Not Dead Yet (Roy Grace 8) (24 page)

At the same time as the last of the body parts was being recovered, the SOCO team, in their line search, followed a trail of footprints leading away from the lake. At the end of this trail, in a shallow and evidently hastily dug hole, covered in branches, lay suit trousers and a jacket, matching exactly their sample strip of fabric.

A few minutes later, back at the rear of the Specialist Search Unit truck, each of the body parts lay wrapped in white plastic sheeting, tagged and dated. Glenn, sipping a mug of coffee, examined the suit through the plastic bags. But to his disappointment, whatever labels had once been sewn in had been removed.

Turning to Bella he said, ‘So, what do you think?’

She shrugged. ‘That there’s a sodding Great White in there that ate the head and torso. The dive team must have missed it.’

He grinned. ‘Yeah, my thoughts exactly.’

‘Failing that, we might have some of the missing bits of our human jigsaw puzzle. Except the body is months old and these aren’t.’

‘With powers of observation like that, you could make a fine detective!’

‘Flattery will get you anywhere,’ she replied, and gave him a warm smile.

She seemed so vulnerable, he thought. She was a tough detective but a lost human soul. He wanted to put his arms around her and hug her, but this was not the time or place.

But, he decided, at some point in the very near future he would find the right time – and place.

Amis Smallbone decided he would find the right time and place, too. He stood alone on the terrace steps of Brighton’s Grand Hotel, a Chivas Regal on the rocks in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He dragged hard on it, staring with small, hateful eyes out across the busy traffic of King’s Road at people strolling along the promenade on the far side, and at the flat blue sea beyond.

He was dressed nattily but in dated style: blue blazer with shiny brass buttons, open-neck white shirt with a paisley cravat, blue chinos and blue and white Sebago deck shoes. He looked like he might have just stepped off a yacht. Like the sodding great one he was staring at right now, a showy motor cruiser, powering through the sea at a fast lick, a tall, mare’s tail wake arcing behind it.

That could have been him on that yacht, he thought, taking another drag. If it had not been for Detective Roy Grace.

Henry Tilney was right, he knew. Leave it, put it behind him. But that had never been his way. People needed to be taught lessons. Grace had wiped him out. He’d lost everything. Twelve fucking years of his life locked up in shithole prisons, surrounded by losers.

Gaia was here in this hotel. Up in the Presidential Suite, having a cosy chat with Roy Grace at this moment, together with Chief Superintendent Graham Barrington and a bunch of other cops. He smiled as he crushed out the cigarette, drained the whisky and contemplated going back inside to order another. At least he still had some of his old sources. And one of them could give him access to any room in this hotel, twenty-four seven.

He could listen to the conversation in the Presidential Suite, too, at this moment, if he wanted, thanks to his old contact. But there was no need. He pulled another cigarette pack out of his left-hand jacket pocket. A tiny light winked on it – so faint it was almost impossible to see in this bright daylight. He returned it to his pocket with a smug smile. He would listen to the recording later, at his leisure.

*

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?’