Not Dead Yet

in a bin-liner, weighted with a rock and tied with fuse wire.
    Also, around the muddy and partly boggy shore of the lake, there were some footprints identical to the one close by the strip of cloth that had been spotted by William Pitcher, each in a position corresponding with throwing distance of where one of the body parts had been located. A numbered yellow marker lay beside each of them.
    At the same time as the last of the body parts was being recovered, the SOCO team, in their line search, followed a trail of footprints leading away from the lake. At the end of this trail, in a shallow and evidently hastily dug hole, covered in branches, lay suit trousers and a jacket, matching exactly their sample strip of fabric.
    A few minutes later, back at the rear of the Specialist Search Unit truck, each of the body parts lay wrapped in white plastic sheeting, tagged and dated. Glenn, sipping a mug of coffee, examined the suit through the plastic bags. But to his disappointment, whatever labels had once been sewn in had been removed.
    Turning to Bella he said, ‘So, what do you think?’
    She shrugged. ‘That there’s a sodding Great White in there that ate the head and torso. The dive team must have missed it.’
    He grinned. ‘Yeah, my thoughts exactly.’
    ‘Failing that, we might have some of the missing bits of our human jigsaw puzzle. Except the body is months old and these aren’t.’
    ‘With powers of observation like that, you could make a fine detective!’
    ‘Flattery will get you anywhere,’ she replied, and gave him a warm smile.
    She seemed so vulnerable, he thought. She was a tough detective but a lost human soul. He wanted to put his arms around her and hug her, but this was not the time or place.
    But, he decided, at some point in the very near future he would find the right time – and place.

51
    Amis Smallbone decided he would find the right time and place, too. He stood alone on the terrace steps of Brighton’s Grand Hotel, a Chivas Regal on the rocks in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He dragged hard on it, staring with small, hateful eyes out across the busy traffic of King’s Road at people strolling along the promenade on the far side, and at the flat blue sea beyond.
    He was dressed nattily but in dated style: blue blazer with shiny brass buttons, open-neck white shirt with a paisley cravat, blue chinos and blue and white Sebago deck shoes. He looked like he might have just stepped off a yacht. Like the sodding great one he was staring at right now, a showy motor cruiser, powering through the sea at a fast lick, a tall, mare’s tail wake arcing behind it.
    That could have been him on that yacht, he thought, taking another drag. If it had not been for Detective Roy Grace.
    Henry Tilney was right, he knew. Leave it, put it behind him. But that had never been his way. People needed to be taught lessons. Grace had wiped him out. He’d lost everything. Twelve fucking years of his life locked up in shithole prisons, surrounded by losers.
    Gaia was here in this hotel. Up in the Presidential Suite, having a cosy chat with Roy Grace at this moment, together with Chief Superintendent Graham Barrington and a bunch of other cops. He smiled as he crushed out the cigarette, drained the whisky and contemplated going back inside to order another. At least he still had some of his old sources. And one of them could give him access to any room in this hotel, twenty-four seven.
    He could listen to the conversation in the Presidential Suite, too, at this moment, if he wanted, thanks to his old contact. But there was no need. He pulled another cigarette pack out of his left-hand jacket pocket. A tiny light winked on it – so faint it was almost impossible to see in this bright daylight. He returned it to his pocketwith a smug smile. He would listen to the recording later, at his leisure.

    One floor above Smallbone, in the imposing, eau-de-nil, deep-carpeted sitting room of the Presidential Suite, Roy Grace, who was never normally star-struck, had to pinch himself. He was sitting on a sofa next to Gaia! And she was nice – she was warm, friendly and funny, not at all the diva he had been anticipating; but her presence was mesmerizing.
    She was dressed in a man’s shirt, white with the sleeves rolled up, ripped blue jeans and black suede ankle boots with buckles similar to a pair that Cleo had, except these looked more expensive. Her blonde hair had the freshness of someone who has just stepped