Dead Simple

opposite. It was probably safe to turn the lights on, but Mark didn’t want to take chances. There might be someone out there watching.
    Pulling off his sodden cap and coat, he hung them on pegs on the wall, then waited some moments, listening, nervous as hell. Through the party wall he could hear what sounded like marching music, from a television turned up too loud. Then with the aid of the flashlight, he began his search.
    He went first into the main room, the lounge/dining area, shining the beam onto every surface. He looked at the pile of unwashed dishes on the sideboard, a half-drunk bottle of Chianti with the cork pushed back in, then the coffee table, with the television remote lying next to a glass bowl containing a large candle, partially burnt. A pile of magazines – GQ , FHM , Yachts and Yachting . Beside them a red light winked busily on the answering machine.
    He listened to the messages. There was one, left just an hour ago, from Michael’s mother, her voice nervy.
    ‘Hello, Michael, I’m just checking in case you are back.’
    Another was from Ashley, sounding as if she was on her mobile in a bad reception area. ‘Michael darling, just calling to see if by chance you’re back. Please, please call me the moment you get this. I love you so much.’
    The next was from a salesman asking Michael if he would like to take advantage of a new loan facility Barclays Bank was offering to its card holders.
    Mark continued playing the messages right through, but there was nothing of interest. He checked the two sofas, the chairs, the side tables, then went into the study.
    On the desk in front of the iMac was just the keypad, cordless mouse, a fluorescent mouse pad, a heart-shaped glass paperweight, a calculator, a mobile charger and a black jar crammed with pens and pencils. What he was looking for was not there. Nor was it on the bookshelves or anywhere in Michael’s untidy bedroom.
    Shit.
    Shit, shit, shit.
    He left the apartment, walked down the fire-escape steps and went through the rear exit into the dark of the car park. Bad news , he thought to himself as he furtively made his way back to the street. This was really bad news.
    *
    Fifteen minutes later he drove his BMW X5 up the steep hill alongside the huge sprawling complex of the Sussex County Hospital, and pulled into the car park for the Accident and Emergency department. He hurried past a couple of waiting ambulances and into the brightly lit reception and waiting area, familiar to him from his visit the previous day.
    He walked past the dozens of people waiting forlornly on the plastic seats, beneath a sign which read ‘ WAITING TIME – THREE HOURS ’, and along a series of corridors to the lift, and took that to the fourth floor.
    Then he followed the signs to the ICU, the smells of disinfectant and hospital food in his nostrils. He rounded a corner, walked past a vending machine, and a payphone in a perspex dome, then saw ahead of him the reception desk of the Intensive Care Unit. Two nurses stood behind the counter, one on the phone, the other talking to a distressed-looking elderly woman.
    He made his way across the ward, past four occupied beds, to the corner where Josh had been last night, expecting to see Zoe at his bedside. Instead, he saw a wizened old man, with wild white hair, sunken, liver-spotted cheeks, cannulated and intubated, with a ventilator beside him.
    Mark scanned the rest of the beds, but there was no sign of Josh. Panicking that his health had improved and that he had now been moved to another ward, he hurried back to the reception desk and positioned himself in front of the nurse who was on the phone, a plump, cheery-looking woman of about thirty, with a pudding-basin haircut, and a badge that said ‘ITU Staff Nurse, MARIGOLD WATTS’. From her demeanour she seemed to be chatting to her boyfriend.
    He waited impatiently, resting his arms on the wooden counter, staring at the bank of black and white monitors showing every bed, and the colour digital displays beneath each of them. He shifted his position a couple of times in rapid succession, trying to catch her eye, but she seemed to be mainly concerned about her dinner.
    ‘Chinese, I think I fancy Chinese. Peking Duck. Somewhere that does Peking Duck, with the pancakes and—’
    Then finally she seemed to notice him for the first time. ‘Listen, I have to go. Call you back. Love you too.’ She turned to Mark, all smiles. ‘Yes, can I help you?’
    ‘Josh