by Peter James
‘It’s not a question of training, my darling,’ he replied. ‘There was a scandalous hoo-hah a few years back when two PCSOs in another county didn’t jump into a lake to try to save a drowning boy, because their training forbade them. That’s pretty rare – I don’t think I’ve met a single police officer in Sussex who would have held back from jumping in. It’s not about training, it’s something any human being would do. You can’t just stand by and watch someone die.’
She kissed him. ‘You know, I’ve never been a worrier.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Not until I met you.’
‘Are you sure it’s not part of the package? All the stuff we’ve read, we both know that pregnancy messes with the mother’s hormones. Worry is one aspect of the protective mothering instinct. You don’t have to worry about me.’
‘It’s not the baby, Roy. It’s you. Every time you walk out the front door, I wonder if you’ll be coming back. Or whether it will be two of your colleagues knocking on the door instead.’
‘Cleo, darling!’
‘Did Sandy have to put up with all this? The same fears?’
The reminder of Sandy stung. The mention of her name invariably set off a small pang of sadness and loss, despite the good mental place that he was in, and all he now had. He shrugged. ‘She never said anything – not about danger. Her gripe was always my unpredictable hours.’
‘I’m sorry that I worry, I can’t help it, I love you. But just look at all the crazy stuff you’ve done in the past year. You’ve been in a burning building. Over a cliff in a car.’
‘Not exactly.’
‘The car went over a cliff, Roy.’
‘Yes, okay, but I wasn’t in it.’
‘You were in it ten seconds before it went over.’
He smiled. ‘True.’ He stood up and pulled his boxer shorts down.
‘You dived into Shoreham Harbour in front of a ship.’
It was strange, he thought. He felt perfectly comfortable standing naked in front of Cleo. But Sandy had an almost Victorian prudery about nudity. Except in bed where she could be wild, she always had something wrapped around her, and would insist that he put something on, even if it was just to walk from the bedroom to the bathroom. And she had a thing about the toilet, as well, an obsessive privacy. He once, way back, had joked to a friend that in all the years he and Sandy had lived together as man and wife, so far as he knew, she had not yet been to the toilet.
‘I didn’t have any choice with Gaia,’ he said. ‘If I hadn’t done what I did, she would be dead or maimed. My career would have been over. But that was not the reason I did it.’
‘The police force isn’t the only job in the world, Roy. If you ever got demoted or got the sack, I wouldn’t love you any the less. Okay?’
‘And if someone died because I had been a coward?’
The question hung in the air.
‘History is full of dead heroes, Roy. I’m not ready for you to be history.’
He blew her a kiss and stepped into the bathroom, then checked his face in the mirror. The gash on his left cheek had required three stitches, but it looked to be healing all right. As he turned on the taps, his mobile phone, lying on the bed, pinged twice with text messages.
‘Could you see if there’s anything urgent!’ he called out.
She picked up the phone. The first message was from Jason Tingley.
Do you need me 2morrow or can I play golf?
The second was from a number that meant nothing to her. She opened it.
Hey Mr Paul Newman Eyes! I want to thank you properly sometime for saving my life. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Roy Grace adjusted the shower temperature then, before stepping into it, called, ‘Anything important?’
‘Jason Tingley wants to play golf tomorrow. And Gaia wants to have sex with you.’
He grinned and closed the shower door behind him.
Five minutes later as he came back into the bedroom, with a towel wrapped around him, Cleo paraded the loose, turquoise dress she had chosen. She looked stunning.
‘What do you think? This or my black one? Or the beige one you like?’
He could not remember either the black or the beige ones. ‘This looks great.’
‘Which shoes?’
‘Which ones were you thinking of?’
‘Well, I can’t wear anything with heels. So I’m not going to be able to compete with Gaia, am I?’ Her tone was unusually sarcastic.
‘Hey, come on!’ He picked up the phone and looked at the text, then smiled, proudly. Not every cop got a text from one of the world’s greatest stars. And a row of kisses.
‘So would you?’ she said.
‘Would I what?’
‘Go to bed with her, if you had the chance?’ She was staring at him strangely.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, absolutely not! Hey, come on, let’s not go there.’
He picked up the Alfa Romeo brochure that was lying on his bedside table, and flicked through it for distraction, to avoid having to look back at her. He stopped on the Giulietta page, and stared at the car with longing.
Cleo looked over his shoulder. ‘Go with your heart!’ she said. ‘You love that car, right?’
He shrugged. ‘Yes.’
‘So, you’ve nearly died I don’t know how many times in your career, and you’ve still got a third of it to go. You’re probably not going to make old bones, so go on, treat yourself while you can. Enjoy!’
‘I’m tempted,’ he said.
‘It’ll suit you. And, hey, Mr Paul Newman Eyes, Gaia will think you are so cool.’
121
Over the course of the following week, to Roy Grace’s relief, press coverage about his rescue of Gaia began to move from the front page and dwindled, although the jibes from his friends and colleagues continued. He gradually reduced the Operation Icon team numbers, until by the following Friday’s morning meeting there was just himself, Glenn Branson, Norman Potting, Bella Moy, Nick Nicholl and a handful of others.
They had a lot work to do still, collecting statements, preparing for the inquests into the deaths of Drayton Wheeler and Myles Royce. Meanwhile they awaited the daily medical bulletins on Eric Whiteley, who remained on life support in the ICU at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, under police guard.
He hadn’t been able to resist showing the text from Gaia around to his colleagues and he was now the butt of a number of saucy but good-humoured jokes about her.
‘So how’s your new lovebird today, chief?’ Norman Potting asked.
‘She’s been back on set all week, I gather, thank you, Norman. She’s tough.’
‘I’ll bet she is,’ he said with a dirty chuckle.
‘Leave it alone, will you, Norman?’ Glenn Branson snapped at him.
Grace had been noticing a certain tension between Branson and Potting recently. But his mate had refused to be drawn on it, on the couple of occasions he’d tried to bring the subject up while they were having a drink after work. Another thing he had noticed a few times was a sly exchange of glances between Potting and Bella.
There couldn’t be anything going on between them, could there? To him, Potting was just about the most physically unappealing man he’d ever encountered. Surely Bella could do better than him?
On the other hand, nor could he see the appeal a Brighton copper might have to one of the world’s greatest and sexiest rock and movie stars. But he was getting a constant stream of increasingly flirty texts from Gaia. It did not seem to matter how neutral and guarded his replies were, the innuendo from her was increasing daily.
Of course he was flattered. And they were too much of an ego boost to delete. But they changed nothing in his love for Cleo. He had thought several times about that question she’d asked him last week in their bedroom. Would he go to bed with Gaia if he had the chance?
And his answer was no. An emphatic no.
On the following morning he drove to his house to check on its condition. Sometimes his now long-stay lodger, Glenn Bra
nson, kept it neat and tidy, other times it looked like he’d had a herd of hyenas rampaging through it. Also he could never quite trust his friend to remember to feed his venerable goldfish Marlon.
He pulled up outside shortly after ten, nodded at his neighbour across the street, Noreen Grinstead, the local gossip, a hawk-eyed, jumpy woman in her seventies, who was forever outside the front of her house, washing something. Right now she was hosing down her spotless silver Nissan car.
He did not want to have to talk to her about the recent events, and was equally happy not to get drawn into a tedious conversation with her about the lives of everyone in the street, which sometimes happened. He had moved on from this place, which Sandy, years back, had fallen so in love with. He was now house-hunting with Cleo, and they were taking advantage of this free weekend to look at a number of houses in the city and in the surrounding countryside.
He walked up the path, and let himself in through the front door. ‘Hi, matey!’ he called out, as a warning that he was here, not wanting to disturb Glenn if he had some bird back here – which he was always secretly hoping Glenn would have, to get him over his marriage-from-hell.
But there was no reply. He knew that on his weekends off, Glenn liked to sleep in and then go to the gym, or cycling, which he had recently taken up, in the afternoon.
He stooped and picked a bunch of mail off the mat, sifting through it as he walked through into the kitchen, which Sandy had once made so modern and high tech, but which now looked sadly dated.
‘Hi, Marlon, how are you doing?’ he said, peering into the bowl, pleased to see there was still plenty of food in the hopper.
The fish, as surly as his namesake, ignored him as usual, slowly gliding to the surface and gulping down yet another tiny globule of his food.
‘Not in a chatty mood today? That makes a change, right?’
Marlon did a single circuit of his bowl, and for a moment their eyes met. Then the fish rose to the surface and gulped another globule.
‘It’s okay, old chap, you’re not hurting my feelings. I’ve got a much sexier admirer than you. Would you be jealous if I told you who?’
The fish did not look remotely jealous.
Grace turned away and dumped the small pile of letters, takeaway pizza and Chinese menus, and a blue and white flyer from the local Conservative MP, Mike Weatherley. Then he sifted quickly through the letters. One was a brown envelope that contained a council tax demand. And one was from the estate agents Mishon Mackay, whose board was outside the house.
He opened it, and there was a written report on the recent viewings. Just as he started reading it, his phone rang.
‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.
‘Oh, Mr Grace? It’s Darran Willmore from Mishon Mackay.’
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m just reading your letter this minute!’
‘Right – well – I’ve got a bit of a development I thought you might like to hear about.’
‘Fire away.’
‘We had a viewing recently, a mother and her son. We did think she seemed quite interested at the time. They’re living overseas at the moment, but want to move to Brighton – I believe she has some past connection here.’
‘Okay, sounds interesting.’
‘Well, it’s looking encouraging. She wants to have a second viewing.’
That’s brilliant news, Grace thought, wondering how he was going to break it to Glenn.
‘I thought you’d be pleased!’
‘I am,’ Roy Grace said. ‘The timing could not be better.’
122
Roy Grace was pretty happy with how the Carl Venner trial was going. The ghastly fat snuff movie king and paedophile, with a penchant for Breitling watches, had done himself no favours.
And for the first time in a very long while, to his great relief, Grace had spent an entire week as the Duty Senior Investigating Officer without a single major crime incident happening in the city of Brighton and Hove. Which meant he was available day and night to take Cleo to hospital the moment labour began.
The King’s Lover was in its final week of location shooting in and around Brighton, before moving up to Pinewood studios, and miraculously was only four days behind schedule. The texts from Gaia, to Grace’s relief, but at the same time, slight disappointment, had stopped. Although he had paid a couple of visits to the set and been greeted by Gaia on each occasion as somewhat more than her new best friend.
Eric Whiteley was still on life support in the ICU, tying up valuable resources in what Grace considered a pointless, but requisite, around-the-clock police guard.
It was a Monday afternoon in late June, as he was about to leave for home, when his phone rang. He heard an American accent.
‘Detective Grace? This is Detective Myman, from the Los Angeles Police Threat Management Unit. We have kind of a number of loose ends to tie up relating to Gaia Lafayette and, in particular, the deceased Drayton Wheeler.’
‘You’re telling me. I’m working on it right now.’
‘It would speed up the process if it were possible for one of your team to come over here. Wouldn’t need them for more than a couple of days.’
‘The issue we have right now is our budgets,’ Grace said.
‘That’s not a problem. The LAPD would be happy to pick up the tab for the air fare – and we’d take care of whoever came over. Can you suggest who might be the best person on your team? Yourself perhaps?’
Grace thought hard. Because of the consultant obstetrician’s concerns, Cleo was booked into the maternity ward of the Royal Sussex County Hospital the following Monday, to have the baby by caesarean section. With the risk that she might need to go in earlier, there was no way he could go. But a break might do Glenn some good, what with him seeming particularly miserable at the moment.
He told Myman he would get back to him later in the day.
As he hung up, his phone pinged with a text.
Hey Mr Paul Newman Eyes! I have some free time on Thursday evening. Leaving town at the weekend. Can I invite you to my suite for a good-bye drink? XXXX
Thursday was his boys’ poker night, a tradition that had been going on for years, and except when work intervened, he tried never to miss a game. Perhaps he could fit in a very quick drink with her before joining the boys. He would do that and then go on to the game.
123
On the Friday night, despite being exhausted from all that had happened in recent weeks, combined with the Carl Venner trial, Roy Grace barely slept at all. Whenever he was not wide awake, tossing around, shaking lumps out of his pillows, Cleo was, with Bump going totally berserk inside her.
Somehow, miraculously, around 7 a.m. he fell into a deep sleep, and did not wake until 10 a.m. on Saturday morning.
Despite still feeling groggy, he pulled on his shorts, T-shirt and trainers, and went for his favourite run, down on to the seafront, by the Palace Pier, then along to the Deep Sea Anglers club by Shoreham Harbour and back. A circuit just short of five miles.
When he got back he slipped out of his clothes and went gratefully into the bathroom. One of the many things he loved about Cleo was her taste in showers. A rain shower-head, a face-on jet and sideways jets, if you wanted them on as well. He was luxuriating in them when suddenly the bathroom door opened so violently, he thought it was coming off its hinges.
Cleo stood there, in a baggy shirt-waister, clutching a copy of the Argus, with a face like thunder.
He switched the taps off and stepped out, water running down his body.
‘So poker on Thursday was good, was it?’
She was brandishing the paper like a weapon.
‘I sort of broke even, I told you.’
‘Sounds like you edited one bit out, Roy.’
‘Oh?’
‘Oh? Oh yes, actually. Take a look at this! Perhaps it will help jog your memory.’
His heart sank as he saw the front page splash.
Top cop and Gaia: is it love?
Beneath was a p
hotograph of Roy Grace and Gaia, clearly taken with a long lens, standing side by side, looking out of the window of her Grand Hotel suite.
‘Hey, I can explain.’
‘Can you?’ she said.
Never, in all their time together, had he seen her so angry.
She stormed out. He grabbed a towel, and was just starting to dry himself when she marched back in with an open copy of the Saturday Mirror. The headline ran across the top of the page.
Gaia and Brighton cop’s secret love tryst!
Beneath was a similar long-lens photograph to the one in the Argus, but in this one, Gaia was giving Roy Grace a kiss on the cheek.
He read the first paragraph of the story:
Rock legend, Gaia, in Brighton to shoot her latest movie, The King’s Lover, has been repaying the City’s top homicide cop, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, for successfully foiling an attempt on her life, by secret love trysts with him in her hotel suite. The couple are pictured above about to enjoy a romantic candlelit dinner.
‘This is unbelievable!’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It is. I just can’t believe you’d do this, Roy.’
‘Darling, listen! This is bullshit, complete and utter bullshit! I can explain!’
‘Great. I am all ears. Explain!’
Then, suddenly she gripped her abdomen and screamed out in pain, all the colour draining from her face. ‘Roy, oh my God, oh my God!’
124
The obituary in the Argus read:
GRACE. Noah Jack
On July 2nd. Died tragically shortly after birth. Much loved son of Roy and Cleo. Private funeral for family only.
125
Roy Grace had tears in his eyes as he watched Cleo cradling their son, in her bed in the maternity ward of the Royal Sussex County Hospital. The baby’s pink face was all scrunched up, his eyes were closed, his lips formed a tiny rosebud. Thin tufts of wavy fair hair lay across his head. He was dressed in a pale blue V-neck cotton top, embroidered with a mouse wearing striped shorts.
