Not Dead Yet

84

At 1.45 a.m. Anna Galicia walked along New Road, Brighton, across the street from the Theatre Royal, wearing a bomber jacket and jeans and a baseball cap pulled on tight against the blustery wind. She stopped by a low wall, screened by some shrubs, watching the activity in the Royal Pavilion grounds wind down for the night. Two police officers strode along the pavement and she turned her face away from them. There was a tantalizing smell of frying bacon coming from the catering truck that still appeared to be open.

A short while ago, burning with hatred, she had watched Gaia leave her swanky trailer and step up into the back of a black Range Rover. The car had swept out of the grounds in a presidential-style convoy of identical vehicles.

You don’t care about the environment really, do you, Gaia? Anna thought, her anger tinged with sadness. Your whole persona, your act – and even your bloody name – is all a lie, isn’t it? Do you really need five Range Rovers just to transport you less than half a mile from the set to your hotel and back?

Do you?

You are such a hypocrite.

Someone has to teach you a lesson.

Then Judd Halpern, Gaia’s co-star playing King George IV, emerged from his trailer. He was looking the worse for wear from drink – or drugs, in all probability – and had to be helped down the steps by two minions, and guided into the back of a Jaguar. A security guard, standing outside the main entrance, lit a cigarette. She watched it glow bright red for an instant.

Several other vehicles also left, carrying away, presumably, some of the supporting cast and senior crew. A number of unit members were still working, switching off lights on stands and humping equipment around. She stepped forward and walked nonchalantly across the Pavilion lawns, being careful not to trip over any cables. No one appeared to take any notice of her. Good.

She made her way over to the cluster of trucks and motorhomes, heading as discreetly as she could towards Gaia’s trailer, which was parked close to the gatehouse building on Church Street. Just in case anyone had noticed her, she meandered as nonchalantly as she could towards the archway, as if she were just Ordinary Joe taking a late-night stroll before bed. But just as she reached the shadows on the far side of Gaia’s trailer, she ducked down, pulled her iPhone out of her handbag, then switched on the Torch app.

She could not believe her luck.

Legend had it that King George had had a secret underground passage built, connecting the Royal Pavilion with Maria Fitzherbert’s house in the Old Steine, so that he and his mistress could have their trysts in secret. But this was not true, she knew from her research. There was a secret passage, but it was built by the king for a very different reason. It was because, an immensely vain man, he was embarrassed by how gross he had become – weighing twenty stone – and did not want the public to see him. He could walk to the stables out of sight, and enter his coach in privacy. All the public would see of him would be his face at the window.

The stable block had been rebuilt by Queen Victoria, and moved several feet to the north. The original exit from the secret passage was now a sealed trapdoor, overgrown with grass. Gaia’s trailer was parked, she could see from the slight marking on the grass, backed up almost on top of it.

Deliberately? To make it up to her? It had to be a signal.

How good was that?

Then she walked stealthily around the vehicle. Rental mobile homes like this must have some kind of discreet advertising on them, she figured. Then she found it, on the front right, a square metal plate. AD MOTORHOMES LTD. Beneath was a website address, an email address and a phone number.

She wrote down the company’s number and the registration plate of the vehicle.