Cold Heart by Lynda La Plante

downstairs.’
    Lorraine relaxed. ‘I’d certainly be more comfortable. But I’d like to take the tapes. They become Mrs Nathan’s property, I believe, under the terms of Mr Nathan’s will, and as I just said, she has asked me to gather any evidence relevant to her case.’
    Jose looked at Juana again. ‘Let her take them. I want them gone.’ There was a note of resignation in her voice.
    Lorraine scooped into her arms as many of the tapes as she could hold and climbed down from the chair. ‘I’ll lock these in the trunk of my car before we talk.’
    Juana nodded, a look of relief crossing her face. ‘I will make some tea.’
    Lorraine made two journeys out to the Mercedes, doing her best to appear unconcerned, but prepared for any attempt the two servants might make to stop her. Neither approached her, though, and she could hear them talking in Spanish in the kitchen, Juana’s voice much more prominent than Jose’s. She locked the trunk before returning to the house.
    Lorraine walked back into the hall and through to where she could hear Jose and Juana’s voices. The kitchen, which had the air of an operating theatre, was in monochrome black and white, and the table was set with crockery of almost transparent white porcelain in a variety of deliberately irregular shapes. ‘Mr Nathan certainly seemed to like the minimalist look,’ Lorraine said.
    ‘Mr Nathan was a criminal,’ Juana said, tight-lipped. ‘He was a thief Jose said nothing: his wife had clearly convinced him that their interests no longer lay in loyalty to their former employer.
    She poured Lorraine a cup of slightly perfumed tea, and pushed a plate of home-made crinkle cookies towards her.
    ‘What makes you say that?’ Lorraine said, as she bit into a cookie, but before the woman could answer, the telephone rang.
    Jose picked it up. ‘No, Mrs Nathan, I have no authority . . .’ he said mechanically.
    Lorraine looked up at the mention of her client’s name. ‘Can I speak to her?’ she asked, but the man shook his head.
    ‘It is not Cindy,’ Juana said. ‘It is Kendall. She has been calling every day since Mr Nathan died. Cindy won’t let her in the house.’
    Jose continued to say yes and no to a clearly pushy caller, and told her that Cindy had suffered a miscarriage and been taken to Cedars-Sinai.
    When he hung up, Lorraine asked, ‘What did she want?’
    ‘What she always wants. She says there’s some property here of hers. Mr Feinstein has given instructions that she is not to be allowed to remove anything – I think it’s some of the paintings.’
    Or maybe some tapes, Lorraine thought, wondering when Harry Nathan’s interest in home movies had started.
    ‘What were you about to say, Juana, about Mr Nathan’s having stolen something?’ she asked.
    Juana looked at Jose, indicating that he should speak. He pulled at his tie. ‘Mr Nathan owed us a lot of money, Mrs Page. Our life savings, plus back salary. We were only here because we wanted to get paid. Six, seven years ago, he said he would invest it for us.’
    Juana folded her arms. ‘For the first few years we didn’t question it. He said he had invested it for us and even paid us dividends, so it seemed our money had doubled, then trebled and then . . .’ She went on to describe how when Nathan had married Kendall, they had wanted to leave. ‘She was an evil woman, but when we went to him and asked for our money, told him we couldn’t stay, he . . . he told us that he’d had some bad news about his stocks and shares. He said he hadn’t been able to tell us because he was so upset about it – that he had lost everything as well.’
    ‘But that obviously wasn’t true,’ Lorraine said, jerking her head towards the rest of the house.
    ‘He said the house was remortgaged and he made us all these promises about selling his art collection. We stayed on here because we had no place else to go and no money to go anywhere with. At least by being here we could see if