Not Dead Yet

121

Over the course of the following week, to Roy Grace’s relief, press coverage about his rescue of Gaia began to move from the front page and dwindled, although the jibes from his friends and colleagues continued. He gradually reduced the Operation Icon team numbers, until by the following Friday’s morning meeting there was just himself, Glenn Branson, Norman Potting, Bella Moy, Nick Nicholl and a handful of others.

They had a lot work to do still, collecting statements, preparing for the inquests into the deaths of Drayton Wheeler and Myles Royce. Meanwhile they awaited the daily medical bulletins on Eric Whiteley, who remained on life support in the ICU at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, under police guard.

He hadn’t been able to resist showing the text from Gaia around to his colleagues and he was now the butt of a number of saucy but good-humoured jokes about her.

‘So how’s your new lovebird today, chief?’ Norman Potting asked.

‘She’s been back on set all week, I gather, thank you, Norman. She’s tough.’

‘I’ll bet she is,’ he said with a dirty chuckle.

‘Leave it alone, will you, Norman?’ Glenn Branson snapped at him.

Grace had been noticing a certain tension between Branson and Potting recently. But his mate had refused to be drawn on it, on the couple of occasions he’d tried to bring the subject up while they were having a drink after work. Another thing he had noticed a few times was a sly exchange of glances between Potting and Bella.

There couldn’t be anything going on between them, could there? To him, Potting was just about the most physically unappealing man he’d ever encountered. Surely Bella could do better than him?

On the other hand, nor could he see the appeal a Brighton copper might have to one of the world’s greatest and sexiest rock and movie stars. But he was getting a constant stream of increasingly flirty texts from Gaia. It did not seem to matter how neutral and guarded his replies were, the innuendo from her was increasing daily.

Of course he was flattered. And they were too much of an ego boost to delete. But they changed nothing in his love for Cleo. He had thought several times about that question she’d asked him last week in their bedroom. Would he go to bed with Gaia if he had the chance?

And his answer was no. An emphatic no.

On the following morning he drove to his house to check on its condition. Sometimes his now long-stay lodger, Glenn Branson, kept it neat and tidy, other times it looked like he’d had a herd of hyenas rampaging through it. Also he could never quite trust his friend to remember to feed his venerable goldfish Marlon.

He pulled up outside shortly after ten, nodded at his neighbour across the street, Noreen Grinstead, the local gossip, a hawk-eyed, jumpy woman in her seventies, who was forever outside the front of her house, washing something. Right now she was hosing down her spotless silver Nissan car.

He did not want to have to talk to her about the recent events, and was equally happy not to get drawn into a tedious conversation with her about the lives of everyone in the street, which sometimes happened. He had moved on from this place, which Sandy, years back, had fallen so in love with. He was now house-hunting with Cleo, and they were taking advantage of this free weekend to look at a number of houses in the city and in the surrounding countryside.

He walked up the path, and let himself in through the front door. ‘Hi, matey!’ he called out, as a warning that he was here, not wanting to disturb Glenn if he had some bird back here – which he was always secretly hoping Glenn would have, to get him over his marriage-from-hell.

But there was no reply. He knew that on his weekends off, Glenn liked to sleep in and then go to the gym, or cycling, which he had recently taken up, in the afternoon.

He stooped and picked a bunch of mail off the mat, sifting through it as he walked through into the kitchen, which Sandy had once made so modern and high tech, but which now looked sadly dated.

‘Hi, Marlon, how are you doing?’ he said, peering into the bowl, pleased to see there was still plenty of food in the hopper.

The fish, as surly as his namesake, ignored him as usual, slowly gliding to the surface and gulping down yet another tiny globule of his food.

‘Not in a chatty mood today? That makes a change, right?’

Marlon did a single circuit of his bowl, and for a moment their eyes met. Then the fish rose to the surface and gulped another globule.

‘It’s okay, old chap, you’re not hurting my feelings. I’ve got a much sexier admirer than you. Would you be jealous if I told you who?’

The fish did not look remotely jealous.

Grace turned away and dumped the small pile of letters, takeaway pizza and Chinese menus, and a blue and white flyer from the local Conservative MP, Mike Weatherley. Then he sifted quickly through the letters. One was a brown envelope that contained a council tax demand. And one was from the estate agents Mishon Mackay, whose board was outside the house.

He opened it, and there was a written report on the recent viewings. Just as he started reading it, his phone rang.

‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.

‘Oh, Mr Grace? It’s Darran Willmore from Mishon Mackay.’

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m just reading your letter this minute!’

‘Right – well – I’ve got a bit of a development I thought you might like to hear about.’

‘Fire away.’

‘We had a viewing recently, a mother and her son. We did think she seemed quite interested at the time. They’re living overseas at the moment, but want to move to Brighton – I believe she has some past connection here.’

‘Okay, sounds interesting.’

‘Well, it’s looking encouraging. She wants to have a second viewing.’

That’s brilliant news, Grace thought, wondering how he was going to break it to Glenn.

‘I thought you’d be pleased!’

‘I am,’ Roy Grace said. ‘The timing could not be better.’