortune, it's a . . .' She leaned to read another small gold plaque. 'Ah, a de Kooning. I mean, I'm no connoisseur, but I know his work is sought after and commands a high price if it's an original, that is.'

Feinstein continued to follow in Lorraine's wake, glancing at the painting as he passed it. 'What else did Mrs Nathan tell you?' he asked nervously.

Lorraine had her hand on the door to the lobby, and tilted her head to one side. 'Well, Mr Feinstein, my client Mrs Nathan may, sadly, no longer be with us, but nevertheless she is still my client, and as you have pointed out, I must continue to respect the confidentiality of her affairs. Thank you for your time, and if you should wish to see me again, please call.' She proffered one of her cards, then breezed out of the door, which swung closed behind her.

Feinstein glanced at her card, then hurried into the boardroom. There were two canvases at either end of the twenty-five-foot room, and he almost ran to the one further away, then stopped in his tracks and turned to look at the other. He had nothing like the expertise necessary to tell whether his so-called investments were genuine or not, and panic began to rise like bile in his gullet. Then he yelled at the top of his voice. 'PAMELA!

PAMELA!'

The girl hurried into the room, notebook at the ready, to find Feinstein sitting at the centre of the boardroom table. 'Your next appointment is here, Mr Feinstein. Mr . . . are you all right?'

He was pulling at his collar, loosening his tie. 'I need a glass of water, an' get that guy, the art historian, the one who went with me to Harry Nathan's gallery.'

'Yes, Mr Feinstein. Do you want him to meet you there, as usual?'

'No.' His voice was harsh. 'Get him here. I want him fucking here.'

Pamela scuttled out. As Harry Nathan's lawyer, Feinstein knew not only what a mess the Nathan estate was in, but that the outstanding claims against it far exceeded its worth. The only thing Feinstein had been sure about was Nathan's private art collection, whose value had yet to be assessed, but he had been depending on it to cover the majority of the debts and, most importantly, his own fees. He was sure Harry wouldn't have pulled a fast one on him. He was his lawyer, for Chrissakes. He'd been his friend, hadn't he? But as he calculated how much he had paid for the canvases, a sinking feeling engulfed him. He had always known that Harry Nathan was a thieving, conniving, two-faced bastard. It took one to know one.

Kendall hung up the telephone, shaking with impotent rage, as Feinstein's secretary informed her yet again that her boss was in conference. She had been calling him every half an hour since she had spoken to the insurance company and disovered that Cindy had indeed been telling the truth Nathan hadn't paid the premiums on the art collection for two years.

In an effort to calm her nerves, she'd had three brandies, but they hadn't helped. If anything they had made her feel worse. Part of her was still refusing to believe what had happened, sure there was some mistake but it was pretty clear what the explanation was: Harry had not bothered to insure the paintings because they were worthless. As soon as she had got a closer look at them she had known that they were fakes. She and Harry had had the brilliant idea of selling valuable original paintings to various ditzy members of the film community, arranging for copies to be painted, and then, after the buyers had had their purchases authenticated, delivering the fakes. No one had noticed; no one had bothered to get the paintings checked a second time.

Now, however, it seemed that Harry had pulled the same scam on her, and switched the originals hanging at the house for a second set of copies. The reason, too, was obvious: he was cutting her out of the proceeds of the fraud and intended to keep the approximately twenty million dollars they had reckoned on netting. Harry wouldn't have done that to her, would he?

She was almost panting with hysteria, and her outrage rose the more she thought about it: her role in the whole thing had required months of preparation, negotiation and unremitting stress.

Kendall poured herself more brandy, forced herself to try to think logically: what if Harry Nathan hadn't been shot? It had happened only weeks before they had intended to move all the paintings. What if he had carried into effect what they had so carefully arranged, that the paintings would be moved one by one to private buyers in Europe? Harry had even been in Germany arranging the deals. Kendall's head throbbed with trying to think straight. She had paid good money for two false passports for him, covered his periods away from LA by saying he was filming, and made calls on his behalf to ensure that no one, not even Feinstein, knew where he was. Maybe Feinstein didn't know about their scam. But what had happened to the original paintings and sculptures: She had yet another drink, calmer now, her thin face pinched as she tried to piece together the events of the last weeks, thinking about what Cindy had told her. There was no other explanation, other than that Harry had been concealing the treasures somewhere outside the house for two years. She started to shake: he had been lying to her for two years and had intended to cut her out.

'You shit,' she screamed, crying with anger now. He had known she couldn't report him to the police because she would have been charged for her part in it. He had screwed her into the ground. The fact that he was dead made no difference he had betrayed her, as he had betrayed Sonja before her, and what a fool she had been, trusting him, a blind, trusting fool . . . just like Sonja.

As soon as she had seen Harry, she had wanted him and she had told herself at the time that it was love. But it had been something darker and more complex. All her life she had wanted to get out from under, to belong, to be on the inside, and she had known that she had the potential to do that, to lead a life that her parents in Kansas had never dreamed of. Harry Nathan was the most attractive and dynamic man Kendall had ever met: when Sonja had hired her he had been making movies that did reasonable business, still had some respectable friends in the industry. He was charm itself when Sonja brought Kendall out to the house to introduce her, talked to her easily, naturally, as though she was his equal, and over the coming weeks she felt that he took a special interest in her used to chat to her for a few minutes on the phone if he called the gallery to speak to his wife.

Kendall had soon come to feel that she was like Sonja her clothes became more elegant, her movements more graceful, the inflections of her voice smoother but also that, as she herself became more attractive, Sonja was deteriorating. She had never been as beautiful as Sonja, about that she had no illusions, but she was twelve years younger, and she was prepared to make Harry the project of her life in a way that Sonja could not. It was not difficult to get him into bed, though the whole business felt rather perfunctory, almost tawdry, the first time a quick fuck at her apartment, after which he had immediately said he had a meeting and had to go. Kendall had wondered whether perhaps there was some truth in a few remarks Sonja had made, hinting that her husband was selfish and unaccomplished in bed.

Harry had been reluctant either to tell Sonja about their affair or to contemplate leaving her. Some deep, sick, neurotic bond held them to one another, Kendall decided, particularly since Sonja said she had almost finished some major project which she planned on exhibiting. Harry seemed to have bought into all that garbage about disturbing her creativity. That was fine, Kendall reckoned, as she visited her gynaecologist for shots to enhance her fertility she gets her baby, I get mine.

Sonja produced a remarkable piece of work: a huge construction of a series of storefronts, not unlike the block where the gallery was on Beverly Drive, in which the stones in the sidewalk, the trash cans, the merchandise in the stores seemed to be living, watching the parade of humanity with strange, childlike faces.

At the opening Kendall was quiet. She was wondering whether the quick fuck Harry had given her on just the right day two weekends ago, while Sonja was working at the studio, had done the trick.

She received confirmation of her pregnancy a week later, and served this information on Harry like a writ. She intimated, too, suitably indirectly, that if he didn't leave Sonja and marry her he would indeed receive a writ in the form of a paternity suit. Harry had no option now but to tell Sonja, as Kendall would soon start to swell, and she could see, too, that the idea of a child had worked its old magic, primitive but effective, on his vanity as a man. So that was settled. Sonja received the news as silently as a dagger slid expertly under her ribs, packed her bags and went.

While Kendall was pregnant things hadn't been too bad the prospect of the child had interested Harry more than its mother but after she had her daughter the marriage went downhill fast. Now that Kendall was preoccupied with the baby, clucking endlessly about the contents of bottles and diapers, she bored Harry and got on his nerves.

She was baffled by the deterioration of their relationship, as though they had fast-forwarded, somehow, through what was meant to be the honeymoon period and had settled down into the stress, irritation and distance that longer-term marriages seemed to wallow in.

Then their little girl died suddenly, inexplicably, at seventeen months old, and neither of them was ever the same again. Kendall never forgave Harry for his insensitivity to her at the funeral, spending more time with that low-life closet case Vallance than with her, and he became embittered, his humour blacker and sicker, his lifestyle tackier and more decadent by the hour. Kendall knew they were in trouble now, but when she tried to talk to her husband on the odd occasions that she saw him, he said his actions were fuelled by anger at the child's death.

It was in the weeks following the funeral that Harry had developed his interest in adult parlour games. Kendall hung on grimly, no matter what she had to go along with and how much of a blind eye she had to turn to his other playmates. She refused to become a member of the army of divorced and discarded women the city was thronged with. Vallance's revenge for Kendall's hostility had been to introduce Harry to Cindy and - after they had been married a little less than four years - Kendall knew she had lost him.

As her divorce settlement, he gave her a half share in the gallery and although she thought maybe she could have got more, she was glad to have the link of a business partnership with him, just to retain some contact. Devoid of sexuality herself, she had never been able to understand its power over others, and she was certain that the Harry-Cindy alliance would last no longer than her own marriage.

On the other hand, Kendall had always had a keen business mind, and unencumbered by the tasks of parenthood, she soon put her mind to making money again. The gallery did well enough, but she figured that to make serious money, you had to bend the rules a little. Harry had jumped at the idea of the forgeries, and if it was his money that financed the scam, it had been her brains that set it up.

Everything had gone sweetly up until now, and as Harry grew predictably disenchanted with Cindy and stories of the couple's rows and public slanging matches circulated around the city, Kendall permitted herself to fantasize that he would realize what an asset she had been to him - how transitory the delights of the flesh, how enduring the joys of bank accounts containing seven-, even eight-figure sums. Kendall had convinced herself that when the fraud came to fruition and the paintings were sold on elsewhere, Cindy would be kicked out in the cold and she would be reinstalled as Harry Nathan's wife.

All those dreams were now in ruins around her. She had nothing: he'd cleaned her out, just as he had Sonja, and he had dumped her for good, just as he had Sonja.

Kendall took another swig from the bottle, but she didn't feel drunk. Harry had used her and lied to her, but she knew him well enough to be sure he wouldn't have been able to arrange this latest deal alone - hadn't had the intelligence. He must have had someone assisting him. Vallance? Cindy was out of the question, and she wondered if Sonja could have played any part in it. She began to pace up and down the room, drinking and stumbling around over the floral parterre rugs, which were meant to make the green carpet look like a garden, a witty allusion to the black Astroturf beyond. Sonja was the obvious person: she knew more about art than either Kendall or Harry. Was it possible that she had come back into Harry's life?

Kendall wouldn't allow herself to believe it. What about Harry's brother Nick? He was an artist, he could have been behind it, and there was Harry's mother she had a considerable interest in art and antiques.

Abigail Nathan had been so friendly when Harry and Kendall were married, so pleased that Harry had got rid of Sonja, and overjoyed about her first grandchild. But Kendall had known in her heart that Abigail cared only about her sons. In her eyes they could do no wrong, and Kendall wondered if the whole Nathan family had ganged up against her. She remembered Cindy saying that someone had broken into the house and Abigail had keys, so the family could have taken the paintings, but how could she prove it without implicating herself?

Kendall began to search her desk drawers: Harry might not have kept up the house insurance premiums, but she had always paid the insurance of the gallery personally. Now it was all she had, and she knew what she would do: torch it, and claim the insurance. At least she would come out with something, and the more she thought about it, the better she felt. It could be done easily enough the workshop was full of inflammable spirits, canvases and wooden frames and would catch fire quickly. As it was attached to the gallery, the whole site would go up.

She hurled everything out of the desk drawers, until she found the documents: the gallery was well insured, and the stock valued at two million dollars. She checked the insurance papers, just to make sure that, in the event of fire, she was fully covered, then crammed the rest of the documents, including the mass of crazy notes she had received from Cindy Nathan, back into the drawer. Those were certainly best out of circulation she didn't want anyone thinking she had had anything to do with that fucked-up bimbo's death.

Kendall hurried out of her apartment to her Mitsubishi jeep. She loaded the cans of white spirit she kept in her garage into the back of it, muttering drunkenly that nobody was ever going to treat her like a doormat again. She would show that bastard and his family, and she was laughing as she drove out past Lorraine Page, who had parked a few yards from her front door, and whom she did not see. She was too intent on planning her revenge. Kendall wouldn't be left penniless like Sonja, wouldn't walk away without a fight.