Beautiful People (47 page)

    Belle's clinging top was even tighter. The swirling pattern made her breasts look bigger than ever, whereas her shorts were so tiny they looked like denim panties. Had he known what an imagination was, Christian might well have reflected that Belle left little to it.

    A vision of Darcy in her floaty yellow dress swam before him. He'd texted her before they left and now felt a warm rush of anticipation in his groin. From her reply, she was more than on for it. And screwing Darcy was much more fun than Belle. Less painful, in every sense.

    It might be a little complicated, but Belle probably wouldn't be around much longer. He'd heard Saint was calling agents left, right, and centre to get a replacement for her, although he still seemed to be holding out hope that Darcy would return to the set. "A rare talent," was how he had described her, in Christian's hearing. He'd felt a little sick at that. Darcy had been the better horse to back, all along.

    Whereas Belle was a sinking ship, or as sinking as a ship could be with assets as inflated as hers. Maybe he'd dump her after this lunch.

    He started the Ferrari with a roar that, as had been intended, sent Sugar diving for the depths of Belle's handbag.

    "Shit!" she exclaimed, peering in after him.

    "He's died?" Christian asked hopefully.

    "No. He's shat all over the script."

It was twelve o'clock now; the sun was high and hot in the sky. The shouts of the children in the playground were borne upwards to Ken on the lunch-scented breeze. It was very warm on the balcony; he had followed the shadow round, lugging his chairs and camera to the shade, but now it threatened to disappear altogether. Neither Totty nor the suspicious men had shown yet, and if they didn't soon, Ken knew he faced the prospect of having to await them under the full heat of the blazing sun.

    He was beginning to lose heart. Perhaps they were all having lunch. Perhaps he ought to follow their example and have some too.

    Ken stood up and stretched. And, as soon as he took his eye from the camera, he saw Totty. She was rounding the corner from the church end of the square.

    Ken drew a swift breath in and sat hurriedly back down again at his chair, knocking the carefully set-up camera as he did so. His hands shook as he fumbled to refocus the lens.

    Totty slowed down as she approached the entrance to the playground. Ken watched her pass it and walk down the encircling pathway directly below his balcony. Apprehension began to clutch him—was she headed somewhere else altogether?—and then relaxed its grip as she stopped just beneath where he sat.

    Right next to where she had paused was a bench, half-hidden from the pathway running past by the bushes. As Ken followed her movements down his lens, Totty, after looking about her for a few seconds, slipped behind the bushes and sat down in the concealed area behind. She took out her mobile and began to talk agitatedly into it. Ken strained his ears, but, for all she was directly underneath him and the air was still, it was impossible to make out what she was saying.

    Almost immediately, the two men he had seen before appeared. They walked with heads bent and hands shoved into their pockets, quickly, purposefully. And looking, Ken thought, lining up the first shot, if anything, more undesirable than before. They were loping along in battered jeans, tanned in a dry, dirty sort of way, their features mostly hidden in the shadows under their baseball caps. One held a mobile in a scarred and tattooed hand. Ken guessed he was talking to Totty.

    Taking shot after shot, he now watched, excitement and amazement bunching in his throat, as the two men slid behind the bushes where Totty waited.

    The encounter was businesslike. Little seemed to be said. Action was all: quick as a flash, dirty hands went into grubby pockets, and a slew of small plastic bags containing white powder suddenly appeared on the bench besides the nanny. Ken zoomed in and fired again and again, his brow dark and furrowed with disgust.

    He kept the lens unwaveringly on her. Snap! Snap! Totty, taking the packets. Snap! Snap! Totty, slipping them into her handbag. Snap! Snap! Totty, getting out a crocodile-skin wallet, opening it, handing over a wad of notes. Snap! Snap! The two men, taking them. Snap! Snap! The two men, getting up and leaving, loping away as swiftly as they had come, down the shadowy pathway until they turned the corner into the sunlit square.

    Carefully, Ken detached his face from the camera. He had pressed his eye and forehead to it so hard in excitement that it was now almost stuck. He rubbed his sweating forehead and blinked, feeling rather drained now with the drama of it all. Still, he'd got them now.

    Glancing below, he saw that Totty had not yet moved. He guessed immediately that she was waiting. There was another act of this unsavoury drama to come. Someone else was expected.

    He put his eye to his camera again. It could be quick; he had to be ready. Ken recognised but could not, at first, place the two young men with big hair and teeth who now hurried up the path by the playground. He got them in focus and fired away, his mental Rolodex spinning all the while. He'd seen them recently…

    Oh yes! He'd got it now. The restaurant. They'd been part of a group, with that good-looking boy. And, more to the point, with a certain big, booming, colourful, well-known, and, Ken had always felt, particularly unpleasant Member of Parliament. Striding up the path now, looking inordinately pleased with themselves in their striped shirts, pressed jeans, and snaffled loafers, were the sons of Hugh Faugh.

    As the boys slipped behind the bushes, Ken's camera whirred away. Snap! Snap! Kissing Totty on both cheeks as if they were meeting at a drinks party. Snap! Snap! One of them reaching into his pocket and producing an oddly feminine pink wallet that looked as if it might belong to their mother. Snap! Snap! Drawing out a handful of notes and being given a handful of plastic packets in return. Snap! Snap! Totty laughing. Snap! The boys laughing. Snap! Snap! The three of them getting up and leaving together, arm in arm. This was, Ken realised, his insides tight with excitement, shaping up to be quite a story.

With a boom like thunder, the red Ferrari roared into the Rocolo carpark. Christian scanned wildly about him for a parking space, threw the car into one, and wrenched up the hand brake.

    Belle's annoyance about Saint had, somewhere along the way, metamorphosed into raging lust. She had kept reaching over and stroking his penis as he drove, and with such a practised hand that, despite himself, he had found himself stiffening.

    Christian looked up. Was the tree hanging over the space enough to hide them? It was lunchtime, and the carpark was sizzling in the heat, car bonnets blazing, empty of people. He could probably get away with a quick one; it would be the last one, after all. She was clawing at his fly zip now. Grunting, Christian unbuckled his belt.

Full of excitement at having spotted the lost Orlando, Darcy pelted down the cobbled hill out of Rocolo. Slowing down to avoid some people crossing the bridge over the stream, she flicked a glance into the carpark and saw the red Ferrari under the tree.

    Christian!

    Skipping between the shining bonnets of the red-hot cars in the carpark, Darcy dashed across.

    As she approached, she recognised the dark, oily quiff of Christian's head, his tanned and handsome brow facing downwards, bobbing up and down. She could hear a grunt. Were there problems with the car? Was he fixing something?

    "Christian!"

    The word hung in the air, in the bright, hot sunshine. Darcy could now see that he was indeed fixing something. Someone. Christian, a climactic cry breaking from his throat, looked up and met Darcy's horrified eyes.

    For a second, she was stunned. Then her eyes rolled from his face to the woman writhing below him; her breasts jutting upwards, her bare thighs wound round his muscular buttocks like the tentacles of a tanned octopus, snakes of platinum hair shaking across the car seat like Medusa's own.

    Belle!

    "Darcy!" Belle's tousled blonde head now emerged. "Fancy running into you! It seems like ages!" She flashed a brilliant smile through extravagantly smeared lipstick. "Hope you don't mind me saying, sweetie. But I'm not sure it's working."

    The woolly feeling was still enveloping Darcy. She moved her tongue, but it felt as dry and heavy as a block of wood. Her eyes rolled over Christian, who seemed similarly lost for words, stuttering in his sunglasses above his lipstick-smeared torso.

    "Of course," Belle added smugly, "some people just have to face the fact that exercise doesn't work for them. I'm so lucky, of course, not having to do anything to keep my shape. But—and I'm saying this as a friend," she added, batting her somewhat bent eyelashes, "I gotta say, Darcy, that you've actually gotten bigger since you started running."

    Christian, meanwhile, was following his instincts. Selfpreservation, which dictated his every move, was dictating now that he started the engine and got the hell out. There was nothing to be gained from hanging around and trying to explain himself to both of the women at the same time. Even if he could have done.

    "Hey, c'mon," Belle was calling to Darcy. "Don't get mad. You win some; you lose some. Although, to be honest, sweetie, you haven't lost any."

    Christian screeched the car into reverse and roared around the carpark to the exit, heedless of anything or anyone that might have been in his way. Belle's hair streamed out like a white flag. "But don't take it personally," she was shouting. "It's not you, it's your metabolism."

    As the cloud of blue smoke from the Ferrari's exhaust enveloped her, Darcy felt light-headed and nauseous. There was a buzzing sensation around the edge of her vision. The trees looked blurred; the shining vehicles in the carpark wobbled violently. She took a step back and stumbled. Oh, God, Darcy thought, I'm going to faint.

    Christian roared off down the road. Belle's shrieks in his ear and the scream of the wind merged into one. She was clutching at her clothes, and her hair whipped around her face like a lash.

    Rounding a bend, Christian saw too late the red Vespa scooter coming towards him. He slammed on the brake, clung to the steering wheel, battling for control as the heavy, blood-red car screamed, skidded, and convulsed into a great sliding side arc that crashed violently into the shoulder of the road, taking the motorbike and its bearded, cowboy-booted rider with it.

A couple were walking up through Rocolo village. The man was tall, thin, and pale, with sparse, sandy hair and wonky glasses that slipped down his nose, no matter how often he pushed them up. He looked worried and cross and was striding some distance ahead of the woman, a trim blonde in a red flowered dress and with redrimmed blue eyes.