by Peter James
It was ten past four, Friday afternoon. He tried to imagine what was happening right now. What was Ashley doing? His mother? Was everything still going forward for tomorrow as planned?
He raised his head, so his mouth was up a few precious inches closer to the lid, and shouted, as he did regularly, 'Help! Help me! Help!'
Nothing but numbing silence.
I have to get out.
There was a fizz, then a crackle that for a moment Michael thought was splintering wood, until he heard the familiar hiss of static. Then a disembodied Southern drawl: 'You mean that, what you said, 'bout me being on television?'
'Davey?'
'Hey pal, we just got back - that was a real wreck, boy! You didn't want to be in that automobile, I tell you. Took 'em two hours to cut the driver out, he was in pretty bad shape. Better shape than the woman in the other car, though, you know what I'm saying?'
'Yes I do,' Michael said, trying the tack of humouring him.
'Not sure about that. I'm saying she's dead. Y'all understand?'
'Dead? Yes, I understand that.'
'You can tell y'know, just by looking, who the dead ones are and who the ones gonna survive are. Not all the time. But wow, I'm tellin' you something!'
'Davey, that wreck you went to on Tuesday night, can you remember how many young men were in it?'
After some moments of silence, Davey said, 'Just counting the
ambulances. Bad accidents you get one ambulance for each person. There was one leaving when we arrived, one still there.'
'Davey, you don't by any chance know the names of the victims?'
Almost instantly, surprising Michael, Davey rattled them off to him. 'Josh Walker, Luke Gearing, Peter Waring, Robert Houlihan.'
'You have a good memory, Davey,' Michael said, trying to encourage him. 'Was there anyone else? Was someone called Mark Warren in that wreck, also?'
Davey laughed. 'Never forget a name. If Mark Warren had been in that wreck, I'd have known about it. Remember every name I ever heard, remember where I heard it, and the time. Ain't ever been a shitload of use.'
'Must have been good for history at school.'
'Mebbe,' he said noncommittally.
Michael fought the temptation to shout at him from sheer frustration. Instead, keeping his patience, he said, 'Do you remember where the accident happened?'
'A26. Two point four miles south of Crowborough.'
Michael felt a ray of hope brightening inside him. 'I don't think I'm very far from there. Can you drive, Davey?'
'You mean like an automobile?'
'Yup, that's exactly what I mean.'
'Guess that would depend on how you define drive.'
Michael closed his eyes for some moments. There had to be some way to connect properly with this character. How? 'Davey, I need help, really badly. Do you like games?'
'You mean like computer games? Yeah! Do you have a Play Station-2?'
'No not here, not actually with me.'
'We could connect online maybe?'
Water slopped into Michael's mouth. He spat it out, panicking. Christ it was rising quickly now. 'Davey, if I give you a phone number, could you dial it for me? I need you to tell someone where I am. Could you get someone on the line while you are talking to me?'
'Houston, we have a problem.'
'Tell me the problem?'
'The phone's in my dad's house, you see. He doesn't know I have this walkie-talkie -1 shouldn't have it. It's our secret.'
'It's OK, I can keep a secret.'
'My dad would be pretty mad at me.'
'Don't you think he'd get even madder if he knew you could have saved my life and you let me die? I think you might be the only person in the world who knows where I am.'
'It's OK, I won't tell anyone.'
More water lapped into Michael's mouth; filthy, muddy, brackish water. He spat it out, his arms, shoulders, neck muscles all aching from trying to keep his head clear of the rising level. 'Davey, I'm going to die if you don't help me. You could be a hero. Do you want to be a hero?'
'I'm going to have to go,' Davey said. 'I can see my dad outside he needs me.'
Michael lost it, and screamed at him. 'No! Davey, you are not fucking going anywhere. You have to help. YOU HAVE TO FUCKING HELP ME.'
There was another silence, a very long one this time, and Michael worried he'd pushed too far. 'Davey?' he said, more gently. 'Are you still there, Davey?'
'I'm still here.' Davey's voice had changed. His voice suddenly was meek, chastised. He sounded like a small, apologetic boy.
'Davey, I'm going to give you a phone number. Will you write this down and make the call for me? Will you tell them that they need to speak to me on your walkie-talkie - and that it is very, very urgent. Will you do that for me?'
'OK. Tell them it's very, very urgent.'
Michael gave him the number. Davey told him he would go and make the call then radio him back.
Five agonizingly long minutes later, Davey's voice came back on the walkie-talkie. T just got voicemail,' he said.
Michael clenched his hands in frustration. 'Did you leave a message?' 'No. You didn't tell me to do that.'
32
The landlady of the Friars, in Uckfield, was a tall, blowsy lady in her late forties, with spiky blonde hair, who looked like she'd been around the block a few times. She greeted Grace and Branson with a friendly smile and studied the photographs Grace laid on the counter carefully.
'Uh huh,' she said. 'They were in here, all five of them. Let me think... About eight o'clock on Tuesday.'
'You're sure?' Glenn Branson said.
She pointed at the photograph of Michael. 'He was looking a bit wrecked, but was very sweet.' She pointed at Josh's photograph. 'He was the one buying the drinks. He ordered a round of beers, I think, and some chasers. This chap' - again she pointed at Michael - 'told me he was getting married on Saturday. He said I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and if he'd met me sooner, he'd have been marrying me.'
She grinned at Branson, then gave Grace a distinctly flirtatious smile. She clearly knew how to play the police, he thought. No doubt she had the local law in her pocket. No problems over staying open beyond closing time here.
'Did you by any chance hear them talking about their plans?' Grace asked.
'No, love. They were all in a sunny mood. We weren't busy, they were all sitting in that corner.' She pointed across the empty lounge to an alcove table and chairs, above which hung several horse brasses. 'I didn't pay much attention, had one of my regulars talking about his marital problems. You know how it is.'
'Yep,' said Grace.
'So you don't know where they were going next?' Branson asked.
She shook her head. 'Seemed like they were on a bender. Downed their drinks and were off.'
'Do you have closed-circuit television here?'
She gave Grace another deeply flirtatious smile. 'No, love. Sorry.'
As they left the pub, and hurried across the forecourt to their car, ducking against the teeming late-afternoon rain, Grace heard the distant sound of a helicopter. He looked up but could see nothing, as Branson unlocked the car. He sat inside and slammed the door shut against the elements, then called up Bella and Nick.
'How are you guys doing?'
'Goose eggs/ Nicholl said. 'No joy. We've two pubs to go. You?'
'Three more,' Grace said.
Branson started the car. 'Bit of a tasty old slapper/ he said to Grace. 'Think you could be in there.'
'Thanks,' Grace said. 'After you.'
'I'm a happily married man. You ought to go with the flow a bit.'
Roy Grace looked down at his mobile. At the text messages from Claudine, the cop-hating vegan from Guildford. 'You're lucky,' he said. 'Seems to me that half the women who aren't married are insane.'
He fell silent for some moments, then he said, 'The accident happened just after nine. This might have been the last pub they went to before they put him in th
e coffin.'
'They could have fitted in one more.'
They went to the next three pubs, but no one remembered the boys. Nick and Bella had found one more publican who recognized them. They left at around 8.30. All apparently very drunk. That pub was about five miles away. Grace was despondent at the news. From the information they had received, they were no nearer to pinpointing where Michael Harrison might be than when they had started.
'We should go and talk to his business partner,' Grace said. 'If he's the best man he has to know something. Don't you think?'
'I think we should organize a search of the area.'
'Yes, but we need to narrow it down.'
Branson started the car. 'You said to me some while back that you know a geezer who does some kind of thing with a pendulum?'
Grace looked at him in surprise. 'Yes?'
'Don't remember his name. You said he can find things that are lost, just by swinging a pendulum over a map.'
'I thought you didn't believe in that? You're the one who always
tells me I'm an idiot for dabbling in that terrain. Now you are suggesting I go and see someone?'
'I'm getting desperate, Roy. I don't know what else to do.'
'We press on, that's what we do.'
'Maybe he's worth a try.'
Grace smiled. 'I thought you were the big sceptic'
'I am. But we have a guy meant to be walking down the aisle in church tomorrow at two - and we have - ' he checked his watch ' - just twenty-two hours to get him there. And about fifty square miles of forest to search, with about four hours of daylight left. What say you?'
Privately, Grace believed that Harry Frame was worth a try. But after the fiasco in court on Wednesday, he wasn't sure it was worth risking his career over it, if Alison Vosper were to find out. 'Let's exhaust all our other avenues, first, then we'll see, OK?'
'Worried what the boss might say?' Branson taunted.
'You get to my age, you start thinking about your pension.'
'I'll bear that in mind, in about thirty years' time.'
33
Ashley Harper's address was a tiny Victorian terraced house close to a railway line in an area that had once been a working-class area of Have, but now was an increasingly trendy - and expensive - enclave for singles and first-time buyers. The quality of the cars parked in the street and the smart front doors were the giveaway.
Grace and Branson climbed out of the car, walked past a Golf GTI and a convertible Renault, and rang the doorbell of number 119, which had a silver Audi TT parked outside.
After a few moments the door was opened by a very beautiful woman in her mid-twenties. She gave Branson a sad smile of recognition. 'Hello, Ashley,' Branson said. 'This is my colleague, Detective Superintendent Grace. Can we have a chat?'
'Of course, come in. Do you have any news?' She looked at Grace.
Grace was struck by the contrast of the interior of the house with the outside. They had entered an oasis of cool minimalism. White carpet, white furniture, grey metal Venetian blinds, a large framed Jack Vettriano print of four dudes in sharp suits on the wall, which Grace recognized, pin-pricks of coloured lights jigging on a wall mounted sound system. The hands of a faceless clock on a wall read 6.20 p.m.
She offered them drinks. Branson was given a mineral water in a smart glass tumbler and Grace, seated beside him on a long sofa, a black coffee in an elegant white mug.
'There were three confirmed sightings of your fiance on Tuesday night at pubs in the Ashdown Forest area,' Glenn Branson told her. 'Each of them also confirmed he was with four companions - the ones you know. But we have no information on what they were up to, other than getting drunk.'
'Michael isn't a drinker,' she said bleakly, holding a large glass of red wine in both hands.
'Tell me about Michael,' Grace asked, watching her intently.
'What sort of things?'
'Anything. How did you meet him?'
She smiled, and for an instant visibly relaxed. 'I came for a job interview to his firm. Michael and his partner.'
'Mark Warren?' quizzed Grace.
A fleeting hesitation, so small it was barely noticeable. But Grace had seen it. 'Yes.'
'Where did you work before? he asked.
'I was working for a real estate firm in Toronto, Canada. I only came back to England just before I got this job.'
'Back?'
'I'm from England originally - my roots are here.' She smiled.
'What firm in Toronto?'
'You know Toronto?' she asked, a little surprised.
'I did a week there with the RCMP about ten years ago - at their murder lab.'
'Right. It was a small firm - part of the Bay group.'
Grace nodded. 'So Michael Harrison and Mark Warren hired you?'
'Uh huh, that was last November.'
'And?'
'It was a great job - good pay -1 wanted to learn about the property business, and they seemed like really nice guys. I - um -1' - she blushed - 'I thought Michael was very attractive, but I was sure he was married or had a girlfriend.'
'Excuse me for being personal,' Grace said, 'but when did you and Michael become an item?'
After a brief pause she said, 'Very quickly - within a couple of months. But we had to keep it secret, because Michael was concerned about Mark finding out. He thought it would be difficult for Mark if he was - you know - having a thing with me.'
Grace nodded. 'So when did Mark find out?'
She reddened. 'He came back to the office one day when we weren't expecting him.'
Grace smiled. He felt for her, she had a vulnerability about her that he knew would make almost all men feel protective towards her.
He felt the same way himself, already, and he'd only known her for a few minutes. 'And then?'
'It was a little bit awkward for a while. I told Michael I thought I Should quit, but he was very persuasive.'
'And Mark?'
Grace noticed the minutest flinch. A barely visible tightening of her facial muscles. 'He was OK about it.'
'So it didn't affect your business relationship?'
'No.'
Watching her eyes closely, Grace asked, 'Did you know they have a business offshore, in the Cayman Islands?'
Her eyes shot to Branson then back to Grace. 'No - I - I don't know about it.'
'Did Michael ever talk to you about tax shelters for himself and Mr Warren?'
Anger flashed in her face, so harshly and so suddenly that Grace was startled. 'What is this? Are you policemen or are you from the Inland Revenue?'
'If you want to help us find your fiance, you have to help us get to know him. Tell us everything, even the stuff you think is totally irrelevant.'
'I just want you to find him. Alive. Please God.'
'Your fiance didn't talk about his stag night with you?' Grace questioned, thinking back to his own stag night, when he'd given Sandy a detailed itinerary and she'd rescued him, in the early hours of the following morning, when he'd been abandoned in a back street of Brighton, stark naked apart from a pair of socks, on top of a pillar box.
She shook her head. 'They were just going out for a few drinks, that's all he told me.'
'What are you going to do if he hasn't turned up by the time of your wedding tomorrow?' Branson asked.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. She went out of the room and returned holding an embroidered handkerchief, which she used to dab her eyes. Then she started sobbing. 'I don't know. I really don't know. Please find him. I love him so much, I can't bear this,'
After waiting for her to calm down, and watching her eyes again
intently, Grace asked, 'You were secretary to both of them. Didn't Mark Warren tell you what they had planned?'
'Just a boys' night out. I was having a girls' night out, you know, a hen party. That was all.'
'You know that Michael has a reputation as a practical joker?' Grace asked.
'Michael has a great sense of humour - that's
one of the things I love about him.'
'You don't know anything about a coffin?'
She sat bolt upright, almost spilling her wine. 'A coffin? What do you mean?'
Gently, Branson explained. 'One of the boys, Robert Houlihan you knew him?'
'I met him a few times, yes. A bit of a loser.'
'Oh really?'
'That's what M - Michael said. He sort of hung on to their crowd but wasn't really part of it.'
'But part of it enough to be included in the stag night?' Branson persisted.
'Michael hates to hurt anyone. I think he felt Robbo had to be included. I suppose because he'd made the other guys ushers, but not Robbo.'
Grace drank some coffee. 'You didn't have any falling-out with Michael? Nothing to make you think he might have got cold feet about the wedding?'
'Christ,' she said. 'No. Absolutely not. I - he--'
'Where are you going on your honeymoon?' Grace asked.
'The Maldives. Michael's booked a fantastic place - he loves water - boats, scuba diving. It looks like paradise.'
'We have a helicopter out looking for him. We have drafted in one hundred special constables, and if he hasn't turned up by tonight we are going to start a full search of the area where he was last seen. But I don't want to tie up hundreds of valuable police man-hours only to find he's sunning himself in the Cayman Islands, courtesy of the British taxpayer. Do you understand?'
Ashley nodded. 'Loud and clear,' she said bitterly. 'This is about money, not about finding Michael at all.'
'No,' Grace said, softening his tone. 'This is not about money. I'm prepared to authorize whatever it costs to find Michael.'
'Then please start now.' Hunching her thin shoulders, she stared pitifully down at her glass of wine. 'I recognize you, from the Argus piece on you. And the Daily Mail yesterday. They were trying to ridicule you for going to a medium, right?'
'Yes.'
'I believe in all that. Don't you know somebody? You know - with your contacts? Aren't there mediums, psychics - who can locate missing people?'
Grace shot a glance at Branson, then looked at Ashley. 'There are, yes.'
'Couldn't you go to someone - or put me in touch with someone you can recommend?'
Grace thought carefully for a moment. 'Do you have anything belonging to Michael?' He was aware of Glenn Branson's eyes boring into him.
