Dead Tomorrow

assessment.
    Helooked up for a moment again at the stars in the night sky, then back at the floodlit pitch. Tania Whitlock’s Specialist Search Unit had scanned the area and not found any more bodies. So far.
    But the English Channel was a big place.

39
    ‘Youknow, Jim,’ Vlad Cosmescu said, ‘it’s a very big place, the English Channel, no?’
    Jim Towers, bound head to foot in duct tape once again, including his mouth, was only able to communicate with his captor via his eyes. He lay on the hard fibreglass deck of the prow cabin of the Scoob-Eee and was further concealed from anyone who might have looked down into the boat from the quay by a tarpaulin which smelled faintly of someone’s vomit.
    Cosmescu, his feet in tall gumboots, steered the boat out of the mouth of Shoreham Harbour and into the open sea, a little concerned at the size of the swell. The northerly wind was stronger out here than he had realized and the sea much choppier. He sat on the plastic seat, his navigation lights on, making sure he appeared to the coastguard, and to anyone else who might be watching, just like any other fishing boat heading out for a night’s sport.
    Wrinkling his nose at the smell of diesel exhaust being blown forward by the wind, he watched the illuminated compass swinging in its binnacle, steering a 160-degree course that he reckoned should take him out into mid-Channel, well away from the dredge area which he had carefully memorized from the chart.
    A mobile phone rang, a very muted warbling sound. For an instant the Romanian thought it was from somewhere under the decking; then he realized it must be in one of the retired PI’s pockets. After several rings it stopped.
    Towersjust looked up at him, with the inert eyes of a beached fish.
    ‘It’s probably OK to speak now. Not too many people around to hear you,’ Cosmescu said.
    He cut the throttle, stepped down into the cabin and tore the duct tape from the other man’s mouth.
    Towers gasped in agony. It felt as if half his face had been ripped away.
    ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s my wedding anniversary today.’
    ‘You should have told me that sooner. I’d have got you a card,’ Cosmescu said, with only the faintest trace of humour. He stepped back quickly to the wheel.
    ‘You didn’t give me a chance to warn you. My wife’s going to be worried. She was expecting me back. She’ll have contacted the coastguard and the police by now. That would have been her ringing.’
    As if on cue, the phone beeped twice, indicating a message.
    ‘Is that so?’ Cosmescu said breezily, not giving away his concern at this unexpected news. He kept an eye on the riding lights of a fishing boat some way off, and on the lights of a big ship out in the distance heading east. ‘In that case we will have to be quick! So, tell me what you have to say!’
    ‘I made a mistake,’ Towers said. ‘A mistake, OK? I screwed up.’
    ‘A mistake?’
    Cosmescu dug in his pockets and pulled out a Silk Cut. Cupping his hands over his gold lighter, he lit it, inhaled deeply and then exhaled the smoke down at the man.
    The sweet smell tantalized the former PI. ‘Could I cadge one, please?’
    Cosmescu shook his head. ‘Smoking is very bad for yourhealth.’ He took another deep drag. ‘And you have a law in England now, don’t you? Smoking is banned in the workplace. This is your workplace.’
    He blew more smoke down at the other man.
    ‘Mr Baker, I’m sure we can sort this out–you know–your grievance with me.’
    ‘Oh yes, we can,’ Cosmescu said, gripping the wheel tightly, as the boat ploughed through a big wave. ‘I agree with you.’
    He glanced at the depth gauge. Sixty feet of water beneath them. Not deep enough. They motored on in silence for some moments.
    ‘I paid you twenty thousand pounds, Mr Towers. I thought that was very generous. I thought it might be the start of a nice business arrangement between us.’
    ‘Yeah, it was extremely generous.’
    ‘But not enough?’
    ‘Plenty. It was plenty.’
    ‘I don’t think so. You are an experienced sailor, so you know these waters. Do you know what I think, Mr Towers? You took me to the dredge area deliberately. You reckoned there was a good chance the bodies would be found there.’
    ‘No, you are wrong!’
    Ignoring him, Cosmescu went on, ‘I’m a gambling man. I like to play percentages. Now, the dimensions of the English Channel are twenty-nine thousand square miles. I paid you to take me to a place