Линда Ла Плант - Cold Heart

Cindy blinked. ‘Oh, yes, that’s right. I did.’

Lorraine made a note that the call to her office had come in at just after eleven o’clock. If Cindy couldn’t recall contacting the police, maybe she couldn’t remember calling Lorraine either.

Cindy continued, ‘I called Mr Feinstein, because the next thing the garden was full of people and someone brought me some brandy. I was still by the pool, but sitting on one of the wooden chairs, and all I could think of was that he’d been sitting where I was sitting, smoking that cigarette. Then Mr Feinstein said to me, “Cindy, they want to take you into the station to ask you some questions,” and that it would be best if I got dressed.’ Cindy began to twist a strand of her blonde hair through her fingers. ‘I got dressed, I got my purse and my sunglasses, just like I was going out shopping or something, but I didn’t put any make-up on, and then they took me to the station.’

‘Do you recall the name of the officer who questioned you?’

‘No.’

‘Did Mr Feinstein come with you?’

‘No, he came on later.’

‘So you had no lawyer with you?’

‘No, I was on my own.’

Lorraine jotted some notes, then looked up sharply as Cindy began to cry. ‘They said they found my gun, they said I did it, but I kept on saying over and over that I couldn’t have done it, that I wouldn’t have done something that bad even if I said I would.’

Lorraine repeated, ‘“Said I would”?’

‘Well, I told you, I was always threatening him.’ Cindy’s voice steadied a little, and her chin lifted. ‘I was always saying I’d kill him, because he used to get me so mad. He could be so mean to me, I’d get mad as hell. I’d scream and shout and try to hit him, but he would just laugh, and that got me even madder, but I never meant what I said. It was just I was upset.’ She dissolved into real tears again — more at the memory of her anger and humiliation, Lorraine thought, than out of grief at her husband’s death.

‘I need a tissue,’ Cindy said, sniffing, her dark blue mascara beginning to run.

Lorraine crossed to the shower area and headed for one of the toilets to get some tissue. She dragged off a length of paper and hurried back to the gym.

‘I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t kill him, even though he got me madder than hell!’ Cindy mopped her face, then blew her nose. ‘I didn’t kill him, did I? Please tell me I didn’t do it.’

Lorraine bent down to her, in an almost motherly fashion. ‘But you didn’t do it, did you?’

Cindy wiped her face and blew her nose again, her voice a hoarse whisper. ‘I don’t know. You see, it’s all blurred. I mean, I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d know if I hud done it. That’s what you got to help me with, because I’m all confused.’

Lorraine straightened up. One moment Cindy had given her a detailed description of what she had done leading up to the discovery of the body, the next she was asking if she could have been the one to pull the trigger. It didn’t make sense.

‘You’ve just told me how you found the body, Cindy, so why are you thinking now you might have killed him? ‘

Cindy rocked forward, head in her hands. ‘‘Cos I can only remember going to the pool and seeing him in the water. Nothing before that. I do the same thing every day — I mean, I could be just filling in the gaps.’

‘But you said you heard the gunshot?’

‘Yes, I know. I know I said that .’

‘Are you telling me now that you didn’t hear it?’

‘ Yes. No, I heard it, I’m not lying to you. I heard that one, but...’

‘But what?’

Cindy twisted the damp tissue in her fingers. ‘Maybe it didn’t happen when I think it happened.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘What if I’d done it before?’

‘You’ll have to help me, Cindy, I can’t follow what you’re saying. How do you mean before?’

‘Earlier.’

Lorraine sighed. ‘You mean before you went to the balcony to sunbathe?’

‘No. I mean the first shot. When I was sleeping. I mean, I could have done it half asleep. Like in an altered state of consciousness — you know, the way people remember past lives, and sometimes they just act them out? I mean, I could have been a murderess or anything. Maybe I just couldn’t help myself.’

Lorraine rolled her eyes as Cindy sprang to her feet, thinking that her client had been watching too many of her husband’s killer-bimbo fantasies. She watched the girl dive at the punch-bag and hit it, her face a mask of anger. Lorraine let her go until she tired herself out and eventually put her arms around the punch-bag, hugging it tightly.

‘Sometimes he didn’t come home,’ she said softly. Lorraine kept silent. ‘Often he stayed out all night, and I knew about the other women. I knew he was never faithful, he always said that to me, said he could never be faithful to one woman and that I’d just have to accept that. The day before I found him, he’d been really mean to me. We argued at breakfast, and then he came down here. I came after him and he was furious, but I wouldn’t go. I said to him that if he carried on this way I’d leave him, and he said he didn’t care what I did and he laughed at me, kept on punching this thing, laughing and ignoring me. So I went and got the gun, and when I came back he was on that weight machine, and I went right up to him and I pointed it at his head, and I said that was the last time he was ever going to laugh at me.’

Lorraine still said nothing, but was interested to note that Cindy was calm now, her mind focused on what she was saying.

‘He looked at me, then he reached out and pulled the gun over so it was almost in his mouth and he told me to fire it.’

‘And?’

Cindy sighed. ‘I did. I pulled the trigger, but it wasn’t loaded.’ She pushed away the punch-bag, which began to swing slowly. ‘He got up from the bench and hit me in the stomach. I fell backwards onto the floor and he kept on coming towards me, but he stepped right over me and walked into the showers. I screamed at him that I would get him the next time. Next time the gun would be loaded.’ She rubbed her belly. ‘Punched me right in the baby, and it hurt so bad I was sick, but he made me get dressed and go out for dinner at Morton’s, and he told everyone what I’d done, and they all laughed. He kept on fooling around at dinner with this baby zucchini as the gun, shoving it into his mouth, and everyone laughed, and I got so upset I was crying, but I wasn’t going to stay and be made a fool of. So I got up and I shouted it out. I said the next time he wouldn’t live to tell anybody anything because the next time I’d make sure I killed him.’

Cindy went to fetch another Diet Coke. This time she drank it from the can. ‘He didn’t come home. I waited and waited, and it was six o’clock in the morning when he came back. He was in his dressing room, taking his clothes off, when I went in to see him. He just told me to get out, but I wouldn’t. I said he shouldn’t make a fool of me in front of people like he had done, but he just kept on choosing which shirt he was going to wear, ignoring me again.’

Lorraine waited while Cindy sipped the Coke.

‘I went into the bedroom to get the gun. I meant it, I was going to kill him, and I’d just figured out how to load it, but I couldn’t remember where it was, or if I’d taken it from the gym. I was looking all over the room for it when he strolled in all dressed up and Jose knocked on the door.’ Cindy frowned as she tried to recall the details.

‘Jose said that the car needed to be serviced, and did Harry need it after his breakfast meeting at seven. Harry said he didn’t. He’d had a long, hard night and he’d just sit by the pool reading scripts after his meeting. Then... he started laughing and he told Jose that I’d threatened to kill him again and that Jose was his witness that I was a real flake, a psychiatric case. He knows how upset I get about him saying things like that because I’ve had, you know, some problems.’