London – two weeks later
‘I can’t believe this,’ Christine said to Vivienne, staring at the huge, pear-shaped pearl with unabashed awe as she held the heavy pearl and diamond choker in both hands. ‘I genuinely can’t believe I’m touching it!’
She shook her head in wonder.
‘We studied it, of course, for my gemmology degree,’ she went on. ‘But I never thought I’d be this close to it! The Medici Pearl – wow, it’s legendary. Literally legendary. Worn by Catherine de Medici, Mary Queen of Scots, Empress Eugenie . . . and now Vivienne Winter!’ Christine finished wisely, having learned quickly that Vivienne’s preference was for attention to remain focused firmly on her. ‘What a pedigree! It’s unbelievable.’
‘Sadly, I don’t wear it any more,’ Vivienne observed, reaching out one ring-laden hand to touch the enormous pearl with her index finger. ‘Chokers emphasize my jowls, I’m afraid – even after having had them picked up and stapled back by Dr Chout. These days, I rarely wear necklaces at all. And my bones are fragile now: I can’t wear the big pieces for any length of time. Just putting the tiaras on makes me wince at the weight. Hence the auction. Why let all these beautiful pieces just gather dust in the vaults?’
Christine was used by now to Vivienne’s occasional paralysing frankness, and had learned that Vivienne did not expect her interlocutors to demur when she spoke honestly about her age or appearance.
‘You could have the pearl taken off and reset,’ she suggested instead. ‘On a longer chain, perhaps.’
Vivienne shook her head.
‘No, it was on the choker when Randon gave it to me,’ she said simply. ‘So I couldn’t possibly change the setting. I can’t control what happens once I’ve sold it, of course. But while it’s in my possession, it remains as it is.’
Her expression softened, her eyes misting over. Christine could have sworn that they had changed colour, darkened to a deeper purple, as Vivienne remembered the love of her life, Randon Cliffe.
Vivienne settled back in her chair, her hands resting on the wide padded arms. It was a yellow chintz pattern that had been fashionable in the 1980s, the last time Vivienne decorated this apartment. The place was a luxurious time warp, all gilt furniture, swagged and tasselled curtains and wall-to-wall carpeting. Vivienne might enjoy the stripped-down, Scandinavian chic of the Hotel Tylösand for a spa visit, but she liked her various homes plush and her furniture overstuffed.
The apartment was on the top floor of a huge Park Lane villa, and had been Vivienne’s pied à terre for decades. It seemed small to her after her lakeview mansion in the hills above Montreux, but she loved its views over Hyde Park, which was eternally so lush. It was exactly how she always remembered London from abroad: the beautiful green spaces at its centre, breathing out oxygen; the wide, gracious avenues that bordered them; the red buses gliding along the avenues like ships down a river.
At that moment, however, Vivienne was not seeing the spectacular view Her eyes were closing as she travelled back into the past. She had no memories of Randon in this apartment, which had been a conscious choice. Shortly after his death she had sold the house in Brompton Square in which they had lived, on and off, during the ups and downs of their two marriages. It was impossible for her to stay on at that address knowing that he would never come back to it, never bang open the front door in the way that always drove her crazy, calling to her to come down and stroll across the Brompton Road with him, hand in hand, heading for San Lorenzo on Beauchamp Place, where there would always be a table for them in the glass-roofed courtyard.
They would settle into San Lorenzo’s wicker armchairs, eat risotto with king prawns or linguine with clams washed down with huge quantities of prosecco and Gavi dei Gavi. Randon would always finish the meal with a Sambuca con le tre mosche – aniseed liqueur with three coffee beans at the bottom of the small shot glass, the ‘three flies’ that represent health, happiness and prosperity.
Oh, San Lorenzo! Vivienne had barely been back since he died. Mara Berni, the co-owner, had died a few years ago, but Lorenzo and the rest of the family were still there, running the restaurant and its offshoots. However, just as Vivienne had been unable to stay on in Brompton Square, she also could not bear to revisit one of the places she had been happiest, where she and Randon had talked and laughed and gossiped and kissed and reminisced about the times they had spent together in Italy; those glorious times, filming Nefertiti while falling in love.
God knew, Randon and she had had plenty of fights at San Lorenzo too, arguing and squabbling and throwing insults, inevitably when they had too much drink inside them. Sometimes the fights sparked a bout of lovemaking, sometimes the throwing of glasses and bottles, sometimes both. Vivienne had stormed out several times, ignoring Randon yelling at her not to be a stupid bitch and to calm down – how she had hated it when he told her to calm down! – his wonderfully resonant, RADA-trained voice carrying across the entire restaurant.
People who had been surreptitiously watching them bicker would turn and stare openly at the spectacle of Vivienne Winter, her black hair bouncing, her magnificent bosom thrust high like a prow and bedecked with diamonds, those violet eyes, rarer even than the diamonds she was wearing, sparkling dramatically, a fur thrown over her shoulders, teetering on her heels tipsily, making one of her notoriously theatrical exits. Randon would drain his glass and slam it down, swearing loudly, vowing that this time he wouldn’t fall for the silly bitch’s penchant for throwing scenes; and then, seconds later, would stand up, swearing even more loudly, pull a wad of cash from his pocket – San Lorenzo, famously, had never taken credit cards – throw it on the table, and follow in her wake.
No matter how high the celebrity attendance was on one of those evenings – and its regulars at that time had included Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Joan Collins, Hugh Grant, Sophia Loren, Madonna and Princess Belinda – the restaurant would fall quiet, listening in silent ecstasy to Randon Cliffe outside in the street, bellowing sonorously to Vivienne Winter that if she got mugged it would be entirely her own idiotic fault and she shouldn’t expect him to replace her damn jewellery if she acted like a stupid bloody cow wandering by herself around London with a fortune round her neck.
The fights had only worsened with the years. They had never been able to live together successfully. Both had fantasized about domesticity, but had been unable to attain it with each other. On set, in hotel suites or rented villas, they had lain in each other’s arms and talked poetically about how wonderful it would be to have some time off work in a home of their own.
However, every time they had actually made the attempt, it had been a disaster. They were too alike – too spoilt and volatile and selfish and temperamental – to make compromises. Vivienne was able to settle down with Dieter, her second husband, in later life because his nature was extremely compliant, letting her have her own way in everything – and because, in her late fifties, she was less inclined to have sex with any other man who might tickle her fancy. Before then, she had never been faithful for any length of time. Both she and Randon had been instinctively promiscuous, which was one of the reasons they had both taken so easily to the gypsy-like, itinerant, opportunity-filled life of the working actor.
Vivienne’s reputation was legendary. She had befriended her gay co-stars and seduced the straight ones, racking up such a list of conquests that she left Grace Kelly, that well-known libertine, in the shade. Single motherhood had not slowed Vivienne down at all. Her daughter had lived entirely at her convenience, brought up by nannies in the basement flat of the Brompton Square house, a fully contained apartment with a separate entrance so that Vivienne would never need to see Pearl unless she wanted to.
Randon had been adorable with Pearl when she was trotted out to spend time with her mother and stepfather, dressed up, looking like a little cherub; he had taken great delight in seeing her mauve eyes widen in wonder and excitement as he gave her the choker he had had especially made for her, a miniature of her mother’s, right down
to the dangling pearl. The nanny in residence at the time had expressed concerns about the latter, worried that Pearl would pull it off and try to swallow it. Randon had shrugged magnificently and asked what harm that would do her.
‘We’d just make her poo in a bowl till it came out the other end,’ he said, and Pearl had giggled so hysterically at this idea, she got the hiccups.
Predictably, Pearl had sold the choker decades ago, when she had run out of money; however, the jeweller to which she had taken it had been sharp enough to contact Vivienne immediately and offer it to her at a premium. Still, what Vivienne had paid then to reunite the two pieces was a drop in the ocean compared to what they would be worth together now, either as an auction lot or a private sale.
Christine laid Vivienne’s choker back in the velvet-lined tray on the coffee table, carefully arranging it next to Pearl’s smaller one. It was a poignant sight, the child-sized piece of jewellery, when one realized that the mother was still alive but the little girl for whom it had been made was long gone.
Vivienne cleared her throat, easing herself upright again.
‘I was just resting my eyes for a moment,’ she said with a slight defensiveness, and Christine nodded politely, accustomed by now to keeping quiet during the times that Vivienne nodded off or lost herself in memories. The best thing to do, Christine had learned, was to act as if the lapse had only lasted a few seconds, and continue the conversation where they had left off.
‘I was wondering – do you have any personal photographs of you wearing the choker?’ she asked accordingly, and was surprised when Vivienne let loose with a laugh that was almost raucous, bubbling with amusement.
‘Randon took some,’ she said. ‘God, how he loved that camera! It was a Kodak Instamatic, one of the first that had flashbulbs you didn’t have to change every time. They sent it to him hoping for publicity – we were sent so many things then by all sorts of companies, it was a constant stream of gifts – and it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. He was never without it.’
Christine’s eyes widened.
‘Vivienne!’ she exclaimed; the actress had insisted Christine use her first name, and Christine was surprisingly comfortable with the intimacy. Vivienne was so warm to her, so friendly, that by now it seemed natural. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before when I was asking about photographs?’ Christine went on, leaning forward eagerly. ‘You know this is a big part of our strategy for getting the absolute most out of the sale, selling the exclusive rights to use photos from your private collection with you wearing the piece! And ones taken by Randon Cliffe – wow, that would be a treasure trove!’
She looked closely at Vivienne, and took in the sheer naughtiness sparkling in the actress’s eyes. Vivienne’s bone structure was so wonderful, the facial work she had undergone so effective, that it was easy to picture her as that film star who had been given lavish jewellery as tribute to her beauty and talent, posing for her lover in photographs that had never been seen before . . . because . . .
‘Oh,’ Christine said, understanding kicking in.
‘Exactly,’ Vivienne said with relish.
‘But how did he manage to get the film developed?’
‘He did it himself,’ Vivienne said. ‘His house in London had a lab in the basement. He’d have put one in mine, too, but Pearl and her nanny were down there, thank God, so he couldn’t muck around with chemicals at Brompton Square. He was very careless, always dropping things on the carpets and getting them stained, and I had some absolutely priceless Persian silk runners in that house . . . Anyway, the lab! You’ll have seen those in old films. The room was red-lit, to avoid overexposure, and he had to soak them all in that developing liquid or whatever he called it. Extraordinary to think how technology has come so far! Now I can’t step outside the house without people wanting selfies with me! And they expect me to wait around while they put their phones on those wretched sticks!’
She mused, then added: ‘I’m always fascinated by what people choose to invent, and when. Did you know, we didn’t have adhesive sanitary pads until the 1970s? They put a man on the moon before they thought to sort out a woman’s most basic needs.’
‘That’s shocking,’ Christine said, horrified. ‘What did you keep them on with?’
‘Big safety pins with white plastic heads!’ Vivienne recounted with unholy glee. ‘Imagine, having pins so close to your privates! They made belts for you to attach them to. It was utterly revolting. And a nightmare if you were in a film that needed tight-fitting clothes, of course.’
Christine was used by now to Vivienne’s going off-topic. She was completely lucid, but she loved to chat about anything that popped into her head, and she was genuinely fascinating. Fortunately, Christine had plenty of time to listen to her, eventually gently steering her back to the subject under discussion: the provenance of her jewellery collection, together with the anecdotes and, hopefully, the photographs that would help to sell each piece.
Vivienne had stipulated, on contracting with Berkeley to give them the auction rights, that she work principally with Christine. It had been a triumph, more than Christine could possibly have hoped for. She had immediately been promoted, given a significant raise and her own office, and allowed to hire another appraiser, whose work she would supervise. In addition to that, it was agreed that her entire working time until the auction – which was scheduled for New Year’s Eve of that year, at their Geneva sale house – should be devoted to Vivienne’s collection. Christine was assembling the catalogue, arranging valuations, putting lots together to appeal to private collectors and liaising with potential buyers – including, crucially, the big jewellery companies, all of which wanted to buy back the pieces they had made for Vivienne. The publicity would be spectacular and enduring; those items of jewellery would be on perpetual display, lent out to museums and special exhibitions, used forever to link the brands’ names to one of the most glittering film stars of all time.
Cartier, De Grisogono, Bulgari, Van Cleef et Arpels, Tiffany: Christine was working with them and many more. They wanted to meet Vivienne, to hear her stories about their pieces, have their directors photographed with her. Christine’s strategy was to offer access to Vivienne only if their offers proved high enough. She was packaging the pieces enticingly, with as much documentation as she could put together. A tiara from Cartier made for Vivienne was already spectacular, for instance, but the fact that it had been a gift from Vivienne’s lover the Sultan of Dijar – and that she had worn it to the 1977 Oscars and not only been photographed in it with Faye Dunaway, who won the Best Actress award that year for Network, but put it on Dunaway for some pictures of them larking around at the after-party – was priceless.
Christine had already explained this to Vivienne, but the way photo rights worked for commercial purposes was that they belonged to two entities – the photographer and the subject. Although the images could be accessed on photo agencies’ websites, any company wanting to use them for advertising would have to get permission from both the subject and the photographer, and pay whatever fee they negotiated. If Vivienne not only had photographs of herself taken by Randon, but owned the photographer’s rights to them – which hopefully would have passed to her, under Randon’s will – this would be a goldmine for the auction.
Seeing Christine’s eagerness, Vivienne smiled at her affectionately.
‘You’re being very patient,’ she said. ‘But you’re absolutely dying to know if I still have any of the nudie pics that Randon took of me wearing nothing but the jewellery he gave me, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Christine said, with such fervour that she blushed. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to sound pervy . . .’
‘They were just for us, of course,’ Vivienne said. ‘I have boxes and boxes of them.’
Christine realized that she was clasping her hands together as if in prayer, her eyes lifted ecstatically to the heavens.
‘Of course, I’m not saying I was naked in all of them!’ Vivienne conti
nued. ‘But as I said, they were just for us. I used to look at them all the time after he died, to remind me of him. I took some of him, too, when I could prise that thing out of his hands. And he wasn’t the best at developing – not all of them came out well.’
‘That wouldn’t matter!’ Christine couldn’t help her voice rising. ‘That wouldn’t matter in the least if you still had the film! Because we could print new shots from the negatives! Nothing rude, of course – we’d crop them, we wouldn’t show people anything inappropriate—’
‘Oh, that’s true, you could reprint them,’ Vivienne said vaguely. ‘I never thought of that.’
And now she did look her age.
‘There have been so many photographs of me,’ she commented, almost wearily. ‘And many taken by men who loved me, too. Yes, I adored Randon, but there were other men I loved as well, plenty of them, and they all shot me from time to time. Not naked photographs, though. Randon was the only one I would ever trust enough for that. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, no matter how much he swore at me or called me a silly cow or stamped out of the house yelling that he’d never come back in a million years – or cheated on me, not that it wasn’t a two-way street as far as that went – I knew that I could take my clothes off and writhe around on a bed while he took photos of me, and they would never, ever end up in anyone’s hands but our own.’
Christine watched Vivienne, fascinated, as her eyes once more seemed to take on an almost ombré sheen, deepening in colour, the effect caused by her pupils widening as she remembered the wild times she had had with Randon.
‘Oh, and there are photos of him naked too,’ Vivienne added wickedly. ‘I wouldn’t let him have it all his own way! He had the most amazing penis,’ she said dreamily. ‘I really should pull those photos out now and look at them for old times’ sake . . .’
‘Oh, you should!’ Christine said, after recovering from the momentary shock of hearing Vivienne Winter talk so nonchalantly about Randon Cliffe’s penis. She was agog at the idea of a secret treasure trove of erotic photographs of these two iconic film stars.
Killer Diamonds Page 19
