Dead Simple

by Peter James

  'Poor sod. He was murdered?'

  'It seems likely,' Grace said guardedly. Then, watching Mark again closely, he said, 'Am I correct that you and Michael Harrison have a bank account in the Cayman Islands?'

  Without flinching, Mark replied, 'Yes, we have a company there, HW Properties International.'

  'Two-thirds - one-third split?'

  'Correct.'

  Grace remembered there was at least one million pounds in that account. More than a tidy sum. 'What kind of insurance do you and Michael have? Do you have life insurance policies on each other, as business partners?'

  'We have the usual key-man insurance - do you want to see the policy?'

  'Not at this moment, but at some point I'd like to, yes. Perhaps you could fax a copy over to the Incident Room for me tomorrow?'

  'No problem.'

  Grace stood up. 'Well, I won't trouble you any more tonight. Busy are you? Often work on a Sunday night?'

  'I like to catch up on my paperwork at the weekend. Only chance I get when the phones aren't ringing.'

  Grace smiled. 'I know the feeling.'

  Mark watched the detective's head disappear down the stairwell, then closed the door, making sure the latch was down, then returned to his office, switched his computer back on, and began the arduous task he had started a couple of hours earlier, of reading every day's back-up of Michael's Palm, going back weeks, and deleting any references to the stag night.

  Ashley had been spending this afternoon doing the same on the laptops of Peter, Luke, Josh and Robbo, on the pretext to their families that she was looking for clues about Michael's whereabouts. Downstairs, Grace closed the front door behind him and walked across the pavement to his car. But it was some moments before he climbed back into it. Instead, he leaned against the passenger door, staring up at the third-floor window, thinking. Thinking.

  He did not like Mark Warren. The man was a liar - and he was nervous as hell about something. Ashley Harper was a liar, also. She had deliberately given him a bracelet that did not belong to Michael.

  And what exactly was Mark Warren's bracelet doing in her house?

  66

  'Jesus, oh Jesus.' Michael was crying in pain, holding up his left hand as far as the duct tape wound right around his body, pinioning both arms to his side, would allow. Blood gouted from the stump of his forefinger, cut off at the first joint. He stared up into the blinding lights. 'What is this; what the hell are you doing?'

  'It's OK, Mike, relax!'

  His arm was held by a thin, hairy hand with an iron grip, the wrist sporting a heavy diver's watch. And he could see his assailant's head now, shadowy against the dazzling lights, two eyes behind slits in a black hood.

  Then he saw white cream oozing from the neck of a tube, and the next moment it felt as if ice had been put on his finger. He cried out again, the pain almost unbearable.

  'I know what I'm doing, Mike. You don't have to worry; it won't go septic. I'd like you to call me Vic. Understand? Vic?'

  'Vhrrrr,' Michael gasped.

  'That's good, you and me on first-name terms. We're business partners, see? We should be on first-name terms.'

  His assailant pulled out a long white bandage and wound it tightly around the bloody tip of the finger, then on down, tighter and tighter until it was acting as a tourniquet. Then he wound sticking plaster around it to hold it. 'See, Mike, the way I look at it, I saved your life - so that's got to be worth something, hasn't it? And from what I read in the papers and saw on television, it seems like you're loaded. I'm not, you see, that's the difference. Want some water?'

  Michael nodded. He was trying to think straight but the numbing, throbbing pain in his finger made that hard.

  'If you want to drink, I have to take the tape off your mouth. I do that on condition you don't shout. Is that a deal, Mike?'

  He nodded his head.

  'My word has always been my bond. Is it yours?'

  Again Michael nodded.

  An arm reached down. The next instant Michael felt as if half the ikin on his face had been ripped away. His mouth gasped open, his Chin and cheek stinging like hell. Then the man reached down again holding a plastic mineral water bottle with the top removed and tilted some of the contents into Michael's mouth. It tasted cold and good as he gulped it down greedily, some spilling over and dribbling down his chin and neck. Then some went down the wrong way and he began to choke.

  The bottle was withdrawn. He carried on coughing. When the fit finally stopped, he felt more alert. He could smell dank air and engine oil as if he was in some kind of underground car park. Looking up at the eye slits he asked, 'Where am I?'

  'You have a short memory, Mike. I told you never to ask where you are, or who I am.'

  'You - you said Vic - your name.'

  'I'm Vic to you, Mike.'

  There was a silence between them.

  In his rapidly clearing brain Michael was starting to feel more scared of this man that he had been in the coffin. 'How- how did you find me?'

  'I spend all week out in my camper van, Mike - see, I check on mobile phone masts around the south of England, for the phone companies. Listen to the old Citizens' Band radio, chat to a few mates around the globe. When there's no one to chat to, I scan all the radio bands, sometimes listen in to the police chatter. With my kit I can listen to just about any conversation I want - mobile phones, anything. Told you I was in Signals in the Australian Marines.'

  Michael nodded.

  'So, Wednesday, I was sitting around in the evening after work and I stumbled across Davey and you having a cosy chat. I stayed tuned to the channel and picked up some subsequent chats between you. Saw the news coverage, heard about the coffin. So I pulled on my thinking hat and I thought to myself, if I was going to take my best mate on a pub crawl why would I take a coffin? Maybe to hide you somewhere? Bit of a sick prank? So I went along to the local Planning Office in Brighton and looked up your company - and lo! - I

  discover you're applying for planning consent on forest land you bought last year, right in the area where you were having your pub crawl. I figured was that a coincidence, or was that a coincidence? And I also figured, out on a pub crawl, your mates would all be lazy bastards. They wouldn't want to carry you too far. You'd be close to a track you could get a vehicle down.'

  'Is that where I was?' Michael asked.

  'That's where you'd still be, mate. Now tell me about this money you have stashed away in the Cayman Islands.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I told you, I pick up chatter on the police radios. You've got money in the Cayman Islands, haven't you? North of a million, I understand. Wouldn't that be a reasonable reward for saving your life? Cheap at twice the price, Mike, if you ask me.'

  67

  At 7.20 the next morning, Grace arrived at Sussex House. The sky was dark blue, with wispy trails of cloud like strips of rags. One cop he'd been out on the beat with years back knew all about cloud formations and could predict the weather from them. From memory, the clouds up there this morning were cumulonimbus. Dry weather. Good for the search today.

  In most police stations he could have got a good fry-up, which was what he needed for energy, he thought as he walked along the corridor to the bank of vending machines. He pushed a coin in the hot drinks dispenser, then waited for the plastic cup to fill with white coffee. Carrying it back to his office, he realized how weary he felt. All night he'd tossed and turned, switched the light on, made a note, switched it off, then back on again. Operation Salsa drip-fed its facts and anomalies to him relentlessly, drip by drip by drip, until grey light had begun to seep around the curtains, and the first tentative chatter of dawn birdsong had begun.

  The bracelet. The BMW arriving back so late in the parking lot, covered in mud. Mark Warren working in his office at midnight on a Sunday. Ashley Harper's Canadian uncle, Bradley Cunningham. Ashley Harper's expression and behaviour at the mortuary today. Forensic results on the soil due today. CCTV results, possibl
y.

  He looked at his in-tray, piled with post from last week he had not yet dealt with, then switched on his computer and looked at an even bigger stack of emails in his in-box. Then his door opened and he heard a chirpy, 'Good morning, Roy.'

  It was Eleanor Hodgson, his management support assistant, who he had asked to come in especially early today. She held a sheet of paper in her hand.

  'How was your weekend?' he asked.

  'Very nice, I went to my niece's wedding on Saturday, then had a houseful of relatives yesterday. And you?'

  'Managed to get out in the country yesterday.'

  'Good!' she said. 'You needed a break and some fresh air.' She peered at him more closely. 'You look very pale, you know.'

  'Tell me about it.' He took the sheet of paper, already knowing what it was - his agenda for the week. She had produced it every Monday morning for him, for as long as he could remember.

  He sat down, the smell of the coffee tantalizing, but the liquid as yet too hot to drink, and scanned the agenda, needing to clear his diary of everything non-essential now he was the SIO on the case.

  At ten this morning he was due to attend court for the continuation of the Suresh Hossain trial, and he would have to do that. At 1 p.m. he had a dentist's appointment in Lewes - which would have to be cancelled. At 3 o'clock tomorrow he had a meeting scheduled with South Wales CID for an exchange of information on a known Swansea villain found dead with a snooker cue sticking through his eye on a waste tip near Newhaven. That would have to be rescheduled. On Wednesday he was due at the Police Training College at Bramshill for an update on DNA fingerprinting. Thursday's highlight was the Sussex Police headquarters cricket team - of which he had landed himself the unwelcome headache of being Hon. Sec. - AGM. Friday was clear at the moment, and on Saturday there was a terrorist attack training exercise at Shoreham Harbour - in which he was not involved.

  It would have been a nothing week, if it weren't for the Hossain trial and now Operation Salsa. But, then, in his experience, few weeks finished the way he expected them to.

  He told Eleanor to reschedule everything except his trial attendances, then rummaged through his post, dictating replies to the most urgent on the pile. He scanned his emails and because time was short and he was a slow typist, dictated replies to those, too. Then he walked along the maze of corridors to the Incident Room. It was already beginning to feel like home to him.

  The 8.30 a.m. Operation Salsa briefing meeting was short. There had been no new developments overnight - apart from what he had gleaned from Max Candille, which he kept to himself, and from his visit to Double-M's offices. Hopefully by their next meeting at 6.30 p.m. there might be some news.

  Grace drove into Lewes, stopping at a petrol station on the way to buy an egg and bacon sandwich, which he was still munching as he walked up the courthouse steps at 9.50. It was already beginning to feel like a very long day.

  The morning proceedings were taken up with in-camera submissions to the Judge by the prosecuting counsel, and all Grace could do was hang around in the waiting room, giving Eleanor some dictation over the phone and speaking to Glenn Branson a couple of times. There was not enough time to get to the office and back during the lunch recess, so instead he went along to his dental appointment after all, for his six-monthly check-up, and to his relief his teeth were fine, although he received a reprimand from the dentist about not brushing his gums carefully enough. But at least no fillings - he dreaded them, always had.

  Returning to court at 2 p.m., he discovered he was not going to be needed for the rest of the day, and went back to his office. With the time Operation Salsa was now consuming, a massive backlog was building up on the rest of his paperwork, and he did his best to deal with the most urgent of it.

  It was an uneventful afternoon for him, right up until his arrival at the 6 p.m. briefing in the Incident Room. He could tell instantly from the team's faces that there had been a development. It was Bella Moy who told him the news.

  'I've just had a call from a Phil Wheeler, Roy - the father of the murdered lad found this afternoon.'

  'Tell me?'

  'He said he didn't know if it was significant, but apparently his son told him that he'd been chatting with Michael Harrison on a walkie-talkie radio - since - Thursday.'

  68

  Ashley walked up behind Mark, who was hunched over his desk in front of his computer screen, trying to catch up on his work. He badly owed the architect, the quantity surveyor and the construction company responses to a whole raft of emails on issues that had been raised by the Planning Department over the company's most ambitious project to date, the new Ashdown development of twenty houses.

  She slipped her arms around his neck, leaned forward and nuzzled his cheek. He breathed in the heady scents of her fresh, summery cologne and the faint citrus tang of her hair.

  Bleary-eyed, he lifted his arms up and cupped her cheeks in his hands. 'We're going to be OK,' he said.

  'Of course. We don't do not OK, right?'

  'Right.'

  Leaning further over, she kissed him on the forehead.

  Mark shot a glance across the office at the open doorway, wary every second of the day and night of who might walk through it.

  She kissed him again. 'I love you,' she said.

  'I love you too, Ashley'

  'Do you? You haven't shown me much affection the past few days,' she chided.

  'Oh, right, like you've been all over me?'

  'Let's put that behind us.' She nibbled his ear, then, unbuttoning his shirt front, slipped her hands inside and began to tease his nipples with her fingers and thumbs. She felt him react almost instantly, heard his sharp intake of breath, felt his chest tighten. Slipping her hands out, she- reached around him, clicked his mouse to exit the program, then whispered into his ear, 'Fuck me.'

  'Here?'

  'Here, now!'

  Mark stood up, a little panicky, and glanced at his watch. 'The cleaners come around six-thirty - they'll be--'

  Ashley unbuckled his suit trousers, and jerked down his zip. Then she pulled down his trousers and underpants together in one swift tug. 'So we'll just have to have a quickie, won't we?' She stopped and stared for a moment, as if in appreciation, at his engorged penis, then said, 'Well, somebody seems pleased to see me!'

  Then she took him in her mouth.

  Mark stared out of the window. They were in full view of the windows across the street. He tried to step sideways and almost tripped over his trousers and pants. He leaned down, fumbled with the buttons on Ashley's blouse, got his hands inside, unhooked her bra. Within a couple of minutes, naked except for his shoes and socks, he was lying on top of her, deep inside, the dusty, nylon smell of the hard carpet mingling with Ashley's scents in his nostrils.

  Then there was a sharp buzz from the intercom.

  'Shit!' he said, panicking. 'Who the fuck's that?'

  Ashley pulled him tighter into her, her nails raking his back. 'Ignore it,' she said.

  'What if it's Michael? Checking if anyone is in?'

  'You're such a wuss!' she said, releasing him.

  Ignoring the remark, Mark hauled himself to his feet and hobbled out of the room and over to the reception desk which Ashley normally manned and stared at the small black and white CCTV monitor. He could see a man in a motorcycle helmet, holding a package, standing outside the front door in the street. Mark pressed the speak button. 'Hello?'

  'Package for Mr Warren, Double-M Properties.'

  'Do you want to just put it through the letter box?'

  'I need a signature.'

  Mark cursed. 'I'll be down in a moment.'

  He pulled his clothes back on, stuffing his shirt tails into his trousers, and blew Ashley a kiss. 'Back in two sees.'

  'Don't worry about me,' she said unsmiling. 'I'll carry on without you.'

  He hurried downstairs, opened the door and took a small Jiffy bag, with a printed label addressed to him but no information where

 
; it was from, from a stocky hulk of a man in leathers with 'FAST TRACK COURIERS' embossed on the front. He signed the docket, was given a duplicate copy then closed the door and climbed back up the staircase.

  The sender's handwritten name on the docket read, 'JK Contractors'. Mark had no idea what was inside it. There was so much damned paperwork on the planning applications that he was steadily sinking under the mountain. This was probably a bunch of technical drawings from the quantity surveyor. Typically extravagant to send them by courier when post would have been fine. He would open it later. Right now there was just one thing on his mind, Ashley, lying naked on his office floor. And he was feeling crazily, dizzily, rampantly horny.

  Then, totally unexpectedly, within seconds of lying back on top of her it was all over.

  'Sorry,' he said, taking his weight on his elbows. 'I--'

  'Get turned on by motorcycle couriers, do you?' she asked, seemingly only partly in jest.

  'Oh sure.'

  'A lot of men are gay and don't realize it. You know, bikers in leather can be a pretty erotic thing for guys.'

  'What is this?'

  'What do you think it is? You leave me here naked and on the verge of coming; you go down and see a guy in leathers and the next moment you shoot your bolt before you've barely got back inside me.'

  He rolled off and sat up beside her on the floor, a wave of gloom washing through him. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I just have a shitload of stuff going on in my head at the moment.'

  'And I don't?'

  'Maybe you're better at handling this than I am.'

  'I don't know what you're capable of handling, Mark. I thought you were the strong guy and Michael was the weak one.'

  He leaned forward and placed his face in his hands. 'Ashley, we're both tense, OK.'

  'You shouldn't be tense, you just had a great orgasm.'

  'OK, OK, OK. I have apologized. You want me to work on you? I'll make you come - you know - by hand.'

  She stood up abruptly, picking up some of her clothes as she did. 'Forget it, I'm not in the mood any more.'

  They both dressed in silence. It was Ashley, putting on some liptick, who finally broke it. 'You know what they say, Mark? Good sex is one per cent of a relationship; bad sex is ninety-nine per cent.'