Not Dead Yet

61

‘Who’s your fat friend?’

They all looked at the guide in astonishment. She was standing in the hall of the Royal Pavilion beneath a portrait of the corpulent figure of King George IV.

A knot of nineteen of the twenty visitors to the Royal Pavilion were gathered tightly around her, hanging on every word. Just one person, standing right at the back, had his attention somewhere else altogether.

‘Oh my God!’ an elderly American woman wearing a plastic rain hood exclaimed. ‘He said that? To the king?’

The guide, a woman in her early fifties, had the authority of a school headmistress about her. ‘He did indeed,’ she said firmly. ‘You see, Beau Brummell was a very well-known figure – a real Regency dandy. Tall, quite statuesque, always immaculately dressed and coiffed, whereas poor George just got fatter and fatter as he got older and looked less and less distinguished. Well, they had a bit of a falling out. Beau Brummell, Lord Alvanley, Henry Mildmay and Henry Pierrepoint were considered the prime movers of what Lord Byron styled the Dandy Club. The four of them hosted a ball in July 1813 at which George, still then the Prince Regent, greeted Alvanley and Pierrepoint but cut Beau Brummell dead. Getting his own back, Brummell turned to Alvanley and said, very disdainfully, “Alvanley, who’s your fat friend?” ’

Drayton Wheeler was grateful for the pelting rain, because it enabled him to wear a baggy mackintosh with the collar turned up, and a wide-brimmed hat low down over his face. This was his third visit here in three days, and he was concerned not to be noticed by any of the staff, especially the security guards, so on each occasion he had worn different clothing. As the guide continued talking about the rift between George and Beau Brummell, he stared nervously at the closed, ochre-painted half-gate at the top of a stone staircase that led down into the basement of the building.

He checked the inside pocket of his jacket, and felt the reassuring lump of folded papers – the set of plans for each floor of this building he’d purchased from the Planning Office yesterday. He’d spent much of the night studying and memorizing them. He looked over the gate and down the staircase again.

‘Poor Prinny’s obesity became a very big issue for him,’ the guide droned on. ‘There is an underground passage running from here to what was once the royal stables. Prinny had it built because he was so ashamed of how gross he looked that he didn’t want the public to see him. He went up to twenty stone in weight. So he could come and go in private!’

Wheeler looked furtively around. There was no guard standing in the hallway. The people in front of him blocked the guide’s view of him. This could be his best chance. He stepped back a few paces, peered over the top of the gate, and saw it was secured shut by a small brass bolt. He looked back at the crowd. No one was looking his way. He lowered his hand over the top, felt the bolt and tested it. It made a scraping sound as he slid it open. He froze, looked down the staircase, then at the crowd on the guided tour, then along the hallway in both directions.

Then he pushed the gate open, stepped on to the staircase, rapidly closing the gate behind him, then crouched, for a second, listening, his heart hammering, his ears pounding. Then he hurried down the steps, still crouching, and turned right at the bottom, entering a long, narrow corridor with a brick floor that, in contrast to the immaculately maintained and presented public areas, was dusty and shabby and poorly lit. He walked past a decrepit green door, sagging on its hinges, with a yellow and black DANGER – HIGH VOLTAGE sign on it. A cobweb across the top left corner of the door showed it had not been opened in a while.

Perfect.

He pulled it open. The hinges shrieked and the bottom of the door scraped on the bricks. He looked around nervously, but there was no sign of anyone. He peered inside and saw a whole wall of fuses and electrical switchgear, and some pipework that looked like it was lagged in asbestos. But crucially, there was enough floor space for him to be able to sit down.

He entered and pulled the door shut again, with some difficulty. It smelled fusty and there was a faint humming sound, as well as a steady, rhythmic ticking. It felt as warm as an airing cupboard. He took out the torch he had brought along, and his Kindle from the bag of provisions he had concealed beneath the mackintosh, which he folded to use as a cushion, then squatted down on the floor for the long wait until this evening, when the whole place would be locked and deserted.

He fired up his Kindle, then at the same time pulled his wallet out of his coat pocket, and flipped it open. A small boy in a grubby T-shirt, with messy hair either side of his LA Lakers baseball cap, grinned cheekily back at him. Six years old, standing in the back yard of their old home in Pasadena, in front of a row of sunflowers, taller than he was. Taller than he would ever be.

His only son. Wearing his thick glove, holding a ball he was pretending to be about to pitch.

Two days after that photo was taken, Ferdy was mauled to death by the neighbour’s Rottweiler, when he’d climbed over the fence to retrieve that ball.