Dead Simple

early in the week to give yourself time to recover.
    He pushed up with his hands for the hundredth time. Maybe the two hundredth time. Maybe even the thousandth time. It made no difference. He had already tried grinding a hole in the lid with the only hard implement he had, the casing of his walkie-talkie. The mobile and the torch were both plastic. But the casing still wasn’t tough enough.
    He switched on the walkie-talkie again. ‘Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?’
    Static was there.
    A dark thought occurred to him. Was Ashley in on this? Was this why she’d been so insistent that he should have the stag party early in the week, on Tuesday? So he could be locked in here – wherever here was – for a whole twenty-four hours, longer, without it causing any problem?
    Never. She knew he was claustrophobic, and she didn’t have a cruel bone in her body. She always put everyone else first, was always thinking about other people’s needs.
    The number of presents she had bought for his mother and himself had staggered him. And everything exquisitely appropriate. Her favourite perfume. A CD of her favourite singer, Robbie Williams, a cashmere jumper she had been hankering after. A Bose radio he had coveted. How did Ashley find out all these things? It was a knack, a gift, just one of the endless list of attributes that made her such a special person.
    And made him the luckiest man in the world.
    The torch beam dimmed, noticeably. He switched it off again to conserve the battery and lay still in the darkness again. He could hear his breathing getting faster. What if?
    If they never came back?
    It was nearly 11.30. He waited, listening for a gaggle of voices that would tell him his friends were back.
    Jesus, when he got out of there they weren’t half going to regret this. He looked at his watch again. Twenty-five to midnight. They would be along soon, any minute now.
    They had to be.

11
    Sandy stood over him, grinning, blocking the sunlight, deliberately provoking him. Her blonde hair swung down either side of her freckled face, brushing his cheeks.
    ‘Hey! I have to read – this report – I—’
    ‘You’re so boring, Grace, you always have to read!’ She kissed his forehead. ‘Read, read, read, work, work, work!’ She kissed his forehead again. ‘Don’t you still fancy me?’
    She was wearing a skimpy sun dress, her breasts almost falling out the top; he caught a glimpse of her long, tanned legs, her hem riding up her thighs, and suddenly he felt very horny.
    He reached up his arms to cup her face, pulling her down to him, staring into those trusting blue eyes, feeling so incredibly – intensely – deeply – in love with her.
    ‘I adore you,’ he said.
    ‘Do you, Grace?’ Flirting. ‘Do you really adore me more than your work?’ She pulled her head back, pouted her lips quizzically.
    ‘I love you more than anything in—’
    Darkness suddenly. As if someone had pulled out a plug.
    Grace heard the echo of his voice in cold, empty air.
    ‘Sandy!’ he shouted, but the sound stayed trapped in his throat.
    The sunlight faded into a weak orange glow; street lighting leaking in around the bedroom curtains.
    The display on the digital clock said 3.02 a.m.
    He was sweating, eyes wide open, his heart tossing around in his chest like a buoy in a storm. He heard the clatter of a dustbin – a scavenging cat or a fox. Moments later it was followed by the rattle of a diesel – probably his neighbour three doors down, who drove a taxi and kept late hours.
    For some moments he lay still. Closed his eyes, calmed his breathing, tried to return to the dream, clinging as hard as he could to the memory. Like all the recurring dreams he had about Sandy it felt so real. As if they were still together but in a different dimension. If he could just find some way of locating the portal, crossing the divide, they really would be together again, they’d be fine, they’d be happy.
    So damned happy.
    A huge swell of sadness rolled through him. Then it turned to dread as he started to remember. The newspaper. That damned headline in the Argus last night. It was all coming back. Christ, oh Christ. What the hell were the morning papers going to say? Criticism he could cope with. Ridicule was harder. He already got stick from a number of officers for dabbling in the supernatural. He’d been warned by the previous Chief Constable, who was genuinely intrigued by the paranormal himself, that to let his interests be known