HER BEDROOM is not especially large or elaborately furnished. Simple white bookshelves line the walls. On the desk is a computer surrounded by photos of her beloved pony, Arco, the family's golden labrador, Nicky, and pictures of the Spice Girls. Outside on the veranda she keeps pet rabbits. Together with her half-brother and two half-sisters, Athina Roussel, the richest girl in the world, attends a state school.
She used to take the school bus and enjoy roller-blading with her friends in the village. Now she is chauffeured everywhere in an armour-plated Mercedes-Benz, with loudspeakers built into the front panels so there is no need to lower the windows to communicate with the outside world. The car is constantly tailed by seven ex-SAS commandos, who also turn down her bed covers and check under her bed every night before she gets ready to go to sleep.
There has been talk of kidnapping and assassination attempts, which has left the 13-year-old heiress to the Onassis fortune nervous and depressed. In photographs she is often seen to be frowning, and she clings to her father's arm when she appears with him in public. 'She knows what is going on. She reads the newspapers,' says her father, Thierry Roussel.
Since the death of her mother, Christina Onassis, 10 years ago, Athina has been raised by Roussel, Christina's fourth husband. He says he has tried to give her a modest, down-to-earth upbringing. The family lives in a stuccoed bungalow on the outskirts of a small Swiss village. 'For Athina it is very important to have the big support of the family and parents. My children are very close, all of them, and that is the best support they can have in life,' Roussel says.
But the heiress' upbringing is the focus of intense acrimony between her father and the four other trustees of her estate. For the past four years, Roussel has been locked in a power struggle with the Greek trustees - known as the 'greybeards' because of their collective longevity - over control of his daughter's fortune. Both sides have launched a blizzard of allegations, ranging from mismanagement and defamation to blackmail and even attempted kidnapping.
ATHINA WAS just three when her mother was found dead at 37, in the bath at a friend's villa in Buenos Aires in 1988. While the autopsy concluded the cause of death was acute pulmonary oedema, it was widely believed she had suffered a heart attack due to overuse of slimming medication. Christina Onassis' battle with her weight was an outward sign of her inner turmoil.
As a child, she had been neglected by her mother, Athina Livanos, a beautiful socialite who was said to have been bemused at having produced such an 'ugly duckling'. Christina was shuttled between hotel suites and homes in Paris, Switzerland, New York and London, in the care of nannies, while her father, Aristotle Onassis, concentrated on empire-building and groomed her elder brother, Alexander, as his heir.