Beautiful People

by Wendy Holden

  "Your client can be as interested as he likes," Mitch said steadily, "but my client no longer is. Things between her and Graham MacDonald are both steady and serious," he extemporised, watching with satisfaction as Cucarachi tried and failed to reply to this. As his hated co-worker departed, Mitch picked up the phone to call Belle in London.

  The penthouse phone rang just as Emma had settled Morning in his cot. Under strict instructions not to answer any calls, Emma ignored it. Happy after his bottle, the baby snuggled into his mattress. Now and then a warm brown eye flicked open; Emma sensed that he needed to reassure himself that she was still there. He often woke her in the night for the same reason, but one look into the liquid chocolate eyes so full of appreciation, and all tiredness would melt away.

  Emma yawned. As ever, it was hot in the penthouse and, as ever, she was tired.

  She was shocked wide awake by a loud and persistent shrieking from the next room. Such sounds, of course, routinely emitted from the bedroom, but there was a less orgiastic quality than usual to what Emma was hearing now. Seizing Morning, she leapt to her feet and ran to see what the matter was. It sounded, she thought, as if Belle was being murdered.

  One could always hope.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The camera flashed and whirred.

  Darcy, her knees raised in their tattered fishnet tights, her naked back against the cold marble floor, and her head thrust into one of the none-too-clean corners of the ornate fireplace, wondered, not for the first time that morning, afternoon, or whatever time of day it had got to by now, what the hell she was doing here.

  She reminded herself hurriedly that this was high-fashion photography of the most esoteric and artistic kind, under the direction of the style legend Rumtopf. And that she, an actress about to make the breakthrough into the big time, ought to be grateful for the opportunity.

  Darcy knew this because her newly acquired model agency, Wild, had told her so. According to Sam, its fearsome head, the Rumtopf shoot was the first in a series of photographic sessions and features aimed at launching Darcy into the stratosphere ahead of Galaxia's release. The fact that the film had not yet been made was immaterial; interest had to be created right from the start.

  Whether Darcy actually wanted to be in the stratosphere was, she gathered, immaterial too. The studio making Galaxia wanted it, and fashion shoots were part of the contract NBS had sent her. It had been the size of a telephone directory—possibly two—and bristled with little, yellow plastic stickers marking where she was to sign.

  Darcy squirmed on the hard studio floor, feeling her ribs press painfully against it. It was just as well she had lost so much weight following her break with Niall. Rumtopf, however, didn't seem to think she was thin enough. He had stood glowering in the back of the changing room as Darcy was tugged, rammed, and generally shoehorned into a basque so full of rips it looked as if a lion had attacked it. This was, she discovered, one of Rumtopf's own designs. It did not make her warm to him, in any sense. The studio was ice cold, and the floor she sprawled on felt gritty, as if it could have done with a good sweep. The fact that everything was painted white didn't help.

  Rumtopf himself wore white: white jeans, white cowboy boots, a white leather jacket, and white circular spectacles that did not appear to have lenses in them. His hair was white and cut extremely short. He had a mouth like a bouncy castle, and his nose looked as if it belonged to someone else. Perhaps it did. Or had.

  He turned glittering, strangely slitted eyes on Darcy through his glassless frames and regarded her unsmilingly and at length. "Nein, nein," he stormed. "Spread ze legs more. Push out the chest more. Ja!"

  The smell of hundreds of scented candles was making Darcy feel sick. Tuberose had never been her favourite. And she had recently read somewhere that a liking for very strong perfume signalled depression or madness.

  The scenario Rumtopf had cast her in seemed to strongly support this theory. "The Master's vision," one of the acolytes had explained in awed tones, "is The Murder House." Darcy listened with disbelief. Every shot—or "tableau"—was to feature a different room and a different murder, with herself as all the victims.

  The first "tableau" had been the bathroom; she had lain in the freestanding, claw-footed, candlelit tub in a satin ballgown in whose design Rumtopf's trademark rips and tears were generously represented. It was ripped particularly around the area of her breasts where a bloody, fake stab-wound appeared.

  As the next "tableau," to feature her strangled in the bedroom, now got under way, Darcy's feeling that the shoot crossed the line from the artistic to the downright psychopathic increased. Perhaps, she now tried to convince herself, it was just as well that Rumtopf, an obvious homicidal misogynist, had an outlet for his fantasies. It may be humiliating and unpleasant for her as the model, but she was probably doing humankind a favour. What might have happened had the Master been obliged to bottle this sort of thing up hardly bore thinking about.

  It was obvious that women weren't Rumtopf's thing. The whiteblond, powerfully muscled figure in black who sat on the sidelines behind the snaking cables of the lights was, Darcy had gathered, the Master's current muse, Stefan. He wore a black baseball cap, which was turned back to front, and the piece of material attached to its reverse to shield the wearer's neck from the sun hung in front of his face. And these, Darcy thought despairingly, are the people telling everyone else what to wear.

  The next "tableau" was The Grand Salon, and so she was lying under a table, her makeup smoothly immaculate apart from the fake bullet wound in her temple. A side-parted and pouting male model in boxer shorts and lenseless spectacles stood beside her, holding a toy pistol of green neon plastic. Darcy had noticed that, while his chest was waxed, the legs protruding from beneath the houndstoothchecked boxer shorts he had changed into were extremely hairy. As the Master prodded her again, Darcy felt a giggle rising irresistibly in her throat.

  "Nein! Nein!" shrieked Rumtopf, the spurs on his cowboy boots ringing as he stamped his feet. "Think murder! Think Sweeney Todd! Think Jack the Ripper! Think Dr. Crippen! Think…"

  "Yeah, okay," Darcy interjected hurriedly, anxious to be spared more of the grisly roll call that had evidently provided inspiration. What she was really thinking about was lunch, however. Her stomach was a storm-tossed sea of hunger. She had been rushed to the Rumtopf shoot directly after the plane from Los Angeles had touched down in Rome and had seen hardly anything of Italy. Least of all the leisurely-lunch-in-shady-vine-draped-taverna type of Italy she would so appreciate now. Where was the Florence where they'd film Galaxia?

  Finally, the end came. Darcy, hurriedly gathering her small number of things together—her luggage, such as it was, waited outside in the car that had brought her from the airport—looked up to see Rumtopf's strangely diagonal eyes gazing assessingly at her.

  "Rumtopf," he declared suddenly, in thrilling tones.

  Darcy eyed him uncertainly, wondering what was coming next. Perhaps nothing was. Perhaps the mere iteration of his identity was meant to be sufficient, reminding the lesser mortals in the room like herself that one was in The Presence of Genius.

  "Rumtopf will now make you a wonderful offer. The most wonderful thing a woman in your position could wish for."

  Darcy glanced at the camera. Frankly, the most wonderful thing a woman in her position could wish for was the destruction of the images just taken.

  "Rumtopf will make your dress for the Oscars."

  Chapter Thirty

  His red brows knotted, his pale-blue eyes narrowed and cold, Niall sat glumly in the back of the Mercedes conveying himself and Belle to the airport. But of the two of them, only Belle would be boarding the first-class flight to Florence. Only Belle would be taking a lead role in a guaranteed blockbuster movie.

  As the car ground slowly through the London traffic, Niall raked a resentful hand through his dark-red hair. It was so bloody unfair. Just what was it about him? Why was it that every woman he went out with automatic
ally got a part in Galaxia, tipped to be the biggest thing since Everest, while he remained treading the boards, a mere bit-part player?

  Granted, he was a bit-part player in one of London's current hits, but now that Belle's own particular bit parts were leaving, it seemed unlikely the success would continue. Not even the most ardent Shakespeare loyalist in the cast was deluded enough to imagine that the audience came to hear the Bard's words alone. The chance to see a Hollywood celebrity bare all had had more than a little to do with it too.

  The director, certainly, had been devastated to hear Belle had been struck down by a mystery bug and would be unable to continue with the run. Niall had been even more devastated to discover that the mystery bug was Jack Saint and that Belle was leaving for Italy to resume her career as a leading film star.

  Granted, her behaviour had been imperious and difficult of late. There was now no trace of the blackly humorous, irreverent car-crash he had met at the audition. Belle had then been at rock bottom, but now success in Titus had re-inflated an ego whose titanic proportions Niall had not suspected but which had terrifyingly combined with the voracious sex drive of which he was all too aware. Performing for Belle twice a day, in addition to performing at the theatre, made for an exhausting ride in every sense of the word. In a nutshell—and shells were what they felt like these days—Niall felt used.

  While he sat angrily upright, resentment emanating from every stiffened muscle, Belle lounged against the beige leather seat next to him in an exaggeratedly relaxed fashion. Her long white legs, dangling one over the other were exposed—from the top of her cowboy boots, at least—almost to the pubis in tiny denim shorts with frayed edges. From time to time, she swung her legs the other way; Niall, at her side, only narrowly missed—thanks to a well-judged dodge— being hit by the bootheels each time.

  He threw several hurt and offended looks in her direction, but it was impossible to see whether they had hit their target. Belle's liquidgreen eyes were hidden behind black sunglasses so huge they made her look like a fly, while her attention was completely focused on the silver mobile mostly hidden in her cascading platinum hair. Her inflated lips, slicked a glossy pink, chewed gum energetically, breaking off from their efforts occasionally to allow a loud and theatrical laugh to escape. "Tom Cruise said that? You're kidding me!"

  Niall was sick of hearing how all her celebrity friends were taking Belle's calls once more. Or, rather, he was sick of hearing, in every word Belle said, how completely and utterly she discounted how much she owed to him, Niall, or rather Graham, MacDonald. It had been he, had it not, who helped her with her lines at the audition, which in turn had got her a part in Titus, which had led to all this?

  "Harvey Weinstein did what? No-ooooo!"

  But had she breathed one word of gratitude to him, let alone one word into the ear of the director that might get him a part too? Had she…hell. He had been right all along to loathe the commercial film industry, Niall brooded.

  "Well, everyone knows Nicole can't stand her…" Belle cackled delightedly, swinging her legs about again. It was, Niall thought furiously, as if he simply didn't exist anymore. She hadn't even been especially keen that he see her off at the airport.

  Niall watched jealously as Belle's jewelled hand dandled fondly on the brown, bony head of the animal that was, of all beasts in the world, his least favourite. Sugar was, as usual, under Belle's armpit, staring evilly at him out of the corner of a big, red, gold-chained handbag. There was, Niall saw, a hint of smugness in the evil, as if Sugar saw the future and it pleased him. It made Niall, despite himself, feel nervous.

  Now that they were on the motorway going out to the airport, the car had picked up speed. The increase in velocity increased Niall's insecurity, as if events were moving more quickly than he was. He stared out of the window, swallowing hard. She was ignoring him, and she owed him so much. More than she owed that greedy bastard of an agent of hers, sitting over there in L.A. raking in the money. What was so difficult about that, Niall fulminated silently, his eyes pale slits of resentment as he watched the traffic flash past. Whereas he…he…

  You just had to take the last few days. Having saved her career by getting her a part in Titus, he had gone on to save her reputation when, having got the nod from Saint, Belle was all for heading straight to the film set and dropping everything. Including the baby and the nanny, whom she was refusing to pay. It had taken him, Niall reminded himself, to point out that flouncing off to Italy while leaving an abandoned African orphan in a London hotel room might not play the press all that well. Especially when she was taking her goddamn dog with her.

  "Well, the press didn't care when I adopted him," Belle sulked. "No one took any notice."

  "They'll care a lot when you un-adopt him," Niall assured her. "They'll take plenty of notice if you just leave him by himself in London."

  "Who says I was going to leave him by himself in London?" Belle swung her mass of brittle, perfumed, white hair back over her shoulder.

  "Well, who else were you going to leave him w…?" Niall did not, however, finish the sentence. There was a purposeful glint in those liquid-green eyes. His heart hammered. She could not mean, surely…

  "You, of course," Belle said breezily.

  "Me? Me?"

  He'd managed to persuade her not to sack the nanny only by adopting the lowest of tactics. "If you fire her, Emma will go to the papers," he had warned. "Remember how, um, hugely famous you are now, Belle."

  "Famous again, you mean," corrected Belle. The tactic had worked, however. Belle had, with the utmost reluctance, agreed to pay Emma a minimal salary, and she and the baby gone ahead to Italy earlier that morning. Much earlier: their bargain flight had been scheduled to leave before six.

  The Mercedes, Niall saw from the signs above the motorway, was now nearing Gatwick. The parting was imminent.

  Seeing the crowd of photographers outside the glass doors at the terminal entrance, Belle gave a theatrical sigh. "Oh. My. God. Just look at those goddamn paps," she drawled, as if, Niall thought, these were not the very same men whose attentions, a mere few days ago, she would have tap-danced round a toilet seat to attract.

  "I'll come with you," he offered eagerly. "See you on the plane. I'm strong. I can shove my way through…"

  He stopped. Belle had held up a hand. "No."

  Niall stared. "But why not? I mean, I've come with you all this way…"

  "I didn't ask you to," Belle said with a curl of her pink glossy lip.

  As, beside her, he caught the glint of Sugar's teeth, a sickening feeling now spread through Niall. The despicable animal was grinning. Ignoring it as best he could, Niall fought for a passage through his swirling emotions. "I came," he assured the dog's mistress with all the passion he could muster, "because I love you, Belle. We haven't been long together, but you've come to mean so much…"

  Belle was texting. She wasn't, Niall saw despairingly, even looking at him.

  "It's over," she said, frowning over the keys. "I was gonna text you when I got to Florence, but I guess I may as well tell you now. Eyeball to eyeball," she added, from the other side of her enormous sunglasses.

  "Over?" Niall croaked. His mind whirled. Oh, God. Where was he going to sleep tonight?

  "Over," Belle confirmed, pressing the send button on her text. She looked up and flashed him a megawatt smile. "I've gotta move on," she explained.

  "Move on?" Niall exclaimed in a tragic croak. He was determined to give this one the works. The YMCA was beckoning otherwise. "Move on from me? But why? I thought you loved me." His voice broke on a sob.

  "Loved you?" Belle's tone was astounded. "Baby, this is Hollywood."

  The chauffeur opened the door, and she slid out. He watched her stalk past the paparazzi, sunglasses flashing disdainfully, and disappear inside the terminal. She didn't even look back.

  What now? He could hardly go back to Darcy's Knightsbridge flat, not now that he had left her for someone else. Any hope that Darcy, from the di
stance of America, was unaware of the liason had been shattered by the widespread publicity it had received. Plus the venomous texts he had received from her on the subject. That their relationship was over was in no doubt.

  He'd left his bicycle at her flat, Niall recalled gloomily. It would have been useful, now that the days of limos and chauffeurs had come to an emergency stop.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Orlando Fitzmaurice sat in the airport, his legs in their cut-off jeans stuck out in front of him, his large, trainered feet subtly drumming the ground along to the iPod whose earphones were entirely hidden under his tangled, dark-gold hair.

  The place seemed full of leggy teenage girls with long blonde hair. Well-heeled Jasmines and Elizas, he could tell, heading for Daddy's villa in Tuscany. As he was himself, even though Daddy, in his case, had rented it, shuddering at the price, and his mother twitteringly referred to it as the aubergo. And they were, of course, sharing it with the Faughs.