Not Dead Yet

31

As he drove his silver police Ford Focus from the Sunday morning briefing meeting on Operation Icon, down the London Road, heading towards the monolithic superstructure of Brighton’s John Street Police Station, Roy Grace was deep in thought, with a lot weighing on his mind, and trying to organize his priorities.

His biggest worry was Cleo, who’d had a restless night with the baby kicking, and was not feeling well this morning. She was still very shaken from the vandalism of her car, and he wanted to get back to her as soon as possible.

There had been no developments on ‘Berwick Male’, as the headless, armless and legless torso had been named. Their best hope was pinned at the moment on a DNA hit, and they should hear from the lab in the morning.

Tomorrow he had to go to London, to Inner Temple, for a meeting with the prosecuting barrister on the Carl Venner snuff movie case. He needed to find time today to meet with the Case Officer DC Mike Gorringe and financial investigator Emily Curtis, to review their evidence files and go through his Policy Book. They would be grilled tomorrow as if they were in the dock, and needed to have all their answers ready. And right now he had to attend a meeting with Chief Superintendent Graham Barrington.

His phone rang, and he answered it on hands-free.

‘Mr Grace?’ said an unfamiliar, chirpy voice.

He answered with a hesitant ‘Yes?’

‘It’s Terry Robinson, from Frosts Garage. You popped in a few weeks ago looking at an Alfa Brera?’

‘Right, yes,’ he said, remembering vaguely. There was a strange and irritating clicking sound on the line for some seconds, similar to the noise he heard before. Either a bad connection or something wrong with his phone, he thought.

‘You asked me to let you know if any four-door Alfas came in. Are you still in the market for one?’

‘Um, yes, I am.’

‘We’ve got a year-old Giulietta. High spec, it’s a beautiful car. Got a bit of mileage on the clock, but you said you didn’t mind that, didn’t you?’

‘How many miles?’

‘Forty-eight thousand. One owner. In Etna black. It’s a stunning looking vehicle, sir. We’ve already got enquiries on it. I’d recommend you come and take a look as soon as possible.’

‘Doesn’t black show the dirt badly?’

‘Black always looks best when clean, but it’s the most popular of all colours. And it suits this car very well. It looks stunning.’

Grace did a quick mental calculation. ‘I could try and get over early afternoon. What time do you shut today?’

‘Four o’clock, sir. But I can’t guarantee the car will still be there. If someone puts a deposit on the vehicle, that will be it.’

‘I’m afraid I’m up to my eyes. I’ll try to get over, but I’ll just have to risk it.’

‘I’ll be here until four. Terry Robinson’s the name.’

‘Terry Robinson, thank you. I’ll do my best.’

He halted at traffic lights. One of his favourite buildings, the ornate, absurd but beautiful Brighton Pavilion, was over to his right, the city’s own faux Taj Mahal. Two yobs in a purple Astra pulled up alongside him, music pounding in deep bass through their open windows, shaking the air, shaking his brain. For an instant he wished he was back in uniform; he’d have leapt out of his car and had a go at them. Instead, as the lights turned green he watched them blast off into the distance, twin exhausts as big as drainpipes; probably the size of their arseholes.

Keeping his cool, he turned left at the next junction and up the steep hill, and made a right into the lower car park of John Street Police Station, the five-storey modern slab of a building that was the second busiest police station in the UK, and the place that had been his home during the early years of his career. Much as he enjoyed his job, the CID HQ at Sussex House, where he worked, was a soulless building. He missed the downtown buzz of this place.

Marked police cars were parked in long rows, as well as half a dozen police vans, but being a Sunday, many of the bays were empty, and he had a wide choice. He reversed into one, then phoned Cleo, who told him she was feeling a little better, and was loving his flowers.

Relieved, he let himself into the rear door, then climbed up three flights of stairs, with their familiar battered walls and institutional smell, and walked down the corridor of the Command suite, passing several empty offices, and then a small canteen. On his right, sticking out from a closed door, was a sign reading SUPERINTENDENT and on the left, CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT, whose door was open.

He went in. The office, which he knew well from many previous visits, was of a practical size befitting the rank of its occupant. To the right was a substantial desk and, directly in front of him, a large round table at which a group of people were seated, with three vacant chairs. All of them, except one, he noted, were formally dressed, like himself, as if this were a weekday.

On the wall to his left was a large whiteboard, on the bottom of which were three messages, written in marker pen, from Barrington’s triplets. One said: My dad’s the world’s best copper!

With a twinge, he wondered if the baby Cleo was carrying would one day write something similar about himself.

Graham Barrington, in his mid-forties, was a tall, slim, athletic-looking man with short, fair hair. He was wearing a uniform short-sleeved white shirt with epaulettes, black trousers and shoes. Grace had known Barrington from when they were both in the CID together. The officer had told him then that the job he most coveted on which to finish his career was to be back in uniform as the Divisional Commander of Brighton and Hove – or ‘the sheriff as he jokingly called it – the job he held now. Grace was pleased for him. It was good to know it was possible to have ambitions and dreams fulfilled.

Next to Barrington was DI Jason Tingley, boyishly handsome, with brown hair brushed forward into a fringe, dressed in a navy suit; his only concession to the weekend was allowing his tie to be slack and his top shirt button open. Greeting him with a warm smile was the extremely competent press officer, thirty-two-year-old redhead Sue Fleet, wearing a dark suit and a blue blouse. Two other women he did not recognize, one in her late twenties in police uniform, the other in her late thirties wearing a white blouse, were also present, as was a solidly built, shaven-headed Sergeant from the Close Protection Team, Greg Worsley, dressed in a rumpled blue T-shirt, jeans and trainers. Completing the gathering was Chief Inspector Rob Hammond, a Tactical Firearms Commander.

Graham Barrington stood up to greet him. ‘Roy, thank you so much for giving up your Sunday!’

‘I can’t remember the last time I actually had one!’ he replied, then smiled at each of the others. He was pleased to see Jason Tingley, with whom he had worked years back on a brutal rape case. Tingley was a very smart detective. He also went back a long way with Graham Barrington; like most of the force, he had a great deal of respect for the man who had been credited with very substantial crime reductions in many areas of the city.

Barrington introduced him to the two women, then Grace sat down. All of them, he noticed, had Starbucks containers in front of them. He could have killed for a coffee right now – he cursed himself for not thinking ahead and getting one on the way here.

They chatted informally for some moments before Barrington cut across them. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘The situation is I’ve had telephone contact with the Threat Management Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department and with Gaia’s security chief, a former police officer called Andrew Gulli. The first issue I’ve had to deal with is explaining to Mr Gulli that his bodyguards are not permitted to carry guns in the UK.’

DI Tingley cut in. ‘The threat is global, and we know our target is capable of using a firearm. Are we going to have any Armed Response Unit members active?’

‘We are, Jason,’ Barrington assured him. ‘Chief Inspector Hammond and Sergeant Worsley are here to give us their plan for protecting Gaia and her son Roan.’ He indicated to the two men to proceed.

Sergeant Worsley went first. ‘Gaia Lafayette and her entourage are flying in to London Heathrow Terminal Five at 7 a.m. on Wednesday,’ he said. ‘We have suggested putting out a false trail that she is flying in to Gatwick via a private jet, but I understand she has had her press secretary inform the entire UK press of her actual plans. It looks like we have a case of the ego is about to land.’

Grace suppressed a grin. This was so typical of major stars. They claimed to hate the paparazzi, yet always tipped them off where they would be. ‘Where is she staying? In Brighton, or outside?’

‘In Brighton, sir,’ Worsley replied. ‘In The Grand Hotel. Her entourage has booked the Presidential Suite and all the other rooms on that floor – so we can at least make that floor a sterile area.’ He looked down at his notepad. ‘One of our big issues is budget, sir. The Chief has told me to offer every resource I have to her, but she’s going to have to pay for anything beyond what we would consider a reasonable level – the kind of security we’d give to minor royalty.’

‘You’re aware of the attempt on her life last week?’ Grace asked.

‘That is very largely why were are here,’ Hammond said.

‘We’re also aware that she will probably make some kind of pilgrimage to her childhood home in Whitehawk,’ Worsley added.

‘Another problem is she likes to jog, Roy,’ Barrington said. ‘Apparently she has her minders jog with her, but that’s another area of security risk.’

Worsley nodded. ‘We’re planning on putting a ring of steel around her, sir. No one’s going to get near her without us checking them first.’

Grace nodded. ‘Good.’ But he knew that no matter how much security you laid on, it was impossible to protect anyone totally. He asked Barrington for the name of his contact in Los Angeles and wrote it down, intending to speak to him directly.

They were all experienced officers in this room. And they all knew the reality. You could protect someone as much as you liked, but if they insisted on moving around freely, they were always going to be at risk from a lone nutcase.

He could not stop the chill of unease that coiled inside him.