He moved fast enough to reach the bedroom door before her, and dragged her inside, pushing her down on the bed.

'What's this? Gonna try some rough stuff on me now, are you? That on my report sheet, is it?'

He slapped her face, and she took it, laughing at him. He stepped back. 'I'm sorry . . . sorry.'

'Don't be, I'm used to it, I can take it. Come on, you want it again, take it.'

She opened the towel, lying naked in front of him, and he bent forward. For a moment she thought he was going to punch her, but instead he pulled the sheet from under her, so that she rolled sideways, then wrapped her inside it. Her arms were trapped and he held her so that she couldn't move. 'Don't do this, Lorraine . . .'

'Give me one good reason.' She pushed her face close to his, and then the look of hurt in his eyes made her anger evaporate. She couldn't keep up the act, and she rested against him again, a low sob shaking her body.

'Sssh,' he said softly, rocking her in his arms.

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean what I said. I'm sorry, it's just . . . It's just . . .' She couldn't continue.

'Just what?' he asked, after a long pause.

'Just that I am scared.'

'Not of me?'

She shook her head, then bit her lip and nodded. 'Yeah. I am scared of you, or of what you make me feel.'

'What's that?'

She sighed. 'Oh, please, don't do this.'

'Okay. What if I tell you that I am . . . I'm only interested in this woman I've got in my arms right now. I don't give a fuck about her past, what she did or didn't do. I'm not dumb enough to think it won't come up, or that we won't have to talk about it, but for no other reason than I want to know you, all of you, the good, the bad . . .'

'And the ugly,' Lorraine said, her eyes filled with tears.

'Sure, yeah, all of it. Anything to do with you I want to know about.'

She didn't know what to say to him, she just felt like weeping.

'You're supposed to say that you want to know everything there is to know about me,' he said, feeling her begin to relax in his arms.

They made love again, then showered together. Afterwards Lorraine made fresh coffee while Jake scrambled some eggs, and they ate breakfast again side by side on the sofa.

Will you get the autopsy report on Cindy Nathan today?' she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Jake slipped on his jacket. 'Yes, well, it was supposed to come in today.' He crossed to her and leaned on the alcove. 'I think we might have a little talk to Mrs Kendall Nathan this morning too.'

Lorraine nodded. 'Yeah,' she said, pretending a keen interest. 'I'd check her out.' She looked at the clock. 'I should get dressed.' There was an awkward pause, while Jake hesitated a moment, then walked to the door. She didn't want him to go, but if he had no intention of seeing her again, she didn't want him to stay either. 'I'll see you,' she said, hurrying towards her bedroom.

'Okay. 'Bye, Tiger, look after her for me.' He opened the door, and was half-way through it when he turned round. 'I'll be off at about four you want to take in a movie? '

She felt like a kid, knew she was blushing. 'Yep, I'd like that.'

'Okay, I'll call you at your office. Are you going in today?'

'Yes. I've got a few odds and ends to sort out.'

'You're not still working on the Nathan case?'

'Well, not really there isn't a case to work on.'

He grinned. 'You'll be touting for work.'

'Yes.'

'Okay, see you later.' He went out, and she stayed in the bedroom doorway, listening to his footsteps going down the stairs. She crossed to the window and looked out, wanting to see him walking to his car, wanting just to watch him as he unlocked it. He turned, as if he knew she was there, and smiled up at her, stood for a few moments, just looking, before he got in and drove away.

'Right, Tiger, soon as I'm dressed we go walkies,' she said, and couldn't keep the smile off her face.

Lorraine was singing as she walked into the office. Decker was sitting at his desk as she breezed past him with a loud 'Good morning.'

'It's better than you think,' he said, picking up his notebook.

'You can say that again, it's a . . .' She was about to say something silly, but instead burst out laughing.

'My, my, you got out of bed the right side.'

'I did, I most certainly did.' She sat in her chair and swung from side to side as he put a memo in front of her. 'Mr Feinstein . . . urgent, three messages on the answerphone. I called him back, but he insisted that he could only speak directly to you, and would you call him as soon as you got in.'

'Maybe they've got the autopsy results,' she said, dialling Feinstein's number.

'I doubt it. Two of the calls came in last night, and one at eight this morning.'

Decker went into his section to get coffee for Lorraine, and some bagels with cream cheese, which he had also bought. As he came back with them, Lorraine was tapping her desk with a pen. 'He won't discuss it on the phone, wants me to go round to his office. When I asked if it had anything to do with Cindy Nathan's death, he said it was an entirely different matter.'

'You want breakfast before you go?'

'No, thanks, I had scrambled eggs.' She was already collecting her purse and running a comb through her hair.

'You're looking very . . . relaxed,' Decker said, cocking his head appraisingly to one side.

'I am, and I might take off early this afternoon. Can you book me a hairdressing appointment and a manicure?'

'Got a date?' he asked jokingly.

'Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.'

'Ohhh.' Decker scuttled after her. 'So I was right!' Lorraine bit her lip and giggled, more feminine, girlish even, than he had ever seen her.

Lorraine was half out of the door. 'You just might be,' she tossed over her shoulder, and then she was gone.

Decker chucked her bagel to Tiger, who caught it and wolfed it down in two gulps. 'She got laid last night, didn't she?' he asked the dog, whose jaws chomped in reply. 'Well, well, well . . . I thought he was a pretty hot number myself.'

Clearly today was not one of Feinstein's good days. He was dishevelled, his tie askew, and he was sweating as he paced up and down the sea of carpet. 'I've had another art expert in, just to make sure, and he confirmed it. They are fakes, every single fucking one of them.'

'I'm sorry,' Lorraine said lamely, glancing behind him at a large painting on the wall. A letter-opener, made from the top ten inches of a narwhal tusk, protruded from the middle of it, stabbed through the canvas.

'Not as sorry as I am. Have you any idea how much money I've lost? My life savings were in those fucking paintings.' His voice cracked, and he almost broke down. Then a fit of rage seized him as with a sudden sweep of his arm he dashed pens, blotter, designer candy-dispenser and executive toys off his heroically proportioned desk. 'That shit Harry Nathan, that two-faced bastard! When I think of everything I did for that son-of-a-bitch, I'm telling you, if he was to walk in right now I'd shoot him I'd kill the bastard.'

'What does Harry Nathan have to do with all this?' Lorraine asked, as Feinstein seized the letter opener from the canvas and slashed at it, using all his strength in an effort to rip the thing apart.

'I bought all my art through the Nathan gallery. These are fakes, right? So somebody, somewhere, has my paintings, and Harry Nathan has my money stashed somewhere, because I've been through every fucking bank account he had and the cheque I gave him never showed up in any of them!'

Feinstein began to hurl pages of bank statements across to her. So much for client confidentiality as soon as he was personally affected, all he cared about was himself. 'You trace those paintings, you trace his fucking secret accounts I'm talking about millions, millions.'

Lorraine watched as Feinstein threw more files across the room, and waited until at last he sat down in his throne-like swivel chair. 'I will need to ask you some particulars, Mr Feinstein, and we will also have to discuss my fees.'

'I'll pay you whatever you want just get me my paintings. My wife will divorce me? He sank his head in his hands.

'I'll need to take some notes,' she said, opening her briefcase and taking out her pad.

Feinstein flicked a switch on his intercom, which had been flashing on and off since Lorraine had arrived. 'No calls, Pamela period.' He flicked the switch off again, and patted his pockets for his cigar case. He found it, chose one, and ripped off the wrapper. 'Fucking start with Harry Nathan.' He snapped on a lighter.

'That might be a little difficult,' Lorraine said, smiling.

'You think this is funny, Mrs Page? I'm down two and half million and it's fucking destroying me.' He huffed and puffed at his cigar, then bit off the end and spat it across the room. 'Find out anything you can on Nathan's bank accounts. I can tell you some aliases I know Harry used -1 want them checked out.'

'So Harry Nathan actually sold you the paintings?' Lorraine enquired innocently.

Feinstein looked at her, then at the ceiling. 'Who the fuck did you think sold me them? Sure, Kendall Nathan handled it, arranged delivery and stuff. Check her out she wouldn't take a leak without his permission. The two of them pulled this off together and I want the slimy bitch fucking charged. I bought them through the gallery, right? I had them authenticated there, and Kendall or somebody who worked for her hung them for me here. So start with her.'

'Did Kendall benefit significantly under Harry Nathan's will?' Lorraine asked, knowing it wasn't strictly relevant to the art fraud but unable to resist the temptation to take advantage of Feinstein's temporarily uncontrolled state to try to find out what he had refused to tell her before.

'Well, she got the other half of the gallery,' Feinstein answered. 'Little pay-off for services rendered, by the looks of things.'

'But what about the art collection at the house?' Lorraine went on. 'Does that come to Kendall now that Cindy's dead?'

Feinstein was off on another tack. 'The police asked me for a specimen of her handwriting. I could have given them ten fucking specimens of suicide notes if they had wanted them, but they didn't ask. Cindy was always threatenin' to kill herself. She used to write letters to practically anyone she knew about how fucking miserable she was with Harry. What the fuck she thought I was going to do about it is beyond me.'

Lorraine felt another pang of grief for the tormented girl, calling out for help to everyone around her, only to meet with indifference and rejection. But it was interesting that she had apparently written letters mentioning suicide to quite a number of people. Lorraine couldn't see Feinstein killing her himself, but the idea of him perhaps selling a letter that might help in getting rid of Cindy didn't seem beyond the bounds of credibility. Or if Cindy had written to Harry's lawyer for advice on her emotional problems with him, it was not impossible that she had written to one or both of his ex-wives . . .

'Does Cindy's death benefit Kendall?' she asked again, casually.

'No way. That's not the way it works.' Feinstein had got more of a grip on himself now, had become the lawyer again. 'Anything Cindy owned when she died will form part of her own estate.'

'Will that go to her parents? They're out in Milwaukee somewhere, aren't they?'

'They may well be, but as far as Cindy was concerned they could stay and rot there. I have the last will and testament of Mrs Cindy Nancy Robyn Nathan right here in the office, and her family are not mentioned at all.'

Feinstein leaned back in his chair, sensing Lorraine's acute interest in what he was saying. He permitted himself a leisurely pause and a further pull on his cigar. 'She left everything to the House of Nirvana Spiritual Center, some fucking bunch of freaks.' God, Lorraine thought, that was unexpected. 'Fortunately,' Feinstein said, with a self-satisfied smile, 'the tax-saving clause prevents them getting more than her pantyhose. They won't get a cent of Harry's estate.'

'What do you mean?' Lorraine said. 'Cindy didn't tell me anything about the Nathans' tax affairs.'

'It's a pretty standard thing on a large estate that will attract a lot of taxes, particularly when the beneficiaries are all relatively young and in good shape. All of Harry Nathan's beneficiaries had to survive him by sixty days before the various gifts to them took effect. Otherwise, in the situation we have here, for example, we would be paying tax once on the estate when it passed to Cindy, then again virtually immediately when it passed to her heirs.'

The intercom buzzed again, and Feinstein screamed into it, 'Pamela, I said no calls I MEAN NO CALLS.'

'Since Cindy didn't live for sixty days, it doesn't go to her heirs,' Lorraine said. 'So who gets it?'

'The residuary legatee,' Feinstein said.

'Who is?' Lorraine said, wanting to slap him. Lawyers: what a fucking pompous self-important bunch of creeps, she thought. Feinstein got up, turned aside to relight the thick cigar, then turned back to her as he drew on it, surrounding himself in a swirl of blue smoke.

'Sonja Nathan.'

'Sonja?' Lorraine said. 'She'll do a bit better now than the couple of keepsakes Cindy said she was going to get.'

'That would indeed have been pretty much the position if Cindy hadn't died,' Feinstein went on, in professorial mode. 'Nathan's big assets were the house, his holding in Maximedia, his art collection and his half of the art gallery. There were no substantial cash assets at all or, at least, not in any accounts I knew about.' His eyes narrowed with rage at this reminder of Harry Nathan's perfidy. 'The will disposed of all of those to Cindy and Kendall, and Sonja would have got anything else not specifically mentioned. He had a substantial film library, for example, at his office, which would have gone to her.'

Lorraine's mind was racing: she had largely discounted the possibility of Sonja Nathan's involvement in her husband's death, but this certainly gave her a motive. True, she had had to kill two people to collect under Harry's will, but if she had been prepared to kill once, why not twice? She had certainly been expert in covering her tracks maybe used a professional hitman as Lorraine had found nothing to connect Sonja with either of the two deaths. However, none of that was Feinstein's business, and she tried to disguise what she was thinking by changing the subject to more mundane matters.

'By the way, I promised Jose and Juana I would mention this matter of the savings Nathan took off them and their back salary. It looks like they should contact Sonja,' she said, but the phone on the desk blinked again, and this time Feinstein, still on his feet, marched to the door and yanked it open.

'Pamela, what the fuck are you doing out there?' he shouted.

Lorraine heard whispers passing between Feinstein and his secretary before the attorney walked out, leaving the door ajar. He returned almost immediately. 'She's dead.'

Lorraine stood up.

'Kendall Nathan's dead.'

Burton looked up from reading the file on Lorraine Page to see Jim Sharkey outside the office door.

'Is it the autopsy on Cindy Nathan?' Burton asked.

Sharkey came in with some photographs and put them down on the lieutenant's desk. 'These are morgue shots. Hard to tell who it is, but it's Kendall Nathan. Last night. Initial view is she was trying to torch the gallery and it backfired. Her hair caught light and . . .'

'Dear God,' Burton said, looking at the charred form. If Kendall had killed Cindy as, he had to admit, Lorraine had largely convinced him was likely, and possibly Nathan too, she had certainly got her just deserts.

'Yeah, pretty horrific way to die. Place went up like a bonfire lot of white spirit, plus all the canvases, the wooden frames . . . No one could do anything.' Sharkey went on to tell Burton that there was an eyewitness, the owner of a shop that shared a back alley with the gallery workshop, who had seen Kendall enter the building and had raised the alarm when he saw the smoke.

Burton's phone rang, and he picked it up; the receptionist told him that a Mrs Page was on the line. He asked the girl to take a message as he was in a meeting. He replaced the phone. 'What about Cindy Nathan?' he asked again.

Sharkey shrugged. It was still only nine thirty and nothing had come in as yet. Burton rocked back in his chair, and told Sharkey to see what he could do to hurry things up, while his eyes moved back involuntarily to the grotesque photographs of Kendall Nathan's corpse. Well, he figured, there was no more potent motive force to set off a chain of destruction than the cocktail of greed, hatred and lust that had seemed to surround Harry Nathan. Either Cindy or Kendall had killed Nathan, Kendall had killed Cindy, and now Kendall, too, was dead. The nest of vipers had consumed itself, and he was glad to close the Nathan case for good. The evidence could go back to the family now, he thought, recalling the hours of sickening videotapes he had made sure that no one but himself saw, and made a mental note to call Feinstein to find out who was now the legal owner of Harry Nathan's estate.

Decker jumped as Lorraine banged into the office. 'Do I have a lot to tell you, darling,' she said, tossing a rustling deli bag full of wrapped packages onto his desk. 'Did you eat?'

'No,' he said. 'I was waiting for you. God, I'm hungry. What did Feinstein want?' He went into the kitchen for plates.

When he came back, she said, 'Cindy was right about the art scam. Feinstein bought over two million dollars' worth of paintings from Harry Nathan and Kendall and they've turned out to be fakes. He wants us to try to trace either the original paintings or the proceeds of sale.' Lorraine opened a tub of artichoke salad and scooped some into her mouth before continuing. 'Cindy also wrote stuff about killing herself to Feinstein and a whole bunch of other people which fits in with what I thought about the note. I had Kendall pretty much down for having killed her, but you won't believe this Kendall Nathan died too last night.'

'Ding dong, the witch is dead,' Decker said ironically, arranging bread, bresaola and salad on a serving platter. 'What happened to her?'