The St Tropez Lonely Hearts Club

by Joan Collins

  ‘Darling, I visit the cold and depressing UK only occasionally for medical or dental work. In fact, going there is exactly like having root canal treatment!’ he guffawed.

  ‘And for your charity work,’ said Spencer loyally.

  ‘Ah yes, of course.’ Charlie smiled modestly, then wrinkled his nose. ‘Join us for lunch now, darling. This smell is getting to me. It’s all very fishy,’ he quipped.

  ‘I don’t have time for lunch,’ said Gabrielle. ‘I still have to interrogate the caterers and the rest of the vendors that provided food for Harry Silver’s dinner.’

  ‘Phew! I can still smell the fish!’ gasped Charlie, fanning himself with a copy of Nice Matin. ‘Let’s go to the Aqua Club.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t.’ Gabrielle stood up to leave, then blew him a kiss goodbye and walked away.

  ‘Oh, I do love it here,’ grinned Spencer, eyeing up the cute young waiter who was serving the table next to them. ‘Oh look, here come the autograph hunters now, Charlie. Aren’t you the lucky one?’

  With that a portly mother and father from Yorkshire shyly shuffled up to Charlie with their two bored-looking children and asked if they could have their photo taken with him.

  ‘Of course,’ said Charlie benevolently, as he attempted to balance the rather overweight twins on his already overburdened knees. ‘My pleasure,’ he croaked.

  ‘We love your show,’ screeched the harridan mother, her stringy hair pulled back tightly into a ‘Croydon facelift’. ‘We watch all the re-runs.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear, you’re too kind,’ Charlie gasped, trying to remove the children, who insisted on clinging to him while the father snapped frantically away on his mobile phone. Charlie was sweating hard, but the six-year-olds had attached themselves to him like leeches, mugging and grinning for their dad’s camera.

  A couple of local paparazzi magically appeared and started snapping the happy scene. Charlie attempted an avuncular grin while shifting the kids in front of him to try and hide his tummy.

  Suddenly François, the young waiter, stepped in.

  ‘Excusez-moi,’ he snapped to the father, ‘Monsieur Chalk is on holiday, so please respect his privacy.’

  The children started to whimper as their mother pulled them off the puce-faced comedian, and in the struggle spilled his drink all over the front of his trousers. The eager snappers continued snapping furiously, to the amusement of the other habitués.

  The waiter got busy with a napkin to mop Charlie up, which gave Charlie a burgeoning erection. The children began screaming with rage as the fat mother grabbed at their chubby little legs, trying to remove them from Charlie’s ankles. The photographers loved it.

  ‘I’ll get five hundred quid for these from OK!,’ grinned Pete the ‘Brit-pap’ as he was known locally. His red hair was sticking out of his weathered NY baseball cap and sweat was running down his freckled face.

  ‘Forget them, I’m trying for the Daily Mail online with this one!’ The older photographer, Jean-Pierre, had spotted the famous American actor Dirk Romano, descending from a yacht, with two gorgeous Russian hookers on his arm. He scooted over, scattering irate patrons on the way.

  ‘Thank you so much, young man,’ Spencer purred sweetly, as the waiter mopped up the spilled kir from Charlie’s lap. Always aware of a pretty face he gushed, ‘That’s so considerate of you.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said François, locking eyes with Spencer and virtually ignoring Charlie.

  ‘These people are pests,’ said Spencer, focusing all his charm on François.

  ‘Your English is so good. What’s your name?’ asked Charlie, not taking kindly to being overlooked.

  ‘François,’ he replied, quickly pocketing the twenty-euro note Spencer had slipped in the pouch of his apron. ‘François Lardon, à votre service.’ He gave a tiny bow and a secret smile: ‘François Lardon, which in English translates to Francis Bacon.’

  ‘Rather amusing,’ Charlie said frostily, realising that Spencer seemed far too interested in the handsome waiter.

  Gabrielle suddenly reappeared on her scooter and shooed the paparazzo away. François grinned at her. Too pretty to be a cop, he thought. What a waste – those gorgeous auburn curls, those cute freckles, that hint of cleavage peeking out from her white uniform shirt. She is hot.

  Gabrielle stared back. This waiter looked familiar. Where had she seen him? Suddenly she remembered: Harry Silver’s party – he had been one of the hired helps. She didn’t remember interviewing him, though. She parked her bike and went over to the table.

  ‘You were at Mr Silver’s last night, during the party in which Mina Corbain died, right?’

  François raised amused brows. ‘Oui, mademoiselle, I was there. In fact I helped many of the poor, sick guests. I believe I told your father everything I saw.’

  ‘Dreadful, wasn’t it, François?’ Spencer was eager to get the sassy waiter’s attention. ‘My poor darling Charlie was so sick, weren’t you, poppet?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Charlie snapped, then with a winning smile turned to the waiter, ‘François, dear boy, could you bring me another kir royale, please, and some of those yummy nuts?’

  Spencer was glancing at François’s nether regions with the sly grin that Charlie recognised only too well. He knew Spencer loved him, and he loved Spencer to death, but my goodness, the boy was a world-class flirt.

  François gave another little bow after smiling seductively at Gabrielle and left, leaving her staring after him as he zigzagged deftly around the crowded tables. He was certainly attractive, but something about him bothered her. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but she would ask her father tonight what he thought about the waiter. He would know. There was just something a little too slick about him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  June 2015

  Sophie Silvestri sat at her dressing table preparing for yet another grand soirée, even though it was only five o’clock. Frick and Adolpho buzzed around her like worker bees as the ‘queen’ studied her face in the pink-tinted mirror while her haggard features became transformed into a vision of gilded beauty. Frick was plaiting several tiny braids next to her hairline, which he then secured with a rubber band and pulled up as tightly as possible to be secured on a small bun of hair on her crown. This was the famous ‘Hollywood lift’ taught to Sophie by Marlene Dietrich long, long ago. Marlene had been very kind to the (then) young and beautiful Sophie, who had watched in wonder as the seventy-four-year-old diva had transformed herself into the ultimate glamour girl.

  ‘One day you too will have to do this, my dear,’ Marlene had drawled. ‘Not yet, you’re still young, but when that day comes, you will thank me for this.’

  That had been forty years ago, and today Sophie was exceedingly grateful for the beauty techniques Marlene had taught her, which she had carefully instructed Frick and Adolpho to perform.

  Sophie had been born in Saint-Tropez to a fisherman father. At sixteen she had won a talent contest in nearby Saint-Raphael, where a talent agent from LA, who was on vacation and looking for some fun, had spotted her. The nubile teenager was not averse to socialising with the powerful agent, and as things developed he dangled the prospect of fame and fortune in Hollywood before her beautiful blue eyes. Soon, with her parents’ permission, the beautiful blonde was whisked off to Hollywood.

  In the 1950s, Hollywood was still peopled with great and glamorous stars. The studio system reigned and they were constantly signing new young talent. Sophie’s beauty soon gained her a contract at Paradigm Studio, where to get the roles she wanted she soon realised she had to ‘be nice’ to many of the old and odious studio executives.

  Since one elderly executive looked much like the next one, Sophie became an expert in the art of fellatio, soon got the plum roles and found herself starring opposite some of Tinseltown’s most glamorous leading men. Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra and Anthony Quinn all fell for her exotic charms, as did the American public. They loved her quaint foreign ac
cent, her mass of thick golden curls and her curvaceous killer body.

  But, like all good things, in spite of her fame and beauty, it came to an end; the studio and the public eventually tired of Sophie Silvestri and she fled back to her native France, where luckily she was still worshipped. She took up residence in a grand but decaying villa on the outskirts of Saint-Tropez and lavished all her love and attention on her pack of dogs and litter of cats.

  While Adolpho applied several layers of the thick theatrical foundation only available at Ray’s, the Broadway cosmetic boutique, Sophie thought about tonight’s big event. She didn’t really want to go; she disliked parties now – she’d been to enough and would far rather loll around on her vast canopied bed surrounded by her dogs, eating chocolate croissants and surfing the TV. Most people bored her, but tonight she was interested in meeting the Hollywood producer in whose honour the party was being thrown. Marvin Rheingold was a maker of hits and he was about to produce a remake of Suddenly, Last Summer.

  Although she didn’t need the money, Sophie coveted the role of the mother, a part played by Katharine Hepburn in the original. She had discovered that Angelina Jolie was tipped for the daughter role that Elizabeth Taylor had played in the original, and Miss Jolie was the only current actress Sophie actually admired. Besides, it would be interesting to see Hollywood again. She hadn’t set foot in ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’, as she disparagingly referred to it, for over thirty years, and she was curious to see if all the changes she’d heard about were true. Her signature perfume, Garden of Gardenias, was doing reasonably well in Europe, but the sales needed pumping up and a trip to LA and the subsequent publicity could be of enormous benefit. So said her agent Jake Moreno, the slimiest bastard in Hollywood but one of the most cunning. Besides, although Sophie wouldn’t admit it, the tedium of old age was getting to her and she had suddenly become horribly aware of her own mortality.

  As Frick settled a blonde bouffant wig on Sophie’s head, the doorbell rang.

  ‘Who the fuck is that?’ she growled. Her face, now looking a good fifteen years younger than its actual seventy-four, glowed in the mirror.

  ‘I don’t know, but at least you’re ready to receive!’ beamed Frick as three barking dogs scampered ferociously down the stairs. ‘You look gorgeous!’

  ‘It’s the fuzz . . . for you.’ Adolpho was out of breath. His morning love of chocolate croissants had recently added several kilos to his normally slender frame.

  ‘Captain Poulpe? What does he want now?’ Sophie was stepping into a fetching off-the-shoulder peignoir. ‘I already spoke to him.’

  ‘It’s not a him, it’s a her!’

  ‘A who?’

  ‘A her! It’s Gabrielle Poulpe, the daughter of the Captain. She’s on the murder case too.’

  ‘What murder case?’

  Adolpho sighed. Was his mistress immune to everything but herself? She’d been at Harry’s party and seen the chaos – or maybe this was the onset of early dementia?

  ‘Well, I suppose I’d better see her.’

  Sophie disappeared into her dressing room and returned in a black velour dressing gown encrusted with dog hairs. No sense in looking sexy for a woman. She walked cautiously down the stairs, Frick holding fast to her elbow.

  Gabrielle was admiring numerous gold-and silver-framed photographs of Sophie, artfully arranged on the grand piano. Beside them were a pile of books on aerobic exercises and several videos all starring Sophie. They were not, she noted, of recent vintage.

  Indeed, as the great star limped into the room, Gabrielle could see a faint expression of pain in her lovely azure eyes. Obviously she had overexercised in her youth, and it had finally caught up with her.

  ‘Sit down!’ barked the star. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘We’re investigating the death of Mina Corbain and I wondered if you knew of anyone who would wish her harm? We think it could be murder and Interpol has been summoned.’

  Sophie frowned and sat down heavily.

  ‘Oh that . . .’ Sophie lit a slim brown cigarette and blew some smoke into her favourite pug’s face. ‘I forgot about that.’

  Frick and Adolpho exchanged glances. They knew their boss was a trifle forgetful, but this was strange behaviour. Mina’s death had not only been the talk of Saint-Tropez for the past four days, but half the news media of America, Britain, Europe and Japan were camped around the village desperate for titbits; anything to cast a clue on the death of one of America’s most shining stars.

  Gabrielle was slightly in awe of this icon. She had only been in the Saint-Tropez police force for five years and this was her first murder investigation. Murders were few and far between in this golden community, although adultery, larceny and immorality were rife.

  ‘My father, Captain Jacques Poulpe, and I strongly believe the circumstances surrounding Miss Corbain’s death are suspicious, even though several of the other guests were ill as well. However, there seems to be no clear motive, so we wondered if you knew of anyone who had a grudge against her?’

  Sophie thought for a moment then said, ‘Mina was a performer . . . a great star. Everyone hates stars, you know.’

  ‘Really? Why is that?’ Gabrielle was fascinated by this piece of information.

  ‘Jealousy . . . they’re all jealous.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Gabrielle, seemingly nonplussed. Sophie stared at her disdainfully and started explaining as if to a five-year-old. ‘Most people envy the life of a star because they think they have it so easy. It’s not true, you know. Stars get where they are through hard work, dedication and talent . . . I should know!’ she finished bitterly.

  ‘I see. But most of the other guests were wealthy. Why do you think anyone there want would to kill Mina?’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Sophie gave a hollow laugh. ‘Take Madame Lara – the famous ex-wife of that Yankee industrialist? She’s always on talk shows. She’s publicity crazy, giving lectures all over the place and posing for the magazines – she’d love to be a top society hostess again, or even a reality star,’ she sneered. ‘Or take that stupid gigolo of hers – Fabergé . . . or whatever his name is. Maybe Lara thought Mina was after him.’

  Adolpho chimed in, ‘We’ve heard Lara has been secretly studying singing. Wants to make a record with him – can you believe it at her age? And Lara is jealous of Sophie.’

  Sophie bristled at the word ‘age’, and Adolpho and Frick snickered until Gabrielle shot them a stern look. Useful information was often garnered through gossip, but these two weren’t being helpful.

  ‘I see, but I think we’re missing the point here.’ She made a few notes on her iPhone and then asked casually, ‘Anyone else you can think of who might bear a grudge?’

  ‘Well, Maximus Gobbi – he would be jealous of Mina’s success too. He’s jealous of everyone with any talent – since he has none himself,’ said Sophie scornfully. ‘He probably resented the fact that she made two hundred and fifty thousand euros that night and he didn’t get a cut, which is how he makes his pathetic living.’

  ‘Hardly enough reason to kill her,’ said Gabrielle flatly.

  ‘I have no idea – you’re the detective – so detect. Why don’t you talk to the cook, or the caterer?’ Sophie snidely inquired. ‘And what makes you think she was murdered?’

  ‘Thank you. I will be in touch with you again. You’ve been most helpful . . .’ she fibbed as she opened the door.

  . . . Not, Gabrielle thought, closing the door as the hot summer dusk enveloped her. No help whatsoever.

  But then no one she had interviewed in Saint-Tropez about that night had been helpful at all.

  Fabrizio was admiring himself in the mirror in the cramped bedroom of the third-floor flat he shared with Lara.

  It was a tiny place in one of the back streets of St Tropez, but since Lara liked to spend most of her days on her boat or at the beach, she considered too much living space unnecessary.

  This was just perfect for Fabrizio, who had a habit of disappeari
ng every morning. Between nine a.m. and two p.m. he was unavailable. He told Lara that he was at the gym or playing tennis, but he was usually having extracurricular trysts with some of the rich widows and divorcées often supplied by Maximus, who supplemented their combined income in this way. The mutual need and the commercial aspect of the assignations assured complete discretion.

  Although some considered Fabrizio a gold-digging gigolo, he never thought of himself in such a crass light. ‘Necessity knows no law,’ he would mutter to himself as he stripped off to parade his buffed body before servicing some lonely, grateful rich woman. He had a fertile imagination, an overly active libido and a limitless supply of Viagra. He also basked in the admiration of his prowess in the sack and his unusually large cock. But he and Maximus were careful only to accept engagements with ladies who were passing through and not staying too long. ‘You don’t want to shit where you eat,’ Maximus had warned him. ‘We must be careful.’

  Today Fabrizio could hardly contain his excitement. French TV company TF1 had come to the nearby town of Saint-Maxime to audition attractive young men and girls to be the professional dancers in a version of Dancing with the Stars. Fabrizio had auditioned and, unknown to Lara or Max, had been chosen as one of the twenty-four potential contestants. The show was due to start rehearsing at the end of June, but the producers insisted that everything must be done with the utmost security, which suited Fabrizio just fine: if Max found out, he’d want his cut.

  Fabrizio was also in the running for the Kazakhstan version of The X Factor, so he was busy taking singing and dance lessons from a cute British beauty called Betty, who lived in the hills above Saint-Tropez in the quaint village of Ramatuelle. At least twice a week he managed to slip away to polish his dance steps, work on his voice, and occasionally give a willing Betty a taste of paradise.

  On top of everything else, Fabrizio also needed to continue to hit the social scene with Lara, so by two thirty in the afternoon he tended to be at Club 55 or Nikki Beach, suave in his regular uniform of black shirt and white pants, satiated after sex. He usually had to have a ‘matinée’ with Lara after lunch around six, while she was still sober enough to participate, and for that he would have to pop another blue pill.