by Peter James
‘Oh sure, he was threatening to sue us. No big deal – I told him to contact our lawyers.’ Then, sounding distinctly edgy, suddenly he asked, ‘Has he been in contact with you, or something?’
‘We think he might be the man lying under the chandelier.’
There was a long silence. ‘You’re serious?’
‘I won’t know for certain until we’ve formally identified him.’
‘Is there anything I can do from my end?’
‘Not at the moment. If we make positive identification, then we’ll need to interview you tomorrow.’
‘Of course.’
‘Have you been able to do some filming outdoors tonight? The weather seems to be holding, just.’
‘We are. Your officers here are being very co-operative. We’ll be shooting until around midnight.’
‘Good.’
Grace then rang Andrew Gulli, to ask him if to his knowledge a Drayton Wheeler or Jerry Baxter had ever sent any obsessive or threatening messages to Gaia.
Gulli was certain he had never heard either name.
Grace ended the call and they went into the café, which was almost empty. A heavily pierced woman in her twenties, in jeans and a baggy blouse, stood behind the bar counter, working an espresso machine. There was a lounge seating area to the left, and an archway beyond the bar, through to what looked like a larger area at the rear. On the right was a row of ten workstations, each with a computer terminal. Two were occupied, one by a ponytailed man in his twenties, the other by two teenage girls, one standing looking over the other’s shoulder, both of them giggling.
Grace looked up at the ceiling and noticed a CCTV camera covering the row of terminals. They walked up to the bar. The woman finished making the coffee, gave them a cursory nod, acknowledging their presence, then took the coffee across to the ponytailed man.
When she returned, Grace showed her his warrant card. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace from Sussex CID Major Crime Branch and Detective Inspector Tingley from Brighton CID.’
She looked a tad bewildered. ‘Yes – er – how can I help you?’
Grace held out a cellophane evidence bag containing Drayton Wheeler’s passport, which was open at the page showing his photograph. ‘Do you recognize this man?’
She studied it carefully for some moments, then shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, no I don’t.’
‘He hasn’t been in here?’
‘Not while I’ve been here, I’m sure.’
‘We believe he was here yesterday evening and paid for one hour’s internet access.’
‘Ah, right, I wasn’t here last night.’
‘Who was here?’
‘The owner and his wife, but they’re off today.’
‘Can you contact them?’
She looked at her watch. ‘They’ve gone to a George Michael concert in London. I shouldn’t think they’ll hear the phone. But they’ll be here all day tomorrow. I can try, if you like?’
‘We’ll come back tomorrow,’ Grace said.
Jason Tingley pointed up at the CCTV camera. ‘Is that working?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘How long is the footage kept before it gets wiped?’
‘I’m not certain – I believe it’s a week.’
‘Do you know how to replay footage on it?’ Grace asked.
‘No, and I wouldn’t dare touch it!’
‘Okay, what time do you open tomorrow?’
‘Ten.’
‘Right, now this is really important,’ Grace said. ‘Can you please ask the owners, or leave a message for them, to make absolutely sure all footage from yesterday is retained?’
‘Yes, yes of course,’ she said.
Grace gave her his card, then they left.
As they climbed back into the car, Jason Tingley said, ‘We have a motive. The Café Conneckted receipt puts Drayton Wheeler in a place where he could have sent that email last night. In my view we could start making some assumptions.’
‘I hate that word, Jason,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘As I’ve often said, in my experience assumptions are the mother and father of all cock-ups. I prefer to stick with hypotheses.’
The DI grinned. ‘Okay, hypotheses. Drayton Wheeler believes he has been screwed by Larry Brooker – or his company. So he decides to hit back by sabotaging the production? By killing the leading lady?’
‘Why didn’t he just sue?’ Grace replied. ‘Presumably it was money he was after?’
Tingley tapped the side of his head. ‘Dealing with a crazy?’
Grace was thinking about the vials of medication in the bathroom. Was this some kind of desperate act by a dying man? But with what aim? ‘Did you ever hear that expression, “The more I do this job, the less I know?”’ he asked.
Tingley smiled. ‘No, but I understand it.’
Grace nodded. ‘Please God it was Drayton Wheeler who sent that email last night, and that he’s the guy under the chandelier. That would be a rather tragic but very elegant solution.’
‘Beware of assumptions, didn’t you say, chief?’ the DI remarked with a cheeky grin.
Roy Grace, deep in thought, did not respond. He was thinking hard what he needed to do to step up the security for Gaia and her son, regardless of cost, until they could be sure that the threat to her was over.
And he had a nagging doubt. Some of it stacked up, but not all of it. Not enough.
99
It was late when he finally got home to Cleo. She was lying, half-asleep in bed, with an old Miss Marple episode playing on the television. Murder At The Vicarage, he recognized after a few moments.
‘How are you feeling?’ He kissed her forehead.
‘I’m okay. But Bump’s training for the Olympics!’ She guided his hand to her stomach, and he could feel their baby zapping around as if on a trampoline. He smiled, proudly and lovingly. It was such an amazing sensation. Their child. His and hers. Alive inside her.
He lay beside her for some minutes, just holding her tightly and feeling the baby’s exertions. Then he kissed her. ‘God, I love you so much,’ he said.
‘I love you too,’ she said. ‘But it’s no good you coming to bed on an empty stomach – I don’t want to lie here listening to it rumble all night!’ She kissed him. ‘There’s a Marks and Sparks fish pie on the worktop. Give it a few minutes in the microwave – it says how many on the pack. And there are some peas in a saucepan – just bring them to the boil.’
‘You spoil me!’
‘You’re worth spoiling. So, did you save the world tonight?’
‘Probably.’
‘That’s what I love about you, Detective Superintendent Grace. Your modesty.’
He kissed her again. ‘It sort of comes naturally!’
‘Oh yes? By the way, Humphrey refused to go out. He needs to do his business – if we don’t want a prezzie on the carpet in the morning!’
‘I’ll take him for a walk. Do you still want the telly on?’
‘You can turn it off, please, I’m going to try to sleep, if I can convince Bump! Don’t forget about that Gaia documentary I recorded.’
‘I had forgotten – thanks for reminding me.’
He went downstairs, clipped the lead on Humphrey’s collar with some difficulty, while the overjoyed creature kept jumping up and down licking his face. Then he took a plastic bag from under the kitchen sink, crammed it into his pocket and led the dog out of the front door.
Humphrey squatted the moment they were in the cobbled courtyard.
‘Wait!’ Grace hissed.
The dog took no notice, defecating firmly and proudly, as a neighbour wheeled his bicycle past. ‘Hope you’re going to pick that up,’ the man mumbled.
Grace scooped it up, dearly tempted to push it through the rude cyclist’s letterbox. Then he threaded his way with Humphrey through the narrow streets of the North Laine district of Brighton, heading for his favourite part of the city, the seafront itself, and the promenade beneath the Arches. He deposite
d the bag in a designated bin, relieved that at least now the dog had performed, he would be able to let it off the lead.
As he walked, he was deep in thought. Thinking about the email. Was the man under the chandelier the sender? He read it again on his BlackBerry.
I still cannot believe how you cut me dead. I thought your whole point in coming to England was to see me. I know you love me, really. You’re going to be sorry you did that. Very sorry. You made me look a fool. You made people laugh at me. I’m going to give you the chance to apologise. You are soon going to be telling the whole world how much you love me. I will kill you if you don’t.
It chimed but it didn’t fit. ‘I thought your whole point in coming to England was to see me.’ That did not make sense in the context: ‘You made people laugh at me. I’m going to give you the chance to apologise. You are soon going to be telling the whole world how much you love me. I will kill you if you don’t.’
Drayton Wheeler’s actions were just not consistent with that. These weren’t the words of a man who believed his story or his script had been ripped off. Unless he was a totally confused crazy. Also, from what he knew, an American would have spelled apologise with a z not an s.
Was sacrificing his life to save Gaia’s child some kind of desperate gesture to make Gaia love him?
It was a dark night but the rain was still holding off. There were dozens of people out and about. He walked in the shadow of the Palace Pier, so preoccupied he barely even clocked it as the place where he and Sandy, some twenty years ago, had had their first kiss.
He called Humphrey, clipped his lead back on, then, still deep in thought, he headed home.
100
Twenty minutes later, Roy Grace put the fish pie into the microwave, switched on the hob and placed the saucepan of peas on top. Then he took his Policy Book out of his briefcase and sat down on the sofa to update it. Humphrey entered into a life-or-death tussle with a squeaky stuffed elephant on the floor.
It was 12.30 a.m. and he felt wired. He picked up the Sky remote and clicked through the saved programmes until he saw the one Cleo had recorded for him on Gaia, and clicked on it.
Squeak-squeak-squeak, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Humphrey’s tussle continued.
He scooped his food on to a plate, put it on a tray with a napkin and cutlery, and a glass of Spanish Albarino from the fridge, and sat back down. For the next twenty minutes as he ate, tuning out the dog, Gaia’s life unfolded in front of him. From the modest house where she lived as a child on Brighton’s Whitehawk housing estate, to her first success at the age of fifteen on a television talent show, to her move to Los Angeles in her late teens, where she started off waiting tables, followed by an affair with a record producer who picked her up in a noodle bar on Sunset, and gave her her big break, cutting her first single with the same session musicians that had been behind both Madonna and Whitney Houston’s early recordings.
There were periodic close-ups of Gaia saying how important it was for everyone to treat the planet with respect. ‘I love you love me’ was one of her catch phrases for that message.
There followed vignettes of concerts she had performed around the globe. Grace grinned at one, in Munich, where she appeared in German national costume of a dirndl, holding an accordion, and knocking back beer from a gigantic stein. Then another in Freiburg, capital of the Black Forest, where she was kitted out in lederhosen. Then, suddenly, in a costume switch, she stormed on stage, in front of an enraptured audience, in a cloud of swirling dry ice, jumping right, then left, holding a hunting rifle, wearing a man’s tweed suit.
A bright yellow ochre suit with a loud check pattern.
Grace’s tray crashed to the floor as he grabbed the remote, and froze the image. He ignored the up-ended plate and his spilled wine glass as he stared, transfixed, at the screen. He wound it back some seconds, then let it play and then froze it again.
It was exactly the same fabric that had been found in the chicken farm. The same fabric that had been found at the fishing lake. He was certain.
Beyond certain.
Gaia was wearing it on stage, in front of him, on the Bavarian leg of her German tour last autumn.
He froze the image again, reached for his phone, and dialled Andrew Gulli.
‘Inspector Grace?’ he answered. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I apologize for calling so late but this could be important.’
‘No problem, Inspector, do you have any news for me?’
‘Well, this may sound a strange request,’ Grace said. ‘I gather Gaia often auctions off the clothes she wears at concerts, and gives the money raised to green causes. Is that correct?’
‘She’s very committed.’
‘I need to know about a yellow tweed suit that she wore at a concert in Bavaria last autumn.’
In a wry tone displaying rare humour, Gulli said, ‘You’re not going weird on me are you, Inspector?’
‘I’m not going weird on you, I can assure you! I need to know about that suit really urgently. It could be relevant to her safety. Would you by any chance recall if she put it up for auction?’
‘You wanna describe it to me?’
Grace gave him the details.
‘I’ll come back to you in the morning.’
‘No, I need you to come back to me tonight. If you have to wake her up, then apologize to her for me, but it is really urgent.’
‘Okay, leave it with me, Inspector.’
Grace continued to play and replay the scene. Fixated on the suit. Then he cleared up the mess on the floor and was just pouring himself another glass of wine when Gulli called back.
‘Inspector Grace, I just spoke with Gaia. This was a while back, you have to appreciate. But so far as she can remember, that suit was auctioned last fall, October or November. She seemed to think it fetched quite a large sum – more than usual.’
‘Thank you,’ Grace said.
‘Anything else I can help you with tonight? Have you made any progress on the chandelier?’
‘I have a Crime Scene Team and a Police Search Team working through the night.’
‘I appreciate your increasing the police presence around the hotel tonight,’ Gulli said. ‘But I’m minded to recommend Gaia flies back to Los Angeles tomorrow. I’m looking into flights.’
‘Wouldn’t you have an issue with the film schedule?’
‘Yeah, but her safety and the kid’s safety are more important.’
‘I’d appreciate if you waited for our findings tomorrow.’
‘I’m not happy with the situation,’ Gulli said.
To Grace, he did not sound like a man who was ever happy. But he didn’t tell him that. Instead he replied, ‘Then I guess my job is to make sure you are happy.’
‘I remain to be convinced.’
He ended the call, then immediately phoned Glenn Branson to update him about the fabric. Then he replayed the entire scene in the video again.
Thirty minutes later, when the documentary had reached Gaia’s first movie role, he fell asleep on the sofa.
101
The production did not wrap until almost 1 a.m. Part of the problem causing constant delays to the outdoors filming, Anna Galicia could see, watching among the thinning crowd of onlookers from New Road, was the constant coming and going of Police, Fire Brigade and Scientific Support vehicles.
The scene they were filming was Gaia, or rather Maria Fitzherbert, bewildered and in tears, storming out of the front entrance of the Pavilion, having been dumped by her royal lover.
Although the crowd were kept too far back to hear what was being said, except for that final call announcing it was a wrap, it was clear that Gaia had been keeping everyone waiting and was in an irritable mood tonight. Big surprise there! Bloody bitch.
She watched her return to her motorhome.
Finally, at 1.20 a.m. someone emerged, a fit-looking female in jeans and a blouson jacket, and it took Anna a moment to realize this was Gaia with cropped hair. She was accompanied
by an assistant, and instantly surrounded by her security guards. Much earlier, Anna had watched the boy leave, accompanied by another assistant and two security guards. Presumably back to the hotel, to bed.
There were rumours going around the crowd that he’d narrowly missed being killed by a falling chandelier. Shame that, she thought. She’d have liked to have seen Gaia grieving. Although it would have messed up her plans.
The convoy of five black Range Rovers swept out of the grounds, and there was a general hive of activity in their wake. Lamps being shut down, equipment being moved and stowed in the trucks parked in the grounds. The police cordon broke up, and within ten minutes several white Sussex Police vans had arrived and were loading up with officers. Anna, watching keenly, began walking, looking for her opportunity.
It came sooner than she had anticipated. As she reached the entrance to the car park at the rear of the Dome concert hall, she saw that the three police officers who had been manning the cordon were walking away. Two people were closing up the catering truck and four men were occupied in lifting some camera dolly track.
No one took any notice of her as she slipped between the trucks, then over to the motorhomes. She paused in the shadows between Judd Halpern’s and Gaia’s and looked around. Neither had lights on inside. She saw a security guard standing nearby, smoking a cigarette and talking on his phone or radio, looking away from her.
Now!
She stepped up to the front door of Gaia’s trailer, clutching the key she had collected from AD Motorhomes in St Albans earlier in the day, and slipped it into the lock.
Then she turned it.
102
Roy Grace woke up at 2 a.m. in front of the television, to see Jack Nicholson on the screen, in a hard hat, standing in flat, open land in front of the nodding-dog arm of an oil derrick. He yawned and hit the off-button. Humphrey was fast asleep beside him, the half-destroyed stuffed elephant lying on the floor below him.
He hauled himself upstairs, brushed his teeth and fell into bed. But for the next three hours he barely slept a wink, a jumble of disturbed thoughts playing, like a video, inside his head. Gaia was in all of them. So was the Chief Constable Tom Martinson, repeatedly berating him for missing a vital clue.
