Линда Ла Плант - Cold Shoulder

Lorraine smiled. ‘I’ll send you my card. I can set up an office now.’

‘Just one more thing, if you don’t mind me asking. You seemed pretty friendly in there with Nula.’

‘Just doing my job. She’s scum — she almost killed me.’

‘You don’t want to press charges, though, do you?’

She gave him a wry look. ‘No.’

Rosie was sitting on the sofa watching TV when Lorraine got home. Lorraine looked at her and grinned. ‘You’re a good friend, Rosie.’

‘Bed’s all made up. I’ll kip on the sofa.’

Lorraine winked. ‘Thanks.’

Just as she walked into the bedroom, the phone rang. ‘If that’s for me, I’m not back yet.’ She switched on the shower and couldn’t hear properly what Rosie was calling through the door. She had to switch it off.

‘That was Brad Thorburn. He said he’d ring again tomorrow morning.’

Lorraine stripped off and stepped beneath the cool water, tilting her face up to the jet spray. She was unnerved by his call and she hadn’t expected to hear from him again.

‘Is he back in LA?’ she shouted.

Rosie appeared in the doorway again. ‘On his way, be here in the morning. He said he was at the airport in Paris. Did you want to speak to him?’

Lorraine wrapped the towel around herself and frowned. Brad had picked up Holly, taken her back to that house, had probably screwed her in the same bed as he’d fucked her in, little seventeen-year-old Holly. Brad Thorburn would probably always pick up the wrong kind. As much as she wanted to see him, she thought he was probably calling her to find out if she knew why the police wanted to talk to him.

‘If he calls again, I’m out. He’s no good — well, not for me.’

‘Okay, whatever you say. You want a cup of tea?’

‘Sounds good.’

Lorraine lay down on the bed. Tomorrow she would open up the agency, get cards made, get a word processor. By the time Rosie came in with the tea she was deeply asleep. Rosie didn’t wake her but gently wrapped the bedcover over her. Lorraine didn’t stir.

The last item on her list had been blurred, only half considered, but it was the first thing she thought of in the morning.

Rosie looked up sleepily from the couch when Lorraine walked in. ‘What did you say?’

‘Let’s go to a meeting this morning.’

Brad Thorburn stared around the empty house with all its furnishings draped in dust sheets. He walked out, slamming the front door. He drove to the police station and was introduced to Ed Bickerstaff. The interview was formal and he gave a detailed statement of the night he had picked up a young blonde hooker. He couldn’t recall her name; she was just one of so many. Bickerstaff questioned him as to what time of night, how long she had stayed and then asked if on the night in question he had noticed anything unusual about her. Brad shrugged, he couldn’t remember clearly.

‘How about an item of jewellery?’

Brad thought, and then it dawned on him. ‘She was wearing a large ring. I only remember because it was similar to one my mother used to wear, but she took it off and slipped it into her purse and I never gave it much thought.’

‘Was this it?’ Bickerstaff held out the ring taken from Didi’s finger.

Brad stared at it. ‘Yes, well, it was similar.’

‘Could this be your mother’s ring?’

‘Possibly. It is similar but whether it’s hers or not I couldn’t say. She had a large collection of jewels — she was a collector. Some of them were worth thousands, others cheap replicas. She was always terrified of being mugged. I’m sorry not to be of more help.’

Bickerstaff didn’t bother to explain how important the ring had been in so many people’s lives — or deaths.

Brad left and returned to his car. He drove to the real-estate agents, signed over the documents for the contents of the house to be sold along with the property, and then went to Beverly Glen. The sale notices already hung outside. Brad collected the items he wanted to take with him and put little red stickers on the rest so the storage men would be able to ascertain which articles were to be removed. He walked from room to room in the shrouded house. There was little he needed or wanted, it was mostly his personal belongings from his own quarters. He did, however, stick red dots on all the silver-framed family photographs. He found it difficult to look at the faces of his brother and mother but went about his work as fast as possible. Steven’s room was more difficult than he had anticipated, with his precious collections of shells and snuff-boxes, the banks of photographs of their mother. He closed the door, refusing to allow himself to think about Steven. Not until he was in his own room did he relax as he checked his books and record collections, his sports equipment. There was so little with which he had any emotional ties — everything could easily be replaced. All he knew was that he would never come back to this house and its memories.

Brad arrived at his mother’s nursing home in the late afternoon. He had called Lorraine’s number four times but received no reply. He decided he would try once more before he left. He didn’t know why he wanted to see her; he was not infatuated or in love with her, but he couldn’t shake off the memory of how gentle he had felt towards her, how good it had been to hold her in his arms.

Mrs Thorburn was seated by the windows overlooking the elegant gardens. The nursing home was ludicrously expensive, with two or three nursing staff to every resident. She was reading Vogue , the arthritic hands with their perfectly manicured nails gliding over the pages, pausing to tap a particular photograph and then ripping off a yellow sticker from a pad and carefully applying it to a page. She still bought lavish clothes — sometimes an entire collection — which were delivered to the home.

Brad watched her for a few more minutes. Everything about her was immaculate: her wig, false eyelashes and pale powdered skin drawn tightly over the high cheekbones. The many face-lifts had given her a surreal look so she could, at a distance, be taken for a thirty-year-old woman; only at close-up did one see the stretched, taut, ageing skin. He called her name softly as he approached and bent to kiss her cheek. As always she averted her face.

‘Watch out for my hair, darling.’

He drew up a chair, sitting to one side. She shut the magazine and held it out as if to an unseen butler. Brad took it and pushed it into the side of her wheelchair.

‘How are you?’

‘Dreadful. How do you expect me to be?’

Her perfect lips, dark crimson, with smears across her over-large, over-white false teeth, grimaced in a sneering smile. ‘I hear you’re selling the house? I always hated it. Will we get a good price?’

‘I should think so.’

‘Where are you going to live?’

‘South of France.’

‘Always loved Cannes but it’s not what it used to be. Your father took me there often in the early days but we had problems with the staff, probably because he was fucking them.’

Brad smiled at the way she dropped in the word ‘fucking’ as if to shock, but he was used to it. She could swear better than any man he’d ever met and he felt something akin to fondness for her, which surprised him. She suddenly pointed one frail, red-nailed finger to the gardens. ‘They’re putting in a new border and a fountain. I just hope it’s not some awful cherub pissing. I hate those little penises spurting water. I’m always surprised how many people choose them, very distasteful, nasty things, penises — uncircumcised ones in particular. I made sure you were circumcised — much more attractive, especially if you’re being sucked off.’ She gave a shrill laugh, and placed her hands over her lips like a naughty schoolgirl, her diamonds glinting in the sunlight.