Dead Tomorrow

shipping has been alerted to be on the watch for the Scoob-Eee . But so far, I’m afraid, there has been no reported sighting.’
    ‘We had a table booked for dinner at eight o’clock on Friday night. Jim told me the boat had been chartered for the day by the police diving unit, and that all he had to do was move it back to its mooring, when they returned, and he’d be home by about six.’ She shrugged. ‘Then at nine o’clock his boat was seen going through the Shoreham Harbour lock and heading out to sea. That doesn’t make any sense.’
    ‘Perhaps he got a last-minute charter?’
    She shook her head vigorously. ‘Jim’s very romantic–he’s been planning this evening for weeks–months. He wouldn’t have taken a charter that night, absolutely no way.’
    Glenn finally succumbed, took a biscuit and bit a chunk. Chewing, he said, ‘I don’t want to sound insensitive, but we know that a lot of smuggling, both of humans and of drugs, goes on in this city. Is it possible that your husband could have been involved in some kind of shipment?’
    Again she shook her head vigorously. ‘Not Jim, no.’
    Still happy that she was being truthful, he asked, ‘Does Jim have any enemies?’
    ‘No. None that I’m aware of, anyway.’
    ‘What do you mean by that, Mrs Towers?’
    ‘Do youmind if I smoke?’ she asked.
    ‘Go ahead.’
    She pulled a packet of Marlboro Lites from her handbag, took out a cigarette and lit it.
    ‘Everyone loves Jim,’ she said. ‘He is that kind of man.’
    ‘So in all his time as a private eye he never made an enemy?’
    ‘It’s possible. I keep thinking about all his old clients. Yes, he might have upset someone, but he’s been out of that game for a decade.’
    ‘Could it be someone he put inside who’s just been released?’
    ‘He didn’t put people in prison. He was more–you know–following unfaithful spouses around, doing a bit of industrial espionage. He just snooped around, followed people, that sort of thing.’
    Glenn made another note. Then he asked, ‘I presume Jim has a mobile phone?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘It’s not here?’
    ‘No, he always has it with him.’
    ‘Could I have the number?’
    She reeled it off from memory and he wrote it down.
    ‘Who is the provider?’
    ‘O 2 .’
    ‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’
    ‘About quarter past five on Friday. He’d just picked up the boat from the police diving unit and was back in his berth. He said he was going to tidy her up and then he’d be home.’
    ‘That was the last conversation you had?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She startedsobbing.
    Glenn sipped his coffee and waited patiently. When she had quietened down he asked, ‘Presumably you’ve tried ringing him?’
    ‘About every five minutes. Nothing happens. It just goes straight to voicemail.’
    Glenn noted that down. He looked up at Janet Towers and his heart went out to her.
    Then he thought again about the man who had answered the phone at his home. The man who was baby-sitting his son and his daughter.
    The man he had never met, but at this moment hated more than he had ever believed it was possible to hate anyone.
    If you are sleeping with Ari , he thought, then God help you. I’ll rip your testicles out of your scrotum with my bare fingers .
    He forced a smile at Janet Towers and handed her his card.
    ‘Call me if you hear anything. We’ll find your husband,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll find him.’
    Throughher sobs her voice suddenly turned to anger. ‘Yes, well, I hope to hell you find him before I do, that’s all I can say.’ She began sobbing again.

59
    Roy Grace, holding tightly on to the most expensive bottle of champagne he had ever bought in his life, slipped his key into the front door lock of Cleo’s gated townhouse.
    As he did so his phone rang.
    Cursing, he dug it out of his pocket and answered it. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace.’
    It was ACC Alison Vosper. Just the person he did not want to speak to at this moment. And to cap it, she sounded in a characteristically sour mood.
    ‘Where are you?’ she asked.
    ‘I just got home,’ he said, hoping she might be impressed that it was after nine o’clock.
    ‘I want to see you first thing in the morning. The chief’s been talking with the Chief Executive of Brighton and Hove Council about all the bad press Brighton is getting over your case.’
    ‘Sure,’ he said, doing his best to mask the reluctance in his voice.
    ‘Seven