Killer Queens (2 page)

Besides, how would he have known that She was making a habit of sneaking up here to Jebel Attar to go skiing by herself at the crack of dawn, if he hadn’t been tipped off by someone in Her entourage? Oh, She was in it with him, every step of the way.

Nigel drew in his breath as he saw Her jump down lightly from the chair lift, the tight blue ski suit flattering Her lean body. On the crown of Her head were silver goggles, propped on top of the white cashmere pull-on hat which framed Her lightly tanned face. Her skin glowed, Her cheeks were flushed from the cold morning air thousands of feet above sea level, Her lips shiny with protective balm.

Nigel had been expecting Her to look exhilarated at the impending exercise, and the rare treat, for Her, of solitude in a public place. But Her expression, as She looked around the mountaintop, glancing at the faded old signs which barely did the job of indicating the pistes, was . . .
thoughtful
, he decided.
Like She was making a big decision. And sad.

Like She knew what was coming,
he would say afterwards to the myriad journalists who all wanted to talk to him, the last person to see Her on that fateful morning.
It sounds mental, but that’s what it was like. She was beautiful and sad and sort of resigned. Like She really did know what was coming.

Of course, it wasn’t just Nigel’s words that conveyed how Princess Belinda had seemed at daybreak in the Atlas Mountains. Once Belinda had surveyed the small, snowy plateau, she didn’t glance again at the ramshackle hut. Nigel was able to inch up, place the lens of the Nikon on its roof, and start to shoot. The light, gusting wind covered any noise of the camera shutter as it clicked away, capturing every fleeting expression that passed across one of the best-known faces in the world. The long straight nose, the straight dark brows over the big hazel eyes, the Cupid’s bow lips which made her smile so entrancing; from the moment it had been clear that Prince Oliver, heir to the British throne, was seriously considering the young Lady Belinda Lindsey-Crofter as a potential bride, her Disney-princess smile had been flashed around the globe, creating such excitement that the world had held its breath waiting for the Prince to finally propose.

Her silky straight dark hair fanned out over her shoulders below the white pull-on hat, those strong athlete’s shoulders which, combined with her height and her lean hips, made her a perfect clotheshorse. Her small breasts rose and fell as she drew in a deep breath, staring over the stunning, snow-covered landscape below, the Piste des Mouflons, scattered with boulders and stone outcroppings that looked terrifying to Nigel. He found himself devoutly praying that Belinda wouldn’t choose that route, and sighed in relief as she turned towards where the earlier skiers had headed that morning, the Grande Combe.

It all happened so fast. She pulled down her goggles and pushed off, the swift, skilled strokes of her poles signifying her expertise at the sport; commentators had said that Belinda was gifted enough to have been picked for the British ski team, that Prince Oliver’s gain was a loss for the sport at an international level. She schussed off on a straight run down the start of the hill, flying along, her hair whipped by the wind, her posture perfect, barely using the poles at all. Nigel dashed out to the edge of the plateau, no longer needing to be concerned that she might become aware of his presence, switching for the telephoto shots to the Canon which also hung round his neck, capturing her as she sped down the piste, imagining with glee how much the agency would eat up this photo sequence of Belinda all alone in the expanse of white.

The ink was barely dry on her divorce from Prince Oliver. She was still Princess Belinda, but no longer Her Royal Highness, a small but crucial distinction. She shared custody of her son and daughter with Prince Oliver, and the children were with him at Sandringham now for the winter holidays as Belinda took her first getaway as a single woman, away from it all in one of the most obscure ski resorts in the world, high in the Atlas Mountains above Morocco. Only Nigel Slyme had tracked her down here, and the elation pumping through his veins was near-orgasmic as he frantically found an angle to snap the Princess as she shot away, heading for a stand of tall Spanish fir trees, covered in snow, disappearing from view for twenty seconds; he used the time to readjust the focus, preparing for her to emerge on the other side.

And there she came, flashing out from behind the last tree, her blue figure angled forward, poles tucked in, as she headed along the base of an overhanging ridge. It was the most stunning image: the slim blue shape bright against the white snow, dark firs behind her, the ridge rearing above her, piles of snow-covered boulders stacked dramatically along its slope.

It really did happen so fast.

From one second to the next, the world changed. Nigel didn’t know if he’d felt the shudder of the impact first, heard the dull roar, or saw the first boulders beginning to topple as the cliff exploded before his eyes. Only the instincts drilled into him by decades of his work kept his finger on the shutter; you kept shooting, no matter what happened, until someone hit you or put a gun to your head. So he captured everything, that split-second where the blue figure was still visible, still in its skier’s crouch, either unaware of the avalanche or trying desperately to outrun it; and then the moment where it disappeared forever, buried under the mass of boulders pouring down to cover the piste entirely, the entire ridge, shockingly, horrifyingly, disappearing in a single blast, as if blown up in a puff of smoke.

And there
was
smoke, in a way. A cloud of snow, obscuring the blue sky, hanging there for a long, suspended moment before drifting down to land on what had been a cliff and was now a flattened heap of rocks and stones, like a gigantic cairn that marked the final resting place of one of the most famous, beautiful, unhappy women in the world. The woman who had once been Her Royal Highness, Princess Belinda, before turning her back on the prospect of ever being Queen.

Nigel Slyme kept clicking on the shutter release, again and again and again, until finally it would no longer move; he had run out of film. Lowering the Canon, he stared blankly at the scene in front of him, the chaos left by the avalanche. The occasional stone was still falling, rolling slowly down the mountainside until it ran out of momentum and settled. The snow, too, had settled now, masking the ugly debris, softening its lines.

He would never see Her again.

Nigel’s face was icy cold and stingingly painful. It was only when he raised one frozen hand to his cheek that he realized that his skin was wet with icy tears.

Present day

Chloe Rose was sitting on one of the curved suede banquettes at Pirate’s Cove, Mayfair’s latest go-to club for the young, rich and titled party set. She was smiling. Nowadays, whenever she was out in public – even in the dimly lit basement of Pirate’s Cove – Chloe always smiled. It wasn’t a big, fake, beauty-queen smile; she was careful never, ever to flash one of those, because in the beginning she had, a couple of times, and the photographs had not only looked horribly fake, but had revealed that her teeth weren’t completely even.

She’d thought she had an idea of the level of scrutiny she would be subjected to, when the news emerged that she was dating Prince Hugo. She knew that she was fairly slim, had regular features, dressed smartly, and, best of all, was highly photogenic, which wasn’t at all the same thing as being pretty. Not being arrogant, Chloe was perfectly well aware that she was nice-looking, but not a beauty: nothing to rival Hugo’s dead mother, the famously stunning Princess Belinda. But she had told herself that she was fine with that, and she meant it.

What she hadn’t anticipated was being torn to pieces by the media for every tiny little flaw in her appearance, every single choice of clothing, every accidental smudge of mascara, every stray wisp of hair. As if she’d been a model or an actress, someone who set herself up as a beauty icon, not just a young woman who worked for a charity and whose job merely required her to look groomed and professional.

Chloe could have listed then and there every single thing that she had been told was wrong with her physically. And while she did so, she would have kept smiling, a small, seemingly contented smile that she had perfected through extensive practice in front of the mirror. Not smug, not a smirk, just a happy little smile. She caught sight of herself now in the mirrored wall facing the banquette, and nodded, confirming that it was perfect. As was her hair, as was her makeup. Her judgement was perfect too; she’d allowed herself one cocktail all evening, sipping from it slowly, letting the ice dilute the rum even more as time passed. Prince Hugo’s girlfriend could not ever be seen to lose control in a public setting.

What was sauce for the goose, however, wasn’t sauce for the gander. She glanced over to Hugo, who was enthusiastically rocking back and forward on the small dance floor to a reggae remix, the kind of music very much favoured by rich white drunk posh boys, as it didn’t require any actual dancing abilities. You just stood there and rocked happily, pretending you were much cooler and blacker than you actually were, occasionally saying ‘Yah, mon!’ in what you thought was a Rasta accent as you waved your beer bottle around in time to the beat. Hugo wasn’t a big drinker, but he certainly liked to take the edge off, something Chloe only allowed herself at strictly private parties.

As she watched, a rake-thin girl, with the cascading blonde hair that the British aristocracy seemed to have specifically interbred to grow thicker and lusher and blonder than that of commoners, gyrated up to Hugo, turned round, and shoved her almost non-existent bottom into his crotch, giggling hysterically. She circled it around, managing to toss her hair repeatedly at the same time, her hands straight out in front of her in a parody of a video vixen that the men on the dance floor greeted with whoops of encouragement.

The women, on the other hand, glanced immediately over to Chloe, who was sitting by herself on the banquette; the rest of her party was dancing or out the back smoking. Chloe could almost hear what people were thinking: ‘Lonely Chlo’, the nickname the meaner tabloids had given her. ‘Lonely Chlo’, who had to wait for long periods of time in London for her boyfriend to come back on shore leave from his Navy post, but had to avoid looking miserable, upset or, God forbid, scruffy, whenever she left the house. ‘Lonely Chlo’, because she didn’t fit in with the posh Pirate Cove crew, with their titles and their trust funds and their infantile nicknames – ‘Squishy’, ‘Pug’, ‘Eggy’, ‘Boo-Boo’, which they all maintained to demonstrate to outsiders that they would never truly be insiders, no matter how hard they tried.

‘Lonely Chlo’, a nickname which Chloe was sure had been given to her by her nemesis, Princess Sophie, Hugo’s absolutely horrible sister . . .

‘Whoo! Sexy! Go Minty!’ cried a cut-glass, utterly triumphant voice, and Chloe looked round to see Sophie herself, theatrically throwing back her own stunning blonde mane, applauding her friend, who was now wrapped around Hugo, apparently attempting to execute a series of pole-dance moves using Hugo as the pole.

‘Chlo! Babes, come and dance!’

A hand grabbed hers, pulling her to her feet. She looked up at Prince Toby, Hugo’s cousin, the biggest slut in London, and the nicest. Chloe knew perfectly well that Toby had come to rescue her from an embarrassing moment, and gratitude flooded through her. The rest of their group were Hugo’s friends, not hers. It was sink or swim for Chloe, as far as they were concerned, and if she were drowning they would never have raised a finger to help her out.

‘Thanks, Tobes,’ she said, her smile widening into one that was entirely genuine. ‘Top mate.’

‘Don’t give it a thought,’ Toby said, winking. ‘Always happy to rescue a damsel in distress.’

He wheeled her across the dance floor, to the far side, blocking her view of Minty, who was winding her slender limbs around Hugo like a boa constrictor.

‘She doesn’t stand a chance with old Huge, you know,’ Toby said with his usual endearing frankness. ‘No way could Minters ever be a princess. She’s shagged half of Eton and half of Sandhurst – and not one at a time, either. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but the stories chaps could tell! God, one night we were all off our faces, and Minty climbed on the billiards table stark naked and started trying to put the cue ball into her—’

‘Stop!’ Chloe shrieked in his ear. They were swaying back and forth in the traditional Sloane mating dance, her arms around his neck, his around her waist, so it was easy for the two of them to talk without anyone else hearing them over the music.

Toby rolled his eyes.

‘Forgot you were a nice girl from suburbia,’ he said, but in such a friendly way that Chloe didn’t take offence. ‘It was pretty bloody hilarious, I can tell you. She lay back and started screaming: “Pot me! Pot me!” So we all did. Jolly good time all round.’

As so very often with Toby, Chloe was rendered speechless. She hadn’t expected to discover that a certain section of the upper classes were so sexually uninhibited, and some of their anecdotes literally made her toes curl. Fortunately, Hugo was cut from the same cloth as her; he might be happy to dance with Minty – aka the Honourable Araminta Farquhar-Featherstonehaugh – but if she had stripped off in front of several men, stretched out on a billiards table and started doing something suggestive with a cue ball, Hugo would have shot out of the room faster than you could say: ‘Time for a nice cup of tea, I think.’

Toby, however, was Hugo’s polar opposite in the sexual mores stakes. And that was exactly the right way to put it: Toby always wanted more. More girls, more booze, more noise, more fun. To be fair, Toby did not rely on his privileged status to get laid; he exuded a natural charm and a red-blooded enthusiasm for all of life’s simple pleasures that made everyone he met want to be his friend, fuck him, or both. A tall, strapping redhead with wide shoulders, a hard body from polo-playing, and a faceful of freckles, he was like a winning combination of a Cabbage Patch Kid and Action Man.