Not Dead Yet

love me!
    As she mouthed the words, Gaia suddenly obliged, uncrossingher legs, and turning provocatively sideways, her skirt sliding up her thighs. She threw Anna a direct glance. Looking with her wide blue eyes directly into her soul. Then she winked.
    Anna winked back.
    Jeremy Clarkson laughed at some joke Gaia had cracked and that Anna had missed. He was fawning over Gaia. But Anna didn’t care. She wasn’t jealous of Jeremy Clarkson. She wasn’t interested in what Gaia Lafayette and Jeremy Clarkson said to each other, nor was she interested in what either of them said to the millions of viewers.
    She was only interested in Gaia’s responses to her. And her idol was responding just the way she had asked her to.
    ‘So you got your interest in cars from a very special lover, it says on your website,’ Jeremy Clarkson went on. ‘A Formula One driver. Could it have been the Stig?’
    Gaia laughed. ‘We don’t know who the new Stig is, right?’
    ‘Not until he sells his story to the press like the last one, no.’
    She pointed at her chest. ‘I’m not with him on that. People should not sell secrets.’ Then she raised her right hand, pressed her thumb, middle finger and ring finger together and raised the other two fingers in the air. ‘Secret fox! Right?’ It was her signature image, a shadow boxing image of a fox, mimicking the design which was on all her merchandise.
    Clarkson laughed again.
    But Anna didn’t laugh. Fury suddenly burned inside her. Secret fox . Gaia never did the gesture in public. That was their secret code to each other.
    What did Gaia think she was doing?
    Secrets were sacrosanct. Did she not understand? You didn’t share a secret gesture with the whole damned world.
    She would damned well tell her that.

35
    ‘The time is 6.30 p.m., Monday, June the sixth,’ Roy Grace read out from his notes, to his team seated in MIR-1. He’d only been back a short while from London, where he’d been closeted for several hours in the chambers of the prosecuting barrister on the Carl Venner snuff movie trial. Along with the Crown Prosecution solicitor, he had run through a seemingly never-ending series of questions that he and his fellow officers who might be called by the defence could be asked. The trial, which would have a lot of media attention, was now due to start the following Monday.
    ‘This is our seventh briefing of Operation Icon ,’ he continued. ‘I’ll review, in conjunction with my deputy SIO, DS Branson, where we are to date. Our primary task at this stage remains the identity of the victim, “Unknown Berwick Male”. DNA results back from the lab this afternoon show no matches on the national DNA database. So at the moment unless we can find the head or hands, to give us dental records or fingerprints, we’re faced with a lot of good old-fashioned detective slog, I’m afraid.’ He turned to Branson. ‘Glenn, you have something to report on the suit fabric found close to the victim’s remains?’
    Detective Sergeant Branson pointed at the photographs of the checked suit fabric tacked to a whiteboard. ‘I’ve had a report back from Brighton tailors Gresham Blake,’ he said. ‘They tell me this is a fabric manufactured by the cloth company Dormeuil and sold widely, despite it being so garish, both to bespoke tailors and off-the-peg manufacturers around the world. They have been producing this particular design for over forty years.’
    ‘Glenn, wouldn’t different batches of the cloth have variations?’ Norman Potting asked. ‘Might we be able to narrow the search down if they could identify the batch?’
    Branson nodded thoughtfully. ‘Good point. I’ll ask them.’ He made a note, then went on, turning to Emma Reeves. ‘DC Reeveshas been in contact with Dormeuil and is working with them on identifying all possible tailors and clothing retailers in Sussex – and further afield if we need – who may have used this cloth in recent years. But I do have one significant development to report on this, I’m pleased to say, which may give us significant help. Crimewatch have agreed to feature it on their monthly show, which by chance is next on tomorrow night. They will be interviewing Detective Superintendent Grace tomorrow shortly before the show is broadcast.’
    ‘No,’ Grace corrected him. ‘They’ll be interviewing you .’ He sipped his coffee.
    Branson’s sudden look of panic provoked a titter in the room. ‘Um –’ he mumbled, frowning at