Killer Diamonds Page 5

  As Pearl had told her son, in French a hôtel particulier was the town house of an aristocrat, an imposing detached building that was always constructed entre cour et jardin, between the entrance court and the garden behind. Two high storeys rose around Pearl and Angel, topped by a mansard roof; the entrance door, which was now swinging open, was a good nine feet tall, carved elaborately with the crest of the Delancourts.

  ‘Hello, Baxter,’ Pearl said, pegging her chin high and sailing past the butler, who was holding the door open with a hand gloved in perfectly pristine white. The accent in which Pearl had been talking to her son had been more London-inflected, but when addressing Baxter, she sounded like a visiting English duchess about to socialize with the Marquise de Delancourt at one of her salons.

  ‘Miss Pearl, Master Angel,’ Baxter said, greeting them with a deferential nod even as he closed the heavy door. ‘Welcome to Paris. I wasn’t aware that you were planning to visit the city . . .’

  He let this observation tail off enough to hint at a question, which Pearl completely ignored.

  ‘Well, we are,’ she said briskly. ‘And it’s hotter than we expected.’

  She raised her free hand to push her hair back from her damp forehead. Grunge might be the current rage in London, where Pearl and Angel lived, but Pearl affected a 1970s boho princess throwback style. Her shoulder-length fair hair tumbled in loose tangles around her pretty face, which was nearly bare of make-up; all she wore was mascara, eyebrow pencil and pink-tinted Carmex lip balm. Her long-sleeved vintage blouse was white-on-white embroidered voile, falling off one skinny pale shoulder, and her jeans were faded and ripped.

  Little Angel was dressed in a stripy T-shirt and cargo trousers, his tousled white-blond curls and big violet eyes making him a miniature version of his mother; they were an enchanting pair, and had turned many heads on their journey from London. The butler, in fact, was the first person they had encountered who seemed entirely unaffected by their picture-perfect good looks.

  ‘Master Angel would like to use the facilities, I understand,’ Baxter said politely. ‘If you would like to follow me into the Gold Salon? And maybe you would both like some freshly squeezed juice? An orange or citron pressé? You always used to like citron pressé as a little girl, Miss Pearl.’

  ‘What’s that, Mummy?’ Angel began, but Pearl was already pulling him across the black and white tiled grand hall towards the gilt-balustraded central staircase.

  ‘Thank you, Baxter. Please set drinks up for us in the Gold Salon while we wait for Mummy to come back,’ she said airily. ‘White wine for me, and something to eat. Angel is terribly fussy about where he goes, though, so I’ll take him up to Mummy’s private loo. He’ll be much more comfortable there.’

  ‘Mummy!’

  Angel writhed in embarrassment, but Pearl’s grip on his small sweaty fingers was like a vice now, and even as he tried to say ‘I want a juice, I’m thirsty! I don’t need to—’ she was squeezing his hand painfully to indicate that he had no choice but to follow her up the stairs, and hissing ‘Sssh!’ at him.

  Baxter, a meticulously dressed man in his fifties, watched his employer’s daughter and grandson trip lightly up the red-carpeted stairs, his forehead creasing. This was the maximum facial expression he ever allowed himself when on duty.

  Turning on the heels of his immaculately polished black shoes, the butler walked across the hall, under the soaring sweep of the staircase. He was heading for the kitchen, where he would instruct the chef to prepare a selection of freshly squeezed juice, chilled Sancerre for Miss Pearl, which he knew to be her preferred white wine, and a selection of pastries, sandwiches, fruit and macaroons light enough to appeal to Pearl but substantial enough to satisfy a hungry seven-year-old who had doubtless worked up a considerable appetite.

  But he paused before he reached the baize doors that led to the servants’ area, stopping by the exquisite Chippendale side table. On it sat a Sèvres porcelain vase containing an arrangement of fragrant white and pink hyacinths, and a console phone with enough buttons running down the side of the keypad to be suitable for a company with at least twenty employees.

  Raising the handset, Baxter touched one of the preprogrammed buttons with the tip of a white-gloved finger, waited for the person he was dialling to answer, and then began to speak in low, swift-paced tones.

  Although Angel had not yet visited the Delancourt hôtel particulier, Pearl had been here a fortnight ago, on a visit to her mother that had not gone according to plan. Hence the return trip, with her adorable son in tow. And now that she had recced the mansion thoroughly, she knew how to find her mother’s suite of rooms with no delay.

  She was almost running as she reached the top of the staircase. The landing debouched onto a corridor on one side and, on the other, a long gallery spanning the entire length of the central wing, its tall windows looking over the elegant square of the cour d’honneur below. The back wall of the gallery was hung with dark red brocade, almost completely covered by gold-framed paintings. This was the Delancourt art collection, amassed over centuries: a mixture of landscapes, still lifes and family portraits, such beautiful images that the precocious Angel immediately said:

  ‘Mummy, I don’t need to wee! I want to look at the pictures.’

  ‘Lovely, darling,’ Pearl said without a break in her stride as she relentlessly swept the two of them along the landing to the corridor that led to the right-hand wing of the mansion. ‘You can look at the art all you want later and say clever things about it. Granny Viv will adore that.’

  ‘But I want to—’

  ‘Angel, be quiet and do what Mummy tells you!’ Pearl snapped. ‘Don’t make me angry! You know you don’t like it when I get angry!’

  There was enough harshness in her voice to silence Angel instantly. His big eyes widened and he pressed his lips together so tightly that the skin around them went white.

  Unerringly, Pearl headed for the door that led to her mother’s suite of rooms, pulling Angel through and shutting it behind them, moving fast across a sitting room tastefully appointed with silk-covered sofas and armchairs, occasional tables with vases of hyacinths and narcissi, and coffee tables laden with the latest issues of every glossy magazine imaginable.

  Off the sitting room lay a corner bedroom, its windows facing south and east to give a view of the carefully tended back garden, an example of what the cleverest landscape artist could achieve in a small city space with its decorative topiary, low hedge-lined paths and central fountain. The bedroom itself was fit for a queen – or a major movie star – with its magnificent bed framed by pale pink silk curtains that tumbled dramatically from a carved and painted wooden tester fixed to the high ceiling, held back on either side by thick silk cords looped around the large posts at the head of the bed.

  ‘Ooh!’

  Unable to resist, Angel pulled his hand free from his mother’s and raced across the room, throwing himself face down onto the velvet coverlet. His small body landed on deliciously yielding layers, and he exhaled in pure happiness at the sheer comfort, relishing the texture of the soft velvet against his even softer, more velvety cheek.

  ‘Take your shoes off and don’t jump on the mattress,’ Pearl said over her shoulder even as she dashed across the Persian rug, hand-tied in shades of pale blue and pink silk; the window shutters were only half open to protect the priceless carpet from fading with the sunshine, just as the upper blinds in the art gallery were lowered to protect the paintings.

  Angel was exhausted from having gone to bed way past his bedtime the night before. That was not unusual. Pearl’s household was so chaotic that the whole concept of a regular bedtime for her small son had never been enforced apart from by the occasional boyfriend who had more of a conscience than Angel’s own mother. This had happened only very occasionally: none of Pearl’s boyfriends lasted long, but the ones who cared about the welfare of Pearl’s son, and thus embarrassed her by showing up her lack of maternal instinct, were of particularly
short duration.

  Pearl was a classic narcissist who viewed her child not as a separate human being but an extension of herself. Any suggestion that Angel’s needs were not only different from her own, but should be privileged above hers, was met with so much resentment and hostility that anyone trying to convince her of it was promptly ejected from her life.

  That morning, heedless of the fact that her son had been running wild around her house until late into the evening, and had finally fallen asleep curled up on one of the living room rugs at eleven before waking up a couple of hours later and groggily staggering upstairs to his bed, Pearl had shaken him awake at six, telling him brusquely to get up and dressed. Angel knew better than to complain or protest. It only made Pearl even meaner.

  He had managed to grab a bowlful of Cheerios, and there had even been some milk in the fridge to pour over them. That was quite a luxury, so the day hadn’t actually started that terribly, and he’d had more luck when Pearl kept changing her top, so he’d had enough time to almost finish his food, which was never guaranteed when she was in a hurry. By the time she’d come tearing downstairs and yelled at him to get his shoes on, his tummy had stopped grumbling too loudly and he had enough sugar energy to keep up as she dragged him across London to Heathrow.

  Mummy refused to get him anything to eat at the airport, saying she’d spent everything on the plane tickets, but at least there was free food on the plane. The stewardesses fussed over him, bringing him extra croissants and jam with lots of cold milk, and he’d gone for a wee all by himself when the pilot said it was the last chance before landing, while Mummy was sleeping. She’d been very pleased with him when she woke up and he told her he’d gone to the loo already, and promised him that he would have lots to eat and drink at Granny Viv’s, plus a nap too if he wanted. Angel had said crossly that he was seven now, and naps were for babies; but actually, now he was happily collapsed on the cosy bed in Granny Viv’s pretty shaded room, a nap sounded perfect . . .

  His stomach was rumbling again, but his mother’s word was law: he wouldn’t be able to go downstairs and have the orange pressé juice drink or anything to eat until Mummy said they could. He thought that later on, he would use a loo on the ground floor in front of the man, to show him that Mummy had just been joking when she said he was fussy He was a big boy now He wasn’t scared about being in a strange bathroom by himself and he knew not to wee on the seat, although he did have to be reminded to wash his hands.

  But right now, he had to be with Mummy up here for some reason, and there was no point asking why because she’d just get cross again. So Angel’s golden eyelashes flickered down to his cheeks, and a sigh of relaxation turned almost immediately into a muffled little snore.

  Pearl was oblivious to the fact that her son had passed out on the tester bed with his little trainers still laced snugly on his feet, contrary to her command. She was in the adjoining dressing room, desperately trying out possible combinations on the large built-in safe. Especially for Vivienne’s tenancy, the current Marquis de Delancourt had installed a floor-to-ceiling metal one, so huge that the only way to bring it into the mansion had been to take off one of the high bedroom windows, winch the solid steel safe over the back garden wall and then hoist it up through the window gap onto a reinforced dolly so that it could be wheeled into the dressing room.

  It had been hired: the Marquis had commented wryly that the Delancourts’ own collection of family heirlooms was scarcely valuable enough to justify purchasing a safe of that size. Vivienne Winter, on the other hand, had already accumulated a queen’s ransom in her forty-eight years, enough to fill a pirate’s treasure chest. And Vivienne always insisted on having her jewels with her, disliking the idea that a bank vault might be closed when, on a whim, she decided to load herself up with gems, pin her diamond and sapphire brooch into one of her signature turbans, and sweep her entourage out to a nightclub.

  The safe’s black-velvet-lined drawers contained all her major pieces: the ruby and diamond parure bought from an Indian Rani; the famous opals that Vivienne always declared, counter to the superstition, brought her good luck; the tiara set with emeralds and yellow sapphires around a central diamond that was regarded by experts as rivalling the Koh-i-Noor for cut, clarity and colour, if not carat size. Clearly Vivienne had either been advised – or been sensible enough – not to use an obvious code for the lock, as Pearl was failing with every combination she tried.

  She had already gone through all the birthday dates she could think of: her mother’s, her own and Angel’s – and that of Randon Cliffe, the husband Vivienne had divorced last year but who remained not only the love of Vivienne’s life, but the principal supplier of her superb jewel collection. Pearl’s shoulders sagged as the heavy door failed yet again to swing open after she’d turned the dial to Randon’s birthday digits; she’d had high hopes for that one. In swift succession she ran through the other dates scribbled on the yellow Post-it she had brought with her and stuck just above the dials.

  She tried the dates of Vivienne’s first and second Oscar wins, the statuettes displayed on the marble mantelpiece of the bedroom. Vivienne had no truck with her fellow actors who said modestly in interviews that they kept their Oscars in the downstairs toilet (which, in any case, was just a way of making sure your guests got a good look at them). No, Vivienne wanted those two shiny golden trophies to be the first thing she saw when she woke up and the last thing before closing her eyes at night. Nonetheless, neither of the dates on which she’d received them were the combination to her jewellery safe, and Pearl was rapidly running out of ideas.

  She was running out of time, too. Pretty soon Baxter would manifest, politely but insistently ushering her and Angel downstairs, away from her only opportunity of getting her hands on some of Vivienne’s hugely valuable jewellery – the jewellery that Pearl’s dealer had assured her he could pawn for enough money to not only settle what she owed, but ensure her credit with him for months to come.

  Pearl turned away from the safe, consoling herself with the knowledge that Vivienne’s major pieces would have been very hard to pawn. She would have been given only a fraction of their value, disproportionate to the wrath that would have been called down on her head if – or when – Vivienne found out what she had done. She’d go to Plan B now: grab some of the minor jewellery not valuable enough to be kept in the safe – minor by Vivienne’s standards only, of course – and get out of there fast.

  But she’d been up here for long enough that she needed a watch placed on the door so she didn’t get caught in the act.

  ‘Angel!’ she called, and when she didn’t get an answer straight away she went swiftly into the bedroom, leaned over the bed and grabbed her son’s shoulders, brusquely shaking him awake.

  ‘Get up!’ she hissed. ‘Go and stand in the sitting room by the door to the main corridor and call to me as soon as it starts to open! Go on, run!’

  Sleepy, stumbling, rubbing his eyes, Angel obeyed, his trainers catching on the rug as he went, disappearing into the living room. Back in the dressing room, Pearl started opening jewellery boxes, looking for daytime trinkets that her mother might not be likely to miss. She found a tangle of diamond tennis bracelets, and pulled out two: Vivienne wore those in stacks up her tanned arms, and probably wouldn’t notice if there were eighteen now, rather than twenty. And it was the same with the hoop earrings – Vivienne adored them, they were a signature look for her, and had so very many set with diamonds. She wouldn’t miss a few of those, or a handful of brooches, when she literally had boxes full of them . . .

  In the sitting room, Angel had dutifully stationed himself by the main door. But presently, when he realized his mother wouldn’t be appearing any time soon, he started to look around the room. Almost immediately, his attention was caught by a marvellous vase on a pedestal by the window It was huge, as tall as he was and made of white china heavily painted in blue ink with all sorts of things on it, but what fascinated him was the huge tiger that seemed
to be prowling towards him, as if it were about to step right off the vase and into the room. The tiger looked as if it were in a forest of bamboo, and wasn’t very happy about it, in Angel’s opinion: its thick furry tail was curved, looking just like cats’ tails did when they got angry and lashed them back and forth. Dogs wagged their tails when they were happy, but Angel knew that when cats did it you shouldn’t pet them, because they could bite or scratch you.

  Angel decided it was a boy tiger. And it wasn’t in a bamboo forest after all, he realized, but on a river bank. Maybe the tiger had just had a drink. But then why was it grumpy and lashing its tail? Maybe it had been fishing, but it hadn’t managed to get anything for its dinner, and it was hungry.

  He pictured a cat that lived with his mummy’s friend Talisa. It didn’t have a name – Talisa just called it Cat – and it was always trying to climb on Talisa’s big fish tank and hook out the fish with one of its paws so it could eat them. Once the cat had managed it, and Mummy and Talisa, who were smoking their funny cigarettes, had laughed and laughed till Mummy said she was going to be sick, though she wasn’t. The poor little fish had flapped around frantically for a second or two, and then it was gone, just a flash of yellow and blue disappearing into the cat’s mouth. The cat was looking really pleased with itself, no tail-lashing at all.

  Talisa had stopped laughing then and started wailing because she said the fish had been majorly expensive and her boyfriend would be really cross, but Mummy had said something about blowing him to say sorry, and Talisa had started laughing again, and Angel had asked why her boyfriend would want Talisa blowing on him, and then Mummy had snapped at him to go away and find something else to do. So he had gone into the kitchen to find something to eat, and the cat had followed him, padding on its velvet feet and winding itself around his legs, and he had sat down on the kitchen floor and stroked the cat for ages as it purred and rubbed its head against him, so it had been a very nice evening in the end.