Not Dead Yet

could glimpse the man’s clothes in a few places. Repeatedly, Vicky Donoghue asked, ‘Sir, can you hear us? Help is on its way. Can you hear us, sir?’
    There was no response. Outside, she could hear a cacophony of sirens winding down. Hopefully the fire brigade had arrived with lifting gear. Then she saw flesh. A wrist.
    Carefully she eased her gloved hand in between the jagged leaves of glass palm fronds, and held the wrist lightly. It was limp. ‘Can you hear me, sir? Try to move your hand if you can’t speak,’ she urged. Then she curled her fingers around the wrist, feeling for the radial artery.
    ‘I’ve got a pulse!’ she announced after some moments in a low voice to her colleague. ‘But it’s weak.’
    ‘We’ve got to get this mess lifted off him. How weak?’
    She counted for a few seconds. ‘Twenty-five.’ She counted again. ‘Going down. Twenty-four.’
    He mouthed the question at her without actually saying the words. He didn’t need to. They’d crewed together for long enough to be able to read each other’s signals. FUBAR BUNDY?
    The words were an acronym for Fucked Up Beyond All Recovery, But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet . The gallows humour of the ambulance service that helped them cope with horrific situations like this.
    She nodded affirmative.

    Jason Tingley, with his boyish mop of hair brushed forward, white button-down shirt with black buttons, and narrow black tie, every inch a twenty-first-century Mod, was at his desk in the CID department on the fourth floor of Brighton’s John Street Police Station, nearing the end of his twelve-hour shift as the on-call Detective Inspector. At the forefront of his mind was yesterday’s disturbing development of the emailed death threat against Gaia.
    He yawned; it had been a busy day, starting at the beginning of his shift with a woman claiming she had been raped after having a row with her boyfriend, and leaving a party at 6.45 a.m. Who the hell partied until 6.45 a.m. on a Monday night – or rather, Tuesday morning – he wondered? Then at midday the Road Policing Unit had stopped a car in the city with its boot filled with bags of cannabis. And at 3 p.m. there had been an armed robbery on a jewellery shop in the city centre.
    He was still dealing with the paperwork on that now, and was almost finished. He was hoping to be able to get home in time to see his two children before they went to bed, and enjoy a meal and a quiet evening in front of the television with his wife Nicky. Then his phone rang.
    ‘Jason Tingley,’ he answered.
    It was the Ops 1 Controller, Andy Kille. ‘Jason, there’s been an incident at the Royal Pavilion just come in that I thought you, the Chief Superintendent and Roy Grace might want to know about.’
    ‘What’s happened?’
    He listened with great concern to the sketchy details that Kille had been given. It seemed a strange coincidence that a chandelier which had been in situ for almost two centuries should suddenly fall down this week, of all weeks. Unless the film crew had been meddling with it and had damaged something?
    ‘Do we know anything about the person under the chandelier, Andy?’ he asked.
    ‘Not at this stage, no.’
    ‘I’m going to take a look,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep Roy Grace and Graham Barrington informed.’ He ended the call, stood up and hooked his jacket off the back of his chair. By the time he had reached the car park out the back, and belted himself into one of the grey Ford Focus cars from the detectives’ pool, he had notified the Chief Superintendent of Brighton and Hove, who was away for the day attending a course, but had not managed to get through to Roy Grace.
    Five minutes later, as he turned left and drove under the archway into the Pavilion grounds, Tingley saw three fire engines, a Fire Service Heavy Rescue vehicle, an ambulance and a paramedic car outside the main entrance, as well as two police vehicles.
    He drove past the cluster of trailers, pulled up as close as he could to the main entrance, then hurried across, flashing his ID at two security guards. They told him to go inside and turn right.
    The last time he had been in this building was years back, on a school history outing. It had the same smell of all museums and galleries, but he had forgotten just how ornate and splendid it was. As he entered the Banqueting Room, a surreal vision lay in front of him. It was as if a Pause button had been pressed, freeze-framing some people in the room, but not