Peter James - Not Dead Yet

It was 12.30 a.m. and he felt wired. He picked up the Sky remote and clicked through the saved programmes until he saw the one Cleo had recorded for him on Gaia, and clicked on it.

Squeak-squeak-squeak, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Humphrey’s tussle continued.

He scooped his food on to a plate, put it on a tray with a napkin and cutlery, and a glass of Spanish Albarino from the fridge, and sat back down. For the next twenty minutes as he ate, tuning out the dog, Gaia’s life unfolded in front of him. From the modest house where she lived as a child on Brighton’s Whitehawk housing estate, to her first success at the age of fifteen on a television talent show, to her move to Los Angeles in her late teens, where she started off waiting tables, followed by an affair with a record producer who picked her up in a noodle bar on Sunset, and gave her her big break, cutting her first single with the same session musicians that had been behind both Madonna and Whitney Houston’s early recordings.

There were periodic close-ups of Gaia saying how important it was for everyone to treat the planet with respect. ‘ I love you love me ’ was one of her catch phrases for that message.

There followed vignettes of concerts she had performed around the globe. Grace grinned at one, in Munich, where she appeared in German national costume of a dirndl, holding an accordion, and knocking back beer from a gigantic stein. Then another in Freiburg, capital of the Black Forest, where she was kitted out in lederhosen. Then, suddenly, in a costume switch, she stormed on stage, in front of an enraptured audience, in a cloud of swirling dry ice, jumping right, then left, holding a hunting rifle, wearing a man’s tweed suit.

A bright yellow ochre suit with a loud check pattern.

Grace’s tray crashed to the floor as he grabbed the remote, and froze the image. He ignored the up-ended plate and his spilled wine glass as he stared, transfixed, at the screen. He wound it back some seconds, then let it play and then froze it again.

It was exactly the same fabric that had been found in the chicken farm. The same fabric that had been found at the fishing lake. He was certain.

Beyond certain.

Gaia was wearing it on stage, in front of him, on the Bavarian leg of her German tour last autumn.

He froze the image again, reached for his phone, and dialled Andrew Gulli.

‘Inspector Grace?’ he answered. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I apologize for calling so late but this could be important.’

‘No problem, Inspector, do you have any news for me?’

‘Well, this may sound a strange request,’ Grace said. ‘I gather Gaia often auctions off the clothes she wears at concerts, and gives the money raised to green causes. Is that correct?’

‘She’s very committed.’

‘I need to know about a yellow tweed suit that she wore at a concert in Bavaria last autumn.’

In a wry tone displaying rare humour, Gulli said, ‘You’re not going weird on me are you, Inspector?’

‘I’m not going weird on you, I can assure you! I need to know about that suit really urgently. It could be relevant to her safety. Would you by any chance recall if she put it up for auction?’

‘You wanna describe it to me?’

Grace gave him the details.

‘I’ll come back to you in the morning.’

‘No, I need you to come back to me tonight. If you have to wake her up, then apologize to her for me, but it is really urgent.’

‘Okay, leave it with me, Inspector.’

Grace continued to play and replay the scene. Fixated on the suit. Then he cleared up the mess on the floor and was just pouring himself another glass of wine when Gulli called back.

‘Inspector Grace, I just spoke with Gaia. This was a while back, you have to appreciate. But so far as she can remember, that suit was auctioned last fall, October or November. She seemed to think it fetched quite a large sum – more than usual.’

‘Thank you,’ Grace said.

‘Anything else I can help you with tonight? Have you made any progress on the chandelier?’

‘I have a Crime Scene Team and a Police Search Team working through the night.’

‘I appreciate your increasing the police presence around the hotel tonight,’ Gulli said. ‘But I’m minded to recommend Gaia flies back to Los Angeles tomorrow. I’m looking into flights.’

‘Wouldn’t you have an issue with the film schedule?’

‘Yeah, but her safety and the kid’s safety are more important.’

‘I’d appreciate if you waited for our findings tomorrow.’

‘I’m not happy with the situation,’ Gulli said.

To Grace, he did not sound like a man who was ever happy. But he didn’t tell him that. Instead he replied, ‘Then I guess my job is to make sure you are happy.’

‘I remain to be convinced.’

He ended the call, then immediately phoned Glenn Branson to update him about the fabric. Then he replayed the entire scene in the video again.

Thirty minutes later, when the documentary had reached Gaia’s first movie role, he fell asleep on the sofa.

The production did not wrap until almost 1 a.m. Part of the problem causing constant delays to the outdoors filming, Anna Galicia could see, watching among the thinning crowd of onlookers from New Road, was the constant coming and going of Police, Fire Brigade and Scientific Support vehicles.

The scene they were filming was Gaia, or rather Maria Fitzherbert, bewildered and in tears, storming out of the front entrance of the Pavilion, having been dumped by her royal lover.

Although the crowd were kept too far back to hear what was being said, except for that final call announcing it was a wrap, it was clear that Gaia had been keeping everyone waiting and was in an irritable mood tonight. Big surprise there! Bloody bitch.

She watched her return to her motorhome.

Finally, at 1.20 a.m. someone emerged, a fit-looking female in jeans and a blouson jacket, and it took Anna a moment to realize this was Gaia with cropped hair. She was accompanied by an assistant, and instantly surrounded by her security guards. Much earlier, Anna had watched the boy leave, accompanied by another assistant and two security guards. Presumably back to the hotel, to bed.

There were rumours going around the crowd that he’d narrowly missed being killed by a falling chandelier. Shame that, she thought. She’d have liked to have seen Gaia grieving. Although it would have messed up her plans.

The convoy of five black Range Rovers swept out of the grounds, and there was a general hive of activity in their wake. Lamps being shut down, equipment being moved and stowed in the trucks parked in the grounds. The police cordon broke up, and within ten minutes several white Sussex Police vans had arrived and were loading up with officers. Anna, watching keenly, began walking, looking for her opportunity.

It came sooner than she had anticipated. As she reached the entrance to the car park at the rear of the Dome concert hall, she saw that the three police officers who had been manning the cordon were walking away. Two people were closing up the catering truck and four men were occupied in lifting some camera dolly track.

No one took any notice of her as she slipped between the trucks, then over to the motorhomes. She paused in the shadows between Judd Halpern’s and Gaia’s and looked around. Neither had lights on inside. She saw a security guard standing nearby, smoking a cigarette and talking on his phone or radio, looking away from her.

Now!

She stepped up to the front door of Gaia’s trailer, clutching the key she had collected from AD Motorhomes in St Albans earlier in the day, and slipped it into the lock.

Then she turned it.