Dead Simple

got cold feet and done a runner. Or the Cayman Islands features in this somewhere.’
    Grace clicked open one of the emails that was flagged as urgent and was from his boss, Alison Vosper. She asked if he was free for a brief meeting at 12.30. He typed back that he was, while he talked to Branson. ‘The guy’s business partner, Mark Warren, he’d know if they had been planning a prank, like tying him to a tree, or something.’
    ‘Ms Harper says he knows they were planning something, but doesn’t know what they decided on.’
    ‘Have you checked out the pubs they visited?’
    ‘Doing that today.’
    ‘CCTV footage?’
    ‘Starting on that, too.’
    ‘Have you checked out the van?’
    From the look of sudden panic on Branson’s face, Grace saw he hadn’t. ‘Why the hell not? Isn’t that the first place to look?’
    ‘Yeah, you’re right. I haven’t got fully into gear on this yet.’
    ‘Have you done an all-ports?’
    ‘Yeah, his picture’s being circulated this morning. We’ve put out a missing persons alert.’
    Grace felt as if a dark cloud had slipped overhead. Missing persons . Every time he heard the phrase it affected him, brought it all right to the front of his mind again. He thought of this woman, Ashley, Branson had described. The day before her wedding and her man gone missing. How must she feel?
    ‘Glenn, you said this guy is a joker – any chance this a prank he’s pulling and he’s about to turn up, with a big grin on his face?’
    ‘With four of his best mates dead? He’d have to be pretty sick.’ Branson looked at his watch. ‘What you doing for lunch?’
    ‘Unless I get a call from Julia Roberts, I may be free – oh – subject to No. 27 not detaining me for more than half a hour.’
    ‘How is the delightful Alison Vosper?’
    Grace gave him a bleak stare and raised his eyebrows. ‘More sour than sweet.’
    ‘Ever thought of shagging her?’
    ‘Yes, for about one nano-second – or perhaps even a femto-second – isn’t that the smallest unit of time that exists?’
    ‘Could be a good career move.’
    ‘I can think of a better one.’
    ‘Like?’
    ‘Like not trying to shag the Assistant Chief Constable.’
    ‘Did you ever see Susan Sarandon in Moonlight Mile ?’
    ‘I don’t remember it.’
    ‘She reminds me of Susan Sarandon in that movie. I liked that movie, it was good. Yeah. Want to take a ride out to the car pound with me, lunchtime – talk some more on the way? I’ll buy you a pint and slap-up sandwich.’
    ‘Lunch at the car pound? Wow, proves what I thought the moment I saw that tie. You really do have style.’

26
    The water was still rising, Michael calculated, at one inch every three hours. It was now just below his ears. He was shivering from cold, getting feverish.
    He had worked frantically through the night, sawing with the glass, and he was now on the last fragment of the whisky bottle and his arms ached with exhaustion. He had made a deep groove in the lid, but had still not yet broken through to the outside of it.
    He was pacing himself now, two hours on, half an hour off, imagining he was sailing. But he was losing. The water was rising faster than the hole was widening. His head would be underwater before the hole was wide enough to get through.
    Every fifteen minutes he pressed the talk button on the walkie-talkie. Each time all he got was static back.
    It was now 11.03 a.m. Friday.
    He ground away, powdered glass and wet soil pouring steadily down, the last fragment of glass shrinking with every minute he worked, thinking, all the time thinking. When the glass was finished he still had the belt buckle. And when that was finished what other instruments did he have to grind away at the wood with? The lens of the torch? The batteries?
    A sharp hiss as the walkie-talkie came to life, then a phoney American accent again. ‘Hi, buddy, how ya doin’?’ This time he recognized it.
    Michael pressed the talk button. ‘Davey?’ he said. ‘Is that you?’
    ‘Just watching the news on TV,’ Davey informed him. ‘They’re showing an auto wreck I went to with my dad on Tuesday! Boy that was some accident! All of ’em dead – and there’s one guy missing!’
    Michael suddenly gripped the walkie-talkie with deep intensity. ‘What was it, Davey? What was the car?’
    ‘Ford Transit. Boy was it trashed!’
    ‘Tell me more, Davey.’
    ‘There was one guy sticking right out through the windshield, half his head missing. Jeez, could see