Not Dead Yet

Whiteley had been clever. The wire had been wound several times around the winch in large loops, then he had bent it several times just above Gaia’s head, to take up the slack and force her on to her toes. There was about six feet of slack in those loops. If the hatch collapsed, Gaia would fall that distance, and even if her neck wasn’t broken instantly, or her head severed completely by the wire, it would be impossible to reach her. It would be equally impossible to haul her weight up by that single strand of sharp wire.

Suddenly he heard the wakka-wakka-wakka-wakka thrashing of a helicopter, roaring overhead. He saw Whiteley’s eyes dart apprehensively towards one of the dusty oval windows, and realized to his dismay he had missed a split-second chance of jumping him while he was distracted.

The sound faded away.

‘I don’t think a helicopter’s going to do you much good in here, Detective Superintendent Grace, do you?’ Anna said, then looked up at Gaia. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, know what I’m saying? About someone coming to save you? It’s not going to happen.’ Then he raised his right hand, pressed his thumb, middle finger and ring finger together and raised the other two fingers in the air. ‘Secret fox!’ He winked at her.

She stared back at him, icily and terrified.

Grace’s phone rang. He ignored it.

‘Eric says you can answer it,’ Anna said sweetly.

It carried on ringing.

‘Eric says you can answer it,’ Anna repeated.

Grace continued to ignore it. He wanted to keep both his hands free. It stopped ringing.

‘It might have been an important call!’ Anna Galicia said. ‘You are a very important man, aren’t you?’

‘Aren’t you important too, Anna?’ he replied.

‘Eric thinks so!’

Grace shot another quick glance at Gaia. Her eyes were still locked on him. He wondered what the security guard was going to do. But short of putting a sniper on the roof to take a shot through the window at Whiteley, and he did not have the time, there wasn’t anything he could think of. Down below he heard the wail of sirens, followed by a series of deep honks, then more sirens. It sounded like fire engines on their way. But that wasn’t going to help. There wasn’t time to get any back-up. The shadow of a seagull flitted past one of the windows behind Whiteley, and was gone.

Whiteley looked up at the icon. ‘How’s it feeling, Gaia? Is it nice to be with your number one fan? Is it nice to be adored? Hey?’

She tried to respond but only a gurgling croak came out.

‘Did you ever think what you would be if it wasn’t for me, and all the others? Hey?’

‘Why don’t you give her some slack, or take the noose off, so she can answer you?’ Grace said calmly.

‘Haha! Very funny, Detective Superintendent!’ Anna retorted.

‘What is it you want from Gaia, Anna?’

Grace was poised, ready, like a coiled spring. Listening. Waiting for the next crack. He didn’t know if his plan would save her but at this moment he was totally out of alternatives, except to try negotiation with the man. With only minutes, maybe only seconds, left to do it.

After some moments’ silence, Whiteley responded, staring directly back at him. ‘I want her to say sorry.’

Grace felt a tiny ping of hope. ‘Sorry for what, Anna?’

Whiteley looked up at her. ‘You know, don’t you, Gaia?’ Then he looked back at Grace.

‘Take the noose off,’ Grace said firmly but pleasantly. ‘Let her speak to you.’

Suddenly, in a very masculine voice, Whiteley snapped at him, baring his teeth in an animal snarl. ‘Anna won’t take the noose off. Stop bullying her!’

Grace stared back at him. ‘Bullying, did you say?’

Whiteley looked up at Gaia again. Anna spoke. ‘All you had to do in the lobby of The Grand Hotel was smile and say hello. Instead you humiliated me. You snubbed me in front of everyone. You made me look a fool. You made me a Ubu, didn’t you. Useless, Boring, Ugly. You pretend to love everyone, but you’re just a greedy bully, really, aren’t you, Gaia? So how does this feel now? I bet you wish you’d been nicer to me in The Grand, don’t you?’

‘Give her a chance to talk to you, Anna.’

Whiteley snapped his head round and glared at Grace. ‘Anna’s not talking to you,’ he said in his Eric Whiteley voice.

Then he turned back to Gaia and it was Anna speaking again. ‘You see, Gaia, you’re not as special as you think. Anyone can be you if they have enough make-up on. They all thought I was you! I could have done the rest of the film and they’d never have known! You’re not very special at all really. You’re just lucky and very cruel and very ungrateful.’

Grace was looking at the wire again. And trying very subtly to signal to Gaia. He looked pointedly down at the trapdoor, at the warning sign, then jerked his eyes over to the right. She clocked him, in a fleeting, puzzled glance before his eyes went back to Whiteley.

‘You know what they say, don’t you?’ Anna Galicia’s voice asked her. ‘Be careful how you treat people on the way up, because you never know who you’re going to need when you’re on the way down.’ Whiteley lifted a hand from a bolt, and pointed at the trapdoor. ‘On the way down! Gettit?’ Anna’s voice suddenly cackled with laughter. ‘Gettit?’ he repeated to Gaia. ‘How will that feel for you in your last few seconds? Dying with your number one fan! But we won’t tell anyone, will we?’ Again he raised his hand and formed his fingers into the symbol. ‘Secret fox!’

‘Anna,’ Grace said, ‘I have an idea. If you gave Gaia your phone, she could call anyone you wanted and tell them whatever you would like her to say. She could apologize to the newspapers, the radio, television, her Twitter followers, her Facebook fans – she could tell the whole world that you really are her number one fan. That all she had been doing was testing you. Because she has so many imposters claiming to be her number one fan, she had to make sure you were the real one. And she is sure now. No one else would be willing to die with her. That is real love, Anna, and she knows that now. You can film her telling you that with the camera – put it on YouTube!’

He saw the sudden change of expression in Whiteley’s eyes. Like a cloud moving away from the sun. They shone briefly and he smiled, like a child who had just been given a new toy.

For an instant.

Grace caught Gaia’s eye again, moved his eyes to the right. She frowned. She didn’t get his plan.

Then Whiteley’s face turned to hostility again. ‘You’re lying, Detective Superintendent. This is all bullshit. You’re lying!’

‘Ask her,’ Grace said. ‘Go on!’

‘Stop bullying me.’

There was another crack. He saw the alarm on Whiteley’s face.

This was the moment.

Grace raised his voice, deliberately, in anger. ‘I am not bullying you! You are not ugly, boring or useless – that’s what they called you at school, isn’t it? Ubu?’

Whiteley froze for an instant. He looked panic-stricken. In Anna’s voice he said, ‘That’s – that’s what they called Eric. How do you know? How do you know that?’

‘I found out, okay? Someone told me. Give Gaia the phone. Let her start telling the world that you are none of these things. She’ll tell her fan club that you truly are her number one fan. You’ll be a hero! Wouldn’t it be nicer to be a living number one fan than a dead one?’

‘Anna doesn’t think so, I’ve just asked her,’ Whiteley said in his male snarl.

‘The phone!’ Grace jabbed a finger at it. ‘Give her the phone!’

Whiteley’s snarl turned to a whine. ‘You’re bullying me.’

‘GIVE HER THE SODDING PHONE!’ Grace bellowed at the top of his voice.

It threw Whiteley for an instant. He turned, almost like an automaton, reached out for the phone and picked it up. Then he froze, confused, his arm momentarily suspended in mid-air, as Grace launched himself forward.

Grace took one step, then sprang off his right foot in a long-jump stance and landed with both feet exactly where he had aimed, in the centre of the trapdoor, inches from Gaia. He heard a loud crack, and felt the wood splintering instantly beneath him, his legs plunging through. But he barely noticed, barely heard Whiteley’s yelp of