Crouched at the bottom of the steps, staring warily around him, as well as constantly looking up, Drayton Wheeler heard the woman’s voice with relief. The first guided tour of the day. It was his cue.
He had spent much of the night prowling around, avoiding the guards, exploring up in the roof spaces. When he had tried to sleep in one, it had been impossible, with images of being caught invading his mind and the sound of pelting rain drumming on the copper roof above him.
He had found the perfect hideout at the top of the building. Well, so long as you didn’t mind an icy draught and the constant patter and scratching sounds of rats. The creaking of floorboards, like the whole place was haunted with a thousand ghosts. Not that that mattered. He just hoped to hell there were ghosts, because in that case he’d be one soon and, boy, did he have a few scores to settle when he came back. Before dawn, he’d returned to the quiet of his basement lair.
He scrambled silently up the stairs and listened.
‘He did indeed say that to the king. You see, Beau Brummell was a very well known figure – a real Regency dandy.’
Drayton watched the attentive audience who were facing away from him, blocking the guide from view, their anoraks and mackintoshes dripping water. He slid the bolt, opened the gate, slipped through, and closed it behind him, securing it again.
‘Well, they had a bit of a falling out. Beau Brummell, Lord Alvanley, Henry Mildmay and Henry Pierrepoint were considered the prime movers . . .’
He eased his way around the back of them, moving so slowly he was barely noticed. On the far side was a uniformed guard, but he was looking down at his phone, texting. Pulling his baseball cap low over his face, Drayton Wheeler followed the exit signs, which took him through the gift shop. But there was nothing in here for him. One of the many liberating things about dying, he thought, was that you didn’t need to waste money buying souvenirs.
He stepped outside into the pelting rain. Smelled the aroma of wet, recently mown grass, breathed in the salty tang of the air. It was 10.20 a.m., Friday, 10 June. He felt great. He’d never felt better or happier in his life! Maybe it was the drugs he was on, or maybe it was just the fact that in six months, give or take, he’d be out of here. He didn’t care, he felt liberated.
And he had a shopping list!
It didn’t take much persuasion for Roy Grace to accept an invitation to morning coffee with Gaia in her suite at The Grand, to discuss the latest development. He actually had butterflies in his stomach when he arrived, a few minutes before 10.30. He was never normally nervous in his work – even in the most dangerous situations his brain was always focused on the task ahead. But he had to admit to himself he had the collywobbles now.
He had encountered a few famous people in the course of his work, inevitably, because Brighton was home to a huge and diverse number of celebrities, but Gaia was in a different league to all of them. Standing dwarfed by the two bodyguards, he was expecting the door to be opened by one of her assistants, and was surprised that it was Gaia herself who greeted him. She was wearing a denim shirt, white jeans, high-heeled espadrilles and a dazzling smile. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace – thank you so much for coming!’ She sounded genuinely grateful, as if most people might kowtow instantly to her every whim, but not police officers.
He did a double-take, looking at her again, then entered the room, which smelled of freshly brewed coffee and a dense perfume. Her hair was completely different from a few days earlier – it had now been cropped short in a boyish cut. Pointing her fingers at her head she asked, ‘What do you think?’
‘Nice,’ he said, and in truth it did suit her. But then again, he thought, she had such striking looks she’d have looked good in a bin-liner with a rusty bucket on her head. Behind her, a woman in her late twenties, dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt with a small, gold Secret Fox logo on it, strode across the room with a script in her hand, and put it down on a table beside the sofa. Grace noticed that although most of the pages were white, some were blue, pink, yellow, green, and cherry.
‘Latest changes,’ the assistant said, and walked out again.
Gaia acknowledged her with a briefly raised hand, then turned her attention back to Roy Grace, pointing at her own head again. ‘You think so?’
‘Yes, I do,’ he said, although his personal preference had always been for long hair.
‘Gotta wear a goddamn wig for the production – this huge heavy Maria Fitzherbert thing – it’s so hot – feels like I’m wearing a rug on my head. The hair falls all around my face, I can hardly see a goddamn thing when I’m wearing it.’
Grace grinned. ‘I believe in her time women only used to wash their hair a couple of times a year.’
‘Yuh huh – Marie Antoinette actually had birds in her hair.’
‘Very hygienic.’
‘So,’ she said. ‘I got saved by your colleague – Chief Superintendent Barrington?’
Grace frowned. ‘You did?’
‘My hairdresser didn’t get over to England – she travels with me everywhere, now she’s pregnant and she went down with complications. So he’s found me this great hairdresser – actually she’s a police officer’s wife!’
‘She is – who?’
‘Tracey Curry. Chief Inspector Steve Curry’s wife.’
‘I know him – I didn’t realize his wife was a hairdresser.’
‘She’s a genius!’
‘I’m glad to hear Sussex Police are turning out to be a full service agency!’ he said.
‘Just keep me alive and look after my kid – that’s all the service I need.’ She indicated an armchair opposite the sofa, and he sat down.
‘We have some good news on that front,’ Grace said. ‘I imagine you’ve heard?’
The voice of James Cagney said, ‘We sure did!’ Her security chief Andrew Gulli strode into the room, dressed as before in a dapper suit. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, it’s so good to see you again.’ He sat in the chair next to him.
Another young female assistant materialized out of the ether and asked Grace how he took his coffee.
Gulli raised both his hands in the air, as if holding up an imaginary football, then lowered them, still with the ball, to his lap. ‘The thing is, Detective Superintendent, they may have caught this guy, but I don’t want us relaxing our guard on Gaia and Roan. You have a lot of crazy people in your city, right?’
‘We have our fair share,’ Grace admitted. ‘But no more than anywhere else in this country. Brighton’s a pretty safe place.’
‘I read you normally have around fifteen to twenty homicides a year, but you’ve already had sixteen, and we’re only halfway through this year. So your homicide rate has doubled.’
Gaia, who sat herself down attentively on the edge of the sofa, was staring at Grace. He could see, beneath her beauty, the crease lines of fear.
‘It’s a statistical blip,’ he replied cheerfully, and instantly knew he had said the wrong thing.
‘Yeah, right,’ Gulli said, his Cagney accent even more pronounced now. ‘So tell me, how did those people lying in body bags in your mortuary feel about being a statistical blip, Detective Superintendent Grace?’
Grace was momentarily distracted by the arrival of his coffee, and waving away the offer of sugar, said, ‘If it’s any comfort, most of the murders were low-life criminals on criminals or domestics.’
Gulli scratched behind his left ear. ‘I’ve been reading a lot of history on your city. In the 1930s Brighton was known as the “Crime Capital of the UK” and the “Murder Capital of Europe”. You know, it doesn’t seem like much has changed.’
Grace was starting to feel annoyed with the man. But he kept his patience. ‘I’ll talk to the Chief Constable and pass on your concerns.’
‘I’d be very grateful,’ Gulli said. ‘In the meantime I’d appreciate it if you maintained the current level of officers.’
‘I can’t make promises but I’ll do all I can.’
‘Thank you,’ Gaia said. She was smiling at him sweetly, and with an almost mesmerizing concentration, staring into his eyes. Was he imagining it, he wondered, or was he getting the come-on from her?
‘Mom, I’m like so bored!’
Roan walked across the room, barefoot, in baggy jeans and an orange T-shirt, a Nintendo console hanging from his fingertips.
She patted the side of the sofa and he sat down grumpily beside her. ‘He’s not too impressed with the weather, are you, sweetie?’
He peered at his Nintendo screen.
‘Is that the new one?’ Roy Grace asked. ‘The 3DS?’
The boy studied the screen and gave him a reluctant nod.
‘He wants to go on the beach, but nothing doing with this weather.’ She pointed to the window at the pelting rain. There was a sudden change in her expression. ‘Do you have kids, Detective Superintendent?’
‘No, I don’t. Just a goldfish.’
She laughed. ‘I figured it would be nice for Roan to meet some kids his age. Do you know anyone who has some who might be willing to play with him, hang out with him a little?’
His eyes widened. ‘Actually, I do, yes!’
‘I would so appreciate that.’ She kissed her son’s cheek, but he barely noticed, he was so focused on his console. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, hon? Someone to play with?’
He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
‘I could make a quick call – Roan’s six, right?’
‘Just had his sixth birthday party three weeks ago.’
‘This person’s got two kids – I think they’re about six and nine.’
‘Perfect!’
He dialled Glenn Branson’s number.
‘Yuh, old timer, what’s up?’
‘I have someone who wants to speak to you.’
‘Who’s that.’
‘I’ll put her on!’ He handed Gaia the phone and said, ‘His name’s Glenn.’
‘Hi, Glenn!’ she said in her huskiest voice.
Grace smiled. He was trying to imagine his mate’s face at the other end of the line.
‘What do you mean, you don’t have any?’
The man hunched over the counter in a white coat was the kind of miserable jerk who should not have been there at all. He should have quit or retired long before he’d decided he hated doing this job so much he wasn’t ever going to be pleasant or helpful to anyone who came in here. With his frayed grey hair and his thick, round bottle-lensed glasses he looked like a Nazi geneticist who’d had a career change. He spoke like one, too.
‘Ve don’t haf any.’
‘You’re a fucking pharmacist; all pharmacists sell thermometers.’
The man shrugged and said nothing.
Drayton Wheeler glared at him. ‘You know where there’s another pharmacist?’
He nodded. ‘I do.’
‘Where?’
‘Vy should I tell you? I don’t like you. I don’t like your attitude.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Vuck you too.’
For an instant, Wheeler was tempted to punch his smug, evil face. But there were all kinds of potential repercussions from that. Not smart. He mustn’t get side-tracked, had to keep focus. Focus. Focus.
He walked out of the shop in a rage and collided with a woman pushing a shopping trolley. ‘Stupid old woman!’ he shouted at her. ‘Watch where you’re going!’ Then he stormed off up the street, everything a blur, his rage playing havoc with his eyes. He was tired. He was grungy. He was hungry. He needed food. He needed a bath.
But most of all he needed a thermometer.
As he walked through The Grand Hotel shortly before midday, threading his way along the corridors towards the car park, Roy Grace’s phone rang. It was Glenn Branson for the second time. The first had been to thank him for putting him on the line to Gaia; he had seemed totally blown away.
‘Darren Spicer, right?’ the Detective Sergeant said.
Glenn was a movie buff and half his references in life involved movie titles. In his current star-struck mood, Grace’s first reaction was to wonder what film he was referring to.
‘Darren Spicer?’ Then he realized.
‘Remember him, chief?’
‘He’s about the most forgettable person I’ve ever remembered. Yes, I do.’ He refrained from adding he’d seen him arriving at Tommy Fincher’s wake a couple of days ago. ‘What about him?’ Then he had to wait for a moment as an ambulance screamed past before he could hear Glenn’s voice.
‘He just belled me. He wants to speak to you.’
Darren Spicer was one of the local villains who was also an occasional informer for Sussex Police. A career burglar, with form that stretched back to his early teens, he was a true recidivist, or what they colloquially called a ‘revolving door prisoner’. He was a man who had spent more of his working life behind bars than free. Earlier in the year, in a stroke of luck – in Grace’s view totally undeserved – Spicer collected a £50,000 reward put up by local millionaire philanthropist Rudy Burchmore, for information leading to the arrest of the man who had attempted to rape his wife. It was his biggest financial result to date in a long second career of acting as a police informant, both from inside jail and out.
‘What did he want?’ Grace asked.