He paused in a way that suggested he was waiting for agreement, so Rachel agreed. “I’m fine with that.”
“D’acc.” More paper rattling, although Rachel suspected it was just for show. How long could the daily report be? “When Monsieur Guipure was found, the immediate assumption was that he’d died of a self-administered overdose into his left arm. Some doubt was thrown on this when one of the scene of the crime officers pointed out that callouses and relative hand size suggested Guipure was left-handed, but given that it’s not impossible for someone to inject the dominant arm with the dominant hand, no conclusion was drawn until we had the autopsy findings.”
“And what did that show?”
Boussicault cleared his throat. “It showed that Guipure had fifty milligrams of heroin in his system, which is twenty grams more than a lethal dose for a man of his size and weight.”
Rachel heard her chair squeak as she sat back. Of course she had thought she was right, and once Magda had shown her the headline, she was certain, but it was still nice to be able to think, I knew it! She gave in to a moment’s enjoyment.
“Rachel? Did you hear me?”
“Yes, yes.” She glanced across the table at Magda as she repeated, “Fifty milligrams.” Then, making eye contact, she added, “almost twice the lethal dose.”
“Twenty milligrams more than a lethal dose. If you want to be a detective, you need to be precise.”
If only you knew, Rachel thought. Never mind wanting to be a detective; it looks like I’m about to be one. Again. But aloud she said only, “Good point. Twenty milligrams.”
But Boussicault must have caught something in her voice, and his tone became grave. “Licensure is a long process, Rachel. Don’t confuse two instances of good luck with practical capability. The police will handle this case.”
Rachel felt the resentment that had mingled with her fondness for Boussicault before. Every time she started to think of him as a mentor, perhaps even as a colleague, he had a way of making it seem that detection was just her hobby, and one she only succeeded in by luck, at that. “Don’t worry,” she said stiffly. She broke the connection. Yet again, she and Magda would have to prove themselves to the police.
They ordered a second round. Rachel asked for double cream.
“Twice the lethal dose!” Magda whistled. “All right, I take it back: it was murder.” She bit her lip. “Now the question is, where do we start?” She nodded toward the building across the street. “It’s pretty clear they’re not going to be much help.”
“Maybe with the rehab place?” It was the first thing that popped into Rachel’s head. “People reveal all sorts of secrets in rehab. And even if he didn’t, I bet they’re a breeding ground for resentments and feuds.”
Magda shook her head. “Doctor–patient privilege. Unless it’s some sort of nonlicensed venture.” She fished her portable out of her bag. “But the background information is as good a place to start as any.” As the waiter put her coffee down, she started typing. After a few seconds, she read out, “‘The Eirini Clinic is a seaside facility in Aspous, Greece. It is a health-driven well-being organization that practices opioid, alcohol, and sex addiction rehabilitation for adults and young adults. Each client lives alone and receives one-on-one treatment through a collection of approaches tailored to fit their specific needs.’ Okay. Apparently its treatment philosophy is twelve step, and holistic with a spiritual emphasis. That explains the ‘striving for serenity.’ And it costs fifty thousand euros a month.”
“Jesus!”
“They stay in individual cottages. So much for contacting fellow patients.” She stabbed her phone screen a few more times. “Apparently that’s not unusual. Here’s The Cottage, in England, one patient at a time and fifteen thousand pounds a week. Some place in South Africa will give you a private executive villa, whatever that is, for seventeen thousand dollars a week. Fifty thousand euros seems cheap compared to that.”
But Rachel had moved on from the residence arrangements at luxury rehabs. “What about the false friends Antoinette mentioned? Resentful ex-leeches might be very eager to tell tales.”
Again Magda shook her head. “I don’t see how we could track any of them down. Antoinette couldn’t even name any real friends, never mind false ones. I know she tried to rationalize it, but—is that really what it’s like to be famous?”
“I thought exactly the same thing. But then I thought, Is it a world where people even have real friends?”
Magda shook her head. “Not judging by what I read.”
Rachel sipped her hot chocolate and thought for a long while.
“They might not have friends,” she began slowly, “but they almost certainly have something even more useful to us than friends.” She sped up as the thought took clearer form. “People who watch you like a hawk and pay attention to every move you make. People who will try to anticipate your moves and second-guess everything you think. People who would store up every little thing they heard about you and pore over it in case it might be useful in the future.” Seeing the confusion on Magda’s face she broke into a grin. “Rivals.”
Chapter Nine
The Sauveterre fashion brand was both popular and successful, but it wasn’t one of the towering eminences of the fashion world, a Dior or a Chanel with decades of money and cachet supporting it. This was fortunate for her and Magda, Rachel reflected. They could never have talked their way into a meeting at a top-tier fashion house. But as two gala organizers who’d recently had a meeting with Antoinette Guipure, they could bluff their way into a meeting with a designer on the second or third rung of fashion’s ladder, one who hoped to overtake Guipure. Because of this, the next Monday morning found them on their way to the thirteenth arrondissement to meet Cecile Phan, whose label had just been invited to join the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter, shortly after showing its fourth autumn/winter haute couture show the previous year. Phan, her assistant had confirmed over the phone, would be delighted to meet with two members of a charity organization seeking remembrances of Roland Guipure for their gala’s program.
Rachel had never been to the thirteenth, and as they came out of Olympiades métro, she made a mental note not to come again. The arrondissements of Paris were arranged like a snail; the thirteenth was on the outermost spiral, the circle of relatively new districts, and it looked like a suburb trying to disguise itself as a city. Although the boulevard they walked down was as wide and tree lined as those in the inner spirals, it was almost deserted, the storefronts glass rectangles filled with fluorescent light pastily illuminating unremarkable interiors. On either side, concrete-fronted boxes with flat, contemporary exteriors outnumbered the gracious facades and zinc roofs of more traditional buildings. Cecile Phan Couture took up the bottom two floors of just such a building, a bland high rise entered via smoked-glass double doors.
Inside, though, everything was different.
If Sauveterre’s headquarters were a glacier, these were a sunset. The offices had deep orange walls lit by standing lamps and wall sconces that made them glow. The reception area was filled with low dark-wood benches scattered with cushions in marine blue and moss green, one wall bearing a huge brush and ink painting of a group of elaborately dressed figures journeying through red-blossomed trees toward a mountain peak in the far distance, all drawn on a square of parchment that had aged to a soft sepia. Everywhere was warmth and comfort; even the young receptionist wore a dress patterned with blooming golden peonies.
Amid all these lush tones, Cecile Phan was displayed like a small jewel. She sat across from them in her office, on a yellow silk chair, her tiny feet—what were they, a size four or a three and a half?—resting on a stool in front of her. She wore a vivid crimson top cut in the style of a Mao jacket, paired with wide black trousers bearing Chinese characters embroidered in the same shade of red. Her bangs were cut straight across her forehead, and beneath them her features were as small and delicate as the feet on the stool. When the receptionist sh
owed them in, she stood up and offered each of them in turn her hand, fingers impossibly long and palm impossibly narrow. Then she settled back into her chair, listening silently as they explained once again who they supposedly were and what they supposedly wanted.
Now Phan clasped her slender hands in her lap as she spoke. “Roland was an inspiration to me, an absolute inspiration. When I was in design school, he was a legend. We even learned about the House of Sauveterre in our lectures. And to all of us who were so busy learning how to cut correctly, how to position ourselves in the history of fashion, how to take the steps that would allow us to reach our full potential, he was a kind of wish fulfilment: a designer who’d had no training, served no apprenticeships, not really given any thought to brand promotion or significance, but nonetheless managed to become a star. We all hoped to imitate him when our time came.”
Rachel had never heard a better series of left-handed compliments. Guipure had been old enough to be a legend. He had been untrained and thoughtless, a freak of nature who—unlike Cecile Phan—hadn’t put in the hard work that meant he’d earned his success.
“That’s terrific.” She nodded earnestly. “It gives a real sense of his value to other designers. And as for his place in the larger world of design, you say he featured in some of your lectures? Could you say more about that?” And perhaps offer some inside information even an old family friend wouldn’t know in the process?
“He was a case study in our module on the business of fashion. Most fashion houses take years to make a profit, and these days that profit really comes from licensing, like my own deal with Porthault to produce a line of linens. But Sauveterre was successful almost immediately. It was held up for us as an example of”—she put a hand to her chin—“oh, what did they call it? Consolidation by commitment, that’s it. They weren’t a public company, and in some ways they seemed more like a family than a business. The sister ran the financial side, Roland did the design, and the employees were very loyal.” She said this last phrase ruefully. “It’s generally known that you can’t poach talent from Sauveterre, and you can never, never get any of their employees to give you inside information.” She flushed slightly. “That does happen, people trying to get other people to spill in-house secrets. Anyway, the idea was that this structure produced Sauveterre’s success. It was an example of achievement based on a conviction that the House was a community, not just a business. A very Eastern concept, actually. One I’ve tried to put into practice myself.”
“And what about Guipure himself,” Magda broke in, leaning forward, “did you ever meet him? Perhaps you have a more personal impression we could feature?”
“Yes. I met him when I was just starting out. He came to my graduation show.”
“When was that?”
“Seven years ago. That was before all the—” Phan gestured toward her forearm, her expression changing to something between distaste and contempt.
“What was he like?”
“Absolutely charming!” Her face smoothed out. “He shook my hand, told me he loved my work … I think I might have a photo somewhere, if you’d like it. It meant so much to be acknowledged by a couturier of his generation.”
“Any encounters more recently? In the last month or so?” Perhaps realizing that she was sounding less like a charity ball organizer than a detective, Magda added quickly, “Just if you happened to run into him.”
“I don’t think anyone ran into him. As I understood it, he was working so hard on his autumn/winter prêt-à-porter that he’d hardly come out of his atelier for months. And since the shows we’ve all been resting. If you can call it that. More like a week’s breathing space before I need to start all over again for haute couture.”
And with that, she looked at her gold sliver of a watch, swung her feet off the ottoman, and stood up. “I’m sorry. I have a meeting with some potential investors. But please feel free to use what I said earlier, that he was an inspiration. An inspiration.” The little hand quickly clasped Rachel’s, then Magda’s, then reached out and pressed a button on the desk. “Jeanne will show you out.”
They stood in awkward silence, waiting for the assistant to appear.
“Your offices are beautifully decorated,” Rachel said finally. “They feel so warm.”
“Exotic.” It was said mildly, but it was still a reproof. “My aesthetic is exotic.” A young woman appeared in the doorway. “Ah, here’s Jeanne. Jeanne, could you show Madame … ah … these ladies out?”
* * *
Although they left the building by a different door, the street they found themselves on was just as stark and anonymous as the one they’d walked down earlier. Here, though, the fronts were all given over to Asian restaurants: Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean barbecue. On the other side of the street Rachel saw a sign for Shanghai Prêt-à-Porter poking out above the pavement, and as they walked they passed a travel agency offering cheap fares to and from Japan. She began to understand why someone whose aesthetic was exotic might choose to have their offices in this area.
“I’m starving.” Magda stopped in front of an open door under a huge neon sign that said “I ♥ Pho.” “How about here?”
The restaurant was furnished with rickety rectangular tables and even more rickety chairs, and although the menu was in both French and Vietnamese, Rachel had the sense that it was more at home in the latter. But the waitress was welcoming and helpful, and when their pho arrived in huge steaming bowls, it was so delicious that neither spoke until they were well embarked on it.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” Magda said at last. “We could’ve learned as much from a couple of hours on Google.”
“I don’t know …” Rachel considered. “I thought there were a couple of things.” She put down her spoon and held up an index finger. “One, she said that designers’ real profits come from licensing deals. And we know that Sauveterre had just signed a licensing deal with … who was it?”
Magda swallowed. “Chieko. A Japanese company.”
“Right. I bet a licensing agreement could founder if the designer was doing something that could potentially damage his reputation. The fact that Guipure wasn’t taking heroin anymore doesn’t mean he didn’t have other vices that might put the deal in jeopardy, and if he did, someone who stood to benefit from the licensing would have had reason to kill him.” She put up a second finger. “Second, she said Sauveterre was more like a family than a company.”
“Well, at least to some degree they are a family. Antoinette and Guipure are.”
“And families don’t always like each other. They carry grudges; they blow tiny slights out of proportion; they get jealous and feel hard done by. And I don’t mean just Antoinette and Roland. Anyone near enough the top to feel personally connected to them might have a reason to be angry at Guipure.”
“Or just the reverse.” Magda paused to dig a noodle from the bottom of her bowl. “Families can also be very loyal. They stick by each other. It could be that Sauveterre was that kind of family.”
“Fair enough.” Rachel wiped her lips with her paper napkin. “It’s true it isn’t much to go on, but at least it’s something to build on. We can try other designers who might know more. I was thinking maybe Damien Punet at Atelier de Grace?”
Magda’s mouth was too full for her to respond. She held up a finger, then swallowed and said, “Gédéon Naquet.”
“Naquet? I’ve never heard of him. What’s his label?”
“No label. He’s not a designer. He’s the biographer. Don’t you remember? The first time Gabrielle buzzed Antoinette, she said he was on the phone. God knows why a fashion designer has a biographer, but it seems like a better bet than another designer. After all, it would be his job to know about Guipure. We should talk to him first.”
“Yes, but as a wise woman once said, what pretext do we have? There’s no reason for two gala organizers looking for quotes from friends to want to talk to a biographer. Or for him to want to talk to them.”
&nb
sp; “What pretext, what pretext?” Magda drummed her fingers on the table and stared out the window. A bus stopped in front of the glass, a giant iPhone on its side, and next to the phone, huge pink letters that promised, “Une cinéma dans votre poche!”
Rachel translated the phrase silently: “a cinema in your pocket.” Letting her eyes lose focus, she thought for a second, then answered her own question. “We’ll say we’re making a film.”
Magda looked dubious.
“I’m serious. Everyone’s an amateur filmmaker these days. All those Netflix documentaries? We’ll say we’re making a documentary about Roland Guipure—we’ll say we’re in the early stages, so we don’t have to answer any awkward questions. And we want to talk to him because we’ve heard he’s the foremost authority on Guipure.”
Magda shook her head. “He’ll never buy it.”
Ten hours later, Alan echoed her. “He’ll never buy it,” he said from Rachel’s computer screen.
She gave him the same reply that she’d given Magda. “Trust me, he won’t even stop to question it. The prospect of fame is the author’s catnip.” For the second time that day, she was pleased with herself. Oscar Wilde couldn’t have put it better.
Chapter Ten
The next morning Amazon.fr revealed to Rachel and Magda that Gédéon Naquet had written three books, all of them biographies: one of Francois Mitterand’s long-term mistress Anne Pingeot in 2000, one of Monica Bellucci in 2010, and one of French music icon Johnny Halliday in 2014. The Gibert Joseph bookstore on the Boulevard Saint Michel was only a short distance from Rachel’s apartment, and according to its website it had a copy of Blond Tiger: The Life of Johnny Halliday in store. They decided to walk down.
Designs on the Dead Page 6