by Joan Collins
The shadowy figure lurking behind the gawping crowds grinned. What a great joke, how the mighty fall, he smiled to himself. These people are going to get sick to death of being in this place after what I have planned for them.
Carlotta sat shivering on the quay next to Nick. He was also soaking wet and covered in filth, and even though his blond hair was plastered flat to his head as he tried to pick a strand of seaweed out of it, she thought he still looked attractive.
‘I think it’s about time we got out of Dodge,’ he smiled.
‘We can’t – here comes the Sheriff to string us up,’ she laughed.
Captain Poulpe marched over to the couple and, after briefly questioning them, released them with the warning that they might be more extensively interviewed at a later date.
In the police car taking her back to her villa, Carlotta told Nick that she had definitely felt somebody push her from behind.
‘Did you see who it was?’ he asked.
‘No – I have no idea. Maybe it was a passing waiter but I’m sure they didn’t mean it.’
She shivered and Nick tentatively put his arm around her. She liked the comforting feel of his body so close to hers – it made her feel warm and safe, and it had been a long time since she’d had that feeling.
‘Let’s try and forget all this. Why don’t we get to know each other a little bit better? How about lunch tomorrow?’
‘That would be nice. Why don’t you call me?’ She smiled up into his eyes and gently moved away from his embrace. ‘I’d love to go somewhere quiet, away from the Saint-Tropez razzmatazz.’
‘I know the perfect place,’ he said.
After the crowds finally dispersed, Gabrielle sat on the edge of the quay, making notes on her cell phone. François, the waiter, came to sit beside her.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Has anybody ever told you you’re too pretty to be a cop?’
Oh, please, she thought – from what clichéd movie had he stolen that line?
She coolly appraised him. He certainly had a boyish charm and good looks in abundance, and his alibis for Mina’s death had checked out after the interrogations, as did his credentials. François Lardon’s profile stated that he came from a good bourgeois family in Marseille and had been working as a waiter there until he became employed at Sénéquier the previous year.
As they chatted, Gabrielle started to realise she enjoyed talking to this young man. She had had no boyfriends since the terrible night when she had discovered the truth about Jeremy. Because her mother had died when she was so young, she had become the woman of the house. She had devoted herself to her father, ran their ménage and was determined to be the best she could at her job in the gendarmerie. What little spare time she had was taken up by working out diligently in the gym, honing her strength with karate lessons and T’ai Chi. There had been little time for dating, but she was only twenty-four and her hormones were rampant, so when François Lardon asked her to a concert in Ramatuelle with him the following week, she decided to accept.
The next day, Nick took Carlotta to L’Auberge de la Môle, a small family-run restaurant in the picturesque town of La Môle – a good half-hour away from Saint-Tropez. The owner Clothilde came bustling up and hugged Nick, who was obviously a regular and valued customer, and escorted them to a table in the corner of the forecourt, next to the wall where the bougainvillea bloomed in abundance.
‘You will love the food here. I hope you have a good appetite.’
‘I certainly do,’ said Carlotta. ‘I’m ravenous.’
Clothilde brought them five fabulous courses and Carlotta enjoyed every single one of them, particularly the large terrines of assorted pâtés like mousse de canard and pâté de campagne, which she devoured with large hunks of buttered grilled rustic bread and a big jar of assorted cornichons and other pickled delicacies.
They talked as if they had known each other for years. He told her about his life as a journalist working on a range of stories, including being in the frontlines of hotspots all over the world. Carlotta wasn’t ready to tell him too much about her miserable life with Nicanor, however. At the end of the dinner, he drove her home, and at her front door said, ‘Goodnight, Contessa. This has been very special.’
‘For me too,’ she replied tenderly. Reaching up she kissed him softly, and he gently pulled her closer to him. He felt so safe and strong – a world apart from the way Nicanor had held her, even in his tenderest moments. The thought made her shudder involuntarily.
As if reading her thoughts, he whispered, ‘So special that whatever happens between us should start slowly.’
‘I agree,’ said Carlotta. Although she was still eager for the sensual feel of his mouth on hers, she gently pulled away.
‘I have to go away tomorrow on an assignment – just a day or two – and when I return I want to see a lot more of you, Carlotta.’
‘And I want to see a lot more of you too,’ she said softly.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After a screaming row, which only ended when Fabrizio reluctantly calmed Lara down in the way she liked best, she gave him the silent treatment over the next few days. Any attempts by him at conversation were met with monosyllabic replies or sarcastic grunts.
Feeling totally pussy-whipped, he expunged his anger by fierce games of tennis and even fiercer bedroom games with Betty, the pretty Brit who was teaching him how to dance. He tried to call Carlotta and she sweetly but firmly refused his attempts to ask her out.
But life goes on in Saint-Tropez, and its denizens wouldn’t let a little thing like Mina’s murder or a bomb threat deter them from having the time of their lives. As the big party month of July grew closer, every day dozens of humongous yachts pulled into the tiny port of Saint-Tropez. Those that couldn’t fit, or couldn’t afford the unbelievably high mooring charges, parked their massive gin palaces in the choppy waters outside the beaches of Pampelonne.
Lara loved her jewellery. All of it had sentimental value for her. She had received most of it when she was the queen of Manhattan society, and she kept it all under her bed in a big leather jewel case from Asprey’s. Fabrizio had often told her she was foolish to keep so many goodies in their flat and not in the bank, but she always told him to ‘Shut the fuck up – I always keep it locked, stupido!’
Stumbling home from a boozy boat lunch with Maximus and some of his young studs one afternoon, where she had fallen asleep sunbathing without her make-up, Lara collapsed drunkenly into her bed. Staring down, she was vexed to see her beautiful jewel case on the floor, smashed to pieces, which sobered her up immediately.
‘My jewels!’ she screamed, and fell to the ground attempting to pick up the few remaining trinkets that the thief hadn’t bothered to take. ‘Oh, my God, I’ve been robbed! Help, help, somebody help me!’
She staggered to the window, where a couple of passing tourists looked up curiously. ‘Oh, look, Mags, isn’t it that Lara something or other?’ said the English holidaymaker, whipping out his iPhone and snapping the dishevelled socialite as she waved her arms frantically, shouting for help in such a slurred voice that no one understood her.
Lara’s red hairpiece was slipping down her forehead and getting in the way of her pleas for help. She ripped it from her head, leaving her looking, without her massive beehive hairdo and her unmade-up face, like a pink boiled egg.
‘Cor, Barry, she looks bloody awful! Can’t be ’er,’ said Mags, rolls of junk-food flesh oozing out from above her tight Lycra mini-dress.
‘It is,’ said Barry, snapping more photos, his brawny tattoo-encrusted arms holding up the phone as high as possible to get the best shot. ‘Wot’s ’at she’s holding in ’er hands, eh?’
‘Her syrup,’ replied the woman with practised knowledge.
‘Aw, yeah – syrup of fig – wig – got it,’ Barry smirked. ‘Hullo, Lara, darlin’. ‘Ow’r you doin’?’
‘Help me – please get the police,’ cried Lara piteously, only it sounded more like ‘Heppe plis get �
��e please.’
‘Yes, heppy, darlin’. Pleased yer happy, darlin’,’ laughed Barry, snapping more photos on his iPhone.
‘Nooooo! Hep-hep-Heeeeeppppe me,’ raged Lara in frustration. ‘Paleeze – Paleeeeeeze!’
‘Wot’s that she’s sayin’? Sumpthing about the palace?’ Mags was still smiling and waving at Lara. ‘I think she’s well “hit and missed”.’
‘Yeah, as a newt,’ said Barry. ‘The Sun will pay a bundle for these pics, I bet.’
‘Just wave and smile,’ said Mags, and they slowly walked away, leaving Lara so distraught that she fainted, her body half-hanging out of the window. Her hairpiece fell to the ground, where minutes later a stray mongrel found it, sniffed it cautiously, cocked its leg and urinated on it.
When Fabrizio returned he found her sprawled on the floor, her face swollen and tear-stained, and buried in what remained of the Asprey box.
In an effort to cheer herself up after the robbery, Lara had decided they absolutely must attend a charity gala at the Sporting Club in Monaco. ‘Shirley Bassey’s singing,’ she snapped. ‘We’ll take the helicopter!’
‘I hate helicopters,’ he whined.
‘Fuck you,’ she retorted. She was still in a foul mood – jealous of Fabrizio’s apparent interest in Carlotta, distraught about her missing jewels and furious about the photo of her that had appeared in the papers.
Fabrizio, in full black-tie regalia, sat nervously in a tiny, chartered helicopter with Lara, who wore a skimpy purple dress. Lara, who had been drinking all day, took out a silver flask for another swig of Grey Goose.
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit early?’ he enquired.
‘Don’t you think you should shut the fuck up?’ she spat back.
‘I think you should cool it with the drinking, cara.’ Fabrizio tried his soothing voice and held out his hand. ‘It’s not good for you. Give me the flask, darling.’
Ignoring him, Lara pulled the flask away then stared down at the glorious Mediterranean glistening in the late afternoon sun. Tiny speedboats sped across the waves and children frolicked at the water’s edge, but she barely recognised anything as her Botoxed lips sucked at her flask like an infant at its mother’s breast.
Fabrizio sighed and turned to look out of the window. This was becoming too much of a chore. Did he really have to marry this drunken, jealous shrew? Was all the money in the world worth the ignominy, insults and abuse he had been putting up with for nearly two years? He had crept away earlier to call Maximus to tell him he couldn’t and wouldn’t close the deal to marry Lara, but Maximus had been adamant.
‘You owe me, ragazzo, and you owe those two little bastards you carelessly sired. If you renege, you know what will happen to you.’
Fabrizio shuddered. He certainly did know. Maximus had powerful connections, not only on the Côte d’Azur but also with some of the crime bosses in Sicily. Two of his handsome young studs had disappeared without trace four years ago. Their bodies were never recovered, but the rumours of what had happened to them were too horrific to dwell on.
He was also worried that time was running out and the producer of The X Factor Kazakhstan had not returned his calls, and the record deal he was hoping for had suddenly fallen through.
The producer, Derek Flukle, was an infamous and much-disliked English spiv. He called himself a manager and a ‘star builder’ but he was known to be the biggest sleaze-bag and crook in showbiz. At sixty-plus, having successfully bilked several singers and actresses out of vast amounts of money by crooked scams, he had turned his meagre talent to managing a Kazakhstani pop star. When that failed he managed, by lying through his teeth, to get a job as line producer on The X Factor Kazakhstan. He was not a man to be trusted and had no scruples about trampling people under his feet.
Fabrizio didn’t really trust him, but he had to go along with his false promises of stardom, hoping against hope that something would come of it. He had met Derek and his fat ugly wife at a B-list celebrity party in London the previous year. Derek had chatted him up, telling him he had great potential and that he would love to represent him.
‘I’ve got a contact list as long as my arm,’ he boasted. ‘I know everyone from Andrew Lloyd Webber to Beyoncé. You sign with me and I’ll make you a star as big as Enrique Iglesias,’ he added with a viperish grin.
Without telling Lara or Max, the guileless Fabrizio had agreed and paid Derek 20 per cent of all his income, despite the fact that he had come up with exactly nothing for him. When he complained, Derek threatened him with a lawsuit and finally persuaded Fabrizio that it would be in his best interests to keep quiet and take the potential gig on The X Factor in Kazakhstan. Fabrizio, disgusted but powerless against Derek and his slimy West End law firm, gullibly agreed.
When he casually checked Derek’s credentials one day with Maximus, who actually did know everyone, Maximus scoffed. ‘Oh, Dio mio – that puto is a total swindler. He conned the English singer Helen Bookham out of a fortune when he managed her, and I heard he grabbed another 20 per cent from Joan Collins for some clothing deal that he had nothing to do with.’
‘How did he manage that?’
‘Who knows? He bullies people into paying him. I wish I had his balls,’ he laughed.
‘Life’s a bitch,’ Fabrizio thought as he looked mournfully out of the helicopter window, ‘and I’m lumbered with two of them – Derek Flukle and Lara Meyer.’
There was one silver lining, though. The producers of the French Dancing with the Stars had come to watch him in rehearsal with Betty yesterday and they seemed quite impressed. All he had to do now was get into the final twelve. After that all he had to do was win it. He sighed, that could be a big hurdle, but he was going to give it his best shot.
Lara greedily drained the last dregs from her flask, then asked the pilot if he had any vodka.
The American pilot laughed. ‘Sorry, ma’am, it’s a short trip and we don’t carry supplies on board, especially booze.’ He snorted with laughter again, then said something incomprehensible into his mouthpiece.
This infuriated Lara, who snapped, ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me, young man. I’m paying a lot of money for this ride.’
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ the pilot became even more sarcastic, ‘but you’re not paying me, I’m just the airline’s hired help.’
This made Lara completely insane and she started screaming obscenities at the pilot. Before Fabrizio could stop her, she began hitting him on his shoulders and back with the latest ‘it’ bag.
‘For God’s sake, lady, are you fuckin’ crazy?’
The desperate pilot tried to keep the chopper on course while Fabrizio attempted to hold Lara down, but she was like a woman possessed. As the pilot made valiant efforts to stop her, she continued to attack him. Then a particularly vicious blow with the Fendi clasp – aimed at his head but which he managed to duck – hit the instrument panel. With a terrifying noise the helicopter started zigzagging across the sky, shaking and turning violently.
‘Mayday! Mayday!’ gasped the hapless pilot as Lara let out a series of deafening screams. ‘Mayday! We’re going down!’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Carlotta couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned in the vast bed, haunted by horrible dreams. She had never been able to forget the last time Nicanor had tried to make love to her. He had been as brutally violent as ever. Since he had been having regular sex with prostitutes who didn’t mind being tied up, sodomised and raped with objects, he had decided to do the same thing with his wife. To Carlotta’s horror he had woken her up in the middle of the night so stoned he could barely talk. He had bound her to the bedposts with his silk cravat and forced a hideous hard object inside her with such force that it ruptured her. Blood soaked the sheets and an ambulance was called. Carlotta, whimpering in agony, was escorted to the local hospital. It was announced that the Contessa had suffered a miscarriage of a longed-for baby boy – which was a lie – and then the truth emerged: that she would never be able to have ch
ildren again.
Along with the strong mistral winds that shook the shuttered windows until they shuddered and made the palm trees bend almost to the ground, this was the image that woke Carlotta. The horrible whistling noise of the wind terrified her even more. She sat up in bed to turn the bedside light on but nothing happened. Thick darkness enveloped her and she started to shiver. She fumbled for the flashlight she kept in the bedside drawer but it wasn’t there; then she remembered she had taken it to the kitchen the day before for a fresh battery and had left it here. She scrabbled around in the drawer until shaking fingers found a book of matches and she managed to light a small candle. She picked up the landline but it too was dead.
Carlotta felt cold with fear. The whistling noise of the mistral seemed to have die down but it was replaced by another sound – was it moaning? Was it breathing?
The hairs on the back of her neck bristled. She was alone in the house, having given Lilliane and Denis time off to celebrate their daughter’s wedding in San Raphael.
She felt her way carefully to the bedroom door, which by habit she always kept locked. Holding the candle close to the door handle she saw with horror that it was slowly turning. Someone was in her house; someone had come up the stairs; someone had obviously cut the phone line and the electricity.
‘Who’s there?’ she whispered, her voice a terrified croak.
There was no answer, only heavy breathing, almost as though whoever was outside had some sort of asthmatic problem.
‘I-I’ve called the police,’ she lied. ‘They’ll be here in a minute.’
The mistral suddenly resumed with a loud whoosh and the shutters began rattling again. Was it her imagination, or was that a low-pitched laugh she heard outside her door? Then the handle shook violently, and with a shriek of fear she saw that the key in the lock started coming loose.
