Not Dead Yet

BRIGHTON AND HOVE MOTOR CLUB… she was feeling the enormity of this place.

People everywhere. Hotel staff. Couples milling around, men in tuxedos, women in their evening gowns and finery. She felt almost underdressed.

Would Gaia approve?

Should she go home and change?

She paused and took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking, her throat felt dry, everything seemed suddenly to be in a haze, all in soft focus. She needed a drink, she decided. Dutch courage. Something strong but which wouldn’t leave her breath reeking of alcohol. That would not make a good first impression on Gaia.

She walked through into the bar, and eased herself, very carefully, up on a stool, then ordered a double vodka with tonic. Moments later she changed it to a treble. There was a bowl of peanuts in front of her on the bar. She reached out a hand to take some, then hesitated and withdrew it. She’d brushed her teeth before leaving home, and Gaia might not like the smell of peanuts on her breath.

‘Good decision!’ said a portly, rather drunk-looking American sliding on to the stool beside her. ‘Y’ever see that analysis on bar peanuts?’ His voice was slurred and he reeked of tobacco.

She gave him a dismissive smile, then focused on the bartender who was mixing her drink.

‘Urine and faeces,’ the drunk continued. ‘Yup. Analysis shows the average bowl of free peanuts on a bar top has twelve different traces of urine and three of faeces. People are goddamn disgusting, they don’t wash their hands properly after using the bathroom.’

‘Will you be running a tab, madam?’ the bartender asked.

Anna shook her head and paid with cash. As she took the change, the American asked, ‘You have dinner plans?’

‘I do have plans,’ she said very smugly. She reached for her drink and downed some gratefully, waiting for the buzz. It started coming on fast. She drank some more.

‘Thirsty lady!’ her new, unwelcome companion said. ‘Let me buy you another.’

She looked at her large Panerai Luminor wristwatch, an exact copy of Gaia’s. Except Gaia’s was real, costing many thousands, and hers was a fake she’d bought on the internet for fifty pounds. It was coming up to 7.15 p.m. ‘I don’t have time,’ she said.

‘Cool watch!’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Perhaps we could meet later?’ he persisted, then gave her a wink. ‘Know what I mean? For a nightcap?’

She grabbed a handful of nuts and shovelled them into her mouth. When she had finished chewing and swallowing them she turned back to him, briefly flashed her teeth at him and said, ‘Thank you, but I don’t think you’d want to kiss me now!’

She drained her drink, feeling much more courageous, and slid carefully and as elegantly as she could down from the stool, with a contemptuous flick of her Cornelia James shawl. Then she made her way towards the front desk. She would have the receptionist phone up to Gaia that she was here.

56

Roy Grace sat behind his desk in his office and looked at the High Tech Crime Unit investigator Ray Packham, who took a seat opposite him. ‘So, tell me?’

Grace liked the guy a lot, but always felt, because he looked so much like a bank manager, that he should be asking him for a loan, rather than for the deeply sensitive information that Packham, who was a technology genius, seemed to be able to mine from the innards of any computer or phone.

‘Well, Roy, we found a suspicious code embedded within your BlackBerry’s software. It did not correspond to any of the apps you have downloaded. We reverse engineered it, and found it’s a sophisticated form of data logger. It encrypts all calls you make or receive, and texts – and sends them via email using your phone’s 3G.’

Grace felt a chill ripple through him. ‘All my calls?’

Packham nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. I’ve checked with Vodafone, who are very co-operative these days.’

‘Where’ve they been sent to?’

Packham smiled nervously. ‘I did warn you that you’re not going to like this.’

‘I’m not liking this.’

He gave him the number, and Roy Grace wrote it down on his desk pad. He looked at it, thinking hard. It looked familiar.

‘Recognize it?’

‘Yes, but I can’t immediately place it.’

‘Try entering it in your phone,’ Ray Packham said, with a wry smile.

Copying the numbers off the pad, Grace tapped them in. As he entered the last digit, a name appeared on the display of his BlackBerry.

Grace stared for some moments in disbelief. ‘That fucking little shit!’

‘I could not have put it more eloquently myself, chief!’

57

A smart man in his early thirties, flanked by two equally smart women, stood behind The Grand Hotel’s wooden reception desk. He smiled warmly as Anna approached.

‘I’ve come to see Gaia Lafayette,’ she said.

His demeanour changed, very subtly, from warm to defensive, and he studied this rather strange-looking woman more closely. She looked weird enough, certainly, to be a friend of the star. ‘Is she expecting you, madam?’ He had a slight foreign accent, perhaps French, Anna thought.

‘Yes, she is,’ she said, the vodka giving her a lot of confidence and a calm, assured manner. Actually she gave me the signal on Top Gear, she nearly added, so confident was she feeling, but she held that nugget back.

‘May I have your name, please?’

‘My name?’ For an instant, Anna was thrown. ‘She will of course know it’s me!’

His smile faded. ‘Yes, but I will need your name, please.’

‘Right!’ She nodded assertively. ‘Tell her Anna. Anna is here.’

‘Anna?’ he waited patiently.

‘Anna.’

‘Your last name?’

‘My last name?’

She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. Last name. Maybe she shouldn’t have had that vodka. The haze was returning. She had to blink hard to bring him back into focus. ‘Just tell her that Anna is here,’ she said, impatient now.

He put his hand on the phone receiver. ‘I will need your last name,’ he said. ‘For Security.’ He glanced down. ‘I have a list and don’t see your name, Anna, on it. Perhaps your last name?’

‘Galicia,’ she replied.

‘Galicia?’

‘Yes.’

She could feel herself perspiring. Her armpits were damp. She hoped she had applied enough Gaia Nocturne Roll-On.

He looked down at the list and shook his head. Then he dialled a number, and after a few moments said, ‘I have Anna Galicia in reception to see Ms Lafayette.’

While he waited for the reply, Anna took the opportunity to try to read the names on his list, upside down. She saw Daily Mail.