Not Dead Yet

111

Eric Whiteley’s house, 117 Tate Avenue, was near the top of a hill, in a network of streets filled with post-war houses and bungalows, all fairly tightly packed together. It was a quiet area, with the cliff-top walk above the sea a quarter of a mile to the south, and the vast expanse of farmland and open grassland of the South Downs just two streets away to the north.

Number 117 had a rather sad look about it, Guy Batchelor thought. It was a modest, drab 1950s two-storey brick and wood structure, with an integral garage, and fronted by a tidy but unloved garden. A sign on the garage doors, in large red letters on a white background, proclaimed, DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT PARKING HERE.

He waited on the pavement with DCs Nicholl and Reeves as the six officers from the Local Support Team went down the drive, two peeling off and hurrying down the side alley, past the dustbins, to cover the rear of the property. All six were in blue jump suits, with body armour, and military-style helmets with the visors down. One carried the cylindrical battering ram. Another two carried the hydraulic jamb spreader, and its power supply, which was used for forcing apart the steel reinforced door frames that drug dealers were increasingly fitting to slow down entry of any police raid. A fourth officer, the Sergeant in charge of this section, carried the search warrant.

Shouting, ‘POLICE! OPEN UP, POLICE!’ the first officer banged on the door, rang the doorbell and banged hard on the door again. He waited some moments, then turned, looking for a signal from his Sergeant, who nodded. Immediately, he swung the battering ram at the door. It burst open on the second strike, and three LST officers rushed in, bellowing, ‘POLICE! POLICE!’ while the Sergeant held back, in case their intended target tried to do a runner out of the garage door.

Guy Batchelor, Emma Reeves and Nick Nicholl stayed outside, until they got the all clear, confirming that the rooms had all been checked and there was no threat. Then they entered.

And stopped in their tracks in astonishment.

Nothing about the exterior of the house had given them any hint of the quite astonishing room they had stepped into.

There was a marble floor that would have looked more at home in an Italian palazzo than an urban annexe of Brighton and Hove. The walls were ceiling-to-floor mirrors, decorated with Aztec art and posters of Gaia. Batchelor stared at a signed monochrome of the icon in a black negligee – one of her most famous images. But it was ripped through several times with what must have been a knife blade, so that parts had peeled away and were hanging down. In angry red letters across it was daubed, BITCH.

He looked uneasily at Emma Reeves. She pointed to the left, above a white leather armchair. At another huge framed poster, in which Gaia was wearing a tank-top and leather jeans, captioned GAIA REVELATIONS TOUR. Across it was daubed in the same red paint, LOVE ME OR DIE, BITCH.

Above the fireplace, clearly in pride of place was a blow-up of the icon’s lips, nose and eyes in green monochrome, captioned, GAIA UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL. It was also personally signed. It too was slashed to ribbons in parts, and painted across, again in red, was the word COW.

One of the Specialist Search Unit officers, gloved and wearing black, was opening drawers in a chest on the far side of the room. Batchelor stared at each of the posters, at the violent rips, at the red paint, feeling deep, growing unease. He glanced out of the window; it was a grey, blustery afternoon and he could see a neighbour’s washing flapping in the wind, in front of a breeze-block garage. Something flapped in his belly. He had been in a lot of bad situations in his career, but he was experiencing something new to him at this moment. It was an almost palpable sense of evil. And it was spooking him.

A shadow moved, making him jump. It was a small Burmese cat, back arched, eyeing him suspiciously.

‘Take a look up here!’ another Search Unit officer called down to them from upstairs.

Batchelor, followed by Emma Reeves and Nick Nicholl, charged up the stairs, and, following the direction he was signalling, entered a room that felt like a cross between a museum and a shrine. And in which there had been a recent explosion of anger.

Shop window dummies lay on their sides on the floor, wearing dresses covered in clear plastic, and daubed in red paint. More autographed posters on the walls were ripped and daubed. CDs, tickets to Gaia concerts, bottles of Gaia’s mineral water, a smashed Martini glass and a fly-fishing rod snapped in two were among the other detritus that lay on the floor streaked, like blood, in red paint.

Some items remained in their glass display cabinets, but many of these were barely visible behind the furious red words all over the glass. BITCH. COW. DIE. LOVE ME. I’LL TEACH YOU. FUCK YOU.

DC Reeves was looking around, wide-eyed. ‘What an incredible collection.’

‘You a Gaia fan?’ Nick Nicholl asked.

She nodded vigorously.

‘Sir!’

They all turned. It was one of the Search Unit officers, Brett Wallace, and his face was ashen. These officers, he knew, saw everything and it took quite a bit to shock any of them. But this officer was definitely shocked at this moment.

‘This house has just become a crime scene. We’re going to have to lock it down and not disturb anything else.’

‘What have you found?’ Batchelor asked.

‘I’ll show you,’ Wallace said.

They went back downstairs, and followed him into the kitchen, a spotless room with dated furniture and appliances. Two other Search Unit officers were standing in there, both looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. Wallace pointed at an open door, and Batchelor, followed by the other two, walked across to it. Beyond was a tiny pantry, mostly filled with a chest freezer, the lid of which was raised. A few supermarket ready meals lay on the floor, along with several packets of frozen sausages, and three picnic freezer blocks.

‘Take a look inside,’ Wallace said, indicating for him to go in.

Warily, Guy Batchelor took a couple of steps forward and peered down. Instantly he stepped back a pace, in shock.

‘Oh shit,’ he said.