Peter James - Not Dead Yet

Martinson unfolded his arms, took a biscuit from the plate, then held it without taking a bite. He frowned, as if searching for the right way to say what was on his mind next. ‘Changing the subject totally, I also wanted to tip you off about something, Roy.’

‘Oh?’

‘I believe you had a bit of an unpleasant experience some time back, with a certain Brighton villain, name of Amis Smallbone?’

The creep’s name made Grace squirm. ‘I put him away on a life sentence, and he didn’t like it. Not that many of them do.’

Tom Martinson grinned, fleetingly. ‘That was twelve years ago?’

Grace did a quick calculation. ‘It would be, yes, sir.’

Amis Smallbone was, in Grace’s opinion, the nastiest and most malevolent piece of vermin he had ever dealt with. Five foot one inch tall, with his hair greasily coiffed, dressed summer and winter in natty suits too tight for him, Smallbone exuded arrogance. Whether he had modelled himself on some screen mobster, or had some kind of Marlon Brando Godfather fixation, Grace neither knew nor cared. Smallbone, who must now be in his early sixties, was the last living relic of one of Brighton’s historic crime families. At one time, three generations of Smallbones controlled protection rackets across Kemp Town, several amusement arcades, the drugs going into half the nightclubs, as well as much of the city’s prostitution. It had long been rumoured – a rumour circulated with much enthusiasm throughout the police – that Smallbone’s obsession with prostitution came out of his own sexual inadequacy.

When Grace had personally arrested Smallbone on a charge of murdering a rival drug dealer in the city, by dropping an electric heater into his bathtub, the villain had threatened retribution against him personally, and against his wife Sandy. Three weeks later, with Smallbone banged up in the remand wing of Lewes prison, someone had sprayed every plant in the garden of Grace’s home – Sandy’s biggest passion – with weedkiller, turning all the borders into an arid wasteland.

In the centre of the lawn had been burned two words.

UR DEAD .

Grace had been present in court when the jury had returned their guilty verdict. Amis Smallbone, in the dock, had curled his fingers around an imaginary gun, pointed it at Grace and mouthed the word bang!

‘I’ve got possibly worrying news for you, Roy,’ Tom Martinson said. He looked at his biscuit, but still did not touch it. ‘I thought I should warn you, as I doubt anyone from the prison service will bother. I’m an old university friend of the Governor of Belmarsh Prison, who kindly tipped me off. Amis Smallbone was freed from there, on licence, three days ago.’

A chill rippled through Grace, thinking of the phone conversation he’d just had with a very distressed Cleo. ‘Does he have a release address, sir?’

Grace knew that a prisoner serving a life sentence would have his release address set by his probation officer, with numerous reporting conditions attached.

‘He does, Roy, a hostel on Brighton seafront. But he’s in breach. I’m afraid he hasn’t been seen for two days.’

You needed to know the right time and wrong time to buy in the icon’s cycle. Like all the fervent Gaia memorabilia collectors, Anna Galicia knew this only too well.

She sat in the gilded, white velour upholstered armchair that was an exact copy of one she had seen Gaia lounging back in, in a Hello! magazine feature on her Central Park West apartment. Anna had had the replica made by a firm in Brighton, so that she could lounge back exactly the same way Gaia did, unlit cigarette gripped louchely between her forefinger and middle finger. Sometimes, sitting in this chair, she could imagine she was in the Dakota building, and that her view was over Central Park. The same building where John Lennon had been shot dead.

Something had always excited her about stars who met violent deaths.

She took an imaginary drag on her cigarette then tapped the end in the ashtray enamelled with Gaia’s face. Saturday morning was her favourite time of the week, with the whole weekend stretched out in front of her. A whole two days to spend indulgently immersed in her idol! And next week, oh God, she could barely contain her excitement. Next week, Gaia would be here, in Brighton!

In the local paper, the Argus, open in front of her, was a photograph of the tiny house in Whitehawk where Gaia was born. Of course she wasn’t called Gaia Lafayette then. She was Anna Mumby. But hey, Anna thought with a wry smile, who didn’t change their name?

She carefully lifted her computer from her lap and set it on the floor, took a sip of her Gaia Save Exploited Lives medium roast coffee, stood up and walked over to the silver balloon, with the pink words GAIA INNER SECRETS TOUR, which had cost her sixty pounds, and which was floating on its string, just below the ceiling. It was starting to look a little wrinkled, and sagging. She tugged it down and lovingly gave it a long, steady top-up burst of helium from the cylinder she kept here for that purpose, and released it.

Then she sat down, breathing in the smells of this room. The scents of cardboard, paper, vinyl and polish and the faint trace of Gaia Noon Romance fragrance that she sprayed daily. She picked up her laptop and returned to the eBay auction page she was on.

It was for a bottle of Gaia organic Pinot Noir, from her own Napa Valley vineyard, the label bearing her tiny Secret Fox logo, like all her merchandise, and personally signed. All proceeds of the original sale of this bottle, auctioned at a charity, had gone to support a school in Kenya called Stahere. Yet another example of what a wonderfully kind and human person Gaia was. It was being sold by a Gaia fan in the UK, who had outbid Anna three years ago when it had originally been auctioned on eBay. Another Gaia collector had told her, confidentially, on a Gaia chatroom site, that this collector had lost his job and needed to raise cash.

Anna didn’t have any of the Gaia Special Cuvée Pinot Noir wine. It was one of the glaring gaps in her collection. There were known to be only twelve bottles with signed labels in the whole world. At this moment her pockets were feeling deep. She would bid high on this. Oh yes! No one out there was going to beat her today. Let them try, she thought, darkly.

When she met Gaia next week it would be good to tell her about this bottle. Maybe she’d even take it with her and get her to initial the date on it!

Twenty-eight minutes remaining on the auction time. She saw another bid pop up: £375! That was £100 more than the last one. The activity was hotting up.

But regardless, whoever it was stood no chance against her. Not in the mood she was in today. Her very deep pockets mood. Not many people beat her at auctions when she was in one of these moods. Only one in the last year. Ha.

There was a lot of anticipation about this new film the icon would be starring in, The King’s Lover . All the Gaia fan sites were buzzing with it. If the film became as big a hit as everyone was anticipating, the value of all her memorabilia would soar even higher.

Not that Anna would ever sell. She was a buyer, always a buyer. Always would be. She hated it when people started bidding stupidly against her. It was like people were trying to take something away that was rightfully hers. A coil of anger spiralled through her as she stared at this new bid, again.

You don’t know who you are messing with.

Roy Grace drove straight from Tom Martinson’s office into Lewes, to his favourite flower shop, the Riverside Florist, and was pleased to see the proprietor Nicola Hughes there, cutting a display of blooms for a client. He waited until she had finished, then asked her for a massive bouquet for Cleo, wanting to cheer her up when he eventually got home.