Dead Simple

Vodafone log from Michael Harrison’s phone just came in. Want to come to the office and help me with it?’
    Grace thought for a moment, then checked his diary on his BlackBerry. He’d kept the afternoon free, intending to clear up some paperwork relating to the Suresh Hossain trial that Alison Vosper had requested at their 12.30 meeting, then read the report on the Tommy Lytle case. But that had waited twenty-seven years, and another day would not make much difference either way. Whereas Michael Harrison’s disappearance was urgent. Although he did not know the characters, he felt for them. Particularly for the fiancée; he knew just how wrenching it was when a loved one went missing. At this moment, if there was any way he could be of help, he should do it.
    ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Sure.’
    Branson ate his salad, and left the rest of his fish untouched, while Grace tucked into his steak and kidney pudding with relish. ‘I read a while ago,’ he told Branson, ‘that the French drink more red wine than the English but live longer. The Japanese eat more fish than the English, but drink less wine and live longer. The Germans eat more red meat than the English, and drink more beer, and they live longer, too. You know the moral of this story?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘It’s not what you eat or drink – it’s speaking English that kills you.’
    Branson grinned. ‘I don’t know why I like you. You always manage to make me feel guilty about something.’
    ‘So let’s go find Michael Harrison. Then you can enjoy your weekend.’
    Branson pushed his fish to the side of his plate and drained his Diet Coke.
    ‘Filled with Aspartame, that stuff,’ Grace said, looking disapprovingly at his glass. ‘I read a theory on the web that it can give you Lupus.’
    ‘What’s Lupus?’
    ‘It’s far worse than mercury.’
    ‘Thanks, Big Boy.’
    ‘Now you’re just jealous.’
    *
    As they entered the tired-looking, six-storey building that housed Brighton police station from the parking lot at the rear, Grace felt a pang of nostalgia. This building had a reputation as being the busiest police station in Britain. The place hummed and buzzed and he had loved his time – almost fifteen years – working here. It was the buzz that he missed most about his recent posting to the relatively quiet backwater of the CID headquarters building on the outskirts.
    As they climbed up the cement stairs, blue walls on either side of them, the familiar noticeboards with events and procedures pinned to them, he could smell that he was still in a busy police station. It wasn’t the smell of hospitals, or schools, or a civil service building, it was the smell of energy.
    They went on up past the third floor, where his old office had been, and then along a corridor on the fourth floor, past a large sign dominating an entire noticeboard, with the wording ‘OVERALL CRIME DETECTION RATE. APRIL. 27.8%’. Then he followed Branson into the long, narrow office his colleague was setting up as the incident room for Michael Harrison. Six desks, each with a computer terminal. Two of them were occupied, both by detectives he knew and liked – DC Nick Nicholl and DS Bella Moy. There was a SASCO flip chart on an easel and a blank whiteboard on the wall, next to a large-scale map of Sussex, on which was a pattern of coloured pins.
    ‘Coffee?’ Branson offered.
    ‘I’m fine for the moment.’
    They stopped at Bella’s desk, which was covered in neat wodges of paper, among which stood an open box of Maltesers. Pointing at the papers, she said, ‘I have Michael Harrison’s Vodafone log from Tuesday morning up until nine o’clock this morning. I also thought it would be a good idea to get the ones of the other four with him.’
    ‘Good thinking,’ Branson said, impressed with her initiative.
    She pointed at her computer screen, on which there was a map: ‘I’ve plotted here all the masts of the mobile networks the five of them used, Orange, Vodafone and T-Mobile. Orange and T-Mobile operate on a higher frequency than Vodafone – which Michael Harrison is on. The last signal from his mobile came from the base station at the Pippingford Park mast on the A22. But I’ve found out we cannot rely on the fact that this is the nearest, because if the network is busy it will hand off signals to the next available mast.’
    She was going to go far, this young lady, Grace thought. Studying the map for a moment, he asked, ‘What’s the distance between the