He checked the calls log on his phone, found the numbers corresponding to the time he rang Larry Brooker last night and the time the producer returned the call and rang it again.
‘Brooker.’ He did not sound in a sunny mood.
‘It’s Detective Superintendent Grace, Mr Brooker.’
‘This is not a good moment,’ Brooker said. ‘We’re about to start shooting a major scene. Can I call you back later?’
‘No!’ Grace said emphatically. ‘Is Gaia on set?’
‘She goddamn well isn’t – we’re waiting for her.’
‘Mr Brooker, I need a big favour from you. We believe her life may be in real and present danger. I want to take her under police guard back to her hotel room and keep her there until the threat is over. Is there any filming you could do tonight without involving her?’
‘Detective Grace, she’s already delayed us enough. You have to get real. Stars get threats from crazies regularly. She’s got her own goddamn security, we’ve got the Pavilion’s security, the film unit’s security and we’ve got the whole of your police force. This location is more secure than Fort Knox. A mouse isn’t getting in here without ID. This is the safest place in Brighton right now.’
‘So in which case, how come the chandelier came crashing down yesterday?’
‘Everyone’s tightened up since then. We’ve battened down the hatches. The whole place has been searched. She’ll be totally safe on set – if we can ever get her out of her goddamn trailer.’
Grace hung up, exasperated.
‘What’s happened, chief?’ Glenn Branson asked.
‘Sorry, thought you’d been told. They’ve found Myles Royce’s head.’
Branson looked at him. ‘They have? Where?’
‘In Eric Whiteley’s freezer.’
‘Ohhhhh shit.’
‘Yes, and I have a bad feeling his next intended trophy is Gaia’s. Judging by the state of his house, he’s lost it. He ripped all his Gaia memorabilia to shreds, daubed his walls in anti-Gaia hate slogans and disappeared.’
‘Where do you think he might be?’ Branson asked.
‘I talked to a psychologist this afternoon, who’s written extensively on stalkers and celebrity obsessives, a Dr Tara Lester. She said these obsessive fans frequently build themselves an imaginary relationship with the celeb. They know the celeb is just waiting for that right moment to show reciprocation. That the celeb is, secretly, as much in love with them as they are with the celeb. When they get rejected by the celeb, sometimes they can flip. I think we’re dealing with such a situation now. I think he’s going to position himself near her, either at her hotel or the Pavilion.’
Branson nodded.
‘Forget this evening’s briefing, you and I are going down there ourselves right now.’
114
‘Gaia’s left her trailer, she’s on her way,’ Barnaby Katz announced at last to Larry Brooker and Jack Jordan. Then he listened on his earpiece for a moment to the voice of the Third Assistant Director who was accompanying her, before speaking to the producer and director again. ‘Joe’s with her and there’s two police officers escorting her to the door.’
‘Tell ’em to switch their sirens on and shift it,’ Brooker said impatiently.
The black Range Rover, followed by a marked police car, drove the 300 yards across the lawns to the front of the Pavilion. The police officers hurried out of their car and stood a few feet away, as one of her minders held the rear door open, and the icon slowly emerged, carefully ducking her head so as not to knock her mass of hair against the door frame, or snag any of the multiple layers of her dress and high collar on anything.
There was a ragged cheer from the crowd of general public assembled beyond the wall in New Road, and a whole battery of flashes strobed in the grey, early evening light, as Gaia stepped down on to the drive. She walked slowly, seemingly a little uncertainly, following the AD into the building, then right, along the corridor towards the Banqueting Room.
Into a sea of faces.
A distinct sense of relief spread through the room. Several of the actors at the banqueting table turned to look at her. A make-up artist was working her way around their chairs, dabbing shiny noses and foreheads, and one of the hairdressers was making a minor adjustment to Hugh Bonneville’s wig. Suddenly the entire assembly of actors burst into spontaneous applause.
Oh shit, Brooker thought. Oh shit, she is not going to be happy with this.
It wasn’t the applause of a warm greeting, nor the applause for a fine performance. It was a sarcastic demonstration by her thirty fellow actors that they had not been amused to be kept waiting.
Then, to his amazement, Gaia smiled and curtsied. First to the cast at the table. Then to the Director of Photography and his camera crew. Then to the sound crew. To the continuity girl. To the director and to the producer, and to each grip and spark present. She curtsied as if her career depended on it.
She curtsied smiling and proud, totally misreading the situation, as if relishing being the centre of attention, the centre of adulation that was not there.
Brooker frowned. Her behaviour was totally out of character. There was also something else very strange about her.
115
Roy Grace wondered why, whenever Glenn Branson got behind the wheel of a car, he drove it as if he had just hot-wired it although he now had a legitimate reason. Glenn was weaving through the thinning rush hour, on blues and twos, and Grace spent much of the journey fearing for his life, or the life of anyone who stepped into their path. To distract himself, he phoned and updated first the Chief Constable, via his Staff Officer, and then ACC Rigg.
At 6.30 p.m., just seven minutes after leaving Sussex House, they tore into the Pavilion grounds and pulled up behind a black Range Rover. Grace was a little relieved to see that already the police presence here was markedly increased from yesterday.
As they walked up to the front entrance, two uniformed security guards, each wearing earpieces, blocked their path. ‘Sorry, gentlemen,’ said one of them. ‘No one’s allowed in, they’re about to start shooting.’
Grace fished out his warrant card and held it up.
The same guard shook his head. ‘Sir, you don’t understand, they’re about to do a take. There has to be absolute silence. I can’t let you in until they’ve finished this scene.’
‘We’ll be quiet,’ Grace said. ‘This is an emergency.’
‘I’m afraid they’ve already lost almost an hour tonight. Madam’s been in a particularly tricky mood, if you get my drift,’ one guard said. He had a nicotine-stained moustache, a stocky but bolt-upright posture, and exuded the officious, no-nonsense air of a former army Sergeant-Major.
She’s damned lucky to still be alive, if you get mine, Grace nearly retorted. ‘I’m sorry, we need to go in the building.’
‘Phones off?’
‘No, we’re not turning our phones or radios off.’
‘Then I’m afraid you can’t go in until the end of this scene, gentlemen.’
‘How long will that be?’
‘Depends how many takes Madam requires to get her lines right.’ Both officers noted the sarcasm in his voice.
Grace decided not to push the point, turned and walked a few steps away, followed by the DS.
‘Sodding jobsworth!’ Glenn Branson said. ‘I’d love to see some of the filming.’
‘I’d like to see the finished result, knowing that we kept Gaia alive,’ Grace replied grimly.
There were a good 200 members of the public lined up along the wall, watching. He saw Glenn warily scanning their faces. Was Eric Whiteley among them? A man who was prepared to pay more than £27,000 for a suit worn once by his idol. A loner, with nothing in his life but his doomed-to-be-unrequited – and unreciprocated – passion for an icon. A loner who had been spurned by her, probably humiliatingly for him, in the front entrance of The Grand Hotel.
Was he so desperate for anything belonging to his idol, that he had killed and
butchered his rival bidder for that suit?
What was next on Whiteley’s agenda, after destroying his entire collection of Gaia memorabilia?
Destroying the icon herself?
Which would, of course, instantly make him almost as famous.
116
Along with Larry Brooker, several of the cast and crew were staring uneasily at Gaia. Jack Jordan frowned, wondering whether his star was on drugs. She was definitely looking very odd this evening, he thought. Her hair was obscuring much of her face, her make-up was far too heavy and her voice sounded strange, as if she had aged overnight; nor did she appear to have remembered anything from their rehearsals over the weekend. Had it been the shock of her son nearly being killed yesterday? Would it have been more sensible to have given her a couple of days off to recover? Too late for that now.
Patiently he repeated the line for her, putting the emphasis where he wanted her to put it. ‘This is not how a queen expects to be treated, my dear Prinny. I have never in my life been so humiliated.’ He paused. ‘Okay? Much more emphatic! In these last few takes you’re almost mumbling. You are saying this loudly to everyone, playing to your audience – all the king’s friends and associates. You must really project ! What you are doing is trying to humiliate him publicly.’
Gaia nodded.
He turned to the banqueting table, to King George. ‘Judd, immediately you respond with, “You never were a damned queen. You were just a posh tramp.”’ He turned back to Gaia. ‘That’s your cue to burst into tears and run, wailing, from the room. Are we all clear?’
Judd Halpern and Gaia both nodded in turn.
The First Assistant Director, headset on, strode across the floor and called out, ‘Right, first positions everybody!’
The Camera Operator announced, ‘Rolling!’
The Clapper Boy jumped in front of the camera lens with the digital clapperboard. ‘Scene One-Three-Four, take three.’ There was a sharp crack, and he moved clear.
Jack Jordan called out, ‘Action!’
‘Gaia,’ she said, addressing first the king, then everyone at the table, before turning dramatically around and addressing Jack Jordan. ‘You never were a queen! You were always just a posh tramp! Just a poser! You made people believe you loved them just for your ego, didn’t you? Well, you’re not special, see, anyone can do what you do. Look at each one of you in this room!’
Faces froze. There were looks of astonishment, bewilderment. Jack Jordan took a step towards her. ‘Gaia, love, do you want to take a few minutes’ break?’
‘You see?’ she was screeching now. ‘You can’t tell! You really can’t tell! So you don’t need her any more, anyone would do!’
She turned and ran, stumbling, from the room.
Jordan turned in bewilderment to Larry Brooker, then to the Line Producer. ‘That – that’s not her,’ Barnaby Katz said. ‘That’s not Gaia!’
Brooker was shaking his head. ‘Has she goddamn flipped?’
‘That’s not her – that wasn’t her!’ Katz said again. ‘Shit, I’m telling you, that was not Gaia!’ He sprinted for the corridor and ran down it, into the hallway where there was the door to the public toilets. Brooker and Jack Jordan followed closely behind him.
‘Not Gaia?’ Brooker called out.
‘No!’
‘Then who the hell was it?’ Brooker said. ‘Is this her idea of a goddamn practical joke or something?’
‘Where’s she gone?’ Katz pushed open the door to the ladies and peered in, then the men’s room. Then he hurried across to the front entrance, and out to the two guards. ‘Did you guys see anyone come out? About a minute ago?’
Both men shook their heads. ‘No one’s been in or out in the past fifteen minutes, on your instructions, sir.’
‘You didn’t see Gaia – or someone resembling her?’
‘No one.’ They looked adamant.
He squeezed past them, followed by Brooker and Jordan. A few yards away, he saw Roy Grace standing beside a tall black man in a sharp suit. ‘Neither of you saw Gaia just now?’ he asked.
‘Gaia?’ Grace said. He did not like any of their strange, baffled expressions.
‘Or someone dressed as her?’ Katz asked.
‘She ran out of the Banqueting Room and goddamn vanished,’ Brooker said.
‘No one’s come out of this entrance since we’ve been here,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘Not for at least the last seven or eight minutes.’
Roy Grace stared at Brooker. ‘Would you mind telling me what’s going on? What do you mean, you can’t find Gaia?’
‘I would if I goddamn knew.’
‘Gaia came on set looking very strange, and acting completely out of character,’ Jack Jordan said. ‘Then she went totally off-script, spouting a whole load of nonsense, and ran out of the room.’
‘It wasn’t her,’ the Line Producer said. ‘I’m certain.’
‘Everything’s secure, the whole building,’ one of the security guards said. ‘All the keys have been removed from the locks – one of the measures we were advised to take by your colleagues. We did that as soon as the public had left. If she was in the building five minutes ago, she is still there, I can assure you.’
‘If you’re saying it wasn’t Gaia,’ Grace said to the Line Producer, ‘then where is Gaia?’
He shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe still in her trailer?’
Grace felt his earlier panic returning, gripping and twisting his insides. Still in her trailer?
Jordan and Katz went back into the building.
‘Want me to go and check?’ Katz said to Grace.
‘No, I’m going.’ He turned to Branson. ‘Glenn, get the building surrounded, put someone on every exit, no one leaves, okay? Not even the damned Curator until I say so. No one leaves the grounds, either – I want a total lock-down, and right now.’
‘Right, chief.’
Grace ran along the drive then across the lawns, then stopped by the two police officers standing guard near the front of Gaia’s motorhome. Two of Gaia’s own security guards were chatting a little further back, one smoking a cigarillo.
‘Has anyone gone in or come out of this since you’ve been here?’ he asked the two officers.
Both shook their heads. ‘Not since Gaia left to go on set, sir,’ said one.
Grace went up to the door and rapped hard on it. He waited a moment, then rapped again. Then he pulled it open, calling out a cautious ‘Hello? Hello?’
Silence greeted him.
He climbed up the steps and entered. And felt as if a fish hook had suddenly and viciously snagged him in the gullet.
For an instant the entire interior of the motorhome seemed to swivel on its axis, its walls shrinking in, then expanding again. His ears popped in terror at what he saw.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’
117
Grace shouted at the two officers on guard outside the mobile home. ‘In here, quick!’
Then he dashed over to the three bodies on the floor, each bound head-to-foot, and gagged, with a mixture of twine and grey duct tape. The eyes of all three were moving, thank God, he thought. One he recognized as one of Gaia’s assistants. But neither of the other two was Gaia.
‘I’m a police officer, are you all right?’ he asked each of them, in turn, and got frightened but positive nods back. Carefully removing the tape from their mouths, he established these other two were the hairdresser and the make-up artist.
He turned to the two officers behind him. ‘Call for three ambulances, then try to free them, but be careful, that tape’s bloody painful.’ Then he went through to the rear, pushing through a curtained-off section, checking that a shower on one side and a toilet on the other were both empty, and then opened a door into what appeared to be the master bedroom, which smelled of Gaia’s perfume but was empty. A few clothes were strewn on the unused bed. He looked around carefully, pulling open cupboard doors, then went down on his knees and peered under the bed, just in case,
but to no avail.
Gaia wasn’t in this motorhome.
He radioed Ops 1, and moments later was through once more to Inspector Andy Kille. He gave him a quick summary.
‘So we can’t be sure of the time she was abducted, can we, Roy?’ Kille asked.
‘Any time between 4 p.m. and two minutes ago.’
‘Over three hours. She could be anywhere. I don’t think there’s much value in road blocks – they could be too far away by now.’
‘I think the perp’s in the Pavilion with her,’ Grace said. ‘I agree, no point in road blocks. Is Hotel 900 or Oscar Sierra 99 available?’ Hotel 900 and Oscar Sierra 99 were the call signs of the two helicopters of the South East Air Support Unit.
‘Yes.’
‘Get one up and over the Pavilion, in case he’s up on the roof somewhere. There are lots of spaces up there. They can also see if he tries to leave.’
‘I’ll have it overhead within ten minutes, tops.’
Please God let her be alive, Grace prayed, silently. His mind was spinning, trying to get traction. He’d worked on child abductions and on kidnap cases, and was a qualified hostage negotiator. From his experience, he knew how badly the odds were stacked against them. In child abductions, forty-four per cent of the victims died within the first hour. Seventy-three per cent were dead within three hours. Just one per cent survived more than one day. And forty per cent were dead before they were even reported missing.
Those figures applied to children, but if the psychologist Dr Lester was right, inside Eric Whiteley’s warped mind, now that Gaia was no longer his lover, he might well be viewing her as a child who needed to be taught a lesson.
Every single second mattered right now.
‘We need a PNC broadcast, as well, Andy, just in case.’