Not Dead Yet

door. It burst open on the second strike, and three LST officers rushed in, bellowing, ‘POLICE! POLICE!’ while the Sergeant held back, in case their intended target tried to do a runner out of the garage door.
    Guy Batchelor, Emma Reeves and Nick Nicholl stayed outside,until they got the all clear, confirming that the rooms had all been checked and there was no threat. Then they entered.
    And stopped in their tracks in astonishment.
    Nothing about the exterior of the house had given them any hint of the quite astonishing room they had stepped into.
    There was a marble floor that would have looked more at home in an Italian palazzo than an urban annexe of Brighton and Hove. The walls were ceiling-to-floor mirrors, decorated with Aztec art and posters of Gaia. Batchelor stared at a signed monochrome of the icon in a black negligee – one of her most famous images. But it was ripped through several times with what must have been a knife blade, so that parts had peeled away and were hanging down. In angry red letters across it was daubed, BITCH .
    He looked uneasily at Emma Reeves. She pointed to the left, above a white leather armchair. At another huge framed poster, in which Gaia was wearing a tank-top and leather jeans, captioned G AIA R EVELATIONS T OUR . Across it was daubed in the same red paint, LOVE ME OR DIE, BITCH .
    Above the fireplace, clearly in pride of place was a blow-up of the icon’s lips, nose and eyes in green monochrome, captioned, G AIA U P C LOSE AND P ERSONAL . It was also personally signed. It too was slashed to ribbons in parts, and painted across, again in red, was the word COW .
    One of the Specialist Search Unit officers, gloved and wearing black, was opening drawers in a chest on the far side of the room. Batchelor stared at each of the posters, at the violent rips, at the red paint, feeling deep, growing unease. He glanced out of the window; it was a grey, blustery afternoon and he could see a neighbour’s washing flapping in the wind, in front of a breeze-block garage. Something flapped in his belly. He had been in a lot of bad situations in his career, but he was experiencing something new to him at this moment. It was an almost palpable sense of evil. And it was spooking him.
    A shadow moved, making him jump. It was a small Burmese cat, back arched, eyeing him suspiciously.
    ‘Take a look up here!’ another Search Unit officer called down to them from upstairs.
    Batchelor, followed by Emma Reeves and Nick Nicholl, chargedup the stairs, and, following the direction he was signalling, entered a room that felt like a cross between a museum and a shrine. And in which there had been a recent explosion of anger.
    Shop window dummies lay on their sides on the floor, wearing dresses covered in clear plastic, and daubed in red paint. More autographed posters on the walls were ripped and daubed. CDs, tickets to Gaia concerts, bottles of Gaia’s mineral water, a smashed Martini glass and a fly-fishing rod snapped in two were among the other detritus that lay on the floor streaked, like blood, in red paint.
    Some items remained in their glass display cabinets, but many of these were barely visible behind the furious red words all over the glass. BITCH. COW. DIE. LOVE ME. I’LL TEACH YOU. FUCK YOU.
    DC Reeves was looking around, wide-eyed. ‘What an incredible collection.’
    ‘You a Gaia fan?’ Nick Nicholl asked.
    She nodded vigorously.
    ‘Sir!’
    They all turned. It was one of the Search Unit officers, Brett Wallace, and his face was ashen. These officers, he knew, saw everything and it took quite a bit to shock any of them. But this officer was definitely shocked at this moment.
    ‘This house has just become a crime scene. We’re going to have to lock it down and not disturb anything else.’
    ‘What have you found?’ Batchelor asked.
    ‘I’ll show you,’ Wallace said.
    They went back downstairs, and followed him into the kitchen, a spotless room with dated furniture and appliances. Two other Search Unit officers were standing in there, both looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. Wallace pointed at an open door, and Batchelor, followed by the other two, walked across to it. Beyond was a tiny pantry, mostly filled with a chest freezer, the lid of which was raised. A few supermarket ready meals lay on the floor, along with several packets of frozen sausages, and three picnic freezer blocks.
    ‘Take a look inside,’ Wallace said, indicating for him to go in.
    Warily,