Dead Simple

traffic sluicing past in both directions. The Van Alen was one of its few modern apartment buildings, a twenty-first-century take on Art Deco. A beady voice answered the bell of apartment 407 on the high-security entry panel within moments. ‘Hello?’
    ‘Mark Warren?’ Glenn Branson said.
    ‘Yes, who is this?’
    ‘The police – may we have a word with you about Michael Harrison?’
    ‘Sure. Come up – the fourth floor.’ There was a sharp buzz and Grace pushed the front door open.
    ‘Weird coincidence,’ he said to Branson as they entered the lift. ‘I was here last night on one of my poker nights.’
    ‘Who do you know here?’
    ‘Chris Croke.’
    ‘Chris Croke – that git in Traffic?’
    ‘He’s all right.’
    ‘How can he afford a pad in a place like this?
    ‘By marrying money – or rather, by divorcing money. He had a rich missus – her dad was a lottery winner he told me once – and a good divorce lawyer.’
    ‘Smart bastard.’
    They stepped out on the fourth floor, walked down a plushly blue carpet and stopped outside 407. Branson pressed the bell.
    After a few seconds the door was opened by a man in his late twenties, dressed in an open-neck white business shirt, pin-stripe suit trousers and black loafers with a gold chain. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, affably, ‘please come in.’
    Grace looked at him with faint recognition. He had seen this man before, somewhere, recently. Where? Where the hell had he seen him?
    Branson dutifully showed him his warrant card, but Mark Warren barely glanced at it. They followed him through a small hallway into a huge open-plan living area, with two red sofas forming an L-shape and a long, narrow black lacquer table acting as a border for a kitchen and dining area.
    The place was similar in its minimalistic style, Grace noted, to Ashley Harper’s, but considerably more money had been lavished here. An African mask sat on top of a tall black plinth in one corner. Classy, if impenetrable, abstract paintings lined the walls, and there was a picture window looking directly out at the sea with a fine view of the Palace Pier. A news programme, muted, played on a flat screen Bang and Olufsen television.
    ‘Can I get you a drink?’ Mark Warren asked, wringing his hands.
    Grace observed him carefully, watching his body language, listening to the way he spoke. The man exuded anxiety. Unease. Hardly surprising, considering what he must be going through. One of the biggest problems for survivors of any disaster, Grace knew from past experience, was coping with guilt.
    ‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Branson said. ‘We don’t want to keep you long – just a few questions.’
    ‘Do you have any news of Michael?’
    Grace told him about their trawl of pubs, and about the missing coffin. But there was something about the way he responded that ran up a flag in Grace’s mind. Just a small flag, barely more than a minuscule fluttering pennant.
    ‘I can’t believe they’d do anything like taking a coffin,’ Mark Warren said.
    ‘You should know,’ Grace retorted. ‘Isn’t it the role of the best man to organize the stag night?’
    ‘So I read in the stuff I downloaded from the net,’ he replied.
    Grace frowned. ‘So you weren’t involved in the plans? At all?’
    Mark looked flustered. His voice was awkward as he started speaking, but rapidly calmed. ‘I – no, that’s not what I’m saying. Like I mean – you know – we – Luke – wanted to organize a strippergram, but that’s kind of so yesterday – we wanted something more original.’
    ‘To pay back Michael Harrison for all his practical jokes?’
    Flustered again for a moment, Mark Warren said, ‘Yes, we did discuss that.’
    ‘But you didn’t talk about a coffin?’ Roy Grace asked, locked on to his eyeballs.
    ‘Absolutely not.’ There was indignation in his voice.
    ‘A teak coffin,’ Grace said.
    ‘I – I don’t know anything about any coffin.’
    ‘You’re saying to me that you were his best man, but you didn’t know anything about the plans for his stag night?’
    A long hesitation. Mark Warren shot long glances at each of the police officers in turn. ‘Yes,’ he answered finally.
    ‘I don’t buy that, Mark,’ Grace said. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it.’ Instantly he detected the flash of anger.
    ‘You’re accusing me of lying to you? I’m sorry, gentlemen, this meeting is over. I need to talk to my lawyer.’
    ‘That’s more important to you than finding