Dead Simple

dad’s got a tow-truck and crash repair business – does quite a lot of work for the Traffic Division.’
    ‘Poor sod. He was murdered?’
    ‘It seems likely,’ Grace said guardedly. Then, watching Mark again closely, he said, ‘Am I correct that you and Michael Harrison have a bank account in the Cayman Islands?’
    Without flinching, Mark replied, ‘Yes, we have a company there, HW Properties International.’
    ‘Two-thirds – one-third split?’
    ‘Correct.’
    Grace remembered there was at least one million pounds in that account. More than a tidy sum. ‘What kind of insurance do you and Michael have? Do you have life insurance policies on each other, as business partners?’
    ‘We have the usual key-man insurance – do you want to see the policy?’
    ‘Not at this moment, but at some point I’d like to, yes. Perhaps you could fax a copy over to the Incident Room for me tomorrow?’
    ‘No problem.’
    Grace stood up. ‘Well, I won’t trouble you any more tonight. Busy are you? Often work on a Sunday night?’
    ‘I like to catch up on my paperwork at the weekend. Only chance I get when the phones aren’t ringing.’
    Grace smiled. ‘I know the feeling.’
    Mark watched the detective’s head disappear down the stairwell, then closed the door, making sure the latch was down, then returned to his office, switched his computer back on, and began the arduous task he had started a couple of hours earlier, of reading every day’s back-up of Michael’s Palm, going back weeks, and deleting any references to the stag night.
    Ashley had been spending this afternoon doing the same on the laptops of Peter, Luke, Josh and Robbo, on the pretext to their families that she was looking for clues about Michael’s whereabouts.
    Downstairs, Grace closed the front door behind him and walked across the pavement to his car. But it was some moments before he climbed back into it. Instead, he leaned against the passenger door, staring up at the third-floor window, thinking. Thinking.
    He did not like Mark Warren. The man was a liar – and he was nervous as hell about something. Ashley Harper was a liar, also. She had deliberately given him a bracelet that did not belong to Michael.
    And what exactly was Mark Warren’s bracelet doing in her house?

66
    Jesus, oh Jesus. Michael was crying in pain, holding up his left hand as far as the duct tape wound right around his body, pinioning both arms to his side, would allow. Blood gouted from the stump of his forefinger, cut off at the first joint. He stared up into the blinding lights. ‘What is this; what the hell are you doing?’
    ‘It’s OK, Mike, relax!’
    His arm was held by a thin, hairy hand with an iron grip, the wrist sporting a heavy diver’s watch. And he could see his assailant’s head now, shadowy against the dazzling lights, two eyes behind slits in a black hood.
    Then he saw white cream oozing from the neck of a tube, and the next moment it felt as if ice had been put on his finger. He cried out again, the pain almost unbearable.
    ‘I know what I’m doing, Mike. You don’t have to worry; it won’t go septic. I’d like you to call me Vic. Understand? Vic?’
    ‘Vhrrrr,’ Michael gasped.
    ‘That’s good, you and me on first-name terms. We’re business partners, see? We should be on first-name terms.’
    His assailant pulled out a long white bandage and wound it tightly around the bloody tip of the finger, then on down, tighter and tighter until it was acting as a tourniquet. Then he wound sticking plaster around it to hold it. ‘See, Mike, the way I look at it, I saved your life – so that’s got to be worth something, hasn’t it? And from what I read in the papers and saw on television, it seems like you’re loaded. I’m not, you see, that’s the difference. Want some water?’
    Michael nodded. He was trying to think straight but the numbing, throbbing pain in his finger made that hard.
    ‘If you want to drink, I have to take the tape off your mouth. I do that on condition you don’t shout. Is that a deal, Mike?’
    He nodded his head.
    ‘My word has always been my bond. Is it yours?’
    Again Michael nodded.
    An arm reached down. The next instant Michael felt as if half the skin on his face had been ripped away. His mouth gasped open, his chin and cheek stinging like hell. Then the man reached down again holding a plastic mineral water bottle with the top removed and tilted some of the contents into Michael’s mouth. It tasted