A Crime of Fashion (3 page)

“Jean, turn the radio on, would you, please?” Aunt V said. “It looks serious…” Jean duly found the news channel and just as he managed to untangle us from the other cars on the bridge, Aunt Venetia took a sharp breath. “Turn it up, Jean,” she demanded impatiently as she leaned forward, left hand held high to silence me. I listened just in time to hear the following announcement: “BELLE LA LUNE, FASHION'S TOP DESIGNER, IS MISSING!”

“Jean,” Aunt V commanded, “I don't care what you have to do – just get us home. Now!”

I don't know when Carmen had last seen her boss run, but it must have been a long time ago judging by the way her mouth dropped open when Aunt V bounded through the opened door at a gallop, flung her tweed coat at her and raced into her study to put the television on.

As I trained my ears to the rapid cadence of the newscaster, I silently thanked my mum for all of the private French lessons she'd insisted upon. “BELLE LA LUNE, FASHION'S FAVOURITE YOUNG DESIGNER, IS MISSING!” ran the news. “Belle, only twenty-three and already considered a fashion genius by her legion of young fans, was officially declared missing this afternoon. Last night – Saturday night – the La Lune family had dinner together with two family friends,” the newscaster continued. “However, since this morning, there has been no sign of Belle La Lune and no one in the family has seen or spoken to Belle since dining together last night. Her disappearance comes at an especially delicate time for the La Lune family and for Belle in particular. As overall creative director for the La Lune brand, Belle designs the brand's fashion collections, the latest of which will be shown at the family's fashion show this Friday. Furthermore, the family is launching their next handbag – the ‘Juno' bag, also designed by Belle – on Wednesday evening, in the most anticipated event of this spring's Fashion Week. The family is counting on successful sales of the Juno bag to help retain its position at the top of the cut-throat fashion world. More news as we receive it…”

Even I know who the La Lunes are – they're the poster-family for French fashion: glamorous, colourful, and sophisticated. My mum can never resist asking Aunt V about them. And I actually met Belle a few years ago, here in Paris, at a show Mum dragged me to. Aunt V introduced us to Belle and I think Mum had hoped Belle would inspire me to dress better. But when my mum asked her what advice she could share with me, Belle said: “Just do what you love to do – nothing else is important.” Ha! Thank you, I said, and I told her I was planning to be a private eye, at which point Mum said we had to move on or we'd be late for the next show.

And while I don't remember anything else about that show, I
do
remember Belle leaning in, blue eyes smiling, her long blonde hair catching the light as it tumbled over her slim frame. But that was only the half of it – you see, she'd actually seemed human (for a fashionista!) and so
nice
… Besides, as far as I'm concerned, that whole “just do what you love to do” thing was spot on.

“I cannot believe it,” Aunt V said as she flopped into a large armchair. “And I'm one of the ‘family friends' who had dinner with them last night…”

I couldn't believe it either. The only other time I'd seen Aunt V this much at a loss for words was at a family wedding when my father had worn brown loafers with a dark suit.

“She's missing. Unbelievable. How is her family going to cope without her? It's Fashion Week, for goodness' sake!
And
they have to launch their new handbag this week too…”

Before Aunt V could say more, the normal broadcast was interrupted by another newsflash. The newscaster introduced Belle's oldest brother, Claude La Lune, head of public relations at the family's fashion empire. The camera panned to him standing in a vast, airy, white room. Tanned and slim, Claude was dressed in tight black jeans and a crisp white shirt, the cuffs poking out from a fitted black jacket. He was dark, with black eyes and dark brown hair that curled along his jacket collar. Forty seamstresses dressed in white uniforms stood silently behind him, their eyes swollen and red from crying. He was obviously in the La Lune atelier. As the camera panned back, the soaring ceilings of the design studio seemed to dwarf them.

“My family and I are devastated,” he began. “Unfortunately, the stresses of the fashion world can sometimes lead even the strongest among us…to…” Here his voice caught before he managed to squeeze out the word. “…
disappear
.” He looked down and pulled on his cuffs before continuing. “We ask anyone, anyone who could have any information on the whereabouts of my sister to please, please, contact us.”

He stopped again to collect himself before his emotions overtook him – at least, that's presumably what it was meant to look like, although, to be honest, the entire gesture didn't seem genuine to me. He held his right hand over his eyes for a moment while the seamstresses behind him all pulled white handkerchiefs from their sleeves and held them to their eyes. Then he turned back towards the camera, dropped his hand and carried on. “And I would like to add that my family has agreed to offer a reward of half a million euros for any information leading to the safe return of my beautiful sister…” After that the programme returned to the rest of the news.

If they had returned to showing Bigfoot, Victoria Beckham, and the Little Mermaid all doing a song and dance number together, I wouldn't have cared. Because there was only one thing ringing in my ears at that moment: Belle La Lune was missing.

Now, finally, after following an endless trail of missing mail and lost pets, a real case had come my way. A case big enough and juicy enough to turn my mum around to my way of thinking. A case with enough glitz factor to forever banish the thought of even a hundred dirty trench coats.

And the case was mine for the taking.

Well, mine and the French police force's.

I was going to solve this mystery before they did.

I didn't know how…

But I was.

Belle had no idea what time it was – whether it was even day or night. She was hungry, thirsty and cold. But above all, it was fear she felt. Fear of her captor, fear of not being found, fear of dying in this dark, damp space – wherever it was.

She knew her family must be looking for her.

But how would they ever find her?

Belle La Lune's face was all over the morning news. Where was she? Was she alive? And how had she, or her kidnapper, so far eluded all investigative efforts to find her?

Somehow, I needed to get near the La Lunes…

“Axelle, what
are
you wearing?”

Jeez! That scared me! I nearly dropped the mug I was filling. It was Aunt V. I was making myself a cup of tea in her sleek white kitchen, but don't think that my aunt was in the kitchen to do the same thing. No way. She NEVER leaves her bedroom until she is public-ready and she'd certainly NEVER deign to do anything as plebeian as boil water. Her breakfast had been taken to her on a tray at 7.30 as usual. It was nine o'clock now.

“Uhhh…” How did Aunt V always manage to reduce my communication skills to Neolithic levels? “Ummm…Well, I'm wearing my favourite pair of jeans and my lucky jumper.”

“What could that jumper and the concept of luck possibly have in common?” asked Aunt V, glancing at a
Figaro
newspaper article on the La Lunes. “Axelle, let me make myself clear: you are my niece and I love you.” She paused to apply a touch of lip gloss to the middle of her bottom lip. “I would even go so far as to say I find your whacky sartorial ways
nearly
bohemian, and even, on occasion, quaintly endearing. I prefer to think of your sense of style as being eccentric, as opposed to…just strange. However, as long as you are here working with me, you are representing…
me
. And
I
represent
Chic: Paris
magazine, which means that by association,
you do too
.” Here she paused again, giving the words a chance to sink in as she rose and walked to the kitchen window. The clear lacquer on her perfectly manicured nails caught the morning light as she brushed her fingertips over the tops of her lush and immaculately potted kitchen herbs and inhaled their fragrance.

Fleetingly I wondered whether thyme could be fatal if inhaled too deeply.

“Axelle, are you listening? Therefore,” she continued, “for the duration of your stay, you will dress in what
I
deem to be an elegant, fashionable, and stylish manner – lucky jumpers and favourite jeans simply will not do.” Glancing at her elegant gold watch, she continued, “Unfortunately, we don't have the time to change what you're wearing. We're due at Miriam's in a quarter of an hour and I don't want to be late – she'll know everything about Belle's disappearance.”

She scrutinized me one last time through narrowed eyes, then turned on her python-skin heels and said, “We'll just have to say that you came in on the early train this morning and that I've only just fetched you from the station. That way it'll be obvious to everyone that you dressed yourself – on foreign soil. We cannot have Paris believing that a blood relation of mine left
my
house looking as you are now.” She was quiet for a moment as she checked her make-up. “I'll see you downstairs in two minutes,” she said. “We'll go straight to Miriam's. She'll be able to sort you out.”

Then, with a click of her gilded powder compact, she was gone.

Miriam Fontaine owns a modelling agency and is Aunt Venetia's oldest friend in Paris. They met at a party held by mutual friends when they were both new to the city (Aunt V from London and Miriam from the countryside south of Paris). That was well before they'd both been married and divorced or had even started in their respective fields. Through thick and thin their friendship has endured and rare is the week when they don't see each other. This morning Aunt V was desperate to get to Miriam because Miriam hears everything. She's gossip central in the fashion world. And sure enough, as we made our way into the agency, the first words out of her mouth were “Can you believe?”

Then: “Ah! Zee little niece Anglaise! Hallo, Axelle,” she said embracing me with air kisses. As she air-kissed my aunt, I heard her say, “She looks so serious,
non
?”

Turning to me, my aunt said, “Axelle, Miriam and I have a few matters to discuss. We'll be in Miriam's office, so now is your chance to begin writing your article for
Teen Chic
. Look around, absorb the ambience, and write something interesting about it all. I'll be back shortly.”

No! I knew they were going to talk about Belle La Lune. I couldn't let this chance for some inside information just pass me by! “But wouldn't it be a good idea if I were to begin by taking notes on your conversation?” I asked.

“No, Axelle, not now.”

“But I'm sure your readers would like to know what you have to say about the world of fashion this morning. Come on, Aunt V, share with me!”

“Axelle, darling, I will not share and you will not listen. Now go,
absorb
,” she commanded with a wave of her wrist. “In the next room. Okay?” and she turned down the corridor, arm in arm with Miriam.

“But I promise to be a fly on the wall! You'll forget I'm even in the room!” I called out to no avail. They turned the corner and a second later I heard Miriam's office door firmly close.

I shuffled off to “absorb” for Jenny's sake – she'd want to hear every detail about everything. Jenny loves fashion. It started last year when Mrs Watanabe told her she could wear mascara and lip gloss to school. What Mrs Watanabe didn't know was that Jenny had mastered the “no make-up” make-up look. In other words, what Mrs Watanabe took to be a bit of mascara and lip gloss was in reality foundation, concealer, powder, eyeshadow, eye pencil, blush, bronzer, eyebrow gel, and, yes, mascara and lip gloss. Jenny's dream is to be a make-up artist. She's always working on different looks, and once she has a new look perfected, of course she wants to try it out on somebody. That somebody is me. I'm her life-sized guinea pig.

“The only problem is that once we release your hair and you put on your glasses, my work is all covered up. No one can see that you have a lick of anything on,” she'd say, appraising me through narrowed eyes, head tilted to one side.

Gee, thanks, Jen. It's nice to know that an hour's worth of make-up applied to my face doesn't make a difference.

Anyway, let me tell you what being in a modelling agency is like: it's like being on ANOTHER PLANET. A planet of long-legged, flawless-skinned inhabitants sporting abundant hair and practically see-through silhouettes.

Even the conversation had nothing to do with my world:

“My mom is at my apartment in New York right now stocking my refrigerator with goodies. I'll fly out tomorrow. I can't wait to eat at home – for once!”

“I have to fly to South Africa in two days. Is it, like, summer or winter there right now?”

“Cool bag! Balenciaga?”

“I've been travelling non-stop for two months. I am so desperate to sleep in my own room for just a few days…”

“Your boots are amazing! Whose are they?”

“They want me to cut my hair short for the
Elle
shoot. But, I'm talking like, really short…”

“Did you know you're on the sides of all the buses in Milan right now?”

“Do you think I can eat this croissant?”

“My new chihuahua puppy scratched my face this morning and tomorrow I have to shoot beauty for
W
! Do you think they can cover it with make-up?”

I made my way to the room with the so-called “booking table”. Around this table sat the “bookers”, each facing their own computer screen. Each booker is assigned a number of models to look after. Which models they get to handle is dependent on how long they have been on the job and how good they are at “booking” a deal. The better the booker, the higher on the fame scale the models they handle will be.

I perched myself on a chair in the corner, pulled my notebook out, and listened as the whirlwind of activity grew around me. Since I'd arrived there'd been a gradual crescendo in the amount of telephone-ringing and computer-clicking going on. Like a jet reaching its expected flight altitude it would soon level off, then continue unabated until the end of the day. The bookers sat like air-traffic controllers, earphones on, computers facing them, taking instructions, giving directions:

“Maggie is not available on the 10th – she's doing Dolce & Gabbana's ad campaign that week. But I could give you a second option for the 15th.”

“How late are you? Okay. Okay. Listen, I'll call the airline then I'll call you back.”

“No, no, it's not that studio – you're supposed to be at the one further up the street at number 7. Go now, I'll call to say you'll be there in a minute.”

A steady stream of models came in and out, stopping to get appointments or discuss their next career move with their booker. Some had just landed from New York or Tokyo, others were coming in from a nearby casting, small dogs in tow. Several of the models were deeply immersed in updating their “books”.

A model's “book” is her portfolio. And the newer the photos in it, the better it is, because it clearly shows you've been working recently. The most prestigious photos are those which are known as “tear sheets”. These are pages which are literally torn from magazines. The most in-demand models have the kind of book all new girls dream of: page after page of the glossiest, most prestigious (and recent) magazine work, shot by the best photographers in the business. I suddenly realized that I knew a lot more about all this stuff than I'd thought. It must have seeped into my brain during previous trips to see Aunt V – Mum would be thrilled.

My phone suddenly vibrated. It was Jenny.
I heard the news and I bet you're on it. Any leads yet? Where are you? X J

I'm at Miriam's. No leads yet. FYI: Tiny jackets and tiny dogs are in. Got to go. Someone's talking about Belle La Lune!

Pricking my ears, I'd noted one of the bookers to my right reading an article on the internet about Belle. Over her shoulder leaned a tousle-haired guy who'd just come in. He looked only a little bit older than me but in his leather jacket and biker boots he was better dressed for a quick getaway than for a modelling agency. What was he doing here? He didn't seem pretty enough to be a model…in fact, he didn't look like a fashionista at all – not even a part-time one. Maybe Miriam had a son I'd never heard about? I couldn't tell, and his wicked grin gave nothing away, but by the way he and the booker were pointing at the computer screen and exchanging whispers, they obviously knew more about Belle's disappearance than I did. Quietly I got up and tried to get close to where they were now standing. Maybe I could pick up a bit of information…

As I was thinking, the most stunning model I'd seen so far that morning walked in. The effect when she came into the room was palpable. All the bookers simultaneously looked up and beamed. Her booker (Hervé, as I was to find out), wiggled with excitement in his seat and mouthed that he would be with her in a moment. As soon as he ended his call he jumped up and bounded over to the model, giving her a hug and air kisses. “My beautiful one, how was zee trip? Zee islands look so beautiful on zee photo you sent me.” And then, stepping back from her: “You look splendid.”

“You really do look ravishing,” the other bookers cooed. “And so tanned and relaxed.”

“So, my beautiful one,” Hervé continued, “this morning you'll go to Madrid for Spanish
Vogue
. You'll shoot this afternoon and evening then fly back early tomorrow morning to shoot the La Lune Fall/Winter campaign. The La Lunes know you'll be coming straight from the airport. Tomorrow after the La Lune shoot you're doing the Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton shows. You're on option for all of the big shows this week. They should all confirm later today. Next week, after the shows, you go to London to shoot the new Burberry campaign and from there New York for a week of
Vogue
and more advertising. And more shows, of course. Oh, and I think I'll be confirming a Guerlain perfume commercial for some time next month. I just have to find a free day in your schedule. As of now, you are completely booked for the next six months.”

“And when am I leaving for Madrid?” she asked in an English accent. And somehow she looked familiar…

“Your flight leaves in two hours and twenty minutes. I have your details here waiting for your confirmation,” Hervé answered as he waved a printed email in his hand. “And I have all of your details for the La Lune shoot tomorrow. Like I said, you'll go straight there from the airport tomorrow morning.”

She stifled a yawn before asking Hervé, “Do I have to go? I'm exhausted. I've been travelling non-stop since Christmas and from what you've told me it doesn't sound as if I'll have a day off for another six months…”