cleaned. All fifteen thousand lustres – it takes about two months.’
‘Could it be metal fatigue?’ Jason Tingley said.
‘We carry out safety checks regularly on everything,’ Barry said. ‘Queen Victoria had the original shaft replaced with aluminium. We never had any reason to change it. You have to believe me – this just could not happen. It couldn’t!’
Grace was trying to recall who it was who said,
‘Yes, yes, of course. Can I help in any way here before we do that?’
‘There’s nothing anyone can do here – we have to stop all work now until the Coroner’s Officer arrives,’ Tingley said.
Grace told Tingley to stay in the room, then followed the Curator out of the Banqueting Room, along the corridor, past a sign to the toilets, and in through a door in the main hallway. ‘We have a bit of a climb up a spiral staircase,’ David Barry said. ‘Can I ask you not to put your hand on the railings – they are very unstable – this is why we don’t let the public in here.’ He pulled out a torch.
Grace followed him up a steep, winding spiral staircase that seemed never-ending. Halfway up, Grace stopped and touched the handrail. It felt extremely wobbly, with a long drop beyond it into darkness. He stepped away and moved as close to the wall as he could get, hugging it as he climbed; heights had never been his strong point.
Finally, both men puffing, they reached the top and entered what looked to Grace like a derelict bedroom, mostly covered in dust sheets over angular shapes. Even in the waning light of the June evening, he could see ancient, mottled wallpaper, with graffiti scrawled over much of it, and oval leaded-light windows overlooking the Brighton skyline.
David Barry decided they could see well enough without his torch. He spoke with a pleasant, cultured voice. ‘This was where the king’s senior household staff had their quarters, back in Prinny’s day. I don’t know how much you know about the history of this palace, Detective Superintendent, but during the First Wold War it was used as a hospital for wounded Indian soldiers – hence the graffiti. It’s been derelict since that time, largely because the stair rail is in such dangerous condition. Oh, and – er – please be careful where you tread, we have a lot of dry rot up here.’
To his unease, Roy Grace saw that he was standing on a large trapdoor secured by two rusting bolts. It felt decidedly unsafe and he quickly stepped aside and off it.
‘That trapdoor opens downwards on to a forty-foot vertical drop to a store room above the kitchen scullery. There used to be a dumb waiter for hauling meals up to the residents here from the kitchen.’ He pointed upwards to reveal a primitive block and tackle fixed to the ceiling, with rope wound around it. Grace looked down at the floor again. At the large sign which read: DANGER – STEEP DROP BELOW. DO NOT STAND ON DOOR.
Suddenly he saw something glint on the floor beneath a dust sheet hanging over the bed, and knelt down. It was a chocolate wrapper. A Crunchie bar. ‘Did they have these in King George’s day?’ he asked.
The Curator smiled, looking sinister in the shadows. ‘I’m afraid there have been a few unofficial visitors up here in more recent times. We’ve had a number of break-ins. It’s almost impossible to maintain one hundred per cent security in a building of this size.’
‘Of course.’ Grace stared again at the chocolate bar wrapper, as the Curator walked across the room. Putting on a pair of gloves, Grace picked up the wrapper and sniffed it, expecting it to smell stale. But to his surprise it seemed fresh, as if it had been opened very recently. Then he noticed a tiny smear of lipstick where the front of it was folded back.
He put it down carefully where he had found it in order that it could be photographed by a SOCO officer, and followed the Curator out on to the roof, ducking through a small door that was barely bigger than a serving hatch. The sky had turned ominously dark, as if it were about to rain. Barry strode ahead, along a narrow steel platform, with a sheer drop to the ground to his left, and Grace followed gripping the handrail, trying not to look down. Ahead of him and all around was a spectacular view across the roofs of the Pavilion, with its onion domes and minarets. Down below he could hear sirens and see more blue flashing lights of vehicles pulling up.
‘That’s the dome of the Banqueting Room, right ahead,’ David Barry pointed. They scaled a short, metal ladder, then went along another narrow walkway. Then they climbed a long, steep ladder, Roy Grace nervously clinging on tightly as the Curator, above him, clambered as confidently as a mountain goat.
Grace hauled himself on his knees on to a narrow platform, with the dome curving majestically skywards above him. And now he really did not dare look down.
Then his phone rang.
He debated for a moment whether to answer it, then very carefully pulled it out of its cradle. ‘Roy Grace,’ he said.
It was ACC Peter Rigg, and he sounded anxious. ‘Roy,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I gather there’s a bit of an incident at the Royal Pavilion.’
‘Er – yes, sir, I have.’
‘I think you’d better get there PDQ.’
Grace looked out across the city rooftops. ‘I am actually here, sir.’
‘Good, excellent! Anything to report?’
‘Yes, sir, I have a great view.’
‘View?’
He saw Barry was crawling through a tiny inspection hatch door.
‘Can I call you back in a few minutes, sir?’
‘Please. The Chief Constable’s fretting.’
‘Yes, I know, sir.’ He ended the call and followed Barry through the hatch, having to ease himself in backwards, into almost total darkness and the musty smell of old wood, and something acrid and deeply unpleasant.
‘This is the second skin of the building,’ the Curator said, shining his torch beam around. ‘Outside you have the visible bottle-shaped shell of the dome. This is the wooden framework supporting it.’ Both men coughed. Grace’s eyes were stinging. He could see wooden slats, like a primitive ladder, rising above him and getting increasingly narrow.
The Curator shone the beam upwards, illuminating a wooden cross beam, with a severed metal shaft suspended from it. It looked, to Roy Grace, the same diameter as the shaft sticking out of the top of the fallen chandelier. Wisps of smoke or steam were curling upwards from it. Grace frowned, then coughed again. Then he looked down, and through a small hole, a large section of the Banqueting Room was visible beneath. He could see the two paramedics still on all fours, in the wreckage of the chandelier.
The Curator swung the torch beam down and something glinted in the light. It looked like a metal bottle cap. Then Roy Grace noticed a discarded San Pellegrino bottle. Near it were fragments of broken plastic.
‘Bloody litter louts!’ the Curator said, reaching for the bottle.
Grace grabbed his hand. ‘Don’t touch it – it could be a crime exhibit and it might contain acid.’
‘Acid?’
Grace guided the beam up the severed shaft again. ‘What do you suppose that is?’
Barry stared at him. ‘I don’t understand.’
Then they both saw the rucksack wedged between two slats, a short distance above them. Grace took the torch and climbed up to it, then shone the beam inside. He saw an opened all-day-breakfast pack of sandwiches, a can of Coke, a bottle of water, a Kindle, a battered leather wallet, and what looked like an iron tyre lever.
Tucking the torch under his chin, he again pulled a pair of protective gloves from his pocket and snapped them on. Then he took out the wallet and opened it. Slotted in one pocket he saw a photograph of a small boy in a baseball cap, and a plastic Grand Hotel room key jammed in another. He put the wallet into a plastic evidence bag and slipped it into his pocket.
Then he coughed again, just grabbing the torch before it fell. He shone the beam back on the shaft. The end of it, with wisps of smoke still rising, had melted into a bulbous shape that reminded him of mercury in a thermometer. ‘What do you know about chemistry?’ he called down to the Curator.
‘Never my strong subject,’ David Barry said, staring up at the end of the shaft.
‘That makes two of us,’ Roy Grace said. ‘But I can tell you one thing. Your chandelier didn’t fall by accident.’
