Peter James - Not Dead Yet

He did a double-take, looking at her again, then entered the room, which smelled of freshly brewed coffee and a dense perfume. Her hair was completely different from a few days earlier – it had now been cropped short in a boyish cut. Pointing her fingers at her head she asked, ‘What do you think?’

‘Nice,’ he said, and in truth it did suit her. But then again, he thought, she had such striking looks she’d have looked good in a bin-liner with a rusty bucket on her head. Behind her, a woman in her late twenties, dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt with a small, gold Secret Fox logo on it, strode across the room with a script in her hand, and put it down on a table beside the sofa. Grace noticed that although most of the pages were white, some were blue, pink, yellow, green, and cherry.

‘Latest changes,’ the assistant said, and walked out again.

Gaia acknowledged her with a briefly raised hand, then turned her attention back to Roy Grace, pointing at her own head again. ‘You think so?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he said, although his personal preference had always been for long hair.

‘Gotta wear a goddamn wig for the production – this huge heavy Maria Fitzherbert thing – it’s so hot – feels like I’m wearing a rug on my head. The hair falls all around my face, I can hardly see a goddamn thing when I’m wearing it.’

Grace grinned. ‘I believe in her time women only used to wash their hair a couple of times a year.’

‘Yuh huh – Marie Antoinette actually had birds in her hair.’

‘Very hygienic.’

‘So,’ she said. ‘I got saved by your colleague – Chief Superintendent Barrington?’

Grace frowned. ‘You did?’

‘My hairdresser didn’t get over to England – she travels with me everywhere, now she’s pregnant and she went down with complications. So he’s found me this great hairdresser – actually she’s a police officer’s wife!’

‘She is – who?’

‘Tracey Curry. Chief Inspector Steve Curry’s wife.’

‘I know him – I didn’t realize his wife was a hairdresser.’

‘She’s a genius!’

‘I’m glad to hear Sussex Police are turning out to be a full service agency!’ he said.

‘Just keep me alive and look after my kid – that’s all the service I need.’ She indicated an armchair opposite the sofa, and he sat down.

‘We have some good news on that front,’ Grace said. ‘I imagine you’ve heard?’

The voice of James Cagney said, ‘We sure did!’ Her security chief Andrew Gulli strode into the room, dressed as before in a dapper suit. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, it’s so good to see you again.’ He sat in the chair next to him.

Another young female assistant materialized out of the ether and asked Grace how he took his coffee.

Gulli raised both his hands in the air, as if holding up an imaginary football, then lowered them, still with the ball, to his lap. ‘The thing is, Detective Superintendent, they may have caught this guy, but I don’t want us relaxing our guard on Gaia and Roan. You have a lot of crazy people in your city, right?’

‘We have our fair share,’ Grace admitted. ‘But no more than anywhere else in this country. Brighton’s a pretty safe place.’

‘I read you normally have around fifteen to twenty homicides a year, but you’ve already had sixteen, and we’re only halfway through this year. So your homicide rate has doubled.’

Gaia, who sat herself down attentively on the edge of the sofa, was staring at Grace. He could see, beneath her beauty, the crease lines of fear.

‘It’s a statistical blip,’ he replied cheerfully, and instantly knew he had said the wrong thing.

‘Yeah, right,’ Gulli said, his Cagney accent even more pronounced now. ‘So tell me, how did those people lying in body bags in your mortuary feel about being a statistical blip, Detective Superintendent Grace?’

Grace was momentarily distracted by the arrival of his coffee, and waving away the offer of sugar, said, ‘If it’s any comfort, most of the murders were low-life criminals on criminals or domestics.’

Gulli scratched behind his left ear. ‘I’ve been reading a lot of history on your city. In the 1930s Brighton was known as the “Crime Capital of the UK” and the “Murder Capital of Europe”. You know, it doesn’t seem like much has changed.’

Grace was starting to feel annoyed with the man. But he kept his patience. ‘I’ll talk to the Chief Constable and pass on your concerns.’

‘I’d be very grateful,’ Gulli said. ‘In the meantime I’d appreciate it if you maintained the current level of officers.’

‘I can’t make promises but I’ll do all I can.’

‘Thank you,’ Gaia said. She was smiling at him sweetly, and with an almost mesmerizing concentration, staring into his eyes. Was he imagining it, he wondered, or was he getting the come-on from her?

‘Mom, I’m like so bored!’

Roan walked across the room, barefoot, in baggy jeans and an orange T-shirt, a Nintendo console hanging from his fingertips.

She patted the side of the sofa and he sat down grumpily beside her. ‘He’s not too impressed with the weather, are you, sweetie?’

He peered at his Nintendo screen.

‘Is that the new one?’ Roy Grace asked. ‘The 3DS?’

The boy studied the screen and gave him a reluctant nod.

‘He wants to go on the beach, but nothing doing with this weather.’ She pointed to the window at the pelting rain. There was a sudden change in her expression. ‘Do you have kids, Detective Superintendent?’

‘No, I don’t. Just a goldfish.’

She laughed. ‘I figured it would be nice for Roan to meet some kids his age. Do you know anyone who has some who might be willing to play with him, hang out with him a little?’

His eyes widened. ‘Actually, I do, yes!’

‘I would so appreciate that.’ She kissed her son’s cheek, but he barely noticed, he was so focused on his console. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, hon? Someone to play with?’

He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

‘I could make a quick call – Roan’s six, right?’

‘Just had his sixth birthday party three weeks ago.’

‘This person’s got two kids – I think they’re about six and nine.’

‘Perfect!’

He dialled Glenn Branson’s number.

‘Yuh, old timer, what’s up?’

‘I have someone who wants to speak to you.’

‘Who’s that.’

‘I’ll put her on!’ He handed Gaia the phone and said, ‘His name’s Glenn.’

‘Hi, Glenn!’ she said in her huskiest voice.

Grace smiled. He was trying to imagine his mate’s face at the other end of the line.

‘What do you mean, you don’t have any?’

The man hunched over the counter in a white coat was the kind of miserable jerk who should not have been there at all. He should have quit or retired long before he’d decided he hated doing this job so much he wasn’t ever going to be pleasant or helpful to anyone who came in here. With his frayed grey hair and his thick, round bottle-lensed glasses he looked like a Nazi geneticist who’d had a career change. He spoke like one, too.

‘Ve don’t haf any.’

‘You’re a fucking pharmacist; all pharmacists sell thermometers.’

The man shrugged and said nothing.

Drayton Wheeler glared at him. ‘You know where there’s another pharmacist?’

He nodded. ‘I do.’

‘Where?’

‘Vy should I tell you? I don’t like you. I don’t like your attitude.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Vuck you too.’

For an instant, Wheeler was tempted to punch his smug, evil face. But there were all kinds of potential repercussions from that. Not smart. He mustn’t get side-tracked, had to keep focus. Focus. Focus.