The Golden Locket (Unbreakable Trilogy, Book 2) Read online

  Gustav walked me to the giant wooden door of the apartment and heaved it open. He pulled me close to him, kissed me hard again, then ushered me out onto the landing.

  ‘You impressed them with your talent at the London exhibition, Serena, but sometimes life is a system of favours, especially in business. You know how I like to make any working relationship official and documented at the earliest opportunity, and I suggest you do the same. Boil it down to I take, you take. I give, you give. And here you are, oh, yes, still giving. Still fulfilling your delicious part of our bargain! Your gorgeous body, that plump little ass, your mouth. Repaying me every night. Most mornings. And some afternoons when we have the time!’

  ‘I just want to show you, them, the world, that I can do this alone. I’m feeling a bit nervous, that’s all.’

  A slight shadow still stained his face. So long as I’m not the cause of it, the occasional sweep of darkness doesn’t scare me any more, but it’s a reminder of emotions and complexities still to be unravelled.

  He tipped my face towards him. ‘Look, I’ll admit I have fingers and toes in every pie. Back in the day my ancestors were hawkers and travellers. I set out my market stall, display my protégée’s wares and invite punters to roll up, roll up, take a look, buy it if they like it.’ He rubbed his finger and thumb together with a sly grin. ‘And give me my commission, of course. How else do you think we can afford this place?’

  ‘I can see you as a gypsy, now you come to mention it.’

  I just wanted to look at him all day. Tall, lounging in the doorway, his tie hanging loose around his unbuttoned neck, his black hair brushed back over his noble forehead. His eyes roving over my body even though I was swathed in winter clothes. He’s the opposite of a chancer market trader. He’s the epitome of suave, sorted entrepreneur, and I am the beneficiary of all that, and much, much more.

  Reading my mind, Gustav murmured, ‘Believe in yourself, Serena. A cliché, perhaps, but I mean it. The Weinmeyers flew all the way to London to see your show after your sensational private view. It’s your talent they’re after.’

  ‘Nevertheless. I feel nervous.’

  He stepped round me to call the lift, and then kissed me yet again.

  ‘This is the first day of the rest of our lives, girl.’

  The wind buffets me across the park now, past the cyclists and ice skaters and out by the Metropolitan Museum of Art onto Fifth Avenue. I’m too far south, so I turn north and the wind knocks me into a pile of snow banked under a starved-looking tree.

  As I trudge my way between Park Avenue and Lexington, my kit is weighing me down. Where is Dickson the Driver when you need him? The surly chauffeur is locking up the holiday house in Lake Lugano for the last time. Goodbye to Switzerland. Goodbye to Margot and all that history.

  Despite the weight on my shoulder, the weight in my heart starts to ease. All that remains is for Gustav and Pierre to neutralise the rest of the poison.

  I walk right past the house at first, an old Upper East Side wooden mansion with curled wrought-iron balconies that looks as if it should be situated in New Orleans. The marble and limestone mansions all around here have long ago been split into apartments or donated to museums and schools, but this, I realise when the door opens, is still one complete town house.

  The front door looks flimsy enough to kick in but it swings silently open as soon as I ring the bell. The petite façade hides an enormous wood-panelled hallway with black and white floor tiles and dominated by a staircase Scarlett O’Hara should be sweeping down. There’s no butler or housekeeper bustling about. Just an elegant blonde woman around Gustav’s age, maybe older, standing at the top of the stairs in a fuchsia-pink, diaphanous halterneck dress.

  ‘Serena, come in. How lovely. Welcome!’

  She is silhouetted by the huge arched window behind her. The low winter sun is a perfect backlight, shafting straight through the voile fabric of her dress and rendering it see-through. I step further inside and the door snaps quietly shut behind me. Mrs Weinmeyer rotates one foot in a gold Louboutin sandal and I can see that her incredibly slim thighs are slightly parted, flickering with impatient muscles. She raises her leg to take a step down the stairs and the slit cut into the dress makes it float open at the top of her legs.

  I drop my bags and equipment on the floor and get out my bigger Canon. ‘Hold it there!’

  ‘Why, sugar, what’s wrong?’ Mrs Weinmeyer halts as instructed, one knee cocked in front of the other, her slim arms reaching to each banister in an angular, Cecil Beaton pose. Her face is in shadow, but as I adjust the exposure I can see through the viewfinder my subject’s fuchsia-painted lips parting slightly in surprise, showing perfect American white teeth.

  My finger slips on the shutter. ‘I didn’t mean to shout at you, Mrs Weinmeyer, but please could you hold that pose? Because I think I’ve got my Grace Kelly shot!’

  ‘Your cute English accent.’

  Mrs Weinmeyer shrugs one pale shoulder, glances over it deep into my lens, twists this way and that, then continues to descend the stairs as I click the shutter. She has the taut, toned body of all upmarket New Yorkers, which makes them look as if they never bite into a Krispy Kreme. Not ideal for a photographic subject, but who am I to comment? If anything, that makes my job all the more challenging. Finding the curves and angles, the planes and shadows, in a body with little substance.

  As for her cool, pale face, I daren’t speculate if she’s had work done. The camera will tell me later. I remind myself to inform all my new clients that I discourage any form of post-production touching up, but if they insist then the charges will be suitably astronomical.

  ‘Come along with me, sugar,’ the lady of the house purrs into my thoughts. ‘There will be many other shots, I can assure you. Just follow me round the domain and tell me where you want me.’

  The reception rooms at the front are decorated with a mixture of old European grandeur, wooden cornices, comfortable chintzy soft furnishings, some exquisite rose- and cherrywood pieces that look as if they would splinter if you so much as brushed the dust off them, and an array of paintings and photographs on every available surface of wall. The effect is full but not cluttered, elegant but not spare. From the clear north light filtering through from the rear I’m guessing that the other half of the house has been extended and totally modernised.

  I follow my client as room flows into room, watching the way Mrs Weinmeyer’s bottom twitches under the fuchsia silk as she walks ahead. The way her little buttocks catch the material between the cheeks, then softly release it again. Every so often I take a shot as my hostess pauses casually by a sofa, a fireplace, a mirror.

  ‘So, Serena, tell me how you want to play this. As the hookers say, I can be whatever you want me to be.’

  Mrs Weinmeyer gives a girlish giggle. I know she’s watching me as I pace round the wood-panelled drawing room she has finally led me into. Maybe she’s wondering how such an ordinary-looking girl could have taken the erotic photographs she saw exhibited in London. Maybe she’s doubting my ability to fulfil this commission.

  I must keep my cool. The walls are crammed with paintings and photographs but what also catches my eye on a window shelf is a row of vases and goblets and delicate sea creatures all made of glass. The muted light filters through them, making them look as if they are filling with smoke.

  ‘Ah, you’re admiring my exquisite glass collection. Do you like it? It’s from Murano, but a little-known, very specialised manufacturer.’

  Her perfume reaches me before she does. Her slim arm winds round my waist as I finger the tail of a jade-green sea horse.

  ‘I know the factories on Murano,’ I say. ‘I saw them blowing glass in Venice when I was there. Did you know that the glassmakers’ craft was considered so valuable that they were kept prisoner on the island under pain of death, to stop them giving away the secrets of their skills?’

  She inclines her head. ‘Venice is the city of secrets, isn’t it? Our palazzo on the G
rand Canal is the perfect place to showcase them. One day I’d love you to come visit. Carnevale in February perhaps? But those naughty nuns in your photographs! You got right behind the grille when you were there, didn’t you? I would love to prise open the hushed world of the convent like you did. You have a real watcher’s skill there, Serena.’

  I blush and step as politely as I can away from the array of glass before I break something. I open the French windows to let more of the clear but shaded north light flood in.

  ‘Well, today I’d like to try something fairly formal, classic, you know, but using natural light? Just your face and shoulders, Mrs Weinmeyer, looking out from these shadows into the garden.’

  ‘It’s mighty chilly out there, sugar, but whatever you say.’

  Mrs Weinmeyer does as she is told and leans dreamily in the doorway, resting her head on one upstretched arm. I remember reading somewhere that she used to be a model, or a dancer, which would explain the leopard-fit physique.

  I step outside onto the terrace and try not to shiver as I set up my tripod, but the light today is perfect. There’s a layer of snow-heavy cloud flattening the light so it’s bright but matt. There’s something of the Singer Sargent in Mrs Weinmeyer’s Edwardian-lady persona. She keeps her eyes trained just past my ear as if she is staring out to sea, her pink lips parted, her pale limbs totally still.

  ‘I must say, Mrs Weinmeyer, you’re an incredibly easy subject.’

  ‘And you’re an incredibly easy artist.’ She keeps her face still. ‘We wouldn’t rest until we had you over here to do these shots, Serena. We absolutely loved your work. See? We have a couple of your Paris shots right there.’

  She tips her head slightly and sure enough hanging on the wall beside the fireplace, among an artfully crowded collection including several Hockneys and a Warhol, are three of my monochrome ‘Lovers’ series, an homage to Robert Doisneau but far more sexually graphic. In the first picture the couple seem to be the only people in the world, just the two of them kissing passionately, open-mouthed with greed, tongues pushing between each other’s lips as they tangle on a bench beside the Seine.

  I remember that hot day so well. I was crossing the Pont Neuf and saw the couple oblivious to the passing bateaux mouches full of gawping tourists. They had abandoned their half-eaten baguettes in ripped paper bags, put down their bottles of beer and were totally unaware of the tramp who was waking up from under a pile of newspapers in an alcove in the wall behind them.

  In the second picture the boy has the girl on her back, her little floaty skirt up round her hips, and he’s leaning over her, his leg pushing between her bare knees. Her blonde hair trails onto the dirty ground, catching in the litter, pecked at by passing pigeons.

  I had to use my zoom, which is what gives the pair that distant, isolated air, but manages to pick out the tramp sitting bolt upright on his stone bed, greedily eyeing not the lovers but their abandoned picnic.

  In the third picture another girl has approached. It looks as if the first girl hasn’t noticed, because her arms are flung above her head as the boy opens her blouse, and her eyes are ecstatically closed. The boy has his free arm round the knees of the second girl, pulling her so that she is about to fall on top of the first, but the composition means that all three subjects are frozen in formation just before they meld into one.

  And behind them the tramp stretches one grubby hand to snatch the baguette.

  ‘You can sit for hours imagining what they did next, yes?’ Mrs Weinmeyer’s voice purrs into the quiet, and now I note her slight German or Dutch accent. Her royal-blue eyes remind me of a Dresden shepherdess. ‘But that’s why we hired you. The reviews described you as the innocent voyeur. You watch and catch people in the act of loving themselves, like the Venice nuns, or in the act of loving each other. Thanks to you my husband and I have decided to expand our collection of erotic pictures.’

  ‘Well, I’m your girl,’ I murmur, trying not to sound too eager. ‘Tasteful voyeurism is my forte.’

  ‘Well, we’re already making enquiries. In fact we have a proxy buyer at an auction of photographs and films coming up in Baker Street, London. The Levi installations. Do you know them? An incredible series of images and films featuring Margot Levi. Your patron Gustav Levi curated it, I believe, and now he’s finally selling. Your work might complement that rather well.’

  ‘Yes, I know the collection.’ Any mention of it by definition threatens and excludes me, representing as it does Gustav’s life with his ex-wife. ‘But with respect, Mrs Weinmeyer, that exhibition celebrates professional sado-masochistic porn. My work aims to be a study of human beings, and if artistic erotica is one way in which it evolves, well, that’s a happy progression. But it’s not how I would define myself.’

  Mrs Weinmeyer tips her head admiringly.

  ‘You’re very sure of your genre, Serena, so I’ll come clean. We know Gustav quite well. And he knows you pretty well, too. He’s told us how you come aglow when you’re asked about your work. But about Baker Street. I’m sensing I’ve touched a nerve?’

  I step towards her, into the shelter of the pergola outside her window. ‘It has bad vibes. And much as I would truly value your custom, Mrs Weinmeyer, perhaps I’m not the right artist for you. I wouldn’t want my work hanging in the same venue as the Levi collection. It’s skilful and beautifully shot, but it represents a period of ugliness in the participants’ lives. There’s a backstory there that I don’t want to be linked with.’

  There is only the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathes, making the silk shiver over her skin.

  ‘I can see why you have your reservations, sugar. Margot Levi is about as far away from your wholesome charm as chalk is from cheese. Don’t look so shocked. Like her husband, sorry, ex-husband, she’s well known in certain circles. Or was, before she did her disappearing act. Anyhow, let’s talk about you. You’re far too young and sweet to engage with that kind of behaviour, even if you do get pretty close to the dark side in some of your pictures. But you have to leave each to their own. Take me, for instance. Do I look like the kind of girl who can only come if she’s whipped to high heaven?’

  I blush and shake my head.

  ‘Well, appearances can be deceptive. That’s for me to know and you to find out. Yes?’

  I bow my head. I’ve backed myself into a corner now. I may have ballsed up the most prestigious commission I could have hoped for.

  Her laugh is like wind chimes. ‘Sugar, I admire you. Have no fear. We have plenty of different venues to exhibit our investments. We won’t sully your work by mixing it up with anything that isn’t perfectly matched. We intend today’s commission to be very firmly placed in the personal “family album” category. Flattering, subtle, soft-focus if necessary.’

  ‘Christ, isn’t my wife just gorgeous?’

  A chunky blond man appears, holding a cigar and speaking on a mobile phone.

  Without apologising for interrupting, he clicks shut the phone and slips his hand through the slit in the fuchsia dress where it falls open across his wife’s thigh.

  ‘That was Gustav Levi on the phone, would you believe? Great to hear from him. Just wanted to know how his protégée was getting along. What kinky exploits she was goading us into!’

  ‘He shouldn’t have troubled you.’ I can’t help blushing with pleasure at the sound of Gustav’s name, even though I thought I’d made it plain to him I needed to be left to my own devices. ‘Or interfered.’

  ‘Don’t let me stop you, young lady.’ Mr Weinmeyer slides his hand right up to the top of his wife’s leg. ‘You should feel how soft her skin is. How warm. Just up here, you know? Isn’t that where every man wants to be? Just here where her body splits and gets all damp.’

  ‘He gets so turned on by me, after all these years of marriage! Watch and learn, sugar!’ Mrs Weinmeyer purrs, eyes half closed like a cat. ‘Wanna see what he’s getting so worked up about?’

  ‘You look great as you are, Mrs Weinmeyer. Can yo
u hold that pose for a while longer?’

  I drag my tripod with unnecessary scraping to the garden table. The two of them are regarding me through the French window. They look like Si and Am, the evil cats in Lady and the Tramp. Both cool, polished, slanted blue eyes, blond, evidently charming. But there’s still a hint of teasing menace flicking round them like a cat’s tail.

  I clear my throat. ‘Just hold it like that, and then I’m going to have to come inside. I’m freezing my butt off out here.’

  I jam the camera against my nose and keep shooting. They are consummate performers. As his hand disappears into her dress, Mrs Weinmeyer’s head falls back, her blonde hair wisping out on the dark-grey shoulder of his business suit, her eyes fluttering closed, her lips parting wider. He wrinkles open the dress with his other hand, gathering the folds on her hip so as to expose her and running his finger down the slice of red just to make sure my camera has seen it. And yes, like all New Yorkers, she has the Hollywood wax.

  ‘Serena has such a cute English accent, hasn’t she? If she wasn’t part of Gustav Levi’s bevy of admirers I’d have her down as perfectly innocent, a little like your Fräulein cousins back in the old country.’ Mrs Weinmeyer twines her arms round her husband’s neck. ‘No point looking all Bo Peep, sugar. Gustav has told us everything about you.’

  Her dress is still open, the silk shifting across her thighs, catching in her crack, attracted perhaps by the wetness there.

  I fuss around for another vantage point. The thought of Gustav telling them about me, maybe even boasting, actually makes me puff up with pride. But maybe Mrs Weinmeyer just means I’m one of Gustav’s many projects.

  My beret feels too hot on my head and I pull it off and stuff it into my kit bag.

  Mrs Weinmeyer says softly, from somewhere nearby, ‘And such beautiful Celtic hair. Like a mermaid.’

  ‘I think maybe I should leave the two of you now? Looks like this is a private moment.’ I fiddle with my camera to scroll through the images so far. ‘But I’ve got some lovely shots. You are perfect subjects. Natural models. I’ve just concentrated on the head and shoulders, obviously.’