Dead Simple

instead of being somewhere on honeymoon, she was sitting crying in her house in Brighton. But he didn’t feel sorry, couldn’t feel sorry. All he could feel was deep suspicion.
    ‘Have you tried calling him back?’
    ‘Yes, and I’ve texted him. The line just rings and goes to voicemail.’
    ‘That’s better than before,’ Grace said. ‘It didn’t ring before, just went straight to voicemail.’
    Branson was fiddling with the phone – as he was much better with gadgets than Grace. ‘It was sent by Michael Harrison, phone number plus 44797 134621,’ he announced, then pressed a button with his thumb whilst sucking in his lower lip in concentration. ‘At 22.28, today.’ Both Grace and Branson checked their watches. Just over an hour ago.
    Twenty minutes before she rang, Grace thought. Why did she wait twenty minutes?
    Glenn Branson dialled the number and held the phone to his ear. Grace and Ashley watched him, expectantly. After some moments, Branson said, ‘Hello, Michael Harrison, this is Detective Sergeant Branson of Brighton CID responding to your text to Ashley Harper. Please call or text me on 0789 965018. The number again is 0789 965018.’ Then he ended the call.
    ‘Ashley, does Michael normally text you?’
    She shrugged. ‘Not a huge amount, but yes – you know – little love messages, that sort of thing.’ She smiled suddenly, and in the warmth it brought to her face, and the beauty it seemed to animate, Grace could see her melting almost any heart she chose.
    Branson grinned. ‘Has he always been a crap texter?’
    ‘Not usually, no.’
    Grace stared again at the words. aliVe. *£ cAlll ponlice
    It looked like an infant had texted them, not a grown man. Unless of course he had done them in a hurry, or while driving.
    ‘What information can you get from this?’ Ashley asked.
    Grace was about to tell her, then decided not to. He surreptitiously touched Branson’s leg with his own as a signal not to contradict him. ‘Not a lot really, I’m afraid. It’s good news in one respect, in that we know he’s alive, but it is bad news, because he is clearly in trouble. Unless it is part of a hoax.’
    Her eyes were all over the place, Grace noticed; he had been watching every inch of her body language since she had appeared at the door; everything was considered, all done after a pause, nothing spontaneous.
    ‘You can’t still believe Michael is doing some kind of a hoax?’ she said incredulously. Grace noticed something very forced and theatrical about the way this came out. He told her about the discovery of the coffin – all the details.
    ‘So he’s escaped – is that what you think?’
    ‘Maybe,’ Grace said. ‘Or maybe he was never there.’
    ‘Oh, right, so he like scratched the inside of the lid himself?’
    ‘I think that’s one possible scenario, yes. It is not necessarily the right one.’
    ‘Oh, come on, get real! This text message is desperate and you are sitting here giving me a bullshit theory about a hoax?’
    ‘Ashley, we are very real,’ Grace said calmly. ‘We have an entire team in the Major Incident Suite; we have over one hundred officers out searching for Michael Harrison; we are getting national media coverage – we are doing all we possibly can.’
    She looked contrite suddenly, a little girl lost and scared. She stared meekly at the two police officers, eyes wide, and dabbed them with a handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffed, ‘I didn’t mean to have a go at you; you have been so brilliant, both of you. I’m just so – so—’ She began to shake, her face scrunched up against a flood of tears.
    Grace stood up awkwardly, and Branson followed.
    ‘It’s OK,’ Grace said. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

77
    He made the call. But it took five attempts for the damned fax to go through. The first time, trying to do it too quickly, he hadn’t loaded the letter in straight and it had jammed. He’d spent ten precious minutes trying to unjam it without tearing the letter.
    He’d driven, which was stupid considering the amount he’d drunk, but it was too far to walk to the office and back in the time, and he hadn’t wanted to risk not being able to get a taxi.
    Now, bursting in through the door of his apartment with less than three minutes to the deadline, he made straight for the drinks cabinet, poured himself three fingers of Balvenie and gulped it straight down. He felt the burn in his gullet, then winced as it burnt his stomach even