Beautiful People

by Wendy Holden

  Cosmo rushing towards Orlando, unclenching his hand and spilling about fifteen small, round, spoked pieces of dry pasta out onto the small, square, sage-painted table.

  Marco appeared from the doorway. "Rotolline. That's Italian for wheels. I keep this pasta in the restaurant for when families come. Children usually like my menu, but sometimes we have…"—he rolled his brown eyes hugely at Cosmo and Hero—"children who prefer tinned pasta. Can you imagine that?"

  They looked guiltily back at him.

  "But even tinned-pasta eaters like train wheels with homemade tomato sauce," Marco told them.

  "I'd like them!" Cosmo gasped.

  But Hero shook her silver-fair head. Her pale brow was knotted, and there was a steely glint in her narrowed blue eyes. "Not me," she insisted. "I still like tinned best."

  Orlando, Darcy saw, looked tense. She felt tense herself. Her eyes slid to Marco. How would the impassioned chef, the champion of all things authentically Italian, take this philistine attack, albeit from a child who looked some distance under five?

  Marco's face, she saw, was expressionless. Then, as he continued to regard the indomitable, fair little figure, it became thoughtful. "Maybe I can do something," he said at last in a quiet voice. "Maybe, at the back of a cupboard in my kitchen, I have a tin of spaghetti… just maybe," he warned, raising a scarred finger as Hero began to exclaim and jump about in excitement.

  Darcy rose from the table. "Marco. I've got to go." There were other matters afoot than tinned pasta, after all. The excitement of being able to give Emma the good news about Orlando was enough to obliterate completely the thought of the painful run back to the villa. She moved off across the courtyard.

  "Come back tomorrow," Marco called after her. "I'm expecting some truffles."

  "Truffles!" Darcy exclaimed. "I've never had those!"

  "Then you haven't lived," Marco said easily. "I'll see you tomorrow."

  Darcy did not move fast. It was obviously unwise on a full stomach. She floated, rather than walked, down the steep hill.

  Her mobile beeped. A text? From Christian? She dragged it out of her shorts pocket, feeling the cheese she had just eaten rising up her throat in sick excitement.

  5 8 KRUQ" :LVK , FG EH VFUZQJ 8 QRZ?? 7PRUURZ QLJKW"

  Darcy raised her eyebrows. It wasn't exactly Romeo. But it had a certain visceral directness that gave her a charge. Besides, her interest in Christian wasn't in his abilities at literary composition anyway. It was much less complicated than that.

  You shouldn't, Ken knew, judge a book by its cover. Nonetheless, he found it hard to shake from his memory the sighting of the two men near the playground. He had had enough experience of undesirables to recognise them when he saw them, and he felt increasingly strongly that the proximity of such people to small children was worrying. Drugs—albeit soft ones like cannabis—and kiddies were never a good combination.

  Particularly if, as had seemed likely, the men were going to the playground to meet one of the nannies. And not just any of the nannies either, but the nasty blonde in charge of the two children who had made such a strong impression on Ken at the airport. Who were, in fact—and the boy especially—the entire reason he was here.

  But what could he do about it, Ken asked himself. It was all very well having his suspicions, but he could hardly hang around the playground himself and order the men to stay away. Nor did there seem much point alerting the local police—wherever they were—as there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. Ken's hunch that, nonetheless, something was wrong, continued to preoccupy him.

  Eventually, in a flashbulb-like flash of inspiration, he realised that the answer lay in a combination of the balcony in his room, which overlooked the playground, and also in his own baggage. To be precise, in the black, padded zip case under a heap of creased clothes in the corner of the room. This contained the Leica and long lenses he had hoped never again to use, but which, as they were actually around his neck when he made the spur-of-the-moment decision to fly to Italy, he had been unable to avoid bringing with him.

  And thank God he had, Ken thought now. He could use them to survey the playground from his balcony. Because, while his roster of skills numbered neither cooking, nor dancing, nor playing the piano, nor even—he dolefully suspected—being a particularly nice or useful person, one thing Ken was supremely good at was watching—sometimes for hours or even days—other people's movements through the end of a long-lensed camera.

  Surviving as a paparazzo had demanded that he was, and, while Ken, in turning his back on his former business, now regretted the years he had spent hiding in people's bushes or crouching down by their cars, he could now see a way to turn those questionable abilities to good use. Possibly even atone for the sins of the past.

  Stealthily, swiftly, he set up his camera in the corner of the balcony where it would least likely be noticed by those from below. He pulled the rickety chair from the bedroom outside and positioned it behind the lens. He sat down, twisted the lens, and got the playground gate in focus. He was immediately filled with a sense of satisfaction. Whatever happened now, if those men turned up, if they met one of the nannies and nefarious business was afoot, he would capture it all on film.

  Ken was, in accordance with general paparazzi law, expecting to have to wait some time before anything occurred. There was also the possibility that it never would, that the men he had seen had been a one-off. His instincts, however, which were rarely wrong, told him otherwise.

  Having armed himself with some bottles of ice-cold lager from one of the shops in the square and a salami sandwich the length and breadth of his forearm, he settled down and prepared to wait.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Mitch Masterson, in his L.A. office, was chewing anxiously on his third jelly doughnut of the morning. But the sweet, chewy dough, while it plugged the ever-present hole in his stomach, could do nothing about the gap in his soul. That his spirits were lower than they had been when he was the least successful agent on the company's books seemed ironic as now, along with Greg Cucarachi, he was almost at the top of the pecking order with two of his actresses in the new Jack Saint movie.

  As Mitch finished his doughnut, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Cucarachi trying the door of his office. He had started to close it, even contemplated locking it, to avoid the daily torture from his co-worker that he knew was coming now.

  Greg rattled the door open with a flourish. "Good morning, Mitchell!" he exclaimed. "And how are you today on this bright and beautiful Hollywood morning?"

  "I'm fine," Mitch grunted.

  "Belle learnt her lines yet?" Cucarachi asked in mock-concern. "I do hope so. I hear Jack's getting pretty pissed at her. Some of the cast are asking whether she can actually read…"

  "She can read alright," Mitch snapped. No one who had seen Belle grab her contract and devour it with her eyes could doubt that. That she hadn't shown the same alacrity in learning her part for the film was, Mitch knew from Saint's frequent irate phone calls, becoming almost as much of an on-set issue as Darcy's weight.

  "Arlington Shorthouse isn't very happy," Greg added gleefully.

  "Yeah." He'd had Arlington on to him all the previous afternoon. It had not been a pleasant conversation, and, together with those from Jack Saint, had made Mitch almost long for the days when the only phone calls he received were from producer's assistants on obscure Latino soap operas.

  "You know," Mitch said now, as inspiration struck him, "I'm kinda wondering if Belle's, um, issues haven't got something to do with your client Christian Harlow. Whether the influence he's exerting on my client, Belle Murphy is, shall we say…"—Mitch put his head mock-questioningly on one side and drummed his fat fingers lightly on his desk—"entirely a good one."

  Ha! Take that, Cucarachi.

  Greg, however, was ready. "Interesting," he mused, stroking his long nose. "An interesting thought." He looked up and smiled. "Perhaps you'd prefer it if my client Christian Harlow—who, incidentally, kno
ws all his lines backwards—transferred his interest back to your client Darcy Prince?"

  A pang of murderous fury went through Mitch. The bastard.

  "Catch you later!" Greg sang, swinging Mitch's door shut with a bang that made the walls rattle.

  "I mean, Jack's, like, just so unreasonable," Belle stormed as they climbed into the Ferrari at Christian's villa. "He's bullying me. He's a mistletoe…no, misanthrope—that's hatred of women, isn't it?"

  "I wouldn't know," Christian said wearily, fumbling for the ignition. But while he did not know the word Belle was searching for, he knew the sentiment behind it. Getting back with this particular woman had been one big mistake.

  Jesus, had he got it wrong. He'd jumped back into bed with Belle believing her star to be once more on the rise, only to find her addled by self-importance and, Christian suspected, whatever drink she could get hold of. He felt he almost preferred her on the skids; she'd been clingy, sure, but at least she hadn't imagined she was Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, and Elizabeth Taylor all rolled into one.

  The fact she couldn't be bothered to learn her lines was the most dangerous aspect, however; the entire set knew she and he were together, and Christian found himself obliged to mount a charm offensive of spectacular proportions on the director to avoid becoming tarred with the same brush.

  He'd even bought Saint a present the other day: one of those little, red Vespa scooters. There'd been a discussion about Italian scooters during a break in filming; Saint had described them as design classics. Christian, whose idea of a design classic was a yacht with two helicopters and a submarine and felt scooters were for losers, nonetheless wasted no time moving heaven and earth to get one for Saint—or obliging his agent, from the distance of America—to move heaven and earth to save him the trouble.

  "That bastard Saint's making my life a misery," Belle butted in. "He's victimizing me. He hates women."

  "No, he doesn't," Christian snapped. "He just doesn't like people who turn up six hours late on set without knowing their part. It costs money, that sort of thing. The schedule's pretty tight."

  Belle's clinging top was even tighter. The swirling pattern made her breasts look bigger than ever, whereas her shorts were so tiny they looked like denim panties. Had he known what an imagination was, Christian might well have reflected that Belle left little to it.

  A vision of Darcy in her floaty yellow dress swam before him. He'd texted her before they left and now felt a warm rush of anticipation in his groin. From her reply, she was more than on for it. And screwing Darcy was much more fun than Belle. Less painful, in every sense.

  It might be a little complicated, but Belle probably wouldn't be around much longer. He'd heard Saint was calling agents left, right, and centre to get a replacement for her, although he still seemed to be holding out hope that Darcy would return to the set. "A rare talent," was how he had described her, in Christian's hearing. He'd felt a little sick at that. Darcy had been the better horse to back, all along.

  Whereas Belle was a sinking ship, or as sinking as a ship could be with assets as inflated as hers. Maybe he'd dump her after this lunch.

  He started the Ferrari with a roar that, as had been intended, sent Sugar diving for the depths of Belle's handbag.

  "Shit!" she exclaimed, peering in after him.

  "He's died?" Christian asked hopefully.

  "No. He's shat all over the script."

  It was twelve o'clock now; the sun was high and hot in the sky. The shouts of the children in the playground were borne upwards to Ken on the lunch-scented breeze. It was very warm on the balcony; he had followed the shadow round, lugging his chairs and camera to the shade, but now it threatened to disappear altogether. Neither Totty nor the suspicious men had shown yet, and if they didn't soon, Ken knew he faced the prospect of having to await them under the full heat of the blazing sun.

  He was beginning to lose heart. Perhaps they were all having lunch. Perhaps he ought to follow their example and have some too.

  Ken stood up and stretched. And, as soon as he took his eye from the camera, he saw Totty. She was rounding the corner from the church end of the square.

  Ken drew a swift breath in and sat hurriedly back down again at his chair, knocking the carefully set-up camera as he did so. His hands shook as he fumbled to refocus the lens.

  Totty slowed down as she approached the entrance to the playground. Ken watched her pass it and walk down the encircling pathway directly below his balcony. Apprehension began to clutch him—was she headed somewhere else altogether?—and then relaxed its grip as she stopped just beneath where he sat.

  Right next to where she had paused was a bench, half-hidden from the pathway running past by the bushes. As Ken followed her movements down his lens, Totty, after looking about her for a few seconds, slipped behind the bushes and sat down in the concealed area behind. She took out her mobile and began to talk agitatedly into it. Ken strained his ears, but, for all she was directly underneath him and the air was still, it was impossible to make out what she was saying.

  Almost immediately, the two men he had seen before appeared. They walked with heads bent and hands shoved into their pockets, quickly, purposefully. And looking, Ken thought, lining up the first shot, if anything, more undesirable than before. They were loping along in battered jeans, tanned in a dry, dirty sort of way, their features mostly hidden in the shadows under their baseball caps. One held a mobile in a scarred and tattooed hand. Ken guessed he was talking to Totty.

  Taking shot after shot, he now watched, excitement and amazement bunching in his throat, as the two men slid behind the bushes where Totty waited.

  The encounter was businesslike. Little seemed to be said. Action was all: quick as a flash, dirty hands went into grubby pockets, and a slew of small plastic bags containing white powder suddenly appeared on the bench besides the nanny. Ken zoomed in and fired again and again, his brow dark and furrowed with disgust.

  He kept the lens unwaveringly on her. Snap! Snap! Totty, taking the packets. Snap! Snap! Totty, slipping them into her handbag. Snap! Snap! Totty, getting out a crocodile-skin wallet, opening it, handing over a wad of notes. Snap! Snap! The two men, taking them. Snap! Snap! The two men, getting up and leaving, loping away as swiftly as they had come, down the shadowy pathway until they turned the corner into the sunlit square.

  Carefully, Ken detached his face from the camera. He had pressed his eye and forehead to it so hard in excitement that it was now almost stuck. He rubbed his sweating forehead and blinked, feeling rather drained now with the drama of it all. Still, he'd got them now.

  Glancing below, he saw that Totty had not yet moved. He guessed immediately that she was waiting. There was another act of this unsavoury drama to come. Someone else was expected.

  He put his eye to his camera again. It could be quick; he had to be ready. Ken recognised but could not, at first, place the two young men with big hair and teeth who now hurried up the path by the playground. He got them in focus and fired away, his mental Rolodex spinning all the while. He'd seen them recently…

  Oh yes! He'd got it now. The restaurant. They'd been part of a group, with that good-looking boy. And, more to the point, with a certain big, booming, colourful, well-known, and, Ken had always felt, particularly unpleasant Member of Parliament. Striding up the path now, looking inordinately pleased with themselves in their striped shirts, pressed jeans, and snaffled loafers, were the sons of Hugh Faugh.

  As the boys slipped behind the bushes, Ken's camera whirred away. Snap! Snap! Kissing Totty on both cheeks as if they were meeting at a drinks party. Snap! Snap! One of them reaching into his pocket and producing an oddly feminine pink wallet that looked as if it might belong to their mother. Snap! Snap! Drawing out a handful of notes and being given a handful of plastic packets in return. Snap! Snap! Totty laughing. Snap! The boys laughing. Snap! Snap! The three of them getting up and leaving together, arm in arm. This was, Ken realised, his insides tight with excitement, shaping up t
o be quite a story.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  With a boom like thunder, the red Ferrari roared into the Rocolo carpark. Christian scanned wildly about him for a parking space, threw the car into one, and wrenched up the hand brake.

  Belle's annoyance about Saint had, somewhere along the way, metamorphosed into raging lust. She had kept reaching over and stroking his penis as he drove, and with such a practised hand that, despite himself, he had found himself stiffening.

  Christian looked up. Was the tree hanging over the space enough to hide them? It was lunchtime, and the carpark was sizzling in the heat, car bonnets blazing, empty of people. He could probably get away with a quick one; it would be the last one, after all. She was clawing at his fly zip now. Grunting, Christian unbuckled his belt.

  Full of excitement at having spotted the lost Orlando, Darcy pelted down the cobbled hill out of Rocolo. Slowing down to avoid some people crossing the bridge over the stream, she flicked a glance into the carpark and saw the red Ferrari under the tree.