Not Dead Yet

82

Drayton Wheeler lay, curled up on the floor, listening to Mozart’s Figaro overture on his iPod earphones. It was Mozart’s music which had sustained him through all the shit in his life. Mozart lifted him to the heavens. When the time finally came, he didn’t want some fucking priest holding his hand, he wanted to be alone, listening to this.

He looked at his watch, munching on the cheese sandwich he had selected from his rations. Midnight. It would be safe to move into position now – he had figured out the security guards’ rota in here during the small hours.

He finished eating, switched off the iPod and drank some water. He removed the iron tyre lever from his rucksack, and scooped everything else back into it apart from the torch, then stood up and hauled it on to his shoulders, shaking the cramp from his legs. Then he relieved himself in a corner.

When he had finished, he slowly and cautiously pushed open the heavy door and stepped out, looking in both directions. Just darkness. No one there. Holding the tyre lever in his right hand and the torch, switched on, in his left, he made his way along the passage, passing old pipework, a modern red firehose reel, and three rickety old antique chairs with broken wicker seats. He felt nervous. So close now. He had to succeed. Had to. He switched the torch off, held his breath then, knowing there would be security guards prowling around above him, inched his way up the steps in the darkness until he reached the half-gate.

Footsteps.

Shit.

He crouched, heart pounding, pulse tugging at the base of his wrist as if it were a small creature trying to get out. He gripped the tyre lever tightly.

Rubber-soled shoes clumping along. The sound of jangling keys. Then whistling ‘The Harry Lime Theme’. The whistle of someone who was nervous. Whistling badly, missing several of the notes. Was the guard nervous of this place at night?

Just don’t come down here.

To his relief the footsteps faded into the distance and were gone. But he stayed crouched for several more seconds, listening. A walk of twenty feet, not covered by any sensor, would take him to the door which opened on to the stairs up to the long-deserted apartment beneath the dome. He slipped the bolt, pulled open the gate and stepped out into the hallway, holding his breath. Listening intently. Total silence. He pulled the gate shut and slid the bolt back into place, flicked on the torch for an instant to get his bearings and then off again. He walked on tiptoe, passing a sign which pointed to TOILETS, pulled open the door, stepped inside and pulled it shut behind him.

Then, switching on the torch and guided by the beam, he climbed up the long, steep spiral staircase with the rickety banisters, pausing for breath halfway up. Shadows jumped around him. This place was probably full of ghosts. So what, he’d be one soon, too. The dead had never bothered him. Ghosts weren’t scumbags like some of the living.

He reached the top and entered the old, abandoned apartment beneath the dome. A door lay against a wall. There were dust sheets over uneven, angular shapes. Horrible mottled wallpaper, dusty oval leaded-light windows with views out across the street lights, shadows and orange permaglow of the city at night, and the vast black expanse of the sea. A mouse – or a rat – scampered away, feet scratching on the bare boards. The air smelled dusty and dank.

He felt tired. The coffee in his flask had long gone cold. He would have liked to lie down on the floor and sleep, but he didn’t dare. It would be dawn in a few hours. He needed to get into place under the cover of darkness. He stepped carefully across the circular room, passing the trapdoor secured by two bolts, with the wording on it, DANGER – STEEP DROP BELOW. DO NOT STAND ON DOOR, accompanied by the image, in purple, of a falling man. He kept the beam of his torch low, just in case anyone was looking up in this direction, and walked through a doorway into what had once been another bedroom, with everything in here also shrouded in dust sheets. In front of him was a wall, covered in graffiti. One in swirly writing said, J Cook, 1920. There was a drawing of an owl. Another drawing of a shield. Another read, RB 1906.

To the left was a small door, barely bigger than a hatch. He knelt, slid the bolts and pushed it open. The cool, blustery night air with its fresh, salty tang, engulfed him, and he breathed it in, greedily, gulping it into his lungs, a relief from the stale air inside. He removed his rucksack and pushed it through, then eased himself out, hauled himself to his feet, and carefully pushed the door shut.

He was standing on a narrow, steel platform with a handrail, with the wind tugging at him. A long way below, directly in front of him, was the dark area of the Pavilion grounds, and the shadows of the motorhomes of the stars and the production trucks. In the glow of the street lighting, and through the swaying branches of the trees, he could see the Theatre Royal and the restaurants, shops and offices of New Road, and beyond, the dark, uneven rooftops of sleeping Brighton.

Around him, up here on the roof, were turrets, minarets, chimney stacks and chimney pots, and a network of walkways and metal-rung ladders fixed to walls. There was enough ambient light here to see where he was going without using his torch. He set off, walking along a steel platform between two pitched slate roofs, with skylights along one side, carefully gripping the handrail. He had memorized the plans, but even so, now he was up here, he found it hard to get his bearings. There was a faint traffic hum below him. Then the distant doppler wail of a siren stopped him for an instant, in panic.

But it ripped on past and faded.

The dome above the Banqueting Room, which was his target, lay directly ahead of him. One more walkway, then he scaled a short metal ladder, and hauled himself up on to another walkway. His tiredness was evaporating and he was starting to feel really good. Invincible! Yeah, though I walk alone through the shadow of the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil. For I am the Meanest Sonofabitch in the Valley.

Oh yes!

No one messes with Drayton Wheeler.

No one messes with the Meanest Sonofabitch in the Valley!

One more ladder. His rucksack swung right, pulling him over, but he hung on grimly. Three limbs on a ladder at all times! That was the rule you had to remember. One hand, two legs; two hands, one leg.

He climbed on to the narrow platform, and the dome curved up towards the sky, majestically, steep as a mountain, right in front of him now.

He switched on his torch for a few seconds, saw the tiny inspection hatch door, and switched it off again. He opened it, again pushed his rucksack through in front of him, then he crawled forwards, and through it, on to the first two steps of a wooden staircase, into pitch darkness. Switching on the torch again, he pulled the door shut behind him. His whole body was pounding. He was shorting out with excitement.

Oh yes, baby, oh yes!

He could safely keep the torch on now. He crawled forward, up several more steps, then on to a wooden platform. The interior of the dome mirrored the exterior, like a second skin. The exterior was rendered in carved stone, but the interior frame was constructed from wooden slats, like a concave ladder.

There was no point in climbing it now, he knew from his previous recce, because it just got progressively steeper. He would be more comfortable staying here, on this platform.

If the production stuck to its schedule tomorrow, after the Royal Pavilion closed to the public, Brooker Brody Productions would start filming one of the key scenes in the movie. His movie. King George IV and Mrs Fitzherbert sitting at the banqueting table, directly beneath the massive chandelier that His Majesty was so nervous of.

The fixings supporting the chandelier were directly above him. A two-minute climb. From the top he could look down, through a tiny crack, at the top of the chandelier, and almost the whole of the room.

With luck if he got his timings right, Gaia Lafayette and Judd Halpern would be pulped.

That would put an end to the ridiculous travesty that Brooker Brody Productions had written into the script, about Maria Fitzherbert committing suicide after being dumped by the king.

Much better for her to die like this.