Dead Simple (44 page)

The car slewed right, left, right. It struck the right-hand barrier of the bridge, veered over and struck the left, pinballed off it, doing a half pirouette, then rolled over onto its roof, bounced in the air, clearing the safety barrier, bursting through the wooden side of the bridge’s superstructure, splintering it like matchsticks, and plunging, upside down, the rear doors flying open, and the suitcases hurtling alongside the car towards the mudflats below, which were as soft and treacherous as quicksand.

The motorcyclist dismounted and, limping from his leg injury from when he had been knocked off his machine only a few minutes earlier, hobbled over to the hole in the side of the bridge and peered down.

All he could see protruding from the mud was the grimy black underbelly of the Toyota. The rest of the car had sunk into it. He stared at the metal floor pan, the exhaust and silencer, the four wheels still spinning. Then, in front of his eyes, the mud bubbled all around the car, like a cauldron brewing, and moments later the underbelly and the wheels slipped beneath the surface and the mud closed over it. There were some deep bubbles which broke the surface, as if the underwater lair of some monster had been disturbed. Then nothing.

The incoming tide was hampering their efforts. A wide cordon had been thrown around the whole area where the car had gone in, canvas sheeting only partially obscuring the view from a swelling crowd of curious onlookers on the far bank. A fire engine, two ambulances, half a dozen police vehicles, including a crash recovery tender, were all parked down the lane.

A crane had been driven onto the elderly bridge despite concerns about how much weight it could stand. Grace stood on the bridge himself, watching the recovery proceedings. Police frogmen were working hard to get the hooks of the lifting gear dangling from the crane onto secure fixings on the Toyota. The sky, which had been delivering spots of rain on and off all day, had lightened in the last hour and the sun was trying to break through.

The tightly packed mud had made it impossible for the frogmen to get down any further, and the only hope that the occupants were alive rested on the windows having stayed intact and that there was air trapped inside the car. The amount of shards of glass strewn over the bridge made this seem more than a long shot.

Two suitcases had been recovered from the abandoned Land Rover Freelander, but all they contained were women’s clothes; not one scrap of paper that could give a clue to Michael Harrison’s whereabouts. Grace had a grim feeling this car would yield something.

Glenn Branson, standing next to Grace, said, ‘You know what this reminds me of? The original
Psycho
— 1960. When they winch the car with Janet Leigh’s body in out of the lake. Remember?’

‘I remember.’

‘That was a cool movie. The remake was shit. I dunno why people bother with remakes.’

‘Money,’ Grace said. ‘That’s one of the reasons why you and I have a job. Because people do an awful lot for money.’

After a few more minutes the hooks were in place. Then the lifting began. Against the deafening roar of the crane’s engine, Grace and Branson barely heard the sucking and gurgling sounds of the mud, beneath the waters of the rising tide, yielding its prize.

Slowly, in front of their eyes, and washed clean by the water, the bronze Toyota rose up in the air, its boot-lid open and hanging. Mud oozed slowly out of all of the window frames. The car looked badly smashed and the roof pillars were buckled. It didn’t look as if one single window had remained in place.

And as the mud fell out, some in slabs, some in squitty streaks, at first just the silhouettes of the two occupants became visible, and then, finally, their inert faces.

The crane swung the car over onto the bank, lowering it on its roof a few yards from a rotting houseboat. Several fireman, police officers and workmen who had come with the crane, unhooked the lifting gear then slowly righted the car. As it rolled back onto its wheels, the two figures inside jerked like crash-test dummies.

Grace, with trepidation, followed by Branson, walked down to it, squatted and peered in. Even though there was some mud still stuck to her face, and her hair was much shorter than the last time he had seen her, there was no question it was Ashley Harper, her eyes wide open, unblinking. Then he shuddered in revulsion as a scrawny, long-legged crab crawled across her lap.

‘Jesus,’ Branson said.

Who the hell was the man next to her, in the driving seat? Grace wondered. His eyes were open also, a powerful, thuggish-looking man with a shocked death mask.

‘See what you can find on her,’ Grace said, wrenching open the driver’s door, and checking the man’s sodden, muddy clothing for ID. He pulled out a heavy leather wallet from inside his jacket and opened it. Inside was an Australian passport.

The photograph was the man in the car, no question. His name was Victor Bruce Delaney and he was forty-two years old. Under
emergency contact
was written the name
Mrs Alexandra Delaney
, and an address in Sydney.

Glenn Branson wiped mud from a yellow handbag, unzipped it and after a few moments also pulled out a passport, this one British, which he showed to Grace. It contained a photograph that was, without doubt, Ashley Harper, but with close-cropped black hair, and it bore the name Anne Hampson. Under
emergency contact
nothing had been written.

There were credits cards both in the man’s wallet and in a purse inside the handbag, but nothing else. Not a clue about where they had come from or where they might be headed.

‘Houston, we have a problem,’ Glenn Branson said quietly to Grace, but there was no humour in his tone.

‘We do.’ Grace stood up and turned away. ‘It’s suddenly a whole lot bigger than it was two hours ago.’

‘So how the hell are we going to find Michael Harrison now?’

After a moment’s silence Grace said, ‘I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.’

Glancing uncomfortably at the occupants of the car, Glenn Branson said, ‘I don’t like anything much at the moment.’

An hour and a half later, Grace helped buckle the diminutive, wiry figure of Harry Frame into the front seat of the pool Ford Mondeo he and Branson had used this afternoon.

The pony-tailed, goatee-bearded medium, reeking of patchouli oil and wearing his trademark kaftan and dungarees, had a street map of Newhaven laid out in his lap, and held a metal ring on a length of string in his right hand.

Grace had decided to leave Glenn Branson out of this. He didn’t want any negative vibes, and he knew that Harry Frame’s energy was sensitive at best.

‘So did you bring me something, as I requested?’ Harry Frame asked Grace as he climbed behind the wheel of the car.

Grace dug a box out of his pocket and handed it to the medium. Frame opened it and removed a pair of gold cufflinks.

‘These are definitely Michael Harrison’s,’ Grace said. ‘I took them from his flat on my way here.’

‘Perfect.’

It was only a short distance along the coast from Harry Frame’s Peacehaven home to Newhaven. As they drove past the seemingly endless sprawl of shops and takeaway restaurants, Harry Frame was holding the cufflinks in his closed palm. ‘Newhaven, you said?’

‘There was a car we were interested in that was involved in an accident in Newhaven earlier today. And Newhaven is where Michael Harrison’s mobile signal came from. I thought we’d drive to that spot and you could see if you pick anything up. Is that a good idea?’

In his effusive, high-pitched voice, the medium said, ‘I’m already picking up something. We’re near, you know. Definitely.’

Grace, following the directions he had been given, began to slow down. Some tyre marks, a spill of oil on the road and a few sparkling shards of safety glass showed him where the Mercedes had been in the accident, and he turned right into a modern housing development of small, detached houses with immature gardens, then immediately pulled over and stopped.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘This is where the accident happened this morning.’

Harry Frame, holding the cufflinks in his left hand, began to swing the pendulum over the map, taking increasingly deep breaths. He closed his eyes tightly and after a few moments said, ‘Drive on, Roy, just drive straight on. Slowly.’

Grace did as he was instructed.

‘We’re getting closer!’ Frame said. ‘Definitely. I see a turn-off to the left coming up shortly — might not even be a road, just a track.’

After about a hundred metres, there was indeed a track going up to the left. It had been metalled, very many years ago, but had fallen into a state of total disrepair. It went uphill, through wind-blown, scrubby wasteland, and it did not seem from here, at least, that it was going to lead to anything.

‘Make a left turn, Roy!’

Grace looked at him, wondering if he was cheating by peeping through his eyelids. But if Harry was looking anywhere, it was down into his lap. Grace turned onto the track and drove up it for a quarter of a mile, then a squat, ugly detached house came into view just on the crest of the hill. It had fine views over Newhaven and the harbour beyond, but little else to recommend it.

‘I see a house, all on its own. Michael Harrison is in this house,’ Frame said, excitement raising his voice even higher.

Grace pulled up outside. The pendulum was swinging fast in a tight circle, and Harry Frame, eyes still tight shut, was juddering as if he had been plugged into an electrical socket.

‘Here?’

Without opening his eyes, Harry Frame confirmed, ‘Here.’

Grace left him in the car, then stopped at the front gate, staring at the neglected front lawn and the flower beds, which were a tangle of bindweed. There was something odd about the house, which he couldn’t immediately figure out. It looked as if it had been built in the 1930s, or maybe early 1950s, and the design was strange, lopsided.

He walked up a path of concrete slabs with weeds sprouting between the cracks, and pressed the cracked plastic front-door bell. There was a shrill ring, but no one came to the door. He tried again. Still no answer.

Then he did a circuit around the house, peering into each window as he went. It had a forlorn, neglected air about it, both inside and out. All the furnishings looked twenty or thirty years old, as did the design of and appliances in the kitchen. Then he noted, to his surprise, that there was a stack of newspapers on the kitchen table.

He looked at his watch. It was just gone 6 p.m. He ought to get a search warrant, he knew. But that would take another couple of hours — and with every minute that passed the chances of finding Michael Harrison alive were shrinking.

How much did he trust Harry Frame? The medium had been right on several occasions in the past — but he had been wrong on just as many.

Shite.

The thought of what Alison Vosper would say to him if he was caught breaking into a house without a warrant bothered him.

He didn’t have enough to back his judgement up, but it would have to do. Time was running out for Michael Harrison.

With a loose brick from the garden, he smashed a kitchen window pane, then wrapping his hand in his handkerchief, he removed the pieces of glass that remained lodged in the putty, found the window catch, opened it and crawled in.

‘Hello!’ he shouted. ‘Hello! Anyone home?’

The place felt and smelled dingy. The kitchen was clean, and other than some newspapers, all bearing yesterday’s date, there was no sign of anyone having lived here recently. He checked out each of the downstairs rooms. The large sitting room was drab as hell, with a couple of framed prints of seascapes on the walls. He noticed there were lines on the carpet, as if someone had recently moved the sofa. He moved on into a dark dining room, with an oak table and four chairs, and flock wallpaper, then on to a small lavatory, with a ‘God Bless This House’ cross-stitch hanging on the wall.

Upstairs felt equally unloved and unlived in. There were three bedrooms, all the beds stripped to bare mattresses with old, yellowing pillows, without slips, lying on them, and a small bathroom, with a geyser boiler and stained washbasin and bath.

Above the bed in the smallest room was a loft hatch. By placing a chair, precariously, on the mattress, then standing on it, he was able to push open the hatch and peer in. To his surprise there was a light switch just inside the hatch, which worked, and he could see in an instant there was nothing up here. Just a small water tank, an old carpet sweeper and a rolled-up rug.

He opened every cupboard and cabinet door. Upstairs, all the bed linen and bath towels were folded away in the cupboards. Downstairs, the kitchen cupboards contained basics — coffee, tea, a few tins, but nothing else. It could easily have been a year or two since anyone had been here. No sign of Michael Harrison. Nothing.

Nowhere.

He checked the hall cupboard, in case there was a cellar entrance in there, although he knew that few houses after the Victorian era had cellars. He needed to find out who owned this place and when it was last lived in. Maybe the owners had died and it was in the hands of executors? Maybe a cleaning lady came up here occasionally?

A cleaning lady who read every national newspaper?

Grace let himself out of the back door and walked around to the side of the house, where there were two dustbins. He lifted the lid of the first one, and instantly he had a different story. There were egg-shells, used tea bags, an empty skimmed milk carton bearing a sell-by date of today and a Marks and Spencer lasagne carton bearing a sell-by date that had not yet been reached.

Thinking hard, he walked round to the front of the house, trying again to work out what it was that was wrong with the design. Then he realized. Where there was now an ugly plastic-framed window to the right of the front door, there should have been an integral garage. He could see it now, clearly; the tone of the bricks didn’t match the rest of the house. At some point someone had converted this into a living room.

And suddenly it reminded him of something from his childhood: his dad, tinkering with things. He liked to do his own servicing on his car, changing the oil, doing the brake linings,
staying out of the hands of the rip-off merchants,
as his dad called garages.