A Crime of Fashion

by Carina Axelsson

  She’ll be arriving in three days’ time. Her train will arrive at midday. She’ll ask for a bus that will take her to your address.

  Thank you, Hector. I know she’ll be in good hands. Don’t worry about writing back to me – Violette will do so.

  Love always,

  Giselle

  So Violette had decamped to Paris…and then what? The letter from Giselle was written in January 1961, just three months before the night at the ballet. I folded the letter and took out the next one…

  Paris 13th January, 1961

  Dear Maman,

  I don’t know where to begin so I’ll start with the sad news: Uncle Hector is dead. Apparently, according to his concierge, no one knew that he had any living family – he never mentioned us. But before you begin to worry, I’ll say that I’m all right. I’m warm, I’m safe and I’ve found a clean, respectable room to call my own. I’ll explain…

  The journey went smoothly. I had to cross all of Paris to get to Uncle Hector’s. As I was scanning the list of names by the buzzer, the concierge came out to ask if she could help me. At the mention of my uncle’s name she turned her small, friendly face up to me and asked if I hadn’t heard. “Heard what?” I asked. “Why, heard that Monsieur Merlette died a few months ago,” she said.

  I thought I’d faint, Maman, when she said that. All of our planning, all of that money you’ve worked so hard for in my pocket, and that long journey all by myself…and then to have it all dashed by such sad news. The one person I had a tie to in this city and now he’s gone. I’ve never felt so alone before! I could barely stand after hearing what she said. She is a kind woman, though, Maman. She immediately took up my satchel and ignored my refusals of a cup of tea. I sat for some minutes, drinking the strong, sweet brew, until I was ready to speak. And when I finally did, I told her everything. I told her all about you too, Maman. I must have gone on for some time, because when I stopped the sun was setting outside.

  After listening to my long story, Madame Fourré – the concierge – kindly offered to help. And how fortunate I am, in that she has a cousin who runs a boarding house for women! The room I have is basic – I’m in it right now – but it’s clean and the landlady runs an honest and respectable house. All of this Madame Fourré arranged for me. Before leaving she also gave me the name and address of Uncle Hector’s solicitor. He’d instructed her to do so should anyone claiming to be a relative of his come asking questions. I’ll see the solicitor first thing tomorrow morning. At the very least he might know of someone who can be of help to me.

  Despite the dramatic start I still plan on staying here. I’ll begin looking for a job tomorrow afternoon. I’m sure that with some luck I’ll find the job I’ve been dreaming of. Paris is full of the most elegant shops! Oh Maman, how I wish you were here!

  Madame Fourré has said that I’m the only person whom she’s ever seen wanting to visit my uncle (apart from his solicitor). She said that Uncle Hector was a very kind man, a gentleman, very quiet. She rarely heard him speak. It appears he was something of a loner and angry about some business transaction that turned sour several years ago – it seems something was stolen from him. Madame Fourré didn’t know more. I wish we could have helped him…

  I’ll write to you again tomorrow, Maman, straight after I’ve seen the solicitor. Remember my promise, Maman: that I’ll call you if I really need help. The fact that I’m writing to you with all this news should appease your worries…

  I’ll enclose a card of the boarding house. If need be, you can call me here in the evenings or mornings. The fixed times are noted on the card.

  With all my love,

  Violette

  I let my breath out as I came to the end of the letter. So Hector died a lonely man and his niece Violette stayed in Paris. The ballet ticket was obviously hers, then. And the date of the letter was true to the death certificate Sebastian found yesterday. Furthermore, the concierge’s description of Hector also explained the lack of a paper trail. He must have been shy and introverted to begin with, and the theft of his drawings and subsequent success of his former business partner seemed to have pushed him fully into a life of solitude and bitterness.

  Again and again the same thoughts ran through my mind: is Violette still alive? And, if she is alive, is she trying to avenge her uncle’s suffering by bringing the curse to life? Is she hoping to scare the La Lunes into giving her an acknowledgement of François’s theft? And maybe some financial redress? And why now?

  But above all, the one thought that pulsated through my mind was that I wasn’t the only one who knew of her existence. Whoever had hidden the letters knew of her. And so, in all probability, did the mysterious Mr David le Néanar. The big question was: who would find her first?

  The next envelope contained a short note:

  14th January, 1961

  Maman,

  I must tell you what Uncle Hector’s solicitor told me today! I’ll call you on Sunday – I dare not write about it!

  Love,

  Violette

  Interesting…

  The next, and last, envelope was thick with several letters of exchange between Hector’s sister, Giselle, and Hector’s solicitor, confirming the small legacy that Hector had bequeathed her. After the solicitors had verified that she was indeed Giselle Roux, née Merlette, the paperwork had gone through and Giselle had taken delivery of a few pieces of furniture, some small personal effects of Hector’s and several letters. A wire transfer of a small sum of money followed shortly thereafter.

  Needless to say, the word letters caught my eye. Briefly I wondered if the letters between Hector and his sister, Giselle – the ones in the packet – were the letters his will referred to. But after Giselle inherited them, who did she pass them on to? Surely to Violette? Then why did I find them in the La Lunes’ chimney flue?

  “Axelle, Axelle, relax ma petite…you’ll do fine,” cooed Thierry, nearly scaring me to death. “Oh, and look how sweet you are: you’re reading letters! No wonder you look so confused – nobody reads letters any more! You English are so old-fashioned!” He laughed at his own little joke. “Anyway, yesterday La Lune, today Lanvin, what next?” he asked, as I tried to drag my focus back to the show.

  “Barinaga?” I answered without thinking, slipping into the chair he’d pulled out for me and submitting to his ministrations.

  “Fantastic! I’ll be there too!” he answered. “Brigitte has asked me to start with you and as soon as I’ve finished she’ll brush your hair out, okay?”

  “Fine. But, Thierry?”

  “Oui?”

  “Do you mind if I make a quick phone call?”

  I stood up and stretched before he could complain, and disappeared behind the nearest clothes rack. “Sebastian?” I said as soon as he picked up. “Are you having any luck?”

  “No. No trace of a Violette Roux anywhere in or near Épaignes.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s because she’s not in or near Épaignes – at least I don’t think so. I’ve done some more reading. She came to Paris and I think she may have stayed – that was her intention, anyway.”

  Sebastian let out a low whistle. “No wonder I haven’t found anything. Do you know what part of Paris she might be in, or what she might have done as a job?”

  “No, I have no idea where she might be. But she was hoping to find a job in a shop – a nice one. Oh, and I have the address of Hector’s old solicitor’s office. If they’re still around, they might know where she went to. She met them – of course, this was in 1961…”

  “Still…it’s something. Text me the address and I’ll check there now. I’ll see you after the show.”

  I hung up and went back to Thierry.

  By the time I was show-ready, I hardly recognized myself – and I could barely move. Putting on the amazing pink satin heels I’d been handed was one thing – walking in them would be another.

  “Ellie,” I said, as perspiration began to make the fluid column dress I was wearing stick to
me, “what do you tell yourself…how do you just…?”

  “Just walk out there, you mean?” she said, motioning towards the stage door with her chin as she daintily popped a last forkful of pasta salad into her mouth.

  I nodded.

  “I block out all thoughts of fear. I listen to the music and think about how lucky I am to be able to do this. And, remember, we can do this. Otherwise the designers wouldn’t have asked us to. I mean, look, no matter how intimidating the people in the audience may appear – they can’t do what we do. We make the clothes come alive. We make the clothes say something.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never done this before – I don’t even know how I’m going to be able to walk back and forth – let alone make the clothes say something!”

  “Then look out for the people you know. Use them as a distraction!” she said brightly. “Your aunt, the La Lunes – Claude will probably be here—”

  “Claude? The La Lunes? You’d think that with Belle and Darius missing they’d have more important things to do – like trying to find them!”

  “Shhh…not so loud, Axelle.” Ellie dropped her voice to a whisper. “Don’t worry – I get your point. I mean, if some of my family were missing there’s no way you could drag me to a show, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Fashion,” she mouthed. “The show must go on – no matter what. Anyway, like I said, your aunt will be here, front row. You can look for her.”

  “Great.” I rolled my eyes as the music suddenly blasted through the speakers. Ellie gave my hand a squeeze and the show began.

  I followed Ellie’s advice: I shut my eyes and tried my best to relax as Brigitte gave my hair a last-minute touch-up and Thierry applied the umpteenth layer of gloss to my lips. The music was loud and that helped me to block out all of the busy preparations going on around me. As the tracks melted seamlessly from one into another the volume increased, until finally we got the cue to start. My heart was thumping so hard I thought it might burst. Following Ellie’s lead, I listened to the music and placed one foot in front of the other over and over again. I was unprepared for the bright lights and flashing cameras that hit me with a jolt when I stepped out onto the runway – but, never mind – thankfully it obliterated the sight of the nearly one thousand people whose eyes were all focused on me…

  “You survived the show!” Sebastian seemed happy to see me, last night’s quiet goodbye forgotten. I followed him through the crowds and out of the Louvre. Finally, we made it out onto the Rue de Rivoli, where a blast of cool air swept over us. Along with the enormous sense of relief that I’d walked the show without falling down had come a voracious hunger. I was starving!

  “Great. I have just the thing.” Sebastian waved a brown paper bag in front of me. “Falafels from my favourite takeaway.” We turned into the Tuileries Park and found an empty bench against a warm wall. I leaned back and stretched in the shining sun, happy to be out of those teetering heels.

  Sebastian busied himself with the falafels and drinks while explaining how his morning had gone. “Believe it or not, Hector’s old solicitor still exists – not the solicitor himself, of course, but the firm. But they had no information on Violette – or even Giselle. Once Hector’s legacy was passed on to Giselle, they closed his file. Even their most senior employee couldn’t remember hearing anything about the Merlettes.”

  “Here.” I handed him the letters I’d read backstage this morning. “Read these.” Then I bit into my hot falafel.

  “Wow,” he said, as he came to the end. “It sounds as if Hector must have been really lonely. And did Violette find a job?”

  “I don’t know – those were the last letters in the packet. Although” – I paused to lick a glob of falafel sauce from my fingers before it fell on my new jacket – “knowing how determined she was to get to Paris – and then to stay here all alone – I’m sure she would have been just as determined to find a job… The more I think about it the more I’m sure she must have succeeded.”

  “Well, we know she wanted a job in a shop but unfortunately that doesn’t exactly give us much to go on – there are lots of shops in Paris!”

  “And there’s no Violette Roux alive today, living in Paris?”

  Sebastian shook his head. “Straight after you called I checked. There are many Rouxs – but no Violette Roux. Of course, she may have married, but without a surname we won’t find her. I even asked my father to check for me. The name meant nothing to him – he’s still working on the counterfeit theory. He sees the curse as nothing more than a family distraction.”

  “I don’t believe the curse has any power either…but maybe someone is using it to hide behind? Anyway, at least your dad won’t be breathing down our necks.”

  “True…but it seems we’re breathing down someone’s neck…”

  I looked at Sebastian, not understanding.

  “The mysterious Mr le Néanar. The solicitors told me that he’d called them too, asking for information.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. They told him what they told me: case closed.”

  “Hmm…interesting.” A new thought began trickling into my mind. “Nothing in the packet of letters gives any concrete proof of either François La Lune stealing Hector’s handbag drawings or of the curse, right? Like, even when Violette mentions the theft, it’s very vague and she’s totally ignorant about the context of the theft. Plus we never hear more.”

  “Right.”

  “So if someone were to just chance upon these letters, they wouldn’t mean anything to them. Violette’s life and these letters are only of interest if you know about the curse and if you know that she is a Merlette – because it gives her a motive to seek revenge and right a wrong. Presumably, the possibility of financial compensation could also give her a strong motive to scare and harass the La Lunes into finally acknowledging François’s theft. The letters tie her to her uncle and all of the wrong-doing he suffered at the hands of the La Lunes…”

  “So these letters are really only important to someone who is trying to pin the disappearances on Violette—”

  “Or to Violette herself. If she’s still alive, she has the strongest motive so far to attack the La Lunes…or it could be a direct relation of hers, maybe.”

  “But how did these letters get out of her hands?”

  “And why did I find them at the La Lune house, up a chimney? And how does Belle’s missing shoe and Darius’s cryptic note with Belle, Le Vau and passages written on it tie in with everything? And what about Claude’s CAT?” I stopped to stretch and suddenly remembered the tiny note I’d unfurled from the fortune cookie I’d had at my “goodbye” dinner the night before I’d left London. “Confucius says: A man who reviews the old so as to find out the new is qualified to teach others.’”

  “Well, we’ve certainly been reviewing the old,” Sebastian said.

  “Now we just need to find out something new. And we can start by finding Violette. If we can find out where she worked we’d have a good place to pick up her trail. There must be a way…” I sat thinking for a minute before my eureka moment struck. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it sooner. “I know!” I said. “Aunt V. I’m sure she’ll be able to help.” I glanced at my watch. “She might be in a show, but I’ll give her a call now.”

  “Hello! Axelle, is that you?” Aunt Venetia exclaimed. Apparently I was lucky enough to catch her just as she was leaving a show by a young designer – the music was still blaring in the background. “And now I’m off to another one,” she yelled. “Again, a young one. Apparently he’s the next Yves Saint Laurent. Of course, they always say that, but, still, one never knows and I wouldn’t want him to slip by me if he were.”

  Quickly I explained what I’d found out and asked if she could help.

  “Finally! Progress!” she said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t call it progress yet, Aunt V. I mean, it may end up being nothing more than an entertaining snippet of fashion history. On the o
ther hand, it just might shed some light on the matter.”

  “Well, you may as well try. After all, it’s not as if Inspector Witt is making any headway with his counterfeit theory – despite interrogating poor Blossom after Harlan Forbes saw Belle’s drawings fall out of her bag. I could strangle the police for leaking that information – especially as it’s led to nothing but bad press. And who could imagine Blossom being involved? Anyway, listen, I’ll be out of here in five minutes. As soon as I’m in my car I’ll make some calls. We want employee records from circa 1961, boutiques, right? Violette Roux?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “What kind of boutiques? Fashion? Gloves? Hats? What?”

  “Hmm…I’d guess fashion.” And then, following my hunch, added, “And high-end. Givenchy or something like that.”

  “Fine. I’ll get Blossom on it right away – not that I have much hope. 1961 was a long time ago. Anyway, Blossom will be only too happy to help. Her neck’s still on the line, you know. I’ll call you later. We should know something by the end of the day.”

  We’d just stepped out of the Tuileries and onto the busy Rue de Rivoli. There were people everywhere. Some rushed past carrying packages, others wandered idly from window to window. Still others talked loudly on their phones, oblivious to anything else. And all around us, weaving their way in and out, were the fashionistas. They were as easy to spot as coloured beads in the sand.

  “By the way, do you want to come with me tonight to the Juno bag launch?”

  Sebastian laughed. “Does this mean I’ve moved up from sidekick status?”

  “Uhm…maybe. But just for tonight – Ellie will be busy.”

  “So if I’ve understood correctly, what you’re really asking is would I be your escort, maybe your bodyguard, and definitely your driver?” Sebastian said with a laugh.

  “Exactly.” He looked totally cute standing there smiling, his hair ruffled.