Dead Simple

halted at a traffic light. ‘I wanted to ask you, have you checked on Michael Harrison’s bank account and credit cards?’
    ‘Got a constant monitor on them. Nothing since Tuesday afternoon. Same with his mobile. Any developments your end?’
    ‘The helicopter’s been up again but seen nothing. Nicholl and Moy are working over the weekend – they’re getting Michael’s photograph circulated to the press, and they’re collecting all the CCTV camera footage in the suspect area – I have a team starting work viewing it. We’re going to have to make a decision about calling in specials and getting a full-blown search of the area. And I’m getting unhappier by the minute with his business partner, Mark Warren.’
    ‘Tell me?’
    ‘Nothing specific yet, but I think he knows something he isn’t telling. We need to run some background checks on him.’
    ‘I have the Holmes team doing that already.’
    ‘Good boy. Hang on—’ Grace concentrated for a moment as he pulled away from the lights. ‘I think we should take a close look at their company, Double-M Properties. See what their insurance policies are.’
    ‘I have that under way, too – and I’m having their Cayman Islands company checked out. What do you make of Ashley?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Grace said. ‘I don’t have a view. She’s giving a convincing performance. I think we should check her out, too. You know what’s odd about her?’
    ‘This no relatives thing? You ever see that movie The Last Seduction , with Linda Fiorentino?’ The phone signal weakened suddenly and Branson’s voice became crackly.
    ‘I don’t remember it.’
    ‘Bill Pullman was in it, too.’
    ‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’
    ‘She was in Men in Black too.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Worth seeing – The Last Seduction . Had a predatory woman. Dark ending. She kind of reminds me of Ashley.’
    ‘I’ll check it out.’
    ‘Get it on DVD. Play.com – great value.’
    ‘How many twenty-seven-year-olds do you know that don’t have relatives? You’re twenty-seven, you are getting married, the biggest day of your life, and you can only produce one relative to turn up to your big day.’
    ‘She could be an orphan. We need to check her background out.’
    ‘I’ll go and talk to Michael’s mother – she must know about her future daughter-in-law.’
    ‘Mine knew more about Ari than I did before I got hitched.’
    ‘Precisely,’ Grace said. *
    *
    Ten minutes later Grace was walking along the corridor of the Major Incident Suite of the CID headquarters, lugging the black plastic bag from the mortuary. He stopped by a white sheet pinned to a red board which was headed ‘DIAGRAM – COMMON POSSIBLE MOTIVES’. It was helpful, sometimes, to refresh his mind from these charts, although most of it was ingrained in his brain. He read the chart:
    Sexual. Jealousy. Racism. Anger/fright. Robbery.
    Power control. Maintain active lifestyle. Gain.
    Payment. Homophobia. Hate. Revenge. Psychotic.
    He moved on to the next board, which was headed, ‘FAST TRACK’. Below was printed:
Identify suspects
Intelligence opportunities
Scene forensics
Crime scene enquiries
Witness search
Victim enquiries
Possible motives
Media
Post-mortems
Significant witness interview
Other critical actions
    Media , he thought. This was a good story for the media. He would phone his contacts, start getting the story out. Maybe that would get the ball rolling. He walked on and entered the small, pristine SOCO Suite. He would phone the Argus reporter Kevin Spinella for starters, he decided.
    Joe Tindall was ready for him in the first of the two rooms, known as the wet room. There was a cluster of brown paper sacks on the floor, each labelled, in black print ‘Evidence Bag’, a roll of brown paper on a worktop, a sink and a tall air box.
    ‘Thanks,’ Joe Tindall said, as he handed him the bag, his tone a lot less friendly than when they had met earlier, but at least he was calmer.
    The SOCO officer opened the black bin liner and pulled out the individual bags of soil, then the bags of clothes. Most of the clothes were heavily bloodstained. The stench of putrefaction began to rise from the clothes bags. ‘These soil samples taken from the victims’ fingernails and shoes,’ he said. ‘You want to see if we can establish a match with the soil sample you brought in earlier?’
    ‘From the suspect vehicle, yes. How quickly could you do this?’
    ‘The person to do this is Hilary Flowers – appropriate