Peter James - Not Dead Yet

‘Jesus,’ Branson said.

There was a strong stench of fresh human excrement.

Grace stared levelly ahead. At the man who had nearly killed Gaia, and had come close to killing him, too. He shot a quick glance up at the smashed ceiling, fifteen feet above, which Whiteley had crashed through, and saw the guard with the moustache, forty feet above that, peering curiously down. Then, holding his breath for some moments against the smell, he looked ahead again, at the bizarre sight in the centre of the room.

The wig had gone, and was lying a short distance away. A balding, middle-aged head, with grey hair, protruded from the neck of the elegant Regency dress. Whiteley appeared to have hit the floor feet first, then collapsed back against a stainless steel sink, which was supporting him, giving the illusion he was sitting upright of his own accord. The scarlet dress lay pooled all around him, as if carefully arranged so as not to get creased.

Two pale-coloured sticks, each about eighteen inches long, rose up through rips in the dress below his midriff, like a pair of ski poles. Except they had blood and small strips of sinew and skin on them. Grace realized with horror what they were. The lower sections of the man’s legs, driven up through his knees by the impact.

The stench of excrement was even worse now. He walked over, and looked at Whiteley’s make-up-caked face. The man was blinking, non-stop, three or four blinks a second, as if some wiring loop inside his head had short-circuited. Tiny moans were coming from his mouth, which was opening and closing slowly, gormlessly, like a goldfish. Grace took hold of Whiteley’s wrist and found a pulse. He did not bother to time it, but could tell it was dangerously low. ‘He’s still alive, just. Call for an ambulance.’

Branson, staring bug-eyed at the stricken man, pulled out his phone.

‘Would she have done the same for you?’ Cleo asked.

‘That’s not the issue.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘It was my job to protect her.’

‘You’re a trained hostage – and suicide – negotiator. You told me once, Roy, that part of what you were instructed was never to put your own life in danger. Well, you just did, didn’t you? Again.’

It was a warm Friday evening, a glorious summer night, and to celebrate Cleo’s last day at work before maternity leave, they’d booked a table at a country restaurant they liked called the Ginger Fox, a short drive out of Brighton. Cleo liked to remind him that with the birth of the baby increasingly imminent, each quiet dinner out together might be their last for a very long time. Roy never took much persuading. There were few things he enjoyed more in life than sitting in a restaurant with Cleo, with some good food and a decent glass of wine.

He ran the shower, removed his tie with difficulty, as his hands were so painful, and had several deep splinters still embedded in them. He took off his suit jacket and trousers, then sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his socks. He was hot and sweaty, and felt drained after what seemed like a very long week. And an even longer past two days.

Two press conferences in the past twenty-four hours; a referral to the Independent Police Complaints Authority, because he had been directly involved in the serious injury of a suspect; an enquiry by Professional Standards as to why he hadn’t brought up the issue of the information Kevin Spinella kept obtaining, much sooner than he had. Plus he had all the paperwork dealing with Operation Icon to go through. And as a bit of icing on the cake, there were major issues with the playing fields that the police rugby team, which he managed, would be using when the season started.

On top of everything else, he’d had to travel up to London today, as he’d been called as a witness earlier than he’d expected in the Carl Venner trial. Except, having got all the way to the Old Bailey, he was told he now would not be needed until next Tuesday.

A shower, followed by a blast out into the countryside in Cleo’s Audi TT with the roof down, a cold beer and a few glasses of wine and he would feel a lot better. He might even treat himself to a cigarette. One big advantage of Cleo’s pregnancy was there were no drink-driving issues, no arguments about who would drive home.

‘It’s not a question of training, my darling,’ he replied. ‘There was a scandalous hoo-hah a few years back when two PCSOs in another county didn’t jump into a lake to try to save a drowning boy, because their training forbade them. That’s pretty rare – I don’t think I’ve met a single police officer in Sussex who would have held back from jumping in. It’s not about training, it’s something any human being would do. You can’t just stand by and watch someone die.’

She kissed him. ‘You know, I’ve never been a worrier.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Not until I met you.’

‘Are you sure it’s not part of the package? All the stuff we’ve read, we both know that pregnancy messes with the mother’s hormones. Worry is one aspect of the protective mothering instinct. You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘It’s not the baby, Roy. It’s you. Every time you walk out the front door, I wonder if you’ll be coming back. Or whether it will be two of your colleagues knocking on the door instead.’

‘Cleo, darling!’

‘Did Sandy have to put up with all this? The same fears?’

The reminder of Sandy stung. The mention of her name invariably set off a small pang of sadness and loss, despite the good mental place that he was in, and all he now had. He shrugged. ‘She never said anything – not about danger. Her gripe was always my unpredictable hours.’

‘I’m sorry that I worry, I can’t help it, I love you. But just look at all the crazy stuff you’ve done in the past year. You’ve been in a burning building. Over a cliff in a car.’

‘Not exactly.’

‘The car went over a cliff, Roy.’

‘Yes, okay, but I wasn’t in it.’

‘You were in it ten seconds before it went over.’

He smiled. ‘True.’ He stood up and pulled his boxer shorts down.

‘You dived into Shoreham Harbour in front of a ship.’

It was strange, he thought. He felt perfectly comfortable standing naked in front of Cleo. But Sandy had an almost Victorian prudery about nudity. Except in bed where she could be wild, she always had something wrapped around her, and would insist that he put something on, even if it was just to walk from the bedroom to the bathroom. And she had a thing about the toilet, as well, an obsessive privacy. He once, way back, had joked to a friend that in all the years he and Sandy had lived together as man and wife, so far as he knew, she had not yet been to the toilet.

‘I didn’t have any choice with Gaia,’ he said. ‘If I hadn’t done what I did, she would be dead or maimed. My career would have been over. But that was not the reason I did it.’

‘The police force isn’t the only job in the world, Roy. If you ever got demoted or got the sack, I wouldn’t love you any the less. Okay?’

‘And if someone died because I had been a coward?’

The question hung in the air.

‘History is full of dead heroes, Roy. I’m not ready for you to be history.’

He blew her a kiss and stepped into the bathroom, then checked his face in the mirror. The gash on his left cheek had required three stitches, but it looked to be healing all right. As he turned on the taps, his mobile phone, lying on the bed, pinged twice with text messages.

‘Could you see if there’s anything urgent!’ he called out.

She picked up the phone. The first message was from Jason Tingley.

Do you need me 2morrow or can I play golf?