Not Dead Yet

budget – Sussex Police has to lose fifty-two million pounds. That means that loyal officers are being forced into retirement after thirty years’ service, when many of them had been counting on staying on for many years longer. Some of them will face real hardship as a result. Many of them joined the force in their late teens, which means approaching their fifties – still young by today’s standards – they’re going to be out of work. Some will not be able to pay their mortgages and will lose their homes. You might not think that’s your problem.’
    ‘You’re right, it’s not my problem.’
    Grace pulled out his mobile phone. ‘Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to call Michael Beard, the editor of our local paper, the Argus , and I’m going to tell him I’m standing here with you, and that although your client Gaia Lafayette is earning ten million pounds for this movie, she’s not prepared to pay one penny towards the costs of her security while she’s in this city. Are you okay with that? I guarantee you within twenty-four hours that will be on the front page of every newspaper in this country. Happy with that?’
    Gulli gave him a sullen stare. ‘What kind of contribution are we looking at?’
    ‘That’s better,’ Grace said. ‘Now, as you say in your country, we’re on the same page.’

52
    ‘And this is the master bedroom,’ the young estate agent said. He was a cocky twenty-five-year-old, toned and muscular, with mussed-up hair, dressed in a charcoal suit and snazzy loafers.
    ‘It’s a good size,’ he continued. ‘Much more generous than you get with today’s new-builds.’
    She looked at the Mishon Mackay estate agency particulars, then stared around the room, taking in the ornate king-size brass bed, a mahogany dressing table, on which sat various bottles of perfume as well as make-up items, and next to it an Art Deco-style chaise longue. A silver framed photograph sat on the dressing table. It was of a couple in swimsuits, lying on the deck of a boat on a calm blue sea. He was smiling, his face tanned, with crow’s feet around his clear blue eyes, as if squinting against bright sunlight, his short, fair hair ruffled by the wind. She was a good-looking woman, with long blonde hair, also flailing in the wind, a happy smile on her face, a slender body in a turquoise bikini.
    That was the thing with photography, she thought. Those captured moments. The woman might have scowled ten seconds later, but the memory in that photograph would always be of her smiling. Like a poem by Keats she had read and memorized once, at school, ‘Ode On A Grecian Urn’. It was about two lovers, in bas relief on the side of a Grecian urn, about to kiss. That moment frozen in time. They never would kiss, never consummate their relationship, and for that reason, that relationship would last for ever.
    Unlike reality.
    With a twinge of sadness she turned away and walked over to the window. It had a view of the back garden, and the rear of a neighbour’s house in the next street along. She stared down at a wide strip of lawn, dominated by a Zen water feature in the centre – a cluster of smooth stones, with a dried-up channel around them and a fountain which was not switched on. The grass had recentlybeen mown, but the beds on both sides and at the far end were choked with weeds.
    ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to keep moving,’ the agent said, more arrogantly than apologetically. ‘We have another viewing in twenty minutes. This kind of house is in big demand.’
    She lingered for a moment before following him, staring around at the room again. It was too tidy, the bed not slept in, nothing lying around. It had an unaired, unlived-in feeling.
    She followed the agent out, across the landing into another room, gently steering her small son, who was absorbed in a hand-held computer game. ‘This is the larger of the spare bedrooms,’ the agent said. ‘It’s a good size. Make a nice room for your son, I’d say.’ He looked at the youngster for approval, but the boy did not take his eyes off his game, concentrating as if his life depended on it.
    She looked around with interest. Someone was living in this room – a grown man. She noticed a row of highly polished, expensive-looking shoes lined along part of the skirting board. Several suits in dry-cleaner cellophane hanging haphazardly, for lack of a wardrobe. An untidily made bed. Then they went into the bathroom. A row of colognes,