Dead Simple

by Peter James

  'I'm informed by the police they believe there was a coffin in the van - before the accident. Can you think what might have happened to Michael Harrison?'

  'No, I have no idea. I'm desperately worried.'

  'I spoke yesterday to the widow of one of your friends. Mrs Zoe Walker. She said you were all planning to get revenge on Michael Harrison because he regularly played pranks on the rest of you. Might the coffin have something to do with that?'

  'As I said, I don't know anything about the coffin. It sounds like some last-minute idea.'

  'Do you think your mates might have put Michael Harrison into the coffin and that he's stuck somewhere?'

  Mark thought hard before responding. 'Listen, you know how it is when a bunch of guys get drunk. Sometimes they do crazy things.'

  'Been there myself.'

  They both chuckled. Mark felt a tad relieved.

  'Well, thank you for your time. If you hear anything, perhaps you'd be kind enough to let me know, if I give you my number?'

  'Of course,' he said, looking around for a pen.

  As Mark stood in the lift a few minutes later, he was thinking about the conversation, hoping to hell he hadn't said anything stupid, and worrying how Ashley would react if she saw him quoted in the paper. She'd be furious that he'd even spoken to them. But what choice did he have?

  Drivingup the ramp of the car park, he turned cautiously into the street, made a left turn, then eased out into the heavy Saturday evening traffic, being careful to keep his speed down, knowing he must be over the legal limit. The last thing he needed was to be stopped and breathalysed.

  Twenty minutes later he reached the car park of the garden centre at the back of Newhaven, the Channel port ten miles from his apartment. With little time to spare before its 8 p.m. closing time, he made a rapid dash through the store, buying a spade, screwdriver, hammer, chisel, small Maglite flashlight, rubber gardening gloves and a pair of gum boots. By eight he was back in his car, in the almost deserted lot. The sky was surprisingly clear and it would be a good couple of hours yet before it was completely dark - if then.

  Two hours that he had to kill.

  He knew he should eat something, but his stomach was all knotted up. He thought about a burger, a Chinese, an Indian. Nothing appealed. Ashley was angry at him; he'd never seen her angry before and it distressed and scared him. It was as if some connection between them had been switched off. He had to switch it back on and the only way was to appease her. Do what she said. Do what he had known for several days that he needed to do.

  He wanted to call her, tell her he loved her, hear her tell him she loved him back. But she wasn't going to do that, not now, not yet. She was right to be mad at him; he'd been an idiot, nearly blown everything. Christ, why the hell had be been so stupid with that cop?

  He started the engine and the radio came on. Eight o'clock. The local station news. First an international story, more bad stuff about Iraq. Then an item about Tony Blair and the European Union. Then his ears stiffened as the chirpy newscaster said, 'Sussex Police are stepping up their search for Brighton property developer Michael Harrison. His fiancee, Ashley Harper, and their guests were tragically disappointed when he failed to turn up at All Saints' church, Patcham, this afternoon for his wedding, confirming suspicions that he is incapacitated following the stag night prank that left four of his best friends dead. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace of the Sussex CID, who is now leading the enquiry into Michael Harrison's whereabouts, said this morning that the police were upgrading their search from a missing persons enquiry into a Serious Incident Investigation.

  Mark turned the volume of the radio up louder, and caught the Detective Superintendent's voice.

  'We believe that Michael Harrison may be the victim of a prank that has gone very tragically wrong, and we would like all persons who believe they may have information about the events surrounding last Tuesday evening to contact the Incident Suite at Sussex CID urgently'

  Mark's vision blurred; the whole parking lot seemed to be vibrating and there was a muzzy sound in his ears as if he were in an aircraft that was taking off, or diving deep underwater. He pinched his nostrils, blew and his ears popped. His hands were wet with perspiration - then he realized his whole body was wet; he could feel the droplets of water running down his skin.

  Breathe deeply, he remembered. That was the way to deal with stress. Ashley had taught him that just before he'd been to see a particularly tricky client.

  So he sat in his car in the falling light, listening to the rhythm of his pounding heart, and breathed deeply.

  For a long while.

  53

  Once any investigation - such as a murder, kidnapping, rape, armed robbery, fraud or missing persons enquiry - was elevated to Major Incident status it was awarded a code word.

  All major incidents were now being handled from CID headquarters at Sussex House, which was why at twenty past eight on Saturday night, when most normal people who had a life were either at home or out enjoying themselves, Roy Grace, now officially in charge of the investigation, found himself climbing the stairs of Sussex House, past the framed photographs of the key team members and the displays of truncheons on the walls.

  He had taken the decision - and the appropriate action - to upgrade the Michael Harrison missing persons enquiry to a Major Incident within minutes of leaving Gill Harrison's house. It was a big decision, with huge cost and police time implications, one that he was going to be required to justify to the Chief Superintendent and to Alison Vosper. No doubt he'd have a tough time doing that - he could already imagine some of the withering questions she would throw at him.

  DC Nick Nicholl and DS Bella Moy, their Saturday-night plans long in tatters anyway, were on their way over here, along with their new recruit to the team, Emma-Jane Boutwood, bringing everything that they'd had in the Incident Room at Brighton police station which was not much, so far.

  Entering the Major Incident Suite, he walked through the green carpeted, open-plan area lined with desks that housed the support staff of the senior officers of the CID. Each senior officer had his own room flanking this area, with his or her name printed on blue and yellow photochromatic card on the door.

  On his left, through a wide expanse of glass he could see into the impressive office of the man who was technically his immediate boss - although Alison Vosper in practice was - Detective Chief

  Superintendent Gary Weston. Gary Weston and Roy Grace went back a long way - they had been partnered up when Grace had first joined the CID as a rookie constable, and Weston had not been much more experienced.

  There was only a month's age difference between the two men, and Grace wondered, a little enviously sometimes, how Gary had achieved quite such a meteoric rise compared to his own, and would doubtless end up as a Chief Constable somewhere in Britain very soon. But in his heart he knew the answer. It wasn't that Gary Weston was a better cop or academically any brighter - they'd sailed through many of the same advancement courses together - it was simply that Gary was a better political animal than he would ever be. He didn't resent his former partner for this - they had remained good friends - but he could never be like him, never keep his opinions to himself the way Gary so often had to.

  No sign of Gary in his office now, at 8.30 on a Saturday night. The Detective Chief Superintendent knew how to live the good life, mixing home, pleasure and work with ease. The framed photographs of greyhounds and racehorses that lined his walls were evidence of his passion for the tracks, and the stand-up framed photographs of his attractive wife and four young children strategically placed on every flat surface left visitors to his office in no doubt about his priorities in life.

  Gary would probably be at a greyhound track tonight, Grace imagined. Having a cheery meal with his wife and friends, placing bets, relaxing, looking forward to a family Sunday. He saw the spectral reflection of his own face in the glass and walked on across the deserted room, past winking message lights on desks, silent fax m
achines, screensavers playing their eternal loops. Sometimes - at moments like this when he felt so disconnected from the real world - he wondered if this was what it was like to be a ghost, drifting unseen past everyone else's lives.

  Holding his security card up to the panel at the end of the room, he pushed open the door, entering a long, silent, grey-carpeted corridor that smelled of fresh paint. He passed a large red felt faced noticeboard headed 'OPERATION LISBON' beneath which was the photograph of an oriental-looking man, with a wispy beard, surrounded by several different photographs of the rocky beach at the bottom of the tall cliffs of local beauty spot Beachy Head, each with a red circle drawn on it.

  This unidentified man had been found dead four weeks ago at the bottom of the cliff. At first he was assumed to be another jumper, until the post-mortem had revealed to the pathologist that he was already dead at the time he took his plunge.

  On the opposite wall was 'OPERATION CORMORANT', with a photograph of a pretty teenage brunette who had been found raped and strangled on the outskirts of Brighton.

  Grace passed the Outside Enquiry Team office on his left, a large room where detectives drafted in on major incidents would base themselves for the duration, then entered the door immediately opposite, marked INTEL ONE'.

  The Intelligence Office Room was the new nerve centre for all major incidents. As he entered it, everything about it felt new, smelled new, even the attitude of the people working in here - apart from a distinct odour of Chinese food tonight. Despite opaque windows too high to see out of, the room, with its fresh white walls, had an airy feel, good light, good energy, very different to the messy buzz of police station incident rooms that Grace had grown up with.

  It had an almost futuristic feel, as if it could as easily have housed Mission Control at Houston, and was a large, L-shaped room, divided up by three principal work stations, each comprising a curved, light-wood desk with space for up to eight people to sit, and massive whiteboards, one marked 'OPERATION CORMORANT', one marked 'OPERATION LISBON' and one 'OPERATION SNOWDRIFT', each covered in crime scene photographs and progress charts. Another would shortly be labelled 'OPERATION SALSA', the random name the police headquarters computer in Scotland Yard had thrown out for his Michael Harrison investigation.

  Mostly the names had nothing to do with the investigations themselves, and occasionally they had to be changed. He remembered one time when the name 'OPERATION CAUCASIAN' had been given to the investigation of a black man who had been found dismembered in the boot of a car. It had been changed to something less controversial. But with Operation Salsa, the dumb computer had by chance struck a right chord. Grace had the very definite feeling of being involved in a song and dance.

  Unlike the work stations in most police offices, there was no sign of anything personal on the desks or up on the walls. No pictures of families, footballers, no fixture lists, no jokey cartoons. Every single object in this room, apart from the furniture and the business hardware, was related to the matters under investigation. Apart from the pot noodle a weary-looking, long-haired Detective Inspector Michael Cowan was tucking into with a plastic fork at the end of one of the work stations.

  Heading another of the work stations, glued to a flat computer screen, with a beaker of Coke in his hand, sat Jason Piette, one of the shrewdest Detective Inspectors that Grace had ever worked with. He would have been happy to place money on Piette one day becoming head of the Met - the top police job in the country.

  Each of the work stations was manned by a minimum team of an office manager, normally a Detective Sergeant or Detective Inspector, a system supervisor, normally a lesser-ranking police officer, an analyst, an indexer and a typist.

  Michael Cowan, wearing a loose checked shirt over jeans, greeted Grace cordially. 'How you doing, Roy? You're looking a bit smart.'

  'Thought I should dress up for you boys - obviously I didn't need to bother.'

  'Yeah, yeah!'

  'What crap are you eating?' Grace responded. 'You have any idea what's in that stuff?'

  Michael Cowan rolled his eyes, grinning. 'Chemicals, they keep me going.'

  Grace shook his head. 'Smells like a Chinese takeaway in here.'

  Cowan jerked his head up at the whiteboard beside him, headed 'OPERATION LISBON'. 'Yup, well, you can take my Chinese problem away from me any time you feel like. I've given up a hot date to be here.'

  'I'll trade with you gladly,' Grace said.

  Michael Cowan looked at him inquisitively. 'Tell me?' 'You don't want to know, believe me.' 'It's that bad?' 'Worse.'

  54

  In the beam of the headlamps, Mark could see a whole cluster of wreaths at the roadside, on the apex of a right-hand curve. Some lay on the grass verge, some were propped against a tree and the rest against a hedge. There were several more than the last time he had passed here.

  Taking his foot off the accelerator, he slowed to a crawl, a shiver rippling through him, deep inside him, deep inside his soul. He continued to watch them as they receded in the glow of his tail lights, until they vanished into the darkness, into the night, vanished, were gone, had never been there. Josh, Pete, Luke, Robbo.

  Himself, too, if the plane had not been delayed.

  Then of course the problem would have been different. Covered in goose pimples, he floored the accelerator, wanting to get away from here; it was giving him the creeps. His mobile beeped, then began to ring. Ashley's number on caller display appeared on the panel on the dash.

  He answered it on the hands-free, glad to hear her, badly in need of human company. 'Hi.'

  'Well?' She sounded as frosty as when she had left his apartment.

  'I'm on my way'

  'Only now?'

  'I had to wait for it to get dark. I don't think we should talk on mobiles - shall I come and see you when I get back.'

  'That would be really stupid, Mark.'

  "Yes.I-IhowisGill?'

  'Upset. How do you expect her to be?'

  'Yup.'

  'Yup?AreyouOK?'

  'Sort of.'

  'Are you sober now?'

  'Of course,' he said, tetchily.

  'You don't sound good.'

  'I don't feel good, OK?'

  'OK. But you're going to do it?'

  'That's what we agreed.'

  'Will you call me after?'

  'Sure.'

  He hung up. It was misty ahead, and a film of moisture covered the windscreen. The wipers arced twice, the rubber blades were shrieking. He switched them off. The shrubbery at the edge of the forest was looking familiar, and he slowed down, not wanting to overshoot the turnoff.

  Moments later he rattled over the first cattle grid then the second, the headlight beams stretching out ahead through the mist like twin lasers, the car lurching on the potholed track as he accelerated, driving too fast, scared of the trees that seemed to be pressing threateningly in on either side, and glancing in his mirror, just in case...

  Just in case what, exactly?

  He was getting close now. A low murmur of chatter from the radio distracted him, and he switched it off, dimly aware that his breathing was getting faster, that perspiration kept pouring down his temples, his back. The nose dipped steeply as the front wheels plunged into a puddle, and water, sounding as hard as pebbles, spattered the windscreen. Switching the wipers on again, he slowed right down. Jesus, it was deep; he hadn't realized how much rain there'd been since he was last here. And then - shit, oh shit, no!

  The wheels had lost traction in the mire.

  Pressing the accelerator harder made the BMW vibrate, slide a few feet sideways, then slip back again.

  Oh, Christ, no!

  He could not get stuck, could not, could not. How the hell could he explain this, half-ten at night, out here?

  Breathe deeply...

  He breathed in, peering out fearfully at the darkness, at every shadow in front of him, to the side of him, behind him, then pressed the central locking, heard the clunk, but felt no better. Then he
switched on the dome light and looked down at the controls. There

  were settings for off-road conditions, a lower gear ratio, a differential lock; he'd seen them a hundred times and never bothered to read up about them.

  Reaching over, he pulled the handbook out of the glove compartment, frantically scrambled through the index, then turned to the relevant pages. He pushed a lever, pressed a button, put the book down beside him, and tentatively tried the accelerator. The car lurched, then, to his relief, powered forwards.

  He kept going at a steady ten miles per hour, the car much more surefooted now, moving forward through more puddles as if it was on a conveyor belt. Then he made the right fork which would take him to the clearing. A baby rabbit hopped out in front of him, turned and ran back, then scampered forward, right beneath him. He had no idea whether he hit it or not, didn't care, just wanted to press on, maintain his speed, his momentum, his grip on the mud.

  The small glade of scrubby mosses and grasses was right ahead now, and to his relief the sheet of corrugated iron, beneath the camouflage of uprooted plants he had strewn over it, was still in place.

  He drove up onto the relatively firm soil, not wanting to risk the car bogging itself down while it was parked, then, switching off the engine but leaving the headlamps on full beam, he tugged on his new gum boots, grabbed the Maglite and climbed down onto the squelchy soil.

  There was an instant of total silence. Then a faint rustle in the undergrowth which made him turn, stabbing the beam of the Maglite into the forest in fear. Holding his breath, he heard a crackle, then a rattle like a coin in a tin, and a large pheasant careened clumsily off between the trees.

  He swung the beam from right to left, sick with fear, opened the tailgate of the car, pulled on the rubber gloves, then pulled out the tools he had bought and carried them over to the edge of the grave.

  He stood still for some moments, staring down at the corrugated iron sheet, listening. The car engine pinged. Droplets of water fell all around him in the forest, but otherwise silence. Total silence. A snail had attached itself to one section of the corrugated iron, its shell