Dead Simple

kinds of vibrations in the air, or in their belongings, Max had explained. Others, nothing. It was as if, Max told him, Sandy had never existed. He couldn’t explain it. He couldn’t say whether she had covered her own tracks, or if someone had done it for her. He didn’t know whether she was alive or not.
    But he seemed very much more definite about Michael Harrison. Taking the bracelet Ashley had given Grace, he thrust it back at the police officer within seconds, as if it was burning his hand. ‘Not his,’ he said, emphatically. ‘Absolutely not his.’
    Frowning, Grace asked, ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Yes, I’m sure, absolutely.’
    ‘It was given to me by his fiancée.’
    ‘Then you need to ask her and yourself why . This absolutely does not belong to Michael Harrison.’
    Grace wrapped the bracelet back in a tissue and carefully pocketed it. Max Candille was emotional – and not always accurate. However, combining his comments on the bracelet with Harry Frame’s, something did not feel right about it.
    ‘So what can you tell me about Michael Harrison?’ Grace asked.
    The medium sprang up from his chair, went out of the room, pausing to blow kisses at the cats, then returned moments later holding a copy of the News of the World. ‘My favourite paper,’ he informed Grace. ‘I like to know who’s screwing who. Far more interesting than politics.’
    Grace enjoyed reading it himself, sometimes, but wasn’t about to admit that now. ‘I’m sure,’ he said.
    The medium folded back a couple of pages then held the paper up so Grace could see the headline, with Michael Harrison’s photograph beneath. ‘MANHUNT FOR AWOL FIANCE’.
    Then the medium looked at it himself for some moments. ‘Well, see, you are even quoted in here. “‘We are now regarding Michael Harrison’s disappearance as a Major Incident,’ said Detective Superintendent Roy Grace of Sussex Police, ‘And are stepping up police manpower to comb the area he is believed to be in…’”’
    Then he looked up at Grace again. ‘Michael Harrison’s alive,’ he said. ‘Definitely alive.’
    ‘Really? Where? I need to find him – that’s what I need your help for.’
    ‘I see him somewhere small, dark.’
    ‘Could it be a coffin?’
    ‘I don’t know, Roy. It’s too blurred. I don’t think he has much energy.’ He closed his eyes for some moments and slowly swivelled his head from left to right. ‘No, very little there. The battery’s almost flat, poor thing.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    The medium closed his eyes again. ‘He’s weak.’
    ‘How weak?’ Grace asked, concerned.
    ‘He’s fading, his pulse is low, much too low.’
    Grace watched him, wondering. How did Max know this? Was he connected across the ether? Just making a guess on a hunch? ‘This small dark place – is it in the woods? In a town? Under ground or above ground? On water?’
    ‘I can’t see, Roy. I can’t tell.’
    ‘How long has he got?’ Grace asked.
    ‘Not long. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.’

64
    ‘You see, here’s the thing, Mike. Not everyone gets to have a lucky day on the same day. So we have a sort of irregular situation here – this is your lucky day and it’s my lucky day. How lucky is that?’
    Michael, weak, shivering from fever and near-delirious, stared up, but all he could see was darkness. He did not recognize the man’s voice; it sounded a hybrid of Australian and south London, spoken quickly, with fast, nervy inflections. Davey with another of his accents? No, he did not think so. His brain swirled. Confused. He did not know where he was. In the coffin?
    Dead?
    His head pounded, his throat was parched. He tried to open his mouth, but his lips would not part. Ice squirmed through his veins.
    I’m dead.
    ‘You were in a horrible wet coffin, getting all soggy and rheumatoid, now you’re in a nice, dry, cosy cot. You were going to die. Now maybe you aren’t going to die – but I want to stress that’s a pretty big maybe !’
    The voice receded into the darkness. Michael was sinking, going down a lift shaft, down, down, the walls rushing past. He tried to call out, but his lips would not move. There was something pressing tightly around his mouth. All he could do was make a panicky grunt.
    Then the voice again, really close, as if the man was in the lift with him. ‘Do you know about Schrödinger’s Cat, Mike?’
    They were still going down. How many floors? Did it matter?
    ‘Did you study