Not Dead Yet

happen to Gaia while she was here, the damage to this city would be incalculable. You understand my drift, don’t you, Roy?’
    ‘Yes, sir. I get that completely.’
    ‘I thought you would. But there’s a problem. I’ve had a discussion with Scotland Yard’s Close Protection Unit. Under their mandate, only royals, diplomats and government ministers qualify for high-level protection. Rock stars – and movie stars – are not on the approved list – they’re expected to provide their own security.’
    Grace shrugged. ‘That makes sense – they have the money to do that.’
    Tom Martinson nodded. ‘Under normal circumstances, yes – to keep fanatical fans at bay. But they’re not permitted to carry firearms in this country. So that gives us the problem of how to protect them against someone with a gun.’
    Grace took a sip of his coffee, thinking hard. Despite Brighton’s dark side, one blessing was that it had never had the kind of gun problem that afflicted some inner cities in the UK. Of all the murders in the county of Sussex in recent years, only a handful had involved guns. But that did not mean that guns were not readily available to anyone with intent, who knew where to ask. ‘We could make an exception with our own Sussex Close Protection Team, I would have thought, sir.’
    Martinson nodded. ‘I want you to do a risk assessment and write a security strategy for Gaia while she’s in Brighton – knowing that there’s a possibility someone may try to kill her with a firearm. I’d like to meet again on Monday morning to go through it, and later on Monday with the team leaders we’ll need to implement it, including the ACCs and the Divisional Commander of Brighton and Hove. I’m sorry to throw this at you at the start of the weekend.’
    ‘It’s not a problem, sir.’ The Detective Superintendent tried not to show his excitement at the challenge. This was really going to give him the chance to shine in front of the Chief Constable. But equally, he knew, a massive burden of responsibility had just been dumped on his shoulders. Keeping Gaia alive while she was in Brighton was now interlinked with keeping his chosen career path alive. And the most recent case he had worked on, Operation Violin , showed that Brighton was easily within the reaches of a professional US hitman.
    Martinson unfolded his arms, took a biscuit from the plate, then held it without taking a bite. He frowned, as if searching for the right way to say what was on his mind next. ‘Changing the subject totally, I also wanted to tip you off about something, Roy.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘I believe you had a bit of an unpleasant experience some time back, with a certain Brighton villain, name of Amis Smallbone?’
    The creep’s name made Grace squirm. ‘I put him away on a life sentence, and he didn’t like it. Not that many of them do.’
    Tom Martinson grinned, fleetingly. ‘That was twelve years ago?’
    Grace did a quick calculation. ‘It would be, yes, sir.’
    Amis Smallbone was, in Grace’s opinion, the nastiest and most malevolent piece of vermin he had ever dealt with. Five foot one inch tall, with his hair greasily coiffed, dressed summer and winter in natty suits too tight for him, Smallbone exuded arrogance. Whether he had modelled himself on some screen mobster, or had some kind of Marlon Brando Godfather fixation, Grace neither knew nor cared. Smallbone, who must now be in his early sixties, was the last living relic of one of Brighton’s historic crime families. At one time, three generations of Smallbones controlled protection rackets across Kemp Town, several amusement arcades, the drugs going into half the nightclubs, as well as much of the city’s prostitution. It had long been rumoured – a rumour circulated with much enthusiasm throughout the police – that Smallbone’s obsession with prostitution came out of his own sexual inadequacy.
    When Grace had personally arrested Smallbone on a charge of murdering a rival drug dealer in the city, by dropping an electric heater into his bathtub, the villain had threatened retribution against him personally, and against his wife Sandy. Three weeks later, with Smallbone banged up in the remand wing of Lewes prison, someone had sprayed every plant in the garden of Grace’s home – Sandy’s biggest passion – with weedkiller, turning all the borders into an arid wasteland.
    In the centre of the lawn had been burned two words.
    UR DEAD .
    Grace had been present in