‘When the time is right I’ll go after Dill Lawry and VictoryPlus in the courts. He was on my board. While I’ve been away from Tasmania and can’t go back, he’s made fraudulent moves to take over my companies.’ He paused and added, ‘Lawry’s day of reckoning will come.’

They paused to observe two mature women, both wearing dated fur coats, sit at a nearby table. Haut suddenly brightened and asked, ‘Why don’t you come to a fashion show this week?’

‘What show?’

‘Handbags.’

‘Oh, Al, I didn’t know you were into them.’

Haut smiled. ‘Natalia and Catherine will be modelling them. You’ll get to meet the giant Marilyn Monroe replica.’

49 HANDBAG OPENING

49

HANDBAG OPENING

The show was held in a room at the Chelsea Old Town Hall on the King’s Road a few hundred metres from the arts club at which Cavalier was staying. He arrived minutes before the parade began and was introduced to blue-eyed Catherine, in high heels, who towered over everyone. She was preoccupied with the modelling job at hand, not having done it before. Both she and Natalia were striking, partly because of their height. Catherine wore a black, backless dress, while Natalia was in white with a similar show of her back, but with a slimmer figure.

Eight women of different shapes and sizes walked around the catwalk to show the audience that every woman could own a French-designed, Serenity label bag accoutrement. There was an upmarket female audience of about a hundred, including many French ex-pats. All drooled over the one-off display of handmade, top-drawer bags. They gasped, clapped and cheered the items.

Haut leant across to Cavalier as Catherine floated up near them, stopped and posed for photos and videos. She had an outsized navy blue bag.

‘I think that would suit you,’ Haut whispered.

‘The woman or the bag?’ Cavalier asked.

‘Both.’

After the show the guests mingled, and became more convivial as the champagne flowed and the tasty finger food of Russian caviar and French cheese were consumed. Cavalier hung back, observing. After half an hour, he made light conversation with Catherine.

‘I’d love to have the handbag I displayed,’ she said with a mock swoon.

‘I did like the design and colour,’ Cavalier agreed. ‘It was big enough to put manuscripts in too.’

‘I adore it. I am told it will be the first prize in the raffle. I am going to buy ten tickets worth! Fifty pounds!’

‘How much is it worth? Or should I ask, how much is it being sold for?’

‘Fifteen thousand pounds!’

‘I’m in the wrong business,’ he mumbled.

Catherine laughed. The champagne, her first ever catwalk performance and dreams of possessing the bag had excited her. Cavalier moved discreetly to the raffle seller and bought twenty tickets.