Dead Simple

place. We were going to leave him with a porno magazine and a bottle of whisky – both of those are in there – well the cap of the bottle is.’
    ‘And the coffin lid was screwed down – with earth on top?’ Clasping her coffee with both hands, she blew steam away from the top and sipped it. Mark watched as her dressing gown opened and part of her large white breasts was visible through the gap. And they made him want her, now, despite everything, despite all his panic; he just wanted to seize her in his arms and make love to her.
    ‘Yes – it was exactly how it was on Thursday when I—’
    ‘Took the breathing tube?’
    He gulped some whisky. She was giving him a sympathetic smile now. Maybe he could at least get to stay an hour or two. Make love. He needed some release from this nightmare.
    Then her expression darkened. ‘How sure are you that he was in there when you took the tube?’
    ‘Of course he was bloody in there. I heard him shout. Christ!’
    ‘You didn’t imagine it?’
    ‘Imagine him shouting?’
    ‘You were in a pretty bad state.’
    ‘You would have been too. He was my business partner. My best friend. I’m not a bloody murderer – I—’
    She gave him a richly cynical look.
    ‘I’m only doing this – because – because I love you, Ashley.’ He drank some more whisky.
    ‘He could be out there right now,’ she said. ‘Prowling in the dark, watching, couldn’t he?’
    Mark shook his head. ‘I don’t know. If he wasn’t in the coffin, why didn’t he come to the wedding? But he was – or someone was – there are marks inside the lid; someone had been trying to scrape their way out.’
    Ashley took the news impassively.
    ‘Maybe he knows about us – that’s all I can think. That he fucking knows about us.’
    ‘He doesn’t,’ Ashley said. ‘He has no idea. He talked to me a lot about you, how much you wanted to settle down with the right woman and have kids, and that you never seemed to be able to find a steady girlfriend.’
    ‘Oh great, he always gave my ego a real boost.’
    ‘Not in a nasty way, Mark. He cares about you.’
    ‘You’re being very defensive about him.’
    ‘He is my fiancé.’
    ‘Very funny.’ Mark set his glass down on the square coffee table, then buried his face in his hands.
    ‘You need to pull yourself together. Let’s look at this logically, OK?’
    Still with his face in his hands, he nodded.
    ‘Michael was there on Thursday night. You took the tube, plugged the air hole, right?’
    Mark made no comment.
    ‘We know he is a big practical joker. So, somehow he gets out of the coffin, and he decides to make it look as if he is still in there.’
    Mark stared at her, abjectly. ‘Great joke. So he’s out and he knows I took the breathing tube – and there could only be one reason why I did that.’
    ‘You’re wrong. How would he know it was you? Could have been anyone out walking in the woods.’
    ‘Come on, Ashley, get real. Someone walking in the woods stumbles across a grave, with a breathing tube sticking out of the coffin, removes the tube and heaps a ton more earth on top of the coffin?’
    ‘I’m just trying to throw thoughts out.’
    Mark stared at her, the thought suddenly going through his mind that perhaps Ashley and Michael had hatched something between them. To trap him.
    Then he thought about all those days and evenings he had spent with Ashley over the past months, the things she had said to him, the way they had made love, planned – and the scornful way she always spoke about Michael, and he dismissed that thought completely.
    ‘Here’s another idea,’ she said. ‘The others – Pete, Luke, Josh and Robbo – all knew you were going to be arriving late. Perhaps they were setting up a practical joke on you – with Michael – and it backfired?’
    ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Even supposing Michael wasn’t in that coffin when I went there, and I imagined him calling out, then where the hell is he? Where has he been since Tuesday night? Why hasn’t he been in touch; why didn’t he turn up to the wedding? Can you answer me that?’
    ‘No. Unless the others were pulling a stunt on you and him – and he’s tied up or locked up in some other place.’
    ‘Or done a runner?’
    ‘He hasn’t done a runner,’ Ashley said. ‘I can tell you that.’
    ‘How can you be sure?’
    Her eyes rested on Mark’s. ‘Because he loves me. He really, genuinely loves me. That’s why I know he hasn’t done a runner. Did