Dead Simple

by Peter James

  Today he'd had to disappoint Jaye by explaining when he collected her that he could only spare a couple of hours, as he had to go back to work to try to help someone who was in trouble.

  He never told Jaye in advance what the treat would be, so she always enjoyed the guessing game for the first few minutes of their car journey.

  'I think we are going to see animals today!' Jaye said.

  'Do you?'

  'Yes.'

  She was a pretty child, with long silvery blonde hair, a cherubic, happy face and an infectious laugh. Today she was smartly dressed, as usual, in a green frock with white lace trim and a tiny pair of pink trainers on her feet. Sometimes her expressions, and the things she said, could seem incredibly grown-up. There were moments when Grace felt he was out with a miniature adult, not a child.

  'So what makes you think that?'

  'Umm, let me see.' Jaye leaned forward and twiddled the dials on Grace's car radio, selected the CD and punched a number. The first track of a Blue album began to play. 'Do you like Blue?'

  'Uh huh.'

  'I like the Scissor Sisters.'

  'Do you?'

  'They're cool. Do you know them?'

  Grace remembered that Glenn Branson was into them. 'Of course.'

  'We're definitely going to see animals.'

  'What sort of animals do you think we're going to see?'

  She turned the music up, swaying her arms to the beat. 'Giraffes.'

  'You want to see giraffes?'

  'Giraffes don't dream much,' she informed him.

  'Don't they? You talk to giraffes about their dreams?' |k 'We have a project in school about animals dreaming. Dogs J dream a lot. So do cats.'

  'But not giraffes?'

  'No.'

  He grinned. 'OK, so how do you know that?'

  'I just do.'

  'How about llamas?'

  She shrugged.

  It was a fine late-spring morning, the sun bright and warm and dazzling through the windscreen, and Grace pulled his sunglasses out of the glove compartment. There was a hint, today at any rate, that the long spell of bad weather might be over. And Jaye was a sunny person, he enjoyed her company a lot. He normally forgot his troubles during the few precious hours he was with her.

  'So what else have you been up to at school?'

  'Stuff.'

  'What kind of stuff?'

  'School's boring at the moment.'

  Grace drove extra carefully with Jaye on board, slowly heading out of Brighton into the countryside. 'Last time we went out you said you were really enjoying school.'

  'The teachers are so stupid.'

  'All of them?'

  'Not Mrs Dean. She's nice.'

  'What does she teach?'

  'Giraffe dreams.' She burst into giggles.

  Grace pulled up as the traffic queued for a roundabout. 'That's all she teaches?'

  Jaye was quiet for a moment, then said suddenly, 'Mummy thinks you should get married again.'

  Surprised, he said, 'Does she?'

  Jaye nodded very definitely.

  'And what do you think?'

  'I think you'd be happier if you had a girlfriend.'

  They reached the roundabout. Grace took the second exit, onto the Brighton bypass. 'Well,' he said, 'who knows?'

  'Why don't you have a girlfriend?' she asked.

  'Because ...' He hesitated. 'Well - you know - finding the right person is not always that easy.'

  'I have a boyfriend,' Jaye announced.

  'You do? Tell me about him.'

  'His name is Justin. He's in my class. He told me he wants to marry me.'

  Grace shot her a sideways glance. 'And do you want to marry him?'

  She shook her head vigorously. 'He's yuck!'

  'He's your boyfriend, but he's yuck"? What kind of a boyfriend is that?'

  'I'm thinking of ending it,' she said, deadly serious.

  This was another reason why Grace loved his days out with Jaye, because he felt she kept him in touch with the young world. Now, for a moment, he felt totally lost. Did he ever have a girlfriend at eight? No way...

  His mobile, lying in his door pocket, rang. He picked it up and held it to his ear rather than use the hands-free in case it was bad news which might upset Jaye. 'Roy Grace,' he said.

  A young female voice said, 'Hello? Detective Superintendent Grace?'

  'Speaking.'

  'It's DC Boutwood.'

  'Emma-Jane? Hi, welcome to the team.'

  She sounded nervous. 'Thank you. I'm at Sussex House - DC Nicholl asked me to call you - there's been a development.'

  'Tell me?'

  Even more nervous now, she said, 'Well, sir, it's not very good news. Some ramblers have found a body in Ashdown Forest, about two miles east of Crowborough.'

  Right in the heart of the suspect area, Grace thought instantly.

  'A young man,' she continued. 'Late twenties or early thirties. Sounds like he fits Michael Harrison's profile.'

  Glancing at Jaye, he said, 'What condition is he in?' 'I don't have that information. Dr Churchman is on his way there now. DC Nicholl wants to know if you will be able to attend?'

  Grace glanced at Jaye again. There was no option. 'I'll be there in an hour.'

  'Thank you, sir.'

  As he hung up, Jaye informed him, 'Mummy said that people mustn't use their mobile phones when they are driving. It is very dangerous.' 'Your mummy is quite right. Jaye, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to take you back home.'

  'We haven't seen the giraffe yet.'

  He switched on his indicator, to pull off the road at the next exit and turn back. 'I'm sorry. There is a young man who has gone missing and I have to help find him.'

  'Can I help too?'

  'Not this time, Jaye, I'm sorry.' He picked up his phone and dialled Jaye's home number. Fortunately her parents were in. Grace gave an edited version of the events to her mother and reversed the car. He promised to take her out again next Sunday, instead. They would go and see a giraffe, for sure.

  Ten minutes later, holding his hand, she trotted back alongside him up to the front door of her house, her disappointment palpable.

  He felt like a heel.

  58

  A mud-spattered police patrol car was waiting at the side of the main road, marking the start of the track into the forest for him. Grace pulled up alongside, then the constable at the wheel led the way for a good mile.

  The waterlogged, potholed track was barely driveable in his car, the sump bottoming, the front wheels slithering and spinning as they lost traction. Mud exploded over the bonnet, spattering the windscreen with large brown flecks. Grace, who had just taken the Alfa to a pricey car wash before picking up Jaye, cursed. Then a clump of gorse scraped the side, sounding as hard as nails. He cursed again, more loudly, his nerves wound up, upset that he'd disappointed Jaye, but far more upset about the news of the body.

  It wasn't necessarily Michael Harrison, he thought. But he had to admit it was hard to escape the coincidence. Michael Harrison was last seen in exactly this area. Now a body matching his age, height and build turns up.

  Did not sound good.

  As they rounded a bend he saw a cluster of vehicles ahead, and a strip of yellow crime-scene tape sealing off the area. There were two police cars, a white SOCO van, a plain green van - probably belonging to an undertaker - and a convertible Lotus Elise sports car which he knew belonged to Nigel Churchman, the local consultant pathologist who had a penchant for boy's toys. How had he got that up here?

  He pulled up and opened his door, expecting the sickly stench of death to fill his nostrils. But all he smelled were pine, flowers, earth, the scents of the forest. Whoever it was had not been dead long, he thought, climbing out, his moccasin loafers instantly sinking into the boggy woodland soil.

  He removed his white protective suit and overshoes from a bag in the boot of his car and pulled them on, then made his way over,

  icking under the tape. Joe Tindall, als
o dressed in white protective )thing and white boots, turned towards him, holding a large

  lera.

  'Hi!' Grace greeted him. 'You're having a great weekend!'

  'You and me,' Tindall said sourly, nodding at the undergrowth [yards behind him. 'You know my mother wanted me to be an Etccountant?'

  'Never figured you for a bean counter,' Grace replied.

  'Apparently, most accountants have a life/ he retorted.

  'But what kind of a life?'

  'One where they get to spend their Sundays at home with their wife and kids.'

  'All the people I know with kids,' Grace replied, 'can't wait to get rid of them for the day. Especially on Sundays.' He patted his colleague on the back. 'One man's Sunday in his garden is another man's hell.'

  Tindall jerked his head over at the body, barely visible in the dense undergrowth. 'Well, he's not having a great Sunday, whichever way you slice it.'

  'Probably not the best metaphor under the circumstances,' Grace said, walking over towards the corpse, a dozen or more bluebottles hovering over it. Churchman, a handsome, fit-looking man with a boyish face, wearing a white oversuit, was kneeling beside it, holding a small tape recorder.

  Grace saw a slightly overweight young man with short spiky fair hair, wearing a checked shirt, baggy jeans and brown boots, lying on his back, mouth open, eyes shut, his skin waxy white. There was a small gold earring in his right ear. The rounded face, frozen in death, had boyish looks.

  He tried to recall the photographs of Michael Harrison that he had seen. The hair colouring was the same, the features could have been his, but he had seemed better-looking than this. Equally, Grace knew that people's looks changed after death, as the skin contracted and the blood dried.

  Nigel Churchman looked up at him. 'Roy,' he said. 'Hi, how are you?'

  'I'm OK, you?'

  The pathologist nodded.

  'What have we got?'

  'I'm not sure yet - too early to tell.' With his rubber-gloved hands he gently lifted the young man's head. Grace swallowed as dozens of the small flies flew angrily off. There was a deep, uneven dent in the back of the cranium, covered in knotted hair and dark, congealed blood.

  'He's had a violent blow from some blunt instrument/ Churchman said. Then with his typical dry humour he added, 'Wasn't good for his health.'

  'You know, you get sicker every time I meet you.'

  Churchman grinned broadly, as if it were a compliment. 'You sound like my wife.'

  'I thought you got divorced?'

  'I did.'

  They were interrupted by a sharp fizz, crackle, then a burst of speech from the police radio of one of the constables behind him. Grace turned and saw the police officer talk into his two-way radio, giving a report. Then he looked down at the corpse, studying it carefully, noting again the face, the clothes, the cheap watch and the even cheaper-looking plastic strap. The green string bracelet on his right wrist. He swept his hand across the corpse's face, brushing away the hovering flies. Yes, the corpse was definitely in the right place, but could they be sure this was Michael Harrison?

  'There's nothing on him at all? No credit card or paper?'

  'Not that we've found.'

  Looking down at the young man again, Grace wondered, was this how he would have dressed for his stag night? The image he had of Michael Harrison was altogether someone more classy-looking. This man looked like a spiv. But whoever he was, he did not deserve to be lying here, being pecked away by blowflies, with the back of his head stove in.

  'Any sense of how long he's been here?' Grace asked.

  Churchman stood up, to his full six-foot height. 'Tough one. Not long. No sign of first-generation larvae infestation; no discolouration on the skin - in the conditions we've had, several days of warm and damp air, we would expect rapid deterioration. He's been here twenty-four hours max, possibly less.'

  Grace's brain was churning, thinking about all the young males f'tged twenty to thirty who had been reported missing in the past Couple of weeks. He knew the statistics only too well, from all his years of searching for Sandy. Two hundred and fifty thousand people B year in England alone went missing. Of those, one-third were never seen again. Some were dead, their bodies disposed of so efficiently they would never be found. Others had run away, beyond the reach of the best efforts of the police. Or else they had gone overseas and changed their identities.

  He only ever saw just a fraction of the missing person enquiries: those who had gone in suspicious circumstances; the ones the police were looking into and the tiny percentage of those he got asked to review.

  The timescale fitted. The looks sort of fitted. Sort of. There was only one sure way to find out.

  'Let's get him to the mortuary,' he said. 'See if we can get someone to identify him.'

  59

  Naked apart from the towel around his midriff, Mark padded out of the shower into the locker room of the sports club. He'd worked up a sweat, but it had been a lousy game of tennis. He had played badly against his regular Sunday-morning opponent, a olive skinned half-Danish, half-American investment banker with a wiry determination called Tobias Kormind. He didn't usually beat Tobias, but he normally took one set off him. Today, distracted and unable to focus, he had only taken a couple of games in the entire match.

  Mark liked Tobias because he had never been part of Michael's tight clique of old friends. And Tobias, who had a creative brain and was well connected in the London banking world, had given Mark some smart ideas on how to develop Double-M Properties beyond the confines of Brighton, and build it into an international property empire. But Michael had never wanted to know. He never saw the reason to take gambles; he just wanted to continue down the plodding path they were on, doing one development at a time, selling it, then moving to the next.

  Tobias gave him a friendly pat on the back. 'Guess your mind wasn't on the game this morning, huh?'

  'I guess not, I'm sorry'

  'Hey, you know, you've had terrible things happen to you this week. You lost four of your best friends, and your business partner has vanished.' Tobias, standing naked, towelled his hair vigorously. 'So what are the police doing? You have to get behind them, you know, push them - like everybody else. They are probably all overworked and will respond best to the people who push them.'

  Mark smiled. 'Ashley's a pretty tenacious girl - she's giving them hell.'

  'How is she doing?'

  'Bearing up - just about. It was tough for her yesterday - some people she hadn't been able to reach showed up for the wedding.'

  Tobias had never met either Michael or Ashley, so he was not able to add much. 'Sounds bad, if he didn't show for the wedding.'

  Mark nodded, inserting his key into his locker door. As he pulled it open his mobile, which he had left inside, beeped twice. The display informed him that he had four messages.

  Apologizing to Tobias, and stepping a few paces away from him, he played them back. The first was from his mother, asking if there was any news, and reminding him not to be late for Sunday lunch today as she was going to a concert in the afternoon. The next was from Ashley, sounding worried. 'Mark? Mark? Oh, guess you are on court. Call as soon as you get this.' Then another one from Ashley. 'It's me, trying you again.' The fourth was also from Ashley. 'Mark please call, it's really urgent.'

  Moving further away from Tobias, he felt the blood draining from his head. Had Michael turned up?

  All night he had been thinking, trying to figure out how Michael had got out of the coffin and what he would say to Michael if confronted by him. Would Michael believe that he did not know the plan? All it needed was one email on Michael's Palm. Mark - and the others - had sent him several, teasing him about the stag night.

  He rang Ashley, fearing the worst. She sounded distressed, and at the same time strangely formal - he presumed for the benefit of anyone who might be tapping the phones.

  'I -1 don't know exactly what's going on,' she said. 'About half an hour ago I had a phone cal
l from a young woman detective called Emma-Jane something - um .. .' She was silent for moment. Mark heard a rustle of paper and then her voice again. 'DC Bourwood. She asked me if Michael wore an earring.'

  'I told her he did when I first started going out with him, but I made him take it off because I thought it was bad for his image.'

  'You were right,' Mark replied.

  'Do you think he might have put it on for his stag night?'

  'It's possible; you know he's always liked dressing up a bit wildly for an evening out. Why?'

  'I've just had a call back from this Detective Constable. They've found a body that matches Michael's description - in the woods near

  Crowborough.' She began crying. It was a great performance if anyone was listening to their conversation.

  'Oh Jesus,' Mark said. 'Are they sure it's him?'

  In between deep, gulping sobs she said, 'I don't know. Michael's mother has been asked to go to the mortuary to identify the body. She's just rung to ask if I'll go with her. They want us to go over as soon as we can.'

  'Do you want me to come? I could drive you both?'

  'Would you mind? I -1 don't think I could cope with driving, and Gill can't, she's on the floor. Oh God, Mark, this is so terrible.' Then she began crying again.

  'Ashley, I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll pick Gill up first as she's nearest to me, then you. Be with you in half an hour.'

  Ashley was crying so hard he wasn't even sure if she heard him.

  60

  Grace, driving back towards Brighton, phoned Jaye and apologized to her that he had had to cut short their day out.

  'What's his name, the lost boy?' she asked.

  Grace hesitated, then could see no harm in telling her. 'Michael.'

  'Why is he hiding, Uncle Roy? Has he been naughty?'

  He smiled; children saw the world so much more simply than adults. But it was a good question. He had learned a long time ago in police work never to take anything at face value; turn over every stone, open every door, always think out of the box. It was important to consider Michael Harrison as an active participant in his disappearance, as much as a passive one. Despite the corpse that should already be at the mortuary by now.