RG8 - Not Dead Yet

by Peter James

  Completely wide awake at 5 a.m., he slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Cleo, padded through into the bathroom and closed the door. He showered, shaved and brushed his teeth, then dressed and went downstairs. Humphrey was still curled up on the sofa, asleep. He picked up his briefcase and stepped out into the courtyard. It was now almost full daylight and raining lightly.

  Fifteen minutes later, using his security card, he let himself in through the front door of Sussex House, climbed the stairs, walked through the deserted offices of the Major Crime Branch and entered his office. He put his briefcase down, went into the kitchenette area and made himself a strong coffee, which he carried back to his office.

  Then he logged on to the internet and entered a Google search for Gaia and auctions.

  There were thousands of results, but it didn’t take him long, narrowing down the criteria he entered, to find what he was looking for. The auction for the yellow check suit had taken place over two weeks last November. The suit had been sold for £27,200.

  Although he didn’t know much about these things, that struck him as a lot of money, however good the provenance might have been that it really had belonged to Gaia. To pay that amount it needed someone either very rich, or seriously fanatical.

  Or both.

  103

  On a whiteboard in the Conference Room of the Major Crime Suite was a blow-up of Drayton Wheeler’s passport photograph.

  ‘The time is 8.30 a.m., Wednesday, June the fifteenth. This is the twenty-first briefing of Operation Icon,’ Roy Grace said to his team, which this morning included DI Tingley, Haydn Kelly, and Ray Packham from the High Tech Crime Unit. ‘We have developments that are leading me to believe Operation Icon may have links to the real-life icon who is currently here in Brighton shooting a movie – Gaia.’

  He registered the immediate highly focused attention he had from every single member of his team. Then he relayed the events of last night, his viewing of the Gaia video, and his search on the internet this morning. He looked at DC Reeves. ‘Emma, I found the winning bid amount that was paid for the suit from the eBay site, but it would not give me any details about the bidders. We need to find that out very urgently. I’m tasking you to contact eBay and find out the names of all the people involved in that auction. As soon as you have them I want them checked against all databases. In particular, we need to find the underbidder who didn’t get it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  He turned to Ray Packham. No one could look less like a computer geek than the High Tech Crime Unit analyst, but his mastery of technology was better than anyone Grace had ever met. ‘You’ve looked yourself, Ray, and not been able to find it either?’

  ‘No, chief – but eBay should be able to come up with the information pretty quickly.’

  ‘Good. And you have a result for us on the email sent on Monday night?’

  ‘I do,’ he said proudly. ‘We’ve looked at the IP address on it, and I’ve got some good news. It’s a fixed IP registered at the internet café – Café Conneckted in Trafalgar Street. It was sent from there at 8.46 p.m. Monday night.’

  ‘You’re a genius!’

  ‘I know,’ Packham said, with a tongue-in-cheek grin.

  Grace pointed at Drayton Wheeler’s passport photograph on the whiteboard. ‘The man’s body has not yet been formally identified, but we are satisfied that this is the man crushed to death by the chandelier last night.’ Grace then listed the receipts found in his hotel room. ‘The Café Conneckted receipt puts Wheeler in that café on Monday, the day the email was sent – we need to find out what time he was there. Norman, I want you to be there at 10 a.m. when it opens.’

  Potting nodded. ‘Yes, chief.’

  ‘If we can establish Wheeler was there at 8.46 p.m. on Monday, that could be good news. If he wasn’t there at that time, we need to know who was. Hopefully you can get a result from the CCTV.’

  ‘Leave it with me.’

  Grace glanced at his notes. ‘SOCO, who have been working through the night, reported their findings to me a short while ago. Mercuric chloride is an acid that apparently can be synthesized very easily from mercury, obtained from thermometers, sulphuric acid, from car batteries, and hydrochloric acid found in paint stripper. Receipts for all these items were present in Wheeler’s room at The Grand. SOCO tell me that mercuric chloride is particularly efficient at dissolving aluminium – which is what the shaft supporting the chandelier was made from.’

  ‘Chief,’ DS Guy Batchelor said, ‘I’m having problems connecting the dots between the suit fabric and the chandelier.’

  ‘Join the club,’ Grace said. ‘The connection is Gaia, and I can’t guarantee we can connect the dots, Guy. But I’m treating it as a line of enquiry, okay?’

  The DS nodded.

  ‘The most urgent thing we need to do at this moment is establish whether or not Drayton Wheeler sent that email,’ Grace continued. ‘I’m hoping he did. Because if he didn’t, we have a big problem.’

  104

  This was not Norman Potting’s idea of a café. This was just another instance of how the world was changing in ways he didn’t like and didn’t understand. Fancy leather sofas and computer terminals. Couldn’t people even have a cuppa without needing to be online, for God’s sake? He liked traditional greasy spoons, with Formica table tops, plastic chairs, the odour of fried food, a menu chalked up on the wall, and a good, honest mug of strong tea.

  Why, he wondered, looking up at the menu, printed in some barely decipherable fancy lettering, was there no such thing as an ordinary cup of coffee any more? Why did everyone have to dress the menu up in an incomprehensible bloody arcane language of its own?

  Although he did eye the range of cupcakes greedily.

  ‘Can I help you?’ said a solidly built Goth woman behind the bar, wearing blue dungarees, tattoos running down both her arms, and so many rings through her nostrils he wondered how she managed to breathe or blow her nose. He noticed a tongue stud, too. And her forehead piercings which made him wince. Apart from the two of them, at a few minutes past 10 a.m. the place was deserted.

  Potting produced his warrant card.

  ‘Ah, yes, Zoe said to expect you.’

  He showed her a copy of the receipt found in Drayton Wheeler’s hotel room. ‘We are anxious to establish what time this person was here on Monday.’ Then he placed a blow-up of Wheeler’s passport photo in front of her. ‘Do you remember this man?’

  She studied it for a moment. ‘Yes, absolutely I do. He was, frankly, very rude, American, really quite unpleasant.’

  ‘Can you remember what time he was in here? Was it Monday evening?’

  She studied the photograph again. ‘No, I think it was lunchtime. I remember we were very busy, and he got angry because he was having problems getting online – we had a server crash. He started shouting abuse at one of my staff. My husband gave him his money back and told him to leave.’

  ‘You’re certain?’

  ‘One hundred per cent.’

  ‘You have CCTV here?’

  She pointed up at the ceiling-mounted camera. ‘Yes, we installed it after we had a couple of terminals nicked.’

  ‘You get such a nice class of people in this city.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘Would you be able to show me the footage between 8.30 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Monday?’

  ‘I’ll ask my husband – he knows how to operate it.’ She turned and shouted through the archway, ‘Craig! I need you!’

  Moments later a short, thin man appeared, with a shaven head, even more tattooed and pierced than his wife. Late at night, in a dark alley, he’d have scared the shit out of anyone, Potting thought. But here in daylight he looked surprisingly meek and spoke with a friendly, rather weedy, voice.

  Potting explained what he needed, and five minutes later was seated, with a trendily large tea cup with a clumsy handle, in a sparse office at the back of the café, staring up at a monitor. The time was displ
ayed digitally in the top right-hand corner of the screen. The image quality wasn’t great, but clear enough for his purpose. He could see five of the ten terminals were occupied.

  Three were young men who looked like students. The fourth was an attractive girl, in her early twenties. The fifth was a middle-aged woman, wearing a leather baseball cap, a polo-neck sweater and a bomber jacket with the collar turned up.

  By 8.35 p.m. four of the occupants had left, leaving the woman in the leather baseball cap on her own. Shortly after 8.46 she rose and walked up towards the counter, out of shot. Then a couple of minutes later she came back into frame, leaving the premises.

  ‘Her!’ Potting said. ‘Do you remember her?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Craig said. ‘We get a lot of oddballs in here. She was definitely one of them.’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Well, sort of just her manner, and she had a very husky voice, you know, like someone who’s a heavy smoker. Before she started her session she asked how much we charged and I told her two pounds for half an hour or three pounds for an hour. She said she needed to draw some cash out and asked if there was a hole-in-the-wall machine anywhere around. I remember telling her the nearest one was just up in Queen’s Road – an HSBC.’

  ‘She went to it?’

  He shrugged. ‘She went out and came back ten minutes later. I remember she paid with a brand new ten pound note, and I thought that must have come straight out of the machine.’

  ‘I need to borrow the disc,’ Potting said. ‘Do you have any objection?’

  The man hesitated.

  ‘I can get a warrant, if you insist.’

  Craig shook his head. ‘No, that’s fine.’

  Potting took the disc, then hurried up to the top of Trafalgar Street, walking through the archway beneath Brighton Station, then turned left into Queen’s Road. He saw the HSBC bank, with two cash machines, diagonally across to his left.

  105

  Glenn Branson sat at his terminal in MIR-1 with a row of index cards laid out in front of him. On one was written, Torso at Stonery Farm. On another was, Arms and legs found in West Sussex Piscatorial Society lake. On the third, Suit fabric at Stonery Farm, West Sussex Piscatorial Society Lake and Gaia German tour. The fourth was headed, Myles Royce. The fifth, Drayton Wheeler.

  It was a method he employed whenever he found himself stuck. Each card related to photographs pinned to the whiteboards above the workstations where the investigation team were working in mostly silent concentration. Every few moments, he could hear Norman Potting’s irritating voice. The DS always seemed to speak louder than anyone else when he was on the phone, as if assuming the person down the other end of the line was hard of hearing.

  Then a female voice interrupted Branson. ‘Sir?’

  He looked up to see the tall figure of DC Reeves, in a bright red dress and flaxen hair, standing over him, looking excited. ‘I have something from eBay that might be significant.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve been really helpful. I’ve got the entire history of the auction for Gaia’s suit, and all the names of the bidders. It ended up with just two people who between them drove the price up from seven hundred pounds to the final winning bid of twenty-seven thousand, two hundred.’

  ‘That was some bidding war. Incredible!’

  ‘I know! And the winning bidder was none other than our jigsaw puzzle man, Myles Royce.’

  ‘Royce?’ Branson said. He frowned. ‘I thought he already had this suit – he bought one.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Emma Reeves agreed. ‘But he didn’t own this one. Gaia’s personal suit, worn by her at a concert. That’s what gives it kudos and value to a collector.’

  ‘Yeah, I get it, but shit, you’ve got to be sad to pay that kind of money.’

  ‘Gaia gives it all to charity, apparently,’ Emma Reeves said. ‘And for the collector it could be a good investment.’

  Branson shrugged. ‘Even so, you’d have to want something real bad.’

  ‘I think these collectors do, sir. Anyhow, I gave the names of all the other bidders to Annalise Vineer, and she’s run checks on them. Remember an incident at The Grand Hotel, last week, when an over-zealous Gaia fan got pushed over by one of her security guards? This fan called the police, who attended; subsequently it was found that she had given them a false address.’

  ‘Yep,’ Branson said. ‘Her name was Anna Garley – Galicia – or something like that, right?’

  ‘Spot on! Galicia. Well, she was the underbidder on this auction for the yellow suit.’

  Branson absorbed this for some moments. A possibility was shaping in his mind. A motive? Had they been looking down the wrong track? Could anger over the suit be behind this murder? Were the yellow cloth fragments at the deposition sites put there deliberately? Out of some kind of spite?

  Norman Potting, who had just ended his call, looked up. ‘You’re talking about a female Gaia obsessive?’

  Branson gave him a surly look. ‘Possibly.’

  ‘I just got back a short while ago from that internet place, Café Conneckted.’ He held up a CD. ‘This is the footage of the person who was online at 8.46 p.m. Monday night, when the threatening email was sent to Gaia.’ Like an actor playing to an audience, Potting took a deliberate pause before going on. ‘It’s a woman.’

  This was greeted by frowns, and a brief silence.

  ‘A woman?’ Guy Batchelor said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Is there footage of her walking?’ Haydn Kelly, sitting just opposite him, asked.

  ‘I think so, a bit,’ Potting said.

  ‘May I see it?’

  Potting handed him the disc. Kelly loaded it immediately.

  ‘This person, whoever she is, went to an HSBC bank hole-in-the-wall machine in Queen’s Road around 8.30 p.m. on Monday to make a cash withdrawal,’ Potting said. ‘There are two ATMs, side by side. I’ve just been on to the bank asking them to let us have details of all the people who made cash withdrawals from these machines between 8.15 and 9 p.m. on Monday – to allow for the machine clocks being slightly wrong. I should have it a bit later today.’

  Glenn Branson stood over Haydn Kelly’s shoulder and studied the distinct, if poor quality, colour image.

  ‘You can fast forward through the first few minutes as the others leave the café, Haydn,’ Potting said.

  The forensic podiatrist did so, then slowed as the clock counter approached 20.44. Only the woman in the leather cap was there now. From her body language it was clear she had a decisive moment around 20.46. Shortly after that she appeared to log off, then stood up and walked towards the counter, and out of shot.

  ‘You see her again shortly,’ Potting said.

  Two minutes later, she walked back into frame, briefly, then left the premises.

  ‘Shit!’ Haydn Kelly exclaimed.

  ‘What?’ Branson asked him.

  ‘I can’t be sure, I need to see more footage,’ the podiatrist said.

  ‘Sure of what?’

  ‘The gait.’

  ‘What is it telling you?’

  ‘I need to see more of this person walking before I can be certain.’

  ‘The CCTV room at John Street Police Station would be bound to have caught her on camera,’ Guy Batchelor said. ‘The whole of Queen’s Road’s covered.’

  Branson turned to Nick Nicholl. ‘Nick, take Haydn down there right away.’

  As Nicholl stood up, Glenn Branson asked, ‘Does anyone know how to get still photographs off video like this?’

  ‘Ask Martin Bloomfield down in Imaging – he’ll be able to do it.’

  *

  Thirty minutes later Branson left the building, with two printed and enhanced blow-ups of the woman in the leather cap. One was full-length, the other of just her face. He climbed into his allocated unmarked car and drove out through the green gates of the building, heading towards the seafront, and The Grand Hotel.

  106

  The pavement outside
The Grand was crowded with fans with their mobile phone cameras, and paparazzi with their long lenses, all hopeful of catching a glimpse of the icon.

  The doorman stood well back against the front entrance, as if defending it, as he studied the photograph Glenn Branson held up.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Oh yes, very definitely.’

  ‘No doubt at all?’ Glenn asked.

  ‘Part of my job is to remember faces, sir,’ Colin Bourner said. ‘I’ve been doing this a long time. Regulars get upset if you don’t recognize them. I never forget a face. If you need verification, we are bound to have her on CCTV.’

  ‘I would like to see that,’ he replied. ‘Not because I don’t trust your judgement, but I’d like to take a look for myself.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Security, sir, won’t keep you a moment.’ He hurried into the building.

  Glenn looked at his watch. 11.23 a.m. Gaia was staying here. One of the greatest stars in the world, and Ari had refused to let their kids play with her son. How shit was that? He stared up, wondering which her room was. One of these on the front façade, with a sea view, for sure. He had to make sure he got her autograph for Sammy and Remi while she was staying here, at least. He stared at the slow-moving traffic, and at people ambling along the promenade on the far side, occasionally being pinged out of the way by an irked rider as they trespassed unwittingly on the cycle path. Early June, and already it looked as if many of them were holidaymakers.

  Holiday, he thought wistfully. The last holiday he’d had was in Cornwall with Ari nearly two years ago. It had rained for a solid fortnight. That hadn’t done their failing relationship much good.

  ‘Right, sir, they’re just setting it up for you now!’

  Branson turned. ‘Great, thank you.’

  ‘No, sir, it’s my pleasure, absolutely my pleasure.’

  *

  Roy Grace had just arrived back from two awkward meetings. The first with ACC Peter Rigg who wanted to know how, despite the tight security that Grace had been requested to plan, someone had managed to hide directly above where the filming was taking place – and had been a fraction of a second away from killing Gaia’s son. The second had been with the Chief Constable, who had been a little more understanding, but unhappy, nonetheless.