London

by Carina Axelsson

  “We did…and I’ve agreed to take on her case.”

  “She wouldn’t give anything away to me. She said that she’d prefer you to explain…”

  I nodded. “She has her reasons.” As we turned left at the end of the bridge and walked past the Aquarium (where my dad works!) and toward the London Eye, I told Ellie all about my meeting with Tallulah.

  “I know how close Tallulah and Gavin are,” Ellie said when I’d finished. “And I can well imagine she wouldn’t be happy with the police calling the attack a ‘random mugging’ after Gavin’s and her flat had been ransacked. It sounds…complex.”

  Clue suddenly sprang to mind. It was Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in the library. Despite the random factors at the start of a game of Clue, it always ended with a clean and tidy solution. And while my mom liked to tell me: “Life isn’t a game of Clue, you know, Axelle” (normally when I was spying on the neighbors), that didn’t stop me from wanting a tidy solution for my real-life cases. Not that I was anywhere near a Clue-like unveiling for this one.

  “Hmm…I guess it is complex,” I said as I pointed back across the Thames to the riverbank opposite. “Gavin was found more or less where you found me. And going on the information—official information from the police report—that Tallulah emailed me earlier, the police believe he probably fell where he was found—or a few feet in either direction at most.”

  It was difficult to imagine the violent scene as I stood with Ellie and Halley, observing the Embankment and Westminster Bridge from this distance. I couldn’t help but think that London looked amazing even in gray weather. Beyond the tugboats and tourist launches puttering up and down the river, the city’s iconic, bright-red double-decker buses stood out against the busy background, and the large, ornate streetlights decorating Westminster Bridge looked like something straight out of a Sherlock Holmes film.

  To my left, buses, black cabs, cars, and bicycles of all shapes and sizes zoomed over the bridge, while dozens of people crossed it on foot.

  From the northern end of the bridge, the London traffic followed the contours of the river along the road running above the Embankment. I couldn’t help but feel the irony of what lay behind the large trees and impressive stone buildings overlooking that part of the river: the original Scotland Yard.

  “So you said his shoes were wet?” Ellie asked, bringing me back to the task in hand. “What do you make of that?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know… Perhaps he got wet in the river somehow? But standing here, I don’t see anywhere nearby where he could have easily dipped his feet in. The water is too far below the bank. And why would he have wanted to do that anyway?”

  I had to admit that Gavin’s wet shoes had me stumped. Where had he been? And why? It made no sense to me yet—but I had a feeling it was connected with the attack.

  My eyes scanned the riverbank in both directions, but I didn’t notice anything that led right down into the water. I’d been hoping to find something like the old stone ramps and steps I’d seen on the Île Saint Louis in Paris that descended directly into the Seine. I’d never noticed any along this part of the Thames, but then again, I’d never really looked.

  As Ellie and I made our way back across the bridge, however, a small pavilion in the far left corner of the Palace of Westminster caught my eye. I hadn’t seen it before—it was small and whimsical, like a miniature turret. Because of its dainty size, it was completely overshadowed by the Palace of Westminster itself (otherwise known as the Houses of Parliament).

  But what interested me about the tiny pavilion was that leading down from it, directly into the Thames, was a narrow stone staircase. And while it probably had nothing to do with Gavin’s actions on Sunday, now I knew that there was at least this one point of direct access into the river near where Gavin had been hit. Something else occurred to me: the tides. I wondered how high the tide had been that morning…

  “What are you looking at?” Ellie asked.

  I pointed out the staircase to her.

  “Do you think that’s where he went in?”

  I shrugged again. “It has to have been somewhere pretty close to where he was found. He wouldn’t have had time to move very far before the attack. Gavin left home on Sunday morning at about six forty-five a.m. He wanted to ‘check something’—his words. He didn’t say see someone or meet someone, but who knows. Maybe he did. In any case, it seems Gavin came straight here from his flat on Sunday morning. His agenda notes for the day didn’t suggest he did anything else, and Tallulah emailed me a while ago to say the police had checked the CCTV images for the train he’d taken—in case he’d been followed by his attacker—but everything looked normal.”

  “Hmm, nothing seems suspicious so far,” said Ellie.

  “Gavin came out of Westminster Tube station at just after seven thirty a.m.,” I continued, pointing toward the Tube exit at the far end of the bridge. “The police estimate that he was attacked around eight a.m., and he was found unconscious just after eight fifteen. That means he had about thirty minutes of time to himself before the attack. So what was he checking on?”

  “Or who was he talking to?” Ellie interjected.

  “You’re getting good, Nancy Drew.” I smiled and went on. “So whatever or whoever he was checking on, it couldn’t have been that far away, and he must have wet his shoes and jeans in that time too.”

  As Ellie and I walked the rest of the way north over Westminster Bridge I asked her about Johnny Vane. I was itching to find out more about him after the little bit of online research I’d done on the Tube.

  “Do you really think he might have something to do with Gavin?” Ellie asked, eyes wide.

  “Well, my gut says there must be some kind of link to him—even if it’s tenuous—because all the images on Gavin’s flash drive are of Johnny, his design studio, or his home.” We stopped at the base of one of the Sherlock Holmes–style lampposts for Halley to have a sniff. “Is he nice?” I continued.

  “Yes,” Ellie said, “he is. He’s funny, never says anything boring, and is a brilliant designer. He has a bulldog called Roger who follows him everywhere. He’s quite intense, though…but then many designers are. I have an amazing peacock dress he made. The colors are unbelievable.”

  “Any gossip?”

  “No…” She hesitated.

  “But?”

  “Well, it’s not really gossip, but I’ve heard he had a tragic childhood. I think he lost his parents or a twin or something.”

  “Try all three,” I said before filling her in on what I’d gleaned from my brief online search. I pulled the photo out of my notebook and showed it to Ellie.

  “Is that him? As a boy? With his twin?” she asked.

  “It might be. I have to have the identities confirmed, but they look like twins, don’t they? This is one of the images Gavin had on his flash drive.”

  Ellie handed me back the photo and said, “I know his mom was a model—or more of a muse, I guess—and quite a famous one, among fashion people at least. I’ve learned most of what I know about her through my love of vintage. There are photos of her in many of the old fashion books I collect. When she modeled, it was only with the best editors, photographers, and magazines. She did it for fun, really, or for the artistic buzz, I guess. She didn’t need the money—at least not from what I’ve heard.”

  “So the family had money?” I asked.

  “Well, they say that both Johnny’s parents had wealthy families. But Clarissa was a muse in the true sense. She really inspired a lot of designers with the way she dressed and looked. And even now I’ll sometimes see a photo of her pinned up on a designer’s mood board. I think it’s the combination of how she looked so perfect and cool, and yet wasn’t precious with her style or clothes. She really wore what she liked, and because she traveled so much, she had her own take on how to put an outfit together. Like, she would pa
ir the most amazing Yves Saint Laurent gypsy dress with a pair of flat, strappy sandals that she’d had handmade by a Corsican shepherd. Anyway, the designers all still love her.”

  “So a muse, in the fashion sense, is someone who inspires a fashion designer to create their best designs?”

  Ellie nodded. “Yes, I think that’s a pretty accurate definition. Lots of today’s designers and photographers cite Kate Moss as their muse. And again, not just because of the way she looks, but because of the way she puts an outfit together and injects her personality into the clothes. By the way, do you know Johnny has a sister—Georgie? And that she works with him?”

  I nodded.

  “And, believe it or not,” Ellie continued, “I’ve even met his old nanny! I mean a real nanny—not his granny. He’s very devoted to her.”

  “His nanny? She must be ancient!” If Johnny was still so close to his nanny, maybe she had looked after him and Georgie after their parents had died. But what about a guardian? Someone legally responsible for their well-being. Surely that would have been a relative rather than a family employee?

  Ellie nodded. “She is pretty old and quite…quite unassuming. Like, you don’t really notice her. I was totally surprised when I found out she used to be a model for Biba and Ossie Clark…or was it Mary Quant? Anyway, she modeled, but I think she was a fit model—not a fashion model.”

  “What’s the difference?” Despite the fact that I’d been working undercover as a model for a few months, I’d never heard of fit models. “I mean, we do fittings too.”

  “Yes, we do—but when we do a fitting it’s because we’ve been booked for a job and the client wants to be sure the clothes will fit us properly on the day of the booking, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, for a fit model,” Ellie explained, “it’s different. They don’t work for the magazines or do advertising for fashion designers or for the shows. They stay behind the scenes, trying samples, standing still while a designer drapes the fabric on them to see how an outfit will look.”

  “Like a living, breathing mannequin?”

  Ellie nodded. “Exactly. But my point is, even back in the 1960s, there was already a big difference between the two. Fashion modeling was the glamorous, jet-set big sister to anonymous, behind-the-scenes fit modeling. And if anything, the gulf between the two is even bigger today. So while Clarissa was a big star—for her style, glamour, and modeling work—Johnny’s nanny would have been standing in a showroom or atelier all day, never leaving London. Honestly, fit models and fashion models never did, and still don’t, have anything to do with each other.”

  Sometimes, when Ellie gets into her “fashion expert” mode, she might just as well be speaking Chinese or Russian. I was always amazed by how much she knew, not just about vintage clothing, but about the business in general. Even its history.

  She laughed when she saw my face. “Welcome to the world of fashion, Axelle!”

  “Thanks. By the way, you don’t happen to know her name, do you?”

  “The nanny’s name? Hmm…Jane. But I don’t remember her surname. I didn’t speak to her much—just hi and bye—but she’s often hovering in the background during the shows.”

  “And you’re sure she never modeled for any of the magazines?” Although many of the magazines that Ellie and I worked for didn’t exist back then, a few—like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar—did. I could possibly track the nanny down through the magazines’ vast archives.

  Ellie shrugged her shoulders. “I can try to figure out more information about her if you’d like.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “No problem. But why the interest in Johnny’s childhood, Axelle? Do you really think it has something to do with what’s happened to Gavin?”

  “To be honest, at this point there are a couple of leads I’m looking into…”

  “But…?”

  I turned and looked at Ellie. “But my instincts tell me Johnny Vane is the key to cracking this case.” I fingered the photo in my pocket. “I just don’t know how—yet.”

  I wanted to see if I could walk to the pavilion I’d seen from across the river, so Ellie and I turned left at Parliament Square, then walked until we reached a small park, the Victoria Tower Gardens, attached to the western end of the Palace of Westminster. I’d hoped to be able to cross the park and reach the pavilion, but it was impossible. Because of its proximity to the Houses of Parliament, it was closed off to all public access. So Ellie and I walked back to Big Ben and stood among the tourists to admire it.

  I’d seen a photo in the newspaper a few days back that had shown four cleaners washing the face of the enormous clock. As I gazed upward, I couldn’t help remarking that there was no way I’d ever dangle from a rope like that.

  “Not unless you were after a clue,” Ellie said as she turned to look at me, a smile in her eyes. “Under those circumstances I bet you wouldn’t even bother with a rope before climbing out there.”

  I laughed. “You might have a point.”

  TUESDAY EVENING

  Burgers and More

  Ellie and I had parted ways under Big Ben. We both had early fittings with Belle La Lune the following day, plus Ellie was jet-lagged. But before going home to Notting Hill, I thought I’d drop by my agency. It was on the way, and with a bit of luck, I might have Charlotte’s undivided attention for a few minutes to ask her more questions before she left for the day.

  Halley and I rushed to the Tube and caught a Circle line train to Sloane Square. From there we walked down King’s Road until I reached the small, leafy lane just off it that housed Thunder.

  I swung open the heavy glass door and was immediately thrust into the hyper-busy and buzzing world of fashion. The usual soundtrack of hip-hop music was playing in the background, and I could see Charlotte’s brother Charlie in a meeting with a client through the glass wall of his office across the room. He gave me a quick wave as I walked in and asked Emily at reception if I could see Charlotte. All the bookers, including Jazz, sat at two long, adjoining tables in the middle of the main room. Headsets in place, fingers tapping at their computer keyboards, they were all concentrating on the booking task at hand, occasionally looking up to wave or smile or blow a kiss at the various models walking in and out of the room.

  While I waited for Charlotte, I wandered over to the wall of zed cards behind the booking tables. I’d finally had a proper zed card printed after I came back from New York, but seeing images of myself all made up with perfect hair and makeup, in color on a professionally printed glossy card, still kind of freaked me out.

  “Axelle, Charlotte is ready for you,” Emily said as she bent to greet Halley. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  I thanked her and accepted the offer of tea (peppermint), then followed her to Charlotte’s office.

  Charlotte waved me in with one hand. Her other hand was holding her cell phone to her ear. Her mane of red hair was free, her heels high, and her clothes black. This was Charlotte’s preferred uniform.

  “So, Axelle,” she said after setting her phone down on her large chrome-and-glass desk, “first things first—we’re in luck. I’ve just heard back about Gavin’s brief. I had to call in a favor because no magazine gives out details from its shoots—at least not before the story has run. But don’t worry,” she continued quickly when she saw my look of concern, “the favor was long overdue. Anyway, Gavin was indeed hired by Harper’s Bazaar to shoot a profile piece on Johnny Vane. It’s meant to coincide with the upcoming anniversary—it’s twenty years since Johnny opened his first shop in Marylebone—just downstairs from where you’ll have your casting tomorrow morning, in fact.”

  I started to interrupt her and she smiled. “Yes, I did get you a casting appointment, but it doesn’t look like Johnny’s going to be there, unfortunately. He’ll be at Big Sky Studio all day tomorrow overseeing the shooting of his autumn-winter a
d campaign, but you should do the casting regardless.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. I could ask questions whether or not he was there.

  “Anyway,” she continued in her deep voice, “to get back to Gavin’s booking for Harper’s Bazaar… According to my source, there was absolutely nothing in the brief about Johnny’s childhood. What Harper’s Bazaar did specifically ask for were a few good new portraits of Johnny, as well as some shots of him working. They have plenty of photographs from his early days in their own archives.”

  My mind was running in circles as the information buzzed through my head. So Gavin hadn’t been asked to shoot the old photo for the Harper’s Bazaar job. What was it about that picture that I was not yet seeing?

  That thought promptly raised another one. How had Gavin gotten hold of the photo in the first place?

  Of course, the most obvious answer was that he had snapped it at Johnny’s house when he’d taken Johnny’s portrait. But then why wasn’t it in a silver frame, like the other photos I could see in the background of some of Gavin’s pictures? And why was there a manila envelope underneath it? And if he had snapped it at Johnny’s house, had someone shown him the photo? If so, why?

  “Axelle? Is everything okay?” Charlotte asked.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, Charlotte, everything’s fine. And you’ve been a huge help. It’s just…your information got me thinking about other things I must look into.” As I smiled and tried to slow the thoughts whizzing through my mind, Emily knocked on the door and entered with my peppermint tea and a biscuit for Halley.

  Changing the subject, I asked, “Charlotte, what can you tell me about Johnny’s childhood? And his sister, Georgiana?”

  “Johnny’s childhood? Hmm… Well,” she said as she turned to her computer and googled him. (At least I presumed that’s what she was doing.) “I know that his parents were a bit grand—although of slightly diminished means. Johnny himself likes to come across as edgy and bohemian, but he can be quite posh when he decides to be. Apart from that, I know he suffered some early tragedy—deaths in his family…”