Free Cold Heart by Lynda La Plante Page A

heated conversation with Jose and Juana. He was certainly making a point of keeping his distance from Cindy, Lorraine thought, to whom he had not addressed a word. But as his exchange with the two Mexicans came to an end and they drifted away, she saw him glance in the girl’s direction. Sonja, she noted, was still beside the tomb.
    Cindy was looking bored by whatever the minister was saying to her and Kendall, and Lorraine decided to rescue her. ‘Cindy, I wonder if I could speak to you for a second,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I’m just going.’
    Cindy left Kendall with the clergyman. ‘You and me both,’ she said. ‘Jesus – I can’t stand to listen to Kendall saying she hasn’t eaten a thing since he died when all I can think about is how soon I can get a tuna melt. It’s the baby,’ she said, and Lorraine saw her eyes lock momentarily with Raymond Vallance’s. ‘It makes you crave weird things.’ Lorraine wondered whether it was just food she was talking about, but the girl said nothing more.
    Lorraine breezed into the office just before lunchtime to find Decker showing out two men in overalls. Half the beige carpet had been taken up in the reception area.
    Decker’s expression was uncharacteristically grim. ‘Lorraine,’ he said, ‘there’s been a . . . problem. Sit down for a moment. Somebody broke in and sprayed fucking acid over the tapes.’ He decided not to tell her about the photograph yet.
    ‘I see,’ Lorraine said, pushing her hand through her hair. ‘Well, that’s interesting. Cindy said no one else knew about them.’
    ‘Well, maybe she changed her mind about letting you listen to them,’ Decker said.
    ‘Maybe,’ Lorraine said, meditatively. ‘I can’t quite imagine her going to these lengths, though.’
    ‘Perhaps she has some more . . . extreme friends,’ Decker suggested. ‘Who was she with at the funeral?’
    ‘Nobody. Though she was breaking her neck not to be seen looking at Mr Ageing Romeo himself, Raymond Vallance. Pouting and glowering on both sides, though – sexual tension you could cut with a knife.’
    ‘Raymond Vallance?’ Decker pulled a face. ‘I thought he was already planted out there. He must be about two hundred – the oldest living really terrible actor.’
    ‘Looks every day of it,’ Lorraine said. ‘Though perhaps the shock of losing his close friend Mr Nathan was affecting his looks. He and the mother were the only people to shed a tear.’
    ‘Actually,’ Decker began, serious now, ‘something else happened in the break-in.’ He picked up the photograph. ‘They did this.’ Lorraine’s face remained expressionless as she registered the damage. ‘It looks like a get-the-fuck-off-this-case message, wouldn’t you say?’
    Lorraine shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Maybe something else. Maybe somebody who knows you,’ Decker went on. ‘It’s a really creepy thing to do, Lorraine. I knew you wouldn’t want me to call the police until you got back, but I really think you should. I mean, it’s like a threat.’
    ‘Well, thanks for the concern, Decker, but there’s no way I want the police knowing about either me or the tapes or that Cindy sent them here. I wish we’d got to listen to them, though. There must have been something on them that somebody didn’t want us to find.’
    ‘Well, we still have some . . .’ Decker said. ‘I took twenty home last night. But there’s nothing on any of the ones I’ve listened to so far.’
    ‘Sit down, boy wonder, I’ll make you some coffee – you deserve it.’ She smiled broadly. Clearly, as far as Lorraine was concerned, the subject of any personal danger was closed.
    But the knowledge that Cindy Nathan had lied to her burned at the back of Lorraine’s mind, and as soon as the office was back in shape she called her, only to be informed by Jose that Mrs Nathan was lying down after the stress of the funeral and could not come to the phone. He suggested she call again the