'You haven't ever copied, say, a specific painting?' Lorraine went on.

'What? You mean an exact copy of a named work?' Nick said. 'Absolutely not that's forgery, in case you hadn't heard.'

'But it must be quite a temptation,' Lorraine persisted.

'Not to me,' Nick said. 'I couldn't do it if I tried it's a specific skill, and besides, my own work's too strong.'

'You don't know anyone connected with your brother who maybe . . . wouldn't have quite the same scruples?' she asked. She tore out the cheque and laid it on the table.

'Who the fuck are you?'

'Someone who's got five thousand dollars on the table for you, but I need you to answer a few questions.' He shook his head, and kept on shaking it. 'I'm a private investigator.' She flipped him her card, but he didn't take it. 'I've been hired by your brother's lawyer, Mr Feinstein. Do you know him?' Nick glared at her, his arms wrapped around his body. 'I've been hired to trace assets missing from your brother's estate.' This elicited a flicker of interest. 'Paintings.'

'What?'

She'd hooked him. 'Either there's a mountain of valuable art concealed somewhere, or there's several million dollars hidden in an undected account.' She took the list of missing paintings from her briefcase, and passed it to him. 'These are the works I'm looking for.'

He took a long time reading the list, then let the paper drop onto the table. 'I wouldn't pay a hundred bucks for any one of those assholes' pictures.'

'Maybe you wouldn't, but other people did or at least they thought they did. Various buyers at Gallery One viewed an original, got it authenticated, but then someone copied it, and it was the copy that was hung on their walls.'

'Well,' Nick said, 'it was nothing to do with me. Nice scam, though I wish the bastard had cut me in on it.'

Lorraine studied him. Her gut feeling was that he was telling the truth. 'You don't know of anyone Harry could have been working with?' she asked.

'Well, Kendall's a pretty obvious candidate, isn't she?' he said. 'She would have dug up her grandmother's grave if she thought there was a nickel in it.'

'She was certainly involved in setting up the initial part of the operation with Harry, but he switched the paintings again to cut her out. I was just wondering if that was all his idea, or if someone else was pulling the strings.'

'They must have been,' Nick said. 'Harry was never like that.' Unexpectedly, he started to weep uncontrollably, rubbing at his eye sockets while Lorraine watched in fascinated horror at this sudden switch of mood. The crying jag ended as suddenly as it had begun. 'Sorry,' he said. 'My brother was better-looking than me, better at everything. He was a hard act to follow, and all my life, until he died, I was kind of following . . . I still can't believe he's dead.'

'Kendall's dead, too, now, did you know?' Lorraine said.

'Yeah,' he replied. He was obviously not interested in discussing Kendall's death so Lorraine changed tack.

'What does Alison do?'

He smiled, and stretched out his arms. 'She's a dancer, but dancing's a hard world, almost as hard as painting.' Then he asked, 'You know Sonja?'

'I've met her.'

'She sent you here, didn't she?' he demanded.

'No, I told you, it was Raymond Vallance.'

He shrieked with laughter again, mouth wide open. 'That old queen! He clung to his past glories like a falling climber.'

'At least he had some to cling to,' Lorraine said quietly, but her sarcasm was lost on Nathan, who gave another loud hoot of laughter.

'He was in love with my brother, everybody was in love with him. Everybody always thought he was something special, and you know something, I did too. It wasn't until he was dead that I realized he was a loser.'

Lorraine had heard enough and Nick Nathan irritated her. The trip to Santa Fe had been largely a waste of time, but at least she knew he hadn't been responsible for the forgeries. It was interesting, too, that the family's suspicions, like her own, seemed to centre on Sonja . . .

'I have to go,' she said. 'Can you pack up the picture for me?'

He parcelled it in newspaper and handed it to her, saying that if she wanted any more of his work, all she had to do was call.

'Just for my records,' she said, 'could you tell me when you last saw your brother?'

'Must be a couple of years ago, just before he and Kendall broke up. Come to think of it, they were talking about getting some painting copied. I thought they meant onto a slide it was one of that asshole Schnabel's.' He moved out into the corridor, heading for the stairs, and Lorraine followed.

'Was it just Harry and Kendall, or was anyone else there?'

'There was another guy Arthur something, I don't know his last name. It was after a show Kendall had, and he and I had a kind of fight over the Schnabel. I said it wasn't worth the hook it was hanging from and he kind of went for me. Fucking asshole.' Nick stopped on the landing to continue his tirade against Julian Schnabel, talentless bum, in his opinion, promoted by a clique of art insiders interested in lining their own pockets by inflating the prices of certain court favourites' work. 'Everything's fixed, you realize that? Art has got nothing to do with the market.' He jabbed his finger into Lorraine's chest. 'I've trailed my work round every fucking New York gallery. I send in my slides and they lose them. Then they buy a fucking piece of canvas with a wooden plank sticking out of it. That's not art.'

Lorraine stepped back to avoid Nathan's finger, and decided to risk interrupting him. 'Do you recall anything more about this Arthur?'

'Big guy, dark,' Nick said, setting off down the stairs.

'Do you know if he was a painter?' Lorraine asked, hurrying after him.

'I don't know. Bastards like Schnabel probably pay people like him to talk up their work. He hung around after the show, like he was waiting for me to go, and I thought, Fine, screw you, I'm just the guy's fucking brother, so I walked out. Then I forgot my jacket so I go back, and the three of them were out back in a kind of workroom, and Kendall and Harry were standing behind him, and he was using this big lamp, looking over the canvas, right, and . . .'

'What exactly did he say?' Lorraine asked. 'It's very important.'

'Oh, I can't remember. Kendall said something about having a buyer and he said something about getting a copy made quickly. Maybe he's your rip-off artist.'

'Did you ever see him again?' Lorraine asked.

'No, I never went back to LA,' Nick said, then gave a boyish smile, and clapped his hands together, like a salesman who had just clinched a big deal. 'I hope you enjoy my work, and you have a real nice day. Been great meeting you, Loretta.'

Lorraine didn't correct him. 'Nice meeting you too, Nick,' she said, turning to go. Had he really just remembered this vital detail from the past, or was it a ploy on the part of Nathan's family to incriminate Sonja and her lover?

CHAPTER 18.

LORRAINE RETURNED to the motel, her head aching. She called Feinstein and told him that she was beginning to find leads, and asked if her expenses could run to another trip, this time to visit Nathan's mother.

'Christ, she's in Chicago,' he demurred.

'I know, but it might tie up some loose ends.'

'Go ahead, then,' he said, and gave her Abigail Nathan's address and phone number.

Lorraine called Rosie to say she would not be coming home that afternoon, but would try for the following morning. Rosie agreed to keep Tiger for another night, and Lorraine heard Rooney in the background asking to speak to her.

'Lorraine,' he said, 'I've stopped by the office a couple of times and there's someone calling you all the time.'

'Well,' Lorraine said, 'if they're looking for my professional services you can tell them I'm about to retire.'

'It's not that,' Rooney said. 'Whoever it is hangs up the whole time no message. Rosie and I thought it might be Jake, but you've spoken to him, haven't you?'

'Yes, I have. He's too busy for that kind of thing, anyway,' Lorraine said.

'That's what I thought. There's so many calls it's like someone's doing it deliberately, to make you realize someone's trying to get to you it's like they think you must know who it is. I was just wondering if you've trodden on someone's tail.'

'Well, that's a possibility,' Lorraine said thoughtfully. 'How long has this been going on?'

'A few days,' Bill said.

That meant it could hardly be anything to do with Nick Nathan, which left only Sonja and Arthur, Lorraine thought, but said nothing to Rooney.

'Is there anything I can do from this end?' he asked.

'There is, Bill. In my office there are two plastic bags. They've got a lot of catalogues from art galleries, with notes from Decker. Can you go through them and find out about a painting by Julian Schnabel? It would have been in the Nathan gallery about four years ago. It's not on my list, but see if there's any record of it, and I'll call you from Chicago.'

'Okay, will do . . . and you look after yourself.'

She caught Burton at the station, and once she heard his voice she wondered what the hell she was doing planning yet another detour.

'So,' he said, 'I get three guesses, right? You're coming home late, you're coming home late, or you're coming home late?'

'Well,' she said, 'I did say it might be tomorrow.'

'I know you did,' he said, easily. 'I bought you an extra-specially non-perishable present.'

'I bought you one too,' she said. A timeless work of art by Nick Nathan.'

'Mine's pretty timeless too,' he said, and something in this voice told her immediately what it was.

'Oh,' she said softly. 'Do I get three guesses?'

'No,' he said. 'I don't want to spoil the surprise. Just get your ass back here fast.'

'Will do,' Lorraine said. 'I swear I'll see you tomorrow even if I pass all of Feinstein's paintings at a garage sale on the way to the airport.'

'If that happens,' he said, with a deep laugh, 'you can miss the plane. Otherwise, see you then.'

She was about to hang up when she remembered what Rooney had said about the messages left at the office. 'Just one thing,' she said. 'You haven't been calling my answerphone at the office for any reason? Rooney says there've been some weird calls.'

He laughed again. 'I'm flattered I'm the first person you thought of but, much as I miss you, the answer is no.'

After they hung up, she had another fifteen minutes of considerably less cordial conversation with an irate agent at the airline before she succeeded in rearranging her flight, but she was en route to Chicago by late afternoon.

Sonja and Arthur waited for their luggage in the terminal at Tegel, the airport at Berlin, having already enlisted the services of a porter with a trolley. They had arranged for a car to pick them up outside. Sonja got in and leaned back, closing her eyes. 'God, I feel nervous, now that we're actually here. I kept thinking someone was going to challenge us when we went through customs.'

'Why would they? The paintings are at the gallery now.' He took her hand and squeezed it. 'We're here, and the paintings are here, it's nearly over. Just stay calm. We've already got over the most difficult part.'

'Yes, but you've still got to do the deal.'

'Don't worry,' Arthur said. 'The buyers are lined up and waiting and they'll eat right out of my hand.'

Lorraine booked into the Chicago Hyatt, where the room was pleasant and well-furnished, and called Abigail Nathan at once. Her voice sounded young, and when Lorraine explained that she was working for Mr Feinstein in connection with her son's estate, she immediately said she was free that evening or Lorraine could call the following morning. It was already after ten and Lorraine asked if she could come at nine the next day.

She planned an early night to be refreshed and ready for Mrs Nathan, so she showered, booked an alarm call for six and went straight to bed.

Rooney let himself into Lorraine's office and crossed to check the answerphone: the light was flashing, and the new message indicator was displaying the figure twenty-two. He replayed the messages to discover that only one was legitimate, from Feinstein. On the remainder the phone had been put down. The caller's attempts to alarm Lorraine had, however, intensified, and there were ominous silences, sometimes heavy breathing, and, on the last, what sounded like six blasts of gunfire. This was clearly intended as a threat, and Rooney was certain that the caller believed their identity was known to Lorraine.

He picked up the plastic bags he had come to collect, turned off the lights and left the building.

Back home, Rosie was cooking up a storm, trying out a new recipe for pork tenderloin with a complicated pink sauce, and was red-faced and flustered. 'I don't know what I've done with this sauce I put enough cornstarch in it to hang wallpaper, but it's not thickening like it should,' she said, waving a wooden spoon.

'Whatever you serve up, honey, will be fine by me.'

He went to get a beer, and they jostled each other for space in the small, but well-equipped kitchen. 'Go on, go sit down. Table's already set,' Rosie said, pushing Rooney away gently.

He plodded out with his beer, then turned back to her. 'Usual creepy messages on her answerphonei,' he said.

'Probably Jake.' She laughed.

'Yeah, probably,' he said. He was on the point of telling her about the gunshots, but decided to wait until after dinner, not wanting to spoil the meal she had taken such trouble with: Rosie worried enough about Lorraine as it was. Almost as soon as they had finished eating, however, Rosie's former AA sponsor called and asked if she would help him out at a meeting where he needed someone to sponsor a young girl.

'Do you mind, Bill?' she said. 'I know I said I'd stay home this evening, but if someone had been too busy to sponsor me, I never would have quit drinking.'

'And you would never have been working for Lorraine and I would never have met you.' Bill smiled. He knew that Rosie had a genuine desire to put something back into the organization that had changed her life. 'Go on out I'll go through this stuff of Lorraine's.' She dropped a kiss on top of his head, got her coat and hurried off, with a promise not to be too late.

Left alone, Rooney spread out the catalogues and thumbed through them, looking for the painting Lorraine had mentioned. He found no record of it. He flicked through Decker's notes of dates and times for each gallery he had visited, saddened by the task the boy had been so organized, such a good find for the agency, and it was dreadful that he had died in such a terrible way, so young and, as his voluminous notes testified, so eager to prove himself. Rooney kept on flicking backwards and forwards, matching catalogues to Decker's notes on the galleries, then saw something that made his blood run cold.

In Decker's neat handwriting was a name and address Eric Lee Judd, employee at Nathan's art gallery. Rooney sat back and drank some beer. He couldn't be mistaken. He knew it had been a long time, but it was a name he would never forget. When she had been drunk on duty, Lorraine Page had shot a teenager. The boy's name had been Tommy Lee Judd.

Rooney put in a call to Jim Sharkey's home, but he was out on a case so he left a message asking him to call. It was after nine and he wondered if it was too late bad district to go calling on anyone late in the daytime, never mind at night, but he mulled it over, and drained his beer. To hell with it, he thought, why not? His adrenalin buzzled like old times it was too much of a coincidence, and he wondered if he had just solved the mystery of Lorraine's unidentified caller.

Half an hour later, Rooney was heading towards the eastern suburbs of LA, having packed a shooter he wasn't taking any chances. Like Decker before him, he had a hard time making out the numbers of the houses on the side-street near Adams and, like Decker too, he passed the Lee Judd bungalow and had to reverse back to it down the street. Lights blazed, so he knew someone was at home. He got out, took a good look around, locked the car and walked up the drive to the front door. He rapped hard and waited several minutes before knocking again. This time he saw the outline of a figure shuffling towards the door through the dirty glass.

'Who is it?'

'Bill Rooney. Mrs Lee Judd? Is that you? I'm Bill Rooney used to be Captain Rooney, you remember me?'

The front-door chain was eased off, and she peered through, fear on her big moon face.

'It ain't bad news? Please, God, you ain't come with bad news?'