A Crime of Fashion (26 page)

I kept screaming. I figured whoever it was knew I was here so I had nothing to lose. At the same time I also realized that the person throwing the skulls must have night-vision goggles on. I cursed my own stupidity for not having thought of that and bit my tongue as another rat scurried across my lap. In a fury I grabbed the skull lying at my feet and flung it blindly out in front of me, not caring whether it hit its mark or not. A grotesque little laugh echoed down the walls as the patter of the footsteps resumed.

I got to my feet. The chase was back on.

The person I was following seemed to be losing patience: they kept stopping to hear if I was behind. After the third pause, I heard them resume their stride with a new, more urgent cadence. Now, the footsteps seemed to say, it's time to get serious.

Well, fine. I was ready. As I moved along I checked to make sure my string was still unwinding and reached for my water bottle. Drat! I'd lost it when the first skull had been thrown. Plenty of time to worry about that later, I told myself – and pushed forward, intent on keeping up.

After some time the footsteps suddenly slowed, then turned up a stairwell. Quickly and quietly I followed. From above I could hear a key being inserted into a lock, the metal scraping as the lock was turned. Then the door slowly swung open, its hinges rusty with age. These hinges, unlike those in the mansion, had been neglected, presumably because no one had been expected to hear them. I increased my speed – I had to catch the door before it shut. There'd be more passageways beyond – and if I didn't get through this door now, who knew when I'd find my way out – or if? Surely the person on the other side was hoping I'd make a mistake, hoping they could lock me up here too. With a last burst of energy I bounded up the final steps and, with my foot, only just managed to stop the door from shutting. I slipped through it and crossed the chamber beyond to another door.

From behind the door I heard a familiar voice barking orders, presumably to Belle and Darius.

“Shut up, you idiot,” the voice cackled, “I've brought you some company!”

Throwing my weight against the door, I pushed it open and skidded in. What I saw shocked but didn't surprise me. I held my ground as a face contorted with rage and hatred turned to me. Quickly I moved my hand to my belt and unstrapped the small can that was attached to it.

Fortunately, the night-vision goggles were pushed up on the hair I knew so well – the way was clear. Although she'd known I was coming she obviously hadn't expected me to come prepared to attack.

In that second I shot the pepper spray full into the face of my Aunt Venetia.

From the catacombs I was escorted directly to the police station – Inspector Witt's office, to be precise, where I'd been just last Monday. It already felt like ages ago.

After a doctor had thoroughly cleaned and checked my head, wrists and hands, I locked myself in the bathroom and gargled with the most powerful antiseptic at hand. But no matter how much I gargled, the feeling of that rat's tail in my mouth wouldn't leave.

Meanwhile, a team of forensic specialists were dispatched to Aunt V's to pack my things up while Inspector Witt organized a hotel for my mum and me. Staying at Aunt Venetia's was clearly out of the question: it was now an official crime site – as was the La Lune mansion.

Sebastian and his father had arrived about two minutes after I'd found my aunt. Inspector Witt had been in on our plan although he'd forbidden it at first, deeming it too dangerous. But who knew how long it would take to find Belle and Darius if Aunt Venetia didn't lead us to them. Finally, for this reason, Inspector Witt relented and agreed to be on alert outside the mansion, waiting for Sebastian's call. And it was he who had given me the pepper spray.

After temporarily blinding Aunt V, I'd tied her up with my belt, and then freed Belle and Darius. Both were terribly weakened. Aunt Venetia had given them soup – but not quite enough. She'd had no plan in mind for their care when she'd caught her two surprise charges. Once a day she'd taken them some thin bouillon she'd made at home with powder. She'd carried it in her handbag – that was the liquid I'd seen dripping from her bag, what she'd claimed was water. If something had happened to Aunt V, Belle and Darius would have starved, their skeletons for ever lost to the catacombs. As it was, they were carried out on stretchers and taken by ambulance to the American Hospital in Neuilly. The initial feedback for Belle was positive. Apart from dehydration, and a couple of bumps on her head, she was all right. Darius required more supervision – although, it was a miracle he hadn't suffered a severe asthma attack.

I, on the other hand, was not all right. While I'd had the whole of a day – ever since my nightmare had led to the truth dawning on me – to come to terms with what my aunt had done, I still hated myself for having trapped her. Because of me, she'd be in prison. Because of me, her life was shattered.

“It's not because of you!” Ellie insisted.

“It's because of her greed that she's going to prison. It's because of her ruthlessness that her life is shattered,” Sebastian added.

But they hadn't seen her face. A face twisted in such anguish! A face poisoned by an uncontrollable desire for more! Apparently, it knew no bounds. By the time I'd left the catacombs, there were already search teams trawling through the cavities near where Belle and Darius had been held. The few that had been looked into were a treasure trove of art. Sculptures, paintings, furniture – even jewellery; anything that was easy to transport through the vast underground network that she'd mapped out as her own. She'd been at it for a long time and, with her practised eye, she'd chosen only the best. And, just like in her apartment, many items were packed in cartons and packages wrapped with tape displaying the logos of some of the finest art dealers in Europe. I supposed we'd later read in the papers that she'd stolen the tape too.

The worst thing for me, however, was the one horrid phrase that wouldn't stop replaying itself in my mind since I'd heard it: “Shut up, you idiot – I've brought you some company!” For her, I, like Belle and Darius before me, was simply an obstacle that needed to be pushed to the side. So she'd taken me up on my pre-show challenge and gone into the catacombs to lead me to her lair. What she planned on doing with me after she'd trapped me was anyone's guess – including her own. I honestly believe she hadn't thought things out further than that.

Of course, I'd sprung my plan on her just before the show, knowing that she wouldn't have the time to prepare for the chase without missing the La Lune show, which, in turn would raise a lot of questions about her whereabouts – something I was certain she'd want to avoid. My hunch had paid off. She'd been fidgety during the show; I'd noticed that from the runway. But still, pro that she was, she insisted on performing her role of front row fashion-editor-supreme – chase or no chase.

One thing was certain, however: she'd already admitted to Inspector Witt that she'd planned to pin the disappearances on Philippe de Vandrille. She'd intended to use the packet of letters she'd hidden in the chimney flue – the very ones I'd found – to identify him as a vengeful heir. Whether this plan would have worked or not we'll never know, but, at some point – if I hadn't taken the letters – she'd have planted them on Philippe.

And as for me?
Why
had she asked
me
to find Belle?

I'd asked her as much as she was led out of the catacombs. “I just wanted to keep you occupied, out of my hair, out of my apartment! Who'd have thought you'd actually figure out my plan? Or find Belle?” she'd spat at me. “Most days you can't even find something smart to wear!”

It was a sad climax to a brilliant career and a pathetic end for the aunt I'd respected. She'd always complained that as a child she had wanted for more material comfort than her detective father could afford. But with the successful careers she and her sister, my mum, had forged, who knew she was still harbouring such fear of having too little?

How, I wondered, would Mum react?

I think my mum wanted to take it well, and even tried to…but her efforts fell flat. Annoyingly, the only thing that seemed to lift her spirits was my modelling. My dad, bless him, hadn't been at all surprised – at least, not by his sister-in-law's thieving.

“I told you it was impossible that even with her enormous salary she could afford all of the stuff that was constantly going in and out of her apartment.”

Of course, he'd never imagined anything like the scope she'd achieved. And certainly he'd never imagined she'd try to catch me – or, as my mum preferred to think of it, hold me for ransom. (I refrained from pointing out that she'd never asked for money for Belle and Darius. She'd just wanted them out of the way.)

Miriam offered a shoulder for my mum to cry on – Venetia, her friend of many years, had deceived her too. Not once had Miriam suspected that her close friend had been stealing from the very same fashion designers they worked together with and gossiped about. Aunt Venetia had hidden her double life well.

“If only I'd known,” Miriam cried, “I'd have done something, helped her…but I never guessed! All this time Venetia's been criss-crossing Paris underground, using the catacombs,
and I never guessed
. For years she's been going in and out of the houses of some of the biggest names in fashion – undetected! – to steal art.
C'est incroyable!
And then she's been stashing the stolen art in the catacombs
underneath her apartment building
. And I never suspected anything…”

But no one could have suspected anything without regularly visiting Aunt V's apartment. Only by actually seeing the quantity of packages that came and went through her home could anyone have had an inkling. It was now clear those packages were all filled with stolen art. She'd always maintained they were deliveries of art she'd just
bought
– and, granted, every wall of her apartment was hung with amazing paintings…but, the fact was, she'd
lied
. Those packages that she claimed were “deliveries” had never been delivered to her. They were packages that
she
was
sending out
! Art she'd stolen, then kept in the catacombs until she'd found a buyer with an illegal collection in some faraway place. At that point she packed the art and carried it directly through the catacombs into her apartment building's basement then into her apartment. From there they'd get picked up by some very discreet and expensive couriers.

This, of course, explained why my aunt had stopped entertaining in her apartment several years ago.

“And I thought it was because she preferred the Ritz,” Miriam said.

My aunt had studied interior architecture during her pre-fashion days. It was during this time that she learned about Le Vau and his secret passages. However, it was only much later, when she'd decided to fluff up her retirement nest egg with stolen art, that – using the pseudonym of David le Néanar – she began to seriously research Le Vau's buildings, with the intent of perhaps using the secret passages she'd read about as a student. She struck gold, however, when she stumbled upon the little-known fact that some of Le Vau's grandest mansions had direct points of access into the catacombs. This, then, became the inspiration for her ultimate plan.

“It's quite amazing,” Sebastian pointed out. “Not only did you find Belle and Darius, but in the same stroke you found one of the greatest art thieves Paris has ever known.”

I wouldn't call that amazing…but I'd certainly accomplished what I'd set out to do – and paid a much steeper price for it than I could have imagined.

A strong pair of arms suddenly enfolded me from behind. I turned and faced Sebastian. His eyes were smiling as he tucked my hair behind my ears. “How did you know it was your aunt?” he asked.

It was late by now – nearly midnight – and Sebastian and I were at my hotel. We sat downstairs in a small wood-panelled reading room off the main lounge, cosy and dark, with heavy curtains and rich fabrics. Rain lashed against a window that looked over the private courtyard garden, while a large fire blazed in the fireplace. We sat in deep armchairs we'd pulled up to the fire. A pot of hot chocolate sat on a warmer on the low table in front of us.

Mum was still with Inspector Witt and Miriam – it seemed she'd be occupied for a good part of the night. Together with the
Chic: Paris
press office, they were now working on a plan for the various press announcements that would have to be made – and not just concerning Aunt Venetia. Apparently, my life wouldn't be the same after tomorrow morning either. Details about my hunt for Belle were beginning to leak out, and it was only a matter of time before the mainstream press started asking questions – questions I'd have to answer. It seemed the fashion press wouldn't be far behind.

“Enjoy being incognito tonight,” Miriam had said to me. “It'll probably be your last night of anonymity. And once this story breaks, every magazine and designer will want to book you, so you can give some thought to your modelling career as well…”

That was a ramification I hadn't even BEGUN to think about – nor did I want to. At least, not now, tonight.

I was exhausted, but too wound up to feel sleepy. Occasionally, feelings of angst and guilt overwhelmed me. A part of me felt like a traitorous bounty hunter: after all, even when I'd realized it was my aunt behind the disappearances and I'd had the chance to back down, I hadn't. I'd chosen to go on to the end. Yes, she was a criminal, yes, I'd saved two lives…but, nevertheless, she was – is – my aunt… As a sort of anti-venom to my self-hate, I regularly reminded myself that she wouldn't have hesitated to trap me if I'd given her just a few more seconds. That helped…but still…

“So how did you know it was your aunt?” Sebastian repeated.

“I wish I could claim a clear line of logical deduction, but actually I ended up bouncing from one hunch to another; and these hunches led me to my dream…”

“David le Néanar?” Ellie had just walked in. After Sebastian's father had gone into the catacombs, she'd left for a fitting. That was a supermodel for you: super-focused – on work. Even while catching criminals. Ellie had just finished and had come straight to the hotel to hear everything.

“Right. You know my aunt loves anagrams – she's addicted to them, actually. Well, David le Néanar is an anagram of Diana Vreeland. It was under my nose the entire time, but it wasn't until last night, after I'd had a good long look at the portraits of Diana Vreeland hanging in my aunt's dressing room, that the name stuck in my mind… And then later, when I saw the same prints in my dream, it all clicked. Funny how a little thing like that can make all the difference…”

“It's also funny that she'd choose such an obvious name,” Ellie said.

“Obvious to you, because you're in fashion,” I answered. “But most people have never heard of Diana Vreeland.”

“It's also typical for…criminals,” Sebastian said slowly, looking at me.

“It's all right, Sebastian. She is one. I have to get used to it.”

“Criminals often like to work with inside jokes, so to speak. They're often vain and like to think of themselves as clever. What your aunt did is quite typical.”

Needless to say, it was my aunt who'd left Sebastian and me to drown in the catacombs. And I suppose grazing me with her car on Monday had been a way of warming up – maybe deep down she already knew I'd be breathing down her neck by the end of the week. Like she'd told me earlier, by asking me to find Belle, she'd hoped to have me running around Paris searching for clues she thought I'd never find, rather than right under her nose figuring things out. As it turns out, I did figure things out – something she'd never expected. So she had to get me off her trail. Leaving me in the catacombs had seemed like a good way. A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered how surprised she'd been to see me last night. I'd thought it was because I was still awake – in fact, it was because I was still alive.