London (5 page)

“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.”

“We did…and I've agreed to take on her case.”

“She wouldn't give anything away to me. She said that she'd prefer you to explain…”

I nodded. “She has her reasons.” As we turned left at the end of the bridge and walked past the Aquarium (where my dad works!) and toward the London Eye, I told Ellie all about my meeting with Tallulah.

“I know how close Tallulah and Gavin are,” Ellie said when I'd finished. “And I can well imagine she wouldn't be happy with the police calling the attack a ‘random mugging' after Gavin's and her flat had been ransacked. It sounds…
complex
.”

Clue suddenly sprang to mind.
It was Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in the library
. Despite the random factors at the start of a game of Clue, it always ended with a clean and tidy solution. And while my mom liked to tell me: “Life isn't a game of Clue, you know, Axelle” (normally when I was spying on the neighbors), that didn't stop me from wanting a tidy solution for my real-life cases. Not that I was anywhere near a Clue-like unveiling for this one.

“Hmm…I guess it is complex,” I said as I pointed back across the Thames to the riverbank opposite. “Gavin was found more or less where you found me. And going on the information—official information from the police report—that Tallulah emailed me earlier, the police believe he probably fell where he was found—or a few feet in either direction at most.”

It was difficult to imagine the violent scene as I stood with Ellie and Halley, observing the Embankment and Westminster Bridge from this distance. I couldn't help but think that London looked amazing even in gray weather. Beyond the tugboats and tourist launches puttering up and down the river, the city's iconic, bright-red double-decker buses stood out against the busy background, and the large, ornate streetlights decorating Westminster Bridge looked like something straight out of a Sherlock Holmes film.

To my left, buses, black cabs, cars, and bicycles of all shapes and sizes zoomed over the bridge, while dozens of people crossed it on foot.

From the northern end of the bridge, the London traffic followed the contours of the river along the road running above the Embankment. I couldn't help but feel the irony of what lay behind the large trees and impressive stone buildings overlooking that part of the river: the original Scotland Yard.

“So you said his shoes were wet?” Ellie asked, bringing me back to the task in hand. “What do you make of that?”

I shrugged. “I don't know… Perhaps he got wet in the river somehow? But standing here, I don't see anywhere nearby where he could have easily dipped his feet in. The water is too far below the bank. And why would he have wanted to do that anyway?”

I had to admit that Gavin's wet shoes had me stumped.
Where had he been? And why?
It made no sense to me yet—but I had a feeling it was connected with the attack.

My eyes scanned the riverbank in both directions, but I didn't notice anything that led right down into the water. I'd been hoping to find something like the old stone ramps and steps I'd seen on the Île Saint Louis in Paris that descended directly into the Seine. I'd never noticed any along this part of the Thames, but then again, I'd never really looked.

As Ellie and I made our way back across the bridge, however, a small pavilion in the far left corner of the Palace of Westminster caught my eye. I hadn't seen it before—it was small and whimsical, like a miniature turret. Because of its dainty size, it was completely overshadowed by the Palace of Westminster itself (otherwise known as the Houses of Parliament).

But what interested me about the tiny pavilion was that leading down from it, directly into the Thames, was a narrow stone staircase. And while it probably had nothing to do with Gavin's actions on Sunday, now I knew that there was at least this one point of direct access into the river near where Gavin had been hit. Something else occurred to me: the tides. I wondered how high the tide had been that morning…

“What are you looking at?” Ellie asked.

I pointed out the staircase to her.

“Do you think that's where he went in?”

I shrugged again. “It has to have been somewhere pretty close to where he was found. He wouldn't have had time to move very far before the attack. Gavin left home on Sunday morning at about six forty-five a.m. He wanted to ‘check something'—his words. He didn't say
see
someone or
meet
someone, but who knows. Maybe he did. In any case, it seems Gavin came straight here from his flat on Sunday morning. His agenda notes for the day didn't suggest he did anything else, and Tallulah emailed me a while ago to say the police had checked the CCTV images for the train he'd taken—in case he'd been followed by his attacker—but everything looked normal.”

“Hmm, nothing seems suspicious so far,” said Ellie.

“Gavin came out of Westminster Tube station at just after seven thirty a.m.,” I continued, pointing toward the Tube exit at the far end of the bridge. “The police estimate that he was attacked around eight a.m., and he was found unconscious just after eight fifteen. That means he had about thirty minutes of time to himself before the attack. So what was he checking on?”

“Or who was he talking to?” Ellie interjected.

“You're getting good, Nancy Drew.” I smiled and went on. “So whatever or whoever he was checking on, it couldn't have been that far away, and he must have wet his shoes and jeans in that time too.”

As Ellie and I walked the rest of the way north over Westminster Bridge I asked her about Johnny Vane. I was itching to find out more about him after the little bit of online research I'd done on the Tube.

“Do you really think he might have something to do with Gavin?” Ellie asked, eyes wide.

“Well, my gut says there must be some kind of link to him—even if it's tenuous—because all the images on Gavin's flash drive are of Johnny, his design studio, or his home.” We stopped at the base of one of the Sherlock Holmes–style lampposts for Halley to have a sniff. “Is he nice?” I continued.

“Yes,” Ellie said, “he is. He's funny, never says anything boring, and is a brilliant designer. He has a bulldog called Roger who follows him everywhere. He's quite intense, though…but then many designers are. I have an amazing peacock dress he made. The colors are unbelievable.”

“Any gossip?”

“No…” She hesitated.

“But?”

“Well, it's not really gossip, but I've heard he had a tragic childhood. I think he lost his parents or a twin or something.”

“Try all three,” I said before filling her in on what I'd gleaned from my brief online search. I pulled the photo out of my notebook and showed it to Ellie.

“Is that him? As a boy? With his twin?” she asked.

“It might be. I have to have the identities confirmed, but they look like twins, don't they? This is one of the images Gavin had on his flash drive.”

Ellie handed me back the photo and said, “I know his mom was a model—or more of a muse, I guess—and quite a famous one, among fashion people at least. I've learned most of what I know about her through my love of vintage. There are photos of her in many of the old fashion books I collect. When she modeled, it was only with the best editors, photographers, and magazines. She did it for fun, really, or for the artistic buzz, I guess. She didn't need the money—at least not from what I've heard.”

“So the family had money?” I asked.

“Well, they say that both Johnny's parents had wealthy families. But Clarissa was a muse in the true sense. She really inspired a lot of designers with the way she dressed and looked. And even now I'll sometimes see a photo of her pinned up on a designer's mood board. I think it's the combination of how she looked so perfect and cool, and yet wasn't precious with her style or clothes. She really wore what she liked, and because she traveled so much, she had her own take on how to put an outfit together. Like, she would pair the most amazing Yves Saint Laurent gypsy dress with a pair of flat, strappy sandals that she'd had handmade by a Corsican shepherd. Anyway, the designers all still love her.”

“So a muse, in the fashion sense, is someone who inspires a fashion designer to create their best designs?”

Ellie nodded. “Yes, I think that's a pretty accurate definition. Lots of today's designers and photographers cite Kate Moss as their muse. And again, not just because of the way she looks, but because of the way she puts an outfit together and injects her personality into the clothes. By the way, do you know Johnny has a sister—Georgie? And that she works with him?”

I nodded.

“And, believe it or not,” Ellie continued, “I've even met his old nanny! I mean a
real
nanny—not his granny. He's very devoted to her.”

“His nanny? She must be ancient!” If Johnny was still so close to his nanny, maybe she had looked after him and Georgie after their parents had died. But what about a guardian? Someone legally responsible for their well-being. Surely that would have been a relative rather than a family employee?

Ellie nodded. “She is pretty old and quite…quite unassuming. Like, you don't really notice her. I was totally surprised when I found out she used to be a model for Biba and Ossie Clark…or was it Mary Quant? Anyway, she modeled, but I think she was a fit model—not a fashion model.”

“What's the difference?” Despite the fact that I'd been working undercover as a model for a few months, I'd never heard of
fit models
. “I mean, we do fittings too.”

“Yes, we do—but when we do a fitting it's because we've been booked for a job and the client wants to be sure the clothes will fit us properly on the day of the booking, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, for a fit model,” Ellie explained, “it's different. They don't work for the magazines or do advertising for fashion designers or for the shows. They stay behind the scenes, trying samples, standing still while a designer drapes the fabric on them to see how an outfit will look.”

“Like a living, breathing mannequin?”

Ellie nodded. “Exactly. But my point is, even back in the 1960s, there was already a big difference between the two. Fashion modeling was the glamorous, jet-set big sister to anonymous, behind-the-scenes fit modeling. And if anything, the gulf between the two is even bigger today. So while Clarissa was a big star—for her style, glamour, and modeling work—Johnny's nanny would have been standing in a showroom or atelier all day, never leaving London. Honestly, fit models and fashion models never did, and still don't, have anything to do with each other.”

Sometimes, when Ellie gets into her “fashion expert” mode, she might just as well be speaking Chinese or Russian. I was always amazed by how much she knew, not just about vintage clothing, but about the business in general. Even its history.

She laughed when she saw my face. “Welcome to the world of fashion, Axelle!”

“Thanks. By the way, you don't happen to know her name, do you?”

“The nanny's name? Hmm…Jane. But I don't remember her surname. I didn't speak to her much—just hi and bye—but she's often hovering in the background during the shows.”

“And you're sure she never modeled for any of the magazines?” Although many of the magazines that Ellie and I worked for didn't exist back then, a few—like
Vogue
and
Harper's Bazaar
—did. I could possibly track the nanny down through the magazines' vast archives.

Ellie shrugged her shoulders. “I can try to figure out more information about her if you'd like.”

“Yes, please.”

“No problem. But why the interest in Johnny's childhood, Axelle? Do you really think it has something to do with what's happened to Gavin?”

“To be honest, at this point there are a couple of leads I'm looking into…”

“But…?”

I turned and looked at Ellie. “But my instincts tell me Johnny Vane is the key to cracking this case.” I fingered the photo in my pocket. “I just don't know how—yet.”

I wanted to see if I could walk to the pavilion I'd seen from across the river, so Ellie and I turned left at Parliament Square, then walked until we reached a small park, the Victoria Tower Gardens, attached to the western end of the Palace of Westminster. I'd hoped to be able to cross the park and reach the pavilion, but it was impossible. Because of its proximity to the Houses of Parliament, it was closed off to all public access. So Ellie and I walked back to Big Ben and stood among the tourists to admire it.

I'd seen a photo in the newspaper a few days back that had shown four cleaners washing the face of the enormous clock. As I gazed upward, I couldn't help remarking that there was no way I'd ever dangle from a rope like that.