Oh get me out of here, you idiots. I'm going to miss my wedding, my honeymoon. Come on! Now!
The clock on the dash of the Ford read 7.13 p.m. as Branson drove Grace along past the elegant Regency townhouse faces of Kemp Town, then onto open road, high above the cliffs, past the vast neoGothic buildings of Roedean girls' school and then past the Art Deco building of St Dunstan's Home for the Blind. The rain lashed down and the wind buffeted the car, crazily. It hadn't stopped for days now. Branson turned the radio up, drowning out the intermittent crackle of the police two-way radio, swaying to the beat of a Scissor Sisters track.
Grace tolerated it for some moments, then turned the volume down again.
'What's the matter, man - this group is so cool,' Branson said.
'Great,' Grace said.
'You want to pull a bird, yeah? You need to get with the culture.'
'You're my culture guru, right?'
Branson shot him a sideways glance. 'I ought to be your style guru, too. Got a great hairdresser you should go to - Ian Habbin at The Point. Get him to sharpen up your hair - I mean, like, you are looking so yesterday.'
'It's starting to feel like yesterday,' Grace responded. 'You asked me to have lunch with you. It's now past teatime and heading for supper. At this rate we'll be having breakfast together.'
'Since when did you have a life?' Almost as the words came out, Branson regretted saying them. He could see the pain in Grace's face without even turning to look at him. 'Sorry, man,' he said.
They drove through the smart, cliff-top village of Rottingdean, then along a sweeping rise, dip, followed by another rise, past the higgledy-piggledy suburban sprawl of post-war houses of Saltdean, then Peacehaven.
'Take the next left,' Grace said. Then he continued to direct Branson through a maze of hilly streets, crammed with bungalows and modest detached houses, until they pulled up outside a small, rather shabby-looking bungalow, with an even shabbier-looking camper van parked outside.
They hurried through the rain into a tiny porch, with wind chimes pinging outside, and rang the doorbell. After a few moments it was answered by a diminutive, wiry man well into his seventies, with a goatee beard, long grey hair tied back in a pony tail, wearing a kaftan and dungarees, and sporting an ankh medallion on a gold chain. He greeted them effusively in a high-pitched voice, a bundle of energy, taking Grace's hand and staring at him with the joy of a long-lost friend. 'Detective Superintendent Grace! So good to see you again.'
'And you, my friend. This is DS Branson. Glenn, this is Harry Frame.'
Harry Frame gripped Glenn Branson's hand with a strength that belied both his years and his size and stared up at him with piercing green eyes. 'What a pleasure to meet you. Come in, come in.'
They followed him into a narrow hallway lit by a low-watt bulb in a hanging lantern and decorated in a nautical theme, the centrepiece of which was a large brass porthole on the wall, and through into a sitting room, the shelves crammed with ships in bottles. There was a drab three-piece suite, its backs covered in antimacassars, a television, which was switched off, and a round oak table with four wooden chairs by the window, to which they were ushered. On the wall Branson clocked a naff print of Anne Hathaway's cottage and a framed motto which read, 'A mind once expanded can never return to its original dimensions.'
'Tea, gentlemen?'
'Thank you,' Grace said.
Looking at Grace for his cue, Branson said, 'That would be very nice.'
Harry Frame hurried busily out of the room. Branson stared at a lit, solitary white candle in a glass holder on the table, then at Grace, giving him a What is this shit? expression.
Grace smiled back at him. Bear with it.
After a few minutes a cheery, dumpy, grey-haired lady, wearing a heavy-knit roll-neck, brown polyester trousers and brand new white
trainers, carried out a tray containing three mugs of tea and a plate of Bourbon biscuits, which she set down on the table.
'Hello, Roy,' she said familiarly to Grace, and then to Branson, with a twinkle in her eye she said, 'I'm Maxine. She Who Must Be Obeyed!'
'Nice to meet you. Detective Sergeant Branson.'
She was followed by her husband, who was carrying a map.
Grace took his mug, and noticed the tea was a watery-green colour. He saw Branson eyeing his dubiously.
'So, gentlemen,' Harry said, seating himself opposite them, 'you have a missing person?'
'Michael Harrison,' Grace said.
'The young man in the Argus? Terrible thing, that accident. All so young to be called over.'
'Called over?' Branson quizzed.
'Obviously the spirits wanted them.'
Branson shot Grace a glance which the Detective Superintendent resolutely ignored.
Moving the biscuits and the candle over to one side, Frame spread out an Ordnance Survey map of East Sussex on the table.
Branson ate a biscuit. Grace fished in his pocket and gave the medium the copper bracelet. 'You asked me to bring something belonging to the missing person.'
Frame took it, held it tight and closed his eyes. Both police officers stared at him. His eyes remained closed for
