Not Dead Yet

on it, Biglow had just weeks, or a month or two at best, to go. ‘They always say medicine’s a very inexact science, Terry. You never know.’ He gave him a wan smile. Biglow just stared back. He’s afraid, Grace thought. The man’s actually afraid.
    You weren’t afraid of much when you ruled the roost in this city, were you, Terry Biglow? he thought. What will you be thinking in those last moments as your life ebbs away? Will you be thinking about all those people whose lives you ruined by selling them drugs? The innocent shopkeepers whose premises you torched because they wouldn’t pay your protection money? The elderly, vulnerable people that your teams of knocker boys stole treasured heirlooms from? Are you going to feel happy heading off to meet your Maker with only that to show for your life?
    ‘So how can I help you, Mr Grace?’ Biglow wheezed. ‘You ain’t come in here for the quality of the beer or the congenial company.’
    As he spoke Grace watched the man’s eyes carefully for any tell-tale flicker. ‘I hear Amis Smallbone’s out.’
    There was no reaction from Biglow at all, for some moments. Then he said, ‘Released, is he? He’s been away a long time. Good riddance, I say.’
    Grace knew there’d never been any love lost between the two rivals. ‘I need to find him.’ Watching his eyes closely again he asked, ‘Don’t suppose you have any idea where he might be?’
    His eyes didn’t move, they stared rigidly ahead, the fear in them still palpable. ‘Did yer know Tommy Fincher?’
    Grace nodded. Fincher had plenty of past form in the Brighton underworld as a fence. ‘Haven’t heard of him in years.’
    ‘Yeah, good old Tommy. He just died. Had a stroke. His funeral’s next Tuesday, up at Woodvale. He and Smallbone was thick together.’
    ‘They were?’
    ‘Smallbone was married to his sister. She died of the cancer, years ago. He’ll be going to the funeral for sure. You’ll find him there.’
    ‘You’ve earned your half!’ Grace said.
    ‘Make it a whisky, will yer, Detective Insp—Superintendent. Not that Bell’s stuff, they got a nice Chivas, sixteen year, I’ll have one of them if yer buying.’
    For the information he had just been given, Roy Grace considered it a bargain. He made it a double.

27
    Gaia Lafayette, dressed in blue jeans and a loose black top, sat numbly on the edge of the white sofa in her Bel Air home, as the two detectives left, then began crying again. It was her third interview with the police in the past three days. They had no suspect, but they had a fuzzy CCTV image which had been sent for enhancement. Ballistics tests had been carried out, but so far there was no match to any weapons on police files.
    The detectives had run through possible motives, and talked again with her about any possible enemies she might have. Among the list of motives for murder, they told her, were money, jealousy, vendettas or a random, crazy person. Their feeling on what little they had to go on so far was that this was not random. They felt there was a high probability she was the intended target, and it was mistaken identity.
    Her assistant Sasha came back from seeing the police officers out, her hair short and dyed black. There would be no more mistaking her assistants. She’d ignored the advice of her head of security Andrew Gulli, who felt that the murder of Marla was all the more reason to have her assistants dressed as doubles, and Todd, her current hunk, said the same thing.
    But Gaia refused to put them through that risk. Having them dressed like herself had been a joke, a bit of hubris. She had never intended it to end in death.
    ‘Why are you crying, Mama?’
    Roan, a towel draped around him, his hair still wet from the pool, padded up to her.
    ‘Mama’s sad, honey.’
    ‘Are you sad because Marla’s not coming back?’
    She hugged him and kissed his forehead. Originally she had planned to leave him here, but now that was unthinkable. She wanted him with her in England, where she could see him and protect him.
    Her agent and her manager and Todd had all been trying hard to persuade her to pull out of the movie. How could she be properly protected in England, where her bodyguards couldn’t carry weapons, they argued? But that was the point, she told them, reversing her decision to quit the film. She would feel safer right now in a country that didn’t have a gun culture. And besides, her style had never been to hide away from her public. She