Killer Diamonds Read online

  Killer

  Diamonds

  REBECCA

  CHANCE

  PAN BOOKS

  This book is for two people, without whom it simply wouldn’t have been authentic: Sally Morrison, whose information on how celebrity jewellery auctions work was invaluable. And David Rudlin, who knowledge about fine jewellery is encyclopaedic, and whose willingness to have his brains picked was hugely generous. David is also the author of a very entertaining and original mystery series, which I thoroughly recommend!

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  It was her own fault. She was forcing him to do this.

  It was completely her own fault that he was about to murder her.

  Even though she was sitting quite still, her hands folded in her lap, the four-carat diamonds in her ears were glittering, so large and impressive that they threw off prismatic shards of light with the slow rise and fall of her magnificent bosom. Her make-up was immaculate, her posture perfect. Vivienne Winter had been a film star since she was fourteen years old, and she was as used to being the cynosure of all eyes as a member of the royal family; she might be American, but her bearing was positively queenly. More diamonds glistened on her fingers, but as always, Vivienne’s eyes drew more attention than any of her jewels. Larger and more extraordinary than any precious gem, instantly recognizable by most people on the planet: those almond-shaped, violet eyes.

  Vivienne was seventy-three years old now, but her mere presence was still capable of making grown men babble and stammer as if they were star-struck, love-smitten teenagers. The man kneeling in front of her, however, was the only one in the world guaranteed not to succumb to her charms: her grandson, Angel, whom Vivienne had brought up since she had forced his mother, her daughter Pearl, to hand over custody of her son when he was just seven years old.

  Angel had fully inherited the Winter beauty. At seven, he had been a positive Little Lord Fauntleroy, all golden curls, porcelain skin, full red lips, and features as angelic as his name. But although he had grown into an equally beautiful man, at this moment he was almost unrecognizable as the gorgeous playboy who was a staple of the gossip columns. His nose had been broken just an hour ago in a violent attack and the wound had barely clotted; gobs of bright red blood were smeared over his cheeks, and bruising was starting to form. There were rips in his clothes, and his eyes, the same extraordinary amethyst colour as his grandmother’s, were wild above the smashed, gory mess that had until recently been a perfectly straight nose.

  Angel’s face was so damaged that only his eyes expressed the frenzy of his emotions: they looked almost demented, the pupils dilated. Vivienne had been his last hope. Angel had just burst into her apartment high above Hyde Park, pursued by the police forces of two separate countries. Throwing himself on his grandmother’s mercy, Angel had begged her to save him. To his fury, Vivienne had remained reclining on the chaise longue in her boudoir, not even standing up to give him a hug, surveying him with a cool, wary gaze. And once he had blurted out the size and scale of the trouble he was in, she had categorically refused to throw him a lifeline.

  Angel blamed his grandmother for absolutely every factor that had brought him to this crisis. Vivienne had callously snatched him from his doting mother, breaking her daughter’s heart, positively forcing Pearl into the drug addiction that had taken her life. Vivienne had neglected Pearl as a child, choosing her career and her love affairs over her daughter’s needs, and she had done exactly the same with her grandson. He was the product of her upbringing. If he had turned out spoilt, venal and selfish, so utterly self-obsessed that he was willing to commit murder in order to protect himself, surely – considered in the correct light – that was entirely Vivienne’s doing?

  She had made Angel into what he was, and now she was refusing to take responsibility for having ruined his life. He had been simultaneously overindulged and overlooked, given no moral compass at all, taught to assume he could have anything he wanted. Now she had pulled the rug out from under his feet in one terrible swoop, abandoning him when he needed her help, literally, to survive. She was forcing him to choose between saving himself and her, and that was not even a choice at all.

  Angel would make it quick. He would show more mercy than she was doing – condemning him to a slow, horrible death, rotting away in a third-world jail. But killing her was now his only option. If Vivienne dropped dead – if people assumed that an old woman had suffered a heart attack at the sight of her grandson storming into her apartment, his nose smashed, the police hard on his heels, an unbelievable story of theft and murder pouring from his lips – then he would be her heir. The promise of a vast inheritance would give him access to the most expensive lawyers available to fight the charges against him, block any extradition attempts, maybe even keep him out of jail completely . . . access that his grandmother had just refused to offer him, which meant that it was all her fault that he was forced to murder her now . . . all her bloody fault . . .

  She’s making me do this.

  It was those words that were ringing in his head as he leaned forward, grabbed one of the leopard velvet pillows from the chaise longue and, gritting his teeth, shoved it into his grandmother’s face and held it there with grim determination, pressing it down as she struggled frantically for breath.

  Chapter One

  Rome, 1966

  ‘Vivienne! Vivienne!’

  ‘Signorina Winter! Di qua, ti prego!’

  ‘O, bella! Bellissima!’

  Vivienne Winter – Hermès scarf wrapped around her head, huge diamond earrings glittering in her lobes, a pastel mink stole slung over her shoulders and a shantung silk dress swinging around her hips as she moved down the Via Veneto, sashaying in the four-inch Ferragamo heels that Fiamma, Salvatore’s daughter, had designed for her just this year – smiled dazzlingly at all the waiting photographers who had followed her Cadillac on their Vespas from Cinecittà, the famous Roman film studios. Rolleiflex cameras were pointed at her in ranks, their flashes noisy and blinding against the dark Roman night.

  What was it they were nicknamed now, these guys? Oh yes, paparazzi, after the Fellini film that had come out last year, La Dolce Vita, with the news photographer called Paparazzo who dashed around this very city snatching pictures of celebrities.

  Vivienne had loved that film – apart from the part featuring that whore Anita Ekberg. Ugh, Anita had had no talent beyond getting her tits out and messing around in a fountain. And she’d known it. Anita had, to Vivienne’s certain knowledge, staged a publicity stunt in the lobby of the Berkeley Hotel in London where her dress, already straining at the seams, split open very revealingly just as a photographer was set up and ready to capture the moment.

  She’s such a bloody tart. And I’m not just saying that because she cut me out with Tyrone Power. God, he was a gorgeous hunk of a man. If it hadn’t been for Anita, that self-obsessed slut, I might have got to sample the good
s before he died young . . . damn her . . .

  Velvet ropes cordoned off the entrance to Gianni’s, the nightclub where Vivienne was heading. Security guards hired by the production staff of Nefertiti: Lady of Grace, the film she was shooting at Cinecittà, were holding back the crowds that had clustered in the hope of catching a glimpse of the film star. Vivienne cast glorious smiles from side to side as she processed down the street.

  She had deliberately had her chauffeured Cadillac drop her off a little way away so that she could make the most effective entrance possible. Nefertiti was a blockbuster Hollywood production with a gargantuan budget, and its publicists were determined to build up as much excitement as they could during its filming so that eager fans would swarm the box offices of cinemas round the world on its eventual release.

  Their main strategy, of course, was to focus on the physical presence of Vivienne, its star. The film had been written specifically for her around the planned tagline: ‘The Most Beautiful Woman on Earth Plays the Most Beautiful Woman of Ancient Times!’. Vivienne had not become the biggest star in the world by shunning press attention, and she had arrived fully prepared to dress gorgeously off set, to be photographed around Rome, visiting the Colosseum and the Vatican, posing on the Spanish Steps, visiting boutiques on the Via Condotti, wearing boldly patterned Pucci-print frocks and carrying Prada bags in tribute to the country in which she was temporarily residing. Her make-up was stylized to resemble an updated version of the bust of Nefertiti in the Berlin museum: high-arched, pencilled eyebrows, black eyeliner and strong red lips, hair drawn up and back. Revlon was planning an entire cosmetic collection to coincide with the release of the film.

  However, Vivienne was not the only star in the cast. The writers had plotted the film around a completely invented love triangle. Nefertiti’s husband, Akhenaten, was scripted as so obsessed by his quest – to abandon the Egyptian religious practice of worshipping multiple gods, and concentrate instead on a single deity, Aten, the sun god – that he neglected the needs of his wife. Despite having a raft of romantic titles bestowed on her – Lady of Grace, Sweet of Love, Great King’s Wife, His Beloved – it would gradually become clear that although her husband might love Nefertiti romantically, he had no sexual interest in her.

  Viewers, especially female ones, were meant to sympathize with her plight. What was she supposed to do, a wife who had to bear children to her husband to ensure the succession of the royal family, if her husband wouldn’t make love to her? And naturally, a woman who looked like Vivienne couldn’t be expected to remain celibate! The producers’ hope was that by the time Nefertiti finally yielded to her passion and allowed herself to be literally swept off her feet by the dashing and muscular Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian army, Horemheb, the entire cinema audience would exhale a loud, collective sigh of ecstatic relief.

  Akhenaten was played by Alec Guinness, who was doing an excellent job of conveying the discreet suggestion of concealed homosexuality that was supposed to explain his lack of interest in his gorgeous bride. And as Horemheb, the love interest who would be assassinated by a jealous priest after having fathered several children with Nefertiti, the producers had cast Randon Cliffe, British stage star and heartthrob.

  ‘Dov’è Randon?’ the paparazzi called. ‘Vivienne, dov’è il signor Cliffe?’

  Vivienne’s smile didn’t flicker for a moment. She threw her arms wide, palms up, pantomiming ‘Who knows? I certainly don’t!’ as she reached the entrance to Gianni’s. Swivelling on one heel, she posed for the press, one hand up on her mink throw, fingers splayed to show off the diamonds on the rings she wore over her satin gloves, the other blowing kisses to her fans.

  ‘Ti amo, Vivienne!’

  ‘Vivienne, mi fai morire!’

  ‘Vivienne, guardami un attimo, ti prego!’

  Fans and paparazzi alike screamed compliments at her, told her they loved her, begged her to look in their direction; Vivienne, with a last wave at them all, turned away, the bouncer already waiting on her pleasure, holding the door of the nightclub open. She swept inside, her manager following closely behind her. Gianni himself was there to greet her, kissing both her hands in the Italian style, immaculate as always in his tux. Behind him, the club was already full, cigarette smoke as dense as incense, the dance floor crammed with couples dancing to the jazz band, which was knocking out a vivid version of ‘Stomping at the Savoy’. The women’s jewellery, the cut-glass chandeliers, the gold lamè hangings that draped the bandstand, all gleamed through the smoke in the artfully dim lighting. Cutlery clinked against plates, glasses were raised in toasts, champagne corks popped; the laughter and chatter of Gianni’s customers, the pounding of their heels on the sprung dance floor, was almost as loud as the busy din of the band.

  But Gianni did not gesture to his most celebrated client of the evening to follow him through the crowds to the best table in the house. Instead, he took her arm and escorted her through the red-painted vestibule to a side passage, her manager on their heels, pushing open a door that led to a room in such complete contrast to the dark nightclub that Vivienne blinked, momentarily dazzled by the bright fluorescent light strips and the white surfaces. A swift murmur rose among the cooks and waiters at the sight of Vivienne Winter; it was like a wave of awareness as the news swept through the large group, heads turning, jaws dropping. Italian men are never slow to show their appreciation of a beautiful woman, and her appearance was swiftly greeted by loud sighs of ‘Bellissima!’ and kissing noises as the men bunched their fingertips together and raised them to their lips, theatrically casting the kisses out towards Vivienne.

  ‘Zitti tutti!’ Gianni commanded, telling them all to be quiet as he guided Vivienne across the kitchen, white-jacketed chefs and black-jacketed waiters falling to each side, forming a human passageway through which Vivienne walked, casting those enchanting glances from side to side, the men pressing their hands to their hearts, pretending to faint at the sight of her beauty – which she, naturally, enjoyed tremendously. Pans of bubbling, basil-scented tomato sauce, clams steaming in white wine, garlic frying in olive oil, scented the kitchen deliciously; boiling pasta in salted water was overcooked, would have to be redone, but at that moment nothing was more important than paying this tribute to beauty.

  At the far end, by the double loading doors, Vivienne’s personal publicist waited, dapper in a sharkskin suit, checking his watch. He looked up as Vivienne walked regally towards him, his smile appreciative of how her presence managed to turn every occasion into a near-royal procession.

  ‘Your chauffeur’s waiting,’ he said, backing up to one of the doors, holding it ajar with his body. The dark Italian night outside twinkled with neon lights; above, a yellow, three-quarter moon hung low in the sky. He held out a coat to her, a beige Burberry trench, but she brushed past him, ignoring it, turning instead to blow a kiss goodbye to the restaurant staff before she ran out into the alleyway.

  Two waiters propped the doors open to watch, unreproved by Gianni, the nightclub owner. The rest of the kitchen staff crowded towards the doors, and there was a collective sigh of pleasure, a supremely Italian appreciation of romance, at the sight of Vivienne running towards a man sitting on a Vespa at the end of the narrow little back street. As he turned, hearing her footsteps on the cobbles, the light from a street lamp illuminated his face, and the watchers sighed again in recognition.

  None of the Italians would have had the faintest idea who Randon Cliffe was until a month ago; his casting as Horemheb had precipitated him onto the world stage. Those craggy features and piercing blue eyes, that wild head of dark curls, were now intimately familiar to every casual reader of Italian newspapers and weekly gossip magazines. Wild speculation about an affair between him and Vivienne had been rife from their first day of shooting together, when reports had started to leak out from the set that their chemistry was off the charts.

  ‘É lui! Il Cliffe!’ breathed one of the cooks.

  ‘Madonna, quant’é fortunato!’
said another, and a general murmur of agreement concurred that Randon Cliffe was indeed a very, very lucky man.

  Vivienne hitched up her skirt, swung one leg over the Vespa and wrapped her arms around Randon’s waist, riding pillion. He revved the motor and the scooter roared off into the night, the staff of Gianni’s, together with Vivienne’s publicist and manager, watching until the Vespa disappeared round the corner. Moments later shouts rose from the Via Veneto, loud enough to be heard at the back of the building. Vivienne’s distinctive appearance – the Hermès scarf wound around her head, the pale pink fur tippet over the black shantung silk dress – had been spotted, and the shouts were swiftly followed by more revving of Vespa and car engines as the paparazzi took off in hot pursuit.

  ‘She wouldn’t put on the coat,’ the publicist said to the manager, shrugging. ‘Typical.’

  ‘Movie stars – they can never get enough attention,’ the manager said, pulling a face. ‘But he’s had a head start, and the villa gatekeeper’s waiting up for them. With luck, Randon’ll make it back there before the paps catch up with them.’

  He grinned.

  ‘Anyway, both of them will have the time of their lives pretending they’re in one of their own movies. It’s pretty much the way they live the whole time – as if cameras were always on them.’

  The manager was absolutely right. Randon was gunning the Vespa across the heart of Rome as if he were filming an action sequence, tearing around the Piazza di Porta San Giovanni, the scooter’s engine buzzing so loudly and insistently that one understood why it was named after a wasp. Vivienne clung on tight and let herself be tilted from side to side, following Randon’s lead, leaning into the curves where he did. He was driving like a maniac – the wind would have whipped her carefully set hairstyle to pieces if she hadn’t tied her scarf so tightly – and she was loving every moment. His leather bomber jacket smelt wonderfully masculine; she was snuggled closely into him, her nose pressed into the knit collar that held the scent of his aftershave and of his body so enticing that she felt her body responding.