by Peter James
'OK,' he said. 'Sure.'
Branson ate his salad, and left the rest of his fish untouched, while Grace tucked into his steak and kidney pudding with relish. 'I read a while ago,' he told Branson, 'that the French drink more red wine than the English but live longer. The Japanese eat more fish than the English, but drink less wine and live longer. The Germans eat more red meat than the English, and drink more beer, and they live longer, too. You know the moral of this story?'
'No.'
'It's not what you eat or drink - it's speaking English that kills you.'
Branson grinned. 'I don't know why I like you. You always manage to make me feel guilty about something.'
'So let's go find Michael Harrison. Then you can enjoy your weekend.'
Branson pushed his fish to the side of his plate and drained his Diet Coke.
Tilled with Aspartame, that stuff,' Grace said, looking disapprovingly at his glass. I read a theory on the web that it can give you Lupus.'
'What's Lupus?'
'It's far worse than mercury'
'Thanks, Big Boy'
'Now you're just jealous.'
As they entered the tired-looking, six-storey building that housed Brighton police station from the parking lot at the rear, Grace felt a pang of nostalgia. This building had a reputation as being the busiest police station in Britain. The place hummed and buzzed and he had loved his time - almost fifteen years - working here. It was the buzz that he missed most about his recent posting to the relatively quiet backwater of the CID headquarters building on the outskirts.
As they climbed up the cement stairs, blue walls on either side of them, the familiar noticeboards with events and procedures pinned to them, he could smell that he was still in a busy police station. It wasn't the smell of hospitals, or schools, or a civil service building, it was the smell of energy.
They went on up past the third floor, where his old office had been, and then along a corridor on the fourth floor, past a large sign dominating an entire noticeboard, with the wording 'OVERALL CRIME DETECTION RATE. APRIL 2004. 27.8%'. Then he followed Branson into the long, narrow office his colleague was setting up as
the incident room for Michael Harrison. Six desks, each with a computer terminal. Two of them were occupied, both by detectives he knew and liked - DC Nick Nicholl and DS Bella Moy. There was a SASCO flip chart on an easel and a blank whiteboard on the wall, next to a large-scale map of Sussex, on which was a pattern of coloured pins.
'Coffee?' Branson offered.
'I'm fine for the moment.'
They stopped at Bella's desk, which was covered in neat wodges of paper, among which stood an open box of Maltesers. Pointing at the papers, she said, 'I have Michael Harrison's Vodafone log from Tuesday morning up until nine o'clock this morning. I also thought it would be a good idea to get the ones of the other four with him.'
'Good thinking,' Branson said, impressed with her initiative.
She pointed at her computer screen, on which there was a map: 'I've plotted here all the masts of the mobile networks the five of them used, Orange, Vodaphone and T-Mobile. Orange and TMobile operate on a higher frequency than Vodafone - which Michael Harrison is on. The last signal from his mobile came from the base station at the Pippingford Park mast on the A22. But I've found out we cannot rely on the fact that this is the nearest, because if the network is busy it will hand off signals to the next available mast.'
She was going to go far, this young lady, Grace thought. Studying the map for a moment, he asked, 'What's the distance between the masts?'
'In cities it is about five hundred metres. But out in the country, it is several miles.'
From previous experience, Grace knew that the mobile phone companies used a network of radio masts that acted as beacons. Mobiles, whether on standby or talkmode, sent constant signals out to the nearest beacon. It was a simple task to plot the movements of any phone user from this information. But this was obviously a lot easier in cities than in the countryside.
Bella stood up and walked across to the map of Sussex on the wall. She pointed at a blue pin in the centre of Brighton, surrounded by green, purple, yellow and white pins. 'I've marked Michael
Harrison's phone with blue pins. The other four with him have different colours.'
Grace followed her finger as she talked. 'We can see all five pins remained together from seven in the evening until nine.' She pointed to three different locations. 'There is a pub in each of these places,' she said. 'But this is where it gets interesting.' She pointed to a location some miles north of Brighton. 'All five pins close together here. Then we only have four. Here.'
Branson said, 'Green, purple, yellow and white. No blue.'
'Exactly,' she said.
'What movement on the blue pin after that?'
'None,' she said, emphatically.
'So they parted company,' Grace said, 'at - about - eight forty five?'
'Unless he dropped his phone somewhere.'
'Of course.'
'So we're talking about a radius of five miles, about fifteen miles north of Brighton?' Glenn Branson said.
'Is his phone still giving off signals?' Grace said, distracted by Bella's combination of smart mind and good looks. He'd met her before but had never really noticed her before. She had a really pretty face, and unless she was wearing rocks inside her bra, she had seriously large breasts - something that had always turned him on. He switched his mind off her and back to business. Then he shot a glance at her hand to see if she was wearing any rings. One sapphire band, but not on the marriage finger. He filed it away.
'The last signal was at eight forty-five Tuesday night. Nothing since.'
'So what's your view, Bella?' Grace asked.
Bella thought for a moment, fixing him with alert blue eyes. But her expression bore nothing more than businesslike deference to a superior. 'I spoke to a technician at the phone company. He says his mobile is either switched off, and has been since Tuesday night, or it is in an area of no signal.'
Grace nodded. 'This Michael Harrison is an ambitious and busy businessman. He's due to get married tomorrow morning to a very beautiful woman, by all accounts. Twenty minutes before a fatal car
smash that killed four of his best friends, his phone went dead. During the past year he has been stealthily transferring money from his company to a Cayman Islands bank account - at least one million pounds that we know about. And his business partner, who should have been on that fatal stag night, for some reason was not there. Are my facts right so far?'
'Yes,' Glenn Branson said.
'So he could be dead. Or he could have pulled a smart vanishing act.'
'We need to check out the area Bella has ring-fenced. Go to all the pubs he might have visited. Talk to everyone who knows him.'
'And then?'
'Facts,' Glenn. 'Let's get all the facts first. If they don't lead us to him, then we can start to speculate.'
The phone on Bella's desk rang. She answered it, and almost instantly her expression conveyed that it was significant.
'You're certain?' she said. 'Since Tuesday? You can't be sure it was Tuesday? No one else could have taken it?' After a few moments, she said, 'No, I agree. Thank you, that could be very significant. May I take your number?'
Grace watched while she wrote down on a pad 'Sean Houlihan', followed by a number. 'Thank you, Mr Houlihan, thank you very much, we'll get back to you.'
She hung up and looked at Grace then Branson. 'That was Mr Houlihan, the owner of the undertakers where Robert Houlihan, his nephew, worked. They've just discovered that they are missing a coffin.'
30
'Missing a coffin?' Glenn Branson said.
'Not something people ordinarily steal, is it?' Bella Moy said.
Grace was silent for a moment, distracted by a bluebottle that buzzed noisily around the room for a moment, then batted against a window. Forensics was on the floor below. Bloodstained clothes and artefacts were a magnet for bluebottles. G
race hated them. Bluebottles - or blowflies - were the vultures of the insect world. 'This character, Robert Houlihan, borrowed the undertaker's van without permission. Seems possible he might have borrowed a coffin without permission too.' He looked quizzically at Branson then Bella, then at Nick Nicholl. 'Do we have one very sick prank on our hands?'
'Are you suggesting his mates might have put him in a coffin?' Glenn Branson said.
'Do you have a better theory?'
Branson smiled, edgily. 'Work on the facts. Right?'
Looking at Bella, subconsciously thinking how attractive she was, Grace said, 'How sure is this Houlihan fellow that his coffin has been taken and they haven't just misplaced it?'
'People misplace their front door keys -1 don't think people misplace coffins,' Branson said, a tad facetiously.
Bella interrupted, 'He's very sure. It was the most expensive coffin in his range, Indian teak, says it would last for hundreds of years - but this one had a flaw - the wood had warped or something - wasn't sealing tight at the bottom - he was having a ding-dong with the manufacturers in India about it.'
'I can't believe we have to import coffins from Indial Don't we have carpenters in England?' Branson said.
Grace was staring at the map. He traced a circle with his finger. 'This is a pretty big area.'
'How long could someone survive in a coffin?' Bella asked.
'If the lid was on properly it would depend on if they had air, water, food. Without air, not long. A few hours, maybe a day,' Grace replied.
'It's now three days,' Branson said.
Grace remembered reading about a victim who had been pulled out alive from the ruins of his home twelve days after an earthquake in Turkey. 'With air, at least a week, maybe longer,' he said. 'We'd have to assume if they have done some damned stupid prank on him they would have left him with air. If they didn't, then we're looking for a body'
He looked at the team. 'Presumably you've talked to Mark Warren, the business partner?'
'He's also his best man,' Nicholl said. 'Says he has no idea what happened. They were going on a stag-night pub crawl and he was stuck out of town and missed it.'
Grace frowned, then glanced at his watch, acutely aware of time slipping away. 'There's one thing going on a stag-night pub crawl, there's another thing taking a coffin with you. You don't decide to take a coffin with you on the spur of the moment - do you?' He stared pointedly at each of them in turn.
All three shook their heads.
'Someone's talked to all the girlfriends, wives?'
'I did,' Bella said. 'It's hard because they're in shock, but one of them was very angry - Zoe . . .' She picked up her notepad and flipped over some pages. 'Zoe Walker - widow of Josh Walker. She said that Michael was always playing stupid pranks, and she was certain they had been planning revenge.'
'And the best man didn't know anything about it? I don't buy that,' Grace said.
'I'm pretty convinced he didn't know anything. Why would he have any reason to lie?' Nicholl said.
Grace was worried by the young detective's naivety. But he always believed in giving juniors opportunities to show their abilities. He let it ride for the moment, but logged it firmly in his mind to come back to later today.
'This is one hell of an area to search,' Branson said. 'It's heavily wooded; it could take a hundred people days to comb this.'
'We have to try to narrow it down,' Grace responded. He picked up a marker pen from Bella's desk, and drew a blue circle on the map, then turned to DC Nicholl. 'Nick, we need a list of every pub in this circle. This is where we need to start.' He turned to Branson. 'Do you have photographs of the lads in the van?'
'Yes.'
'Good boy. Two sets?'
'I have a dozen sets.'
'We'll divide in two, DS Branson and I will take one half of the pubs, you two take the other. I'll see if we can get the helicopter to cover the area - although it's very wooded, they've a better chance of seeing something from the air.'
An hour later, Glenn Branson pulled his car up on the deserted forecourt of a pub called the King's Head, on the Ringmer Road, on the perimeter of the circle. They climbed out of the car and went up to the door. Above it was a sign saying, 'John and Margaret Hobbs, landlords'.
Inside, the saloon bar was deserted and so was the drab restaurant area off to the left. The place smelled of furniture polish and stale beer. A fruit machine flashed and winked away in a far corner, near a dartboard.
'Hello?' Branson called out. 'Hello?'
Grace leaned over the bar and saw an open trap door. He lifted a flap in the counter, went behind it, kneeled and shouted down into the cellar, which was illuminated by a weak bulb. 'Hello? Anyone there?'
A gruff voice came back. 'Be up in a moment.'
He heard a rumbling sound, then a grey beer barrel, with 'HARVEY'S' stamped on the side, gripped by a pair of massive, grimy hands, appeared, followed by the head of a burly, red-faced man, in a white shirt and jeans, sweating profusely. He had the bulk and the broken nose of an ex-boxer. 'Yes, gents?'
Branson showed him his warrant card. 'Detective Sergeant Branson and Detective Superintendent Grace of the Sussex Police. We're looking for the landlord. Mr Hobbs?'
'You've found him,' he wheezed, climbing out, then hauling
himself up on to his feet and staring at them warily. He stank of body odour.
'Wonder if you'd mind taking a look at these photographs and see if you recognize any of the faces. They might have come in here last Tuesday night.' Branson laid the photographs on the counter.
John Hobbs studied each of the photographs in turn. Then he shook his head. 'No, never saw them before.'
'Were you working here on Tuesday night?' Grace asked him.
'I'm here every sodding night,' he said. 'Seven days a week. Thanks to your bloody lot.'
'Our lot?' Grace said.
'Your Traffic Division. Not easy to make a living running a rural pub, when your chums in Traffic sneak around outside, breathalysing all my customers.'
Ignoring the comment, Grace said, 'Are you absolutely sure you don't recognize them?'
'I get ten people in here on a mid-week night, it's Fat City. If they'd been here, I'd have seen them. I don't recognize them. Any reason why I should?'
It was moments like this that made Roy Grace very angry at the Traffic Division. For most people, being stopped for speeding, or to take a breathalyser check, was the only contact they ever had with the police. As a result, instead of viewing the police as their friends and guardians of the peace, they regarded them as an enemy.
'Do you watch television? Read the local papers?' Grace asked.
'No,' he said. 'I'm too busy for that. Is that a crime?'
'Four of these boys are dead,' Glenn Branson said, riled by the man's attitude. 'They were killed in a traffic accident on Tuesday night.'
'And you walk in here with your big swinging dicks, looking for some poor sodding landlord to blame for plying them with drink?'
T didn't say that,' Grace replied. 'No, I'm not. I'm looking for this lad who was with them.' He pointed at Michael's photograph.
The landlord shook his head. 'Not in here,' he said.
Looking up at the walls, Branson asked, 'Do you have CCTVT
'That meant to be a joke? Like I have money to buy fancy
security gizmos? You know the CCTVI use?' He pointed at his own eyes. 'These. They come free when you're born. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a barrel to change.'
Neither of them bothered to reply.
31
Michael shivered. Something was crawling through his hair. It was progressing steadily, determinedly, towards his forehead. It felt like a spider.
In panic, dropping the belt buckle, he jerked his hands up, sweeping furiously at his hair, fingers raw and bloody from scraping away at the lid.
Then it was on his face, crossing his cheek, mouth, chin.
'Jesus, get off, you fuckwit!' He smacked at his face
with both hands, then felt something small and sticky. It was dead, whatever it had been. He wiped what remains he could feel off the thick, itchy growth of his stubble.
He had always been fine with most creatures, but not spiders. When he was a kid, he'd read a story in the local newspaper about a greengrocer who got bitten by a tarantula that was concealed in a bunch of bananas and had nearly died.
The beam of the torch was very faint now, giving a dark amber glow to the interior of the coffin. He was having to hold his head up to stop the rising water washing over his cheeks and into his eyes and mouth. Something else had bitten him on the ankle a while back, some insect, and it was stinging.
He shook the torch. For a moment the bulb died altogether. Then a tiny strip of filament glowed for a few seconds.
He was freezing cold. Working away at the lid was the only thing stopping him from getting even colder. He still hadn't broken through. He had to, had to, before the water - he tried to shut the unthinkable from his mind, but he couldn't. The water kept rising, it covered his legs and part of his chest. With one hand he was having to cradle the walkie-talkie in the gap between his chest and the lid to prevent it from getting immersed.
Despair, like the water, was steadily enveloping him. Davey's words went round and round inside his mind.
There was one guy sticking right out through the windshield, half his head missing. Jeez, could see his brains coming out. Knew right away he was a goner. Only one survivor, but he died too.
A Transit van in a smash at a time and place that fitted. Pete, Luke, Josh, Robbo - could they really all be dead? And that was the reason no one had come to find him? But Mark must have known what they were planning, he was his best man, for Christ's sake! Surely Mark was out there, leading a team looking for him? Unless, he thought bleakly, something had happened to him, too. Maybe he'd joined them at the next pub and been in the van with them?