Catwalk Criminal (17 page)

“So use me. Let me see if I can dig up anything.”

Nathan's eyes narrowed as he weighed up her offer. “Agent Hatfield must never know. This has to be completely off the books until we manage to turn up something concrete.”

“Of course. As far as she's concerned, I'm just Ossa Cosway's muse, but I'll be quietly picking up clues along the way. Talking of which, I have this.” She delved into her back pocket and pulled out the bag containing threads she'd taken from the warehouse. “I held off giving this to Rodarte. I was trying to think of a way to get it to MI6 so you could compare these samples against the thread I found at Henry Murray's boarding house.”

“Smart move. I'll get this over to forensics and see if they've got an early readout from the evidence at the school. You're friendly with Lucas over there, aren't you?”

“Yeah. I spent a few days shadowing him during my training. He's cool. Why?”

“He was asking about you the other day. He doesn't know you've been suspended. I'll tell him to copy you in on the results since you found both leads. He'll do as he's told and keep Agent Hatfield out of the loop, without asking questions.”

“Brilliant.” This was a good start. Hopefully she'd managed to salvage something from the warehouse that was helpful to Westwood; Rodarte didn't have a sniff about this clue. She hadn't mentioned it to Zak earlier.

She sank back in the seat and closed her eyes. She couldn't waste this chance. Westwood had to fight back. Failure was not an option.

“Keep still, please. This won't take much longer.” Christine Cooper spoke through a mouthful of pins. The head dressmaker knelt at Jessica's feet, doing some last-minute adjustments to the shimmering gold evening gown. It featured intricate beading and gold embroidery around the cleavage and hem, which had come undone. A few threads hung loose and needed tidying up.

Nathan was right; the Ossa Cosway show was going ahead at London Fashion Week. The issuing of Ossa's arrest warrant hadn't been made public; Westwood and Rodarte didn't want to prematurely alert hackers across the UK and the States that they were rapidly closing in on them. Miranda Heartley, chief executive of Ossa Cosway Ltd, was only too happy to keep quiet about the impending scandal. She'd been cleared of involvement in The Collective, after remote checks on her home computers, iPads and phones. But she couldn't shed any light on the designer's whereabouts. Nathan had said she was terrified about the allegations around Ossa being made public and had agreed to all of MI6's demands, including signing the Official Secrets Act to prevent her from discussing the investigation with anyone else. She'd also given full access to company documents.

The secret clampdown meant that agents had been able to seal off the designer's HQ before employees arrived for work, blaming an investigation by the fire brigade into possible faulty electrical wiring, which they claimed was also behind the warehouse blaze. It enabled agents to forensically examine the computers at the scene without removing them, and check through all the paper personnel files for links to The Collective. Miranda was allowed to make a public statement, announcing that the runway show had been unaffected by the warehouse blaze; most of the couture collection was being stored at another site owned by Ossa Cosway Ltd in West London. Only one jacket, which was undergoing further work, had been destroyed in the fire. In agreement with MI6, Miranda had moved their main London office to this temporary base. It was where Jessica and the rest of the Ossa team had been redirected by email and text early this morning. Others steadily drifted in after failing to get the message and reading the sign on the door of the closed HQ.

“Sorry I'm late. The traffic was unbelievable.” A young man wearing biker shorts and a helmet strode across the room towards them.

“Don't worry, Mark.” Christine flashed him a quick smile. “It's been a funny old morning for everyone. I don't think you'll be the last of the stragglers. We're still missing a few of our team, including Ossa. He's not coming in today or tomorrow.”

“Seriously?” Mark mopped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “He's going to miss his own show? Is he gravely ill or even dead? Those are the only possible explanations I can think of.”

Christine continued to stitch the hem of Jessica's dress. “I've no idea what's going on. We're always the last to know. Miranda's not saying a word. She told me to step into Ossa's shoes and do absolutely everything to ensure the show's a huge success tomorrow.”

“No pressure, then!” Mark replied.

Jessica opened her mouth to speak, but the junior dressmaker was getting into his stride.

“I swear something fishy's going on. Ossa's gone AWOL at the same time that our HQ's been closed due to faulty wiring.” Mark removed his cycling helmet. “I didn't see any fire engines outside the building when I swung by this morning, just lots of guys in suits. It's suspicious, don't you think?”

“They're probably from the health and safety executive,” Jessica said quickly. “I mean, I guess they're the sort of people who'd be involved in something like this, aren't they?”

“Hmm.” Mark sniffed. “It still seems odd to me. Why would the fire brigade assume that the same wiring was used at the warehouse that burnt down and at our HQ? Seems like a big leap to me. I didn't believe the note on the door at all.”

That was a good spot, which Nathan may not have anticipated. He'd only had a few hours to come up with a plausible cover story. Had anyone else at Ossa Cosway Ltd begun to smell a rat?

“Oh no,” Christine said, laughing. “Are we about to hear another one of your mad conspiracy theories? Which one is it today?”

“Laugh all you want,” Mark replied. “But I'm telling you, Ossa Cosway's got a secret life.”

Jessica's ears immediately pricked up. “What do you mean?”

Mark dropped his voice. “I think he's some kind of weird time traveller. Either that, or he's a really good magician.”

Now that
was
a mad conspiracy theory. For a moment, she thought Mark might come out with something interesting.

Christine rolled her eyes.

“I'm telling you, Ossa's some kind of illusionist,” protested Mark.

“Why? Can he make spoons disappear?” Jessica asked.

“Ha ha. Not that. But he can stop time.”

“For goodness' sake, stop with this nonsense,” Christine said abruptly. She stood up, dropping her box of pins, and jerked her head across the room. “Those dresses aren't going to steam iron themselves.”

Mark jumped at her abrasive tone. Red-faced, he bent down to help pick up the multicoloured pins.

“What are you talking about?”

Christine tutted loudly. “Don't encourage him, Jessica!”

Mark stood up, clutching a handful of pins. “I've noticed it for a while now, particularly since we started work on this ready-to-wear collection a few months back. It's as if time stands still when you're around Ossa. I double-check my watch and mobile when I arrive at work and they're exactly on time. Yet when I leave at the end of the day, I've always lost at least five minutes, maybe ten, on both. That's if my phone's still working. Often the battery's completely drained even though I've charged it that morning.”

“That
is
strange,” Jessica said. “I wonder—”

“It really isn't odd,” Christine interrupted. “It means that Mark's a cheapskate and needs to buy a new watch and phone.” She fixed him with a cool, hard stare. “Can you start to do some work? I don't think it's asking too much when we've got a major runway show tomorrow afternoon.”

“Right away,” he said stiffly.

“Good.” Christine frowned, suddenly distracted. “What are you doing with that dress, Amanda? Leave that flower alone!”

The spikey-haired twenty-something blonde jumped guiltily. She clutched an exquisitely beaded white chiffon gown, studded with large gold embroidered flowers, from the rail. It was the showstopper dress that Jessica was scheduled to wear to close the runway show. She hadn't had a fitting for it yet. That was next up after Christine had finished altering the hem of this dress.

Amanda stared at the flower. It was a theme of the show, featuring in different shapes and sizes across the collection. “Something … something's wrong with this.” The junior dressmaker picked at it with her index finger. “It's not right. I mean it's not lying on the fabric as it should, and I've noticed there's…”

“Put it back on the rack!” Christine stormed towards her, bracelets jangling and eyes sparking with anger. “You don't get to touch that dress unless I tell you. Do you understand? Have you any idea how long it took me to individually embroider hundreds of flowers? I won't have them ripped off by some idiot who's fresh out of college and has no idea what they're doing. Now back off!”

Amanda's bottom lip quivered as she choked back tears. Christine's reaction was totally over the top; everyone else in the room clearly thought so too. The other dressmakers and models stared, wide-eyed, and then quickly turned away. They didn't want to get caught in the crossfire. Within seconds, the temperature of the room felt like it had dropped by a degree or two.

“Is Christine usually that fiery?” Jessica whispered. She meant “bad-tempered”, but figured it was best to be careful. She didn't know how close a relationship Mark had with her.

“She's a creative, like Ossa, and expects things to be perfect,” he replied equally carefully. “If things aren't perfect, she gets slightly irritated.”

Mark was talking in code too. Christine had a nasty temper. Jessica remembered the argument between the dressmaker and Ossa at the
Teen Vogue
shoot; that clearly hadn't been a one-off. Back then, she'd assumed that Ossa was being unreasonable, but was it the other way round?

“I guess Christine's stressed out,” Mark said hastily. “Miranda will blame her if the show isn't its usual huge success.
Vogue
magazine editors from Italy, America, Paris, Brazil and Russia will be flying in specially. From what I've heard on the grapevine, there will be other important guests in the front row too. It'll be a disaster for the brand if it goes badly.”

“Of course,” she said, straightening her dress. She could see why Ossa's no-show had become a big problem for Christine, but was it necessary to reduce a member of her team to tears?

“It wasn't only me,” Mark said suddenly.

“What?” Jessica's eyes followed Amanda across the room as she sneaked off, teary-eyed. Presumably, she was going to compose herself in the toilets. Christine stood at the clothes rail, examining the gown.

“You know, what I was saying about time stopping. Christine thinks I'm barking mad. But believe me, I've asked around and it's happened to other people; their watches always slowed down and their mobile phone batteries ran flat back at HQ. I guess it'll be OK today since Ossa's not here.”

“I believe you. I don't think you're mad, by the way.”

“Thanks. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that maybe Ossa found a way to mess with our watches. That way he squeezed an extra five or ten minutes' work out of us each day.” He winked at her. “It's all smoke and mirrors in fashion.”

He picked up an iron, saluted Jessica with it, and waltzed a bemused male dressmaker over to another rail of dresses, a safe distance away from their boss.

OK, so she took that back. Mark was a
tiny
bit mad. She pursed her lips as two more latecomers slipped into the room. Zak was clad in biker leathers, clutching his rucksack and chatting to a smitten-looking Bree. Great. Her nemesis had also been picked for the Ossa Cosway show. Bree looked horrified when she caught a glimpse of Jessica in a mirror. She studiously avoided making eye contact as she scooted off towards the changing area. Did she fear a public showdown?

Jessica waited until Zak had finished greeting almost
every
woman in the room with a kiss on either cheek before she walked up behind him and tapped his shoulder.

“Jessica!” Zak's eyes lit up as he spun around. “I hoped I'd have chance to catch up with you here.”

“So you could show off about being Superman who rescued little old me, Lois Lane? You really are a piece of work.”

Zak's face flushed. “Let's talk over here,
Lois
.” He steered her into the corner of the room, watched by one of the pretty, young dressmakers.

“I know what you're thinking,” he said quietly.

“I seriously doubt that,” Jessica retorted. “You've got some nerve swanning in here, pretending nothing's wrong.” She glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “You lied in your briefing. I had to convince you to stay in the warehouse last night. If you'd had your way, we'd have left straight away and never discovered the connection to Ossa. You totally dissed my theory about his clothes right from the start. You never saw the importance of Helen Hamlyn's raincoat.”

Zak took a deep breath and held up his hands. “I admit I bent the truth a little bit.”

“A little bit?”

Zak's cheeks were aflame. “Look, I'm sorry. OK? I didn't set out to stitch you up, honestly I didn't.”

“So why didn't you tell Rodarte that it was my hunch? Or at least say we came up with it together?”

“Because I didn't think it was a big deal.”

“Yeah, right.” She folded her arms. “Not to you. God, you're selfish. You were looking out for number one as usual.”

Zak opened his mouth. He looked as if he was about to say something, but changed his mind. “You're right. I apologize. I needed this hit.”

“What do you mean?”

“My bosses have been breathing down my neck ever since I suggested you come on board. They thought it was too risky after you were suspended from Westwood. They'd started to question my judgement, particularly after Margaret's jail breakout. I needed a success after I'd taken such a punt on you.”

Jessica paused. She hadn't considered the risk Zak was taking with his own career by fighting her corner. “I guess I can see that. To a certain extent, anyway.”

Zak's cheeks flushed to a deep crimson colour as the penny dropped. “I was selfish. I was thinking about saving my own career with Rodarte. I forgot what a hit could mean for your reinstatement into Westwood.”