Peter James - Not Dead Yet

‘That’s the dome of the Banqueting Room, right ahead,’ David Barry pointed. They scaled a short, metal ladder, then went along another narrow walkway. Then they climbed a long, steep ladder, Roy Grace nervously clinging on tightly as the Curator, above him, clambered as confidently as a mountain goat.

Grace hauled himself on his knees on to a narrow platform, with the dome curving majestically skywards above him. And now he really did not dare look down.

Then his phone rang.

He debated for a moment whether to answer it, then very carefully pulled it out of its cradle. ‘Roy Grace,’ he said.

It was ACC Peter Rigg, and he sounded anxious. ‘Roy,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I gather there’s a bit of an incident at the Royal Pavilion.’

‘Er – yes, sir, I have.’

‘I think you’d better get there PDQ.’

Grace looked out across the city rooftops. ‘I am actually here, sir.’

‘Good, excellent! Anything to report?’

‘Yes, sir, I have a great view.’

‘View?’

He saw Barry was crawling through a tiny inspection hatch door.

‘Can I call you back in a few minutes, sir?’

‘Please. The Chief Constable’s fretting.’

‘Yes, I know, sir.’ He ended the call and followed Barry through the hatch, having to ease himself in backwards, into almost total darkness and the musty smell of old wood, and something acrid and deeply unpleasant.

‘This is the second skin of the building,’ the Curator said, shining his torch beam around. ‘Outside you have the visible bottle-shaped shell of the dome. This is the wooden framework supporting it.’ Both men coughed. Grace’s eyes were stinging. He could see wooden slats, like a primitive ladder, rising above him and getting increasingly narrow.

The Curator shone the beam upwards, illuminating a wooden cross beam, with a severed metal shaft suspended from it. It looked, to Roy Grace, the same diameter as the shaft sticking out of the top of the fallen chandelier. Wisps of smoke or steam were curling upwards from it. Grace frowned, then coughed again. Then he looked down, and through a small hole, a large section of the Banqueting Room was visible beneath. He could see the two paramedics still on all fours, in the wreckage of the chandelier.

The Curator swung the torch beam down and something glinted in the light. It looked like a metal bottle cap. Then Roy Grace noticed a discarded San Pellegrino bottle. Near it were fragments of broken plastic.

‘Bloody litter louts!’ the Curator said, reaching for the bottle.

Grace grabbed his hand. ‘Don’t touch it – it could be a crime exhibit and it might contain acid.’

‘Acid?’

Grace guided the beam up the severed shaft again. ‘What do you suppose that is?’

Barry stared at him. ‘I don’t understand.’

Then they both saw the rucksack wedged between two slats, a short distance above them. Grace took the torch and climbed up to it, then shone the beam inside. He saw an opened all-day-breakfast pack of sandwiches, a can of Coke, a bottle of water, a Kindle, a battered leather wallet, and what looked like an iron tyre lever.

Tucking the torch under his chin, he again pulled a pair of protective gloves from his pocket and snapped them on. Then he took out the wallet and opened it. Slotted in one pocket he saw a photograph of a small boy in a baseball cap, and a plastic Grand Hotel room key jammed in another. He put the wallet into a plastic evidence bag and slipped it into his pocket.

Then he coughed again, just grabbing the torch before it fell. He shone the beam back on the shaft. The end of it, with wisps of smoke still rising, had melted into a bulbous shape that reminded him of mercury in a thermometer. ‘What do you know about chemistry?’ he called down to the Curator.

‘Never my strong subject,’ David Barry said, staring up at the end of the shaft.

‘That makes two of us,’ Roy Grace said. ‘But I can tell you one thing. Your chandelier didn’t fall by accident.’

‘I don’t know if I’m happy to hear that or not.’

Grace barely heard him. He was thinking about Gaia’s son Roan, who had apparently been sitting beneath the chandelier seconds before it fell. Had the boy been the intended target?

No. He did not think so. His immediate hypothesis was that Gaia was the target. Something had gone wrong in the assailant’s plans. Timing? The appearance of Roan?

Who was the man crushed beneath the chandelier? The perpetrator? Or a heroic innocent bystander?

He did not think the latter. Innocence didn’t play any part in what had just happened.

Roy Grace and a subdued David Barry strode quickly back into the Banqueting Room. The film crew had now been cleared from the room, and two police officers stood by the doorways. A large number of Fire Brigade officers were standing by with their equipment, waiting for a decision that would be made by the Coroner’s Officer and the Home Office pathologist, who would be called out, whether the body could be recovered to the mortuary, or the first part of the post-mortem was to take place here.

A Crime Scene Photographer had arrived, as well as the Coroner’s Officer, who was talking to DI Tingley. Grace hoped there were sufficient people from the mortuary on call so that Cleo would not be dragged out here from her much needed rest this evening.

Jason Tingley turned to Grace. ‘Chief, we can’t get a Home Office pathologist until first thing in the morning. Nadiuska’s going to be doing the post-mortem. I explained the situation and she’s given permission for the body to be recovered to the mortuary.’

‘Good.’ He looked up, briefly. ‘I think we’re going to have a difficult balancing act with the film people. It looks to me that someone deliberately brought down this chandelier. I want the dome above it treated as a crime scene – get SOCO up there right away, and warn them there are some hazardous substances.’

One of the police officers at the door came over to him. ‘Sir, there’s a gentleman who says he is the film’s producer who’s insisting on speaking to you.’

Grace walked across to the door and saw a short, bald man, expensively dressed in casual clothes, who was looking indignant.

‘You the officer in charge around here?’ Larry Brooker said imperiously.

‘I’m Detective Superintendent Grace – I’m in charge of Major Crime for Sussex.’

‘Larry Brooker, I’m the producer of this movie.’ He stabbed a finger towards Jason Tingley. ‘I gotta problem with that colleague of yours. I’m making a multi-million-dollar movie and he won’t let me on my own set!’

‘I’m afraid that’s correct,’ Grace said. ‘No one is permitted in the building while we carry out our investigations. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave, too.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t let this happen,’ Brooker said.

‘With respect, it’s actually not your decision to make,’ Grace said.

The producer glared at him. ‘So just whose decision is it, for fuck’s sake?’

‘Mine,’ Grace said.

‘You have to get real, Detective – do you have any idea-’

‘Is a dead body under that chandelier real enough for you?’ Grace said, cutting him short, barely containing his anger now.

‘So, like, what’s the score?’

Did this creep really not care? Grace stared at the bald runt, highly tempted to say something that would really piss him off. The score is three-two to Manchester United , perhaps. The Test Match score in Bangalore? But he remembered the importance of this film to his beloved city. ‘Mr Brooker, I’m conscious of your situation, and I’ll be as fast as I can. I’m going to bring in a team to work overnight. I’m afraid we do have to seal off the whole building, but subject to what the maintenance and Health and Safety people say, I’ll try to give it back to you tomorrow afternoon. Would that be acceptable?’