Not Dead Yet

her a kiss and stepped into the bathroom, then checked his face in the mirror. The gash on his left cheek had required three stitches, but it looked to be healing all right. As he turned on the taps, his mobile phone, lying on the bed, pinged twice with text messages.
    ‘Could you see if there’s anything urgent!’ he called out.
    She picked up the phone. The first message was from Jason Tingley.
    Do you need me 2morrow or can I play golf?
    The second was from a number that meant nothing to her. She opened it.
    Hey Mr Paul Newman Eyes! I want to thank you properly sometime for saving my life. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
    Roy Grace adjusted the shower temperature then, before stepping into it, called, ‘Anything important?’
    ‘Jason Tingley wants to play golf tomorrow. And Gaia wants to have sex with you.’
    He grinned and closed the shower door behind him.

    Five minutes later as he came back into the bedroom, with a towel wrapped around him, Cleo paraded the loose, turquoise dress she had chosen. She looked stunning.
    ‘What do you think? This or my black one? Or the beige one you like?’
    He could not remember either the black or the beige ones. ‘This looks great.’
    ‘Which shoes?’
    ‘Which ones were you thinking of?’
    ‘Well, I can’t wear anything with heels. So I’m not going to be able to compete with Gaia, am I?’ Her tone was unusually sarcastic.
    ‘Hey, come on!’ He picked up the phone and looked at the text, then smiled, proudly. Not every cop got a text from one of the world’s greatest stars. And a row of kisses.
    ‘So would you?’ she said.
    ‘Would I what?’
    ‘Go to bed with her, if you had the chance?’ She was staring at him strangely.
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous, absolutely not! Hey, come on, let’s not go there.’
    He picked up the Alfa Romeo brochure that was lying on his bedside table, and flicked through it for distraction, to avoid having to look back at her. He stopped on the Giulietta page, and stared at the car with longing.
    Cleo looked over his shoulder. ‘Go with your heart!’ she said. ‘You love that car, right?’
    He shrugged. ‘Yes.’
    ‘So, you’ve nearly died I don’t know how many times in your career, and you’ve still got a third of it to go. You’re probably notgoing to make old bones, so go on, treat yourself while you can. Enjoy!’
    ‘I’m tempted,’ he said.
    ‘It’ll suit you. And, hey, Mr Paul Newman Eyes , Gaia will think you are so cool.’

121
    Over the course of the following week, to Roy Grace’s relief, press coverage about his rescue of Gaia began to move from the front page and dwindled, although the jibes from his friends and colleagues continued. He gradually reduced the Operation Icon team numbers, until by the following Friday’s morning meeting there was just himself, Glenn Branson, Norman Potting, Bella Moy, Nick Nicholl and a handful of others.
    They had a lot work to do still, collecting statements, preparing for the inquests into the deaths of Drayton Wheeler and Myles Royce. Meanwhile they awaited the daily medical bulletins on Eric Whiteley, who remained on life support in the ICU at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, under police guard.
    He hadn’t been able to resist showing the text from Gaia around to his colleagues and he was now the butt of a number of saucy but good-humoured jokes about her.
    ‘So how’s your new lovebird today, chief?’ Norman Potting asked.
    ‘She’s been back on set all week, I gather, thank you, Norman. She’s tough.’
    ‘I’ll bet she is,’ he said with a dirty chuckle.
    ‘Leave it alone, will you, Norman?’ Glenn Branson snapped at him.
    Grace had been noticing a certain tension between Branson and Potting recently. But his mate had refused to be drawn on it, on the couple of occasions he’d tried to bring the subject up while they were having a drink after work. Another thing he had noticed a few times was a sly exchange of glances between Potting and Bella.
    There couldn’t be anything going on between them, could there? To him, Potting was just about the most physically unappealing man he’d ever encountered. Surely Bella could do better than him?
    On the other hand, nor could he see the appeal a Brightoncopper might have to one of the world’s greatest and sexiest rock and movie stars. But he was getting a constant stream of increasingly flirty texts from Gaia. It did not seem to matter how neutral and guarded his replies were, the innuendo from her was