Not Dead Yet

94

Several of the film unit’s lights had been beamed on to the fallen chandelier. Under their glare, two paramedics in green uniforms, Phil Davidson and Vicky Donoghue, were picking their way through the shattered glass and twisted metal, trying to locate the victim’s head, being careful not to put any additional weight on the wreckage that could crush the man further. There was blood everywhere beneath them, spreading slowly outwards, and a terrible stench like a bad drain. Both of them knew what that meant. That the man’s stomach and bowels had been split open.

They could glimpse the man’s clothes in a few places. Repeatedly, Vicky Donoghue asked, ‘Sir, can you hear us? Help is on its way. Can you hear us, sir?’

There was no response. Outside, she could hear a cacophony of sirens winding down. Hopefully the fire brigade had arrived with lifting gear. Then she saw flesh. A wrist.

Carefully she eased her gloved hand in between the jagged leaves of glass palm fronds, and held the wrist lightly. It was limp. ‘Can you hear me, sir? Try to move your hand if you can’t speak,’ she urged. Then she curled her fingers around the wrist, feeling for the radial artery.

‘I’ve got a pulse!’ she announced after some moments in a low voice to her colleague. ‘But it’s weak.’

‘We’ve got to get this mess lifted off him. How weak?’

She counted for a few seconds. ‘Twenty-five.’ She counted again. ‘Going down. Twenty-four.’

He mouthed the question at her without actually saying the words. He didn’t need to. They’d crewed together for long enough to be able to read each other’s signals. FUBAR BUNDY?

The words were an acronym for Fucked Up Beyond All Recovery, But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet. The gallows humour of the ambulance service that helped them cope with horrific situations like this.

She nodded affirmative.

Jason Tingley, with his boyish mop of hair brushed forward, white button-down shirt with black buttons, and narrow black tie, every inch a twenty-first-century Mod, was at his desk in the CID department on the fourth floor of Brighton’s John Street Police Station, nearing the end of his twelve-hour shift as the on-call Detective Inspector. At the forefront of his mind was yesterday’s disturbing development of the emailed death threat against Gaia.

He yawned; it had been a busy day, starting at the beginning of his shift with a woman claiming she had been raped after having a row with her boyfriend, and leaving a party at 6.45 a.m. Who the hell partied until 6.45 a.m. on a Monday night – or rather, Tuesday morning – he wondered? Then at midday the Road Policing Unit had stopped a car in the city with its boot filled with bags of cannabis. And at 3 p.m. there had been an armed robbery on a jewellery shop in the city centre.

He was still dealing with the paperwork on that now, and was almost finished. He was hoping to be able to get home in time to see his two children before they went to bed, and enjoy a meal and a quiet evening in front of the television with his wife Nicky. Then his phone rang.

‘Jason Tingley,’ he answered.

It was the Ops 1 Controller, Andy Kille. ‘Jason, there’s been an incident at the Royal Pavilion just come in that I thought you, the Chief Superintendent and Roy Grace might want to know about.’

‘What’s happened?’

He listened with great concern to the sketchy details that Kille had been given. It seemed a strange coincidence that a chandelier which had been in situ for almost two centuries should suddenly fall down this week, of all weeks. Unless the film crew had been meddling with it and had damaged something?

‘Do we know anything about the person under the chandelier, Andy?’ he asked.

‘Not at this stage, no.’

‘I’m going to take a look,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep Roy Grace and Graham Barrington informed.’ He ended the call, stood up and hooked his jacket off the back of his chair. By the time he had reached the car park out the back, and belted himself into one of the grey Ford Focus cars from the detectives’ pool, he had notified the Chief Superintendent of Brighton and Hove, who was away for the day attending a course, but had not managed to get through to Roy Grace.

Five minutes later, as he turned left and drove under the archway into the Pavilion grounds, Tingley saw three fire engines, a Fire Service Heavy Rescue vehicle, an ambulance and a paramedic car outside the main entrance, as well as two police vehicles.

He drove past the cluster of trailers, pulled up as close as he could to the main entrance, then hurried across, flashing his ID at two security guards. They told him to go inside and turn right.

The last time he had been in this building was years back, on a school history outing. It had the same smell of all museums and galleries, but he had forgotten just how ornate and splendid it was. As he entered the Banqueting Room, a surreal vision lay in front of him. It was as if a Pause button had been pressed, freeze-framing some people in the room, but not everyone. And the smell was quite different. A vile, sickening stench of drains.

Members of the film crew, scruffily dressed and with shocked expressions, stood motionless, seemingly rooted to the spot. One woman, in baggy jeans, had turned away from the horror in the centre of the room, and was sobbing in shock in the arms of a huge, bearded man, who was holding an aluminium foil lamp reflector behind her back.

The fallen chandelier looked like a giant, beached, jewel-encrusted jellyfish, with tentacular chains sprawling all around, a metal shaft, like a broken spear, protruding several feet from the top of it.

Two paramedics were in the middle of the wreckage, while one team of fire officers were manoeuvring cutting gear into place, and another two officers were working on placing a blue and yellow airbag, attached by a line to a compressed air cylinder, under one part of the wreckage. A third officer stood beside them, with a small stack of wooden blocks to place beneath as the wreckage rose.

A young uniformed woman police officer greeted Detective Inspector Tingley’s arrival with relief, as if happy she could now delegate responsibility to someone more senior.

The Detective Inspector stared up at the ceiling. He could see the dragon claws and the painted palm leaves, with a small, dark hole in the centre, where he presumed the shaft had been. Then he turned to the PC.

‘What do we know so far?’ Tingley asked her.

‘Well, sir, I just got here a few minutes ago. What I’ve been able to ascertain so far is that there is one person, male, known to be under the chandelier.’

‘Could there be others?’

‘No, sir. I’ve spoken to several eye witnesses who say there is just one person.’

‘What do we know about how this happened?’

‘Well, it’s very sketchy. It seems that Gaia’s son was sitting at the table, playing. This man, who must have seen that the chandelier was about to come down, dashed across the room and literally threw the boy clear.’

‘Is the boy all right?’

‘Yes, sir, he’s with his mother in her trailer.’

‘Who is the man? One of the film crew?’

‘So far, no one recognizes him.’

‘A maintenance worker, perhaps?’

‘Could be, sir.’

Tingley looked around. ‘Right, get some back-up here fast. I’m treating this as a crime scene. I want the entire building cordoned off, get everyone out, but take the names and addresses of everyone in the building, including the security guards, as they leave.’

She nodded, looking around, taking it all in.

‘Start with this room,’ he said, helpfully. ‘Tape it off. No one leaves until you have their name and address.’

‘Yes, sir.’ She radioed for assistance, then hurried out.

Tingley strode across the room towards the wreckage. As he did so he caught the eye of the male paramedic, Phil Davidson, whom he had met on several previous occasions.

Davidson nodded grimly. ‘It’s like that scene in Only Fools and Horses when the chandelier came down.’

‘What do we know about who’s under there?’ Tingley asked, ignoring the comment about the TV sitcom.

‘One male, according to witnesses.’

Aware of almost everyone in the room looking at him, Tingley went as close as he could to the edge of the chandelier.

‘Fifteen,’ the female paramedic announced grimly.

‘It’s looking like it’s going to be a fatality,’ Davidson said quietly to the detective. Then, using gallows humour jargon he added, ‘A scoop and run at best, I’d say.’

An agitated American voice said, ‘Excuse me, can I help you?’

Jason Tingley turned and found himself facing a short, lean man, with a tanned bald dome, dressed in a black shirt with silver buttons, open almost to the navel, black jeans and Cuban-heeled boots. The detective flashed his warrant card in his face. ‘Detective Inspector Tingley, Sussex CID. Can I help you?’ he said, pointedly.

‘Good to meet you, sir. I’m the producer of this movie. Larry Brooker.’

Tingley shook his hand. It felt like patting the head of a poisonous snake whose venom had been removed.

‘I just heard you’ve ordered the entire building to be cleared,’ Brooker said. ‘Did I hear right?’

‘You did.’

‘Well, the thing is, officer, we have a bit of a situation here, as you can see.’

The detective gave him a sideways look. ‘I think you could say that, yes.’ Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the young woman PC hurrying back into the room with a reel of blue and white police crime scene tape.

‘Like, I have Gaia, and Judd Halpern, and Hugh Bonneville, Joseph Fiennes and Emily Watson all waiting in their trailers. We gotta get some footage in the can tonight – because of our schedule.’

The DI looked at Brooker, incredulously. Then he pointed at the chandelier and the emergency service workers. ‘You’re aware that there is a man underneath that? A human being?’

‘Sure, of course. Like, I’m as shocked as everyone else.’

‘So what actually is your point, sir?’

‘My point is that we’re already behind schedule. This is terrible. Tragic. Fucking English maintenance, right – I mean – where else in the world could this happen?’

He seemed oblivious to the Detective Inspector’s stony glare.

‘The thing is, we have to get some footage in the can tonight. Like, I’m just wondering how fast this mess could be cleared? So we could carry on? We can shoot around the chandelier, not a problem.’

Jason Tingley simply could not believe what he was hearing. ‘Mr Brooker, we have a possibly fatally injured person. This is now a crime scene.’

‘Crime scene? It’s a goddamn accident! A terrible accident.’

‘With respect, sir, at this point in time I have no evidence to support it being an accident. Unless – or until – I do, this is a crime scene. My crime scene. I own this now, do you understand? I’m clearing everyone from it, and no one is going to be filming here tonight or any time soon. I apologize for inconveniencing you, but do you understand that?’

Brooker stared back at him and began stabbing at the air with his finger. ‘Listen to me and listen good, Detective Inspector Tingles.’

‘Tingley.’

‘Yeah? Well, whatever, you’d better listen good, Detective. You’d better understand me. I have your Director of Tourism, Adam Bates, totally on board. This is the biggest goddamn motion picture your city’s ever had shot here. I’m not having my multi-million-dollar production set back because of this building’s shit maintenance.’

Jason Tingley, standing his ground, said, ‘At this point, my priority is to ensure the safety of everyone in this building, Mr Brooker.’ He pointed up at the other four, smaller, chandeliers. ‘I’m going to have someone from Health and Safety here at any moment, wanting a full check. One chandelier’s come down. Do you really want to risk the lives of those stars by not having proper safety checks on the others?’

Brooker looked at his watch, a big, chunky digital thing that looked like it belonged on the instrument panel of a Space Shuttle. ‘You know, with respect, officer, this is not your call.’

‘Fine. Speak to the Chief Constable. But until he directs me otherwise, this is my crime scene, and I have to warn you that if you attempt to obstruct me I will arrest you.’

Brooker glowered at him. ‘You know what you are? You’re fucking unreal!’

You are too, Jason Tingley thought.