Peter James - Dead Simple

Glenn Branson was waiting in the porch, wrapped in a bulky rka, tall, black, and bald as a meteorite, talking into his mobile.

looked more like a drug dealer than a copper at this moment, race smiled - his colleague's massive, muscular frame from years of serious body-building reminded him of the broadcaster Clive James's description of Arnie Schwarzenegger: that he looked like a Condom filled with walnuts.

'Yo, old wise man!' Branson greeted him.

'Cut it out, I'm only seven years older than you. One day you'll get to this age too and you won't find it funny' He grinned.

They slapped high fives, then Branson, frowning, said, 'You look like shit. Really, I mean it.'

'Not all publicity agrees with me.'

'Yup, well I couldn't help noticing you grabbed yourself a few column inches in the rags this morning...'

'You and just about everyone else on the planet.'

'Man, you know, for an old-timer you're pretty dumb.'

'Dumb?'

'You don't wise up, Grace. Keep sticking your head above the parapet and one day someone's going to shoot it clean off. There are some days when I think you are just about the biggest dickhead I know.'

He unlocked the front door of the block and pushed it open.

Following him in, Grace said, 'Thanks, you really know how to cheer someone up.' Then he wrinkled his nose. Blindfolded you would always know if you were in an ageing apartment building. The universal smell of worn carpets, tired paint, vegetables boiling behind one of the closed doors. 'How's the missus?' he asked as they waited for the lift.

'Great.'

'And your kids?'

'Sammy's brilliant. Remi's turning into a terror.' He pressed the button for the lift.

After a few moments, Grace said, 'It wasn't how the press made it seem, Glenn.'

'Man, I know that because I know you. The press don't know you, and even if they did, they don't give Jack Shit. They want stories and you were stupid enough to give them one.'

They emerged from the lift on the sixth floor. The flat was at the end of the corridor. Branson unlocked the door and they went in.

The place was small, with a lounge/diner, a narrow kitchen with a granite worktop and a circular steel sink, and two bedrooms, one of which was used as a study, with an iMac computer and work-desk. The rest of this room/office was filled with bookshelves crammed mostly with paperbacks.

In contrast with the dull exterior and drab common parts of the building, the flat felt fresh and modern. The walls were painted in white, very lightly tinged with grey, and the furnishings were modernistic, with a distinct Japanese influence. There were low sofas, simple prints on the walls, a flat-screen television, with a DVD player beneath, and a sophisticated hi-fi system with tall, slender speakers. In the master bedroom there was an unmade futon bed, with handsome louvred doors on the wardrobe, another flat-screen television, and low bedside tables with starkly modern lamps. A pair of Nike trainers sat on the floor.

Grace and Branson exchanged a glance. 'Nice pad,' Grace said.

'Uh huh,' Branson said. 'Life is Beautiful'

Grace looked at him.

'I missed it in the cinema. Caught it on Sky. Incredible film - have you ever seen it?'

Grace shook his head.

'All set in a concentration camp. About a dad who convinces his kid that they're playing a game. If they win the game, they get a real tank. I tell you, it moved me more than Schindler's List and The Pianist.'

'I've never heard of it.'

'I wonder what planet you're on sometimes.'

Grace stared at a framed photograph by the bed. It showed a good-looking man, in his late twenties, with fair hair, black Tshirt and jeans, arm around a seriously attractive woman also in her late twenties, with long, dark hair.

'This him?'

'And her. Michael Harrison and Ashley Harper. Nice-looking couple, right?'

Continuing to stare at them, Grace nodded.

'Getting married on Saturday. At least, that's the plan.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning, if he shows up. Doesn't look too good right now.'

'You said he hasn't been seen since Tuesday night?' Grace looked out of the window. The view down was across a wide, rain-lashed Street backed up with traffic. A bus have into view. 'What do you know about him?'

'Local boy made good. Property developer. Serious player. Double-M Properties. Has a partner called Mark Warren. Recently built a fuck-off development - an old warehouse on Shoreham Harbour. Thirty-two flats, all sold before they were finished. They've been in business for seven years, done a bunch of stuff in the area, some conversions, some new builds. The chick's Michael's secretary, smart bird, seriously gorgeous.'

'You think he's done a runner?'

Branson shook his head. 'Nope.'

Grace picked up the photograph and stared more closely at it. 'Bloody hell, I'd marry her.'

'That's my point.'

Grace frowned. 'Sorry, I'm slow, had a long day.'

'You'd marry her! If I was a single man, I'd marry her. Anyone in their right mind would marry her, right?'

'She's seriously gorgeous.'

'She is, seriously gorgeous.'

Grace stared at him blankly.

In mock exasperation, Branson said, 'Jesus, old timer, you losing your touch or something?'

'Maybe I am,' Grace said, blankly. 'What is your point?'

Branson shook his head. 'My point is exactly that. If you were going to marry this babe on Saturday, would you do a runner?'

'Not unless I was nuts.'

'So if he hasn't done a runner, where is he?'

Grace thought for a moment. 'You said on the phone something about a stag-night prank that might have gone wrong?'

'That's what his fiancee said to me. That was my first thought. Stag nights can be brutal. Even when he didn't show up all of yesterday, that's what I still thought then. But to stay out two nights?'

'Cold feet? Another bird?'

'All possible. But I'd like to show you something.'

Grace followed him into the living area. Branson sat down in front of the computer and tapped the keyboard. He was a wizard on computers. Grace had a good technical mind and was pretty well up to speed with most modern technology, but Branson was light years ahead of him.

A password command came up on the screen. Branson tapped furiously, and within a few seconds, the screen filled with data.

'How did you do that?' Grace asked. 'How did you know the password?' Branson gave him a sideways look. 'There was no password. Most people see a password request and try to put one in. Why would he need one if he wasn't sharing his computer with anyone else?'

'I'm impressed. You really are a closet geek.'

Ignoring the remark, Branson said, 'I want you to take a close look at this.'

Grace did what he was told, and sat down in front of the screen.

15

Just a couple of miles away, Mark Warren was also hunched in front of his computer. The clock on the flat screen showed 6.10 p.m. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, a neglected Starbucks cappuccino beside him, the froth sunken into a wrinkled skin. His normally tidy desk, in the office he'd shared with Michael for the past seven years, was swamped with piles of documents.

Double-M Properties occupied the third floor of a narrow five storey Regency terraced townhouse, a short distance from Brighton station, which had been their first property development together. Apart from the office he was in, there was a boardroom for clients, a small reception area and a kitchenette. The furnishings were modern and functional. On the walls were photographs of the three racing yachts they owned together, and through which their success could be charted - from their first boat, a Nicholson-27, to a more substantial Contessa-33, to the distinctly upmarket Oyster-42 which was their current toy.

There were also pictures of their developments. The waterfront warehouse at Shoreham Harbour which they had converted into thirty-two apartments. An old Regency hotel in Kemp Town, overlooking the seafront, which they had converted into ten apartments, and two mews houses at the rear. And their latest, and most ambitious development, an artist's impression drawing of a site in five acres of forest land where they had permission to build twenty houses.