Dead Simple

that because I know you. The press don’t know you, and even if they did, they don’t give Jack Shit. They want stories and you were stupid enough to give them one.’
    They emerged from the lift on the sixth floor. The flat was at the end of the corridor. Branson unlocked the door and they went in.
    The place was small, with a lounge/diner, a narrow kitchen with a granite worktop and a circular steel sink, and two bedrooms, one of which was used as a study, with an iMac computer and work-desk. The rest of this room/office was filled with bookshelves crammed mostly with paperbacks.
    In contrast with the dull exterior and drab common parts of the building, the flat felt fresh and modern. The walls were painted in white, very lightly tinged with grey, and the furnishings were modernistic, with a distinct Japanese influence. There were low sofas, simple prints on the walls, a flat-screen television, with a DVD player beneath, and a sophisticated hi-fi system with tall, slender speakers. In the master bedroom there was an unmade futon bed, with handsome louvred doors on the wardrobe, another flat-screen television, and low bedside tables with starkly modern lamps. A pair of Nike trainers sat on the floor.
    Grace and Branson exchanged a glance. ‘Nice pad,’ Grace said.
    ‘Uh huh,’ Branson said. ‘Life is Beautiful .’
    Grace looked at him.
    ‘I missed it in the cinema. Caught it on Sky. Incredible film – have you ever seen it?’
    Grace shook his head.
    ‘All set in a concentration camp. About a dad who convinces his kid that they’re playing a game. If they win the game, they get a real tank. I tell you, it moved me more than Schindler’s List and The Pianist .’
    ‘I’ve never heard of it.’
    ‘I wonder what planet you’re on sometimes.’
    Grace stared at a framed photograph by the bed. It showed a good-looking man, in his late twenties, with fair hair, black T-shirt and jeans, arm around a seriously attractive woman also in her late twenties, with long, dark hair.
    ‘This him?’
    ‘And her. Michael Harrison and Ashley Harper. Nice-looking couple, right?’
    Continuing to stare at them, Grace nodded.
    ‘Getting married on Saturday. At least, that’s the plan.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘Meaning, if he shows up. Doesn’t look too good right now.’
    ‘You said he hasn’t been seen since Tuesday night?’ Grace looked out of the window. The view down was across a wide, rain-lashed street backed up with traffic. A bus hove into view. ‘What do you know about him?’
    ‘Local boy made good. Property developer. Serious player. Double-M Properties. Has a partner called Mark Warren. Recently built a fuck-off development – an old warehouse on Shoreham Harbour. Thirty-two flats, all sold before they were finished. They’ve been in business for seven years, done a bunch of stuff in the area, some conversions, some new builds. The chick’s Michael’s secretary, smart bird, seriously gorgeous.’
    ‘You think he’s done a runner?’
    Branson shook his head. ‘Nope.’
    Grace picked up the photograph and stared more closely at it. ‘Bloody hell, I’d marry her.’
    ‘That’s my point.’
    Grace frowned. ‘Sorry, I’m slow, had a long day.’
    ‘You’d marry her! If I was a single man, I’d marry her. Anyone in their right mind would marry her , right?’
    ‘She’s seriously gorgeous.’
    ‘She is, seriously gorgeous.’
    Grace stared at him blankly.
    In mock exasperation, Branson said, ‘Jesus, old timer, you losing your touch or something?’
    ‘Maybe I am,’ Grace said, blankly. ‘What is your point?’
    Branson shook his head. ‘My point is exactly that. If you were going to marry this babe on Saturday, would you do a runner?’
    ‘Not unless I was nuts.’
    ‘So if he hasn’t done a runner, where is he?’
    Grace thought for a moment. ‘You said on the phone something about a stag-night prank that might have gone wrong?’
    ‘That’s what his fiancée said to me. That was my first thought. Stag nights can be brutal. Even when he didn’t show up all of yesterday, that’s what I still thought then. But to stay out two nights?’
    ‘Cold feet? Another bird?’
    ‘All possible. But I’d like to show you something.’
    Grace followed him into the living area. Branson sat down in front of the computer and tapped the keyboard. He was a wizard on computers. Grace had a good technical mind and was pretty well up to speed with most modern technology, but Branson was light