London

by Carina Axelsson

  While those thoughts ran through my mind, I grabbed my tablet again and started researching Johnny Vane online. (For once the Tube’s Wi-Fi signal was strong.) If I assumed that the photos of Johnny were a factor in Gavin’s attack, then perhaps the closer I was able to get to Johnny, the closer I would also get to Gavin’s attacker. It was a lead worth following, I thought.

  I knew who Johnny Vane was, of course, but I had no idea about his background. After a few minutes of delving into his personal history though, I was more convinced than ever that I should follow my gut concerning the old photo.

  According to various online sources I checked out, Johnny had a twin brother—so he was probably one of the boys in the old photo, though I’d still have to confirm this.

  Also, according to his Wiki page, tragedy was a strong feature of Johnny’s childhood:

  Johnny Vane’s father, James Vane (from a junior branch of the Somerset Vane family), died of a heart attack in 1973, while having supper at his London club. Johnny’s twin brother, Julian, drowned in 1977, and his mother, Clarissa Vane, the famous fashion model and muse, died in an accident at their home a few months later.

  Apart from these two sentences, no other details were given about the deaths. Even so, my head was buzzing just from reading the word “drowned.” My mind jumped back to Gavin’s photo of the two boys standing knee-deep in water. Could Julian have drowned in the Thames? I saved my questions for later as I finished reading the article, which went on to tell me:

  Johnny Vane’s younger sister, Georgiana Vane (born 1973), works in PR for Johnny Vane Ltd.

  I clicked on the link to Georgiana Vane’s page, but it was notably brief. Apart from confirming that she worked for the publicity department of her brother’s fashion company, no other information was given.

  I learned more about Johnny’s mother on her Wiki page:

  A renowned beauty and model, Clarissa Vane (née Ryder) was, and still is, often cited as a muse to many of the most influential London fashion designers and fashion photographers from the 1970s to the present… Entire fashion collections have been dedicated to her beauty and style.

  I wasn’t sure what a muse was exactly, not in the fashion sense, at least—although I’d heard the word used, especially in connection with Kate Moss. But presumably a modern muse was to fashion designers and stylists what a classical muse was to poets and artists: someone who inspired creative types to, well…create.

  Wiki confirmed that Clarissa Vane had appeared at the most glittering jet-set parties of the late 1960s and early 1970s, not to mention in front-row seats at all the Paris fashion shows. She had certainly traveled—from Marrakesh to Gstaad to Jamaica. No destination seemed too far away for a party.

  And: Two portraits of Clarissa Vane, dating from 1975, are on view at the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London…

  Hmm…muse and sometime model…how tragic to have died so young, I thought as I looked at various images of her beautiful, symmetrical face and lithe figure. Ironically, her face was serene and classical, with a halo of thick, shoulder-length, dark-blond hair and large, long-lashed blue eyes. It gave no indication of the nomadic and bohemian existence she’d lived. She seemed otherworldly, almost like a beautiful statue.

  Fleetingly, I wondered when—or if—she’d seen much of her children. My mom was hands-on. (I had the impression she was also feet-, arms-, and legs-on.) What would it have been like to have a mother who was always on a plane, jetting off to a party or photo shoot? And then to be orphaned so young?

  According to the dates given, Johnny must have been about five years of age and Georgie three, nearly four, when they’d lost Clarissa. I wondered who’d cared for them after that. Had there been anyone else in the family to look after them?

  I went back to Johnny’s page to take a look at one other fact that had leaped out at me: Johnny Vane grew up in Notting Hill.

  Considering that I’d spent my entire life in Notting Hill, this intrigued me.

  The train had started moving at some point in my research and was now pulling into Embankment Tube station. I quickly put my tablet and notebook back in my shoulder bag, and Halley and I jumped off the train. My mind was still on Johnny Vane as I climbed the stairs out of the underground station and onto the pavement. Who, I wondered, could introduce me to Johnny? It would certainly help with my investigation if I could meet him…

  One name came immediately to mind: Charlotte Gilford, the flame-haired, London-bred, outspoken and glamorous owner of my London agency, Thunder. If anyone could do it, Charlotte could. I walked to the river’s edge and called the agency.

  Charlotte came on the line, and I jumped straight to the point. Could she organize a go-see for me with Johnny Vane? She put me on hold for a few moments before picking up my call again. There was a pause before her deep voice vibrated through the phone. “I’m in my office now, Axelle. Tell me, you’ve never asked for a go-see before… Is there more to this request than pure fashion?”

  “Yes,” I answered after a moment’s hesitation. There was, after all, no point in not being honest with Charlotte. She might have to cover for me at some point, and besides, she knew all about my detective work. Miriam Fontaine, my Paris and New York City agent, had told her I was a magnet for mysteries, so she must have been expecting something to happen at some point.

  “I thought so… Well, I’ll try my best to get you a go-see with Johnny. I can definitely get you into Johnny Vane Ltd., but I can’t guarantee he’ll be there. I’ll send you over for their resort collection casting. You fit the bill perfectly for that anyway, so no one will be suspicious.” She paused again, then asked, “Does whatever you’re working on have to do with Johnny Vane himself? Directly?”

  “Maybe…”

  “Well,” Charlotte continued, “he’s an important part of the British fashion establishment…”

  “And?”

  “And if anything you find out could possibly paint Johnny in a less-than-flattering light, you’ll have to tread carefully. He’s very aware of the position he holds, and I have no doubt he’ll fight tooth and nail to keep it. I’ve known him many years, and while he has lovely manners and is funny and charming, I have seen him snap with people who work for him. And I mean really snap. Not that it’s unusual in the fashion business. I can reel off a list of big names like that. A famous Italian designer springs to mind… But anyway, just be careful. And for heaven’s sake, call me if you need any help whatsoever, okay? Is that it?”

  One more thing occurred to me: the job brief for Gavin’s Harper’s Bazaar magazine spread. Charlotte could be just the person to help me with that too. There must have been a detailed brief for the booking, and at least two people would have known exactly what that job brief entailed: the magazine editor and Gavin, the photographer. I’d tried—with no luck—looking for information at Gavin’s end of things. Surely the editor would still have a copy of the brief or remember the important details. And surely Charlotte had the right contacts and enough pull to get it for me.

  “Actually,” I answered, “I’ve just thought of something else. Do you think you could find out for me what the exact job details were for a booking the photographer Gavin Tempest shot for Harper’s Bazaar magazine? It was for a profile piece on Johnny Vane. I need to know if he was asked to include background shots, like old family photos, images from Johnny Vane’s childhood, that kind of thing.”

  “Gavin? For Harper’s Bazaar?” She seemed surprised.

  Briefly, without going into too much detail, I told Charlotte about the attack.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that. Gavin isn’t just super talented; he’s an all-round lovely person. Anyway, yes, I’ll ask for you. I’ll get back to you as soon as I hear something—although it may take a day or two. Editors aren’t always the easiest people to get hold of.”

  I thanked Charlotte, said good-bye, and looked out
over the Thames. After a moment, I picked up my phone again. There was one more message I had to write—this time to my mom. (Dad was away on a business trip.) I let her know that I was down at the Embankment with Ellie, and that although I’d be home later, I had dinner plans.

  I looked at my watch. Only a few more hours until we met. We hadn’t seen each other in months…although we’d been Skyping a lot. But Skype was…Skype. What would it be like to see him in the flesh? And smell him and hear his voice whisper in my ear? I was really excited about spending time with him…but I was nervous too. We’d had our ups and downs lately because of the distance between us. Would we be able to put everything behind us when we stood face-to-face? Tonight…

  Halley barked suddenly, pulling me out of my daydream. Her little tail wagged furiously.

  I shook my head—I needed to focus. “You’re right, Halley, it’s time to get cracking. Come on,” I said. I turned and started walking in the direction of the Houses of Parliament, close to where Gavin had been found last Sunday morning.

  It may have been late June, but you wouldn’t have known it from the weather. The early sun that had burned through the morning mist while I was sitting with Tallulah in our little garden house had disappeared by the time she’d left, replaced by dark-gray clouds that still hadn’t lifted. I tightened my leopard-print scarf around my throat and turned up the collar of my trench coat as a strong summer breeze blew up from the Thames.

  The wide river swirled beside Halley and me, carrying a varied assortment of boats, large and small, on its undulating currents. However, I tried to concentrate on my footing. I looked carefully for any large holes in the paved and cobbled surfaces, but there was nothing deep enough to have made Gavin’s shoes wet, let alone the bottom half of his trousers. So how had that happened? Where had he been before or during the attack?

  I stopped to examine the view, pulling the photo out of my notebook to compare it to what I could see. The photo really did seem to have been taken somewhere very nearby. Perhaps farther down the river? I slipped it back into my notebook.

  I continued to stand—with Halley at the end of her leash sniffing something on the ground—and watched as, across the river, the London Eye slowly turned. A pair of slim hands suddenly closed over my eyes. At the same time, a voice I knew well said, “You’re easy to sneak up on! Guess who?”

  It was Ellie, and she was laughing. “You get more zoned out than Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock!”

  “Very funny,” I said, smiling as I turned to hug her.

  I hadn’t seen Ellie in weeks—she’d been traveling the globe, going from one modeling job to the next while I’d been studying for my GCSEs.

  “It feels so good to be back home!” Her long, honey-blond hair was tied in a knot on top of her head, and her skin was glowing from the run she’d just finished. Even sweaty and without makeup, she was stunning. Her long limbs were sheathed in navy and gray Gore-Tex. I couldn’t tell you why or how, but Ellie even made running gear look like something we should all be wearing. And that’s why she’s a supermodel, I thought.

  I quickly looked down at my scruffy Converse and thought of the fair number of Halley’s white hairs that had woven their way into the fibers of my well-worn (okay, maybe “tattered” would be a more accurate description) pink pullover. I wasn’t going to win any awards from the British Fashion Council, but even I had to admit that the model “off-duty, civilian” look had rubbed off on me a tiny bit. The jeans and leopard-print scarf I was wearing were more fashionable than anything I’d ever worn in my preceding sixteen years of life.

  After a month of traveling nonstop, Ellie was finally in London for a couple of weeks’ work and rest before her next slew of bookings took her around the world again. I’d met her in Paris, while solving the mystery of missing French fashion designer Belle La Lune.

  After Paris, our friendship had continued to grow. While I’d been in New York City to find a famous black diamond during Fashion Week, Ellie’s understanding of the fashion business and nearly encyclopedic knowledge of vintage clothing had been a huge help. Plus, what I loved about Ellie was that she was as excited helping me track down clues as she was shooting magazine covers. We’d become good friends, and she had proved to me that I could trust her with anything to do with my detective work.

  “By the way, why are we meeting here? What are you up to?”

  I laughed. “I’ll explain once we’re across the river.”

  She untied the running jacket from around her waist and pulled it on as we walked up the stairs from the Embankment to Westminster Bridge. My idea was to see this bank from across the river, in the hope that I might notice something I’d missed from up close.

  Up close. Close-up.

  The name of the folder on the flash drive echoed through my mind. What had Gavin meant by it?

  As we walked across Westminster Bridge, Ellie and I stuck close together so we could hear each other above the sounds of the wind and the busy late-afternoon traffic. Apart from a short break midway over the bridge to take a selfie for her Instagram account, Ellie brought me up to date on what had been going on in her life. I heard all about her latest advertising campaign—one that would soon grace the pages of Marie Claire, Love, and Chic magazines, among others—and about some of the more unpredictable aspects of modeling, including a shoot she’d done the previous week before flying to Miami.

  Ellie had been booked by French Elle magazine for an editorial spread that was to be shot on the Italian island of Pantelleria. But somehow the many suitcases packed with the clothes the magazine’s stylist had pulled for the story had gotten lost in transit.

  “So what did you do?”

  “We ate lots of pasta and relaxed by the pool for two days and then ended up shooting the whole story in twenty hours straight—no break. At least I slept well on the plane back.” She laughed. “So how about you? Has Charlotte been keeping you busy?”

  “Umm-hmm.” I nodded as I tugged Halley away from the attention of a very large male boxer. Charlotte represents me and about five hundred other models, covering women, men, and new faces, not to mention a slew of famous personalities including various supermodels, actors, bloggers, television celebrities, and musicians.

  She and her brother Charlie started their agency about twenty years ago. Driven, savvy, and fiercely protective of their talent, they’d built Thunder into a well-respected and prestigious modeling and talent force. They also worked a lot with Miriam Fontaine, my Paris and New York City agent—which was why Miriam had recommended them to me. She’d set up my first meeting with Thunder so that I could see if I clicked with Charlotte and vice versa.

  Of course, with my mom along, there wasn’t going to be much chance of us not clicking. My mom was shaping up to be a typical stage mom—or whatever the modeling equivalent was (runway mom or photo studio mom?).

  Ellie was also represented by Thunder in London (and, like me, by Miriam in Paris and New York City), so she knew how much work Charlotte and Charlie could find me.

  “So who’s been keeping you busy since you finished your exams?” Ellie asked, as a red double-decker bus roared past us. “What jobs have you done?”

  I told her about the Teen Chic casting I’d had earlier, and the various fittings and options I had for the week. I also told her about the two lookbooks I’d shot, one for designer Alice Temperley and the second for Topshop, and the editorial I’d done for edgy and cool Dazed magazine. Although I’d been one of a group of five for the magazine editorial, my agency seemed to think that each girl in the shoot would get a solo shot out of it—which was good.

  Unless you’re a supermodel, and you’re going to be photographed surrounded by other supermodels, agencies can be hesitant to book you in for a group shot. From their perspective, a tear sheet (a page torn from a fashion magazine to use in a model’s portfolio) makes a much stronger image when only one girl is on
the page.

  Charlotte had also sent me on quite a few castings—including a fair number at Vogue House, the Condé Nast headquarters in Mayfair. By now I was fairly certain I could make my way around their labyrinthine offices blindfolded. “But it’s paid off, hasn’t it, Axelle?” I remembered my booker, Jazz, saying as she showed me the options I had with Condé Nast magazines Allure and Miss Vogue. She’d been beaming with excitement. “At this rate, you’ll end up like Lily Cole—modeling now, then catching up with university later.”

  I’d crinkled my nose. What I really wanted to do was concentrate on my studies now, especially criminal justice and languages. Speaking multiple languages gave a detective an added edge (when, for instance, interviewing witnesses whose first language might not be English).

  “You’ll see,” Jazz had continued, her enthusiasm undimmed by my silence, “modeling can be fab. It can lead to all sorts of other things.”

  As long as it leads me to more mysteries, I’d said to myself.

  “And does Charlotte know about what you do?” Ellie meant my detective work.

  “Yes, Miriam told her and Charlie. The arrangement is the same one I have with Miriam. They’ll be discreet, help cover for me, and in between my cases, push me like they do any other model. Jazz doesn’t know though—and neither do any of the other bookers at Thunder.”

  “So what about Tallulah?” Ellie asked. “Is she the reason we’re here? She called me, you know, on Sunday, saying she needed help with an unusual and possibly dangerous situation—which is when I told her about you. You said you met her, but what did she want, exactly? I haven’t heard from her since I sent you that message yesterday—except for a brief thanks—so I’m assuming you got along okay.”