FOR THE THIRD time that summer, Diana and Dodi returned briefly to St. Tropez. Their reunion on Wednesday evening 20 August, was joyous. He had been at Nice airport to meet her with several security personnel. They contained themselves until they were in the back seat of their car, concealed by the tinted windows. Then they kissed. And then they both started talking non-stop. It hardly seemed possible that they had been lovers for just over a month. Diana had missed him on the cruise with Rosa more than she had wanted to admit. With Dodi she felt as she had always wanted to feel with Charles, that they were a team. Paparazzi besieged them from the moment of her arrival in Nice but she refused to allow their presence to interfere with her happiness.
While they were apart Dodi had been dealing with Kelly Fisher’s lawsuit. They more or less laughed it off, convinced that his former girlfriend had no grounds for her case. He repeated his oath to Diana that he had never set a date for them to wed. For the year that they had been seeing each other, he knew he had treated her well: he had given her large sums of money, expensive gifts, and his affection. And from the mercenary tone of her press interviews and the size of the “compensation” she was seeking, it was clear that Kelly was more interested in his money than she was in him. In fact, nothing in Kelly’s actions or her public statements indicated that she had ever loved him. Her anger seemed to spring from losing a large source of income. He told Diana, as he had his father and a few close friends, that he felt betrayed. Diana certainly knew about betrayal.
That night they stayed at the cottage on his father’s beachfront estate that Diana had occupied with William and Harry. They had a private dinner—with, as she had pre-dieted to Rosa, “gobs of caviar and champagne.” The next morning they walked across the beach looking for a perfect spot to enjoy the sun. Paparazzi circled the waters and buzzed the villa and beach in helicopters. Earlier, there had been a nasty scuffle between photographers and the crew of the Jonikal, which was docked nearby and being readied for their embarkation. The press intrusion was unsettling: it presaged their continuing presence during the next few days. They tried to make light of it and ignore the telescopic lenses trained on their every move. After a picnic lunch they went jet-skiing; both of them were good at it, and they larked about, Diana “swinging her leg over Dodi’s shoulder” in a daring mood.
“Her attitude, joined by Dodi, I assume, was ‘What the hell! Give them what they want, maybe they’ll go away.’ ” one photographer said. “But I don’t think any one of us planned to do so.”
They boarded the yacht late in the afternoon and were off within moments, the paparazzi still lurking. By the time the Jonikal reached the calm waters off the coast of Sardinia, Diana and Dodi had settled into a warm, all-enveloping haze of affection. Diana called one of her friends from her mobile telephone and told her, “I think this is it” A1 Fayed claims that Dodi rang him to say that he was going to propose to Diana. “I urged him, ‘Slowly, slowly.’ ”
With each passing day on the Jonikal their relationship strengthened. They were two people sailing the seas alone. Yes, the eyes of the paparazzi were always upon them, and there were the crew and staff, but they were each other’s only companion twenty-four hours of each day. Such exclusive proximity can destroy romance as easily as it can deepen it, and Diana could not forget the anguish she had suffered sixteen years earlier on her honeymoon cruise with Charles, the tears she had shed, the pain they had brought each other because neither had understood what the other was about. This time everything was different There seemed to be nothing separating Dodi and herself, nothing too awful, or silly, or shocking that either of them could not say. They were, above all else, extremely natural with each other. Their physical union was almost tangible. A Jonikal crew member called it, “a visible oneness that was ripe with loving.”
Still, Diana did not want to be rushed, and conveyed this in her calls to friends. There was much to be considered, and above all, how a serious liaison with, or marriage to, Dodi would affect her sons.
A crew member went daily by launch into Porto Cervo to fetch the papers. The front-page insinuations about the couple were not only fictional they were ugly. Dodi had been promised £1 million by his father if they became engaged, £20 million if they were married. He was being used to a tool by al Fayed to win acceptance in Great Britain, or to spite the Royal Family and the Conservative Party—to “cock a snook” at the British establishment, as the Independent saw it
Without question, al Fayed was bitter about the prejudice he had experienced in Britain. He had recently told the New York Times: “They [the Conservative Party] say, ‘You own Harrods, you bloody Egyptian coming from Africa. How can you dare buy Harrods?’ ” They had nothing but contempt for him, he declared, although he had invested millions in the British economy and given a fortune to British charities. Admittedly, he had helped bring down John Major’s Conservative government by disclosing that Tory MPs had taken “money from him in paper bags or accepted his hospitality at the Ritz Hotel in Paris in exchange for political influence.” This revelation did nothing to increase his popularity. Nor did it help when he boasted to The Times: “I was proud because I showed the masses and I showed the voters that they were ruled by a bunch of crooks, and my message got through.”
Then Dodi’s uncle, Adnan Khashoggi, had told a Saudi Arabian newspaper, “We welcome Diana into our family.” The large Muslim community in Great Britain made their approval known. “The relationship [between the Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed] has led to an inflated sense of pride for England’s Middle Eastern and Asian communities,” Fuad Nahdi wrote, in rebuttal of the Independent‘s negative articles. “You might hate and abuse us on the high streets and in alleyways, but our boys are cruising off with your biggest catches on the high seas.”
By simply falling in love, Diana had stirred up anger between races. This was the last thing she had ever wanted to cause. She was, she believed, free from such prejudice. A significant liaison with Dodi would bring much of this wrath on her, and she had no one to advise her. Dodi assured her that such statements need not affect them. There was, after all, a large world outside Britain.
It seemed to Diana that the world no longer felt she had the right to her own life. That was something for which she was willing to fight and Dodi gave every impression of supporting her in the battle. By their fifth day at sea, the crew noticed that they had been drawn together in a deeper way. Dodi asked that the daily papers were not brought aboard. They hugged a lot and laughed a lot. “There was a great harmony between them,” one crew member recalled. “They treated each other with great caring. They were what I would call—on the same wavelength. In the entire length of the cruise, nine days, neither of them ever appeared out of sorts or bored with the other. They seemed even to come to terms with the paparazzi who were always within view. We all thought that this was surely a great love.”
At some time during the last days of the cruise, they decided to cut it short by a day and go into Paris for a romantic evening before Diana returned to London for a reunion with her sons. They planned their departure carefully from the Jonikal to avoid, if possible, the notice of the paparazzi. This involved giving the appearance that they were taking the launch into Porto Cervo for a shopping expedition.
Early on the morning of Saturday, 30 August, before the photographers arrived, the yacht’s crew loaded the launch with their luggage. Diana, travelling light as she preferred, had only two suitcases, Dodi the same. They appeared on deck mid-morning and had breakfast At about eleven thirty they went inside. A short time later, Diana now in a beige trouser suit and Dodi in all-black casual attire, got into the launch along with René Delorm, Trevor Rees-Jones, Kes Wingfield, Dodi’s masseur and Diana’s maid.
The launch headed straight for the harbour at Porto Cervo. As it drew close, it veered suddenly, and steered instead into the private jetty behind the exclusive Calla di Volpe hotel. There was always the fear, no matter how trustworthy they considered their staff, that someone might have sold information to the paparazzi. But no one lay in wait.
The party transferred into two cars: Diana, Dodi, Rees-Jones and Wingfield rode in a white Mercedes, the rest of the group in a black one, both driven by employees of al Fayed. It was general procedure for there to be a backup car. The small convoy made its way slowly around the sharply curving coastline to Sardinia’s Olbia airport, where the Harrods Gulfstream IV jet was waiting to take them to Le Bourget airport in Paris. It was now one fifteen. They were met by several dozen paparazzi, who had, after all, been advised of their plans beforehand, and decided that their final departure from the airport would present better photo opportunities than the transfer to the cars on the jetty of the Calla di Volpe hotel.
The two Mercedes pulled on to the tarmac. Rees-Jones, Wingfield and al Fayed’s security men surrounded them as they got out of their car and hurried across the field towards the plane. The paparazzi could not be kept back. Cameras flashed and questions were shouted: “Hey, Dodi! What about Kelly Fisher?” And to Diana: “Do your sons approve?” Diana kept her head down. She reached the metal steps of the plane first and was rushed up them, ducking as she disappeared inside. Dodi paused for a moment to talk to the security force, then followed her.
They now knew for certain that the paparazzi would be waiting for them in Paris. Dodi was trying to work out some arrangement that would give them the best protection. Of all the paparazzi, Diana feared the Paris pack the most They were a ruthless, wild bunch, who in chase sat astride their motorcycles with fearsome tenacity as they cut in and out of traffic, often blinding her driver with their electronic flashes and terrifying her. Now she realized how lucky they had been in their last visit to Paris to have been free of them even for a short time.
Their plane took off at one forty-five. The sky was a brilliant blue, soft clouds drifting across it There was no point in fretting over how the paparazzi had found out about their departure. The immediate concern was to protect Diana from over-zealous Paris pressmen. Rees-Jones and Wingfield suggested that they reroute the plane to London, a manoeuvre that would not be expected by the British press and should guarantee at least some respite from photographers and reporters. But Diana and Dodi were determined that they would not allow their lives to be run, or their plans ruined, by the press.
Unknown to Diana, Dodi had made special arrangements in Paris. There was the diamond ring that would be ready at Repossi’s, and at his apartment there was a silver plaque engraved with a special poem. René Delorm would have chilled champagne waiting for them and it would be there, when they were finally alone, that he would give her the ring (resized to fit her third finger on her left hand), and, despite his father’s warning, propose. Arrangements had also been made for them to revisit the Duke of Windsor’s villa, where they would meet an Italian interior designer.
Diana had not been averse to the idea of their living together. Occupancy of the Windsor villa had been discussed and Dodi was aware of the inherent problems in this: comparisons would inevitably be made with Windsor’s exile from Britain. And the connection between the mansion and this sad chapter in the history of the monarchy might prevent Diana being happy there. However, there were good reasons why they should consider it. Dodi’s father had offered it as a gift. It was private and had protective walls. His current apartment would not be suitable to the needs of William, Harry and their bodyguards when they visited. The Windsor villa had numerous private suites, and well-protected, vast and beautiful gardens where a swimming-pool and a tennis court could be installed. Diana was open to the possibility of it as a second home, but she would not consider giving up her apartments in Kensington Palace.
The plane touched down at Le Bourget at ten past three. From the windows of the jet they could see the paparazzi, telephoto lenses poised. Dodi placed his arm around Diana’s waist as they stood up, and Diana giggled—she often did when she was nervous. It was a habit she had had since childhood. Rees-Jones was the first to disembark with Diana directly behind him and airport security staff on each side of her. Kes Wingfield followed with Dodi and more airport security staff.
Diana followed Rees-Jones down the stairs. A breeze blew wisps of her blonde hair across her face as she stepped out into the bright sunshine. She brushed them back and took a deep breath. At the bottom of the steps, amid shouts of “Are you going to marry him?” Diana was rushed across the tarmac towards a Mercedes Benz 600 with tinted windows. The rear door was held open by Philippe Dourneau, Dodi’s chauffeur.
The paparazzi were still crowding them as Dodi slipped into the back seat beside Diana. Rees-Jones sat in the front with Dourneau. Directly behind them were Kes Wingfield and the rest of their party in Dodi’s Range-Rover, being driven by Henri Paul, acting security chief of the Ritz, who often drove VIPs when extra security was required. He was armed, as were Rees-Jones and Wingfield. The two cars were escorted by the French police to the A1 autoroute then left to continue alone. In just a few minutes paparazzi on motorcycles and in cars were following. At one point, Dourneau was almost blinded by the flashes of cameras held close to the window of the car as several photographers whipped up beside him at a furious speed.
Diana let out a small cry of mingled disappointment and fear. Dourneau did not attempt to out-distance them, but kept the speed of the car at the legal limit Henri Paul, in the Range-Rover, followed his lead. Having got their photographs, the motorcycle jockeys fell back behind both cars and were finally lost when Dourneau made a sudden turn into the Porte Maillot exit Paul continuing in accordance with the prearranged plan. The Mercedes was headed for the Windsor villa, the Range-Rover for Dodi’s apartment
The Mercedes pulled into the driveway of the villa, the gates closing after it With the fullness of the summer foliage, it could not be seen from the road. Dourneau had outwitted the paparazzi.
They were met inside by the interior designer who had worked on numerous projects for al Fayed. The crates now were gone, the rooms almost entirely empty, the floors—some in beautiful parquet others of stone or marble—were bare. Despite the heat of the August afternoon the villa was cool. Many of the ground-floor rooms had French windows that led to the rear and side gardens, shaded by magnificent wide-branched trees. To convert the place into the kind of home where Diana and the boys could feel comfortable would take considerable work, but it could be done with enough money, time, and the right furniture and fabrics. Dodi was enthusiastic, pointing out all the advantages, the large, pleasant quarters the boys could share, the privacy that the house and gardens offered. They visited the Duke’s former suite, lingering there for a while as Diana talked to the designer. Then they went out into the gardens.
Flowers had always been Diana’s weakness. Wherever she was, her rooms were always filled with them. Although she did not have private gardens at Kensington Palace, she had installed a greenhouse on the roof and her apartments overlooked the adjoining park and its lush environs. She had felt “locked out” of the gardens at Highgrove, which Charles had appropriated as his own domain. The villa’s grounds and gardens, with their lovely pathways and colourful displays, appealed to Diana. The property must have been a welcomed sanctuary for the Windsors, yet sad and lonely for the Duchess after the Duke’s death. It was not a house that lent itself to a solitary life. Everything was on too grand a scale, and if she was without the boys, or if things did not work out with Dodi, the place would be overwhelming. There had been numerous published pictures of the Windsors with their four pugs ridiculously dressed in wing collars and bow-ties scooting about in the gardens. As the keeshonds had been her mother’s dogs when she was a child, and the Jack Russells during their marriage Charles’s, Diana had never had a dog of her own and had once mentioned that to Dodi, who was an animal lover.
Dodi had three dogs. Due to British quarantine laws he kept them at his Paris apartment. They were Bear, a German shepherd, Shoe, a miniature schnauzer, and Romeo, a standard schnauzer. Diana had fallen in love with Romeo, the most affectionate of the three. She did not know it but when Dodi had been in California to try to settle the Kelly Fisher problem, he had contacted the kennel Romeo had come from and ordered a female. He had been told that it would be several months before a puppy could be delivered. Dodi was happy with that: it seemed an ideal Christmas gift for Diana, and he had decided to call the dog Juliet.
Diana and Dodi wandered around the gardens of the Windsor villa, then sat down on a stone bench to talk. It was after four o’clock. Shadows were beginning to creep across the garden. Dodi put his arm around Diana’s shoulder as Rees-Jones came out to tell them that the Range-Rover had arrived with Henri Paul and Kes Wingfield. The lovers lingered a few more minutes and left forty minutes after they had arrived. A decision on their occupancy of the house appears not to have been final, and as the lease belonged to al Fayed, his would be the last word, although there seemed to be little doubt but that she could have stayed at the villa if she chose.
When Diana stepped out of the car at the Ritz, a photographer jumped into her path. A security guard quickly intervened. There were shouts, which ended in a broken camera and punches between the photographer and a security guard. Claude Roulet, the manager of the Ritz, greeted her party as they came in, and they were led up the grand front staircase to the first floor to the Imperial Suite, the one she had occupied before. Diana was looking particularly lovely, her smooth, bronzed skin a striking contrast with her blonde hair. She and Dodi were about the same height, but her long legs and marvellous posture made her seem taller.
One of the true queens of Paris hotels, the Ritz was set like a jewel in the Place Vendôme, which had been originally planned by the controller of buildings under King Louis XIV as a huge octagonal area to surround a statue of the Sun King. The enterprise had proved too costly and was relinquished to rich bankers and merchants with élite salesrooms for jewels, furs, perfumes and extravagant fancies. The Place, and the Cour Vendôme that led off it, still had some of the most elegant shopping in Paris, and Diana had hoped she might have a chance to purchase gifts for Harry’s thirteenth birthday on 15 September, and additional presents for William and close friends. The suite overlooked the front of the hotel where she could see the crowds of onlookers and paparazzi. A shopping trip was impossible. Instead, she made out a detailed list of what she wanted and for whom it was to be bought, and a Ritz employee was sent out to do the shopping for her, with instructions to have each package labelled and gift-wrapped.
Once they were settled, Diana went down to the beauty salon on the lower level for a manicure and pedicure and to have her hairwashed and blow-dried. Dodi made a number of telephone calls, one to a cousin, Hussein Yassin, to whom he confided that he was going to propose to Diana that night. A short while later, he left with Rees-Jones to go to the jeweller’s. The ring was ready, the centre stone brilliant Dodi asked to look at others. He chose one, a large emerald-cut diamond with sapphires. “He told me he was very much in love with the Princess,” Alberto Repossi recalled. “He said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.”
Dodi left both rings at the shop so that the jeweller could arrange to invoice him for whichever one he chose. His father had already agreed to underwrite the cost, roughly $205,400 for whichever ring was selected. Both men’s love of giving lavish gifts of jewellery was well known, and Repossi hoped Dodi might decide to take both. However, when they were later brought to the Ritz, Dodi went with his and Diana’s first choice, the “Tell Me Yes” ring, mainly because he had realized that the other might be too close in design to her engagement ring from Charles—and the one Dodi had given Kelly Fisher.
He kept the ring in its box inside the small leather case he carried with him to hold his spectacles, money and credit cards. He was going to wait until they were back at his apartment for the night before giving it to Diana. When Diana returned to the suite she also made phone calls, first to the boys, who were still fishing with their father in Scotland, and then to Richard Kay of Britain’s Daily Mail, one of her few press confidants. She often called Kay when she was about to break a story. This time she told him, “I’ve decided to radically change my life,” adding that “she was going to complete her obligations to her charities and to the anti-landmines cause and then, around November, would completely withdraw from public life.” She sounded to Kay happier than he had ever heard her before. “I cannot say for certain that they would have married, but in my view it was likely.”
Dodi wanted to go back to his apartment to change for dinner. They left the hotel by the rear door at seven o’clock in the black Mercedes 600, with Philippe Dourneau behind the wheel. Henri Paul had gone home for the day, and a second driver, Jean-François Musa, followed in the Range-Rover with Wingfield and Rees-Jones.
A gaggle of paparazzi waited for them in front of the apartment block. Rees-Jones, Wingfield and two security men flanked the couple to get them safely to the door and into the lobby. The photographers, who had been fighting for pictures all day, were in no mood to be pushed aside. One narrowly missed hitting Diana as he thrust his camera into her face. A security guard knocked it out of his hand. “It will be too bad for the Fayeds,” the man shouted. “If you don’t let us work we’ll tell everybody they’re scum!”
Diana was shaken and Dodi furious when they were finally safe inside his apartment
They were greeted effusively by the dogs and after a few minutes Dodi went into his bedroom to change while Diana unpacked some carrier bags that had been delivered earlier. They contained the presents the personal shopper from the hotel had bought. They were gift-wrapped, their contents marked in pencil on the outside. She spread them out on the marble cocktail table in the sitting room and carefully wrote the initials of the recipient-to-be on each gift. Then she put the packages back into the bags and went into one of the marble bathrooms to freshen her makeup. Dodi had placed a large bottle of Diorissimo, her favourite perfume, on the vanity unit, along with a vase of pink roses.
René Delorm recalled that while Diana was in another part of the apartment Dodi slipped into the kitchen. “ ‘René,’ he said, ‘make sure we have champagne on ice.’ A few minutes later, he returned. ‘I’m going to propose to her tonight,’ he whispered, a big smile on his face.”
They had a nine thirty reservation at Benoît, a bistro on the rue Saint-Martin, chosen because the food was good, the atmosphere casual, and neither would have to dress. Diana wore a black linen blazer over a black shell top and white jeans, with pearl stud earrings, while Dodi was in a tobacco-coloured shirt, open at the neck, blue jeans and cowboy boots.
At Benoît a table had been set apart for them to ensure privacy. Kes Wingfield, Trevor Rees-Jones and Claude Roulet would be seated nearby. There was a frightening moment when they were rushed by photographers as they were about to get into their car, driven as usual by Dourneau, but the numbers had thinned out and the most threatening had left However, as they approached Benoit they could see paparazzi waiting for their arrival. Someone, either in the restaurant or on the hotel switchboard, had revealed their plans. Dodi suggested that they turn back and eat at the hotel and Diana agreed.
They returned to the Ritz at 9:47 P.M. Paparazzi were lined up on the kerb, along with a number of tourists and the plain curious. Diana often worried that one day one of these innocent bystanders would get injured if they got in the way of the paparazzi.
It was several minutes after they arrived at the Ritz before Diana and Dodi could even get out of the car. Security finally forced back the photographers and the couple, looking glum, made their way through the revolving doors and into the lobby. Arrangements had been made for them to dine at a quiet table at L’Espadon, the elegant two-star Michelin restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel. Diana looked as though she were about to cry. Kes Wingfield suggested she sit down. They lingered for a few minutes in the famous bar behind the restaurant where, in the twenties, expatriate Americans like Cole Porter, Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Louis Bromfield would meet their friends and hang out until late into the night. During the war the Germans had occupied the Ritz, but it was at this bar that General Leclerc had raised a toast in celebration of their departure.
Arrangements were now being made for another driver to take them later to Dodi’s apartment. Dourneau would drive the Range-Rover as a decoy, leaving from the front of the hotel. When they were ready, Dodi and Diana would depart from the rear in a leased Mercedes driven by Henri Paul, who had been called back on duty but had not yet arrived. Neither Rees-Jones nor Wingfield thought it was a good idea to separate the vehicles, but Dodi was insistent and the two men, as employees, had to agree.
It was after ten o’clock when Diana and Dodi entered the dining room and were shown to a deep-rose-coloured leather banquette. The room is decorated in neo-Louis XVI Baroque style, and was warm and inviting. There were pink rosebuds on the table. The far wall of the large room was glass and looked on to a garden, romantically lit. Palm fronds divided the banquettes.
Dodi ordered a bottle of Taittinger champagne, his favourite, and grilled turbot; Diana an asparagus and mushroom omelette, to be followed by Dover sole and vegetable tempura. Since the divorce her bulimia had disappeared. She no longer had a problem with eating. The sommelier was opening the champagne when Dodi glanced at a table in their direct line of vision. A man was reaching for something from a plastic bag at his feet. Dodi rose immediately, turning his back to the man and shielding Diana. “I think he has a camera,” he told her, then requested that their dinner be served to them in the Imperial Suite. Diana rose and, eyes straight ahead, walked with him back through the dining room, across the lobby and up the grand staircase to their suite.
Two waiters brought up trays with their dinner. A fresh bottle of chilled champagne was opened, then Dodi asked them to leave. They were alone for most of the next two hours. Dodi was getting up his courage to propose, but he still preferred to wait until they were back at his apartment where the silver plaque with its loving message had already been placed beneath her pillows on the king-sized bed. Diana was upset because this evening wasn’t the romantic one they had wanted, but she suspected Dodi would propose to her before it had ended. Although she had told others during the early days of their cruise that she had no intention of marrying anyone at the present time, her actions on this particular day indicate she was at least considering the possibility.
Mohamed al Fayed claims that Dodi called him around midnight and did not say anything about having proposed. He did tell his father that he and Diana were about to leave the Ritz for his apartment. About thirty paparazzi were still out front, he explained, along with a large crowd of a hundred or more sightseers, and he told his father of the plan he had devised to bypass them.
Its success rested on the premise that if the Range-Rover departed with a bodyguard, the paparazzi would believe that he and Diana had decided to spend the night at the Ritz. His father disliked the idea. “Don’t go. Why not stay the night at the hotel?” he asked.
“We can’t, Moomoo [his pet name for his father]. We leave in the morning and all our things are at the apartment,” Dodi countered.
“Why split up the bodyguards?” al Fayed questioned.
“The car is not that big,” Dodi replied. The second bodyguard could easily have sat in the back of the Mercedes with them, but Dodi wanted to be alone with Diana.
“Just be careful,” his father warned him. “Don’t step on it There’s no hurry. Wait until you see the atmosphere is perfect get in your car and go away. Don’t hide, it’s unnecessary. You have security with you. Let them shoot [their pictures].”
About fifteen minutes later, Dodi called security to alert them that they were on their way downstairs to the rear exit He had his arm around Diana’s waist, while Rees-Jones and Wingfield walked one in front and one behind them as they made their way down the first-floor hallway with its regal French blue carpet embossed with the Ritz seal, to the back service stairway. Wingfield recalled that Diana was fearful for the safety of the paparazzi on their motorcycles but Dodi told her not to worry. She was smiling by the time they reached the rear entrance. They stood together in the service vestibule with its black and white tiled floor and windows looking out on a grimy alley.
It was only a few moments before Henri Paul pulled the leased Mercedes near to the rear service door, emerged from the car and came inside to report that the paparazzi had not been outwitted: about thirty stood across the alley. However, he was certain that he would lose them quickly: there was not much traffic at this time of night and they could probably make good time by heading down the Champs Élysées. But if they took that route the paparazzi could pull their motorcycles alongside the car and shoot through the windows. He suggested that instead they go via the Express and through the Alma tunnel, as they had earlier in the day. That way they would not take the chance of being stopped in traffic, surrounded by paparazzi. Dodi agreed. It was already nineteen minutes past midnight and he was anxious that they reach the apartment soon: Diana was exhausted from the day’s experiences.
Neither Wingfield nor Rees-Jones saw anything unusual about Henri Paul’s appearance. He was a volatile man, moved quickly, was very confident. He stepped out of the door first, followed by Rees-Jones then Diana. Instantly cameras whirred and flashed. “Where to? Where to?” shouted a paparazzo. There was a small construction barrier next to the rear entrance and Diana walked round it to the parked Mercedes. Dodi was right behind her. Rees-Jones hurried to open the rear door of the vehicle. Diana ducked inside and slid over as Dodi joined her. He was sitting behind the driver and she behind Rees-Jones in the right front passenger seat. Wingfield and Dourneau had gone round to where the Range-Rover was still parked. They would take the alternative route.
Henri Paul revved the engine of the Mercedes as he shouted to the paparazzi through an open window. No one seems sure what he said, but his voice was taunting. Then he closed the window and headed forward towards the Place de la Concorde, the Express and the Alma tunnel.