Not Dead Yet

had finished chewing and swallowing them she turned back to him, briefly flashed her teeth at him and said, ‘Thank you, but I don’t think you’d want to kiss me now!’
    She drained her drink, feeling much more courageous, and slid carefully and as elegantly as she could down from the stool, with a contemptuous flick of her Cornelia James shawl. Then she made her way towards the front desk. She would have the receptionist phone up to Gaia that she was here.

56
    Roy Grace sat behind his desk in his office and looked at the High Tech Crime Unit investigator Ray Packham, who took a seat opposite him. ‘So, tell me?’
    Grace liked the guy a lot, but always felt, because he looked so much like a bank manager, that he should be asking him for a loan, rather than for the deeply sensitive information that Packham, who was a technology genius, seemed to be able to mine from the innards of any computer or phone.
    ‘Well, Roy, we found a suspicious code embedded within your BlackBerry’s software. It did not correspond to any of the apps you have downloaded. We reverse engineered it, and found it’s a sophisticated form of data logger. It encrypts all calls you make or receive, and texts – and sends them via email using your phone’s 3G.’
    Grace felt a chill ripple through him. ‘All my calls?’
    Packham nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. I’ve checked with Vodafone, who are very co-operative these days.’
    ‘Where’ve they been sent to?’
    Packham smiled nervously. ‘I did warn you that you’re not going to like this.’
    ‘I’m not liking this.’
    He gave him the number, and Roy Grace wrote it down on his desk pad. He looked at it, thinking hard. It looked familiar.
    ‘Recognize it?’
    ‘Yes, but I can’t immediately place it.’
    ‘Try entering it in your phone,’ Ray Packham said, with a wry smile.
    Copying the numbers off the pad, Grace tapped them in. As he entered the last digit, a name appeared on the display of his BlackBerry.
    Grace stared for some moments in disbelief. ‘That fucking little shit!’
    ‘I could not have put it more eloquently myself, chief!’

57
    A smart man in his early thirties, flanked by two equally smart women, stood behind The Grand Hotel’s wooden reception desk. He smiled warmly as Anna approached.
    ‘I’ve come to see Gaia Lafayette,’ she said.
    His demeanour changed, very subtly, from warm to defensive, and he studied this rather strange-looking woman more closely. She looked weird enough, certainly, to be a friend of the star. ‘Is she expecting you, madam?’ He had a slight foreign accent, perhaps French, Anna thought.
    ‘Yes, she is,’ she said, the vodka giving her a lot of confidence and a calm, assured manner. Actually she gave me the signal on Top Gear , she nearly added, so confident was she feeling, but she held that nugget back.
    ‘May I have your name, please?’
    ‘My name?’ For an instant, Anna was thrown. ‘She will of course know it’s me!’
    His smile faded. ‘Yes, but I will need your name, please.’
    ‘Right!’ She nodded assertively. ‘Tell her Anna. Anna is here.’
    ‘Anna?’ he waited patiently.
    ‘Anna.’
    ‘Your last name?’
    ‘My last name?’
    She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. Last name. Maybe she shouldn’t have had that vodka. The haze was returning. She had to blink hard to bring him back into focus. ‘Just tell her that Anna is here,’ she said, impatient now.
    He put his hand on the phone receiver. ‘I will need your last name,’ he said. ‘For Security.’ He glanced down. ‘I have a list and don’t see your name, Anna, on it. Perhaps your last name?’
    ‘Galicia,’ she replied.
    ‘Galicia?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She could feel herself perspiring. Her armpits were damp. She hoped she had applied enough Gaia Nocturne Roll-On.
    He looked down at the list and shook his head. Then he dialled a number, and after a few moments said, ‘I have Anna Galicia in reception to see Ms Lafayette.’
    While he waited for the reply, Anna took the opportunity to try to read the names on his list, upside down. She saw Daily Mail .
    The receptionist turned back to her after some moments, and said, ‘I’m sorry, you are not on their list.’
    She reddened. ‘Um, yes, well, that’s probably because I’m a freelancer on the Daily Mail , not on staff, but I’m here from the Mail – to do a feature on Gaia.’ She fumbled inside her handbag and produced the false press card she’d made herself some