Dead Simple Page 7

  Double-M Properties occupied the third floor of a narrow five storey Regency terraced townhouse, a short distance from Brighton station, which had been their first property development together. Apart from the office he was in, there was a boardroom for clients, a small reception area and a kitchenette. The furnishings were modern and functional. On the walls were photographs of the three racing yachts they owned together, and through which their success could be charted - from their first boat, a Nicholson-27, to a more substantial Contessa-33, to the distinctly upmarket Oyster-42 which was their current toy.

  There were also pictures of their developments. The waterfront warehouse at Shoreham Harbour which they had converted into thirty-two apartments. An old Regency hotel in Kemp Town, overlooking the seafront, which they had converted into ten apartments, and two mews houses at the rear. And their latest, and most ambitious development, an artist's impression drawing of a site in five acres of forest land where they had permission to build twenty houses.

  His eyes were raw from two sleepless nights, and, taking a moment's respite from the screen, Mark stared out of the window. Directly opposite was a casino and a discount carpet store. On sunny days it was a perfect spot to ogle the pretty girls walking down the street - but right now it was pelting with rain, people were hurrying, huddled under umbrellas or wrapped in coats, collars turned up, hands in pockets. And Mark was in no mood for thinking about anything except the task in front of him.

  Every few minutes, as he had done all day long, he dialled Michael's mobile number. But each time it went straight to voicemail. Unless the phone was either switched off, or the battery was dead, this indicated Michael was still down there. No one had heard anything. Judging from the time of the accident, they would have buried him about 9 p.m. the night before last. About forty-five hours so far.

  The main phone line was ringing. Mark could hear the muted warble and saw the light flashing on his extension. He answered it, trying to mask the nervous quaver that was in his voice each time he spoke.

  'Double-M Properties.'

  A man's voice. 'Oh, hello, I'm calling about the Ashdown Fields development. Do you have a brochure or prices?'

  'I'm afraid not, sir, not yet,' Mark said. 'Be a couple of weeks yet. There is some information up on our website - ah - OK, you checked that already. If you want to leave me your name, I'll have someone get back to you.'

  Ordinarily he'd have been pleased to have had such an early enquiry about a development, but sales were the last thing on his mind at the moment.

  It was important not to panic, he knew. He'd read enough crime novels, and seen enough cop shows, to know that it was the guys who panicked that got caught. You just had to keep calm.

  Keep deleting the emails.

  Inbox. Sent Items. Deleted Folder. All other folders.

  It wasn't possible to erase emails totally, they would still be out there, stored on a server somewhere in cyberspace, but surely no one was going to look that far, or were they?

  He typed keyword after keyword, doing an Advanced Find on each of them. Michael. Stag. Night. Josh. Pete. Robbo. Luke. Ashley. Plans! Operation revenge! Checking every email, deleting any that needed deleting. Covering all the bases.

  Josh was on life support, his condition critical, and he almost certainly had severe brain damage. Likely to be a vegetable if he survived. Mark swallowed, his mouth dry. He'd known Josh since they were thirteen, at Varndean School. Luke and Michael, too, of course. Pete and Robbo came later: they'd met in a pub in Brighton one

  boozy night in their late teens. Like Mark, Josh was methodical and ambitious. And he was good-looking. Women always flocked around Josh the same way they went for Michael. Some people had natural gifts in life, others like himself had to struggle every inch of the way. But even at the young age of twenty-eight, Mark had seen enough of life to know that nothing stays the same for very long. If you were patient, if you bided your time, sooner or later you'd get a lucky break. The best predators were the most patient ones.

  Mark had never forgotten a wildlife documentary he'd seen on television, filmed in a bat cave in South America. Some tiny microorganism fed on the bat guano on the floor of the cave; a maggot ate the micro-organism; a beetle ate the maggot; a spider ate the beetle; then a bat ate the spider. It was a perfect food chain. The bat was smart, all it had to do was shit and wait.

  His mobile rang. It was Michael's mother, her third call to him this afternoon and her umpteenth today. He remained as unfailingly polite and friendly as ever. There was still no news of Michael, he told her. It was terrible, he really had no idea what had happened to him, the plan had been simply to go on a pub crawl, he could not imagine where Michael might be now.

  'Do you think he could be with another woman?' Gill Harrison asked in her timid, gravelly voice. He'd always got on quite well with her, in as much as it was possible. Her husband had gassed himself before he and Michael had met, and Michael said she had retreated into a shell and stayed there ever since. From the photos of her around the house she had been quite beautiful when younger, a blonde bombshell. But ever since Mark had known her, her hair was prematurely grey, her face dry and creased from chain smoking, her spirit withered.

  'I guess anything is possible, Mrs Harrison,' Mark replied. He thought for a moment, choosing his words carefully. 'But he adored Ashley.'

  'She's a lovely girl.'

  'She is, could do with her back here - the best damned secretary we ever had.' He toyed with his mouse for a moment, moving the cursor idly around the screen. 'But you know drink sometimes makes men do irrational things--'

  As the words came out he instantly regretted them. Hadn't Michael once told him that his father had been drunk when he killed himself?

  There was a long silence, then she said, very placidly, 'I think he'd have had long enough to sober up by now. Michael's a good and a loyal person. Whatever he might have done drunk, he would never hurt Ashley. Something must have happened to him, otherwise he would have called. I know my son.' She hesitated. Ashley is in a terrible state. Will you keep an eye on her?'

  'Of course.'

  There was another silence then, 'How is Josh?'

  'Unchanged. Zoe's staying in the hospital. I'll go back there and sit with her - as soon as I've finished in the office.'

  'You'll call me the moment you hear anything?'

  'Of course.'

  He hung up, stared down at his desk, picked up a document, and something caught his eye beneath it. His Palm.

  And as he stared at it, cold fear swept through him. Oh shit, he thought. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

  16

  After leaving Detective Superintendent Grace, Glenn Branson headed back across town in the pool car he had taken, a blue Vauxhall that reeked of disinfectant - the result of someone either throwing up or bleeding in it last time it had been used. He parked it back in its space in the lot behind the bland edifice of Brighton police station, and walked into the rear entrance and up the stone staircase, to the office he shared with ten other detectives.

  It was 6.20; his shift technically finished every day this week at 6, but he was swamped with paperwork after a major drugs bust on Monday, and had permission to do overtime - and he needed the extra cash. But he was going to do only one hour today, until 7. Ari was going out, on another of her self-improvement courses. Mondays she did evening classes in English literature, Thursdays she did architecture. Ever since their daughter Remi had been born she'd gone into panic mode about her perceived lack of education, and was scared she wasn't going to be able to answer their kids' questions when they grew older.

  Although most of the computer screens were off, none of the desks were tidy. Every empty open-plan cubicle looked, as usual, as if its occupant had abandoned it in haste and would be returning shortly.

  There were just two colleagues still at work in here, DC Nick Nicholl, late twenties, tall as a beanpole, a zealous detective and a fast football forward, and DS Bella Moy, thirty-five, che
ery-faced beneath a tangle of brown hair.

  Neither acknowledged him. He walked past Nick Nicholl, who was deep in concentration filling out a form, his lips pursed like a kid in an exam as he wrote in block capitals with a ballpoint. Bella was fixated by something on her screen, her left hand, like an automaton, plucking Maltesers from a box on her desk and delivering them to her mouth. She was a slim woman, yet she ate more than any human being Glenn Branson had ever seen.

  As he sat down at his desk, the message light was blinking away, as usual. Ari, his wife, Sammy, his eight-year-old son and Remi, his three-year-old daughter, smiled out at him from a framed photo on his desk.

  He glanced at his watch, needing to keep an eye on the time. Ari got mad if he was late and caused her to miss the beginning of her class. And besides, it was no hardship - there were few things he treasured more than spending time with his kids. Then his phone beeped.

  It was the front desk. A woman had waited an hour to see him and wasn't leaving. Would he mind having a word with her? Everyone else was busy.

  'Right, like I'm not busy?' Glenn said to the receptionist, letting irritation show in his voice. 'What does she want?'

  'It's to do with the accident on Tuesday - the missing groom.'

  Instantly he mellowed. 'Right. OK, I'll come down.'

  Despite her bleached-out complexion, Ashley Harper looked every bit as beautiful in the flesh as she did in the photograph he had just seen of her in Michael Harrison's apartment. She was dressed in designer denims, with a bling belt, and carried a classy handbag. He led her into an interview room, got them each a coffee, closed the door and sat down opposite her. Like all the interview rooms it was small and windowless, painted a drab pea green, with a brown carpet and grey metal chairs and table, and reeked of stale cigarette smoke.

  She placed her handbag on the floor. Beautiful grey eyes framed by smudged mascara stared out from a wan face, leaden with grief. Fronds of her brown hair fell across her forehead, the rest swooped in a single wave either side of her face and onto her shoulders. Her nails were perfect, as if she had come straight from a manicure. She looked immaculate, and that surprised him a little. People in her state were usually careless about their appearance, but she seemed dressed to kill.

  Equally he knew how hard it was to figure women out. Once, when their relationship was going through a rocky time, Ari had given him the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. It had helped him go some way towards understanding the mental gulf between men and women (but not all the way).

  'You're a hard man to get hold of,' she said, and tossed her head, flicking her long brown hair away from her eyes. 'I left four messages.' 'Yeah, I'm sorry.' He raised his hands. 'I've two of my team off sick and two away on holiday. I understand how you must feel.'

  'Do you? Do you have any idea how I feel? I'm meant to be getting married on Saturday and my fiance's been missing since Tuesday night. We have the church booked, I've got my dressmaker turning up for a fitting, two hundred guests invited, wedding presents pouring in. Do you have any idea how I feel?' Tears rolled down her cheeks. She sniffed, fumbled in her handbag and pulled out a tissue.

  'Look, I'm sorry. I have been working on your - Michael - your fiancee's disappearance since we spoke this morning.'

  'And?' She dabbed her eyes.

  He cradled his beaker of coffee, which was too hot to drink. Had to let it cool. 'I'm afraid I don't have anything to report, yet.' Not strictly true, but he wanted to hear what she had to say.

  'What exactly are you guys doing?'

  'Like I said this morning on the phone, ordinarily when someone goes missing--'

  She cut him short. 'This isn't ordinarily, for God's sake. Michael's been missing since Tuesday night. When we're apart he rings me five, ten times a day. It's now two days. Two fucking days, for Christ's sake!'

  Branson studied her face carefully, searching for giveaways. But he found nothing. Just a young woman desperate for news of her loved one. Or- ever the cynic - a fine actress. 'Hear me out, OK? Two days is not in ordinary circumstances enough for alarm. But I agree, in this situation, it is strange.'

  'Something's happened to him, OK? This isn't some normal missing persons situation. His friends did something to him, put him somewhere, sent him somewhere, I don't know what the hell they did to him -1--' She lowered her head as if to hide her tears, fumbled for her bag, found it, pulled out a tissue and dabbed her eyes, still shaking her head.

  Glenn was moved. She had no idea, and this wasn't the moment to tell her.

  'We're doing everything we can to find Michael,' he said gently.

  'Like what? What are you doing?'

  Her grief lifted momentarily, as if she was wearing it like a veil. Then another flood of tears and deep, gulping sobs.

  'We've done a search around the immediate vicinity of the accident, and we still have people there - sometimes people get disoriented after an accident, so we're searching all the surrounding area - and we've now put out an all-points alert. All police forces have been informed. Airports and seaports--'

  Again she cut him short. 'You think he's done a runner? Jesus! Why would he do that?'

  Using a subtle technique he had learned from Roy Grace to tell if someone was lying, he asked her, 'What did you have for lunch today?'

  She looked at him in surprise. 'What did I have for lunch today?'

  'Yes.' He watched her eyes closely. They moved to the right. Memory mode.

  Human brains are divided into left and right hemispheres. One contains long-term memory storage, and in the other the creative processes take place. When asked a question, people's eyes almost invariably move to the hemisphere they are using. In some people the memory storage is in the right hemisphere and in some the left; the creative hemisphere the opposite one.

  When people are telling the truth, their eyes swing towards the memory hemisphere; when they lie, towards the creative one. Branson had learned to tell which by tracking their eyes in response to a simple control question such as the one he had just asked, where there would be no need for a lie.

  'I didn't have lunch today.'

  Now he judged it was time to tell her. 'How much do you know about your fiance's business dealings, Miss Harper?'

  'I was his secretary for six months, OK? I don't think there's much I don't know.'

  'So you know about his Cayman Islands company?'

  Genuine surprise in her face. Her eyes shot to the left. Construct mode. She was lying. 'Cayman Islands?' she said.

  'He and his partner' - he paused, pulled out his notebook and flipped through several pages - 'Mark Warren. You're aware of this company they have there? HW Properties International?' She stared at him in silence. 'HW Properties International?' she echoed.

  'Uh huh.'

  'No, I know nothing about this.'

  He nodded. 'OK.'

  The tone of her voice had shifted subtly. Thanks to Roy Grace's teaching he knew what it meant. 'Tell me more?'

  'I don't know much more, I was hoping you could tell me.'

  Her eyes shot to the left again. Construct mode again. 'No,' she said, 'I'm sorry.'

  'It's probably not significant anyway,' he said. 'After all, who doesn't want to avoid the tax man?'

  'Michael is shrewd. He's a clever businessman. But he would never do anything illegal.'

  'I'm not suggesting that, Miss Harper. I'm trying to establish that perhaps you don't know the full picture about the man you are marrying, that's all.'

  'Meaning what?'

  Again he raised his hands in the air. It was five to seven. He needed to go. 'It doesn't necessarily mean anything at all. But it's something we have to be aware of.' He gave her a smile.

  It was not returned.

  17

  On the unstable television screen in the chaotically untidy Portakabin annexed to his dad's house on the edge of Lewes, with its view out on to the yard filled with car wrecks, Davey was watching the American cop show, Law, and Order. His
favourite character, a sharp cop called Detective Reynaldo Curtis, was eyeballing a lowlife, holding him by the dewlaps with a clenched fist. 'I'm in your face, know what I'm saying?' Reynaldo Curtis snarled.

  Davey, in his baggy jeans, and baseball cap tugged tight over his head, lay back on his beat-up sofa munching a Twinkie bar from a supply that was delivered to him weekly from the States by mail order and shouted out, 'Yeah, scumbag! I'm in your face, know what I'm saying?'

  The detritus of Davey's quarterpounder and fries dinner lay on the curled carpet tiles at his feet amid the piles of junk - much of it salvaged during his work with his dad - that covered just about every inch of the floor, shelf and table space of his domain.

  Beside him sat the pieces of the walkie-talkie he had found a couple of nights back. He'd been meaning to try to fix it, but hadn't got around to it yet. Idly, he picked the main body of it up and peered at it.

  The casing was badly cracked. There was a loose bit of plastic with flanges and two AAA batteries that he had retrieved from the road when he had dropped it. He'd really meant to put it back together but somehow it had slipped his mind. Lots of stuff slipped his mind. Just as fast as most things came into his head, they went out again.

  Stuff.

  There was stuff all the time that made no sense.

  Life was like a jigsaw puzzle where bits were always missing. The important bits. Now there were four bits to the walkie-talkie jigsaw. The cracked box, two batteries and the thing that looked like a lid.

  He finished his Twinkie, licked the wrapper, then tossed it onto the floor.

  'Know what I'm saying?' he announced to no one. Then he leaned forward, picked up the burger's polystyrene box and rummaged around through the mess of ketchup with his finger. 'Yeah! I'm in your face, know what I'm saying?'

  He chuckled. There was a commercial break. Some smarmy media fuckwit talking about building society rates. Growing impatient, Davey said 'Come on, baby, let's get back to the show.'