Dead Simple - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Peter James (Начало книги) #1

First published 2005 by Macmillan

an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd

Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London Nl 9RR

Basingstoke and Oxford

Associated companies throughout the world

www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 14050 5163 9 HB ISBN 1 4050 4841 7 TPB

DEAD SIMPLE

So far, apart from just a couple of hitches, Plan A was working out fine. Which was fortunate, since they didn't really have a Plan B.

At 8.30 on a late May evening, they'd banked on having some daylight. There had been plenty of the stuff this time yesterday, when four of them had made the same journey, taking with them an empty coffin and four shovels. But now, as the green Transit van sped along the Sussex country road, misty rain was falling from a sky the colour of a fogged negative.

Are we nearly there yet?' said Josh in the back, mimicking a child.

'The great Um Ga says, "Wherever I go there I am," responded Robbo, who was driving, and was slightly less drunk than the rest of them. With three pubs notched up already in the past hour and a half, and four more on the itinerary, he was sticking to shandy. At least, that had been his intention; but he'd managed to slip down a couple of pints of pure Harvey's bitter - to clear his head for the task of driving, he'd said.

'So we are there!' said Josh.

Always have been.'

A deer warning sign flitted from the darkness then was gone, as the headlights skimmed glossy black-top macadam stretching ahead into the forested distance. Then they passed a small white cottage.

Michael, lolling on a tartan rug on the floor in the back of the van, head wedged between the arms of a wheel-wrench for a pillow, was feeling very pleasantly woozy. 'I sh'ink I need another a drink,' he slurred.

If he'd had his wits about him, he might have sensed, from the expressions of his friends, that something was not quite right. Never usually much of a heavy drinker, tonight he'd parked his brains in the dregs of more empty pint glasses and vodka chasers than he could remember downing, in more pubs than had been sensible to visit.

Of the six of them who had been muckers together since way

back into their early teens, Michael Harrison had always been the natural leader. If, as they say, the secret of life is to choose your parents wisely, Michael had ticked plenty of the right boxes. He had inherited his mother's fair good looks and his father's charm and entrepreneurial spirit, but without any of the self-destruct genes that had eventually ruined the man.

From the age of twelve, when Tom Harrison had gassed himself in the garage of the family home, leaving behind a trail of debtors, Michael had grown up fast, helping his mother make ends meet by doing a paper round, then when he was older by taking labouring jobs in his holidays. He grew up with an appreciation of how hard it was to make money - and how easy to fritter it.

Now, at twenty-eight, he was smart, a decent human being, and a natural leader of the pack. If he had flaws, it was that he was too trusting and on occasions, too much of a prankster. And tonight that latter chicken was coming home to roost. Big time.

But at this moment he had no idea of that.

He drifted back again into a blissful stupor, thinking only happy thoughts, mostly about his fiancee, Ashley. Life was good. His mother was dating a nice guy, his kid brother had just got into university, his kid sister Early was backpacking in Australia on a gap year, and his business was going incredibly well. But best of all, in three days time he was going to be marrying the woman he loved. And adored. His soul mate.

Ashley.

He hadn't noticed the shovel that rattled on every bump in the road, as the wheels drummed below on the sodden tarmac, and the rain pattered down above him on the roof. And he didn't clock a thing in the expressions of his two friends riding along with him in the back, who were swaying and singing tunelessly to an oldie, Rod Stewart's 'Sailing', on the crackly radio up front. A leaky fuel can filled the van with the stench of petrol.

'I love her,' Michael slurred. 'I sh'love Ashley'

'She's a great lady,' Robbo said, turning his head from the wheel, sucking up to him as he always did. That was in his nature. Awkward with women, a bit clumsy, a florid face, lank hair, beer belly straining the weave of his T-shirt, Robbo hung to the coat tails of this bunch by always trying to make himself needed. And tonight, for a change, he actually was needed.

'She is

'Coming up,' warned Luke.

Robbo braked as they approached the turn-off and winked in the darkness of the cab at Luke seated next to him. The wipers clumped Steadily, smearing the rain across the windscreen.

'I mean, like I really love her. Sh'now what I mean?'

'We know what you mean,' Pete said.

Josh, leaning back against the driver's seat, one arm around Pete, twigged some beer, then passed the bottle down to Michael. Froth rose from the neck as the van braked sharply. He belched. "Scuse me.'

'What the hell does Ashley see in you?' Josh said.

'My dick.'

'So it's not your money? Or your looks? Or your charm?'

'That too, Josh, but mostly my dick.'

The van lurched as it made the sharp right turn, rattling over a cattle grid, almost immediately followed by a second one, and onto the dirt track. Robbo, peering through the misted glass, picking out the deep ruts, swung the wheel. A rabbit sprinted ahead of them, then shot into some undergrowth. The headlights veered right then left, fleetingly colouring the dense conifers that lined the track, before they vanished into darkness in the rear-view mirror. As Robbo changed down a gear, Michael's voice changed, his bravado suddenly tinged, very faintly, with anxiety.

'Where we going?'

'To another pub.'

'OK. Great.' Then a moment later, 'Promished Ashley I shwouldn't - wouldn't - drink too much.'

'See,' Pete said, 'you're not even married and she's laying down rules. You're still a free man. For just three more days.'

'Three and a half,' Robbo added, helpfully.

'You haven't arranged any girls?' Michael said.

'Feeling horny?' Robbo asked.

'I'm staying faithful.'

'We're making sure of that.'

'Bastards!'

The van lurched to a halt, reversed a short distance, then made another right turn. Then it stopped again, and Robbo killed the engine - and Rod Stewart with it. 'Arrival' he said. 'Next watering hole! The Undertaker's Arms!'

'I'd prefer the Naked Thai Girl's Legs,' Michael said.

'She's here too.'

Someone opened the rear door of the van, Michael wasn't sure who. Invisible hands took hold of his ankles. Robbo took one of his arms, and Luke the other.

'Hey!'

'You're a heavy bastard!' Luke said.

Moments later Michael thumped down, in his favourite sports jacket and best jeans (not the wisest choice for your stag night, a dim voice in his head was telling him) onto sodden earth, in pitch darkness which was pricked only by the red tail lights of the van and the white beam of a flashlight. Hardening rain stung his eyes and matted his hair to his forehead.

'Mycloshes--'

Moments later, his arms yanked almost clear of their sockets, he was hoisted in the air, then dumped down into something dry and lined with white satin that pressed in on either side of him.

'Hey!' he said again.

Four drunken, grinning shadowy faces leered down at him. A magazine was pushed into his hands. In the beam of the flashlight he caught a blurry glimpse of a naked redhead with gargantuan breasts. A bottle of whisky, a small flashlight, switched on, and a walkie-talkie were placed on his stomach.

'What's--?'

A piece of foul-tasting rubber tubing was pushing into his mouth. As Michael spat it out, he heard a scraping sound, then suddenly something blotted the faces out. And blotted all the sound out. His nostrils filled with smells of wood, new cloth and glue. For an instant he felt warm and snug. Then a flash of panic.

'Hey, guys - what--'

Robbo picked up a screwdriver, as Pete shone the flashlight down on the oak coffin.

'You're not screwing it down?' Luke said.

'Absolutely!' Pete said. I 'Do you think we should?'

'He'll be fine,' Robbo said. 'He's got the breathing tube!'

'I really don't think we should screw it down!'

''Course we do - otherwise he'll be able to get out!' ; 'Hey--' Michael said.

But no one could hear him now. And he could hear nothing except a faint scratching sound above him.

Robbo worked on each of the four screws in turn. It was a top-oftherange hand-tooled teak coffin with embossed brass handles, borrowed from his uncle's funeral parlour, where, after a couple of career U-turns, he was now employed as an apprentice embalmer. Good, solid brass screws. They went in easily.

Michael looked upwards, his nose almost touching the lid. In the beam of the flashlight, ivory-white satin encased him. He kicked out with his legs, but they had nowhere to travel. He tried to push his arms out. But they had nowhere to go, either. Sobering for a few moments, he suddenly realized what he was lying in.

'Hey, hey, listen, you know - hey - I'm claustrophobic - this is not funny! Hey!' His voice came back at him, strangely muffled.

Pete opened the door, leaned into the cab, and switched on the headlights. A couple of metres in front of them was the grave they had dug yesterday, the earth piled to one side, tapes already in place. A large sheet of corrugated iron and two of the spades they had used lay close by.

The four friends walked to the edge and peered down. All of them were suddenly aware that nothing in life is ever quite as it seems when you are planning it. This hole right now looked deeper, darker, more like - well - a grave, actually.

The beam of the flashlight shimmered at the bottom.

'There's water,' Josh said.

'Just a bit of rainwater/ Robbo said.

Josh frowned. 'There's too much, that's not rainwater. We must have hit the water table.'

'Shit,' Pete said. A BMW salesman, he always looked the part, on

duty or off. Spiky haircut, sharp suit, always confident. But not quite so confident now.

'It's nothing,' Robbo said. 'Just a couple of inches.'

'Did we really dig it this deep?' said Luke, a freshly qualified solicitor, recently married, not quite ready to shrug off his youth, but starting to accept life's responsibilities.

'It's a grave, isn't it?' said Robbo. 'We decided on a grave.'

Josh squinted up at the worsening rain. 'What if the water rises?

'Shit, man,' Robbo said. 'We dug it yesterday, it's taken twentyfour hours for just a couple of inches. Nothing to worry about.'

Josh nodded, thoughtfully. 'But what if we can't get him back out?'

'Course we can get him out/ Robbo said. 'We just unscrew the lid.'

'Let's just get on with it,' Luke said. 'OK?'

'He bloody deserves it,' Pete reassured his mates. 'Remember what he did on your stag night, Luke?'

Luke would never forget. Waking from an alcoholic stupor to find himself on a bunk on the overnight sleeper to Edinburgh. Arriving forty minutes late at the altar the next afternoon as a result.

Pete would never forget, either. The weekend before his wedding, he'd found himself in frilly lace underwear, a dildo strapped to his waist, manacled to the Clifton Gorge suspension bridge, before being rescued by the fire brigade. Both pranks had been Michael's idea.

'Typical of Mark,' Pete said. 'Jammy bastard. He's the one who organized this and now he isn't bloody here ...'

'He's coming. He'll be at the next pub, he knows the itinerary'

'Oh yes?'

'He rang, he's on his way.'

'Fogbound in Leeds. Great!' Robbo said.

'He'll be at the Royal Oak by the time we get there.'

'Jammy bastard/ Luke said. 'He's missing out on all the hard work.'

'And thefunl' Pete reminded him.

'This is fun?' Luke said. 'Standing in the middle of a sodding forest in the pissing rain? Fun? God, you're sad! He'd fucking better turn up to help us get Michael back out.'

They hefted the coffin up in the air, staggered forward with it to the edge of the grave and dumped it down, hard, over the tapes. Then giggled at the muffled 'Ouch!' from within it.

There was a loud thump.

Michael banged his fist against the lid. 'Hey! Enough!'

Pete, who had the walkie-talkie in his coat pocket, pulled it out and switched it on. 'Testing!' he said. 'Testing!'

Inside the coffin, Pete's voice boomed out. 'Testing! Testing!'

'Joke over!'

'Relax, Michael!' Pete said. 'Enjoy!'

'You bastards! Let me out! I need a piss!'

Pete switched the walkie-talkie off and jammed it into the pocket | Of his Barbour jacket. 'So how does this work, exactly?'

'We lift the tapes,' Robbo said. 'One each end.'

Pete dug the walkie-talkie out and switched it on. 'We're getting this taped, Michael!' Then he switched it off again.

The four of them laughed. Then each picked up an end of tape and took up the slack.

'One ... two ... three!' Robbo counted.

'Fuck, this is heavy!' Luke said, taking the strain and lifting.

Slowly, jerkily, listing like a stricken ship, the coffin sank down into the deep hole.

When it reached the bottom they could barely see it in the darkness. Pete held the flashlight. In the beam they could make out the breathing tube sticking limply out of the drinking-straw-sized hole that had been cut in the lid.

Robbo grabbed the walkie-talkie. 'Hey, Michael, your dick's sticking out. Are you enjoying the magazine?'

'OK, joke over. Now let me out!'

'We're off to a pole-dancing club. Too bad you can't join us!' Robbo switched off the radio before Michael could reply. Then, pocketing it, he picked up a spade and began shovelling earth over the edge of the grave and roared with laughter as it rattled down on the roof of the coffin.

With a loud whoop Pete grabbed another shovel and joined in. For some moments both of them worked hard until only a few bald

patches of coffin showed through the earth. Then these were covered. Both of them continued, the drink fuelling their work into a frenzy, until there was a good couple of feet of earth piled on top of the coffin. The breathing tube barely showed above it.

'Hey!' Luke said. 'Hey, stop that! The more you shovel on the more we're going to have to dig back out again in two hours' time.'

'It's a grave!' Robbo said. 'That's what you do with a grave, you cover the coffin!'

Luke grabbed the spade from him. 'Enough!' he said, firmly. 'I want to spend the evening drinking, not bloody digging, OK?'

Robbo nodded, never wanting to upset anyone in the group. Pete, sweating heavily, threw his spade down. 'Don't think I'll take this up as a career,' he said.

They pulled the corrugated iron sheet over the top, then stood back in silence for some moments. Rain pinged on the metal.

'OK,' Pete said. 'We're outta here.'

Luke dug his hands into his coat pocket, dubiously. 'Are we really sure about this?'

'We agreed we were going to teach him a lesson,' Robbo said.

'What if he chokes on his vomit, or something?'

'He'll be fine, he's not that drunk,' Josh said. 'Let's go.'

Josh climbed into the rear of the van, and Luke shut the doors. Then Pete, Luke and Robbo squeezed into the front, and Robbo started the engine. They drove back down the track for half a mile, then made a right turn onto the main road.

Then he switched on the walkie-talkie. 'How you doing, Michael?'

'Guys, listen, I'm really not enjoying this joke.'

'Really?' Robbo said. 'We are!'

Luke took the radio. 'This is what's known as pure vanilla revenge, Michael!'

All four of them in the van roared with laughter. Now it was Josh's turn. 'Hey, Michael, we're going to this fantastic club, they have the most beautiful women, butt naked, sliding their bodies up and down poles. You're going to be really pissed you're missing out on this!'

Michael's voice slurred back, just a tad plaintive. 'Can we stop this now, please? I'm really not enjoying this.'

Through the windscreen Robbo could see roadworks ahead, with green light. He accelerated.

Luke shouted over Josh's shoulder, 'Hey, Michael, just relax, we'll be back in a couple of hours!'

'What do you mean, a couple ofhoursV

The light turned red. Not enough time to stop. Robbo accelerated Stwen harder and shot through. 'Gimme the thing,' he said, grabbing tile radio and steering one-handed around a long curve. He peered pdown in the ambient glow of the dash and hit the talk button.

'Hey, Michael--'

'ROBBO!' Luke's voice, screaming.

Headlights above them, coming straight at them.

Blinding them.

Then the blare of a horn, deep, heavy duty, ferocious.

ROBBBBBBBBOOOOOOO!' screamed Luke.

Robbo stamped in panic on the brake pedal and dropped the walkie-talkie. The wheel yawed in his hands as he looked, desperately, for somewhere to go. Trees to his right, a JCB to his left, headlights burning through the windscreen, searing his eyes, coming at him out of the teeming rain, like a train.

Michael, his head swimming, heard shouting, then a sharp thud, as if someone had dropped the walkietalkie.

Then silence.

He pressed the talk button. 'Hello?'

Just empty static came back at him.

'Hello? Hey guys!'

Still nothing. He focused his eyes on the two-way radio. It was a stubby-looking thing, a hard, black plastic casing, with one short aerial and one longer one, the name 'Motorola' embossed over the speaker grille. There was also an on-off switch, a volume control, a channel selector, and a tiny pinhead of a green light that was glowing brightly. Then he stared at the white satin that was inches from his eyes, fighting panic, starting to breathe faster and faster. He needed to pee, badly, going on desperately.

Where the hell was he? Where were Josh, Luke, Pete, Robbo? Standing around, giggling? Had the bastards really gone off to a club?

Then his panic subsided as the alcohol kicked back in again. His thoughts became leaden, muddled. His eyes closed and he was almost suckered into sleep.

Opening his eyes, the satin blurred into soft focus, as a roller wave of nausea suddenly swelled up inside him, threw him up in the air then dropped him down. Up again. Down again. He swallowed, closed his eye again, giddily, feeling the coffin drifting, swaying from side to side, floating. The need to pee was receding. Suddenly the nausea wasn't so bad any more. It was snug in here. Floating. Like being in a big bed!

His eyes closed and he sank like a stone into sleep.

Roy Grace sat in the dark, in his ageing Alfa Romeo in the line of stationary traffic, rain drumming the roof, his fingers drumming the wlmel, barely listening to the Dido CD that was playing. He felt tense. Impatient. Gloomy. He felt like shit. Tomorrow he was due to appear in court, and he knew he was in (rouble. He took a swig of bottled Evian water, replaced the cap and jammed the bottle back in the door pocket. 'Come on, come on!' he said, fingers tapping again, harder now. He was already forty minutes late for his date. He hated being late, always felt it was a sign of rudeness, as if you were making the statement, my time's more important than yours, so I can keep you waiting... If he had left the office just one minute sooner he wouldn't have been late: someone else would have taken the call and the ram-raid on a jewellery shop in Brighton, by two punks who were high on (iod-knows-what, would have been a colleague's problem, not his. That was one of the occupational hazards of police work - villains didn't have the courtesy to keep to office hours. He should not be going out tonight, he knew. Should have stayed home, preparing himself for tomorrow. Tugging out the bottle, he drank some more water. His mouth was dry, parched. Leaden butterflies flip-flopped in his belly. Friends had pushed him into a handful of blind dates over the past few years, and each time he'd been a bag of nerves before he'd shown up. The nerves were even worse tonight, and, not having had a chance to shower and change, he felt uncomfortable about his appearance. All his detailed planning about what he was going to wear had gone out of the window, thanks to the two punks. One of them had fired a sawn-off shotgun at an off-duty cop who had come too close to the jewellery shop - but luckily not quite close enough. Roy had seen, more times than he had needed, the effects of a 12-bore fired from a few feet at a human being. It could shear off a limb or punch a hole the size of a football through their chest. This cop, a detective called Bill Green who Grace knew - they had played rugger on the same team a few times - had been peppered from about thirty yards. At this distance the pellets could just about have brought down a pheasant or a rabbit, but not a fifteen-stone scrum prop in a leather jacket. Bill Green was relatively lucky - his jacket had shielded his body but he had several pellets embedded in his face, including one in his left eye.

By the time Grace had got to the scene, the punks were already in custody, after crashing and rolling their getaway Jeep. He was determined to stick them with an attempted murder charge on top of armed robbery. He hated the way more and more criminals were using guns in the UK - and forcing more and more police to have firearms to hand. In his father's day armed cops would have been unheard of. Now in some cities forces kept guns in the boots of their cars as routine. Grace wasn't naturally a vengeful person, but so far as he was concerned, anyone who fired a gun at a police officer - or at any innocent person - should be hanged.

The traffic still wasn't moving. He looked at the dash clock, at the rain falling, at the clock again, at the burning red tail lights of the car in front - the prat had his fogs on, almost dazzling him. Then he checked his watch, hoping the car clock might be wrong. But it wasn't. Ten whole minutes had passed and they hadn't moved an inch. Nor had any traffic come past from the opposite direction.

Shards of blue light flitted across his interior mirror and wing mirror. Then he heard a siren. A patrol car screamed past. Then an ambulance. Another patrol car, flat out, followed by two fire engines.

Shit. There had been road works when he'd come this way a couple of days ago, and he'd figured that was the reason for the delay. But now he realized it must be an accident, and fire engines meant it was a bad one.

Another fire engine went past. Then another ambulance, twosandblues full on. Followed by a rescue truck.

He looked at the clock again: 9.15 p.m. He should have picked her up three-quarters of an hour ago, in Tunbridge Wells, which was still a good twenty minutes away without this holdup.

Terry Miller, a newly divorced Detective Inspector in Grace's division, had been regaling him with boasts about his conquests from a couple of internet dating sites and urging Grace to sign up. Boy had resisted, then, when he started finding suggestive emails in his inbox from different women, found out to his fury that Terry Miller had signed him up to a site called U-Date without telling him.

He still had no idea what had prompted him to actually respond (o one of the emails. Loneliness? Curiosity? Lust? He wasn't sure. For the past eight years he had got through life just by going steadily from day to day. Some days he tried to forget, other days he felt guilty for not remembering.

Sandy.

Now he was suddenly feeling guilty for going on this date.

She looked gorgeous - from her photo, at any rate. He liked her name, too. Claudine. French-sounding, it had something exotic. Her picture was hot! Amber hair, seriously pretty face, tight blouse showing a weapons-grade bust, sitting on the edge of a bed with a miniskirt pulled high enough to show she was wearing lace-topped hold-ups and might not be wearing knickers.

They'd had just one phone conversation, in which she had practically seduced him down the line. A bunch of flowers he'd bought at a petrol station lay on the passenger seat beside him. Red roses corny, he knew, but that was the old-fashioned romantic in him. People were right, he did need to move on, somehow. He could count the dates he'd had in the past eight and three-quarter years on just one hand. He simply could not accept there might be another Miss Right out there. That there could ever be anyone who matched up to Sandy.

Maybe tonight that feeling would change?

Claudine Lamont. Nice name, nice voice.

Turn those sodding fog lamps off!

He smelled the sweet scent of the flowers. Hoped he smelled OK, too.

In the ambient glow from the Alfa's dash and the tail lights of the

car in front, he stared up at the mirror, unsure what he expected to see. Sadness stared back at him.

You have to move on.

He swallowed more water. Yup.

In just over two months he would be thirty-nine. In just over two months also another anniversary loomed. On 26 July Sandy would have been gone for nine years. Vanished into thin air, on his thirtieth birthday. No note. All her belongings still in the house except for her handbag.

After seven years you could have someone declared legally dead. His mother, in her hospice bed, days before she passed away from cancer, his sister, his closest friends, his shrink, all of them told him he should do that.

No way.

John Lennon had said, 'life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.' That sure as hell was true.

By thirty-six he had always assumed Sandy and he would have had a family. Three kids had always been his dream, ideally two boys and a girl, and his weekends would be spent doing stuff with them. Family holidays. Going to the beach. Out on day trips to fun places. Playing ball games. Fixing things. Helping them at nights with homework. Bathing them. All the comfortable stuff he'd done with his own parents.

Instead he was consumed with an inner turbulence that rarely left him, even when it allowed him to sleep. Was she alive or dead? He'd spent eight years and ten months trying to find out and was still no nearer to the truth than when he had started.

Outside of work, life was a void. He'd been unable - or unwilling - to attempt another relationship. Every date he'd been on was a disaster. It seemed at times that his only constant companion in his life was his goldfish, Marlon. He'd won the fish by target shooting at a fairground, nine years ago, and it had eaten all his subsequent attempts to provide it with a companion. Marlon was a surly, antisocial creature. Probably why they liked each other, Roy reflected. They were two of a kind.

Sometimes he wished he wasn't a policeman, that he did some less demanding job where he could switch off at five o'clock, go to

the pub and then home, put his feet up in front of the telly. Normal iUfe. But he couldn't help it. There was some stubbornness or deter lation gene - or bunch of genes - inside him - and his father before him - that had driven him relentlessly throughout his life to |jHirsue facts, to pursue the truth. It was those genes that had brought

him up through the ranks, to his relatively early promotion to Detecjftlve Superintendent. But they hadn't brought him any peace of mind.

His face stared back at him again from the mirror. Grace grimced at his reflection, at his hair cropped short, to little more than a light fuzz, at his nose, squashed and kinked after being broken In a scrap when he'd been a beat copper, which gave him the appearance of a retired prize fighter.

On their first date, Sandy had told him he had eyes like Paul Newman. He'd liked that a lot. It was one of a million things he had liked about her. The fact that she had loved everything about him, unconditionally.

Roy Grace knew that he was physically fairly unimpressive. At five foot, ten inches, he had been just two inches over the minimum height restriction when he'd joined the police, nineteen years back. But despite his love of booze, and an on-off battle with cigarettes, through hard work at the police gym he had developed a powerful physique, and had kept in shape, running twenty miles a week, and still playing the occasional game of rugger - usually on the wing.

Nine-twenty.

Bloody hell.

He seriously did not want a late night. Did not need one. Could not afford one. He was in court tomorrow, and needed to bank a full night's sleep. The whole thought of the cross-examination that awaited him pressed all kinds of bad buttons inside him.

A pool of light suddenly flooded down from above him, and he heard the clattering din of a helicopter. After a moment the light moved forward, and he saw the helicopter descending.

He dialled a number on his mobile. It was answered almost immediately.

'Hi, it's Detective Superintendent Grace speaking. I'm sitting in a traffic jam on the A26 south of Crowborough, there seems to be an accident somewhere ahead - can you give me any information?'

He was put through to the headquarters operations room. A male voice said, 'Hello, Detective Superintendent, there's a major accident. We have reports of fatalities and people trapped. The road's going to be blocked for a while - you'd be best turning around and using another route.'

Roy Grace thanked him and disconnected. Then he pulled his Blackberry from his shirt pocket, looked up Claudine's number and texted her.

She texted back almost instantly, telling him not to worry, just to get there when he could.

This made him warm to her even more.

And it helped him forget about tomorrow.

Drives like this didn't happen very often, but when they did, boy, did Davey enjoy them! He sat strapped in the passenger seat next to his dad, as the police car escort raced on in front of them, blue lights flashing, siren whup, whup, whupping, on the wrong side of the road, overtaking mile after mile of stationary traffic. Boy, this was as good as any fairground ride his dad had taken him on, even the ones at Alton Towers, and they were about as good as it gets!

'Yeeeha!' he cried out, exuberantly. Davey was addicted to American cop shows on television, which was why he liked to talk with an American accent. Sometimes he was from New York. Sometimes from Missouri. Sometimes Miami. But mostly from LA.

Phil Wheeler, a hulk of a man, with a massive beer belly, dressed in his work uniform of brown dungarees, scuffed boots and black beanie hat, smiled at his son, riding along beside him. Years back his wife had cracked and left from the strain of caring for Davey. For the past seventeen years he had brought him up on his own.

The cop car was slowing now, passing a line of heavy, earth moving plant. The tow-truck had 'wheeler's auto recovery' emblazoned on both sides and amber strobes on the cab roof. Ahead through the windscreen, the battery of headlights and spotlights picked up first the mangled front end of the Transit van, still partially embedded beneath the front bumper of the cement truck, then the rest of the van, crushed like a Coke can, lying on its side in a demolished section of hedgerow.

Slivers of blue flashing light skidded across the wet tarmac and shiny grass verge. Fire tenders, police cars and one ambulance were still on the scene, and a whole bunch of people, firemen and cops, mostly in reflective jackets, stood around. One cop was sweeping glass from the road with a broom,

A police photographer's camera flashed. Two crash investigators were laying out a measuring tape. Metal and glass litter glinted

everywhere. Phil Wheeler saw a wheel-wrench, a trainer, a rug, a jacket.

'Sure looks a goddamn bad mess, Dad!' Missouri tonight.

'Very bad.'

Phil Wheeler had become hardened over the years, and nothing much shocked him any more. He'd seen just about every tragedy one could possibly have in a motor car. A headless businessman, still in a suit jacket, shirt and tie, strapped into the driver's seat in the remains of his Ferrari, was among the images he remembered most vividly.

Davey, just turned twenty-six, was dressed in his uniform New York Yankees baseball cap the wrong way around, fleece jacket over lumberjack shirt, jeans, heavy-duty boots. Davey liked to dress the way he saw Americans dress, on television. The boy had a mental age of about six, and that would never change. But he had a superhuman physical strength that often came in handy on call-outs. Davey could bend sheet metal with his bare hands. Once, he had lifted the front end of a car off a trapped motorcycle by himself.

'Very bad,' he agreed. 'Reckon there are dead people here, Dad?'

'Hope not, Davey.'

'Reckon there might be?'

A traffic cop, with a peaked cap and yellow fluorescent waistcoat, came up to the driver's window. Phil wound it down and recognized the officer.

'Evening, Brian. This looks a mess.'

'There's a vehicle with lifting gear on its way for the lorry. Can you handle the van?'

'No worries. What happened?'

'Head-on, Transit and the lorry. We need the van in the AI compound.' 'Consider it sorted.'

Davey took his flashlight and climbed down from the cab. While his dad talked to the cop, he shone the beam around, down at slicks of oil and foam across the road. Then he peered inquisitively at the tall, square ambulance, its interior light shining behind drawn curtains across the rear window, wondering what might be happening in there.

It was almost two hours before they had all the pieces of the Transit loaded and chained onto the flatbed. His dad and the traffic cop, Brian, walked off a short distance. Phil lit a cigarette with his Itorm-proof lighter. Davey followed them, making a one-handed roll-up and lighting it with his Zippo. The ambulance and most of the Other emergency vehicles had gone, and a massive crane truck was Winching the front end of the cement lorry up, until its front wheels - the driver's-side one flat and buckled - were clear of the ground.

The rain had eased off and a badger moon shone through a break In the clouds. His dad and Brian were now talking about fishing - the best bait for carp at this time of year. Bored now and in need of a pee, Davey wandered off down the road, sucking on his roll-up, looking up in the sky for bats. He liked bats, mice, rats, voles, all those kinds of creatures. In fact he liked all animals. Animals never laughed at him the way humans used to, when he was at school. Maybe he'd go out to the badger sett when they got home. He liked to sit out there In the moonlight and watch them play.

Jigging the flashlight beam, he walked a short distance into the bushes, unzipped his fly and emptied his bladder onto a clump of nettles. Just as he finished, a voice called out, right in front of him, startling the hell out of him.

'Hey, hello?'

A crackly, disembodied voice.

Davey jumped.

Then he heard the voice again.

'Hello?'

'Shite!' He shone the beam ahead into the undergrowth but couldn't see anyone. 'Hello?' he called back. Moments later he heard the voice again.

'Hello? Hey, hello? Josh? Luke? Pete? Robbo?'

Davey swung the beam left, right, then further ahead. There was a rustling sound and a rabbit tail bobbed, for an instant, in the beam then was gone. 'Hello, who's that?'

Silence.

A hiss of static. A crackle. Then, only a few feet to his right, he heard the voice again. 'Hello? Hello? Hello?'

Something glinted in a bush. He knelt down. It was a radio, with

tmn smmuw

an aerial. Inspecting it closer, with some excitement he realized it was a walkietalkie.

He held the beam on it, studying it for a little while, almost nervous of touching it. Then he picked it up. It was heavier than it looked, cold, wet. Beneath a large green button he could see the word talk.

He pressed it and said, 'Hello!'

A voice jumped straight back at him. 'Who's that?'

Then another voice called out, from some distance away. 'Davey!'

His dad.

'OK, coming!' he yelled back.

Walking on to the road he pressed the green button again. 'This is Davey!' he said. 'Who are you?'

'DAVWEEEEEYYYY!'

His dad again.

In his panic, Davey dropped the radio. It hit the road hard, the casing cracked and the batteries spilled out.

'COMING!' he shouted. He knelt, picked up the walkie-talkie and crammed it furtively into his jacket pocket. Then he scooped up the batteries and put them in another pocket.

'COMING, DAD!' he shouted again. 'JUST HAD TO TAKE ME A PISS!'

Keeping his hand in his pocket so the bulge wouldn't show, he hurried back towards the truck.

Michael pressed the talk button. 'Davey?'

Silence.

He pressed the button again. 'Davey? Hello? Davey?'

White-satin silence. Complete and utter silence, coming down from above, rising up beneath him, pressing in from each side. He tried to move his arms, but as hard as he pushed them out, walls pressed back against them. He also tried to spread out his legs, but they met the same, unyielding walls. Resting the walkie-talkie on his chest, he pushed up against the satin roof inches from his eyes. It was like pushing against concrete.

Then, raising himself up as much as he could, he took hold of the red rubber tube, squinted down it, but could see nothing. Curling his hand over it, he brought it to his lips and tried to whistle down it; but the sound was pathetic.

He sank back down. His head pounded and he badly needed to urinate. He pressed the button again. 'Davey! Davey, I need to pee. Davey!'

Silence again.

From years of sailing, he'd had plenty of experience with two-way radios. Try a different channel, he thought. He found the channel selector, but it wouldn't move. He pushed harder, but it still wouldn't move. Then he saw the reason why - it had been superglued, so that he couldn't change channels - couldn't get to Channel 16, the international emergency channel.

'Hey! Enough you bastards, come on, I'm desperate!'

With only the most local of movements possible, he held the walkie-talkie close to his ear and listened.

Nothing.

He laid the radio down on his chest, then slowly, with great difficulty, worked his right hand down and into his leather jacket pocket and pulled out the rugged waterproof mobile Ashley had given him for sailing. He liked it because it was different to the common mobiles everyone else had. He pressed a button on it and the display lit up. His hopes rose - then fell again. No signal.

'Shit.'

He scrolled through the directory until he came to his business partner Mark's name.

Mark Mob.

Despite the lack of a signal he pressed the dial button.

Nothing happened.

He tried Robbo, Pete, Luke, Josh in turn, his desperation increasing. Then he pressed the walkie-talkie button again. 'Guys! Can you hear me? I know you can fucking hear me!'

Nothing.

On the Ericsson display the time showed 11.13.

He raised his left hand until he could see his watch: 11.14.

He tried to remember the last time he'd looked at it. A good two hours had passed. He closed his eyes. Thought for some moments, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. In the bright, almost dazzling light from the torch he could see the bottle wedged close to his neck and the shiny magazine. He pulled the magazine up over his chest, then manoeuvred it until it was over his face and he was almost smothered by the huge glossy breasts, so close to his eyes they were blurred.

You bastards!

He picked up the walkie-talkie and pressed the talk button once more. 'Very funny. Now let me out, please!'

Nothing.

Who the hell was Davey?

His throat was parched. Needed a drink of water. His head was swimming. He wanted to be home, in bed with Ashley. They'd be along in a few minutes. Just had to wait. Tomorrow, he would get them.

The nausea he had been feeling earlier was returning. He closed his eyes. Swimming. Drifting. He lapsed back into sleep.

In a crappy end to a crappy flight, the whole plane shook with a resounding crash as the wheels thumped the tarmac, exactly five and a half hours later than its scheduled time. As it decelerated ferociously, Mark Warren, worn out and fed up, in his cramped seat, safety belt digging into his belly, which was already aching from too many airline pretzels and some vile moussaka that he was regretting eating, took a final look at the pictures of the Ferrari 365 featured in the road test of his Autocar magazine.

I want you, baby, he was thinking. Want you SO bad! Oh yes I do!

Runway lights, blurred by driving rain, flashed past his window as the plane slowed down to taxiing speed. The pilot's voice came over the intercom, all charm, and apologies once more, laying the blame on the fog.

Goddamn fog. Goddamn English weather. Mark dreamed of a red Ferrari, a house in Marbella, a life in the sunshine and someone to share it with. One very special lady. If the property deal he had been negotiating up in Leeds came off, he'd be a step nearer both the house and the Ferrari. The lady was another problem.

Wearily, he undipped his belt, dug his briefcase out from under his legs and shoved his magazine inside it. Then he stood up, mixing with the scrum in the cabin, leaving his tie at half mast, and pulled his raincoat down from the overhead locker, too tired to care how he looked.

In contrast to his business partner, who always dressed sloppily, Mark usually was fastidious over his appearance. But like his neat, fair hair, his clothes were too conservatively cut for his twenty-eight years, and usually so pristine they looked brand new, straight off the rail. He liked to imagine the world saw him as a gentrified entrepreneur, but in reality, in any group of people, he invariably stood out as the man who looked as if he was there to sell them something.

His watch read 11.48 p.m. He switched on his mobile, and it powered up. But before he could make a call, the battery warning beeped and the display died. He put it back in his pocket. Too damned late now, far too late. All that he wanted now was to go home to bed.

An hour later he was reversing his silver BMWX5 into his underground parking slot in the Van Allen building. He took the lift up to the fourth floor, and let himself into his apartment.

It had been a financial stretch to buy this place, but it took him a step up in the world. An imposing, modern Deco-style building on Brighton seafront, with a bunch of celebrities among the residents. The place had class. If you lived in the Van Allen you were a somebody. If you were a somebody, that meant you were rich. All his life, Mark had had just that one goal - to be rich.

The voicemail light was winking away on the phone as he walked through to the large, open-plan living area. He decided to ignore it for a moment as he dumped his briefcase, plugged his mobile into the charger, then went straight to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a couple of fingers of Balvenie whisky. Then he walked over to the window, stared down at the promenade below, still buzzing with people despite the weather and the hour. Beyond that he could see the bright lights of the Palace Pier and the inky darkness of the sea.

All of a sudden his mobile beeped sharply at him. A message. He stepped over and looked at the display. Shit. Fourteen new messages!

Keeping it connected to the charger, he dialled his voicemail box. The first message was from Pete, at 7 p.m., asking where he was. The second was from Robbo at 7.45, helpfully telling him they were moving on to another pub, the Lamb at Ripe. The third was at 8.30 from a very drunken-sounding Luke and Josh, with Robbo in the background. They were moving on from the Lamb to a pub called the Dragon, on the Uckfield Road.

The next two messages were from the estate agent concerning the deal in Leeds, and from their corporate lawyer.

The sixth was at 11.05 from a very distressed-sounding Ashley. Her tone startled him. Ashley was normally calm, unflappable.

'Mark, please, please, please call me as soon as you get this,' she urged in her soft, distinctive North American accent.

He hesitated, then listened to the next message. It was from Ashley again. Panicky now. And the next, and the next one after that, each at ten-minute intervals. The tenth message was from Michael's mother. She also sounded distraught.

'Mark, I left a message on your home phone, too. Please call me as soon as you get this, doesn't matter what time.'

Mark paused the machine. What the hell had happened?

The next call had been Ashley again. She sounded close to hysterics. 'Mark, there's been a terrible accident. Pete, Robbo and Luke are dead. Josh is on life support in Intensive Care. No one knows where Michael is. Oh God, Mark, please call me just as soon as you get this.'

Mark replayed the message, scarcely able to believe what he had heard. As he listened to it again he sat down, heavily, on the arm of the sofa. 'Jesus.'

Then he played the rest of the messages. More of the same from Ashley and from Michael's mother. Call. Call. Please call.

He drained his whisky, then poured out another slug, three full fingers, and walked over to the window. Through the ghost of his reflection he stared down again at the promenade, watching the passing traffic, then out at the sea. Way out towards the horizon he could see two tiny specks of light, from a freighter or tanker making its way up the Channel.

He was thinking.

I would have been in that accident, too, if the flight had been on time.

But he was thinking beyond that.

He sipped the whisky, then sat down on the sofa. After a few moments, the phone rang again. He walked over and stared at the caller display. Ashley's number. Four rings, then it stopped. Moments later, his mobile rang. Ashley again. He hesitated, then hit the end call button sending it straight to voicemail. Then he switched the phone off, and sat down, leaned back, pulling up the footrest, and cradled the glass in his hands.

Ice cubes rattled in his glass; his hands were shaking, he realized; his whole insides were shaking. He went over to the Bang and

Olufsen and put on a Mozart compilation CD. Mozart always helped him to think. Suddenly, he had a lot of thinking to do.

He sat back down, stared into the whisky, focusing intently on the ice cubes as if they were runes that had been cast. It was over an hour before he picked up the phone and dialled.

The spasms were getting more frequent now. By clenching his thighs together, holding his breath and squeezing his eyes shut, Michael was still just able to ward off urinating in his trousers. He couldn't do this, could not bear the thought of their laughter when the bastards came back and found he had wet himself.

But the claustrophobia was really getting to him now. The white satin seemed to be shrinking in around him, pressing down closer and closer to his face.

In the beam of the torch, Michael's watch read 2.47.

Shit.

What the hell were they playing at? Two forty-seven. Where the hell were they? Pissed out of their brains in some nightclub?

He stared at the white satin, his head pounding, his mouth parched, his legs knocking together, trying to suppress the pains shooting up through him from his bladder. He didn't know how much longer he could hold off.

In frustration, he hammered with his knuckles on the lid, and hollered, 'Hey! You bastards!'

He looked at his mobile again. No signal. Ignoring that, he scrolled down to Luke's number then hit the dial button. A sharp beep from the machine, and the display on the screen read out no service.

Then he fumbled for the walkie-talkie, switched that on and called out the names of his friends again. And then that other voice he dimly remembered.

'Davey? Hello, Davey?'

Only the crackle of static came back to him.

He was desperate for water, his mouth arid and furry. Had they left him any water? He lifted his neck up just the few inches that were available before his head struck the lid, saw the glint of the bottle, reached down. Famous Grouse whisky.

Disappointed, he broke the seal, unscrewed the cap and took a swig. For a moment just the sensation of liquid felt like balm in his mouth; then it turned to fire, burning his mouth, then his gullet. But almost instantly after that he felt a little better. He took another swig. Felt a little better still, and took a third, long swig before he replaced the cap.

He closed his eyes. His headache felt a tiny bit better now. The desire to pee was receding.

'Bastards ...' he murmured.

Ashley looked like a ghost. Her long brown hair framed a face that was as colourless as the patients' in the forest of drip lines, ventilators and monitors in the beds in the ward behind her. She was leaning against the reception counter of the nursing station in the Intensive Care Unit of the Sussex County Hospital. Her vulnerability made her seem even more beautiful than ever, to Mark.

Muzzy from a sleepless night, in a sharp suit and immaculate black Gucci loafers, he walked up to her, put his arms around her, and held her tight. He stared at a vending machine, a drinking water fountain, and a payphone in a perspex dome. Hospitals always gave him the heebie-jeebies. Ever since he'd come to visit his dad after his near fatal heart attack and saw this man who had once been so strong now looking so frail, so damned pathetic and useless - and scared. He squeezed Ashley as much for himself as for her. Close to her head, a cursor blinked on a green computer screen.

She clung to him as if he were a lone spar in a storm-tossed ocean. 'Oh, Christ, Mark, thank God you're here.'

One nurse was busy on the phone; it sounded like she was talking to a relative of someone in the unit, the other one behind the counter, close to them, was tapping out something on a keyboard.

'This is terrible,' Mark said. 'Unbelievable.'

Ashley nodded, swallowing hard. 'If it wasn't for your meeting, you would have been--'

'I know. I can't stop thinking about it. How's Josh?'

Ashley's hair smelled freshly washed, and there was a trace of garlic on her breath, which he barely noticed. The girls had had a hen party last night, arranged in some Italian restaurant.

'Not good. Zoe's with him.' She pointed and Mark followed the line of her finger, across several beds, across the hiss-clunk of ventilators, and the blinking of digital displays, to the far end of the ward, where he could see Josh's wife sitting on a chair. She was dressed in

a white T-shirt, tracksuit top and baggy trousers, body stooped, her straggly blonde ringlets covering her face.

'Michael still hasn't turned up. Where is he, Mark? Surely to God you must know?'

As the nurse finished her call, the phone beeped and she started talking again.

'I've no idea/ he said. 'I have absolutely no idea.'

She looked at him hard. 'But you guys have been planning this for weeks - Lucy said you were going to get even with Michael for all the practical jokes he played on the others before they got married.' As she took a step back from him, tossing hair from her forehead, Mark could see her mascara had run. She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve.

'Maybe the guys had a last-minute change of mind,' he said. 'Sure, they'd come up with all kinds of ideas, like lacing his drink and putting him on a plane to some place, but I managed to talk them out of it - at least I thought I had.'

She gave a wan smile of appreciation.

He shrugged. 'I knew how worried you were, you know, that we'd do something dumb.'

'I was, desperately worried.' She glanced at the nurse, then sniffed. 'So where is he?'

'He definitely wasn't in the car?'

'Absolutely not. I've rung the police - they say that - they say they--' She began sobbing.

'What did they say?'

In a burst of anger she blurted, 'They won't do anything.'

She sobbed some more, struggling to contain herself. 'They say they've checked all around at the scene of the accident and there's no sign of him, and that he's probably just sleeping off a mighty hangover somewhere.'

Mark waited for her to calm down, but she carried on crying. 'Maybe that's true.'

She shook her head. 'He promised me he wasn't going to get drunk.' Mark gave her a look. After a moment, she nodded. 'It was his stag night, right? That's what you guys do on stag nights, isn't it? You get smashed.'

Mark stared down at grey carpet tiles. 'Let's go and see Zoe,' he said.

Ashley followed him across the ward, trailing a few yards behind him. Zoe was a slender beauty, and today she seemed even more slender to Mark, as he laid his hand on her shoulder, feeling the hard bone beneath the soft fabric of her designer tracksuit top.

'Jeez, Zoe, I'm sorry'

She acknowledged him with a faint shrug.

'How is he?' Mark hoped the anxiety in his voice sounded genuine.

Zoe turned her head and looked up at him, her eyes raw, her cheeks, almost translucent without make-up, tracked with tears. 'They can't do anything,' she said. 'They operated on him, now we just have to wait.'

Mark stood still, staring down at Josh, whose eyes were closed, his face a mess of bruises and lacerations, the bed surrounded by racks of machinery. There was a drip line cannulated into his hand, and another opaque line was forked into his nostrils. A thick breathing tube, fed by black bellows, distended his mouth. Wires ran out from the sheets and from his head, feeding digital displays and spiky graphs. What flesh Mark could see was the colour of alabaster. His friend looked like a laboratory experiment.

But Mark was barely looking at Josh. He was looking at the displays, trying to read them, to calculate what they were saying. He was trying to remember, from when he had stood in this same room beside his dying father, which were the ECG, the blood oxygen, the blood pressure readings, and what they all meant.

And he was thinking. Josh had always had it made. Smooth good looks, rich parents. The insurance loss adjuster, always calculating, mapping out his life, forever talking about five-year plans, ten-year plans, life goals. He was the first of the gang to get married, as he wanted to have kids early, so he would still be young enough to enjoy his life after they'd grown up. Marrying the perfect wife, darling little rich girl Zoe, totally fertile, allowed him to fulfil his plan. She'd delivered him two equally perfect babies in rapid succession.

Mark shot a glance around the ward, taking in the nurses, the doctors, marking their positions, then his eyes dropped to the drip lines into the back of Josh's hand, just behind the plastic tag bearing his name. Then they moved across to the ventilator. Then up to the ECG. Warning buzzers would sound if the heart rate dropped too low. Or the blood oxygen level.

Josh surviving would be a problem - he'd lain awake most of the night thinking about that, and had come to the reluctant conclusion it wasn't an option he could entertain.

Courtroom One at Lewes Crown Court always felt to Roy Grace as if it had been deliberately designed to intimidate and impress. It didn't carry any higher status than the rest of the courtrooms in this buildIng, but it felt as if it did. Georgian, it had a high, vaulted ceiling, a public gallery up in the gods, oak-panelled walls, dark oak benches and dock, and a balustraded witness stand. At this moment it was presided over by a bewigged Judge Driscoll, way past his sell-by date, who sat, looking half asleep, in a vivid red-backed chair beneath the coat of arms bearing the legend. 'Dieu et mon droit'. The place looked like a theatre set and smelled like an old school classroom.

Now as Grace stood in the witness stand, dressed neatly as he always was for court, in a blue suit, white shirt, sombre tie and polished black lace-ups, looking good outwardly, he felt ragged inside. Part lack of sleep from his date last night - which had been a disaster - and part nerves. Holding the bible with one hand, he rattled his way through the oath, glancing around, taking in the scene as he swore for maybe the thousandth time in his career, by Almighty God, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The jury looked the way all juries did, like a bunch of tourists stranded in a coach station. An untidy, ragbag of a group, gaudy pullovers, open-throat shirts and creased blouses beneath a sea of blank faces, all white, ranked in two rows, behind water jugs, tumblers and a mess of loose-leaf jottings. Haphazardly stacked beside the judge were a video player, a slide projector and a huge tape recorder. Below him, the female stenographer peered primly from behind a battery of electronic equipment. An electric fan on a chair swivelled right then left, not having much impact on the muggy late-afternoon air. The public galleries were heaving with press and spectators. Nothing like a murder trial to pull the punters in. And this was the local trial of the year.

Roy Grace's big triumph.

Suresh Hossain sat in the dock, a fleshy man with a pockmarked face, slicked-back hair, dressed in a brown, chalk-striped suit and purple satin tie. He observed the proceedings with a laconic gaze, as if he owned the place and this whole trial had been laid on for his personal entertainment. Slimeball, scumbag, slum landlord. He'd been untouchable for the past decade, but now Roy Grace had finally banged him to rights. Conspiracy to murder. His victim an equally unsavoury business rival, Raymond Cohen. If this trial went the way it should, Hossain was going down for more years than he would survive, and several hundred decent citizens of Brighton and Have would be able to enjoy uieir lives in their homes freed from the ugly shadow of his henchmen making every hour a living hell for them.

His mind drifted back to last night. Claudine. Claudine bloody Lamont. OK, it hadn't helped that he'd arrived for his date an hour and three-quarters late. But it hadn't helped either that her photograph on the U-Date website was, charitably, a good ten years out of date; nor that she'd omitted to put on her details that she was a non drinking, cop-hating vegan, whose sole interest in life appeared to be her nine rescue cats.

Grace liked dogs. He had nothing in particular against cats, but he'd never yet met one that he'd connected with, in the way he almost instantly bonded with any dog. After two and a half hours in a dump of a vegetarian restaurant in Guildford, being lectured and grilled alternately about the free spirits of cats, the oppressive nature of the British police and men who viewed women solely as sex objects, he had been relieved to escape.

Now, after a night of troubled, intermittent sleep and a day of hanging around waiting to be called, he was about to be grilled again. It was still raining this afternoon, but the air was much warmer and clammy. Grace could feel perspiration walking down the small of his back.

The defence silk, who had surprised the court by summoning him as a witness, had the floor now, standing up, arrogant stature, short grey wig, flowing black gown, lips pursed into a grin of rictus warmth. His name was Richard Charwell QC. Grace had encountered him before and it had not been a happy experience, then. He detested lawyers. To lawyers, trials were a game. They never had to go out and risk their lives catching villains. And it didn't matter one jot to them what crimes had been committed.

'Are you Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, stationed at CID headquarters, Sussex House, Hollingbury, Brighton?' the silk asked.

'Yes,' Grace answered. Instead of his usual confident voice, his reply came out of the wrong part of his throat, more like a croak.

'And have you had some dealings with this case?'

'Yes.' Another choked, dry-mouthed sound.

'I now tender this witness.'

There was a brief pause. No one spoke. Richard Charwell QC had the ear of the entire court. A consummate actor with distinguished good looks, he paused deliberately for effect before speaking again, in a sudden change of tone that suggested he had now become Roy Grace's new best friend.

'Detective Superintendent, I wonder if you might help us with a certain matter. Do you have any knowledge about a shoe connected with this case? A brown crocodile-skin slip-on loafer with a gold chain?'

Grace eyeballed him back for some moments before answering. 'Yes, I do.' Now, suddenly, he felt a stab of panic. Even before the barrister spoke his next words, he had a horrible feeling about where this might be going.

Are you going to tell us about the person to whom you took this shoe, Detective Superintendent, or do you want me to squeeze it out of you?'

'Well, sir, I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at.'

'Detective Superintendent, I think you know very well what I'm getting at.'

Judge Driscoll, with the bad temper of a man disturbed from a nap, intervened: 'Mr Charwell, kindly get to the point, we haven't got all day.'

Unctuously, the silk responded, 'Very well, your honour.' Then he turned back to Grace. 'Detective Superintendent, is it not a fact that you have interfered with a vital piece of evidence in this case? Namely this shoe?'

The silk picked it up from the exhibits table and held it aloft for the entire court to see, the way he might have been holding up a sporting trophy he had just won.

'I wouldn't say I had interfered with it all,' Grace responded, angered by the man's arrogance - but, equally, aware this was the silk's game plan, to wind him up, wanting to rile him.

Charwell lowered the shoe, pensively. 'Oh, I see, you don't consider that you have interfered with it?' Without waiting for Grace to answer, he went on. 'I put it to you that you have abused your position by removing a piece of evidence and taking it to a dabbler in the dark arts.'

Turning to Judge Driscoll, he continued. 'Your honour, I intend to show this court that the DNA evidence that has been obtained from this shoe is unsafe, because Detective Superintendent Grace has affected the continuity and caused possible contamination of this vital exhibit.'

He turned back to Grace. 'I am correct, am I not, Detective Superintendent, that on Thursday, March 9th of this year, you took this shoe to a so-called medium in Hastings named Mrs Stempe? And presumably we are going to hear from you that this shoe has now been to another world? A rather ethereal one?'

'Mrs Stempe is a lady of whom I have a very high opinion,' Grace said. 'She--'

'We are not concerned with your opinions, Detective Superintendent, just the facts.'

But the judge's curiosity seemed piqued. 'I think his opinions are perfectly relevant in this issue.' After a few moments of silent stand-off between the defence silk and the judge, Charwell nodded reluctant assent.

Grace continued. 'She has helped me on a number of enquiries in the past. Three years ago Mary Stempe gave me sufficient information to enable me to put a name to a murder suspect. It led directly to his arrest and subsequent conviction.'

He hesitated, aware of the intense gazes of everyone in the room, then went on, addressing the silk. 'If I may respond to your concerns over continuity of the exhibit, sir. If you had checked through the records, which you are entitled to do, and looked at the packaging, you would have seen the label was signed and dated when I removed

I when I returned it. The defence have been aware of this exhibit , the start, which was found outside Mr Cohen's house on the : he disappeared, and have never asked to examine it/ i you regularly turn to the dark arts in your work as a senior I officer, do you, Detective Superintendent Grace?' �An audible snigger rippled round the courtroom. 1 lf wouldn't call it the dark arts,' Grace said. 'I would call it an itive resource. The police have a duty to use everything at their josal in trying to solve crimes.'

'So would it be fair to say you are a man of the occult? A believer t the supernatural?' the silk asked.

Grace looked at Judge Driscoll, who was staring at him as if it was I himself who was now on trial in this court. Desperately trying to lk of an appropriate response, he shot a glance at the jury, then public gallery, before he faced the silk again. And suddenly it le to him.

Grace's voice notched up a gear, more strident, more confident, uddenly. 'What is the first thing this court required me to do when it entered the witness stand?' he asked.

Before the silk could respond, Grace answered for him. 'To swear on the Holy Bible.' He paused for it to sink in. 'God is a supernatural being - the supreme supernatural being. In a court that accepts witnesses taking an oath to a supernatural being, it would be Strange if I and everyone else in this room did not believe in the supernatural.'

'I have no more questions,' the silk said, sitting back down. The prosecution counsel, also in a wig and silk gown, stood up and addressed Judge Driscoll. 'Your honour, this is a matter I want to raise in chambers.'

'It's rather unusual,' Judge Driscoll responded, 'but I'm satisfied that it has been dealt with properly. However,' and now his eyes turned to Grace, 'I would hope cases that come before my court are based on evidence rather than the utterings of Mystic Megs.' Almost the whole court erupted into laughter. The trial moved on, and another defence witness was called, a bagman for Suresh Hossain called Rubiro Valiente. Roy Grace stayed to listen while this piece of Italian low-life told a pack of lies, which

were exposed in rapid succession by the prosecution counsel. By the afternoon recess, the court was so agog with the audacity of the lies that Roy Grace began to hope the business of the shoe might have been overshadowed.

His hopes were dashed when he went outside into Lewes High Street to get some fresh air and a sandwich. Across the street, the news banner headline of the local paper, the Argus, shouted to the world:

POLICE OFFICER ADMITS TO OCCULT PRACTICES

Suddenly, he felt badly in need of a drink and a fag.

The hunger wouldn't go away no matter how hard Michael tried to block it from his mind. His stomach reminded him with a steady dull ache as if something were chafing away inside it. His head felt light and his hands shaky. He kept thinking of food, of meaty burgers with thick-cut fries and ketchup. When he pushed those from his mind, the smell of broiling lobsters replaced it; then barbecued corn; grilled garlicky mushrooms; eggs frying; sausages; sizzling bacon.

The lid was pressing down against his face and he began to panic again, snatching at the air, gulping it greedily. He closed his eyes, tried to imagine he was fine, he was somewhere warm, on his yacht - in the Med. Lapping water all around, gulls overhead, balmy Mediterranean air. But the sides of the coffin were pushing in. Compressing him. He fumbled for the torch resting on his chest and switched it on, the battery feeble and rapidly failing now. Carefully unscrewing the cap of the whisky bottle with trembling fingers, he brought the neck to his lips. Then he took one miserly sip, swilling the liquid around his parched, sticky mouth, stretching every drop out as far as it would go, savouring every second. The panic subsided and his breathing slowed.

Only some minutes after he had swallowed, after the warm burning sensation that spread down his gullet and through his stomach had faded away, did he turn his concentration back to the task of screwing the lid back on. Half a bottle left. One sip per hour, on the hour.

Routine.

He switched the torch off to conserve the last dregs of juice. Every movement was an effort. His limbs were stiff and he shivered with cold one moment, then broke out in a clammy, feverish sweat the next. His head pounded and pounded - he was desperate for some paracetamol. Desperate for noise above him, for voices. To get out.

Food.

By some small miracle, the batteries in the walkie-talkie were the same as those in the torch. At least he still had those in reserve. At least there was one bit of good news. The only good news. And the other bit was that in an hour he could have another sip of whisky.

Routine kept the panic attacks at bay.

You kept sane if you had a routine. Five years back he had crewed on a thirty-eight-footer sloop across the Atlantic, from Chichester to Barbados. Twenty-seven days at sea. For fifteen of them they'd had a gale on the nose that not once dropped below a force seven, and at times gusted up to ten and eleven. Fifteen days of hell. Watches four hours on and four hours off. Every wave shook every bone in his body, as they crashed down again and again, every chain rattling, every shackle smacking against the decking or the rigging, every knife, fork and plate clattering in its locker. They had got through that by routine. By measuring each day into groups of hours. And then by spacing those hours with small treats. Bars of chocolate. Sips of drink. Pages of a novel. Glances at the compass. Taking turns pumping the bilges.

Routine gave you structure. Structure gave you perspective. And perspective gave you a horizon.

And when you looked at the horizon, you felt calmer.

Now he measured each hour with a small sip of whisky. Half a bottle left, and his horizon was the hour hand of his watch. The watch Ashley had bought him, a silver-rimmed Longines with luminous Roman numerals. It was the classiest watch he had ever owned. Ashley had great taste. She had class. Everything about her was classy, the kink in her long, brown hair, the way she walked, the confidence with which she talked, her classically beautiful features. He loved walking into a room with her. Anywhere. Eyes turned, stared. Jesus, he loved that! There was something special about her. Totally unique.

His mother said that too, and usually she never approved of his girlfriends. But Ashley was different. Ashley had worked on his mum and charmed her. That was another thing he loved about her, she could charm anyone. Even the most miserable damned client. He fell in love with her the day she walked into the office he shared

With Mark, for a job interview. Now, just six months later, they were getting married.

His crotch and thighs itched like hell. Nappy rash. Long back he'd given up on his bladder. Twenty-six hours had passed now.

Something must have happened, but he had no idea what. Twenty-six fucking hours of shouting into the walkie-talkie, dialling his mobile and getting the same damned message. No service.

Tuesday. Ashley wanted the stag night to be well before the wedding. You'll get drunk and feel like shit. I don't want you feeling like that on our wedding day. Have it early in the week to give yourself time to recover.

He pushed up with his hands for the hundredth time. Maybe the two hundredth time. Maybe even the thousandth time. It made no difference. He had already tried grinding a hole in the lid with the only hard implement he had, the casing of his walkie-talkie. The mobile and the torch were both plastic. But the casing still wasn't tough enough.

He switched on the walkie-talkie again. 'Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?'

Static was there.

A dark thought occurred to him. Was Ashley in on this? Was this why she'd been so insistent that he should have the stag party early in the week, on Tuesday? So he could be locked in here - wherever here was - for a whole twenty-four hours, longer, without it causing any problem?

Never. She knew he was claustrophobic, and she didn't have a cruel bone in her body. She always put everyone else first, was always thinking about other people's needs.

The number of presents she had bought for his mother and himself had staggered him. And everything exquisitely appropriate. Her favourite perfume. A CD of her favourite singer, Robbie Williams, a cashmere jumper she had been hankering after. A Bose radio he had coverted. How did Ashley find out all these things? It was a knack, a gift, just one of the endless list of attributes that made her such a special person.

And made him the luckiest man in the world.

The torch beam dimmed, noticeably. He switched it off again to

conserve the battery and lay still in the darkness again. He could hear his breathing getting faster. What if?

If they never came back?

It was nearly 11.30. He waited, listening for a gaggle of voices that would tell him his friends were back.

Jesus, when he got out of there they weren't half going to regret this. He looked at his watch again. Twenty-five to midnight. They would be along soon, any minute now.

They had to be.

ldy stood over him, grinning, blocking the sunlight, deliberately tickling him. Her blonde hair swung down either side of her face, brushing his cheeks.

'Hey! I have to read - this report -1--'

'You're so boring, Grace, you always have to read!' She kissed his ' forehead. 'Read, read, read, work, work, work!' She kissed his forehead again. 'Don't you still fancy me?'

She was wearing a skimpy sun dress, her breasts almost falling Out the top; he caught a glimpse of her long, tanned legs, her hem riding up her thighs, and suddenly he felt very horny.

He reached up his arms to cup her face, pulling her down to him, Staring into those trusting blue eyes, feeling so incredibly - intensely - deeply - in love with her.

'I adore you,' he said.

'Do you, Grace?' Flirting. 'Do you really adore me more than your work?' She pulled her head back, pouted her lips quizzically.

'I love you more than anything in--'

Darkness suddenly. As if someone had pulled out a plug.

Grace heard the echo of his voice in cold, empty air.

'Sandy!' he shouted, but the sound stayed trapped in his throat.

The sunlight faded into a weak orange glow; street lighting leaking in around the bedroom curtains.

The display on the digital clock said 3.02 a.m.

He was sweating, eyes wide open, his heart tossing around in his chest like a buoy in a storm. He heard the clatter of a dustbin - a scavenging cat or a fox. Moments later it was followed by the rattle of a diesel - probably his neighbour three doors down, who drove a taxi and kept late hours.

For some moments he lay still. Closed his eyes, calmed his breathing, tried to return to the dream, clinging as hard as he could to the memory. like all the recurring dreams he had about Sandy it felt so real. As if they were still together but in a different dimension. If he could just find some way of locating the portal, crossing the divide, they really would be together again, they'd be fine, they'd be happy.

So damned happy.

A huge swell of sadness rolled through him. Then it turned to dread as he started to remember. The newspaper. That damned headline in the Argus last night. It was all coming back. Christ, oh Christ. What the hell were the morning papers going to say? Criticism he could cope with. Ridicule was harder. He already got stick from a number of officers for dabbling in the supernatural. He'd been warned by the previous Chief Constable, who was genuinely intrigued by the paranormal himself, that to let his interests be known openly could harm his promotion prospects.

'Everyone knows you're a special case, Roy - having lost Sandy. No one's going to criticize you for turning over every stone on the damned planet. We'd all do the same in your shoes. But you have to keep that in your box, you can't bring it to work.'

There were times when he thought he was getting over her, when he was getting strong again. Then there were moments like now when he realized he had barely progressed at all. He just wished so desperately he could have put an arm around her, cuddled up against her, talked through the problem. She was a glass-half-full person, always positive, and so savvy. She'd helped steer him through a disciplinary tribunal in his early days in the Force which could have ended his career, when he'd been accused by the Police Complaints Authority of using excessive force against a mugger he'd arrested. He'd been exonerated then, largely through following Sandy's advice. She would have known exactly what he should do now.

He wondered sometimes if these dreams were attempts by Sandy to communicate with him. From wherever she was.

Jodie, his sister, told him it was time to move on, that he needed to accept that Sandy was dead, to replace her voice on the answering machine, to remove her clothes from the bedroom and her things from the bathroom, in short - and Jodie could be very short - to stop living in some kind of a shrine to Sandy, and start all over again.

But how could he move on? What if Sandy was alive, being held

captive by some maniac? He had to keep searching, to keep the file open, to keep updating the photographs showing how she might look now, to keep scanning every face he passed in the street or saw i a crowd. He would go on until--

Until.

Closure.

On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Sandy had woken him iWith a tray on which was a tiny cake with a single candle, a glass of �Champagne and a very rude birthday card. He'd opened the presents the had given him, then they had made love. He'd left the house later than usual, at 9.15, and reached his office in Brighton shortly after half past, late for a briefing on a murder case. He'd promised to be home early, to go out for a celebratory meal with another couple his best friend at the time, Dick Pope, also a detective, and his wife, Leslie, who Sandy got on well with - but it had been a hectic day and he'd arrived home almost two hours later than he had intended. There was no sign of Sandy.

At first he'd thought she was angry with him for being so late and was making a protest. The house was tidy, her car and handbag were gone, there was no sign of a struggle.

Then, twenty-four hours later, her car was found in a bay of the short-term car park at Gatwick Airport. There were two transactions on her credit card on the morning of her disappearance, one for 7 pounds 50 penceat Boots, and 16 pounds 42 pencefor petrol from the local branch of Tesco. She had taken no clothes and no other belongings of any kind.

His neighbours in this quiet, residential street just off the seafront had not seen a thing. On one side of him was an exuberantly friendly Greek family who owned a couple of cafes in the town, but they had been away on holiday, and on the other side was an elderly widow with a hearing problem, who slept with the television on, volume at maximum. Right now, at 3.45 a.m., he could hear an American cop drama through the party wall between their semi-detached houses. Guns banged, tyres squealed, sirens whupwhupped. She'd seen nothing.

Noreen Grinstead, who lived opposite, was the one person he might have expected to have noticed something. A hawk-eyed, jumpy woman in her sixties, she knew everyone's business in the

street. When she wasn't tending to her husband, Lance, who was steadily going downhill with Alzheimer's, she was forever out front in yellow rubber gloves, washing her silver Nissan car, or hosing and scrubbing the driveway, or the windows of the house, or anything else that did or did not need washing. She even brought stuff out of the house to clean it in the driveway.

Very little escaped her eye. But, somehow, Sandy's disappearance had.

He switched the light on and got out of bed, pausing to stare at the photograph of himself and Sandy on the dressing table. It had been taken in a hotel in Oxford during a conference on DNA fingerprinting, a few months before she disappeared. He was lounging back in a suit and tie, on a chaise longue. Sandy, in an evening dress, was lying back against him, hair up in blonde ringlets, beaming her constant irrepressible grin at a waiter they had sequestered to take the picture.

He went over, picked up the frame, kissed the photo then set it down again, and went into the bathroom to urinate. Getting up in the middle of the night to pee was a recent affliction, a result of the health fad he was on, drinking the recommended minimum eight glasses of water a day. Then he padded, clad only in the T-shirt he slept in, downstairs.

Sandy had such great taste. Their house itself was modest, like all the ones in the street, a three-bedroom mock-Tudor semi, built in the 1930s, but she had made it beautiful. She loved browsing the Sunday supplements, women's magazines and design magazines, ripping out pages and showing him ideas. They'd spent hours together, stripping wallpaper, sanding floors, varnishing, painting.

Sandy got into Feng Shui, and built a little water garden. She filled the house with candles. Bought organic food whenever she could. She thought about everything, questioned everything, was interested in everything, and he loved that. Those had been the good times, when they were building their future, cementing their life together, making all their plans.

She was a good gardener, too. She understood about flowers, plants, shrubs, bushes, trees. When to plant, how to prune. Grace liked to mow the lawn but that was about where his skills ended. The garden was neglected now and he felt guilty about that, sometimes I Wondering what she would say if she returned.

Her car was still in the garage. Forensics had been through it with |i toothcomb after it had been recovered, then he'd brought it back f home and garaged it. For years he kept the battery on trickle charge, Bt in case .. . The same way he kept her slippers out on the bed)m floor, her dressing gown hanging on its peg, her toothbrush in its mug.

Waiting for her return.

Wide awake, he poured himself two fingers of Glenfiddich, then at down in his white armchair in the all-white lounge with its Wooden floor and pressed the remote. He flicked through three movies in succession, then a bunch of other Sky channels, but nothing grabbed his attention for more than a few minutes. He played lome music, switching restlessly from the Beatles to Miles Davis to Sophie Ellis-Bextor, then back to silence.

He picked one of his favourite books, Colin Wilson's The Occult, from the rows of books on the paranormal that filled every inch of his bookshelves, then sat back and turned the pages listlessly, sipping his whisky, unable to concentrate on more than a couple of paragraphs.

That damned defence barrister strutting around in court today had got under his skin, and was now strutting around inside his mind. Richard bloody Charwell. Pompous sodding bastard. Worse, Grace knew he had been outsmarted by the man. Outmanoeuvred and outsmarted. And that really stung.

He picked up the remote again and punched up the news on Teletext. Nothing beyond the same stories that had been around for a couple of days now and were getting stale. No breaking political scandal, no terrorist outrage, no earthquake, no air disaster. He didn't wish ill on anyone, but he had been hoping for something to fill up the morning's headlines and airwaves. Something other than the murder trial of Suresh Hossain.

His luck was out.

Two national tabloids and one broadsheet led with front-page splashes on the murder trial of Suresh Hossain, and all the rest of the British morning papers had coverage inside.

It wasn't the trial itself that was the focus of their interest, but the remarks in the witness box made by Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, who at 8.30 in the morning found himself on the carpet in front of his boss, Alison Vosper, feeling as if the clock had been wound back three decades, and he was back at school, trembling in front of his headmistress.

One of Grace's colleagues had nicknamed her 'No. 27', and it had stuck. No. 27 was a sweet and sour dish on the local Chinese takeaway menu. Conversely, when ordering the dish, it was always referred to as an Alison Vosper. That's exactly what she was, sweet and sour.

In her early forties, with wispy blonde hair cut conservatively short, and framing a hard but attractive face, Assistant Chief Constable Alison Vosper was very definitely sour this morning. Even the powerful floral scent she was wearing had an acrid tinge.

Power-dressed in a black two-piece with a crisp white blouse, she sat behind an expanse of polished rosewood desk, in her immaculate ground-floor office in the Queen Anne police headquarters building in Lewes, with its view out across a trimmed lawn. The desk was bare except for a slim crystal vase containing three purple tulips, framed photographs of her husband (a police officer several years older but three ranks her junior) and her two children, an ammonite pen holder and a stack of the morning's newspapers fanned out like a triumphant poker hand.

Grace always wondered how his superiors kept their offices - and their desks - so tidy. All his working life, his own work spaces had been tips. Repositories of sprawling files, unanswered correspondence, lost pens, travel receipts and out-trays that had long given up on the struggle to keep pace with the in-trays. To get to the very top, i decided, required some kind of paperwork management skill for which he was lacking the gene.

Rumour was that Alison Vosper had had a breast cancer operajn three years ago. But Grace knew that's all it would ever be, just rumour, because the Assistant Chief Constable kept a wall around herself. Nonetheless, behind her hard-cop carapace, there was a cer|ttln vulnerability that he connected to. In truth, at times he fancied Br, and there were occasions when those waspish brown eyes of hers twinkled with humour, and when he sensed she might almost be flirting with him. This morning was not one of them.

No handshake. No greeting. Just a curt nod for him to sit in one of the twin high-backed chairs in front of her desk. Then she launched straight in, with a look that was part reproach, part pure anger.

'What the hell is this, Roy?'

'I'm sorry.'

'Sorry?

He nodded. 'I - look, this whole thing got taken out of context--'

She interrupted him before he could continue. 'You realize this could bring the whole case crashing down on us?'

'I think we can contain it.'

'I've had a dozen calls from the national press already this morning. You've become a laughing stock. You've made us look like a bunch of idiots. Why have you done this?'

Grace was silent for some moments. 'She's an extraordinary woman, this medium; she's helped us in the past. It never occurred to me anyone would find out.'

Vosper leaned back in her chair, staring at Grace, shaking her head from side to side. 'I had great hopes for you. Your promotion was because of me. I put myself on the line for you, Roy. You know that, don't you?'

Not strictly true, but this wasn't the moment to start splitting hairs. 'I know,' he said, 'and I appreciate it.'

She pointed at the newspapers. And this is how you show it? This is what you deliver?'

'Come on, Alison, I've delivered Hossain.'

'And now you've given his defence counsel a crack big enough to drive a coach and horses through.'

'No,' he said, rising to this. 'That shoe had already been through forensics, signed out and signed back in. They can't lay an exhibits contamination charge on me. They might be trying to take a pop at my methods, but this won't have any material effect on the case.'

She raised her manicured fingers and started examining them. Roy could see the tips were black from newsprint ink. Her scent seemed to be getting stronger, as if she were an animal excreting venom. 'You're the senior officer, it's your case. If you let them discredit you it could have a very big effect on the outcome. Why the hell did you do it?'

'We have a murder trial and we don't have a body. We know Hossain had Raymond Cohen murdered, right?'

She nodded. The evidence Grace had amassed was impressive and persuasive.

'But with no body there's always a weak link.' He shrugged. 'We've had results in the past from mediums. Every police force in the nation's used them at one time or another. Leslie Whittle, right?'

Leslie Whittle was a celebrated case. Back in 1975 the seventeenyearold heiress had been kidnapped and vanished into thin air. Unable to find any clues to her whereabouts, the police finally acted on information from a clairvoyant using dowsing techniques, who led them to a drainage shaft, where they discovered the unfortunate girl tethered and dead.

'Leslie Whittle wasn't exactly a triumph of police work, Roy.'

'There have been others, since/ he countered.

She stared at him in silence. Then dimples appeared in her cheeks as if she might be softening; but her voice remained cold and stern. 'You could write the number of successes we've had with clairvoyants on a postage stamp.'

'That isn't true, and you know it.'

'Roy, what I know is that you are an intelligent man. I know that you've studied the paranormal and that you believe. I've seen the books in your office, and I respect any police officer who can think out of the box. But we have a duty to the community. Whatever goes

I On behind our closed doors is one thing. The image we present to the iblic is another.'

'The public believe, Alison. There was a survey taken in 1925 of It number of scientists who believed in God. It was forty-three 1 cent. They did that same survey again in 1998, and guess what? \ was still forty-three per cent. The only shift was that there were less jlogists who believed, but more mathematicians and physicists. lere was another survey, only last year, of people who had had jme kind of paranormal experience. It was ninety per cent!' He I leaned forwards. 'Ninety per cent!'

'Roy, the Great Unwashed want to believe the police spend f ratepayers' money on solving crimes and catching villains through established police procedures. They want to believe we are out couring the country for fingerprints and DNA, that we have labs full Of scientists to examine them, and that we are trawling fields, woods, dredging lakes, knocking on doors and interviewing witnesses. They don't want to think we are talking to Madame Arcata on the end of Brighton Pier, are staring into crystal balls or are shifting upturned tumblers around rows of letters on a bloody Ouija board! They don't want to think we are spending our time trying to summon up the dead. They don't want to believe their police officers are standing on the ramparts of castles like Hamlet talking to his father's ghost. Understand what I'm saying?'

'I understand, yes. But I don't agree with you. Our job is to solve crimes. We have to use whatever means are at our disposal.'

She shook her head. 'We're never going to solve every crime, and we have to accept that. What we have to do is inspire public confidence. Make people feel safe in their homes, and on the streets.' 'That's such bullshit,' Grace said, 'and you know that! You know fine well you can massage the crime statistics any way you want.' No sooner had he said it than he regretted his words.

She gave him a thin, wintry smile. 'Get the Government to give us another hundred million pounds a year and we will eradicate crime in Sussex. In the absence of that all we can do is spread our resources as thinly and as far as they will go.' 'Mediums are cheap,' Grace said. 'Not when they damage our credibility.' She looked down at the papers. 'When they jeopardize a court case they become more than we can afford. Do you hear me?'

'Loudly, if not clearly.' He couldn't help it, the insolence just came out. She was irritating him. Something chauvinistic inside him that he couldn't help, made it harder for him to accept a dressing-down from a woman than from a man.

'Let me spell it out. You're lucky to still have a job this morning. The Chief is not a happy bunny. He's so angry he's threatening to take you out of the public arena for ever, and have you chained to a desk for the rest of your career. Is that what you want?'

'No.'

'Then go back to being a police officer, not a flake.'

For the first time since he had joined the Force, Roy Grace had recently begun wondering whether he should ever have become a policeman. From earliest childhood it was all he had wanted to be, and in his teens he had scarcely even considered any other career.

His father, Jack, had risen to the rank of Detective Inspector, and some of the older officers around still talked about him, with great affection. Grace had been in thrall to him as a child, loved to hear his stories, to go out with him - sometimes in a police car, or down to the station. When he was a child, his father's life had seemed so much more adventurous and glamorous than the dull lives most of his friends' dads lived.

Grace had been addicted to cop shows on television, to books about detectives and cops of every kind - from Sherlock Holmes to Ed McBain. He had a memory that bordered on photographic, he loved puzzles, and he was physically strong. And from all he saw and heard from his father, there seemed to be a teamwork and camaraderie in police life that really appealed.

But now, on a day like this, he realized that being a police officer was less about doing things to the best of your abilities and more about conforming to some preordained level of mediocrity. In this modern politically correct world you could be a law enforcement officer at the peak of your career one moment and a political pawn the next.

His latest promotion, making him the second-youngest Detective Superintendent ever in the Sussex Police Force, and which just three months ago had so thrilled him, was fast turning out to be a poisoned chalice.

It had meant moving from the buzz of Brighton police station in the heart of the town, where most of his friends were, out to the relative quiet of the former factory on an industrial estate on the edge of the city, which had recently been refurbished to house the headquarters of Sussex CID.

You could retire from the force on a full pension after thirty years. No matter how tough it got, if he just stuck it out he would be financially set up for life. That was not how he wanted to view his job, his career. At least, not normally.

But today was different. Today was a real downer. A reality-check day. Circumstances changed, he was thinking, as he sat hunched over his desk, ignoring the pinging of incoming emails on his computer screen, munching an egg and cress brown sandwich, and staring at court transcripts of the Suresh Hossain trial in front of him. Life never stands still. Sometimes the changes were good, sometimes less than good. In little over a year's time he would be forty. His hair was going grey.

And his new office was too small.

The three dozen vintage cigarette lighters that were his prize collection hunched together on the ledge between the front of his desk and the window which, unlike the fine view from Alison Vosper's office, looked down onto the parking lot and the cell block beyond. Dominating the wall behind him was the large, round wooden clock that had been a prop in the fictitious police station in The Bill. Sandy had bought him it for his twenty-sixth birthday.

Beneath it was a stuffed seven-pound, six-ounce brown trout he had caught on a visit to Ireland some years ago. He kept it beneath the clock to give him a joke he could crack to detectives working under him, about patience and big fish.

Lined up on either side and slightly cramping it were several framed certificates, and a group photograph captioned 'Police Staff College Bramshill. Management of Serious and Series Crimes. 1997', and two cartoons of him in the police ops room, drawn by a colleague who had missed his true vocation. The opposite wall was taken up by bookshelves bulging with part of his collection of books on the occult, and filing cabinets.

His L-shaped desk was cluttered by his computer, overflowing in and out-trays, Blackberry, separate piles of correspondence, some orderly, most less so, and the latest edition of the magazine with a bad pun of a title, Fingerprint Whorld. Rising from the mess was a

framed quotation: 'We don't rise to the level of our abilities, we fall to the level of our excuses.'

The rest of the floor space was occupied by a television and video player, a circular table, four chairs and piles of files and loose paperwork, and his leather go-bag, containing his crime-scene kit. His briefcase sat open on the table, his mobile, dictating machine and a bunch of transcripts he had taken home with him last night all lay beside it.

He dropped half his sandwich in the bin. No appetite. He sipped his mug of coffee, checked the latest emails, then logged back on to the Sussex Police site and stared at the list of files he had inherited as part of his promotion.

Each file contained the details of an unsolved murder. It represented a pile of about twenty boxes of files, maybe even more, stacked on an office floor, or bulging out of cupboards, or locked up, gatherIng mould in a damp police garage in a station in the area where the murder happened. The files contained scene-of-crime photographs, forensic reports, bagged evidence, witness statements, court transcripts, separated into orderly bundles and secured with coloured ribbon. This was part of his new brief, to dig back into the county's unsolved murders, liaise with the CID division where the crime happened, looking for anything that might have changed in the intervening years that could justify reopening the case.

He knew most of their contents by heart - the benefit of his near photographic memory which had propelled him through exams both at school and in the Force. To him each stack represented more than just a human life that had been taken - and a killer who was still free - it symbolized something very close to his own heart. It meant that a family had been unable to lay its past to rest, because a mystery had never been solved, justice had never been done. And he knew that with some of these files being more than thirty years old, he was the last hope the victims and their relatives probably had.

Richard Ventnor, a gay vet battered to death in his surgery twelve years ago. Susan Downey, a beautiful girl raped and strangled and left in a churchyard fifteen years back. Pamela Chisholm, a rich widow found dead in her wrecked car - but with the wrong kind of injuries for a car accident. The skeletal remains of Pratap Gokhale, a nine-year-old Indian boy found under floorboards at the flat of a suspected paedophile - long vanished. These were just a few of the many cases Grace remembered.

Although they were interred, or their ashes had been scattered a long time ago, circumstances changed for them too. Technology had brought in DNA testing, which threw up new evidence and new suspects. The internet had brought new means of communication. Loyalties had changed. New witnesses had emerged from the woodwork. People had divorced. Fallen out with their friends. Someone who wouldn't testify against a mate twenty years ago now hated him. Murder files never closed. Slow time, they called it.

The phone rang. It was the management support assistant he shared with his immediate boss, the Assistant Chief Constable, asking if he wanted to take a call from a detective. The whole political correctness thing irritated him more and more, and it was particularly strong in the Police Force. It hadn't been so long ago when they called them secretaries, not bloody management support assistants.

He told her to put him through, and moments later heard a familiar voice. Glenn Branson, a bright Detective Sergeant he'd worked with several times in the past, fiercely ambitious and razor sharp as well as being a walking encyclopedia on movies. He liked Glenn Branson a lot. He was probably the closest friend he had.

'Roy? How you doing? Seen you in the papers today.'

'Yup, well you can fuck off. What do you want?'

'Are you OK?'

'No, I'm not OK.'

'Are you busy right now?'

'How do you define busy.'

'Ever given an answer in your life that isn't a question?'

Grace smiled. 'Have you?'

'Listen, I'm being pestered by a woman - about her fiance". Seems like some stag-night prank has gone seriously wrong, and he's been missing since Tuesday night.'

Grace had to do a mental check on the date. It was Thursday afternoon now. 'Tell me?'

'Thought you'd be in court today. Tried your mobile, but it's off.'

'I'm having lunch. Got a break from court - Judge Driscoll's having a day in chambers dealing with submissions from the defence.'

One of the major drawbacks of bringing a prosecution to trial was the time it consumed. Grace, as the senior officer, had to be either in court or in close touch during the whole trial. This one was likely to last a good three months - and much of that time was just hanging around.

'I don't feel this is a normal missing persons enquiry - I'd like to pick your brains. You free this afternoon by any chance?' Glenn Branson asked.

To anyone else, Grace would have said no, but he knew Glenn Branson wasn't a time waster - and hell, right now he was pleased to have an excuse to get out of the office, even into this shitty weather. 'Sure, I can make some time.'

'Cool.' There was a moment's pause, then Glenn Branson said, 'Look, could we meet at this guy's flat - I think it would be helpful if you saw it for yourself - I can get the key and meet you there.' Branson gave him the address.

Grace glanced at his watch, then at the diary on his Blackberry. 'How about meeting there at half five? We could go on for a drink.'

'It won't take you three hours to get - oh -1 guess a man of your age has to start taking it slowly. See you later.'

Grace winced. He didn't like reminders of his looming big four-0 birthday. He didn't like the idea of being forty - it was an age when people took stock of their lives. He'd read somewhere that when you reached forty you'd reached the shape your life was going to be for good. Somehow, being thirty-eight was OK. But thirty-nine meant you were very definitely nudging forty. And it wasn't so long ago that he'd considered people who were forty to be old. Shit.

He looked again at the list of files on the screen. Sometimes he felt closer to these people than to anyone else. Twenty murder victims who were dependent on him to bring their killers to justice. Twenty ghosts who haunted most of his waking thoughts - and sometimes his dreams, as well.

He had the use of a pool car, but he chose to drive his own Alfa Romeo 147 saloon. Grace liked the car; he liked the hard seats, the firm ride, the almost spartan functionality of the interior, the fruity noise the exhaust made, the feeling of precision, the bright, sporty dials on the dash. There was a sense of exactness about the vehicle that suited his nature.

The big, meaty wipers swung across the screen, clopping the rain from the glass, the tyres hissing on the wet tarmac, a wild Elvis Costello song playing on the stereo. The bypass swept up over a ridge and down into the valley. Through the mist of rain he could see the buildings of the coastal resort of Brighton and Have sprawling ahead, and beyond the single remaining landmark chimney from the old Shoreham power station, the shimmering strip of grey, barely distinguishable from the sky, that was the English Channel.

He'd grown up here among its streets and its villains. His dad used to reel off their names to him, the families that ran the drugs, the massage parlours, the posh crooked antique dealers who fenced stolen jewels, furniture, the fences who handled televisions and CD players.

It had been a smugglers' village, once. Then George IV had built a palace just a few hundred yards from his mistress's house. Brighton had somehow never managed to shake off its criminal antecedents nor its reputation as a place for dirty weekends. But these gave the city of Brighton and Have its edge over any other provincial resort in England, he thought, flicking his indicator and turning off the bypass.

Grassmere Court was a red-brick block of flats about thirty years old, in an upmarket area of Have, the city's genteel district. It fronted onto a main road and overlooked a tennis club at the rear. The residents were a mixture of ages, mostly twenty- and thirty-something career singles and comfortably off elderly people. On an estate agent's brochure it would probably have rated highly des res.

Glenn Branson was waiting in the porch, wrapped in a bulky rka, tall, black, and bald as a meteorite, talking into his mobile.

looked more like a drug dealer than a copper at this moment, race smiled - his colleague's massive, muscular frame from years of serious body-building reminded him of the broadcaster Clive James's description of Arnie Schwarzenegger: that he looked like a Condom filled with walnuts.

'Yo, old wise man!' Branson greeted him.

'Cut it out, I'm only seven years older than you. One day you'll get to this age too and you won't find it funny' He grinned.

They slapped high fives, then Branson, frowning, said, 'You look like shit. Really, I mean it.'

'Not all publicity agrees with me.'

'Yup, well I couldn't help noticing you grabbed yourself a few column inches in the rags this morning...'

'You and just about everyone else on the planet.'

'Man, you know, for an old-timer you're pretty dumb.'

'Dumb?'

'You don't wise up, Grace. Keep sticking your head above the parapet and one day someone's going to shoot it clean off. There are some days when I think you are just about the biggest dickhead I know.'

He unlocked the front door of the block and pushed it open.

Following him in, Grace said, 'Thanks, you really know how to cheer someone up.' Then he wrinkled his nose. Blindfolded you would always know if you were in an ageing apartment building. The universal smell of worn carpets, tired paint, vegetables boiling behind one of the closed doors. 'How's the missus?' he asked as they waited for the lift.

'Great.'

'And your kids?'

'Sammy's brilliant. Remi's turning into a terror.' He pressed the button for the lift.

After a few moments, Grace said, 'It wasn't how the press made it seem, Glenn.'

'Man, I know that because I know you. The press don't know you, and even if they did, they don't give Jack Shit. They want stories and you were stupid enough to give them one.'

They emerged from the lift on the sixth floor. The flat was at the end of the corridor. Branson unlocked the door and they went in.

The place was small, with a lounge/diner, a narrow kitchen with a granite worktop and a circular steel sink, and two bedrooms, one of which was used as a study, with an iMac computer and work-desk. The rest of this room/office was filled with bookshelves crammed mostly with paperbacks.

In contrast with the dull exterior and drab common parts of the building, the flat felt fresh and modern. The walls were painted in white, very lightly tinged with grey, and the furnishings were modernistic, with a distinct Japanese influence. There were low sofas, simple prints on the walls, a flat-screen television, with a DVD player beneath, and a sophisticated hi-fi system with tall, slender speakers. In the master bedroom there was an unmade futon bed, with handsome louvred doors on the wardrobe, another flat-screen television, and low bedside tables with starkly modern lamps. A pair of Nike trainers sat on the floor.

Grace and Branson exchanged a glance. 'Nice pad,' Grace said.

'Uh huh,' Branson said. 'Life is Beautiful'

Grace looked at him.

'I missed it in the cinema. Caught it on Sky. Incredible film - have you ever seen it?'

Grace shook his head.

'All set in a concentration camp. About a dad who convinces his kid that they're playing a game. If they win the game, they get a real tank. I tell you, it moved me more than Schindler's List and The Pianist.'

'I've never heard of it.'

'I wonder what planet you're on sometimes.'

Grace stared at a framed photograph by the bed. It showed a good-looking man, in his late twenties, with fair hair, black Tshirt and jeans, arm around a seriously attractive woman also in her late twenties, with long, dark hair.

'This him?'

'And her. Michael Harrison and Ashley Harper. Nice-looking couple, right?'

Continuing to stare at them, Grace nodded.

'Getting married on Saturday. At least, that's the plan.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning, if he shows up. Doesn't look too good right now.'

'You said he hasn't been seen since Tuesday night?' Grace looked out of the window. The view down was across a wide, rain-lashed Street backed up with traffic. A bus have into view. 'What do you know about him?'

'Local boy made good. Property developer. Serious player. Double-M Properties. Has a partner called Mark Warren. Recently built a fuck-off development - an old warehouse on Shoreham Harbour. Thirty-two flats, all sold before they were finished. They've been in business for seven years, done a bunch of stuff in the area, some conversions, some new builds. The chick's Michael's secretary, smart bird, seriously gorgeous.'

'You think he's done a runner?'

Branson shook his head. 'Nope.'

Grace picked up the photograph and stared more closely at it. 'Bloody hell, I'd marry her.'

'That's my point.'

Grace frowned. 'Sorry, I'm slow, had a long day.'

'You'd marry her! If I was a single man, I'd marry her. Anyone in their right mind would marry her, right?'

'She's seriously gorgeous.'

'She is, seriously gorgeous.'

Grace stared at him blankly.

In mock exasperation, Branson said, 'Jesus, old timer, you losing your touch or something?'

'Maybe I am,' Grace said, blankly. 'What is your point?'

Branson shook his head. 'My point is exactly that. If you were going to marry this babe on Saturday, would you do a runner?'

'Not unless I was nuts.'

'So if he hasn't done a runner, where is he?'

Grace thought for a moment. 'You said on the phone something about a stag-night prank that might have gone wrong?'

'That's what his fiancee said to me. That was my first thought. Stag nights can be brutal. Even when he didn't show up all of yesterday, that's what I still thought then. But to stay out two nights?'

'Cold feet? Another bird?'

'All possible. But I'd like to show you something.'

Grace followed him into the living area. Branson sat down in front of the computer and tapped the keyboard. He was a wizard on computers. Grace had a good technical mind and was pretty well up to speed with most modern technology, but Branson was light years ahead of him.

A password command came up on the screen. Branson tapped furiously, and within a few seconds, the screen filled with data.

'How did you do that?' Grace asked. 'How did you know the password?' Branson gave him a sideways look. 'There was no password. Most people see a password request and try to put one in. Why would he need one if he wasn't sharing his computer with anyone else?'

'I'm impressed. You really are a closet geek.'

Ignoring the remark, Branson said, 'I want you to take a close look at this.'

Grace did what he was told, and sat down in front of the screen.

Just a couple of miles away, Mark Warren was also hunched in front of his computer. The clock on the flat screen showed 6.10 p.m. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, a neglected Starbucks cappuccino beside him, the froth sunken into a wrinkled skin. His normally tidy desk, in the office he'd shared with Michael for the past seven years, was swamped with piles of documents.

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.

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, cheery-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.

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.'

Instead, another commercial came on. On the screen a baby crawled across the carpet talking in a deep male adult voice. Davey watched for some moments, transfixed, wondering how a baby could learn to speak that way. Then his attention drifted back to the walkie-talkie. There was a telescopic aerial, which he pulled out as far as it would go, then pushed back in again. 'Kerloink!' he said. Then out again. 'Kerloink!'

He pointed it at the television screen, staring down its length, taking aim as if it were a rifle. Then the show came back on.

He looked at his brand new watch, which his dad had given him for his birthday yesterday. It was for timing motor races, and had all kinds of buttons, dials and digital displays that he hadn't quite figured out yet from the instruction book. His dad promised to help him read it, get through the tough words. He needed to have it all working OK for this Sunday, the Monaco Grand Prix, it was important he had it ready for that.

There was a knock on his door, then it opened a few inches. His dad stood there, dressed up in a hunting cap with ear flaps, battered old windcheater and Wellington boots. 'Five minutes, Davey.'

'Awww. It's Law and Order. Could we make it fifteen?'

Cigarette smoke drifted into the room. Davey saw the red glow as his dad took a drag. If you want to come shooting rabbits, we have to leave in five minutes. You must have seen every show of Law and Order they ever made.'

The ads ended, the show was coming back on. Davey raised a finger to his lips. Grinning in mock despair, Phil Wheeler backed out of the room. 'Five minutes,' he said, closing the door.

'Ten!' Davey shouted after him, American accent now. 'Compromise! Know what I'm saying?'

Davey turned his focus back on the walkie-talkie, thinking it might be cool to take it out rabbit shooting with him. He peered closely into the battery compartment, figured out which way they were supposed to go in, and inserted the batteries. Then he pushed one of two buttons on the side. Nothing happened. He tried the second button and instantly there was a crackle of static.

He held the speaker part to his ear, listening. Just static. And then, suddenly, a male voice so loud he could have been in the room with him.

'Hello?'

Startled, Davey dropped the walkie-talkie on the floor.

'Hello? Hello?'

Davey stared down at it, beaming with delight. Then there was another knock on his door and his father called out, 'I've got your gun, let's go!'

Then suddenly afraid his father might get mad if he saw the walkie-talkie - he wasn't supposed to take anything they found around wrecks - Davey crouched down on the floor, pressed the other button, which he assumed to be the talk one, and hissed furtively, in his American accent, 'Sorry, can't talk, he's in my face know what I mean?'

Then he shoved the walkie-talkie under the bed and hurried from the room, leaving the television, and Detective Reynaldo Curtis, having to cope without him.

'Hey! Hello! Hello! Hello!'

Silence came back at him from the ivory satin.

'Hey, please, help me!'

Michael, sobbing, stabbed the talk button repeatedly. 'Please, help me, please help me!

Just static crackle.

'Sorry, can't talk, he's in my face - know what I mean?'

A strange voice, like some ham actor playing an American gangster. Was this all part of the joke? Michael guided the salty tears down to his dry, cracked lips, and for one fleeting, taunting instant savoured the moisture, before his tongue absorbed them like blotting paper.

He looked at his watch. More hours had gone past: 8.50. For how many more hours was this nightmare going to go on? How could they be getting away with it? Surely to God Ashley, his mother, everyone, for Christ's sake, must be on to the boys by now. He'd been down here for - for--

A sudden panic hit him. Was it 8.50 in the morning or evening?

It had been afternoon just a while ago, hadn't it? He'd watched each hour on the hour go past. Surely he could not have been so careless to lose track of a whole twelve-hour chunk? It had to be evening now, night, tonight, not tomorrow morning.

Almost forty-eight hours.

What the hell are you all doing?

He pressed his hands down, pushing himself up for a moment, trying to get some circulation going into his numb backside. His shoulders hurt from being hunched, every joint in his body ached from lack of movement - and from dehydration - he knew about the dangers of that from sailing. His head throbbed incessantly. He could stop it for a few seconds by levering his hands up to his head and digging his thumbs into his temples, but then it came back just as bad as before.

'Christ, I'm getting married on Saturday, you fuckwits! Get me out of here!' he shouted as loudly as he could, then pounded the roof and walls with his feet and hands.

The imbeciles. Friday tomorrow. The day before the wedding. He had to get his suit. Haircut. They were going away on honeymoon on Saturday night to Thailand - he had a ton of stuff to do in the office before then, before going away for two weeks. Had to write his wedding speech.

Oh, come on, guys, there's so much I have to do! You've paid me back now, OK? For all the shit I ever did to you lot? You'd paid me back with interest. Big time!

Dropping his hand to his crutch, he located the torch and switched on for a few precious seconds, rationing the battery. The white satin seemed to be ever closer to him; last time he looked it seemed a good six inches above his face, now no more than three, as if this box, coffin, or whatever it was, was slowly, steadily caving in on him.

He took hold of the tube, dangling limp in front of his face, again squinted, trying to peer up into it, but could see nothing. Then he checked he was pushing the right button on the walkie-talkie. He pressed each one in turn. Listened first to static, then pressed talk and shouted as loudly as he could, then pressed the listen button again. Nothing.

'Nada' he said out aloud. 'Not a fucking sausage.'

Then an image of a frying pan on his mother's stove came into his mind. A frying pan filled with sausages, eggs, bacon, tomatoes, crackling, fizzing, popping, hissing. He could smell them, dammit, smell the bread too, frying in another pan, the tin of baked beans heating up.

Oh Jesus, I'm so hungry.

He turned his mind away from food, from the pain in his stomach that was so bad it felt its own stomach acids were eating their way through his stomach lining. Somewhere inside his pounding skull his brain was reminding him of something he had read;

it was about a breed of frogs - or toads - he couldn't remember which right now, which gestated its babies in its stomach rather than womb. For some reason the stomach acids didn't harm the babies.

What's to stop us humans digesting our own stomachs? he thought, suddenly. His brain was racing now, remembering bits of all kinds of stuff.

He remembered reading some years back a theory about Orcadian rhythms. All other living organisms on this planet lived a twenty-four-hour cycle, but not humans - our average was twenty five and a quarter. Tests had been done putting human beings down into dark places for weeks on end, with no clocks. Invariably they thought they had been down there for a shorter period of time than was the case.

Great, I could be one of their fucking lab rats now.

His mouth was so dry his lips stuck together and it hurt to part them. It felt as if their skin was ripping.

Then he shone the torch straight up, looked at the ever deepening groove he had made in the wood above his face, picked up his leather belt and again began to rub the corner of the metal buckle backwards and forwards against the hard teak - he knew enough about wood to know this was teak - and that teak was just about the hardest wood - closing his eyes tight, in pain, as specks of sawdust struck them, and gradually the buckle became hotter and hotter until he had to stop to let it cool down.

'Sorry, can't talk, he's in my face - know what I mean?'

Michael frowned. Who the hell was this putting on the fake American voice?

How could any of them think this was funny? What the hell had they told Ashley? His mother?

After a few minutes, he stopped scraping, exhausted. Had to keep going, he knew. Dehydration made you tired. Had to fight the tiredness. Had to get the hell out of this damned box. Had to get out and at those bastards, and there was going to be hell to pay.

He struggled on for a few more minutes, scraping, sometimes catching his knuckles, trying to keep his eyes screwed tight against

the sawdust that fell and tickled his face, until he was too tired to go on. His hand dropped down and his clenched neck muscles relaxed their grip. Gently his head dropped back. He slept.

The evening was prematurely dark. Mark parked his car just beyond a bus stop a short way up the road, then waited for some moments. The wide street, lacquered black by the torrential rain, was quiet, a trickle of cars passing. No one seemed to be out walking; no one to notice him.

He pulled on a baseball cap low over his face, then, turning up his anorak collar, ran to the sheltered porch of Michael's apartment block, glancing at each of the parked cars in turn, looking for someone seated in there in the dark. Michael was always telling people that Mark was the detail man in their partnership. Then he would qualify that with a remark that Mark hated. Mark is incredibly anal.

But Mark knew that he was right, that was exactly why DoubleM Properties was so successful, because he was the one who did all the real work. It was his role to scrutinize every line of the builder's estimates, to be there on site, to approve every single material that was purchased, to watch the schedules and to cost everything down to the last penny. While Michael spent half his time swanning around, womanizing, rarely taking anything too seriously. The success of the business was his, he believed, and his alone. Yet Michael had the majority shareholding, just because he'd had more cash to put in when they had started up.

There were forty-two bells to choose from on the entryphone panel. He pressed one at random, deliberately on a different floor to Michael's. There was no answer. He tried another, with the name 'Maranello'.

After a few moments a crackly male voice in a thick Italian accent said, 'Hello? Yes? Hello?'

'Delivery,' Mark shouted.

'Delivery what?'

'FedEx. From America, for Maranello.'

'You what? Delivery? I -1 not -1 -1 no--'

There was a moment's silence. Then the sharp buzz of the electric latch.

Mark pushed the door and walked in. He went straight to the lift and took it to the sixth floor, then walked down the corridor to Michael's flat. Michael kept a spare key under the doormat in case he locked himself out - which he had done once, drunk and naked. To Mark's relief it was still there. A single Yale key, covered in fluff.

As a precaution he rang the doorbell and waited, watching the corridor, anxious in case anyone should appear and see him. Then he opened the door, slipped in and quickly closed it behind him, and pulled a small torch from his pocket. Michael's apartment looked out onto the street. There was another apartment block opposite. It was probably safe to turn the lights on, but Mark didn't want to take chances. There might be someone out there watching

Pulling off his sodden cap and coat, he hung them on pegs on the wall, then waited some moments, listening, nervous as hell. Through the party wall he could hear what sounded like marching music, from a television turned up too loud. Then with the aid of the flashlight, he began his search.

He went first into the main room, the lounge/dining area, shining the beam onto every surface. He looked at the pile of unwashed dishes on the sideboard, a half-drunk bottle of Chianti with the cork pushed back in, then the coffee table, with the television remote lying next to a glass bowl containing a large candle, partially burnt. A pile of magazines - GQ, FHM, Yachts and Yachting. Beside them a red light winked busily on the answering machine.

He listened to the messages. There was one, left just an hour ago, from Michael's mother, her voice nervy.

'Hello, Michael, I'm just checking in case you are back.'

Another was from Ashley, sounding as if she was on her mobile in a bad reception area. 'Michael darling, just calling to see if by chance you're back. Please, please call me the moment you get this. I love you so much.'

The next was from a salesman asking Michael if he would like to take advantage of a new loan facility Barclays Bank was offering to its card holders.

Mark continued playing the messages right through, but there was nothing of interest. He checked the two sofas, the chairs, the side tables, then went into the study.

On the desk in front of the iMac was just the keypad, cordless mouse, a fluorescent mouse pad, a heart-shaped glass paperweight, a calculator, a mobile charger and a black jar crammed with pens and pencils. What he was looking for was not there. Nor was it on the bookshelves or anywhere in Michael's untidy bedroom.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

He left the apartment, walked down the fire-escape steps and went through the rear exit into the dark of the car park. Bad news, he thought to himself as he furtively made his way back to the street. This was really bad news.

Fifteen minutes later he drove his BMW X5 up the steep hill alongside the huge sprawling complex of the Sussex County Hospital, and pulled into the car park for the Accident and Emergency department. He hurried past a couple of waiting ambulances and into the brightly lit reception and waiting area, familiar to him from his visit the previous day.

He walked past the dozens of people waiting forlornly on the plastic seats, beneath a sign which read 'waiting time - three hours', and along a series of corridors to the lift, and took that to the fourth floor.

Then he followed the signs to the ICU, the smells of disinfectant and hospital food in his nostrils. He rounded a corner, walked past a vending machine, and a payphone in a perspex dome, then saw ahead of him the reception desk of the Intensive Care Unit. Two nurses stood behind the counter, one on the phone, the other talking to a distressed-looking elderly woman.

He made his way across the ward, past four occupied beds, to the corner where Josh had been last night, expecting to see Zoe at his bedside. Instead, he saw a wizened old man, with wild white hair, sunken, liver-spotted cheeks, cannulated and intubated, with a ventilator beside him.

Mark scanned the rest of the beds, but there was no sign of Josh.

Panicking that his health had improved and that he had now been moved to another ward, he hurried back to the reception desk and positioned himself in front of the nurse who was on the phone, a plump, cheery-looking woman of about thirty, with a pudding-basin haircut, and a badge that said 'ITU Staff Nurse, MARIGOLD WATTS'. From her demeanour she seemed to be chatting to her boyfriend.

He waited impatiently, resting his arms on the wooden counter, staring at the bank of black and white monitors showing every bed, and the colour digital displays beneath each of them. He shifted his position a couple of times in rapid succession, trying to catch her eye, but she seemed to be mainly concerned about her dinner.

'Chinese, I think I fancy Chinese. Peking Duck. Somewhere that does Peking Duck, with the pancakes and--'

Then finally she seemed to notice him for the first time. 'Listen, I have to go. Call you back. Love you too.' She turned to Mark, all smiles. 'Yes, can I help you?'

'Josh Walker.' He pointed across the ward. 'He was over there ah - yesterday. I'm just wondering which ward he's been moved to?'

Her face froze as if she'd suffered a massive infusion of Botox. Her voice changed, also, suddenly becoming tartly defensive. 'Are you a relative?'

'No, I'm his business partner.' Instantly Mark kicked himself for not saying he was his brother. She would never have known.

'I'm sorry,' she said, as if regretting she had terminated her call for him. 'We can only give information to relatives.'

'You can't just tell me where he has been transferred to?'

A buzzer sounded. She looked up at the screens and a red light was flashing beside one of them. 'I have to go,' she said. 'I'm sorry.'

She rushed from her station across the ward.

Mark took out his mobile. Then he saw a large sign: 'THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN IN THIS HOSPITAL'.

He backed away, hurriedly retracing his steps to the lift, then took it to the ground floor. Totally gripped with fear he raced through a labyrinth of corridors until he reached the main entrance.

Just as he walked up to the reception desk he heard a loud, near hysterical voice, and saw Zoe, eyes raw, tears streaming down her cheeks, blonde ringlets totally unkempt.

'You and your friend Michael and all your stupid bloody jokes,' she shouted. 'You stupid, bloody immature jerks.'

He stared at her in silence for some moments. Then she collapsed in his arms, sobbing uncontrollably. 'He's dead, Mark, he just died. He's dead. Josh is dead. Oh God, he's dead. Please help me, what am I going to do?'

Mark put his arms around her. 'I -1 thought he was OK, that he was going to pull through,' he said, lamely.

'They said there was nothing they could do for him. They said if he had lived he would have been a vegetable. Oh God. Oh God, please help me, Mark. What am I going to say? How do I tell the children their daddy's never coming home? What do I say to them?'

'Do you - do you want a - a cup of tea or something?'

Through deep gulping sobs she said, 'No I don't want a fucking cup of tea. I want my Josh back. Oh God, they've taken him down to the mortuary. Oh Christ. Oh God, what am I going to do?'

Mark stood in silence, holding her tightly, stroking her back, hoping to hell his relief did not show.

Michael woke with a start from a confused dream, tried to sit up, and his head instantly crashed against the coffin lid. Crying out in pain he tried to move his arms, and his shoulders met the unyielding satin first on the left and then the right. He tossed and thrashed in a sudden claustrophobic panic.

'Get me out of here!' he screamed, turning, thrashing, gulping air, sweating and shivering at the same time.

'Oh, please, get me out of here!'

His voice was deadened. Flat. It wasn't going anywhere, it was trapped in here just the same as he was.

His hands fumbled for the torch, unable to locate it for several seconds in his panic. Then he found it, switched it on, stared up and then sideways at the walls of his prison. He looked at his watch: 11.15.

Night?

Tomorrow?

Night, it must still be night, Thursday night.

Rivulets of sweat were running down his body. Making a puddle underneath him. He craned his neck to look over his shoulder, shone his torch down and a reflection shone back. Water.

A whole fucking inch.

He looked down in shock. There was no way. No, absolutely no way that he had sweated this much.

Two fucking inches.

He put his hand down again. Shone the torch. Held his pinkie upright, like a dipstick. The water came up to just below the second joint. There was no way he had sweated that much. Cupping his hands he scooped some up and drank it greedily, oblivious to its salty, muddy taste. He drank more and more; for several minutes it seemed to him that the more he drank, the thirstier he was.

Then when he had finally finished, a new aspect of the rising water came into the equation. He grabbed the belt buckle and began frantically grinding away at the lid until again, but within minutes, the buckle became so hot it was burning his fingers.

Shit.

He picked up the whisky bottle. Still a third of its contents left. He struck the top of the bottle hard against the wood above him. Nothing happened. He tried again, heard the dull thud. A tiny sliver of glass sheared off. Tragic to waste it. He put the neck into his mouth, tilted it, swallowed a mouthful of the burning liquid. God, it tasted good, so good. He lay back, up-ended the bottle into his mouth and let it pour in, swallowing, swallowing, swallowing until he choked.

He held the bottle up, squinting at it in the beam, having difficulty focusing now, his head swimming. Only a small amount of whisky remained. Just about--

There was a thump right above his head. He felt the coffin move!

Then another thump.

Like a footstep.

Like someone standing on the lid of the coffin right above him!

Hope sprang every nerve in his body. Oh Jesus Christ, theyaregetting me out of here at last!

'OK, you bastards!' he yelled, his voice more feeble than he had intended. He took a breath, heard another scrape above him. At fucking last!

'What the fuck kept you?'

Silence.

He banged his fist against the lid, slurring his words. 'Hey! What fucking kept you? Josh? Luke? Pete? Robbo? Have you any idea how long I've been down here? This is just so not funny, this really is just so not funny. You hear me?'

Silence.

Michael listened.

Had he imagined it?

'Hello! Hey, hello!'

Silence.

No way had he imagined it. There had been footsteps. A wild animal? No, they had been heavier than that. Human heavy.

He knocked frantically with the bottle and then with his fists.

Then very suddenly, very silently, as if he were watching a magic show on television, the breathing tube slid upwards and disappeared, A few grains of soil fell down through the hole it vacated.

Mark could barely see. The red mist of panic that seized him was blurring his vision, fogging his brain. Michael's voice, he had heard Michael's goddamn muffled voice. Oh Jesus!

He closed the door of his BMW in the darkness of the forest, in the lashing rain, jabbed at the ignition, and tried to get the key in. His boots were heavy and tacky with cloying mud, water was streaming down from his baseball cap onto his face.

With his gloved hands he twisted the key and the headlamps came on in a brilliant white glare as the engine turned over and fired. In their beam he saw the grave and the trees beyond. An animal scurried off into the undergrowth, leaves and plants swayed in the wind and rain, for a moment almost surreally like plants in a current on the ocean floor.

He kept staring at the grave, at the corrugated sheet he had carefully pulled back over, and the shrubbery he had uprooted and laid over it to camouflage it. Then he saw the second spade still sticking in the ground and cursed. He climbed down from the car, ran across and grabbed it, and shoved it inside the tailgate. Then he climbed back in, slammed the door, scanning the scene, checking it as well as his blurred vision could.

He was thinking. No construction was due to start here for at least another month, there were still planning issues to be sorted and finalized. No reason for anyone to come here. The planning committee had made their inspection, everything now was on hold for the formal rubber stamp.

Shaking uncontrollably, he put the car in gear and headed back down the track, over the two cattle grids again that had been put there, presumably by the Forestry Commission, to stop deer getting out onto the road.

As he pulled out onto the road he switched on the radio, hitting button after button in search of some music. There was news.

Talking. A commercial. He hit the CD button, surfed each of the CDs in turn, but none of them worked for him. He switched the machine off.

Minutes later, as he drove around a curve, the beam of the headlights picked up a row of wreaths on the verge. The sight churned his stomach. Headlights came the other way, passed. Then more headlights. He gripped the wheel tightly, his head swimming, trying to concentrate, trying to think clearly. Then he came to another curve, even sharper, and he was going much too fast. Panicking, he braked sharply, too sharply, felt the judder as the ABS anti-skid kicked in and heard a thump as the breathing tube shot forward off the passenger seat beside him and into the footwell.

Somehow he got around the bend, then saw a lay-by ahead and pulled in. He pressed the SatNav command button, then dialled in Arlington Reservoir. After a few moment the system's disembodied female voice announced, 'The route is being calculated.'

Twenty-five minutes later he pulled up at the start of the wooden jetty on the deserted hard of the yacht club of the five-mile-long reservoir and switched off the engine. Grabbing his flashlight, he climbed down and stood in the darkness, listening. The only sound was the clacking of rigging flailing in the wind. No lights on anywhere. The clubhouse was silent. He glanced at his watch. Ten after midnight.

He took the breathing tube from the footwell, then the two shovels from inside the tailgate and walked down to the end of the jetty. He and Michael had begun their sailing here, as kids, before they had become more adventurous and started ocean sailing. From his memory the water here was about twenty feet deep. Not perfect, but it should be adequate. He dropped the breathing tube and then the shovels into the inky, rippled surface and watched them disappear. Then he pulled off his boots and dropped them in too. They sank instantly.

Then he padded back to the car, pulled on the moccasin loafers he had brought and headed home, feeling suddenly very weary. He drove slowly, carefully, not wanting to get clocked by any speed cameras, nor attract the attention of any cop car.

His first task in the morning was going to be to drive straight to a car wash he knew, near Have station. A place that was always busy, that local cab drivers used, where filthy cars were the norm, where there was always a queue, where no one would take the slightest notice of a BMW X5 caked in mud.

Grace took the smouldering stub of his cigar out of his mouth, yawned, then replaced the stub, gripping it with his teeth in a sudden burst of concentration as he scooped up his five cards off the rumpled green baize cloth. A small pile of fifty-pence chips lay in the centre of the table, the antes from each player. In front of him were tumblers of whisky, glasses of wine, piles of cash and chips, and a couple of overflowing ashtrays, surrounded by fragments of crisps and sandwich crumbs. There was a fug of smoke in the room, and outside rain and wind lashed the tall windows, which overlooked the English Channel and the lights of the Palace Pier.

They always played Dealer's Choice, and each time it was his turn, Bob Thornton, a long-retired Detective Inspector, always chose Draw - the poker game Grace liked least of all. He glanced at his watch: 12.38 a.m. Following the tradition of their weekly Thursday night poker games, the last full round had started at half past midnight, and there would be just two more hands after this one.

It had not been a good night for him; despite wearing his lucky turquoise socks and his lucky blue-striped shirt, he'd had unremittingly lousy cards, made a couple of bad calls, and had been seen on an expensive bluff. The whole game had gone the same way as just about everything else this week: south. One hundred and fifty quid down so far, and the last round was often the most vicious.

He glanced fleetingly at his cards, while concentrating on the reactions of his five colleagues to their own, and suddenly perked up a little. Three tens. The first decent hand he'd picked up in at least two hours. But a dangerous hand too - good enough that he'd be daft not to play it, but it was no slam-dunk.

Bob Thornton was a hard guy to read. In his mid-seventies, he was a big, energetic man who still played regular squash, with a hawkish face and liver-spotted hands that looked almost reptilian. He wore a green cardigan over a tartan open-neck shirt, corduroy trousers and tennis plimsolls. By a wide margin he was the oldest of a hard core of ten regular players, from whom enough to cobble JtOgether a game turned up to play every Thursday, week in, week out, lyear in, year out, each player taking it in turn to host the evening.

The game had been going on long before Grace had joined the Force. Bob had told them, more than once, that when he had joined the group decades ago he had been the youngest player. Thinking about his looming thirty-ninth birthday, Grace wondered if, like Bob, he would one day end up himself as the old fart of the group.

But age clearly brought some advantages. Bob was sharp as a tack, hard to read and a wily and very aggressive player. Grace could not remember many occasions over the years when Bob had not gone home with a profit - and true to form there was mountain of chips and cash in front of the man right now. Grace watched him hunch his shoulders as he inspected and sorted his cards, keeping them close to his chest, peering at them through his glasses with alert, greedy eyes. Then he opened and shut his mouth, flicking his tongue along his lips in a serpent-like manner, and Grace knew Immediately he didn't have to worry about Bob's hand - unless he got lucky in the pickup.

It was Grace's turn to open the betting. He eyed the rest of his companions.

Tom Allen, thirty-four years old, a detective in Brighton CID, with a serious, boyish face and a mop of curly hair. Dressed in a sweatshirt over a T-shirt, he peered at his cards impassively. Grace always found him hard to read.

Next to Tom sat Chris Croke, a motorcycle cop in Traffic - or Road Policing, as the department was now called. With lean and wiry good looks, short blond hair, blue eyes and a quick-fire charm, Croke was a consummate ladies' man, who seemed to live the lifestyle more of a playboy than of a cop. He was hosting tonight's game in his flash, fifth-floor apartment in the coolest apartment block in Brighton, the Van Allen. Ordinarily a cop living such a ritzy lifestyle would have aroused suspicions in Grace, but it was well known that Croke's exmissus was a socialite heiress to a vast football pools fortune.

Croke had met her when he'd stopped her for speeding and it was his boast that, despite giving her a ticket, she had still married him.

Whatever the truth, that was now history, but there was no question he had done well out of the marriage, because when she had finally got tired of the erratic hours that were the lot of any cop's spouse, she had settled a pile of loot on him.

Croke was reckless and unpredictable. In seven years of playing with him, Grace found his body language hard to decipher. He never seemed to care whether he won or lost; it was much easier to read people who had something at stake.

Grace turned his focus on Trevor Carter, a quiet, balding man who worked in IT at Brighton police station. Dressed conservatively in a grey shirt, sleeves rolled up, unfashionably large glasses and drab brown trousers, Carter was a frugal, family man, who played the game as if the welfare of his four children depended on it. He rarely bluffed, rarely raised and as a result rarely finished any evening up. Carter's giveaway was a nervous twitch of his right eye - the surefire signal that he had a strong hand. It was twitching now.

Lastly he looked at Geoff Panone, a Drugs Squad detective of thirty, dressed in a black T-shirt, white jeans and sandals, with nearshoulderlength black hair and a gold earring, who was puffing away on a massive cigar. Grace had learned from watching him over the past couple of years that when he had a good hand at Draw poker, he systematically rearranged the cards in his hand, and when he had a lousy hand, he didn't. Worryingly, he was now rearranging his cards.

'Your bet, Roy,' Bob Thornton told him.

The limit was always the pot on the table. No one could bet higher, which kept the stakes to an affordable level. With six of them putting in a total ante of three pounds, that was the opening ceiling. Not wanting to give anything away, and at the same time wanting to keep everyone in, Grace opened with one pound. All of them came in until Trevor Carter, who raised by three pounds, the twitching of his eye even more pronounced now.

Geoff tossed in a further two pounds. Bob Thornton hesitated just for a fraction, just enough for Grace to know that he definitely did not have a good hand so far and was taking a chance because it was the last round. He decided to press his opportunity and raised by a further three pounds.

Everyone looked at him. They knew he'd had a bad night and this

i a giveaway. But it was already too late to do anything about that.

Tom threw his cards down and shook his head. Chris hesitated jr some moments, then tossed in five pounds. Trevor and Geoff ?ped their bets to match also. Bob Thornton followed.

'How many cards?' Bob asked Grace.

Changing two would have revealed he had three of a kind. But longing two would have given him better odds. Grace decided his jlltrategy and changed just one, dumping his three of clubs, retaining seven of spades. He picked up a seven of hearts.

His heart leapt. A full honse.'Not a top one, but a seriously strong hand. Tens on sevens. Now he was in business!

Certain from watching the change of cards of the others that he had the strongest hand, Grace decided to seize his opportunity and bet the ranch. To his dismay, each of the next three players in turn dropped out and he realized he'd pushed it too hard. But then to his relief Trevor Carter came in and raised him.

Confidently pulling out his wallet, Grace raised him further. Trevor then raised him several more times in succession, until Grace finally lost his nerve, peeled some more banknotes from his wallet and saw him.

Then he puffed nervously on his cigar as Carter flipped over his cards, one by one.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

A running flush - 7,8,9,10, Jack on the bounce.

'Bloody brilliant!' Croke said.

"Well played!' Bob Thornton exclaimed. 'My God, that was well hidden!'

'I picked them up,' a near-ecstatic Trevor Carter said. 'I picked them up!'

Grace sat back in dismay. It was a hand in a million - maybe even longer odds than that. Impossible to have predicted. And yet he should have realized, from the uncharacteristic strength of Trevor's betting, that Trevor knew he had him beat - and seen him much sooner.

'I reckon your supernatural powers need a bit of topping up, Roy,' chirped Croke.

Everyone laughed.

'Fuck off!' retorted Grace more good-naturedly than he felt. Assistant Chief Constable Alison Vosper was right. People were laughing at him. Here it was light-hearted, among friends. But there were others in the Force for whom there was no joke. If he wasn't careful his career could be stalled and he could find himself sidelined. And right now he was down the best part of three hundred quid.

And by the time the remaining three games had been played, Grace had managed to increase his losses for the evening to four hundred and twenty-two pounds and fifty pence.

He was not a happy bunny as he took the lift down to the underground car park of the block. As he walked towards his Alfa Romeo parked in the visitors' section, he was still so cross with himself and his friends that he barely noticed the mud-streaked BMW X5 that was driving in.

Bha!' Davey, soaking wet, unlocked the door of his Portakabin, , kicked it wide open and strutted in. 'Yeeha!' he announced to

television screen, which was always on, to all his buddies who

ig around on the screen. He paused, water trickling down his leball cap and off his oilskins and muddy Wellingtons onto the i carpet, to check them out. James Spader was in an office, talk Ig to some chick he did not recognize.

'Wasted 'bout two hundred of them darned vermin. Know what I'm saying?' Davey said to James Spader in his best Southern drawl.

But Spader simply ignored him, kept on talking to the chick.

^ Davey picked the remote off his bed and pointed it at the television.

'Yeah, well, I don't need you either, know what I'm saying?' He

Changed channels. Now he saw two guys he did not know, face to

face, arguing with each other. Click.

James Gandolfino was walking through the cars in a Mercedes Benz dealership, towards a handsome woman with long black hair.

Davey zapped him and he was gone.

He surfed through a whole bunch of channels, but there didn't seem to be anyone interested in talking to him. So he walked over to the fridge. 'Just gonna git me a beer from the minibar,' he announced, pulled out a Coke, flipped it open with one hand, drained half the can, then sat on the bed and belched. His watch said 2.21.

He was wide awake. Wanted to talk to someone, to tell them about all the rabbits he and his dad had shot tonight.

'Here's the thing,' Davey said, then he belched again. He checked the pockets of his oilskins, pulled out a couple of live shotgun cartridges, then hung the oilskins on their hook on the door. He sat on the edge of his bed, wearily, the way he'd seen Clint sit when he was easing off his boots, and dropped his Wellingtons one after the other onto the floor.

Then he fondled the two unspent cartridges. 'They've got your name on them/ he informed Sean Penn, who was walking towards him. But Sean Penn wasn't in the mood for conversation either.

Then Davey remembered. There was someone who would talk to him. He knelt down on the floor, reached under the bed for the walkie-talkie, then pulled out the aerial as far as it would go. Kerloink!

He pressed the listen button and heard the crackle of static. Then he tried the talk button.

Michael, wide awake, was crying. He did not know what to do, he felt 0 utterly helpless. It was after two in the morning, Friday morning, he was meant to be getting married tomorrow. There were a million things that needed to be done.

Who or what the hell had taken the breathing tube? Could it have been a badger taking something to its lair? What would a badger want with a length of rubber tubing? Besides, the footsteps had been too heavy. It had been a human, for sure.

Who?

Why?

Where was Ashley, his beloved, darling, gorgeous, caring Ashley? What was she thinking right now, what was going through her mind?

He kept hoping, every moment, that this was some terrible nightmare and in a minute he would wake and be in his bed with Ashley beside him. It just did not make any sense.

There was a sudden sharp hiss, stark and clear. The walkietalkie!

Then a voice, in a thick Southern drawl said: 'You have any idea how much damage they do? Huh? You got yourself any idea?'

Frantically, Michael scrabbled in the darkness for his torch.

The voice continued, 'Y'know, most folk ain't got no idea. You git them durn conservationalists talking 'bout protecting the wildlife, but them guys, they don't know shit, know what I'm saying?'

Michael found the torch, switched it on, located the walkietalkie and pressed the talk button. 'Hello?' he said. 'Hello? Davey?'

'Uh huh, I'm talking to ya! Bet you don't have no idea, right?'

'Hello, who are you?'

'Hey dude, you don't need to worry 'bout who I am. Thing is five danged rabbits eat near enough the same amount of grass as one sheep. Go figure.'

Michael gripped the black box, totally confused, wondering if he

was hallucinating. What the hell was going on? 'Can I speak to Mark? Or Josh? Or Luke? Or Pete? Robbo?'

There was silence for some moments.