Peter James - Not Dead Yet

‘Depends how many takes Madam requires to get her lines right.’ Both officers noted the sarcasm in his voice.

Grace decided not to push the point, turned and walked a few steps away, followed by the DS.

‘Sodding jobsworth!’ Glenn Branson said. ‘I’d love to see some of the filming.’

‘I’d like to see the finished result, knowing that we kept Gaia alive,’ Grace replied grimly.

There were a good 200 members of the public lined up along the wall, watching. He saw Glenn warily scanning their faces. Was Eric Whiteley among them? A man who was prepared to pay more than £27,000 for a suit worn once by his idol. A loner, with nothing in his life but his doomed-to-be-unrequited – and unreciprocated – passion for an icon. A loner who had been spurned by her, probably humiliatingly for him, in the front entrance of The Grand Hotel.

Was he so desperate for anything belonging to his idol, that he had killed and butchered his rival bidder for that suit?

What was next on Whiteley’s agenda, after destroying his entire collection of Gaia memorabilia?

Destroying the icon herself?

Which would, of course, instantly make him almost as famous.

Along with Larry Brooker, several of the cast and crew were staring uneasily at Gaia. Jack Jordan frowned, wondering whether his star was on drugs. She was definitely looking very odd this evening, he thought. Her hair was obscuring much of her face, her make-up was far too heavy and her voice sounded strange, as if she had aged overnight; nor did she appear to have remembered anything from their rehearsals over the weekend. Had it been the shock of her son nearly being killed yesterday? Would it have been more sensible to have given her a couple of days off to recover? Too late for that now.

Patiently he repeated the line for her, putting the emphasis where he wanted her to put it. ‘This is not how a queen expects to be treated, my dear Prinny. I have never in my life been so humiliated.’ He paused. ‘Okay? Much more emphatic! In these last few takes you’re almost mumbling. You are saying this loudly to everyone, playing to your audience – all the king’s friends and associates. You must really project ! What you are doing is trying to humiliate him publicly.’

Gaia nodded.

He turned to the banqueting table, to King George. ‘Judd, immediately you respond with, “You never were a damned queen. You were just a posh tramp .”’ He turned back to Gaia. ‘That’s your cue to burst into tears and run, wailing, from the room. Are we all clear?’

Judd Halpern and Gaia both nodded in turn.

The First Assistant Director, headset on, strode across the floor and called out, ‘Right, first positions everybody!’

The Camera Operator announced, ‘Rolling!’

The Clapper Boy jumped in front of the camera lens with the digital clapperboard. ‘Scene One-Three-Four, take three.’ There was a sharp crack, and he moved clear.

Jack Jordan called out, ‘Action!’

‘Gaia,’ she said, addressing first the king, then everyone at the table, before turning dramatically around and addressing Jack Jordan. ‘You never were a queen! You were always just a posh tramp! Just a poser! You made people believe you loved them just for your ego, didn’t you? Well, you’re not special, see, anyone can do what you do. Look at each one of you in this room!’

Faces froze. There were looks of astonishment, bewilderment. Jack Jordan took a step towards her. ‘Gaia, love, do you want to take a few minutes’ break?’

‘You see?’ she was screeching now. ‘You can’t tell! You really can’t tell! So you don’t need her any more, anyone would do!’

She turned and ran, stumbling, from the room.

Jordan turned in bewilderment to Larry Brooker, then to the Line Producer. ‘That – that’s not her,’ Barnaby Katz said. ‘That’s not Gaia!’

Brooker was shaking his head. ‘Has she goddamn flipped?’

‘That’s not her – that wasn’t her!’ Katz said again. ‘Shit, I’m telling you, that was not Gaia !’ He sprinted for the corridor and ran down it, into the hallway where there was the door to the public toilets. Brooker and Jack Jordan followed closely behind him.

‘Not Gaia?’ Brooker called out.

‘No!’

‘Then who the hell was it?’ Brooker said. ‘Is this her idea of a goddamn practical joke or something?’

‘Where’s she gone?’ Katz pushed open the door to the ladies and peered in, then the men’s room. Then he hurried across to the front entrance, and out to the two guards. ‘Did you guys see anyone come out? About a minute ago?’

Both men shook their heads. ‘No one’s been in or out in the past fifteen minutes, on your instructions, sir.’

‘You didn’t see Gaia – or someone resembling her?’

‘No one.’ They looked adamant.

He squeezed past them, followed by Brooker and Jordan. A few yards away, he saw Roy Grace standing beside a tall black man in a sharp suit. ‘Neither of you saw Gaia just now?’ he asked.

‘Gaia?’ Grace said. He did not like any of their strange, baffled expressions.

‘Or someone dressed as her?’ Katz asked.

‘She ran out of the Banqueting Room and goddamn vanished,’ Brooker said.

‘No one’s come out of this entrance since we’ve been here,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘Not for at least the last seven or eight minutes.’

Roy Grace stared at Brooker. ‘Would you mind telling me what’s going on? What do you mean, you can’t find Gaia?’

‘I would if I goddamn knew.’

‘Gaia came on set looking very strange, and acting completely out of character,’ Jack Jordan said. ‘Then she went totally off-script, spouting a whole load of nonsense, and ran out of the room.’

‘It wasn’t her,’ the Line Producer said. ‘I’m certain.’

‘Everything’s secure, the whole building,’ one of the security guards said. ‘All the keys have been removed from the locks – one of the measures we were advised to take by your colleagues. We did that as soon as the public had left. If she was in the building five minutes ago, she is still there, I can assure you.’

‘If you’re saying it wasn’t Gaia,’ Grace said to the Line Producer, ‘then where is Gaia?’

He shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe still in her trailer?’

Grace felt his earlier panic returning, gripping and twisting his insides. Still in her trailer?

Jordan and Katz went back into the building.

‘Want me to go and check?’ Katz said to Grace.

‘No, I’m going.’ He turned to Branson. ‘Glenn, get the building surrounded, put someone on every exit, no one leaves, okay? Not even the damned Curator until I say so. No one leaves the grounds, either – I want a total lock-down, and right now.’

‘Right, chief.’

Grace ran along the drive then across the lawns, then stopped by the two police officers standing guard near the front of Gaia’s motorhome. Two of Gaia’s own security guards were chatting a little further back, one smoking a cigarillo.

‘Has anyone gone in or come out of this since you’ve been here?’ he asked the two officers.

Both shook their heads. ‘Not since Gaia left to go on set, sir,’ said one.

Grace went up to the door and rapped hard on it. He waited a moment, then rapped again. Then he pulled it open, calling out a cautious ‘Hello? Hello?’

Silence greeted him.

He climbed up the steps and entered. And felt as if a fish hook had suddenly and viciously snagged him in the gullet.

For an instant the entire interior of the motorhome seemed to swivel on its axis, its walls shrinking in, then expanding again. His ears popped in terror at what he saw.