Peter James - Not Dead Yet

A damned advertisement in a Munich newspaper she had just happened, by chance, to see a month ago. That was why.

SANDRA (SANDY) CHRISTINA GRACE

Wife of Roy Jack Grace of Hove. City of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England.

Missing, presumed dead, for ten years. Last seen in Hove, Sussex. She is five feet, seven inches tall (1.70 metres), slim build, and had shoulder-length fair hair when last seen.

Unless anyone can provide evidence that she is still alive to Messrs Edwards and Edwards LLP at the address beneath, a declaration will be sought that she is legally dead.

Of course, at some point Roy was going to move on with his life, what did she expect? But all the same it hurt like hell. She couldn’t help it. It was his damned fault she’d had to leave in the first place. Now it seemed he was trying to dismiss his past with a single wave of his hand. Having herself declared dead could only be for one reason: so he could be free to marry again.

Marry his pregnant bitch.

She pulled the particulars of the house out of the glove locker. The house where they had once been so happy. Their home. It was on the market now, and it might never come back on the market again for the rest of their lives, because it was the kind of house people lived in for years. The kind of family home where people could grow old together.

The two of them could have grown old there together. That had been the plan. She and Roy. What would that have been like? What kind of an old couple would they have made?

‘How long do we have to stay here?’ Bruno asked suddenly in German.

She looked at him, the son Roy had always wanted, and was about to reply, but then stiffened. A man was striding down the street towards them, dressed in a dark suit, and carrying a bulky attaché case. It had been ten years since she had last seen him, but in this fading light it could have been just twenty-four hours. His trim figure was just the same and his face had barely aged. Only his hair was different, cropped short and gelled. It suited him.

He looked happy, and that sent a deep twinge of sadness spiralling through her.

She knew there was no chance he would recognize her in the falling darkness, wearing large sunglasses, a baseball cap pulled low over her forehead, and with her hair dyed black. But even so, she tilted her face down. A thousand thoughts were going through her mind. Was the woman carrying a boy or a girl? How happy was he with her? How long had they been seeing each other? Did they argue all the time?

What do I do next?

She waited some moments then took a cautious peep. Just in time to see him tapping the entry panel keypad. Then he pushed the wrought-iron gate open and entered. Moments later it swung shut behind him, with a clang.

Swung shut on her.

Locking her out of his new life.

She kept looking until he had walked out of sight.

Then she twisted the key in the ignition, so hard that for a moment she thought she had snapped it. The engine fired. She checked her mirrors, then accelerated up the road, squealing the tyres, sending Coke spurting over her protesting son.

‘Goddamn lucky it ain’t raining,’ Drayton Wheeler said. He turned, as if for confirmation, to the awkward-looking woman standing behind him in the long line of people stretched back from the main entrance to Brighton Racecourse; the building had been commandeered by the film production as the assembly point for the extras.

She looked up from the copy of the Argus she was reading, staring for some moments at the rather odd man in front of her in the queue to register as film extras. ‘Very lucky.’

‘You’re fucking telling me.’

He was definitely a weirdo, she thought. Tall and gangly, with a grey pageboy fringe poking out beneath a wash-faded baseball cap. He was all twitchy, his face screwing up in frown lines, as if filled with pent-up anger, and had a sickly, sallow complexion. There were fifty people in front of them, all shapes and sizes, waiting to sign on and be fitted for costumes. They had been standing for over an hour, in the blustery wind high up on Race Hill. White rail posts marked the oval race track, and there were fine views across the city and south, over the Marina and the English Channel.

Suddenly, from the front of the queue, a cheery woman’s voice called out, ‘Are family Hazeldine here? Paul Hazeldine, Charlotte Hazeldine, Isobel Hazeldine and Jessica Hazeldine? With their dog, Benson? If you are here, could you make yourselves known to us please! Come forward to the front of the queue!’

Wheeler looked at his watch. ‘Gonna be another hour at least.’ He looked at the woman, who was about his age. She had an angular face, with blonde hair styled like Gaia’s from a photograph that was in a large spread about the shooting of the movie in today’s edition of the local paper.

His movie.

His script they had stolen.

He could do with sex. She wasn’t attractive, but she looked like she was single and she wasn’t a paper bag job. No wedding band. Great legs. He was a legs man. Maybe she was up for sex? Maybe, if he played it right, he could get her back to his room for a screw afterwards? He could focus on her legs, and not her face. His apparatus still functioned – one of the side-effects of the happy pills he was on to help him forget that he was dying. She looked lonely. He was lonely.

‘Done this before?’ he asked, trying to break the ice.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘that’s none of your business.’ She lifted her newspaper, to block him out of sight, and continued reading the spread on Gaia and on the filming which was starting on Monday.

Bitch . She was thinking. Oh you bitch, Gaia. I’m going to think about giving you one more chance. Understand? One more chance. And that’s only because we love each other.

She could tell, from the contrite expression Gaia had, that she was trying to send her a signal. An apology.

It’s almost too late. But I might give you one more chance. I haven’t decided.

She lowered the paper. ‘Actually I’m only doing this because I’m a personal friend of Gaia.’

‘No shit?’ he said.

She smiled back proudly. ‘She’s wonderful, isn’t she?’

‘You think so?’

‘She can do no wrong!’

‘You think so? Jesus!’

‘Well, from what I’ve read about this film, the script is crap, but she will make it something special.’

‘Crap? Lady, did you say the script is crap?’

‘Whoever wrote it has no idea at all about the truth between George and Maria. But that’s Hollywood, right?’

‘I don’t like your tone.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Fuck you, too,’ he said, glaring at her. He wanted to tell her he wrote it, that his version of events was correct, regardless of what abomination those assholes at Brooker Brody had made it into. Instead he turned away. Fighting to bring his anger back under control.

They stood in silence for the next ninety minutes. Finally it was his turn to sign on. He gave his name as Jerry Baxter. He was given a copy of the production shooting schedule and the Monday call sheet, and was then sent through to the upstairs room for male costume fitting. As he left, the fresh-faced young woman behind the desk smiled up at the next in line. ‘Your name, please?’

‘Anna Galicia,’ she said.

‘Do you have any acting experience?’ the woman asked her.

‘Actually, I’m a personal friend of Gaia.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘You should have asked her to contact us – save you queuing.’

‘Oh, I would hate to bother her while she’s rehearsing. She likes to get into the zone before acting.’