Dead Simple

situation. Except the bellow of pain from Michael had got to him. None of this had seemed quite real before. All the boys dead in the wreck. Going up to the grave and taking the air tube. Even when Michael had shouted out in the coffin, it hadn’t affected him, not really. Not the way the sound of him in pain was affecting him now.
    ‘Michael must have his Palm. If he gets out alive he is going to know that I knew where he was being buried.’
    ‘Since the accident there’s never been any question of him getting out alive,’ she said. Then after a moment’s hesitation added a testy, ‘Has there?’
    Mark was silent. His mind, normally so orderly and focused, was a messed-up jumble at this moment. They’d never intended to harm Michael with the stag-night prank – that was just the payback for all his jokes. And the original plan he’d hatched with Ashley had never involved hurting Michael either, surely? Ashley was going to marry him, and get half his shares in Double-M Properties. When the ink was dry on the certificates, Mark and she would have enough votes between them to take control of the company. They would vote Michael off the Board of Directors, and then he would be a minority shareholder – and wouldn’t have much option but to let them buy him out at a low price.
    Why the hell had he kept quiet the night he had arrived home from Leeds and heard about the accident? Why? Why?
    But of course he knew the real reason why. Pure jealousy. It was because he had never been able to bear the thought of Ashley going off on honeymoon with Michael – and the solution had fallen into his lap.
    ‘Has there, Mark?’ Ashley’s persistent voice cut through his thoughts.
    ‘Has there what?’
    ‘Duh! Hello! Has there ever been any question of him getting out alive?’
    ‘No, of course not.’
    She stared at him, a firm, steady gaze.
    He stared back, replaying the terrible screams of pain over and over inside his head, thinking, Ashley, you didn’t hear them.

72
    Michael lay in the bitumen-black darkness, his heart thudding, his head pounding, his index finger throbbing, and excruciating spikes of pain from his balls shooting deep up into his belly. It was – he didn’t know how long ago, maybe an hour, maybe more, maybe less – from when that hooded bastard had clipped callipers to them and fired electric shocks into them.
    But the pain was nothing compared to the dark, cold fear that stalked his mind. He was remembering the movie, The Silence of the Lambs, which he had seen some years back, and again more recently on television with Ashley. A girl, a senator’s daughter, had been kept in the bottom of a well by the serial killer, who skinned his victims. He couldn’t help it; he was shivering, trying to focus his thoughts, determined, somehow, to survive.
    To get back to Ashley. To take her down the aisle. That was all he wanted.
    God, how he pined for her!
    He couldn’t move his arms or his legs. After spooning him tinned stew and bread, his captor had sealed his mouth again with duct tape and he had to breathe just through his nose, which was partially blocked. He sniffed, suddenly panicking that it was getting completely blocked. Sniffed again, harder, deep, rapid sniffs, setting his heart racing.
    He tried to work out where he might be. The place smelled dank, musty, there was still a faint reek of engine oil. He was lying on a hard surface and something sharp was digging into the base of his spine, hurting like hell, getting worse by the minute.
    He felt stronger, despite the pain, much stronger than he had earlier. The food was having an effect. I am not fucking staying here and dying. I haven’t done everything in life to end up here. No way. No absolutely no absolutely no, no no fucking way.
    He struggled against his bonds. Breathed in deeply, trying to shrink his body, then out, trying to expand. And felt something give. Some tiny hint of slack. In again, pulled his arms in tight, tight, tight, out, in, out. Oh sweet Jesus he could move his right arm. Only a tiny amount. But he could move it! He pushed against his bonds, constricted, pushed again, constricted. More slack for his right arm.
    Then more still!
    He rolled over onto his side, then his stomach. His nostrils filled with the reek of engine oil now; he was lying face down in the slimy stuff, but it didn’t matter, because at least the pain in the base of his spine had stopped.
    He wriggled his hand round, further round, and then