A Crime of Fashion (13 page)

One evening, while at a party on a private yacht anchored a stone's throw away from the palace in Monaco, François was seated next to a French princess. (By this time, François's winning combination of charm and success meant that he was beginning to lead the sort of life that many of his clients did.) But this wasn't just any princess…HRH Princess Clothilde of Bourbon-Condanza was descended from the last king of France. Lineage aside, she was beautiful and graceful. The first time the princess had topped the best-dressed lists she'd done so wearing a dress made of eighteenth-century curtains she'd found in the attic of her family's chateau – and from that moment on her unique sense of style had ensured she became a fashion icon. In short, she was the perfect client. And someone like François La Lune would certainly not allow such a prized opportunity to escape.

During the first course of the dinner, the princess didn't deign to even acknowledge François's presence. She continued to ignore him all through the second course as well. François, well aware that he had only two courses left in which to capture her attention, decided that drastic measures were needed. In a bold move that became legendary at the time (and is still quoted in nearly every magazine article or book written about the La Lune fashion empire), François accidentally – or so he claimed – spilled his glass of red wine into the princess's lap. Never mind – the desired effect was achieved. In the ensuing commotion, with many exclamations and offers of assistance he had managed to attract Clothilde's attention.

By the time the spilled wine had been cleaned up and the cheese course was served, Clothilde had visions of handbags dancing in her eyes. And when dessert came, François told her that his design studio had just recently shown him drawings of a new handbag that would be perfect for her. François promised to have the handbag made in a variety of colours – crocodile skins especially dyed to match her favourite dresses – and different leathers to match her every outfit. He would even name it after her, he said.

And that is how the Clothilde bag was born. It quickly became a sensation. The ensuing press generated by the princess – she wore the bag everywhere, from a private reception with the Pope to the Crown Prince of Sweden's wedding – ensured that the La Lune name became a byword for luxury; from then on the company flourished. Of course, over the following years the house of La Lune designed many other handbags, but none came close to attaining the mythical status of the Golden Handbag…

But now we must backtrack again: as we know, when François inherited his portion of the saddlery business he very slowly and very carefully phased out the saddles and phased in the diaries, agendas and fashion. So far so good. But François quickly realized that there was one major impediment to attaining the goal of becoming a well-known fashion brand: his father's old business partner, Hector Merlette. Not that Hector was especially meddling or aggressive, but he was there – a grey, grumpy presence, always banging on about how to improve this or that saddle. And saddles, as François saw it, were no longer the way forward. So he asked Hector if he could buy him out.

Now, Hector may have been conservative and stubborn, but, nevertheless he was not completely blind as to which way the wind was blowing. Even if he'd never admit it openly, he knew that the future of the company – if it was to grow as François intended – did, in fact, rest in fashion, and not just leather goods and horse tack. However, Hector was not the least bit interested in the many fabric samples and perfume prototypes that François bombarded him with. François's plans to create a fashion powerhouse did not stir much enthusiasm in Hector's old heart: what Hector loved was leather – and he had no intention of giving up this passion. To that end, he decided to sell his share of the company to François. And, he told himself, once the sale went through, he'd concentrate on making leather goods.

However, before leaving the company, Hector happened to show some of his designs to François and asked him what he thought. François didn't say much, although his eyes did seem to keep returning to the drawings of a particularly elegant handbag that Hector had designed. Hector didn't think anything of it at the time, but a year later, long after he had parted ways with La Lune, Hector was shocked to see François unveil the Clothilde bag. To say it looked suspiciously like Hector's design would have been an understatement: the bag was an outright copy of the very drawings he'd shown François before leaving the company, the very bag he'd been about to bring to market himself. The shape and size – even the gold metal handles – they were all his ideas! Furious, he called on François and demanded financial compensation, and a public acknowledgement that the Clothilde bag was his design. François declined. And to shut old Hector up for good, François decided to sue him for design piracy – and he won.

Somehow, mysteriously, all of Hector's original drawings had disappeared. François's design studio on the other hand, had drawing after drawing with which to prove the bag's provenance. Hector cried foul play, but by this time François was too powerful and, before you could say
au revoir
, Hector was penniless and relegated to the social backwaters. After a lifetime of hard work at the forefront of Parisian style (even if it was mostly for horses), his death didn't even warrant a one-line mention in the style section of the
Figaro
newspaper. In fact, apart from the Art Deco profile of the little blackbird that adorns every La Lune box and label (merlette means “blackbird” in French), there isn't the faintest vestige left of the hard-working Merlettes in fashion.

But don't think Hector went without a fight. On his deathbed he called for his lawyer and dictated a letter. In it, he cursed François's family and decreed that the La Lune fashion empire would not survive another two generations. Their greed, he said, would be the death of them; they would be helpless to prevent their inborn rapacity from tearing their family and business apart. One by one they would disappear under Greed's voracious spell until there was nothing left of either them or their empire…

“So that is the curse: that each La Lune will disappear, one by one, until every one of them has felt Hector's loss and humiliation,” Aunt V said as she stood up to stretch.

“And they
are
disappearing one by one! No wonder they feel the curse has come alive…” Ellie whispered.

“What happened to Clothilde?” I asked.

“She died – on François's sixtieth birthday. It was quite horrible, actually. She'd been driving back to Paris early one morning after a party at the La Lune chateau in Normandy. On the outskirts of a small farming town she ran a red light and hit a tractor. In the police report it was written that she hadn't stopped – that she'd been unable to – because the golden handles of her Clothilde bag had become entangled with the gear stick… I've heard that from that moment on, François began to believe in the curse, that he interpreted Clothilde's tragic end as some sort of signal from Hector – and did everything in his power to keep the curse at bay.”

“How? How can you keep a curse at bay?” Sebastian asked.

“Well, the curse clearly states that it is the family's inherent greed that will wreak havoc upon them, right? So, François figured that if he kept his family working hard, under his watchful eye, and taught them the value of money, they wouldn't have the time or inclination to want more.”

“How did he do that?”

“He worked hard to make himself rich. Then he paid his son and daughter very good salaries as long as they worked for the company
and
lived under his roof. That way he could control them. If they asked for anything extravagant – anything he considered ‘greedy' – he made them work for a soup kitchen instead. Of course, everything is relative and François's idea of what constituted extravagant was more generous than most.”

“And they complied?” Ellie asked. “I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to live with their parents for ever – no matter how much is on offer.”

“François's son, Patrick, was extremely spoiled from birth. He wouldn't have survived for more than a minute outside the family cocoon – although, having said that, he was a good businessman. And François was delighted when his daughter became a nun. Locked away, she was impervious to greed. She died some time ago. And Patrick, in turn has applied his father's policy to his sons and daughters. He's always believed in the curse – don't ask me why.”

“And what about Hector?” Sebastian asked. “Didn't he have any family at all?”

“Good question,” Aunt V answered. “I don't know…but perhaps—” She stopped to pick a minuscule ball of lint from her black cashmere jumper.

“Perhaps what?” I asked.

“Perhaps it would be interesting to find out if there are any Merlettes still alive. By rights, they are owed something – remuneration for Hector's stolen design, a public apology, something. Although I don't know how they'd prove that François stole Hector's design…”

I was silent for a moment as I mulled my aunt's idea over. “You mean, there might be someone – someone directly related to Hector Merlette – who knows about the theft of Hector's drawings and is now desperate for revenge? And maybe even a bucket of cash from the company?”

My aunt nodded.

“It's worth a look,” Sebastian said.

“Yes, it is – tomorrow,” Aunt V answered. “Right now, it's time someone got ready for their first photo shoot. Oh, and, Axelle, you can stop doing that, you know.”

“Doing what?”

“That. What you just did. Pushing your glasses up your nose. You don't have them any more, remember?”

I thanked my lucky stars (yet again!) that I was out of Aunt V's grasp for most of this week. Her powers of observation were inhuman.

Ellie called for a taxi, and when it finally came she and Sebastian got up to leave. Ellie would drop Sebastian off at the police station where he'd left his scooter, then carry on home. Tomorrow morning she'd swing by and pick me up on her way to the shoot. My sidekick, meanwhile, would begin his morning following the trail of Hector Merlette at home on his computer, then, later perhaps, at the city records department. We'd meet after the shoot.

He wanted to help – had helped a lot already, in fact – and with all the modelling Hervé was piling onto my schedule, I knew I could use the extra hand…

“And remember: if you have any questions, call me. And stick together – safety in numbers and all that. And don't forget to help Axelle with her walk,” Aunt V called out as Ellie and Sebastian ran down the stairs.

What a day: hair and glasses gone, another disappearance, a new friend, a sidekick, a modelling career, a narrowly avoided attempt on my life – and a cache of letters to read through.

I took the first letter from the bundle with me to bed (after carefully hiding the rest in my room), but sleep overtook me before I could even open it. My eyes were shut quicker than you can say Dior.

Belle was no longer alone.

Someone else had been dragged into the room. Not that she had any idea who was sharing this rat-infested prison with her. They were refusing or unable to speak and there was no light: no window, no candle, no lamp.

Darkness engulfed her.

She'd tried to find out who the other captive was, had attempted to question her jailer when she'd been brought her daily ration of thin soup. But a hard slap across the face had silenced her.

She'd stick to silence.

“Why so early?” I asked as I yanked my jumper over my head, croissant in mouth, and climbed into the back seat of the taxi next to Ellie. We had said 8.45 a.m. and it was now only 8.35.

“I like to be early.”

“But I thought models were always late.”

“Not any more – those days are over. I'm a businesswoman, Axelle. I have to be professional. Besides, you'll see – I become troublesome at lunch: no milk, wheat, red meat, or white sugar. By showing up at the job on time, I feel I've earned whatever trouble the client and crew have to go through to find me a lunch I can eat. Plus I love charging for overtime – and that only goes down well when the client can't say I arrived late. You know, clients love to complain to the agency. They think they'll get some kind of price break or something.”

“Clients do that?”

“Absolutely! Give them a chance and they'll do it every time. Especially when you're just starting out. They'd be much more careful complaining about me now.”

After I'd popped the last bit of croissant into my mouth, I opened the day's
Figaro
newspaper, which Aunt V had put in my bag.
Are The La Lunes Cursed?
screamed the headline.

“Did you see this?” I asked Ellie.

In answer she took her phone out of her bag and scrolled through it. “Here,” she said, handing it to me, “look at this. I get goose pimples just reading it. It's from
Le Monde
. ‘
Jamais deux sans trois!
' It's an old French expression, meaning ‘never a second without a third'.”

“So they're predicting that a third La Lune will disappear?”

Ellie nodded. “It's all over the morning news. Everyone's saying the family must be cursed – although at this point the media is only guessing. Old François and Patrick have done a good job of hushing up any known facts about it. It's amazing your aunt knows as much as she does.”

“Yeah, well, my aunt knows everything.” Mentally, I made a note to ask my aunt later
how
she knew so much.

Our taxi pulled up at the base of the Eiffel Tower. As we climbed out, the driver asked Ellie for her autograph. With a smile she obliged, then wished him luck. He waved goodbye to us as we walked towards the bus.

As per Hervé's description, it was big and white with
Pin-Up Studios
written in bold black letters on its side. The driver stood outside, smoking a cigarette. Inside, the make-up artist, Thierry, was unpacking his equipment. Croissants, coffee, tea, and a large basket of fruit were laid out on a small table, and thick puffs of steam and a loud hissing sound emanated from the back of the bus, where the stylist's assistant was busy steaming the wrinkles out of the clothes we'd be wearing later.

Our arrival was followed a minute later by that of the hairdresser, Gilles, and the stylist, Murielle. They knew Ellie, of course, and had already heard about me. They were friendly and charming, but as they took off their black coats and set down their assorted bags, I could feel them looking me up and down, silently checking how well I measured up. I found their scrutiny unnerving. At home I was a nerd and everybody knew it. Nobody (except my mum) expected my sartorial sense to rise above that. But being in fashion meant I should
look
like I was IN FASHION, because, let's face it, fashion is all about the clothes.

While Gilles began straightening Ellie's hair with a pair of hot tongs, Thierry sat me down in a chair next to Ellie. We faced a large mirror surrounded with oversized light bulbs, just like in those clichéd dressing rooms they show in the movies. Laid out on the worktop just beneath the mirror were Thierry's tools. About twenty different make-up brushes and a large assortment of foundations, powders, eye shadows, blushes, pencils, and other tricks of the trade lay neatly arranged on a clean white towel.

“Today we're going for a very strong feminine look – almost retro,” he said, as he took a chunky black diary out of his bag and opened it to a double-page spread of drawings and collages. “We want something mysterious, almost dark, but we'll add bits of colour – like here, for instance,” he said as he pointed to an old black-and-white photograph of Audrey Hepburn dressed in a black turtleneck jumper, but with pink flowers – they looked like orchids – drawn across one of her eyes, and then in a diminishing trail from there to the edge of the page. I really couldn't tell you what it was supposed to look like or symbolize, but it did look pretty. There was an added flash of glitter on her eyelids too. “See – soft but strong. Hard and dark but still light and feminine. Contrast.”

I didn't really see, but never mind – I was here to see the La Lunes. Speaking of whom, Rose had just stepped into the bus completely out of the blue.

“
Quelle surprise!
I haven't seen her at one of these shoots in years,” murmured Thierry.

“Hi, Axelle,” Rose said shyly, her voice girly and slightly strained. “I'm Rose La Lune. Great to meet you. Is this your first shoot?” Her eyes were swollen and red – she'd obviously been crying. Why was she here, talking to me?

“Yes,” I mumbled as Thierry massaged moisturizer onto my face.

“Dom is really looking forward to meeting and working with you,” she continued. “He really pushed to have you booked after he heard all the buzz about you at Miriam's yesterday… Well, anyway, I just wanted to say hello… I'll let you get to work.”

Dom was really looking forward to meeting me? But he'd met me yesterday as Ellie and I were leaving the agency. Although, then again, I could have been an extension of the wall for all the attention he'd given me. Anyway, if I'd been booked at Dom's insistence, perhaps that would explain why I was here, despite all that had happened at the showroom yesterday with Claude.

“Axelle, you must hold your head still,” said Thierry as he concentrated on applying a foundation he'd mixed together on the back of his hand. He'd used about four different bottles of coloured liquid to make it, but what was especially interesting was that he applied it with light, feathery strokes of his
fingers
– not the usual thick sponge my mum and Jenny used. I couldn't wait to tell Jenny about that.

Next came a few dabs of concealer. “Not that you have any shadows or dark circles under your eyes,” he said, “but the photographer's lighting can be so strong that even flawless skin ends up looking blotchy and grey.” Then he applied a fine dusting of a yellowish powder –
not
the pink stuff the girls at my school used – with a large soft brush. I couldn't help but sigh as he flicked it gently over my face. It felt wonderful…

It felt less wonderful, however, when a few minutes later, as Thierry was applying eyeshadow with a long handled brush, Murielle the stylist decided it was the perfect moment to hang various earrings in front of my ears to see how they looked on me. Then Gilles, the hairdresser, began to twist and hold my hair this way and that as he studied my reflection in the mirror. As if that wasn't enough, my hips were twisted to the side so that Murielle's assistant, Coco, could slip different pairs of shoes onto my feet to see how they fitted. I felt like screaming. I was being poked, prodded, pulled and painted all at the same time. I was starting to understand why models got such generous pay cheques: patience does have a price.

This
was supposed to be glamorous?

I stole a look over at Ellie. She was sitting, cool as a cucumber, her hair wound round the largest rollers I'd ever seen, giving Hervé orders over her phone like an army general. Suddenly she began to wave her hand furiously towards us. Once she had our attention she began to pucker her lips like a hungry carp (and she was still on the phone). I had no idea what she was doing. Maybe it was some kind of model warm-up for all the pouting she was expected to do later?

Murielle, however, understood immediately what the fishy-lip-puckering was about. In a panicky whisper, she cried, “
Mon
Dieu!
Quick, Thierry – she needs some gloss!”

“
Ah non! Quelle catastrophe!
Dry lips!” he said, as he threw the eye-shadow brush down and grabbed the gloss.

Both Thierry and Gilles leaped to Ellie's rescue. I watched, fascinated, as she turned her chin up towards Thierry, lips perfectly pouted and positioned for the careful strokes of his lip brush. Then (and she was
still
on the phone), as Gilles gently swept back a few loose hairs with his fingers, she closed her eyes. She looked as if she were praying.

There was no point asking her how she felt about the incessant prodding. I might just as well ask a fish what it thought about water.

“Hi! You must be Axelle.” Dom bounded into the bus, camera in tow. “You look even better in life than in the composite Hervé sent me,” he said.

Thierry was hard at work applying some dark brown pencil to my right eyebrow which meant I had only my half-opened left eye to look through – although even that did nothing to diminish Dom's hotness.

“Actually, we met yesterday. You're Dom.” While I realized there was a difference between the Axelle of yesterday morning and the one of today, still…did I look that different? Sebastian, after all, had recognized me immediately.

“If we met yesterday then I must be suffering from a major case of short-term memory loss,” he laughed.

I wanted to answer him, but Thierry had begun to apply mascara to my top lashes.

“Now, Axelle, you must hold still and look downwards. Exactly, like that…good. Dom, she'll have to talk to you later.” Then, as Dom moved off to chat to Murielle, Thierry whispered to me, “He has to talk to every pretty girl that crosses his path.” Two minutes later he said, “
Et voilà!
Now I'm finished. You may stretch your legs.”

“Ah! It's you,” Claude greeted me as he stuck his head through the open door of the bus. I turned round and saw that while he sounded pleased enough to see me, he didn't look it. Despite his breezy manner, he seemed tightly coiled, like a snake about to strike.

Was I starting to get paranoid about the La Lunes or was there something odd about Rose's overly – in my eyes – warm greeting and now Claude's mildly sinister one?

They couldn't possibly know I'd snuck into their house yesterday…could they?

Before I could answer Claude – let alone start asking him about the disappearances – Dom and the rest of the crew surged forward to greet him and a discussion began about the day's shoot. Thierry brought out his collage book to show Dom and Claude the same pages he'd shown me, Murielle asked questions about the clothes, and Gilles twisted and held Ellie's hair to show his various ideas. My questioning would have to wait.

I poured myself some iced tea and then slipped out of the bus for a bit of fresh air. Carefully I sipped from the glass with tiny slurps; I was under strict orders from Thierry not to smile, laugh, or basically move any facial muscles. This was to stop the foundation and powder carefully layered on my face from cracking. Great. I was finally within talking range of the La Lunes, but, because of all the gunk on my face, I couldn't even move my lips.

At least I could still read.

I found a quiet corner near a neatly trimmed hedge at the bottom of one of the tower pillars and sat down with my iced tea. Then I reached into my shoulder bag and pulled out the bundle of letters I'd found yesterday. I couldn't wait any longer – I was too curious – and now seemed as good a time as any. Besides, the crew probably wouldn't be finished fiddling with Ellie for another half an hour. Carefully I took the first one in the pack – the one I'd meant to read last night before I conked out – and unfolded it. Fortunately, my French was up to the task. Now if these letters would only give me some clues to help find Belle…

Paris, 5th August, 1930

Dear Adelaide,

As you know, my delicate constitution prevents my family and me from joining you in Normandy, but I have a new-found reason to be thankful for this otherwise deplorable enforced stay in Paris this August. I am positively trembling with excitement: my darling daughter Giselle has a suitor! And it's all thanks to you, Adelaide!

Tall, dark and handsome, and a businessman – well, I'll stop as I have no need to describe him to you. You see, Giselle's new suitor is none other than your dear friend Monsieur Pierre Roux. He has charmed us all and Giselle has rapidly developed a soft spot for this most gallant cavalier.

Thank you so much for the letter of introduction you gave him. By coincidence, he met Giselle straight away. Giselle had been walking back from the park with Hector (whom she'd miraculously persuaded to join her for a walk – you know how her brother loves being in the office, even in this stifling heat), when they saw Pierre standing just outside your gate. To say he was baffled at seeing your house closed up is an understatement – he'd expected to drive up together with you to Normandy! Obviously there's been a misunderstanding about the dates – although I confess that at this point I feel nothing but gratitude for this!