Dead Simple

breath, let the water wash over his face, then push himself up. Soon that would not be possible any more.
    Crying with frustration and terror he lashed out at the lid, pummelled it. He pressed the talk button again. ‘Davey! Davey! Hey, Davey?’
    He spat more water out.
    Every molecule in his body shivered.
    Static came back at him.
    His teeth clicked in his mouth. He swallowed a mouthful of the muddy water, then another mouthful. ‘Please, oh please, somebody, please, please, oh please, help me.’
    He tried to calm himself down, to think about his speech. Had to thank the bridesmaids. Propose a toast to them. Must remember to thank his mother first. Finish with the toast to the bridesmaids. Tell funny stories. There was a great joke Pete had given him. About a couple going on honeymoon and—
    Honeymoon.
    It was all booked. They were flying tomorrow night, at nine o’clock, to the Maldives. First class – Ashley didn’t know about that bit, that was his secret treat.
    Oh get me out of here, you idiots. I’m going to miss my wedding, my honeymoon. Come on! Now!

37
    The clock on the dash of the Ford read 7.13 p.m. as Branson drove Grace along past the elegant Regency townhouse faces of Kemp Town, then onto open road, high above the cliffs, past the vast neo-Gothic buildings of Roedean girls’ school and then past the Art Deco building of St Dunstan’s Home for the Blind. The rain lashed down and the wind buffeted the car, crazily. It hadn’t stopped for days now. Branson turned the radio up, drowning out the intermittent crackle of the police two-way radio, swaying to the beat of a Scissor Sisters track.
    Grace tolerated it for some moments, then turned the volume down again.
    ‘What’s the matter, man? This group is so cool,’ Branson said.
    ‘Great,’ Grace said.
    ‘You want to pull a bird, yeah? You need to get with the culture.’
    ‘You’re my culture guru, right?’
    Branson shot him a sideways glance. ‘I ought to be your style guru, too. Got a great hairdresser you should go to – Ian Habbin at The Point. Get him to sharpen up your hair – I mean, like, you are looking so yesterday. ’
    ‘It’s starting to feel like yesterday,’ Grace responded. ‘You asked me to have lunch with you. It’s now past teatime and heading for supper. At this rate we’ll be having breakfast together.’
    ‘Since when did you have a life?’ Almost as the words came out, Branson regretted saying them. He could see the pain in Grace’s face without even turning to look at him. ‘Sorry, man,’ he said.
    They drove through the smart, cliff-top village of Rottingdean, then along a sweeping rise, dip, followed by another rise, past the higgledy-piggledy suburban sprawl of post-war houses of Saltdean, then Peacehaven.
    ‘Take the next left,’ Grace said. Then he continued to direct Branson through a maze of hilly streets, crammed with bungalows and modest detached houses, until they pulled up outside a small, rather shabby-looking bungalow, with an even shabbier-looking camper van parked outside.
    They hurried through the rain into a tiny porch, with wind chimes pinging outside, and rang the doorbell. After a few moments it was answered by a diminutive, wiry man well into his seventies, with a goatee beard, long grey hair tied back in a pony tail, wearing a kaftan and dungarees, and sporting an ankh medallion on a gold chain. He greeted them effusively in a high-pitched voice, a bundle of energy, taking Grace’s hand and staring at him with the joy of a long-lost friend. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace! So good to see you again.’
    ‘And you, my friend. This is DS Branson. Glenn, this is Harry Frame.’
    Harry Frame gripped Glenn Branson’s hand with a strength that belied both his years and his size and stared up at him with piercing green eyes. ‘What a pleasure to meet you. Come in, come in.’
    They followed him into a narrow hallway lit by a low-watt bulb in a hanging lantern and decorated in a nautical theme, the centrepiece of which was a large brass porthole on the wall, and through into a sitting room, the shelves crammed with ships in bottles. There was a drab three-piece suite, its backs covered in antimacassars, a television, which was switched off, and a round oak table with four wooden chairs by the window, to which they were ushered. On the wall Branson clocked a naff print of Anne Hathaway’s cottage and a framed motto which read, ‘A mind once expanded can never return to its