'Bargain.'
Grace reached his car. Branson hovered. 'So, what is your sense?'
'It's not all as it seems, Horatio, that's my sense.'
'Meaning?'
'I can't put it any more clearly - yet. I have a bad feeling about Mark Warren and about Ashley Harper.'
'What kind of bad feeling?'
'A very bad feeling.'
Grace gave his friend a warm pat on the back, then climbed into his car and drove to the security gate. As he pulled out on the main road, with its panoramic view across Brighton and Have, right down to the sea, with the sun still high above the horizon in the cloudless cobalt sky, he punched the CD button for Bob Berg's Riddles, and as he drove he began to chill. And for a few delicious moments his thoughts turned away from his investigations, to Cleo Morey.
And he smiled.
Then his thoughts turned back to work: to the long drive to south London and back he had ahead. If he was lucky, he might be home by midnight.
62
Mark, in sweatshirt, jeans and socks, paced around his apartment, a glass of whisky in his hand, unable to settle or to think clearly. The television was on, the sound mute, the actor Michael Kitchen striding, steely-faced, through a war-torn southern England landscape that looked vaguely familiar - somewhere near Hastings, he thought he recognized.
He had locked his door from the inside, bolted the safety chain. The balcony was safe, impenetrable, four floors up, and besides Michael had a fear of heights.
It was almost fully dark outside now. Ten o'clock. In just over three weeks it would be the longest day of the year. Through the glass doors to the balcony he watched a single light bobbing out at sea. A small boat, or yacht.
It had been weeks since he and Michael had taken out Double MM, their racing sloop. He had planned to go to the Marina today and do some work on her. You could never leave a boat for long; there was always something leaking, corroding, tearing or peeling.
In truth, the boat was a damned chore for him. He wasn't even sure he needed the hassle, and rough seas petrified him. Sailing was a big part of Michael's life, always had been ever since Mark had known him. If he wanted to be Michael's business partner, then sharing the boat with him went with the territory.
And sure, they had fun, lots of fun; plenty of good, windblown days out sailing under a brilliant sky, plenty of weekends down the coast to Devon and Cornwall, and sometimes across to the French coast or the Channel Islands. But if he never stepped on a yacht again, it wouldn't bother him.
Where the fuck are you, Michael?
He drank some more whisky, sat on the sofa, leaned back, crossed his legs, feeling so damned confused. Michael and Ashley should have been jetting away on their romantic honeymoon today.
He had not figured how he was going to cope with that, Ashley making love to Michael, loads of times probably. He would have expected that on a damned honeymoon, unless she feigned something - she had promised him she was going to feign something, but how could she keep that up for a fortnight?
And besides, he knew she and Michael had already slept together, it was part of their plan. At least she had told him Michael was lousy in bed.
Unless that was a lie.
He shook the ice cubes around in the glass and drank some more. He'd rung Pete's, Luke's and Josh's widows, and Robbo's father, each time on the pretext of finding out about the funeral plans - but in reality to pick their brains, to see if any of them had let anything slip before they'd gone out on Tuesday night. Anything that could incriminate him, or that could give him a clue to what they had been planning.
Michael had been there Thursday night, for sure. He had not imagined it. No way. So, he was there Thursday night, but not last night. The coffin lid was screwed down tight. And Michael was not Houdini.
So if Michael had been there Thursday and was not there now, someone must have let him out. And then screwed back the lid. But why?
Michael's humour?
And if he had got out why didn't he show up for the wedding?
Shaking his head he arrived back at his starting point. Michael was not in the coffin and he had imagined the voice. Ashley was convinced of that. There were moments when he convinced himself. But not strongly enough.
He needed to talk this through with Ashley some more. What if Michael had somehow got out and discovered their plans?
Then surely he would have confronted one or the other of them by now.
He stood up, wondering if he should go over to Ashley's. She was worrying him, behaving so damned coldly towards him, as if this whole thing was his bloody fault. But he knew what she would say to him.
He stood up and paced around the room again. If Michael was alive, if he had got out of the coffin, what could he find out from the emails on his Palm?
Mark suddenly realized in the panic of the past few days he had overlooked one very simple way of checking. Michael always backed up the contents of his Palm onto the office server.
