The Dress Thief (49 page)

‘Then use larger needles.’

‘The girls get used to a size and weight. Larger ones feel clumsy and quality decreases. More times than I like, I have to persuade them to unpick their work and start again. Then we have ructions.’

Alix scanned today’s
page in her diary. English clients mid-morning, so she must put flowers in the salon and change.
Why had she let Rosa go? Why hadn’t she sacked Mme LeVert instead? Rosa would never have fallen for Adèle Charboneau’s tears. She remembered Javier saying, ‘A good première is worthless. Anyone can cut and measure. A
great
première brings that supreme ingredient – the fruits of her passions.’ He’d
added wickedly, ‘Passion for cloth, passion for life and love.’

Alix went to the window to investigate a
thrubbing
noise filling the courtyard. Verrian’s Hispano slid into view. Her brow creased as she saw him open the passenger door for a woman wearing a dark coat and headscarf. A little boy scrambled out. Verrian then reached into the car and brought out a shallow box, the sort that contains
a fruit tart.

Mme LeVert said, ‘And another thing—’

‘Madame –’ Alix turned – ‘you are called première for a reason. Please go upstairs and assert your authority.’

*

Two things struck Alix about Pepe Rojas García. Firstly, that he was an extraordinarily beautiful child, with lashes that cast long shadows on his cheeks. Secondly, that he called Verrian ‘Señor’ in a heartbreakingly grown-up way.
And yet his mother, introduced to Alix as Celestia García y Rojas, interacted with Verrian in a way that suggested an emotional reliance. Or something deeper. It made Alix wonder – had Verrian flown down to Marseille to rescue this woman out of disinterested chivalry?

‘This is your work here? You are dressmaker?’ Celestia asked in broken French. Alix had invited them all into the salon. Pepe
was thundering up and down its length, displaying the energy of a child confined too long.

‘Until rent day,’ Alix said stiffly.

Verrian said, ‘I’ve brought Señora García y Rojas along because I think she’d be perfect to look after your grandmother. The arrangement could help you both.’

Alix said, ‘I see.’

He raised an eyebrow, implying,
Why else did you think I brought her?
He explained something
of the life Celestia had led in Spain and her reasons for fleeing. ‘She has leave to remain in France, and has been working as a housekeeper. However, the lady of the house has started objecting to Pepe. It’s become rather fraught. You wouldn’t mind having a child around?’

I haven’t agreed to have either of them
, Alix thought resentfully. ‘A little boy might be too much for Mémé.’ She didn’t
want this woman, with her secret sadness and her links to Verrian’s Spanish identity. ‘And, forgive me, being a housekeeper doesn’t equip a person to care for an old lady.’

‘Forgive me – as she’s intelligent, needs a job and I will pay half her salary, I suggest you stop looking for problems and smile. Or have you forgotten how?’

‘If I had something to smile about, I expect I would remember.’

‘Please, you speak too fast.’ Celestia looked from Alix to Verrian. ‘If I offend, you have my apology. I care for my own
grandmother. I am kind with old ladies. All I ask is Pepe is welcome.’

‘A modest ambition, wouldn’t you say?’ Verrian was unpicking the twine that secured the cake box.

Why not just say I’m mean-spirited?
Alix fumed as she went to ask a member of staff to make tea. I might
not be able to read Celestia’s expressions, but, boy, can I translate his. Returning some time later with Mémé, she found Verrian pouring tea while Pepe stood in watchful anticipation of an apple custard tart.

‘
Tarte alsacienne
,’ Verrian said, rising to shake Mémé’s hand. ‘Alix says yours were the best, but it’s shop-bought just for today.’

Pepe’s table manners were impeccable, Alix discovered.
He passed plates to the ladies and offered the sugar bowl. Then he positioned himself beside Mémé and watched her hands, clearly fascinated by the raised knuckles and bent joints. He asked something in Spanish which contained the word ‘
dedos
’ – fingers.

His mother reproved him.

Mémé made claws and wiggled them and the boy laughed.

His mother looked embarassed. ‘I so regret, Madame. Your pardon.’

Danielle Lutzman said gravely, ‘The Pobble who has no toes, had once as many as we. When they said, “Some day, you may lose them all,” he replied, “Fish diddle-de-dee!”’

Pepe scrunched into giggles.

‘She learned that from me years ago,’ Alix said in astonishment. ‘Edward Lear – I had to say it at a school recital.’

Mémé continued: ‘And she made him a feast at his earnest wish of eggs and buttercups
fried with fish. And she said, “It’s a fact the whole world knows, that Pobbles are happier without their toes.”’

Pepe clapped. Even Celestia laughed. She’d taken off her headscarf revealing mahogany curls. Alix was shocked at the difference it made. The woman was thirty, no more, and very pretty. Rising, she held out her hand. ‘The Pobble didn’t have three suits under construction in his workroom.
Thank you for coming, Madame.’

As she left, she heard Celestia say, ‘It is necessary to practice, no? In the way of a child, to love and to laugh.’

*

Alix took off the last dress she’d shown, hung it on a rail and peeled off her underwear. The latest English ladies – Manchester matrons sent by Una – had gone. Alix had paraded her autumn– winter range, ten or so models salvaged from summer’s
wreckage. The ladies had promised to come back later when they’d looked around some other shops. Alix groaned softly. Rosa – where was Rosa, who could cajole stuffy or nervous women into buying one of everything because she made the process such fun?

Alix hooked on a waist girdle and put powder-blue camiknickers over the top, not bothering with a brassière. She was contemplating which of two
jersey dresses to put on – black
or olive – when she heard her name called. ‘In here,’ she replied, and before she had time to add, ‘but don’t come in,’ the door opened.

Verrian took in the blue silk, the bare arms and legs and stopped as if he’d walked into a glass wall.

Alix grabbed the nearest dress, the black one, and held it against herself. ‘You were taking your Spanish friend home,’ she
accused.

‘I did.’

‘That was quick. Isn’t it your habit to see a lady indoors? You used to think I couldn’t get my door open without your help. Or did life on the battlefield obliterate your manners?’

He came right into the room, tilting her chin, then kissed her with the controlled hunger of a man who has given up on waiting. When he broke off he said with his lips taut against hers, ‘Do you
mean to provoke me into proof of it? No? Then don’t ever look at me in that snooty way again.’ He reached for the olive jersey dress and thrust it into her shocked arms. ‘I’m fed up of women in black. Let’s go to your office and work out terms for Celestia.’

‘I haven’t agreed yet.’

‘Your grandmother has. After you flounced out, she and Pepe danced together in the salon. They’re inseparable already.’
He went to the door. ‘I want to be able to take you out, and much as I like Mémé, I don’t want her making a third at every restaurant table. Can you take a little time off now?’

She toyed with saying no, but it was such hard work, being up in arms all the time. And that kiss had woken an impatience to confront the real reason she was keeping Verrian at a distance; the revulsion she felt for her
time as ‘Serge’s moll’ and that rough, hashish-fuelled education she’d received at his hands. ‘Maybe. In a minute. I have to make a couple of telephone calls to suppliers.’ As they approached her office, Alix stopped dead. Her door was slightly ajar and she heard a muffled voice growling, ‘Another five hundred thousand francs, same drop-off, six o’clock tomorrow evening, Friday …’

Somebody was
using her telephone. It was the only one in the building and nobody used it without first asking her. And it wasn’t the well-spoken Violette or Mme LeVert. It was a man’s voice. A drunkard making threats through a mouthful of dust. She stepped forward but Verrian caught her, his breath against the back of her head. They heard –

‘You won’t pay? Then I’ll tell the world what I know.’ Coarse laughter
made Alix shudder. ‘Oh, I agree, M. le Comte, Lutzman’s killing is history but I have a new hold on you. You beat Mme Lutzman in her flat and I have a witness. Somebody saw you. You left the door open. You went back. A witness will testify.’

Verrian clamped his arms around Alix to stop her running forward. He whispered, ‘We’re backing off. Not a sound.’

He drew her on to the walkway that led
to hers and Mémé’s living quarters. There he held her, their hearts beating in
confederacy. After a minute or two, the downstairs door clashed. They saw a figure in overalls squeeze past Verrian’s car and stump towards the coach house, swearing as he went. Verrian pulled Alix back inside.

‘You heard –’ she sputtered. ‘Oh God – Bonnet. He’s—’

‘Blackmailing the Comte de Charembourg.’

She tried
to get free. ‘Mémé’s in the flat. I have to be with her.’

‘She’s in no more danger now than she was yesterday. But yes, go to her. Try to act normally. I’ll be back shortly.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To see the comte. I rang him from the
News Monitor
office the other day and arranged a meeting between us all – including his wife.’

‘Are you mad?’

Verrian gave a ‘possibly’ shrug. ‘It’s a chance
for the comte to explain his lies to you. You won’t be happy till you’ve heard his side of the story. His wife’s coming because … well, I thought she might like to be included. I mean, all this secrecy must have affected her too, don’t you think? It’ll be good to clear the air.’

‘It’ll be unbearable.’

‘Actually, Alix, very few things are, once you face up to them. Go to your flat, sit with Mémé.
I’m going to Boulevard Racan, to bring this meeting forward. I won’t be long.’

But Alix clung. ‘Don’t go! You heard Bonnet making those
accusations. That voice … it’s the same as the man who attacked me, at Place du Tertre and at St-Sulpice. Bonnet – oh, Verrian, it can’t be!’

Verrian pulled her towards him. ‘I’ll take you to your grandmother and make sure you’re locked in.’

‘You’ll spend the
night with us?’

‘No. I’ll spend it with Bonnet. If he goes anywhere near your stairs, I’ll break his neck.’

Alix went back into her office to fetch her handbag and house keys. A smell tainted the air, redolent of old animal skins. ‘Rabbit-skin glue. He always buys the cheap stuff. Pretends it’s the supplier cheating him.’

Verrian was close behind her. ‘There are levels to Bonnet. A hint of
the sublime, but mostly base notes.’

Her sleeve felt kid-soft under his hand, and because this was Alix, it was more than just a grey town suit. It had a green cross-thread which caught the light every few paces, just enough to intrigue. And she wasn’t wearing the suit, she was dipped in it. How could wool be so sexy? Her hat was emerald green, slanted to cover one eye. His
knowledge of women told him she was dressed for combat. He wasn’t taking chances either. As they passed the telephone exchange on Rue du Louvre, he felt in his
pocket for the
navaja
 – the hunting knife he’d taken off a dead Fascist. He didn’t expect to use it – but he liked to be prepared.

On Rue du Sentier, evening sun glazed the cobbles. ‘Do you know which building?’ he asked. They were meeting
at the comte’s place of business. ‘I know it’s an upstairs office and I think it’s –’

Alix pointed. ‘By the fabric warehouse. Who else are we meeting?’

‘Be patient.’

As they entered the unremarkable premises of Fabrication Textile Mulhouse, a woman stepped out of a side office, saying, in a voice of relief, ‘Mr Haviland, thank goodness. I don’t mind being hired as a temporary receptionist,
but I do like at least some instruction.’ It was Beryl Theakston. Seeing Alix’s confusion, she explained, ‘Mr Haviland telephoned me yesterday, saying he needed an unflappable presence at the door.’

‘Are we the first, Beryl?’ Verrian asked.

‘A gentleman and lady have already gone upstairs.’

‘The comte and comtesse?’

‘Erm, yes.’ Beryl Theakston was peering at Alix’s jacket. She bit her lip.
‘Mme de Charembourg is wearing a very similar outfit to yours, Miss Gower.
Very
similar.’

‘Impossible,’ Alix said. ‘This is my own design and I made only one sample, this one.’ She tugged Verrian’s arm. ‘I don’t want to see the comtesse. She insults me.’

‘The comte is looking forward to seeing you though. Go
on up.’ Verrian stepped aside to let Alix go ahead of him. He said quietly to Beryl,
‘I’m expecting three more visitors. One may give trouble, so shout if you—’ He was going to say, ‘need me,’ but a banshee scream from above made him take to the stairs. Fearing Alix was being attacked, he flung himself into the small boardroom and got in front of her, only to hear her threatening to pull Rhona de Charembourg’s suit off head first.

Beryl had tried to warn them, he realised. The
Comtesse de Charembourg was tailored identically to Alix, even to the green hat crowning her blonde hair. Alix fully intended to follow through with her threat, Verrian could see, so he seized her, swearing as he took kicks to his shins. Rage lent Alix primitive strength. Had she been wearing something she could actually move in, she’d have been lethal. She vented frustration by throwing whatever
she could reach – her bag, an ashtray. The comte, roused from static astonishment, came over and put his hand to Alix’s cheek.

‘Child, I don’t understand what I’m seeing, but you will have explanations. As for you, Madame –’ he turned to his shaking wife – ‘at least take off the hat.’

Alix shouted, ‘She stole that design – from my autumn– winter collection.’

Rhona, who was clearly fearful of
Alix breaking loose again, said with a stab at disdain, ‘You habitually stole what was not
yours, Alix Gower. Now you know how it feels. I confess, I hadn’t imagined we’d be wearing the same ensemble. So very droll.’