Dead Simple

'Oh, fuck off!' He stared Grace up and down. 'You're looking sharp, for a Saturday. Hot date yourself?'

'A wedding, actually.'

'Congratulations - who's the lucky girl?'

'I have a feeling she's not that lucky,' Grace retorted, placing a small plastic bag containing the earth he had retrieved from Mark Warren's BMW down on the table, next to the shirt. 'I need you to pull out some stops.'

'You always need me to pull out some stops. Everyone does.'

'Not true, Joe. I gave you the Tommy Lytle material and told you there was all the time you need. This is different. I have a missing person - how fast you get this analysed might determine whether he lives or dies.'

Joe Tindall held the bag up and peered at it. He shook it gently, peering at it all the time. 'Quite sandy/ he said.

'What does that tell you?'

'You mentioned Ashdown Forest on the phone?'

'Uhhuh.'

'This might be the kind of soil you'd find there.'

'Might?'

'The UK is knee-deep in sandy soil, Roy. There's sandy soil in Ashdown Forest - but there's sandy soil in a million other places, too.'

'I need an area that's about seven foot long and three foot wide.'

'Sounds like a grave.'

'It is a grave.'

Joe Tindall nodded, peering closely at the earth again. 'You want me to locate a grave in the middle of Ashdown Forest from this little bag of earth?'

'You're catching on.'

The SOCO officer removed his glasses for some moments, as if that would give him clarity of vision, then put them on again. 'Here's the deal, Roy. You locate the grave and I'll get you an analysis on whether this soil matches or doesn't.'

'Actually, I need it to be the other way around.'

Tindall held up the plastic bag. 'I see. Who do you think I am? David Blaine? Derren Brown? I swing this in the air and somehow magic up a grave in the middle of a ten-thousand-hectare forest?'

'You have a problem with that?'

'Actually, yes, I do have a problem with that.'

45

A few hours later, Grace cruised slowly up a steep hill past All Saints' church in Patcham Village, where a certain wedding had been scheduled to happen at two o'clock this afternoon - in exactly three-quarters of an hour.

This was his own personal favourite church in the area. A classic Early English parish church, intimate, simple, with unadorned grey stonework, a small tower, a fine stained-glass window behind the altar and tombstones going back centuries in the overgrown graveyard out the front and along the sides.

The heavy rain had eased to a light drizzle as he sat in his Alfa, parked close to the entrance, on a grass bank opposite the church, giving him a commanding view of all the arrivals. No sign of anyone yet. Just a few pieces of sodden confetti on the wet tarmac, from an earlier wedding, probably this morning.

He watched an elderly woman in a hooded PVC raincoat wheel a shopping basket down the pavement and pause to exchange a few words with a huge man in an anorak with a tiny dog on a leash, who was walking up in the opposite direction. The dog cocked its leg on a lamppost.

A blue Ford Focus pulled up and a man with a couple of cameras slung around his neck climbed out. Grace observed him, wondering whether he was the official wedding photographer, or press. Moments later a small brown Vauxhall pulled up behind it, and a young man in an anorak emerged, carrying a distinctive reporter's notebook. The two men greeted each other and began chatting, both looking around, waiting.

After ten minutes he saw a silver BMW off-roader pull up. Because of its tinted glass windows and the rain, he could not make out who was inside, but he recognized immediately Mark Warren's number plate. Moments later, Warren, in a dark raincoat, jumped down and hurried up the path to the main entrance of the church.

He disappeared inside, then came out almost immediately and hurried back to his car.

A taxi pulled up, and a tall, distinguished-looking man with silver hair, dressed in a morning suit with a red carnation in the buttonhole, and holding a grey top hat, closed the rear door and walked towards the church. The taxi had evidently been paid to wait. Then a silver Audi TT sports car pulled up. Grace remembered seeing one like it parked in front of Ashley Harper's house.

The driver's door opened, and Ashley, holding a small umbrella, emerged, in a smart white, wedding dress, her hair up. An older woman appeared from the passenger door, in a white-trimmed blue dress and neatly coiffed silver-grey hair. Ashley waved acknowledgement to the BMW, then huddled under the umbrella. The pair hurried up the path and disappeared into the church. Mark Warren followed.

Then, at five to two, Grace saw the vicar cut across the graveyard and enter, and decided it was time to make his move. He left his car, tugging on his Tommy Hilfiger blue and yellow anorak. As he crossed the road the young man with the notebook approached him. He was in his mid-twenties, sharp-faced, wearing a cheap grey suit with his tie knotted massively but slackly, so the top button of his white shirt showed above it, and chewing gum.

'Detective Superintendent Grace, isn't it?'

Grace eyeballed him, used to being recognized by the press, but wary all the same. And you are?'

'Kevin Spinella, the Argus. Just wondering if you have any update on Michael Harrison for us?'

'Nothing yet, I'm afraid. We'll be waiting to see if he turns up to his wedding.'

The reporter glanced at his watch. 'Cutting it a bit fine, isn't he?'

'It wouldn't be the first time a groom has been late.' Grace smiled and eased past Spinella.

Hurrying after him, the reporter asked, 'Do you think Michael Harrison is alive or dead, Detective Superintendent?'

Stopping for one moment, Grace said, 'We're regarding this as a missing persons enquiry.'

'For the moment?'

'I don't have any further comment, thank you.' Grace pushed open the heavy door, stepped into the gloom of the porch and closed the door behind him.

Whenever he entered a church, Grace always felt a sense of conflict. Should he unhook a kneeler, get down on the floor and pray, the way most people did? The way he did as a kid alongside his mother and father, most Sunday mornings of his childhood. Or should he just sit down on a pew, letting the God he was no longer sure he believed in know his anger? For a long time after Sandy's disappearance he had gone to church and had prayed for her return. Sometimes he had attended services, but mostly he had gone into an empty church. Sandy had never been a believer, and during the past few years, with his prayers unanswered, he had increasingly become an agnostic. It no longer felt right, praying.

Give me Sandy back, then I'll pray my heart out to you. But not until then, Mr God, OK?

He walked past a row of dripping umbrellas, a crisscrossed noticeboard and a stack of service sheets with Michael John Harrison and Ashley Lauren Harper printed on the front, then into the church itself, instantly breathing in the familiar smells of dry, old wood, old cloth, dust and a hint of burning wax. The place was beautifully bedecked with flowers, but there was no hint of their perfume.

About a dozen people stood in the aisle and nave, all of them silent, expectant, as if they were extras on a film set waiting for the director's command to move.

Grace took in the group rapidly, nodding at Ashley, who was sheet-white and clutching the arm of the tall man in the black morning coat, presumably her father. Next to her stood the woman he had seen emerging from the car with Ashley, a handsome woman in her fifties but with the strained look of someone who has been through a sustained rough time. Mark Warren, in a navy suit, sporting a white carnation, stood beside a good-looking young couple in their early thirties.

He realized everyone was looking at him. In a faltering voice Ashley broke the ice by thanking him for coming and introduced him first to Michael's mother, who seemed distraught, and then to the handsome, distinguished-looking man he had thought was her

father, but turned out to be her uncle. He gave Grace a warm handshake, introducing himself as Bradley Cunningham, staring Grace straight back in the eye and saying, 'Good to meet you, Detective Superintendent.'

Picking up on his North American accent, Grace asked, 'Whereabouts in the States are you from?'

The man frowned as if insulted. 'Actually, I'm Canadian, from Ontario.'

'I apologize.'

'No problem, it's a common mistake you Limeys make.'

'I guess you might have problems differentiating regional accents across Britain,' Grace said.

'Actually, you are right.'

Grace smiled, eyeing his morning coat approvingly. 'It's good to see someone properly dressed for a wedding.'

'Actually the pants are killing me,' Cunningham confessed. 'Rented this lot from your wonderful Moss Bros, but I think I got given the wrong pants!' Then his face became grave. 'Still, this is a terrible thing, isn't it?'

'Yes,' Grace said, distracted suddenly. 'Terrible.'

Ashley interrupted them, introducing Grace to the vicar, the Reverend Somping, a short, bearded man in white robes and a dog collar, with rheumy, bloodshot eyes, who looked distinctly angry.

'I told Miss Harper we should have cancelled this completely,' the Reverend Somping said. 'It is ridiculous to put someone through this agony - and what about the guests? This is such a nonsense.'

'He will turn up,' Ashley blubbed. 'He will, I know he will.' She looked imploringly at Grace. 'Please tell him that Michael is on his way.'

Grace stared at the bride, so sad and vulnerable-looking, and almost had to restrain himself from reaching out his arms and hugging her. She looked so forlorn, so desperate. He felt like punching the arrogant vicar in the face.

'Michael Harrison might yet turn up,' he said.

'He's going to have to turn up pretty smartly,' the vicar said, coldly. 'I have another wedding here at four.'

'I thought this was a church/ Grace said, angry at his insensitivity to Ashley. 'Not a supermarket.'

The Reverend Somping attempted, without success, to glare Grace out. Then he said, defensively, 'I work for the Lord. He gives me his timetable.'

After a few moments Grace snapped back, Tn that case I suggest you ask your boss to produce the groom, pronto.'

46

At twenty past two, quite unnecessarily considering the small number of people present, the Reverend Somping climbed up the steps into the pulpit with all the labour of a man scaling Everest the hard way. He placed his palms on the wooden rails, leaned forward with an expression leaden with gravitas and announced:

'I have been asked by the bride, Miss Ashley Harper, and by the mother of the groom, Mrs Gillian Harrison, to inform you that this wedding is delayed, indefinitely, pending the presence of Michael Harrison. What should be a joyous occasion, the union of two young, loving people, in the eyes of our Lord, has been curtailed by the absence of Michael. None of us knows what has happened to him, but our thoughts and prayers are with him, his family and with his bride-to-be.'

He paused, staring challengingly at the group of people, before continuing. 'Miss Harper and Mrs Harrison have generously suggested that even though no wedding has taken place, you should at least enjoy the refreshments which have been laid on for the reception, in the Queen Mary Room of the Brighton Pavilion. They would appreciate it if you would join them there after we have said a prayer for Michael's well-being.'

He launched into a brief, hurried prayer. Then someone opened the church doors.

Grace watched the people filing out in silence. It had all the atmosphere of a funeral. Sometime in the next week several of the guests here would be attending four funerals. And he hoped that the no-show by Michael Harrison didn't mean it could be five. But it was not a good sign, it was a very bad sign indeed. Any prospect that Michael Harrison was playing a prank could now be discounted.

And there was something else bothering him.

An hour later at the reception, in the Queen Mary Room at the Royal Pavilion, with fine oil paintings in gilded frames hung on its pink walls, there was none of the cheery buzz of a party, but instead a number of stilted conversations punctuated the silence. Only a few of the twenty tables, beautifully laid for 200 guests, and decorated with orchids, were being used. Two chefs in white coats and toques manned the laden buffet tables with an army of waiters and waitresses, and the tiered wedding cake sat in a space of its own, an almost unwelcome reminder of the reason everyone was here. All the same, several people seemed to be tucking into platefuls of food and swigging down the champagne and wines.

Grace, who had been invited by Ashley, had been delayed talking on his phone to DC Nicholl and DS Moy about increasing the team. There was a rookie female detective constable Bella rated highly and who was free, called Emma-Jane Boutwood. Grace backed Bella's judgement by suggesting Emma-Jane be brought into the team immediately.

Now at the reception, he watched Ashley and Mark Warren keenly. Despite her eyes being tear-stained and streaked with mascara, she was putting on a brave face, seated at a table, with a young man on one side and a woman the other that Grace did not recognize from the church. It seemed several more people had turned up here, told by Ashley that the reception was still on for anyone who would like to come.

'He'll turn up,' Grace heard her saying. 'There's a reason behind this.' Then she continued, 'This is just so bizarre - isn't your wedding day meant to be the happiest day of your life?' before breaking down in a flood of tears.

On another table, Grace singled out Michael's mother and Ashley's uncle seated next to each other. He watched Bradley Cunningham for some moments, thoughtfully. Then he was interrupted by Mark Warren, sporting a white carnation in his buttonhole, holding an empty champagne flute, his voice slurred. He pushed his face close up against Grace's.

'Detective Sergeant Grace?' he quizzed.

'Detective Superintendent,' Grace corrected him.

'S-shorry - didn't realize you'd been promoted.'

'I haven't, Mr Warren.'

Mark stood back a moment, then squared up to him, eyeballing him as levelly as he could, except the alcohol was making him squint. His presence was clearly making Ashley uncomfortable - Grace saw her look up from her table.

'Can't sh'you leave thish young lady alone? Do you have any idea what she is going through?'

'That's why I'm here,' Grace said calmly.

'You should be out, trying to find Michael, not hanging around, freeloading here.'

'Mark!' Ashley cautioned.

'Fuck it,' Mark said, brushing her aside, and eyeballing Grace again. 'What the fuck are you doing about this situation?'

Angered by his attitude, but remaining calm, Grace said, 'My team are doing everything they can.'

'Doesn't much look like it to me. Should you be drinking on duty?'

'It's mineral water.'

Mark squinted at Grace's glass.

Standing up and joining them, Ashley said, 'Why don't you circulate, Mark?'

Grace clocked the edge in her voice. Something very definitely did not feel right but he couldn't place quite what.

Then Mark Warren jabbed him in the chest. 'You know your problem? You don't give a fuck, do you?'

'Why do you think that?'

Mark Warren gave him an asinine grin, raising his voice. 'Come on. You don't like rich people, do you? We can go fuck ourselves, can't we? You're too busy looking at speed cameras, trapping motorists. Why should you give a fuck about some poor rich sod who's the victim of some prank that's gone wrong, hey? When you could be out earning a fat bonus from trapping motorists?'

Grace deliberately lowered his voice, almost to a whisper, which he knew would force Mark Warren to lower his voice, also. 'Mr Warren, I don't have any connection with the Traffic Division. I'm here to try to help you.'

Mark leaned closer, straining to hear him. 'Sorry, I missed that. What did you say?'

Still speaking deliberately quietly, Grace said, 'When I was at Police Training College we had to do a parade and be inspected. I'd buffed my belt buckles to a shine like a mirror. The Chief made me take the belt off and held up the back for everyone to see. I hadn't polished that at all and I felt ashamed. It taught me a lesson - it's not just what you can see that matters.' He gave Mark a quizzical look.

'What exshacktly ish that meant to mean?'

'I'll leave you to think about that, Mr Warren - next time you have your BMW washed.'

Grace turned and walked away.

47

Back in his car, with the rain pattering down on the windscreen, Grace was deep in thought. So deep, it was several moments before he even noticed the parking ticket tucked under the wiper.

Bastards.

He climbed out of the car, grabbed the ticket and tore it from its cellophane wrapping. Thirty-quid fine for being five minutes over the time on his voucher - and no chance of putting it through expenses. The Chief had clamped down firmly on that.

Hope you appreciate this, Mr Branson, having your nice weekend break in Solihull. He grimaced, tossing the ticket into the passenger footwell in disgust. Then he turned his mind back to Mark Warren. Then back five years to the fortnight's course in forensic psychology he had done at the FBI training centre in Quantico in the USA. It had not been enough to make him an expert, but it had taught him the value of his instincts, and it had taught him how to read certain aspects of body language.

And Mark Warren's body language was all wrong.

Mark Warren had lost four close friends. His business partner was missing, maybe dead. Very likely dead. He ought to be in shock, numb, bewildered. Not angry. It was too soon for anger.

And he had noticed the reaction to his remark about the car wash. He had touched a nerve there very definitely.

I don't know what you are up to, Mr Mark Warren, but I'm making it my business to find out.

He picked up his phone, dialled a number, listened to it ringing. On a Saturday afternoon he was expecting to get the answering machine, but instead he got a human voice. Female. Soft and warm. Impossible for anyone to guess from her voice what she did for a living.

'Brighton and Have City Mortuary,' she said.

'Cleo, it's Roy Grace.'

'Wotcher, Roy, how you doing?' Cleo Morey's ordinarily quite posh voice was suddenly impish.

Involuntarily, Grace found himself flirting with her over the phone. 'Yes, OK. I'm impressed you're working on a Saturday afternoon.' 'The dead don't know what day of the week it is.' She hesitated. 'Don't 'spose the living care much, either. Most of them anyhow,' she added as an afterthought.

'Mosf of them?'

'Seems to me most living people don't really know what day of the week it is - they give the impression they do, but they don't really. Don't you think?'

'This is heavy philosophy for a wet Saturday afternoon,' Grace said.

'Well I'm doing my Open University degree in philosophy, so I've got to practise my arguments on someone - and I don't get much response from the lot in here.'

Grace grinned. 'So how are you?'

'OK.'

'You sound a bit - low.'

'Never felt better, Roy. I'm tired, that's all. Been here on my own all week - short-staffed - Doug's on holiday.'

'Those lads who were killed on Tuesday night - are they still in the mortuary?'

'They're here. And so is Josh Walker.'

The one who died afterwards, in hospital?'

'Yes.'

'I need to come over, take a look at them. Would now be OK?'

'They're not going anywhere.'

Grace always enjoyed her dark humour. 'I'll be there in about ten minutes,' he said.

The Saturday-afternoon traffic was heavier than he had expected and it was nearly twenty minutes before he entered the busy gyratory system, then turned right, past a sign saying 'Brighton & have city mortuary' and through wrought iron gates attached to brick pillars. The gates were always open, twenty-four hours a day. Like a symbol, he reflected, that the dead didn't have much respect for business hours.

Grace knew this place far too well. It was a bland building with a horrible aura. A long, single-storey structure with grey pebbledash rendering on the walls and a covered drive-in on one side deep enough to take an ambulance or a large van. The mortuary was a transit stop on a one-way journey to a grave or a crematorium oven, for people who had died suddenly, violently or inexplicably - or from some fast-onset disease like viral meningitis, where a post-mortem might reveal medical insights that could one day help the living.

Yet a post-mortem was the ultimate degradation. A human being who had been walking, talking, reading, making love - or whatever just a day or two earlier being cut open and disembowelled like a pig on a butcher's slab.

He didn't want to think about it, but he couldn't help it; he'd seen too many post-mortems and knew what happened. The scalp would be peeled back, then the cap of the skull sawn off, the brain removed and sliced into segments. The chest wall would be cut open, all the internal organs taken out and sliced and weighed and some bits sent off for pathological analysis, the rest crammed into a white plastic bag and stitched back inside the cadaver like giblets.

He parked behind a small blue MG sports car, which he presumed was Cleo's, and hurried through the rain over to the front entrance and rang the bell. The blue front door with its frosted glass panel could have come straight from a suburban bungalow.

Moments later, Cleo Morey opened it, smiling warmly. No matter how many times he saw her, he could never quite get used to the incongruity of this immensely attractive young woman, in her late twenties, with long blonde hair, dressed in a green surgical gown, with a heavy-duty green apron over the top and white Wellington boots. With her looks she could have been a model, or an actress, and with her brains she could have probably had any career she set her mind to - and she chose this. Booking in cadavers, preparing them for post-mortems, cleaning up afterwards - and trying to offer crumbs of comfort to the families of the bereaved, invariably in

shock, who came to identify the bodies. And for much of the time she worked alone here.

The smell hit Roy immediately, the way it always did, that sickly sweet reek of disinfectant that permeated the whole place and made something squirm in his guts.

They took a left off the narrow entrance hall into the undertaker's office, which doubled as reception. It was a small room with a blower heater on the floor, pink Artexed walls, a pink carpet, an L-shaped row of visitor chairs, and a small metal desk on which sat three telephones, a stack of small brown envelopes printed with the words 'personal effects', and a large green and red ledger bearing the legend 'mortuary register' in gold block lettering.

There was a light box on one wall, as well as a row of framed 'public health and hygiene' certificates, and a larger one from the 'british institute of embalmers', with Cleo Morey's name inscribed beneath. On another wall was a closed-circuit television camera, which showed, in a continual jerky sequence, views of the front, back, then each side of the building, then a close-up on the entrance.

'Cup of tea, Roy?'

Her clear bright blue eyes engaged with his for just a fraction longer than was necessary for the question. Smiling eyes. Incredibly warm eyes.

'I'd love a cup of tea.'

'English breakfast, Earl Grey, Darjeeling, China, camomile, peppermint, green leaf?'

'I thought this was the mortuary, not Starbucks,' he said.

She grinned. 'We also have coffee. 'Espresso, latte, Colombian, mocha--'

He raised a hand. 'Builder's tea, perfect.'

'Full fat milk, semi-skimmed, with lemon--'

He raised both his hands. 'Whatever milk you have open. Joe not here yet?'

He had asked Joe Tindall, from SOCO, to attend.

'Not yet, do you want to wait until he gets here?'

'Yes, we should.'

She flicked a switch on the kettle and disappeared into the locker room opposite. As the kettle began burbling, she returned with a

green gown, blue overshoes, a face mask and white latex gloves, which she handed to him.

While he pulled them on, she made his tea for him and opened a tin containing digestive biscuits. He took one and munched it. 'So you've been here on your own all week? Doesn't it get you down? No conversation?'

'I'm always busy - we've had ten admissions this week. Eastbourne was going to send over someone from their mortuary, but they got too busy as well. Must be something about the last week in May'

Grace pulled the band of the mask over his head, then let the mask hang loose below his chin; the young men had not been dead long enough to smell too bad, in his experience. 'You've had the families of all the four young men up?'

She nodded. 'And has the guy who was missing, the groom, turned up yet?'

'I've just come from the wedding/ Grace said.

'I thought you were looking a bit smart for a Saturday, Roy' She grinned. 'So at least that's resolved itself?'

'No,' he replied. 'That's why I'm here.'

She raised her eyebrows but didn't comment. 'Anything in particular you want to see? I can get you copies of the pathologist's reports to the Coroner's office.'

'What I want to start with when Joe gets here,' he replied, 'are their fingernails.'

48

Followed by Joe Tindall, who was tugging on his gloves, Grace followed Cleo along the hard, speckled floor, watching her streaked blonde hair swinging against the neck of her green gown, past the glass window of the sealed infection chamber, into the main postmortem room.

It was dominated by two steel tables, one fixed, one wheeled, a blue hydraulic hoist and a row of fridges with floor-to-ceiling doors. The walls were tiled in grey and the whole room was surrounded by a drain gulley. Along one wall was a row of sinks and a coiled yellow hose. Along another was a wide work surface, a metal cutting board and a glass-fronted cabinet filled with instruments and some packs of Duracell batteries. Next to the cabinet was a chart itemizing the name of each deceased, with columns for the weights of their brain, lungs, heart, liver, kidneys and spleen. A man's name, Adrian Penny, with his grim recordings was written in blue chinagraph pen.

Seeing what Grace was looking at, she said cheerfully, 'A motorcyclist we did a PM on yesterday. Overtook a lorry and didn't notice a steel girder sticking out the side - sliced the poor sod's head clean off at the neck.

'How the hell do you remain sane?' he asked.

Grinning, she replied, 'Who said I'm sane?'

'I don't know how you do your job.'

'It's not the dead who harm people, Roy, it's the living.'

'Good point,' he said. He wondered what her views were about ghosts. But this was not the time to ask.

The room felt cold. There was a hum from the refrigeration system, and a sharp clicking sound from overhead, from one fluorescent light that hadn't come on properly. 'Any preference who you want to see first?'

'No, I'd like to see all of them.'

Cleo marched up to the door marked '4' and pulled it open. As

she did so there was a blast of icy air, but it wasn't the cold that instantly sent a chill through Grace. It was the sight of the human form beneath the white plastic sheets on each of the four tiers of metal trays on rollers.

The mortician wheeled the hoist up close, cranked it up, then pulled the top tray out onto it and closed the fridge door. Then she pulled back the sheet to reveal a fleshy white male, with lank hair, his body and waxy white face covered in bruises and lacerations, his eyes wide open, conveying shock even in their glassy stillness, his penis shrivelled and limp lying in a thick clump of pubic hairs like some hibernating rodent. Grace looked at the buff tag tied around his big toe. The name read 'Robert Houlihan'.

Grace's eyes went straight to the young man's hands. They were big, coarse hands, with very grimy nails. 'You have all their clothes here?'

'Yes.'

'Good.' Grace asked Tindall to take scrapings from the nails. The SOCO officer selected a sharp tool from the instrument rack, asked Cleo for a specimen bag, then carefully scraped part of the dirt from each of the nails into the bag, labelled and sealed it.

The hands of the next body, Luke Gearing, were badly mangled from the accident, but apart from blood under them, the nails, bitten to the quick, were reasonably clean. There was no grime on Josh Walker's hands either. But Peter Waring's were filthy. Tindall took scrapings from his nails, and bagged them.

Next he and Grace carefully examined all their clothes. There was mud on all their shoes, and plenty of traces of it on Robert Houlihan and Peter Waring's clothes. Tindall bagged all of these items separately. 'Are you going back to the lab now with these?' Grace asked him.

'I was planning to go home - be quite nice to see it before the weekend is over and have a life - or some pretence of one.'

'I hate to do this to you, Joe, but I really need you to start work on these now.'

'Great! You want me to cancel my U2 concert tickets for tonight, which I paid fifty fucking quid each for, stand my date up and haul my sleeping bag out of the office cupboard?'

'U2 - she really is young, isn't she?'

'Yes, and you know what, Roy, she has a short fuse. She's high

itenance.'

'There might be a man's life at stake here.'

His anger rising, Tindall said, 'I want the price of my tickets back ffrom your budget.'

'It's not my case, Joe.'

'Oh - so whose is it?'

'Glenn Branson's.'

'And where the hell is he?'

'At a birthday party in Solihull.'

'It gets better all the time.'

By the row of lockers Tindall peeled off and binned his protective clothing and said, 'Have a nice sodding evening, Roy - go and ruin someone else's weekend next time.'

'I'll come over and keep you company.'

'Don't bother.'

Tindall slammed the door behind him. Moments later Grace heard the angry revving of a car engine. Then he noticed that, in his pique, the forensic expert had left behind the black bin liner containing his bags of evidence. He debated whether to run out after him, then decided to drive it over himself and try to calm the man down. He could understand his being hacked off - he would have been too, in the same circumstances.

He ducked into the sitting area, helped himself to another digestive biscuit and drained the remains of his tea, which had gone cold. Then he picked up the bin liner and Cleo walked him to the door. As he was about to step out into the rain he turned to her.

'What time are you finishing work today?'

'Another hour or so, with luck - assuming no one dies this afternoon.' Grace stared at her, thinking she really did look incredibly lovely - and suddenly feeling a bag of nerves as he glanced at her hands and saw no rings. Of course she could have taken them off for work. 'I--' he said. 'I - just wondered - do you - you know -1 mean - have any plans for this evening?'

Her eyes lit up. 'Actually I have a date to go to the cinema,' she

She dismissed the driver and helped Mark up to the front entrance, where he stared, bleary-eyed, at the door panel then managed to punch in his entry code accurately.

A few minutes later they were inside his apartment. Mark closed the door and slid the safety catch in place.

'I can't stay, Mark,' she said.

He began pawing at her clothes. She pushed his hands away. 'Let's have some coffee, and then I want you to tell me what the detective meant about having your car washed.'

Mark stared at her. She was wearing her white lace wedding dress, the veil pushed up. He lunged forward and kissed her on the mouth. She allowed him to kiss her on the lips and gave him a halfhearted kiss back, then pulled away. 'I mean it, I can't stay. I have to go round to Michael's mother and play the role of the grieving stood up bride - or whatever fucking role I'm meant to be playing. God, what an afternoon. What a nightmare.'

Mark staggered over towards the open-plan kitchen, opened a cupboard and pulled out a jar of coffee. He stared at it with a puzzled expression, put it back in the cupboard, opened the fridge and removed a bottle of Cristal champagne.

'I think we should have a proper toast to your wedding day,' he said.

'That's not amusing - and you've had more than enough to drink.'

Holding the unopened bottle, Mark slumped onto a sofa, then patted the cushion beside him, by way of an invitation.

After some moments of haughty hesitation, Ashley sat at the far end of the sofa, as far from Mark as possible, tugged off her veil, then crossed her legs and kicked her shoes off. 'Mark, I want to know what Grace meant about your having the BMW washed.'

'I have no idea.'

She was silent.

'Do you love me?'

Shaking her head in despair she stood up. 'Yes, I love you. I have no idea why at this moment, but I do. And Michael's mother is waiting for me to turn up and blub my bloody eyes out, which is what I am about to go and do.'

'Have a drink first.'

'Christ, Mark.'

He pushed himself up from the sofa, staggered towards her and took her in his arms. Then he nuzzled her neck. 'You know - if the accident hadn't happened - the wedding would've gone ahead. You'd be Mrs Michael Harrison now.'

She nodded, melting a fraction.

He stared into her eyes. 'You'd have been on your way to the Savoy in London. You'd have made love to him tonight, wouldn't you?'

'That's what wives are meant to do on their wedding night.'

'And how would you have felt?'

Cupping his face in her hands, she said, 'I would have imagined it was you.'

'Would you have gone down on him? Sucked his dick?'

She pulled away from him. 'Mark!'

'Would you?'

'No way.'

'Come on!'

'We had an agreement, Mark.'

He took the bottle over to the sink, removed the foil then took two glasses from the cabinet. He popped the cork then filled the glasses and handed one to her.

She took it reluctantly and chinked glasses with him. 'We had it all planned,' she said to him.

'We had Plan A. Now we're into Plan B.' He drank a large gulp, draining half his glass. 'Wash wrong wish shat?'

'The first is that you are pissed. The second is that I now don't happen to be Mrs Michael Harrison. Which means I don't get to participate in his half of Double-M Properties.'

'His two-thirds, actually,' Mark said.

'So?'

'So I do, under our shareholders' agreement, and our key man insurance policy'

'Provided he's dead.'

'Why do you say that? Provided?

'You plugged the air hole properly, didn't you? You used super glue like I told you?'

Squirming, he said, 'Yesh.'

She was staring hard at him, seeing through him. 'Are you sure?'

'Yesh. That lid was screwed down. I pulled the tube out and I put a ton more earth down on top. If he was alive he'd have made contact, wouldn't he?'

She gave him a strange look.

'You want me to go and stick a rucking stake through his heart?'

She drank some champagne, then walked over to the stereo and looked at the CD rack. 'How much do you love me?'

'How much? More than I could ever put into words.'

She pulled a CD out of its container, put it on the player and pressed the play button. Moments later, 'Love is All Around' filled the room. She put her glass down, took Mark's and put that down, then put her arms around him and began to lead him in a dance to the music. Pressing her lips against his ear she said, 'If you love me, you'll always tell me the truth, won't you?' They danced for some moments, then he said, 'There'sh shomething that's been bothering me for the past few daysh.'

'Tell me?'

'You know that Michael and I both use Palms for picking up email when we're out of the office. We've been careful not to copy him in on any emails about his stag night - but I think I might have messed

up: 'What do you mean?'

'I think I copied him on one by mistake. And he has it with him.' She pulled back from him, her eyes sharp as tacks. 'Are you saying he has it with him?' 'Possibly.' 'How possibly1?'

'I can't find it anywhere in his office - or in his flat.' 'It's in the grave with him?' 'It might be.' 'Mightbe?' Mark shrugged. 'You'd better make bloody sure, Mark.'

He stared at her in silence. I'm just telling you because--'

'Because?'

'Because it could be a risk.'

'You'd better get it back, hadn't you?'

'We're OK so long as no one finds him.'

Ashley sat down on a sofa and drank some of her champagne. 'I don't believe what I'm hearing. Why didn't you tell me this before?'

Mark shrugged. 'I thought -1--'

'You what?'

Mark joined her and attempted to clink glasses. Ashley withdrew hers, sharply.

'You'd better get it back,' she said. 'Pretty damned sharply. Like tonight. Capisce?'

50

As he drove back out towards the CID headquarters, Grace plugged his mobile into the hands-free and rang Glenn Branson. 'How's Solihull?' he asked.

'Pissing with rain. How's Brighton?'

'Pissing with rain.'

'And Ari's sister's gone to bed with a migraine.'

'So it's going to be a great birthday party.'

'I've collected plenty of brownie points for turning up, though. How was the wedding?'

'A bit like your birthday party's going to be. No show from the host'

'No surprise there. Tell me - how many of Ashley Harper's relatives turned up?'

'Just one that I saw,' Grace said. 'An uncle.' He halted at a traffic light. 'I wanted to ask you, have you checked on Michael Harrison's bank account and credit cards?'

'Got a constant monitor on them. Nothing since Tuesday afternoon. Same with his mobile. Any developments your end?'

'The helicopter's been up again but seen nothing. Nicholl and Moy are working over the weekend - they're getting Michael's photograph circulated to the press, and they're collecting all the CCTV camera footage in the suspect area - I have a team starting work viewing it. We're going to have to make a decision about calling in specials and getting a full-blown search of the area. And I'm getting unhappier by the minute with his business partner, Mark Warren.'

'Tell me?'

'Nothing specific yet, but I think he knows something he isn't telling. We need to run some background checks on him.'

'I have the Holmes team doing that already.'

'Good boy. Hang on--' Grace concentrated for a moment as he

pulled away from the lights. 'I think we should take a close look at tiieir company, Double-M Properties. See what their insurance policies are.'

'I have that under way, too - and I'm having their Cayman Islands Company checked out. What do you make of Ashley?'

'I don't know,' Grace said. 'I don't have a view. She's giving a convincing performance. I think we should check her out, too. You know What's odd about her?'

'This no relatives thing? You ever see that movie The Last Seduction, with Linda Fiorentino?' The phone signal weakened suddenly and Branson's voice became crackly.

'I don't remember it.'

'Bill Pullman was in it, too.'

'Doesn't ring a bell.'

'She was in Men in Black too.'

'OK.'

'Worth seeing - The Last Seduction. Had a predatory woman. Dark ending. She kind of reminds me of Ashley.'

'I'll check it out.'

'Get it on DVD. Play.com - great value.'

'How many twenty-seven-year-olds do you know that don't have relatives? You're twenty-seven, you are getting married, the biggest day of your life, and you can only produce one relative to turn up to your big day.'

'She could be an orphan. We need to check her background out.'

'I'll go and talk to Michael's mother - she must know about her future daughter-in-law.'

'Mine knew more about Ari than I did before I got hitched.'

'Precisely/ Grace said.

Ten minutes later Grace was walking along the corridor of the Major Incident Suite of the CID headquarters, lugging the black plastic bag from the mortuary. He stopped by a white sheet pinned to a red board which was headed 'DIAGRAM - COMMON POSSIBLE MOTIVES'. It was helpful, sometimes, to refresh his mind from these charts, although most of it was ingrained in his brain. He read the chart:

Sexual. Jealousy. Racism. Anger/fright. Robbery. Power control. Maintain active lifestyle. Gain. Payment. Homophobia. Hate. Revenge. Psychotic.

He moved on to the next board, which was headed, 'FAST TRACK'. Below was printed:

1. Identify suspects 2. Intelligence opportunities 3. Scene forensics 4. Crime scene enquiries 5. Witness search 6. Victim enquiries 7. Possible motives 8. Media 9. Postmortems

10. Significant witness interview 11. Other critical actions

Media, he thought. This was a good story for the media. He would phone his contacts, start getting the story out. Maybe that would get the ball rolling. He walked on and entered the small, pristine SOCO Suite. He would phone the Argus reporter Kevin Spinella for starters, he decided.

Joe Tindall was ready for him in the first of the two rooms, known as the wet room. There was a cluster of brown paper sacks on the floor, each labelled, in black print 'Evidence Bag', a roll of brown paper on a worktop, a sink and a tall air box.

'Thanks,' Joe Tindall said, as he handed him the bag, his tone a lot less friendly than when they had met earlier, but at least he was calmer.

The SOCO officer opened the black bin liner and pulled out the individual bags of soil, then the bags of clothes. Most of the clothes were heavily bloodstained. The stench of putrefaction began to rise from the clothes bags. 'These soil samples taken from the victims' fingernails and shoes,' he said. 'You want to see if we can establish a match with the soil sample you brought in earlier?'

'From the suspect vehicle, yes. How quickly could you do this?'

'The person to do this is Hilary Flowers - appropriate name, don't you think?'

Grace smiled. 'I've used her before. She's good.'

'She's a genius on pollens. She's got me several results from pollen scrapings from victims' nostrils. But she's expensive.'

Grace shook his head in frustration. When he had first joined the police it was about solving crimes. These days, with everything farmed out to private companies, it was more about budgets. 'How quick is she?'

'She normally works on about two weeks' turnaround.'

'I don't have two weeks - we're talking about someone who might be buried alive. Every hour counts, Joe.'

Tindall looked at his watch. 'Twenty past six on a Saturday night. You're going to be lucky.' He picked up the phone and dialled. Grace watched his face, anxiously. After some moments, Tindall shook his head and whispered back, 'Voicemail.'

He left a message, asking her to call him back, urgently, then replaced the receiver. 'That's all I can do, Roy. If there's a match, she'll find it. Pollen, insect larvae, fossils, soil composition, you name it.'

'Nobody else you can think of?'

Joe Tindall looked at his watch again. 'It's Saturday night, Roy. If I leave now and drive like the clappers, I might just make the second half of the U2 concert - and get a shag afterwards. I think you're going to find that everyone else on this planet who might be able to identify soil samples also has plans for tonight.'

'My guy who's buried alive had plans for today, Joe. He was meant to be getting married.'

'Bummer.'

'You could say that.'

'I don't mean to be frivolous. But I have worked one hundred and ten hours this week, so far.'

'Join the club.'

'I can't do anything, Roy. Nothing. You know me well enough - if there was anything at all that I could suggest, I would tell you. If there was anyone, anywhere in England right now who could give us the

analysis on this soil tonight, I'd get in the car and drive to them. But I don't know anyone else. Hilary is the woman. I'll give you her number and you can keep trying. That's all I can say' Grace wrote the number down.

51

As he climbed back into his Alfa, his mobile beeped with a text mesMge.

Who's talking about a relationship? I'm just talking about sex. XXX

Grace shook his head, despairing of ever understanding women. On Tuesday night Claudine had been vile to him, berating him about the police for the best part of three hours. Now in response to his text this morning she wanted to sleep with him?

And the worst part of it was that he actually felt horny. For the first time in years. Claudine was no beauty, but she wasn't a paper- bag job either. With another empty Saturday night stretching out ahead of him, the prospect of driving to Guildford and making out with this cop-hating vegan was almost appealing.

But not appealing enough. And at this moment, his head was full of more prosaic thoughts, listing everything he needed to do in the search for Michael Harrison.

Shortly after seven o'clock, with the rain easing, accompanied by Linda Buckley, a uniformed WPC in her mid-thirties with short blonde hair and a kind but alert face, he walked from his car up the path of the neat front garden of Gillian Harrison's bungalow and rang the doorbell. It triggered a loud yapping sound from within. Moments later the door opened and a small white dog, with a pink bow on its head, rushed out and began worrying his shoes.

'Bobo! Come here! Bobo!'

He flashed his warrant card at the woman he recognized from the aborted wedding this afternoon. 'Mrs Harrison? Detective Superintendent Grace from Brighton CID, and this is the Family Liaison

Officer we have assigned to you and Miss Harper, WPC Buckley. If there is anything you need, she will help you.'

Shoeless, her silvery blonde hair elegantly coiffed, wearing a smart blue dress with white trim and reeking of cigarette smoke, she gave a fleeting smile to the WPC, then a fearful look at Grace that instantly made him feel sorry for her. 'Yes, I remember you - you were at the reception this afternoon.'

'Is it possible to have a word with you?'

Her eyes were tear-stained and streaked with mascara. 'Have you found him? Have you found my son?'

He shook his head. 'I'm afraid not, no, I'm sorry.'

After a moment's hesitation she said, 'Would you like to come in?'

'Thank you.'

He followed her into the small sitting room, then sat down in the armchair she indicated, beside an unlit fake coal fire. 'Would you like something to drink? A glass of wine? Coffee?'

'A glass of water would be fine,' he said.

'Nothing at all for me,' said the WPC. 'Would you like me to help you?'

'No, thank you, that's kind of you.'

The dog looked up at him and gave a begging whine.

'Bobo, quiet!' she commanded. The dog followed her, slavishly, out of the room.

Grace stared around. There was a framed print of The Haywain on the wall and another print, of the Jack and Jill windmills at Clayton, a large framed photograph of Michael Harrison, in a tuxedo, with his arm around Ashley Harper, in a long evening dress, clearly taken at some function, another photograph of a much younger Michael Harrison, in short trousers, astride a bicycle and a black and white wedding photograph of Gill Harrison and her late husband, he presumed, from the information Glenn Branson had given him. He could see the resemblance between Michael Harrison and his father - a tall, good-looking man with long brown hair touching his shirt collar. From his huge lapels and wide trousers he guessed it was taken in the mid-seventies.

Gill Harrison returned, followed by the dog, with a tumbler of water in one hand and a wine glass in the other. She gave Grace the tumbler then sat down on the sofa opposite him.

'I'm very sorry about today, Mrs Harrison, it must have been very distressing for you,' he said, taking the glass, and sipping the cold water gratefully.

A young woman walked into the room. She had a suntanned, slightly beaky face, long, ragged blonde hair, and was dressed in a singlet and jeans. She sported rings on her lips and ears and a stud in her tongue.

'This is Carry, my daughter. Carry - this is Chief Inspector Grace of the CID, and WPC Buckley,' Gill Harrison said. 'Early flew back from Australia for the wedding.'

'I saw you at the reception, but we didn't get a chance to speak,' he said, standing up to shake her reluctant hand, then sitting down again.

'Nice to meet you, Early,' the WPC said.

Early sat on the sofa right next to her mother and put a protective arm around her shoulder.

'Where were you in Australia?' Grace asked, trying to be polite.

'Darwin.'

'I haven't been there. I've been to Sydney.'

'I have a daughter who lives there,' said Linda Buckley breezily, trying to break the ice.

Early shrugged, indifferently.

'I wanted to cancel the wedding and reception completely/ Gill Harrison said. 'It was Ashley who insisted. She felt--'

'She's a stupid bitch,' Early said.

'EarlyI' her mother exclaimed.

'Excuse me,' Early said. 'Everyone thinks she's' - and she made a cutesy, Barbie doll flutter with her hands - 'so sweet. But I think she's a calculating little bitch.'

'EarlyI'

Early gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. 'I'm sorry, Mum, but she is.' Turning to Grace she said, 'Would you have insisted on the reception going ahead?'

Grace, watching them both, thought carefully before responding.

'I don't know, Early. I guess she was caught between a rock and a hard place.'

'My brother is the sweetest guy in the world,' she said. 'Yeah.'

'You don't seem to like Ashley,' he said, seizing the chance.

'No, I don't like her.'

'Why not?'

'I think she's a lovely girl,' Gill Harrison butted in.

'Oh crap, Mum! You're just desperate to have grandchildren. You're just pleased that Michael isn't gay.'

'Early - that's not a nice thing to say'

'Yeah, well, it's the truth. Ashley's a manipulative ice queen.'

Grace, suddenly feeling excited, tried to remain impassive. 'What gave you that impression, Early.'

'Don't listen to her/ Gill Harrison said. 'She's tired and emotional with jet-lag.'

'Bullshit,' Early said. 'She's a gold-digger.'

'How well do either of you know her?' Grace asked.

'Met her once - that was once too often,' Early said.

'I think she's a delightful girl,' Gill answered. 'She's intelligent, domesticated - you can talk to her, have a proper conversation with her. She's been very good to me.'

'Have you met her family?' Grace asked.

'Poor thing hasn't got any family apart from her very lovely Canadian uncle/ Gill said. 'Her parents were killed in a car crash on holiday in Scotland when she was three. She was brought up by foster parents who were complete bullies. In London at first, then they moved to Australia. Her foster father tried to rape her repeatedly during her teens. She left them when she was sixteen and went to Canada - Toronto - where her uncle and aunt took her in - her aunt died quite recently, I gather, and she's very upset about that. I think Bradley and his wife were the only people who ever showed her kindness. She's had to make her own way in the world. I really admire her.'

'Phoeey!' said Early.

'Why do you say that?' Grace asked.

"Cause I didn't think she was real when I met her. And after seeing her today, I think she's even less real. I can't explain it - but

she doesn't love my brother. I know that. She might have been desperate to get married to him, but that's not the same as loving him. If she genuinely loved him, she'd never have gone through this charade today, she'd have been too upset.'

Grace looked at her with growing interest.

'You see?' Early said. 'That's a woman talking. Maybe a jet-lagged woman, like my mum says. But a woman. A caring woman who loves her bro. Unlike his bitch-queen-from-hell fiancee.'

'EarlyI'

'Oh fuck off, Mum.'

52

After Ashley left the flat, still furious at him, Mark switched on the television, hoping to catch the local news. He tried the radio too, but it was just gone seven and he had missed it.

Changed into jeans, trainers, a sweatshirt and a light anorak, with a baseball cap tugged low over his forehead, he was shaking from nerves and from an overdose of caffeine. He'd already downed two mugs of strong coffee in his attempt to sober up and was now finishing off a third. He drained the last dregs, then walked to the front door of his apartment. Just as he reached it the phone rang.

Hurrying back into the living area, he looked at the caller display. Private number. After a moment's hesitation he picked up the receiver.

'This is Kevin Spinella from the Argus. I'd like to speak to Mr Mark Warren.'

Mark cursed. If he'd been thinking more clearly he might have told the man that Mark Warren was out, but instead he found himself saying, 'Yes, speaking.'

'Mr Warren, good evening, sorry to trouble you on a Saturday evening. I'm calling about your business partner, Michael Harrison. I went along to the wedding that should have taken place this afternoon at All Saints' church, Patcham. You were the best man -1 didn't feel it appropriate to intrude at the church - but I wonder if I could have a few words with you now?'

'Urn - yes - yes, of course.'

'I understand Michael Harrison disappeared on his stag night, when there was that terrible accident. I'm curious to know why you, as best man, weren't there?'

'On the stag night?'

'Exactly.'

'I should have been, of course,' Mark said, calmly, trying to sound friendly, to make it all sound perfectly natural. 'I was out of town

up north on a business meeting - had it all scheduled to be back in good time, but my flight was delayed by fog,' Mark said.

'Where was that?'

'Leeds.'

'Ah right. These things happen - that's the problem with this country.'

'Absolutely!' Mark said, feeling they were starting to bond.

'I understand from the police that you have no knowledge of what was planned for the stag night. Is that right?'

Mark was silent for a moment. Thinking. Careful. 'No,' he said. 'That's not strictly true. I mean - that's not true at all. We had planned to go on a pub crawl.'

'A pub crawl! Right, OK. But isn't it usual for the best man to arrange the stag night?'

'Yes, so I believe.'

'But you didn't organize this stag night?'

Mark tried to focus his thoughts. Alarm bells were ringing. 'Yes, I did - Michael didn't want anything too elaborate -just to go to a few pubs with his mates. I had fully intended to be there.'

'What exactly did you plan?'

'We - ah - were going to do the usual stuff, you know - a bunch of pubs, get Michael wrecked, then deliver him home. We were going to hire a minibus and have a designated driver, but one of our crowd said he had access to a van and that he didn't mind not drinking, so we went along with that.'

'Where did the coffin fit into this plan?'

Shit. Mark felt himself getting deeper into mire. 'Coffin, did you say?'

'I understand you arranged for a coffin.'

'I don't know anything at all about a coffin!' Mark exclaimed. 'That's a new one on me.' Trying to sound really surprised he said again, for emphasis, 'Coffin?'

'Do you think your friends organized this in your absence?' the journalist asked.

'Absolutely. Must have done. One of them, Robert Houlihan, works - worked - for his uncle, an undertaker - but we never discussed a coffin. Are you sure about this?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Been there myself.'

They both chuckled. Mark felt a tad relieved.

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

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

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

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

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

Two hours that he had to kill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For a long while.

53

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Yeah, yeah!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

54

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

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

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

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

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

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

'I'm on my way'

'Only now?'

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

'That would be really stupid, Mark.'

"Yes.I-IhowisGill?'

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

'Yup.'

'Yup?AreyouOK?'

'Sort of.'

'Are you sober now?'

'Of course,' he said, tetchily.

'You don't sound good.'

'I don't feel good, OK?'

'OK. But you're going to do it?'

'That's what we agreed.'

'Will you call me after?'

'Sure.'

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

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

Just in case what, exactly?

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

The wheels had lost traction in the mire.

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

Oh, Christ, no!

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

Breathe deeply...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

rising like a barnacle on a wreck. Good. This sheet looked like it had lain here undisturbed for years.

Placing his tools and the Maglite down in the wet grass, he grabbed an end of the sheet, and pulled it back. The grave appeared like a dark crevasse. Gripping the flashlight, he stood up, but remained rooted to the spot, trying to pluck up the courage to step forward.

As if Michael might be crouching in there, ready to grab him.

Slowly, small step by small step, he inched towards the edge, then In a panicky thrust he pointed the beam down into the long, rectangular hollow.

And breathed out.

Everything was as he had left it. The earth still heaped, undisturbed. For some moments he stared, guiltily. 'I'm sorry, partner,' he whispered. 'I--'

There wasn't anything to say. He went back to the car and turned the lights off. No sense in advertising his presence, just in case there was anyone out in the woods at this hour, which he doubted - but you never knew.

It took almost an hour of hard digging before the spade struck the wood of the coffin lid. There was much more earth than he had thought - OK, he had added quite a bit the other night, but even so ... He continued to scrape away until he could see the whole lid clearly and the brass screws in each corner. The tiny hole where the breathing tube had been, which he had plugged with earth, had been widened; it seemed a little larger - or was it his imagination?

Reaching up, he put the spade on the ground, grabbed the screwdriver and set to work on each of the screws in turn. Then came the bit he hadn't quite worked out: the coffin fitted tightly into the hole, and there was no gap beside it - the only place to stand was on the lid, and that made it impossible to remove it.

He climbed out, then clenching the Maglite in his teeth, still holding the screwdriver, prostrated himself and wriggled forwards over the edge of the grave, and reached down. He could touch the lid of the coffin easily.

Then he began trembling. What the hell was he going to find?

Removing the flashlight from his mouth he called, softly, 'Michael?' Then louder. 'Michael? Hello? Michael?'

Then he rapped several times on the lid with the handle of the screwdriver - although he knew that if Michael was alive - and conscious - he would have heard his footsteps and the scraping of the shovel on the lid. Except he might be too weak to have responded.

If he was still alive.

A big if. It was four days now - and he clearly had no air. He stuck the barrel of the Maglite back in his mouth and clenched hard. He had to do this. Had to do this fucking thing. Had to be here to get the goddamn Palm back from Michael. Because one day someone was going to find this grave and open it up and find the corpse, and find the goddamn Palm with all the emails on it, and that cop, Detective Superintendent Graves or whatever his name was, would find the email he had sent Michael on Monday, telling him they all had a real treat in store for him, and giving him cryptic clues - too cryptic for Michael to have figured out in advance what they were going to do to him, but a total giveaway to the cop.

Mark eased the blade of the screwdriver under the lid, then levered it up a few inches, until he could get his fingers in. Taking the strain with his left hand, he put the screwdriver down on the ground above him, then lifted the heavy lid as high as he could, barely registering the deep, jagged groove that had been carved on the inside.

Inky water shimmered back at him, the soggy remnants of a magazine floating on the surface, large bare breasts just visible in the bright beam.

Mark screamed and the Maglite fell from his teeth, splashed into the water and struck the bottom of the coffin with a dull thud.

There was no one inside.

55

The lid fell down with a bang like a gunshot. Mark scrambled to his feet, tripped and went sprawling in the muddy soil. He hauled himself to his knees, swivelled in a complete circle, his eyes scanning the darkness, whimpering, panting, his brain seized up in his panic, wondering which way to run. To the car? Into the woods?

Oh sweet Jesus. Christ. Christ.

Still on all fours he backed away from the grave and spun around in a complete circle again. Was Michael out there, watching him, about to strike?

About to blind him with a flashlight beam?

He stood and ran to the car, wrenched open the door, climbed in and the bloody interior lights all came on, fucking floodlighting him! He slammed the door shut, hit the central locking button, twisted the ignition key, rammed the gear lever into drive, snapped on the lights and floored the accelerator, swinging the car round in a wide arc, the beam of the lights traversing the trees, shadows leaping, fading; he continued round in a circle, then another circle, then a third.

Oh Jesus.

What the hell had happened?

He hadn't got the fucking Palm. Had to go back and check. Had to.

How the hell could...?

How could he have got out? Screwed the lid back down? Put the earth on top?

Unless?

He'd never been there?

But if he hadn't been there, why didn't he turn up to the wedding?

Thoughts hurtled round his brain. All jumbled. He wanted to call Ashley, and, oh sure, he knew the first thing she would ask him.

Did you get the Palm?

He drove up to the edge of the grave, sat in the car, waiting,

watching. Then he opened the door, jumped down, flat on his stomach, and without bothering to roll up his sleeves plunged his hands into the cold water. Hit the soft, satin bottom. Felt the padded sides, then the bottom again. Found the torch and retrieved it. No longer working. His hands hit something small, round, metallic; his fingers clasped around it and pulled it out too, holding it up to the beam of the headlights. It looked like the cap of a whisky bottle.

He turned and stared fearfully at the woods all around. Then he plunged his arms back into the coffin, working his way from one end to the other. The sodden page of a magazine wrapped itself around his hand. Nothing else. Nothing at all. The damned thing was empty.

He stood up, replaced the corrugated iron sheet, halfheartedly throwing some grasses over it, then got back into the safety of his car. He slammed the door and hit the central locking button again, then turned and headed back down the track, accelerating hard, crashing through the ruts and puddles until he rumbled over the two cattle grids and reached the main road.

Then he switched the diff lock off and pushed the gear lever back to normal high-gear drive and turned back towards Brighton, staring into his rear-view mirror, fearful of every pair of headlights that appeared behind him, wanting desperately to call Ashley but too confused to know what to say to her.

Where the hell was Michael?

Where?

Where?

He drove back past all the wreaths, glancing at the orange glow of the dash, then at the road, then into his mirror. Had he imagined it? Hallucinated it? Come on, guys, what's your secret? What do you know that I don't? You put an empty coffin in the ground? OK, so what did you do with Michael?

As he drove on he began to calm down a fraction, starting to think more clearly, convincing himself it was unimportant now. Michael was not there. There was no dead body. No one had anything on him.

Clenching the steering wheel with his knees, he pulled his rubber gloves off and dropped them in the passenger footwell. Of course,

this was Michael all over. It had all his hallmarks. Michael the joker. Had Michael set this whole damned thing up?

Missing his wedding day?

Wild thoughts began going through his mind now. Had Michael twigged about himself and Ashley? Was this part of his revenge? He and Michael had known each other for a long time. Since they were thirteen. Michael was a smart guy, but he had his own way of dealing with problems. Possible that he had twigged - although he and Ashley had been incredibly careful.

He thought back as he drove. To the day Ashley had first come to the office in response to an ad they had put in the Argus for a PA. She had walked in, so smart, so beautiful, streets ahead of all the others they had interviewed before and after her. She was in a whole different league.

Having just split up with a long-term girlfriend, and being free, he'd fancied her in a way he'd never fancied anyone before. They'd connected from that first moment, although Michael had seemed blind to it. By the end of her second week working for them, unknown to Michael, they started sleeping together.

Two months into their secret relationship, she told Mark that Michael had the hots for her and had invited her out to dinner. What should she do?,

Mark had felt angry, but had not revealed that to Ashley. All his life, ever since he had met Michael, he had lived in his shadow. It was Michael who always pulled the best-looking girls at parties, and it was Michael who somehow charmed his bank manager into giving him a loan to buy the first run-down property that he had made a big return on, while Mark had struggled on a meagre salary in a small accountancy practice.

When they had decided to go into business together, it was Michael who had the cash to fund it - and took two thirds of the shares for doing that. Now they had a business worth several million pounds. And Michael had the lion's share.

When Ashley had walked in that day, it was the first time that a woman had looked at him first.

And then the shit had dared to ask her out.

What happened next had been Ashley's idea. All she had to do

was marry Michael and then engineer a divorce. Just set him up with a hooker and have a hidden cameraman. She'd settle for half his shares - and with Mark's thirty-three per cent, that would give them a majority holding. Control of the company. Goodbye, Michael.

Dead simple, really.

Murder had never been on the agenda.

56

Ashley, in a white towelling dressing gown, her hair down and loose over her shoulders, opened the front door of her house and stared at the mud-spattered figure of Mark with a mixture of disbelief and anger.

'Are you insane, coming here?' she said as a greeting. 'And at this hour. It's twenty past twelve, Mark!'

'I have to come in. I couldn't risk phoning you. We have to talk.'

Startled by the desperate tone of his voice, she relented, first stepping out and looking carefully down the quiet street in both directions. 'You weren't followed here?'

'No.'

She looked down at his feet. 'Mark, what the hell are you doing? Look at your boots!'

He stared down at his filthy gum boots, pulled them off, then carried them inside. Still holding them, he stood in the open-plan living area, watching the winking lights from the silent wall-mounted stereo.

Closing the front door, she stared at him fearfully. 'You look terrible.'

'I need a drink.'

'I think you had enough earlier today'

'I'm too bloody sober now.'

Helping him off with his anorak she asked, 'What would you like? A whisky?'

'Balvenie if you have some. Otherwise anything.'

'You need a bath.' She headed towards the kitchen. 'So, tell me, was it awful? Did you get the Palm?'

'We have a problem.'

Ashley spun round as if she'd been shot. 'What kind of a problem?' Mark stared at her helplessly. 'He wasn't there.'

'Not there?'

'No - he -1 don't know - he--'

'You mean he wasn't there? The coffin wasn't there?'

Mark told her what had happened. Ashley's first reaction was to go to each of the windows and draw the blinds tightly, then she poured him a whisky and made herself a black coffee. Then they sat down on opposite sofas.

'Is it possible you went to the wrong place?'

'You mean - like there's two different coffins? No. I was the one who suggested that spot in the first place. We were going to leave him with a porno magazine and a bottle of whisky- both of those are in there - well the cap of the bottle is.'

'And the coffin lid was screwed down - with earth on top?' Clasping her coffee with both hands, she blew steam away from the top and sipped it. Mark watched as her dressing gown opened and part of her large white breasts was visible through the gap. And they made him want her, now, despite everything, despite all his panic; he just wanted to seize her in his arms and make love to her.

'Yes - it was exactly how it was on Thursday when I--'

'Took the breathing tube?'

He gulped some whisky. She was giving him a sympathetic smile now. Maybe he could at least get to stay an hour or two. Make love. He needed some release from this nightmare.

Then her expression darkened. 'How sure are you that he was in there when you took the tube?'

'Of course he was bloody in there. I heard him shout. Christ!'

'You didn't imagine it?'

'Imagine him shouting?'

'You were in a pretty bad state.'

'You would have been too. He was my business partner. My best friend. I'm not a bloody murderer -1--'

She gave him a richly cynical look.

'I'm only doing this - because - because I love you, Ashley' He drank some more whisky.

'He could be out there right now,' she said. 'Prowling in the dark, watching, couldn't he?'

Mark shook his head. 'I don't know. If he wasn't in the coffin, why

didn't he come to the wedding? But he was - or someone was - there are marks inside the lid; someone had been trying to scrape their way out.'

Ashley took the news impassively.

'Maybe he knows about us - that's all I can think. That he fucking knows about us.'

'He doesn't,' Ashley said. 'He has no idea. He talked to me a lot about you, how much you wanted to settle down with the right woman and have kids, and that you never seemed to be able to find a steady girlfriend.'

'Oh great, he always gave my ego a real boost.'

'Not in a nasty way, Mark. He cares about you.'

'You're being very defensive about him.'

'He is my fiance.'

'Very funny.' Mark set his glass down on the square coffee table, then buried his face in his hands.

'You need to pull yourself together. Let's look at this logically, OK?'

Still with his face in his hands, he nodded.

'Michael was there on Thursday night. You took the tube, plugged the air hole, right?'

Mark made no comment.

'We know he is a big practical joker. So, somehow he gets out of the coffin, and he decides to make it look as if he is still in there.'

Mark stared at her, abjectly. 'Great joke. So he's out and he knows I took the breathing tube - and there could only be one reason why I did that.'

'You're wrong. How would he know it was you? Could have been anyone out walking in the woods.'

'Come on, Ashley, get real. Someone walking in the woods stumbles across a grave, with a breathing tube sticking out of the coffin, removes the tube and heaps a ton more earth on top of the coffin?'

'I'm just trying to throw thoughts out.'

Mark stared at her, the thought suddenly going through his mind that perhaps Ashley and Michael had hatched something between them. To trap him.

Then he thought about all those days and evenings he had spent

with Ashley over the past months, the things she had said to him, the way they had made love, planned - and the scornful way she always spoke about Michael, and he dismissed that thought completely.

'Here's another idea,' she said. 'The others - Pete, Luke, Josh and Robbo - all knew you were going to be arriving late. Perhaps they were setting up a practical joke on you - with Michael - and it backfired?'

'OK,' he said. 'Even supposing Michael wasn't in that coffin when I went there, and I imagined him calling out, then where the hell is he? Where has he been since Tuesday night? Why hasn't he been in touch; why didn't he turn up to the wedding? Can you answer me that?'

'No. Unless the others were pulling a stunt on you and him - and he's tied up or locked up in some other place.'

'Or done a runner?'

'He hasn't done a runner,' Ashley said. 'I can tell you that.'

'How can you be sure?'

Her eyes rested on Mark's. 'Because he loves me. He really, genuinely loves me. That's why I know he hasn't done a runner. Did you put everything back as it was?'

Mark hesitated, then lied, not wanting to admit he'd fled in panic. 'Yes.'

'So either we have to wait,' she said. 'Or you go find him - and deal with him.'

'Deal with him?'

Her look said it all.

'I'm not a killer, Ashley. I might be a lot of things--'

'You might not have a choice, Mark. Think about it.'

'He won't be able to nail anything on me. Nothing that he can stick.' He fell silent, thinking. 'Can I wait here?'

She stood up and walked over to him, placed her hands on his shoulders and gently massaged his back. Then she kissed his neck. 'I would love you to stay,' she whispered. 'But it would be madness. How do you think it would look if Michael turned up? Or the police?'

Mark turned his head and tried to kiss her on the lips. She allowed him one quick peck then pulled away. 'Go,' she said. 'Vamoosh! Find Michael, before he finds you.'

'I can't do that, Ashley.' 'You can. You already did it on Thursday night. It might not have worked, but you proved you can do it. So go do it.'

He padded dejectedly across the floor to get his boots, and Ashley brought over his sodden, muddy anorak. 'We need to be careful what we say over the phone - the police are getting nosy. We should start assuming the phones are tapped,' she said. 'OK?'

'Good thinking.'

'Talk to you in the morning.'

Mark opened the door warily, as if expecting to find Michael there with a gun or a knife in his hand. But there was just the glow of the streetlamps, the dull shine of silent cars and the still of the urban night punctuated only by the distant screech of two fighting cats.

57

Every couple of months, Roy Grace took his eight-year-old goddaughter, Jaye Somers, out for a Sunday treat. Her parents, Michael and Victoria, both police officers, had been some of his and Sandy's closest friends, and they had been hugely supportive in the difficult years following her disappearance. With their four children, aged two to eleven, they had become almost a second family to him.

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

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

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

'Do you?'

'Yes.'

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

'So what makes you think that?'

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

'Uh huh.'

'I like the Scissor Sisters.'

'Do you?'

'They're cool. Do you know them?'

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

'We're definitely going to see animals.'

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

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

'You want to see giraffes?'

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

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

'But not giraffes?'

'No.'

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

'I just do.'

'How about llamas?'

She shrugged.

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

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

'Stuff.'

'What kind of stuff?'

'School's boring at the moment.'

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

'The teachers are so stupid.'

'All of them?'

'Not Mrs Dean. She's nice.'

'What does she teach?'

'Giraffe dreams.' She burst into giggles.

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

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

Surprised, he said, 'Does she?'

Jaye nodded very definitely.

'And what do you think?'

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

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

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

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

'I have a boyfriend,' Jaye announced.

'You do? Tell me about him.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Speaking.'

'It's DC Boutwood.'

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

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

'Tell me?'

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

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

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

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

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

'Thank you, sir.'

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

'We haven't seen the giraffe yet.'

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

'Can I help too?'

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

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

He felt like a heel.

58

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

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

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

Did not sound good.

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

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

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

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

lera.

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

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

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

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

'But what kind of a life?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'I'm OK, you?'

The pathologist nodded.

'What have we got?'

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

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

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

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

'I thought you got divorced?'

'I did.'

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

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

'Not that we've found.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

59

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

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

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

'I guess not, I'm sorry'

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

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

'How is she doing?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'You were right,' Mark replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

60

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

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

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

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

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

'I'm not sure,' he answered.

'What happens if you don't ever find Michael?'

It was an innocent question, but it hit home with his emotions. 'I think we will find him.' He didn't want to say anything about the corpse.

'But what happens if you don't?' she persisted. 'How long will you keep looking?'

He smiled sadly at her innocence. She'd been born a year after Sandy had disappeared and had no idea of the poignancy of her questions. 'For as long as it takes.'

'That could be a long time, if he's hidden really well. Couldn't it?'

'It's possible.'

'So that means we might not get to see a giraffe for years and years?'

After he had finished his conversation with her, he immediately dialled Emma-Jane Boutwood in the Incident Room. 'What did you find out about the earring?'

'Michael Harrison used to wear one all the time - a small gold

ring, until his fiancee stopped him. But it's possible he was wearing it for his night out.'

Not good news, Grace thought. 'OK. Mobile phones. We should have the mobile phone numbers of Mark Warren and Ashley Harper on file by now - I want you to get on to the companies and get copies of their logs from - ' he thought for a moment, ' - last Saturday.'

'I might not get much joy until tomorrow, sir. I've had problems getting anything out of phone companies at weekends before.'

'Do your best.'

'Yes, sir.'

Ten minutes later, for the second time this weekend, Grace drove up to the long, low building that housed the Brighton and Have City Mortuary. The bright May sunlight made no impact on its grim exterior, as if the grey pebbledash walls were there to ward off any therms of warmth that might dare try to enter. Only cold corpses and even colder souls were permitted inside.

Cleo Morey excepted.

He hoped she was on duty again today. Very much hoped, as he walked over to the entrance and rang the bell. Moments later, to his delight, Cleo opened the door. Dressed as usual in her uniform of green gown, green apron and white boots - the only kit he had ever seen her in - she greeted him with a bright smile, seeming genuinely pleased to see him.

And for a moment he stood, tongue-tied, like a kid on his first date with a girl he knows in his heart is out of his league. 'Hi!' he said, and then added, 'We can't go on meeting like this.'

'I prefer you walking in, than to have you come in feet first,' she said.

He shook his head, grinning. 'Thanks a lot.'

She ushered him in to her tiny office with its pink walls. 'Can I offer you some tea? Coffee? A cold drink?'

'Can you do a full Cornish cream tea?'

'Sure - scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream?'

'And toasted tea cakes?'

'Of course.' She tossed her blonde hair back, her eyes never leaving his, very definitely flirting with him. 'So, this is your idea of a relaxing Sunday afternoon?'

'Absolutely. Doesn't everyone take a Sunday afternoon drive out into the country?'

'They do,' she said, switching on the kettle. 'But most people go to enjoy the flowers and the wildlife - not to look at corpses.'

'Really?' he feigned. 'I knew there was something wrong with my life.'

'Mine too.'

There was a silence between them. An opportunity, he knew. The kettle made a faint hissing sound. He saw a trickle of steam from the plastic spout. 'You told me you weren't married - have you ever been?' he asked. 'Do you have a family?'

She turned to look at him, resting her eyes on his, a warm, friendly, relaxed gaze. 'You mean do I have an ex-husband, twopointtwo children, a dog and a hamster?'

'That sort of thing.' Grace smiled at her, his collywobbles gone, feeling comfortable with her. Extremely comfortable.

'I have a goldfish,' she said. 'Does that count as family?'

'You do? Me too.'

"What's she called.'

'It's he. Marlon.'

She burst out laughing. 'That's an absurd name for a goldfish.'

'Luckily, he doesn't know that,' Grace responded.

She shook her head, grinning broadly as the kettle came to the boil. 'Actually, I think it's great.'

'So what's yours called?'

She teased him with her eyes for some moments, before saying, coyly, 'Fish.'

'Fish?' Grace echoed. 'That's its name?'

'Her name.'

'OK. Guess that's easy to remember. Fish.'

'Not as smart as Marlon,' she said.

'It's OK, I like it. It has a certain something about it.' Then he seized his chance, although the words came out clumsily.

'Don't suppose you'd like to meet up for that drink some time this week?'

The warmth of her reply took him by surprise. 'I would love to!'

'Great. OK. When's good - ah -1 mean - how's tomorrow?'

'Monday's are good for me,' she said.

'Great. Terrific! Um . . .' He was racking his brains, thinking of somewhere to go. Brighton was full of cool bars, but right now he couldn't think of one. Should they go to a quiet bar? A buzzy place? A restaurant? Monday nights were quiet. Maybe just a pub first time, he thought. 'Whereabouts do you live?' he asked.

'Just up off the Level.'

'You know the Greys?'

'Of course!'

'How about there - about eight?'

'I'll see you there.'

The kettle shrieked and they both grinned. As she began pouring water into the pot, the doorbell rang. She went out of the room and came back in accompanied by the beanpole-tall frame of DC Nicholl, dressed in weekend casuals. 'Good afternoon, Roy,' he said, greeting his boss.

'Want some tea. Great service here today'

'Earl Grey?' Cleo asked. 'Green leaf? Camomile? Darjeeling?'

Looking confused, the young DC, who was always very serious, very earnest, asked, 'Do you have any ordinary tea?'

'One builder's tea coming up,' Cleo said.

'So what do we think?' Grace asked, getting to the point.

'Gillian Harrison - Michael Harrison's mother - is on her way here to identify the body,' Nick informed him.

'I've made him look presentable,' Cleo said.

'It was one of her skills, to take a body - however badly marked or mangled - and make it look as intact and peaceful as possible for when a loved-one or relative came to identify someone. Sometimes it was never going to be possible. But as they walked through to the back of the mortuary, to the small, carpeted viewing room, with its perennial silver vase containing a small spray of plastic flowers, which doubled as a multidenominational chapel for the many people who wanted that solace, Grace could see she had done a good job on this body.

The young man had been placed on his back, his head resting on 1 plastic pillow which cleverly concealed the fact that the rear of his 'Cranium was stove in. Cleo had washed the mud and grime off his face and hands, tidied his spiky hair and arranged his clothes. If it wasn't for his alabaster complexion, he could have been just another young man enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon kip after a few jars in a boozer, Grace thought.

'Emma-Jane is on the case on the mobile phone numbers,' Nick Nicholl told him.

'We need to see which way the wind blows before deciding on any more action,' Grace said, looking at the body. 'Let's find out first if this is our man.' Then he heard the distant ring of the front entrance bell.

'I think we're about to find out now,' Cleo said, walking off.

Moments later she returned, followed by an ashen Gill Harrison, and Ashley Harper, stiff-faced, holding her hand. Michael Harrison's mother looked a wreck, as if she had just come in from gardening. Her hair was dishevelled; she wore a grubby windbreaker over a white sleeveless vest, brown polyester trousers and scuffed mules. Ashley, by contrast, in a navy suit and starchy white blouse, looked as if she was dressed in her Sunday best.

Both women acknowledged Grace with a silent nod, then he stepped aside to let them past. He watched them carefully as Cleo led them up to the viewing window, and for a moment his eyes were drawn to Cleo. She said few words to the two women, yet conveyed exactly the right balance of sympathy and professionalism. The more he saw of her, the more he liked her.

Gill Harrison said something and turned away, sobbing.

Ashley shook her head and turned away too, putting a comforting arm around her fiance's mother.

'You are absolutely sure, Mrs Harrison?' Cleo asked.

'It's not my son,' she sobbed. 'It's not him, not Michael. It's not him.'

'It's not Michael/ Ashley confirmed to Cleo. Then she stopped! front of Grace and said, 'That's not Michael.'

Grace could see both women were telling the truth. Gill rison's bewildered expression was understandable. But he surprised Ashley Harper did not look more relieved.

61

Itoo hours later, Grace, Glenn Branson, who had just arrived back from Solihull, Nick Nicholl, Bella Moy and Emma-Jane Boutwood sat at the work station which Operation Salsa had been allocated.

Grace smiled to reassure their new recruit, Emma-Jane, a slim, attractive girl with an alert face and long fair hair scooped up in a bun, then started to read out loud to them the report he had dictated since leaving the mortuary, and which Emma-Jane had just typed up. This was the way he liked to run all his investigations - keeping everything under constant review.

'The time is six-fifteen p.m., Sunday May 29th,' he read out. 'This is the first review of Operation Salsa, the investigation into the disappearance of twenty-nine-year-old male Michael Harrison, conducted on day five of his disappearance. I will now summarize the incident.'

For some minutes, Grace reviewed the events leading up to Michael's disappearance. Then he discussed possible suspects. 'At this time we have no evidence a crime has been committed. However, I am uncomfortable about Michael Harrison's business partner, Mark Warren, and his fiancee, Ashley Harper. I am also uncomfortable about Ashley's uncle from Canada, Bradley Cunningham, because I have a hunch he is not who he says he is - just a hunch at this stage.'

He paused to drink some water, then continued. 'Resourcing. East Downs Division has been very positive in offering manpower. We instigated a search of the vicinity of the accident last Tuesday night and have been upgrading the level of this further over the past few days. I'm now bringing in the Sussex Police Underwater Search Unit, and will have the USU team drag all local rivers, lakes and reservoirs. We will also request a further helicopter sweep - the visibility from the improved weather conditions may be helpful.'

He went on through the headings. 'Meeting cycles': Grace announced there would be a daily 8.30 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. briefing. He reported that the Holmes computer team had been up and running since Friday. He read out the list under the heading 'Investigative Strategies', which included 'Communications/Media', reporting that Michael Harrison's disappearance was scheduled to feature in this week's Crimewatch television programme if he hadn't turned up by then.

Next was 'Forensics'. Grace reported that soil samples from Mark Warren's car were being analysed along with soil samples recovered from the clothing and hands of the four dead boys. There should be an initial report some time tomorrow from Hilary Flowers, the forensic geologist they had consulted.

Then he reached the heading 'Any Concerns Raised by SIO', and there read out his detailed issues about the attitudes and anomalies in Mark Warren's and Ashley Harper's behaviour - and the disclosure of the Cayman Islands bank account of Double-M Properties.

When he reached the end of the report, he summed up: 'The alternative scenarios as I see them are as follows:

'One. Michael Harrison has been incarcerated somewhere and cannot escape.

'Two. Michael Harrison is dead - either as a result of his incarceration or has been unlawfully killed.

'Three. Michael Harrison has deliberately disappeared.'

Then he asked his team if they had any questions. Glenn Branson raised his hand and asked whether the body of the as yet unidentified man found in the woods had any bearing on the events.

'Unless there's a serial killer in Ashdown Forest targeting twentynine-year-old males, I don't think so.'

Grace's reply raised a titter despite the seriousness of the situation. 'Who's going to own this murder victim?' Branson asked.

'East Downs Division,' Grace said. 'We have enough on our plate.'

'Roy, any thoughts of putting tails on Ashley Harper and Mark Warren?' Branson asked.

It was an option he had been considering, but to put an effective twenty-four-hour surveillance watch on anyone could take as many as thirty people - three teams working in eight-hour shifts - on a simple job. More if it was complicated. The drain on manpower was astronomical, and Grace knew from experience that his chiefs would only sanction surveillance when absolutely necessary - such as on a potential major drugs bust or when there was a life at stake. If they made no headway soon, he might have to make the request. 'Yes he said. 'But park that for now. But what I do want is a scan on all the CCTV footage in Brighton and Have last Thursday, from dawn until one a.m. Friday morning. Mark Warren was out in his car, a BMW off-roader - the details are on the file. I'd like to know where he went.' Then he added, 'Oh yes, and Michael Harrison has a yacht he keeps at the Sussex Motor Yacht Club. Someone should make sure it's still there. We'll look like dickheads organizing a manhunt if we find he's buggered off to sea on his boat.' He looked at DC Bourwood. 'You can narrow the CCTV footage down from the mobile phone cell logs - you just need to pick the cameras in the area they throw up. Have you made any progress?' 'Not yet, sir. I'll be on it first thing in the morning - no one can help me today.' Grace looked at his watch. 'I have to be in court tomorrow at ten -I may or may not be needed there all day. So we meet here at eight thirty first.' He turned to Branson. 'Our liaison at the East Downs is Detective Inspector Jon Lamb. He's already got his team started - be good if you speak to him.' 'I'll call him in a few minutes.' Grace fell silent, scanning the pages of the review, checking he had not missed anything. He needed to know more about the character of Michael Harrison and about his business relationship with Mark Warren, and also about Ashley Harper. Then he looked up at his team. 'It's now almost seven-thirty, on a Sunday evening. I think you should go home, get some rest -1 think we're going to have a full week ahead of us. Thanks for giving up your Sunday' Branson, wearing fashionably baggy slacks and a sharp, zip-up cotton top, walked out to the car park with him. 'What's your sense, old wise one?' he asked. Grace dug his hands in his pocket and said, 'I've been too close to this for the past couple of days - what's yours?'

Branson slapped his hands against his sides in frustration. 'Man! Why are you always doing this to me? Can't you just answer my questions?' 'I dunno. Tell me?'

'Shit, you really piss me off sometimes!'

'Oh, so you had a nice weekend away with your family, leaving me to do your job, and that pisses you off?'

Indignant, Branson exclaimed 'A nice weekend with my family. You call driving three hours up the Ml and three hours back, with a bolshy wife and two screaming kids, a nice weekend? Next time you drive them to Solihull, and I'll stay here and do whatever crap job you want me to do. Deal?'

'Bargain.'

Grace reached his car. Branson hovered. 'So, what is your sense?'

'It's not all as it seems, Horatio, that's my sense.'

'Meaning?'

'I can't put it any more clearly - yet. I have a bad feeling about Mark Warren and about Ashley Harper.'

'What kind of bad feeling?'

'A very bad feeling.'

Grace gave his friend a warm pat on the back, then climbed into his car and drove to the security gate. As he pulled out on the main road, with its panoramic view across Brighton and Have, right down to the sea, with the sun still high above the horizon in the cloudless cobalt sky, he punched the CD button for Bob Berg's Riddles, and as he drove he began to chill. And for a few delicious moments his thoughts turned away from his investigations, to Cleo Morey.

And he smiled.

Then his thoughts turned back to work: to the long drive to south London and back he had ahead. If he was lucky, he might be home by midnight.

62

Mark, in sweatshirt, jeans and socks, paced around his apartment, a glass of whisky in his hand, unable to settle or to think clearly. The television was on, the sound mute, the actor Michael Kitchen striding, steely-faced, through a war-torn southern England landscape that looked vaguely familiar - somewhere near Hastings, he thought he recognized.

He had locked his door from the inside, bolted the safety chain. The balcony was safe, impenetrable, four floors up, and besides Michael had a fear of heights.

It was almost fully dark outside now. Ten o'clock. In just over three weeks it would be the longest day of the year. Through the glass doors to the balcony he watched a single light bobbing out at sea. A small boat, or yacht.

It had been weeks since he and Michael had taken out Double MM, their racing sloop. He had planned to go to the Marina today and do some work on her. You could never leave a boat for long; there was always something leaking, corroding, tearing or peeling.

In truth, the boat was a damned chore for him. He wasn't even sure he needed the hassle, and rough seas petrified him. Sailing was a big part of Michael's life, always had been ever since Mark had known him. If he wanted to be Michael's business partner, then sharing the boat with him went with the territory.

And sure, they had fun, lots of fun; plenty of good, windblown days out sailing under a brilliant sky, plenty of weekends down the coast to Devon and Cornwall, and sometimes across to the French coast or the Channel Islands. But if he never stepped on a yacht again, it wouldn't bother him.

Where the fuck are you, Michael?

He drank some more whisky, sat on the sofa, leaned back, crossed his legs, feeling so damned confused. Michael and Ashley should have been jetting away on their romantic honeymoon today.

He had not figured how he was going to cope with that, Ashley making love to Michael, loads of times probably. He would have expected that on a damned honeymoon, unless she feigned something - she had promised him she was going to feign something, but how could she keep that up for a fortnight?

And besides, he knew she and Michael had already slept together, it was part of their plan. At least she had told him Michael was lousy in bed.

Unless that was a lie.

He shook the ice cubes around in the glass and drank some more. He'd rung Pete's, Luke's and Josh's widows, and Robbo's father, each time on the pretext of finding out about the funeral plans - but in reality to pick their brains, to see if any of them had let anything slip before they'd gone out on Tuesday night. Anything that could incriminate him, or that could give him a clue to what they had been planning.

Michael had been there Thursday night, for sure. He had not imagined it. No way. So, he was there Thursday night, but not last night. The coffin lid was screwed down tight. And Michael was not Houdini.

So if Michael had been there Thursday and was not there now, someone must have let him out. And then screwed back the lid. But why?

Michael's humour?

And if he had got out why didn't he show up for the wedding?

Shaking his head he arrived back at his starting point. Michael was not in the coffin and he had imagined the voice. Ashley was convinced of that. There were moments when he convinced himself. But not strongly enough.

He needed to talk this through with Ashley some more. What if Michael had somehow got out and discovered their plans?

Then surely he would have confronted one or the other of them by now.

He stood up, wondering if he should go over to Ashley's. She was worrying him, behaving so damned coldly towards him, as if this whole thing was his bloody fault. But he knew what she would say to him.

He stood up and paced around the room again. If Michael was alive, if he had got out of the coffin, what could he find out from the emails on his Palm?

Mark suddenly realized in the panic of the past few days he had overlooked one very simple way of checking. Michael always backed up the contents of his Palm onto the office server.

He went into his study, flipped open the lid of his laptop and logged on. Then cursed. The damned server was down.

And there was only one way to get it back up and running.

63

Max Candille was almost impossibly good-looking, Roy Grace always thought on each occasion he met him. In his mid-twenties, with bleached blond hair, blue eyes and striking features, he was a modern Adonis. He could surely have been a top model, or a movie star. Instead, in his modest semi-detached house in the suburban town of Purley, he had chosen to make his gift, as he called it, his career. Even so, he was quietly becoming a rising media star.

The bland exterior of the house, with its mock-Tudor beams, neat lawn and a clean Smart parked in the driveway, gave few clues about the nature of its occupant.

The whole interior of the house - the downstairs at least, which was all Grace had ever seen - was white. The walls, the carpets, the furniture, the slender modern sculptures, the paintings, even the two cats which prowled around like bonsai versions of Siegfried and Roy's cheetahs, were white. And seated in front of him, in an ornate rococo chair, with a white frame and white satin upholstery, sat the medium, dressed in a white roll-neck, white Calvin Klein jeans and white leather boots.

He held his china demitasse of herbal tea delicately between his finger and thumb and spoke in a voice that was borderline camp.

'You look tired, Roy. Working too hard?'

'I apologize again for coming so late,' Grace said, sipping the espresso Candille had made for him.

'The spirit world doesn't have the same time frames as the human one, Roy. I don't consider myself a slave to any clock. Look!' He put down his tea, held up both his hands, and pulled each sleeve back to reveal he wore no watch. 'See?'

'You're lucky.'

'Oscar Wilde is my hero when it comes to time. He was always unpunctual. One time when he arrived exceptionally late for a

dinner party the hostess angrily pointed at the clock on the wall and aid, "Mr Wilde, are you aware what the time is?" And he replied, "My dear lady, pray tell me, how can that nasty little machine possibly know what the great golden sun is up to?'"

Grace grinned. 'Good one.'

'So, are you going to tell me what brings you here today, or should I guess? Might we be concerned with something to do with a wedding? Am I warm?'

'No prizes for that one, Max.'

Candille grinned. Grace rated the man. He didn't always get things right, but his hit rate was high. In Grace's long experience, he didn't believe that any medium was capable of always getting everything right, which is why he liked to work with several, sometimes cross-checking one against another.

No medium he had worked with so far had been able to tell him what had happened to Sandy - and he had been to many. In the months following her disappearance he visited every medium he could find who had any kind of a reputation. He had tried a few times with Max Candille, who had been honest enough at their very first meeting to tell him that he simply did not know, that he was unable to make a connection with her. Some people left a trail behind, all kinds of vibrations in the air, or in their belongings, Max had explained. Others, nothing. It was as if, Max told him, Sandy had never existed. He couldn't explain it. He couldn't say whether she had covered her own tracks, or if someone had done it for her. He didn't know whether she was alive or not.

But he seemed very much more definite about Michael Harrison. Taking the bracelet Ashley had given Grace, he thrust it back at the police officer within seconds, as if it was burning his hand. 'Not his,' he said, emphatically. 'Absolutely not his.'

Frowning, Grace asked, 'Are you sure?'

'Yes, I'm sure, absolutely.'