Dead Man's Grip

water splashed at him like some wild, angry creature just inches below his feet. Rain lashed down on him. He was hung by his arms, which were agonizingly outstretched like in a crucifixion.
    He had thought he was being thrown into the water but then he had been jerked tight just above it. He kept trying to cry out, but there was tape over his mouth again and all his cries just echoed around and around inside his skull.
    He was crying, sobbing, pleading for his mother.
    There was a strong stench of seaweed. The blindfold the man had put around his head after he had climbed back up from the tunnel had been taken off only at the last minute before he had been dropped.
    Above the sound of the water he heard the chop-chop-chop of a helicopter approaching. A dazzling beam of light passed over him, briefly, then darkness again.
    Come over here! Come over here! I’m here! Come over here!
    Please help me. Please help me. Mum, please help me, please.

111
    It wasn’t until they reached the top of the ladder that Grace and Branson were able to get any radio or phone signal. Grace immediately called Trevor Barnes, the Silver Commander, who was at his desk in Sussex House.
    The two detectives sprinted up the stone steps and out into the fresh wind and rain, sweating profusely, grateful for the cooling air. Above them they heard the clatter of the helicopter swooping low over the harbour basin, the dazzling bright pool of its searchlight illuminating a wide radius of the choppy water.
    Moments later Barnes radioed back that he’d checked with the Harbour Master and the only vessel scheduled to leave the harbour, via the large lock, was the dredger the Arco Dee . It had already left its berth and was heading along the canal towards the lock.
    ‘I’ve been on that ship,’ Grace shouted at Branson, above the noise of the helicopter and the howling of the wind. ‘There’s any number of ways he could kill that kid on it.’ Then he radioed to the Silver Commander. ‘Trevor, get it boarded and searched while it’s in the lock.’
    For some moments Grace stood still, following the beam of light as it crossed the massive superstructure of Shoreham Power Station. The building had a dog-leg construction, with the first section, which had a flat roof, about sixty feet high, and then the main section about 100 feet high. At the western end was the solitary chimney stack, rising 200 feet into the sky. Suddenly, as the beam traversed it, he thought he saw something move on the flat roof.
    Instantly he radioed the Controller. ‘Patch me through to Hotel 900.’
    Moments later, through a crackling connection, he was speaking to the helicopter spotter. ‘Go back round. Light up the power station roof again,’ he shouted.
    Both detectives waited as the helicopter turned in a wide arc.
The beam struck the chimney first and the ladder that went all the way up it. Then the flat roof of the first section. They could see a figure scurrying across it, then ducking down behind a vent.
    ‘Keep circling,’ he instructed. ‘There’s someone up there!’ He turned to Branson. ‘I know the quick way there!’
    They ran over to the car and jumped in. Grace switched on the blues and twos and raced out into the road.
    ‘Call Silver,’ he said. ‘Get all available units to the power station.’
    A quarter of a mile on he braked hard and swung left, in front of the Port Authority building, then sped down the slip road beside it, until they reached a barrier of tall steel spikes. The sign ahead of them, fixed to the spikes, read:

    SHOREHAM PORT AUTHORITY
NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS
PUBLIC ROUTE ACROSS LOCKS

    Abandoning the car, they ran along the walkway, which was bounded on each side by a high railing. Grace flashed his torch beam ahead of them. To their right now he could see, brightly illuminated by a bank of floodlights on a tower, the harbour’s two locks, a small one for fishing boats and yachts, the other, much larger, for tankers, dredgers and container ships.
    A long quay separated the locks, in the middle of which was a substantial building housing the control room. On its wall, beneath the windows, was a vertical traffic light, with three red signals showing.
    He briefly clocked a warning sign on the entrance gate to this quay, forbidding unauthorized people to enter. The gate had no lock on it, he observed, but his focus was to his left, to the massive superstructure of the power station, partially lit by the helicopter’s beam. He