Dead Simple

'Who do you know here?'

'Chris Croke.'

'Chris Croke - that git in Traffic?'

'He's all right.'

'How can he afford a pad in a place like this?

'By marrying money - or rather, by divorcing money. He had a rich missus - her dad was a lottery winner he told me once - and a good divorce lawyer.'

'Smart bastard.'

They stepped out on the fourth floor, walked down a plushly blue carpet and stopped outside 407. Branson pressed the bell.

After a few seconds the door was opened by a man in his late twenties, dressed in an open-neck white business shirt, pinstripe suit trousers and black loafers with a gold chain. 'Gentlemen,' he said, affably, 'please come in.'

Grace looked at him with faint recognition. He had seen this man before, somewhere, recently. Where? Where the hell had he seen him?

Branson dutifully showed him his warrant card, but Mark Warren barely glanced at it. They followed him through a small hallway into a huge open-plan living area, with two red sofas forming an Lshape and a long, narrow black lacquer table acting as a border for a kitchen and dining area.

The place was similar in its minimalistic style, Grace noted, to Ashley Harper's, but considerably more money had been lavished here. An African mask sat on top of a tall black plinth in one corner. Classy, if impenetrable, abstract paintings lined the walls, and there was a picture window looking directly out at the sea with a fine view of the Palace Pier. A news programme, muted, played on a flat screen Bang and Olufsen television.

'Can I get you a drink?' Mark Warren asked, wringing his hands.

Grace observed him carefully, watching his body language, listening to the way he spoke. The man exuded anxiety. Unease. Hardly surprising, considering what he must be going through. One of the biggest problems for survivors of any disaster, Grace knew from past experience, was coping with guilt.

'We're fine, thanks,' Branson said. 'We don't want to keep you long - just a few questions.'

'Do you have any news of Michael?'

Grace told him about their trawl of pubs, and about the missing coffin. But there was something about the way he responded that ran up a flag in Grace's mind. Just a small flag, barely more than a minuscule fluttering pennant.

'I can't believe they'd do anything like taking a coffin,' Mark Warren said.

'You should know,' Grace retorted. 'Isn't it the role of the best man to organize the stag night?'

'So I read in the stuff I downloaded from the net,' he replied.

Grace frowned. 'So you weren't involved in the plans? At all?'

Mark looked flustered. His voice was awkward as he started speaking, but rapidly calmed. 'I - no, that's not what I'm saying. Like I mean - you know - we - Luke - wanted to organize a stripper

gram, but that's kind of so yesterday - we wanted something more original.'

'To pay back Michael Harrison for all his practical jokes?'

Flustered again for a moment, Mark Warren said, 'Yes, we did discuss that.'

'But you didn't talk about a coffin?' Roy Grace asked, locked on to his eyeballs.

'Absolutely not.' There was indignation in his voice.

'A teak coffin,' Grace said.

'I -1 don't know anything about any coffin.'

'You're saying to me that you were his best man, but you didn't know anything about the plans for his stag night?'

A long hesitation. Mark Warren shot long glances at each of the police officers in turn. 'Yes,' he answered finally.

'I don't buy that, Mark,' Grace said. 'I'm sorry, but I don't buy it.' Instantly he detected the flash of anger.

'You're accusing me of lying to you? I'm sorry, gentlemen, this meeting is over. I need to talk to my lawyer.'

'That's more important to you than finding your business partner?' Grace quizzed. 'He's meant to be getting married tomorrow. You are aware of that?'

'I'm his best man.'

Watching Mark Warren's face closely, Grace suddenly remembered where he had seen him before. At least, where he thoughthe had seen him before. 'What car do you drive, Mark?' he asked.

'A BMW.'

'Which model? A 3-Series? 5-Series? 7Series?'

An X5,' Mark said.

'That's a four-wheel drive?'

'Yes, it is.'

Grace nodded and said nothing; his brain was churning.

Standing in the corridor, waiting for the lift, Branson watched Mark Warren's front door, making sure it was shut, then he said, 'What was that about - the business with the car?'

As they stepped inside the lift, Grace pressed the bottom button, marked 'B'. Still deep in thought, he didn't reply.

Branson watched him. 'Something's not right with that dude. You read that?'

Still Grace said nothing.

'You should have pressed "G" for the ground floor - that's the way we came in.'

Grace stepped out into the underground garage and Branson followed. The place was dry, dimly lit, with a faint smell of engine oil. They walked past a Ferrari, a Jaguar saloon, a Mazda sports car and a small Ford saloon, then a couple of empty bays until Grace stopped in front of a gleaming silver BMWX5 off-roader. He stared hard at the car. Droplets of rainwater still lay on the paintwork.

'Cool machines, these,' Branson said. 'But they don't have much room in the rear. Much more in a Range Rover or a Cayenne.'

Grace peered at the wheels, then knelt down and looked under a door sill. 'When I was here last night,' he said, 'and came down here for my car about quarter to one in the morning, this BMW drove in, covered in mud. I noticed it because it seemed a little unusual - you don't often see a dirty four-wheel drive in the centre of Brighton, they're mostly used by mothers doing the shopping run.'

'You sure it was this car.'

Grace tapped the side of his own head. 'The number plate.'

'Your photographic memory - still working at your advanced age...'

'Still working.'

'So what's your take?'

'What's yours?'

'A missing coffin. A forest. A mud-caked car. A best man who is the only survivor, who wants to speak to his lawyer. A bank account in the Cayman Islands. Something smells.'

'It doesn't smell, it stinks.'

'So what happens next?'

Grace pulled the copper bracelet out of his pocket and held it up. 'This happens next.'

'Is that what you really think?'

'You have a better idea?'

'Take Mark Warren in for questioning.'

Grace shook his head. 'The guy's smart. We need to be smarter.'

'Going to a flaky pendulum dowser is smarter?'

'Trust me.'

You had to stay awake. That was how you survived. Hypothermia made you sleepy, and when you fell asleep you would sink into a coma and then you died.

Michael was shivering, near-delirious. Cold, so, so cold; he heard voices, heard Ashley whispering into his ear; reached up to touch her and his knuckles struck hard teak.

Water slopped into his mouth and he spat it out. His face was squashed tight against the lid of the coffin. The flashlight didn't work any more, he tried keeping the walkie-talkie above the water, but his arm was hurting so much it was not going to be possible for much longer.

He wedged his mobile phone, which was useless, into the back pocket of his jeans. It made it uncomfortable, but it gave him another inch and a half height. For whatever good that would do. He was going to die; he did not know how much longer he had but it wasn't long.

'Ashley,' he said weakly. 'Ashley, my darling.'

Then more water filled his mouth.

He rubbed away at the ever-widening and deepening groove in the lid with the casing of the flashlight. He thought of the wedding tomorrow. His mum showing him the dress she had bought, and the hat and the shoes and the new handbag, wanting his approval, wanting to know she looked good for his special day, wanting him to be proud of her, wanting Ashley to be proud of her. He remembered the phone call from his kid sister, from Australia, so excited by the ticket he had paid for. Early would be here now, staying with his mother, getting ready.