Chapter Ten Petra - The Bridesmaid
Chapter Ten
PETRA - THE brIDESMAID
When I heard a bridesmaid had been murdered, I was only surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.
I’m walking along the marble-floored corridors of Leopold Kensington’s downtown Manhattan office, in what is widely known as my signature look.
Ripped couture and designer shoes busted up with my own additions.
White-blonde hair flipped to one side, shaved underneath.
A trash-punk model style I’ve aced for over twenty years now.
Long enough to transform my runway success into something iconic.
My phone rings and I flip it from its gold case. The flashing screen shows my magazine editor’s name.
‘Petra,’ he says. ‘We need to talk about the pictures you took. There’s been more complaints.’
‘I can’t talk right now,’ I tell him. ‘I’m about to get you a hot tip.’
He’s silent, thinking this over. ‘Kensington stuff?’
‘What else.’
‘OK, meet me for lunch,’ he decides. ‘One p.m. Usual place.’
‘Got it.’ I hang up. When I moved from Sweden to New York, I thought my family had secrets.
A few Nazis in the bloodline is nothing, nothing compared to the Kensingtons.
They really did write the book on skeletons in the closet.
Photographing Leopold gave me the inside track on the world’s most notorious family. Everything the papers say is true.
I reach an oiled walnut door, with an outsized gold plaque announcing:
Leopold Kensington. CEO. The Kensington Group.
I enter without knocking, and am relieved to see Leopold sat alone at his desk. Naturally, he enjoys a vast corner office with panoramic views of Manhattan. I’ll bet he stands here with a whisky at night, gloating over all the buildings he personally owns.
Leopold looks up from his desk. I can’t tell if he’s pleased to see me or not.
‘Hi.’ I raise a hand.
‘You can’t be in here,’ he says, his gravelly voice sounding even more furious than usual.
Behind him is a wall of framed old newspapers declaring him ‘The Nightclub Baron of New York’.
Paps of him and his first wife Athena, back in the 1980s.
The headlines have been carefully clipped away.
I’m guessing they read something like: ‘Society Girl and the Fish Market Boy’, or ‘Heiress Athena’s Lower East Bad Boy’.
Leopold famously grew up running the family fish stall at Fulton Market. Before he bought a tired old working man’s club, and charmed Athena into bringing her society friends.
More recent shots are in color. An aging Leopold glares out of Forbes front cover, holding a golden model of Manhattan in his palm.
‘This whole thing is a fucking shit show. I’m trying to manage it.’ He shakes his head. ‘I told you not to come.’
I walk up to his desk, and just for a second a flash of uncertainty passes over his usually confident expression. For a moment I think he might actually physically stop me as I slide onto his lap. He doesn’t.
I turn to take in his desk. ‘Nice wedding picture.’ It’s him and Athena in the 1980s, at the nightclub that made Leopold famous.
He wears an eighties’ suit that would look good on an Italian mobster.
Athena flaunts a dress that taste forgot, accessorized with hideous electric-blue eye make-up, frosted lipstick and a sky-high frazzle of hair sprayed honey-blonde hair.
‘All those wives and you’ve still got a picture up of the one who died?’
I’ve gone too far and I feel his muscles tighten in annoyance. He takes the picture from my hand. Not snatching, exactly, but with quiet force. ‘Athena would have wanted to be remembered, at Adrianna’s wedding.’
‘Good for you, Leopold.’ I say, pressing myself tighter against his body. ‘Marriage is for life.’ I tried calling him Leo once, and never did it again.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the little silver case Leopold is all too familiar with. It’s where I keep my coke. He knows I always have the best. I get it from his clubs, after all.
‘Coffee break?’ I ask him, waving it enticingly. ‘We could go to one of the rooms at the Kensington Club.’
‘The wedding is in four days,’ he says, glowering. But I notice his chest is rising and falling fast. ‘I got work to do—’
‘Have you decided who’s going to be head bridesmaid now?’ I ask.
Leopold is usually at his most pliable in these moments, but I notice his whole body tense.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Leopold.’ I roll my eyes. ‘You choose the bridesmaids. Everyone knows that.’
He shifts uneasily, not denying it. ‘What does it matter who the head bridesmaid is?’ His eyes are searching my face, trying to work out if I know.
‘You know why,’ I tell him. ‘Leopold, you think I’m stupid? You didn’t appoint Simone a bridesmaid for free legal advice.’
He avoids my eye. ‘One of the bridesmaids had to be a lawyer. It was the right composition for whatever PR campaign they got going on.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Simone isn’t even the right kind of attorney for a prenup. Don’t play dumb with me, Leopold. You sent Simone out to Elysium to investigate Adrianna’s kidnap. You think it’s someone close to her.’ I pause for effect. ‘And now Simone’s dead. Which proves you right.’
‘Simone told me she found something on Elysium,’ he says, very quietly. ‘She was going to share it when I got back from LA. You think that’s why she died?’
Leopold’s face is swathed in troubled and guilty emotions.
I roll my eyes. ‘Three dresses. Hair cut off. Leopold, it’s not just a coincidence.’