Folly's Child (2 page)

The older man grimaced.

‘Not
trying
to swindle us, Tom. This time it's a
fait accompli
– a bloody great sting to make your eyes water. Take a look at that.' A copy of the morning paper was lying on his tooled leather desk top; he pushed it across to Tom, stabbing at the story with a manicured index finger. ‘ You remember the Martin business? No, you wouldn't, of course. It happened twenty years ago, when you were still in short trousers. A luxury cabin cruiser blew up off the coast of Italy. There were two people aboard – Greg Martin, the owner, a financier with a finger in more pies than you'd care to name, and a woman, Paula Varna, wife of Hugo Varna the fashion designer. The boat was blown to glory, nothing was ever found of it except for a few bits of debris, and to all intents and purposes both occupants were blown to glory with it.'

‘British and Cosmpolitan were the insurers, I presume.'

‘Too right. Not only the boat but the lives of both Martin and Paula Varna – not peanut policies either of them as you can imagine. She had been a top model – her legs alone were insured for a five figure sum and he had enough hanging on him to bankrupt a smaller company. No, 1970 was not a good year for British and Cosmopolitan what with one thing and the other. But that's our business, taking risks, and it works well enough – as long as everyone plays by the rules.'

‘And this time someone didn't?' Tom asked. He was trying to read the newspaper upside down without much success.

Roger Swansborough's hand balled into a fist and he brought it slamming down onto the desk top so that loose paperclips jumped in the big crystal ashtray.

‘Too right they didn't. We paid out on the life of Greg Martin – and it seems the bastard wasn't dead at all but living a life of luxury in Australia.'

Tom whistled softly.

‘For twenty years? Are you sure it's him?'

‘It's him all right. He's been living in Sydney under an assumed name – Michael Trafford – with an Italian heiress named Maria Vincenti. He was part Italian himself, of course – I understand his name was Martino originally until he decided to drop the ‘o' and Americanise it to Martin. But he was an American citizen, born in the States as far as I can make out.'

‘So why was he insured with the British and Cosmopolitan?' Tom asked.

Swansborough shrugged. ‘You tell me. I dare say the slippery bastard had a good reason. He left a fair old mess behind him, by the way, when he disappeared. He'd been sailing close to the wind for years and everything was just about to blow up in his face.'

Tom reached for the newspaper, turning it towards him. He scanned the print, seeing that it echoed more or less exactly the story Swansborough had just told him, then turned his attention to the photograph alongside – three people, obviously dressed for leisure. A thin-faced man, balding, in a shirt open at the neck to reveal gold chains, a woman, obviously beautiful in spite of the quality of the photograph, with her hair tied under a scarf Princess Grace style, and another man with a look of the Mediterranean about him whose face was partially obscured by sunglasses.

‘That's Greg Martin?' Tom asked, pointing to the third figure.

‘Yes. With Hugo Varna and Paula – on another trip which presumably did not end in disaster,' Swansborough said drily. ‘ They were quite a part of the international scene in those days from what I can make out. Since he's made his fortune Varna has become something of a recluse, of course. In fact there are those who claim he never got over his wife's death, in spite of the fact that he married again – Paula's younger sister, Sally, as a matter of fact.'

‘Hmm.' Tom studied the photograph. ‘Well, quite obviously Mrs Varna was a real stunner. And she was alone on the boat with Martin when the accident happened. Something going on there, was there?'

‘Varna insisted not at the time. Said his wife had been in need of a holiday and he had been unable to get away. Martin was a close friend of the family as well as his business partner and Varna had been happy for her to go with him. But you can draw your own conclusions. She was English, by the way, which could explain why they chose to insure with us.'

‘A doubtful honour, the way things turned out,' Tom said drily. ‘So – British and Cosmopolitan was taken for a small fortune – and taken for fools too by the seem of it. How the hell did it happen? The accident was investigated at the time, you say?'

‘Of course it was – and damned thoroughly too as you can see.' Swansborough tapped the file in front of him and Tom saw the thick wad of papers which protruded from it. ‘But there was nothing we could get our teeth into. The boat had gone, not a doubt of it. Fishermen reported hearing the explosion and bits of debris were washed up for months afterwards. There appeared to be no survivors and there were plenty of witnesses to swear both Greg Martin and Paula Varna were on board when the yacht sailed – Martin was well known at the marina where he kept her and Paula was a highly visible character.' He smiled thinly. ‘The papers treated it all as a great tragedy as you'll see when you look at them.
Financier and former model die in mystery explosion
was the headline at the time – and the emphasis of course was on the ‘former model'. Beautiful woman, internationally known, wife of talented fashion designer – it was heaven-sent copy, especially for the more sensational press. And she was a mother too – she and Varna had a child – a little girl who was about four at the time. You can imagine the story it made.'

Tom nodded. ‘I certainly can. So it wouldn't have just been insurance investigators ferreting about – it would have been the world's press as well. But in spite of the way it looked Martin had faked his own death – and done it damned successfully. And what about the woman – Paula Varna? Did British and Cosmopolitan also fork out a small fortune to her family to which they were not entitled? Her family were the beneficiaries, I suppose. Did she die – or is she, too, still living somewhere under an assumed name?'

Swansborough closed the file with a snap and pushed it across the desk.

‘That, Tom is what I want you to find out.'

In a corner of the Salon Imperial of the Hotel Intercontinental, Paris, Harriet Varna braced her back against a statuesque pillar and looked steadily into the viewfinder of her camera, concentrating on her subjects so fiercely that she was almost oblivious to the electric atmosphere that surrounded her, bouncing off the Viennese décor and the sumptuous rococo ceiling along with the heat and the light as the models of the House of Saint Laurent moved gracefully along the hundred yards of catwalk to display the new season's couture collection.

Only the constant clicking of the camera shutters of the army of photographers and the intermittent bursts of rapturous applause broke the expectant hush that January afternoon, for Yves Saint Laurent is one of the few important couturiers to show in the old manner, with no mood-setting background music. In the late sixties he had declared ‘Couture is dead!' and concentrated instead on off-the-peg designer wear, but twenty years later his revival had been both stunning and nostalgic and the long-term wealthy and the nouveau riche had come flocking, craving the glamour and excitement, and seeking the prestige that comes from owning a couture gown, specially, individually theirs after hours of masochistic fittings.

Now they sat eagerly on the rows of brittle gilt chairs with red velvet seats, their exquisitely made-up faces carefully devoid of expression as they made brief notes on their programmes, pretending not to notice that sometimes the clicking cameras were directed not at the catwalk models, all of whom had already done a photo-call session for the photographers the previous day, but at them – the society women of America and the international circuit, the bored charity conscious wives of big businessmen, the famed actresses of stage and screen, even the occasional European princess. The actresses, of course, were frequently loaned gowns by the house free of charge for the publicity that would be gained when they were pictured wearing them, and there were those among the society women who considered themselves above coming to the couture, ordering instead from the videos that nowadays replaced the weeks of shows of the old days – and staying away all the more determinedly as the great Paris houses vied with one another to tempt them to lend their presence to the occasion. But there were plenty of beautiful and recognisable faces to be seen amongst the anonymous, but none-the-less powerful, fashion editors, still enough buying power in this room alone to rock empires, even if no house made a profit from the couture but rather used it for a loss-leading advertisement and a mark of prestige.

It was at none of these that Harriet's camera was trained, however. Instead her zoom lens was pointed at the rear of the salon where the apprentices and publicity girls stood in small, highly-strung huddles, watching the gowns they had worked on and publicised pass by on the catwalk and leading the explosions of rapturous applause.

There was one girl in particular who interested Harriet, a small girl with hair cut gamin short, whose face was so expressive that it seemed to reflect every one of the emotions that they were all feeling, these midinettes who had basted hemlines and stitched hooks and eyes into place, positioned trimmings and sewed them into place with such tiny stitches that they were all but invisible to the naked eye. Harriet hardly dared blink as she watched her through the viewfinder, terrified she might miss the moment she was waiting for. Then, as a daring but romantic gown of navy blue silk crepe made its appearance, the moment came. The girl's face came alive, eyes sparkling, hands raised to her parted lips in an expression halfway between exultation and tears of joy, before she began to clap furiously. Swiftly Harriet depressed the button again and again. Perfect – perfect!
That
was what she had been waiting for, that unguarded, unforced, totally natural reaction of a lowly apprentice who sees her work unfold like a fairytale. In a world where so much was staged artificially it was like a breath of fresh air and Harriet experienced her very own glow of excitement and triumph.

For a minute or two longer she panned the camera, too much the professional to allow her pleasure to make her risk missing another good shot. But instinctively she knew she had what she wanted – the frames that would lend just the breadth and depth she needed to complete her picture story of the couture shows, and she let her camera fall back on its strap around her neck, rubbing her aching eyes and running her fingers up under the thick fringe of dark blonde hair that barely skimmed them.

Still the mannequins were appearing, their elongated clothes-horse frames moving with a grace which belied their tight-drawn nerves, still the bursts of applause rang out to drown the persistent clicking of the cameras, but Harriet leaned back against her pillar almost oblivious to them.

The clothes, beautiful as they were, interested her not at all. She had grown up amongst beautiful clothes, been dressed from childhood in designer fashion, been made to stand still for fittings for her graduation dress and her first ball gown, and hated every moment of it. Clothes were all very well, they were her father's life and she knew that all the privileges she enjoyed were hers because of clothes and the stupendous success they had brought him, but she couldn't care about them. Except when they made wonderful pictures. Pictures were what mattered. And in her camera was a reel of beauties.

Harriet glanced around, wondering if she could slip out unnoticed. It was heresy, of course, but the show was likely to last another hour at least – Saint Laurent was famous for the length of his shows – and afterwards there was bound to be the most fearful crush. Harriet hesitated, then her natural impatience won the day and she slipped quietly towards the exit. All eyes were on the catwalk and no one appeared to notice her, apart from a tall, grey-haired woman in the uniform of an atelier who moved towards her accusingly.

Instantly Harriet pressed her hand across her mouth in a theatrical gesture.

‘I'm not feeling well', she whispered in somewhat imperfect French, and the woman moved hastily out of her way. Photographers –
cochons
! she was thinking in disgust. The girl had probably had too much wine to drink with her lunch.

As she emerged into the Rue Castiglione the cold hit Harriet like a slap in the face and she lifted her camera, easing the zipper of her sky-blue ski jacket right up under her chin and turning the collar up around her ears. Some of her hair caught inside it and she flicked it out, a careless fall of dark blonde that framed her even-featured face. ‘You should go to a good stylist once in a while and have that mane tamed!' Sally, her father's wife, had advised her on more than one occasion, but Harriet had as little time for stylists as she had for clothes – and besides, she rather liked her hair just as it was. This way she could simply wash it each morning and let it dry naturally – start trying for
styles
and valuable minutes had to be wasted keeping them the way they were meant to be.

I must find a telephone, Harriet thought, as she hurried, head bent against the biting wind, along the Paris street. I can't wait to tell Nick I've got his job in the bag. Then I'll decide whether to post him the last reels of film in a Jiffy bag or fly back to London with them myself.

The thought gave her another fillip of excitement – her first job for
Focus Now
, the new picture magazine Nick was editing – and it was a corker, she knew it in her bones. Already she could visualise the lay-out – ‘The Other Side of Fashion' she'd entitled it in her mind's eye when she'd discussed it with Nick. And as he had said, no-one was in a better position to do a photo story like that than she was.

‘All the fashion magazines and the women's pages of the newspapers do straight fashion stories,' he'd said, tugging thoughtfully at the little gingery beard that sprouted from his angular chin. ‘I want something different. And let's face it,
Focus Now
is going to be different.'