'Yes, just the kind of fun bloke you want for your best friend. So. Let's look at what we have: Five of them start out. Somewhere along the line they lose the groom, Michael Harrison. Then they are in an RTA, three of them dead at the scene, the fourth in a coma and he died last night. Michael has vanished, no one has heard a word. It is now Friday morning and he's due to be married in a little over twenty-four hours.'
Branson sipped some coffee, stood up for a moment and walked around the office. He stopped and stared for a moment at the SASCO flip chart, on which a draft rota for something had been written in blue ink. He flipped it over, then picked up a pen and drew on the board.
'We got Michael Harrison.' He wrote his name and drew a circle around it. 'We got the four dead mates.' He drew a second circle. 'Then we have the fiancee, Ashley Harper.' He drew a third circle around her. 'Then the business partner, Mark Warren.' He drew a fourth circle. 'And ...'
Grace looked at him quizzically.
'We have what we dug out of his computer yesterday, yeah?'
'A bank account in the Cayman Islands.'
Still holding the pen, Branson sat down in front of Grace again.
Grace continued. 'The business partner wasn't at the stag do, you said.'
Branson never failed to be impressed by Grace's memory for detail. He always seemed to retain everything. 'Correct.'
'Because he was stuck out of town on a delayed flight.'
'That's the story so far.'
'So what does he say? Where does he think Michael Harrison went? Did he fuck off to the Cayman Islands?'
'Roy, you have seen his bird. And we agreed no bloke in his right mind would ditch her and run away- she is drop-dead gorgeous, and smart with it. And ...' Branson pursed his lips.
'And what?'
'She lies. I did your NLP stuff on her, the eye trick. I asked her if she knew about the Cayman Islands account and she said she didn't. She was lying.'
'She was probably just being protective. Covering her boss - and fiance's arse.' Grace was distracted for an instant by the ping of another incoming email. Then he thought hard. 'What is your take so far?'
'The following possible scenarios: Could be his mates have been paying him back and they've tied him up somewhere. Or he might have had an accident. Or he's got cold feet and done a runner. Or the Cayman Islands features in this somewhere.'
Grace clicked open one of the emails that was flagged as urgent and was from his boss, Alison Vosper. She asked if he was free for a brief meeting at 12.30. He typed back that he was, while he talked to Branson. 'The guy's business partner, Mark Warren, he'd know if they had been planning a prank, like tying him to a tree, or something.' 'Ms Harper says he knows they were planning something, but doesn't know what they decided on.'
'Have you checked out the pubs they visited?'
'Doing that today.'
'CCTV footage?'
'Starting on that, too.'
'Have you checked out the van?'
From the look of sudden panic on Branson's face, Grace saw he hadn't. 'Why the hell not? Isn't that the first place to look?'
'Yeah, you're right. I haven't got fully into gear on this yet.'
'Have you done an all-ports?'
'Yeah, his picture's being circulated this morning. We've put out a missing persons alert.'
Grace felt as if a dark cloud had slipped overhead. Missing persons. Every time he heard the phrase it affected him, brought it all right to the front of his mind again. He thought of this woman, Ashley, Branson had described. The day before her wedding and her man gone missing. How must she feel?
'Glenn, you said this guy is a joker - any chance this a prank he's pulling and he's about to turn up, with a big grin on his face?'
'With four of his best mates dead? He'd have to be pretty sick.' Branson looked at his watch. 'What you doing for lunch?'
'Unless I get a call from Julia Roberts, I may be free - oh - subject to No. 27 not detaining me for more than half a hour.'
'How is the delightful Alison Vosper?'
Grace gave him a bleak stare and raised his eyebrows. 'More sour than sweet.'
'Ever thought of shagging her?'
'Yes, for about one nano-second - or perhaps even a femtosecond - isn't that the smallest unit of time that exists?'
'Could be a good career move.'
'I can think of a better one.'
