Tingley smiled. ‘No, but I understand it.’
Grace nodded. ‘Please God it was Drayton Wheeler who sent that email last night, and that he’s the guy under the chandelier. That would be a rather tragic but very elegant solution.’
‘Beware of assumptions, didn’t you say, chief?’ the DI remarked with a cheeky grin.
Roy Grace, deep in thought, did not respond. He was thinking hard what he needed to do to step up the security for Gaia and her son, regardless of cost, until they could be sure that the threat to her was over.
And he had a nagging doubt. Some of it stacked up, but not all of it. Not enough.
99
It was late when he finally got home to Cleo. She was lying, half-asleep in bed, with an old Miss Marple episode playing on the television.
‘How are you feeling?’ He kissed her forehead.
‘I’m okay. But Bump’s training for the Olympics!’ She guided his hand to her stomach, and he could feel their baby zapping around as if on a trampoline. He smiled, proudly and lovingly. It was such an amazing sensation. Their child. His and hers. Alive inside her.
He lay beside her for some minutes, just holding her tightly and feeling the baby’s exertions. Then he kissed her. ‘God, I love you so much,’ he said.
‘I love you too,’ she said. ‘But it’s no good you coming to bed on an empty stomach – I don’t want to lie here listening to it rumble all night!’ She kissed him. ‘There’s a Marks and Sparks fish pie on the worktop. Give it a few minutes in the microwave – it says how many on the pack. And there are some peas in a saucepan – just bring them to the boil.’
‘You spoil me!’
‘You’re worth spoiling. So, did you save the world tonight?’
‘Probably.’
‘That’s what I love about you, Detective Superintendent Grace. Your modesty.’
He kissed her again. ‘It sort of comes naturally!’
‘Oh yes? By the way, Humphrey refused to go out. He needs to do his business – if we don’t want a prezzie on the carpet in the morning!’
‘I’ll take him for a walk. Do you still want the telly on?’
‘You can turn it off, please, I’m going to try to sleep, if I can convince Bump! Don’t forget about that Gaia documentary I recorded.’
‘I had forgotten – thanks for reminding me.’
He went downstairs, clipped the lead on Humphrey’s collar with some difficulty, while the overjoyed creature kept jumping up and down licking his face. Then he took a plastic bag from under the kitchen sink, crammed it into his pocket and led the dog out of the front door.
Humphrey squatted the moment they were in the cobbled courtyard.
‘Wait!’ Grace hissed.
The dog took no notice, defecating firmly and proudly, as a neighbour wheeled his bicycle past. ‘Hope you’re going to pick that up,’ the man mumbled.
Grace scooped it up, dearly tempted to push it through the rude cyclist’s letterbox. Then he threaded his way with Humphrey through the narrow streets of the North Laine district of Brighton, heading for his favourite part of the city, the seafront itself, and the promenade beneath the Arches. He deposited the bag in a designated bin, relieved that at least now the dog had performed, he would be able to let it off the lead.
As he walked, he was deep in thought. Thinking about the email. Was the man under the chandelier the sender? He read it again on his BlackBerry.
I still cannot believe how you cut me dead. I thought your whole point in coming to England was to see me. I know you love me, really. You’re going to be sorry you did that. Very sorry. You made me look a fool. You made people laugh at me. I’m going to give you the chance to apologise. You are soon going to be telling the whole world how much you love me. I will kill you if you don’t.
It chimed but it didn’t fit. ‘I thought your whole point in coming to England was to see me.’ That did not make sense in the context: ‘You made people laugh at me. I’m going to give you the chance to apologise. You are soon going to be telling the whole world how much you love me.
Drayton Wheeler’s actions were just not consistent with that. These weren’t the words of a man who believed his story or his script had been ripped off. Unless he was a totally confused crazy. Also, from what he knew, an American would have spelled
Was sacrificing his life to save Gaia’s child some kind of desperate gesture to make Gaia love him?
It was a dark night but the rain was still holding off. There were dozens of people out and about. He walked in the shadow of the Palace Pier, so preoccupied he barely even clocked it as the place where he and Sandy, some twenty years ago, had had their first kiss.
He called Humphrey, clipped his lead back on, then, still deep in thought, he headed home.
100
Twenty minutes later, Roy Grace put the fish pie into the microwave, switched on the hob and placed the saucepan of peas on top. Then he took his Policy Book out of his briefcase and sat down on the sofa to update it. Humphrey entered into a life-or-death tussle with a squeaky stuffed elephant on the floor.
It was 12.30 a.m. and he felt wired. He picked up the Sky remote and clicked through the saved programmes until he saw the one Cleo had recorded for him on Gaia, and clicked on it.
He scooped his food on to a plate, put it on a tray with a napkin and cutlery, and a glass of Spanish Albarino from the fridge, and sat back down. For the next twenty minutes as he ate, tuning out the dog, Gaia’s life unfolded in front of him. From the modest house where she lived as a child on Brighton’s Whitehawk housing estate, to her first success at the age of fifteen on a television talent show, to her move to Los Angeles in her late teens, where she started off waiting tables, followed by an affair with a record producer who picked her up in a noodle bar on Sunset, and gave her her big break, cutting her first single with the same session musicians that had been behind both Madonna and Whitney Houston’s early recordings.
There were periodic close-ups of Gaia saying how important it was for everyone to treat the planet with respect. ‘
There followed vignettes of concerts she had performed around the globe. Grace grinned at one, in Munich, where she appeared in German national costume of a dirndl, holding an accordion, and knocking back beer from a gigantic stein. Then another in Freiburg, capital of the Black Forest, where she was kitted out in lederhosen. Then, suddenly, in a costume switch, she stormed on stage, in front of an enraptured audience, in a cloud of swirling dry ice, jumping right, then left, holding a hunting rifle, wearing a man’s tweed suit.
A bright yellow ochre suit with a loud check pattern.
Grace’s tray crashed to the floor as he grabbed the remote, and froze the image. He ignored the up-ended plate and his spilled wine glass as he stared, transfixed, at the screen. He wound it back some seconds, then let it play and then froze it again.
It was exactly the same fabric that had been found in the chicken farm. The same fabric that had been found at the fishing lake. He was certain.
Beyond certain.
