CHAPTER 2
CAFé DE FLORE, PARIS
A waiter in a black waistcoat topped up their flutes with the remaining champagne from the bottle while pigeons danced and flapped on the cobblestones a few feet away.
Café de Flore was buzzing this morning as people at the surrounding tables took their coffee and pastries before work.
The footpath was a sea of wicker chairs, marble tabletops and women swathed in elegant silk and linen clothes and finished with impeccable red lips while the men looked equally dapper in suits, crisp shirts and cufflinks.
Charlie noted they were the only table drinking champagne.
‘I’m told you made quite the entrance at the Ritz soiree? I was phoning through a piece to the desk in London and missed the show.’ Charlie laughed.
‘You mean the cartwheel?’ Lady Ashworth said nonchalantly. ‘Not my best. But I do try to keep it interesting.’
Charlie regarded the older woman with the frame of a ballerina. Some people said Lady Ashworth did a headstand every morning for ten minutes and Charlie was inclined to believe it. But she had more questions about what happened at the Ritz.
‘As fascinated as I am about your gymnastic abilities, Lady Ashworth, why is it you feel I should investigate the missing Maisy Bell?’
‘Allegedly missing,’ corrected Violet.
‘Maisy Bell has not returned to her hotel room for over a week. She is most certainly missing.’
‘Fair. Not many people would give up a room at the Ritz. Some might kill for it though—all that marble!’ quipped Violet.
Charlie sighed and shot Violet a be serious look.
Lady Ashworth leaned forward. ‘Clementine’s in pieces.
She blames herself for her missing niece.
Heaven knows I tried to tell her that short of chaining young Maisy to the bedpost, she really could not stop a grown woman from going about Paris as she chose to.
I had to get my physician to prescribe Clementine some Mickey Finn. ’
Charlie pursed her lips.
Lady Ashworth chuckled and flapped a hand at Charlie, dismissing her look. ‘Noted. But let’s move on, Charlie James. That nasty episode has no business in this story.
‘As I was saying, Clementine was feverish with worry. I sent for her brother Mason to sail with haste and meet her in Paris. Maisy’s father—Clementine’s oldest brother—stayed stateside.
Mason won’t be helpful for you, of course—men of his type generally aren’t, more like shiny ornaments in black or white tie that you can move about cities like pieces on a chequerboard.
Nevertheless, Mason is her brother and part of the oil clan, so to speak.
In times of stress, we need our loved ones at our side. ’
‘Oil clan? You speak as if you know the Bells well?’
‘I know the Bell family.’ Lady Ashworth’s eyes narrowed.
‘I imported some pieces for Maisy’s parents’ place in Dallas.
A lot of pieces, if you know what I mean.
They say everything is bigger in Texas and the Bells’ estate is no exception.
They say you could power the United States of America on the Bells’ personal oil reserves alone.
Now, I have no idea if that is true, but let me just say, I’ve been to some impressive houses in my time’—she leaned in and raised her eyebrows—‘but none has come close to the scale of Maisy Bell’s family home.
‘My clients don’t tend to voice publicly their involvement with me.
Nobody brags about paying somebody else to decorate their house—they like that cachet of excellent taste and access to rare objects themselves.
’ She winked and took a sip of her champagne.
‘Besides, I decorated her brother’s house.
Not Clementine’s, if you see what I mean? ’
‘Not exactly,’ said Charlie, who wished rich people would speak directly.
‘I mean, Charlie, that it was Maisy’s father, Jimmy Bell, who had his house filled with French antiques.
Jimmy Bell who controls Bell Oil. Jimmy Bell who decides the allowances his siblings get and’—she lowered her voice to almost a whisper—‘Clementine and Mason are on the family board for show … One hears things.’
‘Got it,’ said Charlie, writing a note to check the shareholder roster for Bell Oil. ‘Jimmy controls the Bell purse strings.’
‘Follow the money, Charlie. It’s always worked for me in my line of work, and I’m sure it’s useful in yours.’ She took another sip of her champagne.
‘Do you know if Clementine and Mason were close with Maisy’s parents?’
‘Jimmy and Dolly? As close as family can be. I mean, Jimmy holds the reins to the company and that always comes with complications. And he’s gravely ill. Dolly doesn’t leave his side. Every bit the devoted wife. It was Clementine who dropped young Maisy off at college.
‘I was doing their front foyer and bedroom at the time and Dolly insisted Clementine stay to help choose the paint colour (it was a cool white, I might add). Clementine brought Miss Maisy on this graduation trip to Paris. From my brief interactions with the family, Clementine and Maisy seem close—certainly Clementine showed a keen interest in her niece. Very much the doting aunt.’ Lady Ashworth rolled her eyes dramatically.
‘Maisy’s father’—she shook her head with obvious sadness—‘has some awful affliction. Tremors, coughs, confined to a chair almost full time now, I believe. Terrible.’ She tutted.
‘The family has a lot on their plate. I’d say they are as happy and conflicted as any other family, oil money or not. ’
Charlie didn’t know what Lady Ashworth meant. She missed her own parents and siblings back in Sydney and couldn’t imagine fighting her siblings for an estate. Her parents were comfortable, her father a barrister, but nothing on the grand scale of the Bells. She dismissed her pang of homesickness.
Charlie noticed Lady Ashworth talked around Maisy’s parents—their house, their antiques, rather than personal qualities.
Maisy’s parents had not accompanied the young woman on her celebration trip.
Now she was missing, her parents sent a proxy family member—the brother, Mason Bell.
Why wouldn’t Maisy’s mother come to look for her daughter?
There was more to this story than Lady Ashworth was revealing. Or perhaps knew.
Charlie looked at the picture of Maisy Bell.
The young woman appeared almost ethereal: perfect white teeth, styled blonde waves, bright smile with a slight dimple in each cheek and makeup done just so.
This photo could have been a trial run for a movie poster.
She cast her mind back to the first profile she’d filed in Paris: a puff piece on Lady Ashworth’s villa in Versailles.
An interview about her in-demand interior design and French furniture business between Paris and the United States.
Lady Eleanor Ashworth had decorated brownstones in New York for the Fricks and Vanderbilts, as well as updating Windsor Castle just outside London.
If Lady Ashworth said the Bell pile in Texas was the biggest she’d seen, that would be no exaggeration.
Charlie decided to continue with her line of questioning. ‘Can you tell me what you know about Maisy?’
‘Fearfully wealthy, pockets bigger than her brain, wanted to be an actress and given a small part Off-Broadway.’ Lady Ashworth dropped her voice.
‘If the rumours are true, a certain Mr Bell funded a certain theatre company in New York in exchange for a young Texan to be given a walk-on.’ She winked and threw her hands in the air.
‘But who knows? Perhaps Maisy Bell has talent? She could wear a frock, that’s for sure. ’
‘So she made an impression that night at the Ritz?’ asked Violet, whose head had shot up at the mention of fashion.
‘An impression? She’s like a jewel. Dazzling and precious. New and shiny. Who wouldn’t be attracted to that?’ Lady Ashworth replied, picking at the corner of a sandwich with her index finger and delicately depositing a crumb in her mouth.
‘Who wouldn’t?’ Charlie agreed, choosing to ignore Lady Ashworth’s jibe at the young woman’s acting ambition.
Hadn’t Charlie once also harboured a dream that was considered laughable?
Charlie James had been looking down the barrel of a dreary life on the women’s pages of a Sydney broadsheet before she moved to Paris and reinvented her life and career as an investigative reporter.
Lady Ashworth had also created a new career across two continents—and a substantial social network around the world.
‘Did Miss Bell have a boyfriend back home?’
‘No idea! I’m connected to the parents, remember?
Did you tell your parents about all your young loves?
’ Lady Ashworth studied Charlie, who turned her head away as she felt her cheeks grow warm.
Violet swallowed and pretended to study a woman sitting in the opposite corner, obviously avoiding this tricky subject. It was unlike Violet to play coy.
Charlie had to reach back over a decade to find that giddy feeling of limerence as a young woman in Sydney, if she ever had it.
Had Charlie ever been considered a shiny person on the cusp of adventure when she moved to Paris?
No, Charlie James had arrived in France months ago broken and three-quarters divorced, and she did not currently have a lover—clandestine or otherwise.
She looked down at the fancy new clothes gifted to her by Violet and marvelled at how she now felt comfortable sitting at a table with two of the most elegant women in Paris.
That would never have been the case when she’d arrived with a suitcase full of sensible pencil skirts, kitten heels and ill-fitting blazers.
Charlie James had come to Paris to reinvent herself. Perhaps Maisy Bell had too?
Lady Ashworth caught Charlie taking stock. ‘I see you have added some special pieces to your own wardrobe. That coral suit is perfect against your auburn hair—I swear it looks like it was made just for you.’ She gave a discreet smile. ‘Your friends Violet and Aleksandr have a great eye.’
Aleksandr Ivanov was the darling of Paris couture, and it was Violet who had helped him launch his label, organising and styling parades in a cabaret club.
Violet and Aleksandr were collaborators and lovers whose shared love of fashion had tipped over into business.
Lady Ashworth had thrown her support behind the house, opening both her contact and cheque books; she was the very vortex of the Paris fashion, social, arts and political scenes.
Nothing significant happened in Paris without a connection to Lady Ashworth.
Not even, it seemed, the disappearance of an American tourist.
‘Thank you, Lady Ashworth, for the compliment. Aleksandr and Violet spoil me,’ said Charlie, embarrassed. ‘As you are well aware, I’m no clothes horse—’
‘You are certainly not. You wear the clothes, Charlie James, not vice versa. That is the biggest compliment a woman can give another.’
‘I concur,’ said Violet. ‘You are magnificent. The clothes shine because of you. You just had to meet them.’
‘Merci,’ Charlie said, brushing their kind words aside. Australians hated compliments but in France, they were dished out like aperitifs. ‘Back to Maisy Bell. Did you notice if she spoke to anyone in particular, more than others? Any men?’
Charlie’s stomach started to churn. One reason a woman might go missing—kidnapped or murdered—was money.
Especially when the missing person was from a well-known family with means.
The next reason a woman might disappear was because of a man, and there were three reasons women often came to harm at the hands of men.
Two were passion and control. The other was money. There it was again.
Lady Ashworth threw her head back and laughed. ‘Oh, Maisy Bell was like honey to a bee that night in the ballroom of the Ritz. What man didn’t speak with her?’
The third reason Maisy Bell might be missing was that she was somehow involved in a terrible accident. The young woman may be in hospital unconscious or unable to communicate. Surely the police would have already looked into that?
Charlie shivered as she considered a fourth possibility.
‘Right. If what you say is true, Lady Ashworth, and a young American girl is missing, then I will look into it. I’ll contact my sources at the Cité Metro Police—’
‘Oh, you mean the dashing Inspecteur Bernard? The one who was visiting you in hospital?’
‘It was official police business, Lady Ashworth,’ said Charlie as she focused on opening her notebook to a clean page. It was the least he could do, she thought.
Charlie ignored the knowing glance between Lady Ashworth and Violet as she chugged the last of her coffee.
‘Well, I must be off,’ Lady Ashworth said.
‘Dear Monsieur Cardo has been waiting patiently to take me to my next appointment. Honestly, I don’t know how I’d cope without him.
I’ve been using the same town car service for years and I always ask for dear Cardo.
Always on time, always a gentleman. Never makes a fuss.
Before I go, may I offer you lovely ladies a lift to work?
’ She gave a pointed look at the notebook and photos of Maisy Bell on the table before raising an expectant eyebrow at Violet and Charlie.
‘No, thank you, Lady Ashworth,’ Violet and Charlie responded in unison. The office was a short walk from the cafe and the two younger women liked to peruse the ever-changing shopfront windows for fashion inspiration along the way.
Lady Ashworth pushed her chair back and stood, smoothing her hair as a middle-aged chauffeur with grey hair and medium build in a black uniform and white gloves emerged from the dark town car just a few steps from where they sat.
He wore a shiny star badge on his lapel, which glinted in the sun as he opened the back door.
Lady Ashworth put a protective hand on her coiffed green bun and waved before she disappeared into the cavernous back seat.
As Violet finished her coffee and went to sort the bill with the waiter inside, insisting it was her turn to shout, Charlie picked up her pen and started to write down all the angles she could take on this Maisy Bell disappearance.