Not Dead Yet

by Peter James

  One floor above Smallbone, in the imposing, eau-de-nil, deep-carpeted sitting room of the Presidential Suite, Roy Grace, who was never normally star-struck, had to pinch himself. He was sitting on a sofa next to Gaia! And she was nice – she was warm, friendly and funny, not at all the diva he had been anticipating; but her presence was mesmerizing.

  She was dressed in a man’s shirt, white with the sleeves rolled up, ripped blue jeans and black suede ankle boots with buckles similar to a pair that Cleo had, except these looked more expensive. Her blonde hair had the freshness of someone who has just stepped out of the hairdresser’s salon, and her face looked closer to thirty than the thirty-seven years she was carrying; she had a radiant complexion and not a single wrinkle. She was far more gorgeous in the flesh than in her photographs. And she smelled of an amazingly sexy, musky scent.

  Glenn Branson would have killed to have been here, he thought, trying to avoid staring at her too much. But that was hard, especially with several top buttons of her shirt undone, revealing an erotic glimpse of her cleavage.

  Lying on his tummy on the carpet, a short distance away from them and absorbed in an electronic game, was her son Roan, in jeans, a yellow T-shirt and sneakers, his hair awry.

  ‘Presidential Suite’ was a fitting name for this collection of rooms, he thought, sneaking another surreptitious glance at her. They were traditionally furnished in a sumptuous but traditional Regency style and had a regal air about them. Also seated with them in the room were two of Gaia’s power-dressed female personal assistants, and her security chief Andrew Gulli, a dry, serious man, dressed in a business suit, white shirt and sombre tie. The police officers present were Chief Superintendent Graham Barrington, who was in uniform, DI Jason Tingley who was running the security operation for Brighton and Hove, and Greg Worsley from the Close Protection Unit, like Tingley wearing a suit and tie. All three of them seemed a little star-struck, Grace thought, like himself.

  Outside on the landing, two of Gaia’s man-mountain bodyguards stood sentry, and two other pairs covered each of the two fire escape doors from the five-room suite. In here, she was as safe as in Fort Knox.

  And that was the problem.

  All the time she was in here, they could keep her safe. But she had made it very clear she did not want to be a prisoner – she wanted to go jogging early morning every day, and more importantly to her, she did not want her son being brought up in a cocoon. She insisted on being able to take him to the beach, walk around the city freely with him, take him to a pizza place, or anywhere else he fancied.

  It would have been a problem to protect a star of her calibre under normal circumstances, Grace knew, and these were far from normal. Someone had tried to kill her, and the perpetrator was still at large. That person could be here in this city right now. For all he knew, he – or possibly she – could even be in this hotel. The Threat Management Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department, who had been in close contact with Graham Barrington, were deeply concerned.

  At least the Chief Constable, Tom Martinson, had had the good sense to throw the rule book – which restricted armed protection to royalty and diplomats – out of the window and sanction round-the-clock Armed Response Unit officers to protect her, provided the total cost did not fall on budget-restricted Sussex Police. Two of them had shadowed her car down from Heathrow Airport, and another two, in plain clothes, were in the hotel lobby. Close protection of this kind was expensive, but as Martinson had reasoned, the alternative, of something happening to Gaia while here in this city, would in the long term be far more expensive in terms of damage done to the city’s image, and the fear it would instil in every potential visitor.

  That Gaia was receiving this level of protection gave Roy Grace some comfort, but not enough. The Chief Constable had made it clear to him that, because of the attempt on her life and the homicide that had resulted, ultimate responsibility for Gaia’s safety while in Brighton rested on his shoulders. But he insisted Gaia was going to have to contribute to the costs and in a phone call to him earlier, he had given Grace responsibility for negotiating this important aspect.

  Brighton was a city riddled with alleyways, nooks, crannies, forgotten tunnels and secret passageways. If you were a killer lurking in darkness, you could find few darker places than here. The only way he could guarantee Gaia’s safety, in his view, would be to ship her around from door to door in an armoured car, with a cordon of police surrounding her when she emerged. And that wasn’t going to happen.

  He turned and looked at her, and their eyes locked for a moment. Hers were an iridescent metallic blue. They were among the most famous eyes in the world; they’d appeared in a million photographs, and had been written about in a million articles. One, in some trashy magazine Cleo had brought home for him, suggested they might actually be the most beautiful eyes in the world.

  He decided he didn’t have any quibble with that. Cleo was the most beautiful woman he had ever met in his life – until now. But Cleo was not only stunningly beautiful, she was profoundly human. Gaia, for all her humour, for all her warmth, still had a hard carapace. She’d be terrific for a one-night stand, but she’d spit you out in the morning the way a black widow spider eats her male after mating with him – and then excretes his remains.

  Gaia suddenly leaned towards him. Embarrassingly close; and for an instant she was so close he feared she was about to kiss him. Then in her gravelly voice she said, ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, you have eyes just like Paul Newman’s. Did anyone ever tell you that?’

  He blushed. Actually, yes, someone had. Sandy.

  He shook his head, and with a coy smile said, ‘No, but thank you!’

  Across the room he saw Jason Tingley winking at him.

  Trying to suppress a grin, Roy Grace addressed Andrew Gulli, as he reviewed the situation to date. He finished by saying, ‘Although we appreciate the seriousness of the threat level in the USA, Mr Gulli, we are a long way away here. In our view, in the UK the threat to your client is low to medium.’

  Gulli raised his arms in the air, in disbelief, and in his James Cagney voice said, ‘How can you guys say that? Anyone can buy a gun in this country for a few bucks. Don’t try to kid us with that kind of bullshit!’

  ‘With respect, we’ve delivered your client and her son safely here, and we’ve offered twenty-four-hour protection around her in this hotel.’ He gave Gaia an apologetic look before turning back to Gulli. ‘But what we cannot do is provide the budget to maintain security if she wishes to roam freely around the city. The Chief Constable is willing to sanction armed protection, but you will have to contribute to the cost.’

  ‘This would not happen in any other country in the world!’ Gulli said. ‘Don’t you realize the value Gaia’s bringing to this city?’

  ‘We’re very privileged to have her here,’ Grace said.

  ‘Hey, Andrew,’ Gaia interrupted. ‘I don’t have a problem. I think what Officer Grace is saying is fair. We’ll contribute – why shouldn’t we?’

  ‘Because that’s not how it works!’ Gulli retorted petulantly.

  ‘With respect,’ Graham Barrington said, very politely and diplomatically, ‘it is how it works in our country.’

  ‘This is bullshit!’ Gulli said, raising his voice almost to a shout.

  Grace stood up, towered over him and said to him, ‘Can you and I go and talk in private somewhere, for a minute?’

  ‘Anything you have to say, you can say here.’

  ‘I want to talk to you privately,’ Grace said, in his sternest don’t-mess-with-me voice. People often made the mistake of thinking, because Roy Grace was polite, that he was a pushover. Gulli was suddenly seeing another side to the detective. He stood up, a tad huffily, and pointed to an interconnecting door.

  Grace led the way through into a room that had been turned into a makeshift office, and perched on the edge of a maple desk, signalling Gulli to close the door behind him. Through the window, Grace could see the derelict remains of
the superstructure of Brighton’s West Pier rising from the flat blue sea. He felt, as he always did, a twinge of sadness for the loss of this pier he had so loved as a child. Then he turned to face Gulli.

  ‘How much is your client being paid to make this movie, Mr Gulli?’

  ‘You know what? I don’t think that’s any of your business, Detective.’

  ‘Detective Superintendent actually,’ he corrected the man.

  Gulli said nothing.

  ‘Everything connected to this city is my business,’ Grace said. ‘I happened to read that Gaia’s being paid fifteen million dollars – approximately ten million pounds – for four weeks’ production here, and three in a studio.’

  ‘She’s one of the world’s biggest stars, that’s the kind of money they make,’ Gulli said, on the defensive now. ‘She’s actually doing this for a lower fee than usual because this is an independent production and not a studio.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s worth every penny,’ Roy Grace said. ‘She’s terrific, I’m a fan. But you need to understand something. Because of the financial crisis in this country, every police force has had to cut twenty per cent from its budget – Sussex Police has to lose fifty-two million pounds. That means that loyal officers are being forced into retirement after thirty years’ service, when many of them had been counting on staying on for many years longer. Some of them will face real hardship as a result. Many of them joined the force in their late teens, which means approaching their fifties – still young by today’s standards – they’re going to be out of work. Some will not be able to pay their mortgages and will lose their homes. You might not think that’s your problem.’

  ‘You’re right, it’s not my problem.’

  Grace pulled out his mobile phone. ‘Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to call Michael Beard, the editor of our local paper, the Argus, and I’m going to tell him I’m standing here with you, and that although your client Gaia Lafayette is earning ten million pounds for this movie, she’s not prepared to pay one penny towards the costs of her security while she’s in this city. Are you okay with that? I guarantee you within twenty-four hours that will be on the front page of every newspaper in this country. Happy with that?’

  Gulli gave him a sullen stare. ‘What kind of contribution are we looking at?’

  ‘That’s better,’ Grace said. ‘Now, as you say in your country, we’re on the same page.’

  52

  ‘And this is the master bedroom,’ the young estate agent said. He was a cocky twenty-five-year-old, toned and muscular, with mussed-up hair, dressed in a charcoal suit and snazzy loafers.

  ‘It’s a good size,’ he continued. ‘Much more generous than you get with today’s new-builds.’

  She looked at the Mishon Mackay estate agency particulars, then stared around the room, taking in the ornate king-size brass bed, a mahogany dressing table, on which sat various bottles of perfume as well as make-up items, and next to it an Art Deco-style chaise longue. A silver framed photograph sat on the dressing table. It was of a couple in swimsuits, lying on the deck of a boat on a calm blue sea. He was smiling, his face tanned, with crow’s feet around his clear blue eyes, as if squinting against bright sunlight, his short, fair hair ruffled by the wind. She was a good-looking woman, with long blonde hair, also flailing in the wind, a happy smile on her face, a slender body in a turquoise bikini.

  That was the thing with photography, she thought. Those captured moments. The woman might have scowled ten seconds later, but the memory in that photograph would always be of her smiling. Like a poem by Keats she had read and memorized once, at school, ‘Ode On A Grecian Urn’. It was about two lovers, in bas relief on the side of a Grecian urn, about to kiss. That moment frozen in time. They never would kiss, never consummate their relationship, and for that reason, that relationship would last for ever.

  Unlike reality.

  With a twinge of sadness she turned away and walked over to the window. It had a view of the back garden, and the rear of a neighbour’s house in the next street along. She stared down at a wide strip of lawn, dominated by a Zen water feature in the centre – a cluster of smooth stones, with a dried-up channel around them and a fountain which was not switched on. The grass had recently been mown, but the beds on both sides and at the far end were choked with weeds.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to keep moving,’ the agent said, more arrogantly than apologetically. ‘We have another viewing in twenty minutes. This kind of house is in big demand.’

  She lingered for a moment before following him, staring around at the room again. It was too tidy, the bed not slept in, nothing lying around. It had an unaired, unlived-in feeling.

  She followed the agent out, across the landing into another room, gently steering her small son, who was absorbed in a hand-held computer game. ‘This is the larger of the spare bedrooms,’ the agent said. ‘It’s a good size. Make a nice room for your son, I’d say.’ He looked at the youngster for approval, but the boy did not take his eyes off his game, concentrating as if his life depended on it.

  She looked around with interest. Someone was living in this room – a grown man. She noticed a row of highly polished, expensive-looking shoes lined along part of the skirting board. Several suits in dry-cleaner cellophane hanging haphazardly, for lack of a wardrobe. An untidily made bed. Then they went into the bathroom. A row of colognes, aftershave lotion, skin balm, an electric toothbrush and several luxurious black towels on the heated rail. There were moisture droplets inside the shower cabinet, indicating it had been very recently used, and a strong, lingering smell of a man’s cologne filled the room.

  ‘What is the owner’s reason for selling?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s a detective, I understand, with Sussex Police.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘This was his marital home,’ he went on. ‘I understand he’s separated from his wife. I don’t know any more, really. I can find out for you if you’re interested?’

  ‘I’m not interested.’

  ‘I’ve got a cousin in the police,’ he went on. ‘He said the divorce rate’s very high among coppers.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose it’s their lifestyle. Lot of shift work. Late hours, stuff like that.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  He led them downstairs, into the narrow hallway and through into the sitting room, which was decorated in a minimalist style with futon sofas, and a low, central Japanese table. In one corner stood an antique jukebox, and on the floor in front of it was a mess of old vinyl records, some out of their sleeves, and several untidy piles of CDs. ‘This is nice, big windows and a working fireplace,’ he said. ‘A good family room.’

  She stared around, while the boy continued playing his game, an uneven beep-beep-beep, beep, beep-boing coming from his device. In particular she stared at the jukebox. Casting her mind back to her life of ten years ago. Then they walked through into a large, open-plan kitchen-dining room.

  ‘I understand this used to be two rooms which the owner knocked into one. It could of course be kept like this, or changed back to a separate kitchen and dining room,’ he said.

  Of course it could! she thought. And then she noticed the goldfish. It was in a round bowl on the work surface close to a microwave, with a tall plastic hopper for dispensing food, clipped to the side.

  She walked over and pressed her face close to the bowl. The fish looked old and bloated, opening and closing its mouth in a slow, steady, gormless rhythm. Whatever golden orange colour it had once had was now faded to a rusty grey.

  The boy suddenly looked up from his game, followed his mother over and peered into the bowl, too. ‘Schöner Goldfisch!’ he said.

  ‘Wirklich hübsch, mein Schatz!’ she replied.

  The estate agent watched her curiously.

  ‘Marlon?’ she whispered.

  The fish opened and closed its mouth.

  ‘Marlon?’ she repeated.

  ‘Warum
nennst du ihn Marlon, Mama?’

  ‘Because that’s his name, mein Liebling!’

  The agent frowned. ‘You know its name?’

  Could a goldfish live this long, Sandy wondered? Over ten years? ‘Maybe,’ she replied.

  53

  ‘Larry, we have a bit of a problem with the script,’ the film’s veteran director Jack Jordan said, peering up at the massive chandelier in the Royal Pavilion Banqueting Room. The craggy, world-weary film director, a few days shy of his seventieth birthday, seemed even more gloomy than usual. His eyes, shrouded by the long peak of his baseball cap, looked like two reluctantly prised-open molluscs.

  Having forked out his last $100,000 to keep the production going, Larry Brooker was in no mood for yet another tantrum from this chronic worrier. He ended his phone call to their sales agent, who had the great news that he had just managed to sell Romanian rights in The King’s Lover for 50,000 bucks. The agent assured him this was a very good price for Romania. Yeah, right, it might be, but at their current rate of cash burn, 50,000 bucks was barely enough to keep the pre-production going for four more days; and that was before deducting the 20 per cent sales commission that would be sliced off the top.

  Brooker was feeling particularly spaced out and irritable today – a combination of jet lag, and the sleeping pill he had taken to counteract it which felt like it was only kicking in now, some fifteen hours after he had popped it. Problems. There were always problems on productions. As the producer, you had to keep the whole thing together, and you were always up against the wall of the schedule, with every conceivable event you could imagine conspiring against you to get less footage in the can each day than you needed – and as a consequence to send you soaring over budget. Production on any movie became a morass of many different, simultaneous problems melded into one giant motherfucker. Weather, accidents, tantrums, local bureaucracy, script lines that did not work when you tried to film them, neurotic actors, jealous actors, bitchy actors, egotistical actors, drunk actors, slow actors; God love them all.