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.'
'It was given to me by his fiancee.'
'Then you need to ask her and yourself why. This absolutely does not belong to Michael Harrison.'
Grace wrapped the bracelet back in a tissue and carefully pocketed it. Max Candille was emotional - and not always accurate.
However, combining his comments on the bracelet with Harry Frame's, something did not feel right about it.
'So what can you tell me about Michael Harrison?' Grace asked.
The medium sprang up from his chair, went out of the room, pausing to blow kisses at the cats, then returned moments later holding a copy of the News of the World. 'My favourite paper,' he informed Grace. 'I like to know who's screwing who. Far more interesting than politics.'
Grace enjoyed reading it himself, sometimes, but wasn't about to admit that now. 'I'm sure,' he said.
The medium folded back a couple of pages then held the paper up so Grace could see the headline, with Michael Harrison's photograph beneath. 'MANHUNT FOR AWOL FIANCE'.
Then the medium looked at it himself for some moments. 'Well, see, you are even quoted in here. '"We are now regarding Michael Harrison's disappearance as a Major Incident,' said Detective Superintendent Roy Grace of Sussex Police, 'And are stepping up police manpower to comb the area he is believed to be in...""
Then he looked up at Grace again. 'Michael Harrison's alive,' he said. 'Definitely alive.'
'Really? Where? I need to find him - that's what I need your help for.'
'I see him somewhere small, dark.'
'Could it be a coffin?'
'I don't know, Roy. It's too blurred. I don't think he has much energy.' He closed his eyes for some moments and slowly swivelled his head from left to right. 'No, very little there. The battery's almost flat, poor thing.'
'What do you mean?'
The medium closed his eyes again. 'He's weak.'
'How weak?' Grace asked, concerned.
'He's fading, his pulse is low, much too low.'
Grace watched him, wondering. How did Max know this? Was he connected across the ether? Just making a guess on a hunch? 'This
small dark place - is it in the woods? In a town? Under ground or above ground? On water?'
'I can't see, Roy. I can't tell.'
'How long has he got?' Grace asked.
'Not long. I don't know if he's going to make it.'
64
'You see, here's the thing, Mike. Not everyone gets to have a lucky day on the same day. So we have a sort of irregular situation here - this is your lucky day and it's my lucky day. How lucky is that?'
Michael, weak, shivering from fever and near-delirious, stared up, but all he could see was darkness. He did not recognize the man's voice; it sounded a hybrid of Australian and south London, spoken quickly, with fast, nervy inflections. Davey with another of his accents? No, he did not think so. His brain swirled. Confused. He did not know where he was. In the coffin?
Dead?
His head pounded, his throat was parched. He tried to open his mouth, but his lips would not part. Ice squirmed through his veins.
I'm dead.
'You were in a horrible wet coffin, getting all soggy and rheumatoid, now you're in a nice, dry, cosy cot. You were going to die. Now maybe you aren't going to die - but I want to stress that's a pretty big maybel'
The voice receded into the darkness. Michael was sinking, going down a lift shaft, down, down, the walls rushing past. He tried to call out, but his lips would not move. There was something pressing tightly around his mouth. All he could do was make a panicky grunt.
Then the voice again, really close, as if the man was in the lift with him. 'Do you know about Schrodinger's Cat, Mike?'
They were still going down. How many floors? Did it matter?
'Did you study physics when you were at school?'
Who was this? Where was he? 'Davey', he tried to say, but all that came out was a murmur.
'If you know anything about science, Mike, you'd know about it. Schrodinger's Cat was inside a box, and was both alive and dead at the same time. That's like you now, my friend.'
Michael felt consciousness slipping away. The lift was swaying on ropes now; darkness seemed to be racing past him, round and round. He closed his eyes. Then felt a blast of heat and saw red through his eyelids. He opened his eyes, then immediately squeezed them shut against a blinding glare of light.
'I don't think you should be going to sleep; you need to keep awake now, Mike. Can't let you die on me, I went to a lot of trouble. I'll give you more water and glucose in a while, got to introduce foods to you slowly. I got trained in all this stuff, you're in good hands. Jungle training. I know how to survive, and help others survive. You're lucky it was me who came along. Need to keep you awake. We'll chat to each other for a while, get to know each other a little better - bond a little, OK?'
Michael tried to speak again. Just a murmur came out. He was trying to remember, the sensation of being lifted from the coffin, of being on something soft in a van - but was that on the stag night? Was this maybe one of his mates? Weren't they dead? Mark? He just wanted to close his eyes and sleep now.
Cold water lashed his face, startling him. His eyes sprang open, blinking into watery darkness.
'I'm just keeping you awake, no offence meant, mate.' The voice sounded more Australian than south London now.
Michael shivered; the water had sharpened him a fraction. He tried to move his arms, to see if he was still in the coffin, but he couldn't move them. He tried to move his legs, but they wouldn't move either; it was as if they were bound together. He tried to raise his head, to touch the lid, but he barely had the strength to raise it a couple of inches.
'Guess you're wondering who I am and where you are?'
Michael closed his eyes tightly again as a blast of light dazzled him, hurting his retinas like sunburn. He emitted another grunt.
'It's OK, Mike, don't bother to try to talk back. It's duct tape - hard to say anything through that. I'll do the talking and you just do the listening - until you're better, that is. We have a deal?'
Michael felt bewildered; but at the same time deeply apprehensive. Nothing was making any sense - he wondered if he was dreaming or hallucinating.
PETER I
'First, Mike, I'm going to give you the house rules. You don't ask my name and you don't ask where we are. You got that?'
Michael grunted again.
'I'll remind you later, anyway. You ever see that Stephen King film, Misery!'
Michael heard the question through his drifting mind, but was unsure whether it was directed at him or someone else. Misery. He seemed to recall it. Kathy Bates. He tried to ask if Kathy Bates was in it, but his damned lips wouldn't move. 'Mnhhhh,' he said.
'That was some movie. Remember, James Caan got caught by his crazy fan, Kathy Bates, who smashed his legs with a sledgehammer so he couldn't run away? But that wasn't faithful to the novel, you know, Mike? Did you know that?'
'Mnhhhh.'
'In the novel she actually cut one leg off, then cauterized it with a blow torch. You got to be pretty weird to do that, wouldn't you think, Mike?'
Michael stared into the darkness, trying to make out his features, to put a face to the voice, to check if this voice was coming from above him, below him, inside him.
'You would, wouldn't you, Mike?'
'Mnhhhh.'
'I've been listening to you for five days, Mike. You and your buddy, Davey. Figured you were getting pretty frustrated with him I would have been too, in your shoes.' The man laughed. 'I mean, that's pretty tough shit. You get trapped and the only person in the whole world who knows you're alive is a fucking moron!' He was silent for some moments, then he continued. 'Of course, I was there with you, Mike, as well, but I just didn't want to interrupt. Breakers' code, don't butt in on someone else's conversation. Well, that's my code anyway. How you doing?'