Not Dead Yet

the marble for their palaces, and in more recent years, one of the Los Angeles landmarks, Hernando Courtright’s Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

The walls were hung with Aztec artefacts and stage shots of Gaia. In pride of place, on the wall facing the sofa, was the signed monochrome photo of her with wild, just-out-of-bed hair, wearing a black negligee to promote her world tour. To the left, above one of the armchairs of the white leather three-piece suite, which was a clone of her one in LA, was another tour poster, also signed. In it she wore a green tank top and leather jeans. Gaia would have felt totally at home here! Okay, so maybe the rear aspect wasn’t as fine as in some of her residences. Gaia probably had a better view from her kitchen window than this one, an old woman’s smalls hanging on a washing line, and a disused breeze-block garage.

Above the fireplace, with fake electric coals burning, was a blowup of her idol’s lips, nose and eyes in green monochrome, captioned GAIA UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL. Again, personally signed.

One of her favourite items!

She had fought a fierce bidding war on eBay for it. Securing it with just five seconds to spare for ?1,750. Money she could not afford. But she had to have it.

Had to.

Like everything else in this small semi, with the irritating street light outside that shone an amber glow every damned night into her bedroom.

Anna had bought the house in daytime, six years ago. It had never occurred to her that street lights might be a problem. Gaia would not have to put up with street lights keeping her awake, that was for sure.

Anna had written to the council, written to the Argus, the West Sussex Gazette, the Sussex Express, the Mid Sussex Times, but no one had replied, no one had done a single damned thing about that street light. So she bought an air rifle, and shot the bulb out in the middle of the night. Two bloody workmen from the bloody council replaced it two bloody days later.

But none of that mattered right now. All forgotten for the moment, because Gaia was coming to Brighton! And Anna had now found out where she was going to be staying. In the Presidential Suite of The Grand Hotel. Where else? They should have had an Empress Suite for her. She was the greatest, the queen of rock, the queen of the silver screen, the greatest star of all time. She was an empress! A truly Grand Empress! Returning to the city where she was born. Coming home to her roots. Coming to meet her number one fan!

And Anna really was her number one fan. Everyone conceded that. Gaia herself had! One of her assistants had replied to one of her emails saying, Dear No 1 fan! And of course, all of the other Gaia fans like herself, who shared snippets of information on chatlines, by email, by Facebook and sometimes Twitter, yet who became deadly enemies in bidding wars on eBay, all of them conceded that, as of this moment in time, Anna had them beat. She had the biggest collection, by far.

Number one.

And the secret signals from Gaia confirming their special relationship.

Secret fox!

Gaia had millions of adoring fans. But how many owned one of just six Call Me Your Baby vinyls in the world? How many fans had paid ?1,000 for the signed single, ‘Shady Babe’? How many fans had paid ?2,500 for a single roll of her acid-free toilet paper? How many had gone to ?16,000 against every other damned Gaia fan for a signed jacket Gaia had worn and thrown into the audience during the last night of her world tour?

She had already been offered, and rejected, ?25,000 for it.

The world was full of Gaia fans. But just twenty-three of them, like herself, were hardcore, bidding on all and everything that came up. How many were willing to pay everything they had for the smallest trophy? Like the limited edition Corgi Mini car labelled Gaia World Tour Courtesy Car, which she had secured for a mere ?500! Or the Gaia health tonic miniature Martini, a bargain at ?375. And how many others did Gaia communicate with via coded signals? None, that was how many!

She had spent over ?275,000. That might be the equivalent of the earnings from one appearance by Gaia, but it was every penny she had in the world, and every penny she earned went towards this collection.

She was Gaia’s number one fan, no question.

That was why Gaia communicated with her. Their secret!

Anna could barely contain her excitement. She was not only ticking off the days, she was ticking off the hours, minutes, and sometimes, when she got really excited, the seconds!

‘I love you, Gaia,’ she said. ‘I love you to death.’

14

Roy Grace, followed by Glenn Branson, stepped out of the stench and din of the birds in the chicken shed, into the blustery sunshine, and breathed in the fresh air with relief.

‘Shit,’ Glenn said.

‘Good observation!’

Glenn lowered his mask. ‘Foul play, I’d say.’

Grace groaned. ‘That’s truly terrible, even by your standards.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I’d like you to be my deputy SIO on this. I’m going to get you sanctioned as a temporary Detective Inspector. Does that appeal?’

‘What’s the catch?’

Grace grinned. ‘I have my reasons.’

‘Yeah, well, they’d better be good.’

Grace patted him on the shoulder. ‘I know I can rely on you – you’ve done a good job on Operation Violin. ACC Rigg has noticed that.’

Glenn’s face lit up. ‘He has?’

‘Yes – and I bigged you up on it. I have a feeling this case now could be a runner. Handle this well and it could count a lot in your promotion boards.’

Branson had all the qualities for promotion to the rank of Inspector, and Grace was determined to help his friend up the ladder. With his ongoing marriage problems that had been dragging him down for months, promotion, he was certain, would be the fillip that could really lift Glenn out of his increasingly frequent bouts of depression.

Grace remembered, a few years back, when he’d got that crucial promotion to Detective Inspector, how everything had changed for him. Starting with the surly uniform stores manager, whose whole demeanour had altered the day he had gone in requesting an Inspector’s tunic with the two pips instead of stripes, and that coveted cap with its band of black braid. When you became an Inspector you truly felt you had become officer class, and everyone’s attitude in the police – and public, too – towards you changed.

‘I want you to handle the media on this one,’ Grace said.

‘Media – I don’t – don’t have much experience. You mean I’ll have to deal with that toerag Spinella?’

Kevin Spinella was the senior crime reporter on the local newspaper, the Argus, who always managed to find out about any crime long before anyone else. He had an informant inside the police somewhere, and it had long been one of Grace’s ambitions to find and nail that person, and he was working on it. ‘Spinella and everyone else. You can do your first press conference later today.’

‘Thanks,’ Glenn said doubtfully.

‘I’ll help you,’ Grace said. ‘I’ll hold your hand.’

Branson nodded, staring around. ‘So where do I start here?’

‘By clearing the ground beneath your feet. Okay? First thing, get a POLSA up here and a team from the Specialist Search Unit to do a fingertip search beneath the gridding and above. Second, we need to know all the access roads in the surrounding area, and we need to start a house-to-house in all the villages. You have to inform the Divisional Commander for East Sussex Division, and tell him you’ll need some help from uniform and local