The club was a success because it had been created by passion, not by bureaucrats. It was a place where local kids did actually want to go and hang out. It was cool. And at its heart were a couple of Whitehawk residents, Darren and Lorraine Snow, whose vision it had been and whose energy drove it.
Both wrapped up in coats, scarves and hats so that their faces were almost invisible, they flanked Roy Grace now, along with a handful of parents and a few police colleagues. It was the first time Grace had visited, and, in his capacity as president of the Police Rugby Team, he was mentally sizing up the opportunities for a rugby challenge here. They were tough and plucky, the youngsters on that pitch, and he was quite amused to see them giving the force players a hard time.
A group thundered past, jostling, grunting and cussing, and the ball rolled over the line. Instantly the ref’s whistle blew.
But Grace’s focus was distracted by the post-mortems he had attended today, and yesterday, and the task that lay in front of him. Pulling out his pocket memo pad, he jotted down some thoughts, gripping his pen with almost numb fingers.
Suddenly there was a ragged cheer and he looked up, momentarily confused. A goal had been scored. But by which side?
From the cheers and the comments, he worked out it was the Crew Club team. The score was now 4-0.
Privately he smiled again. The Sussex Police team were being coached by retired Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Gaylor, who was an accredited football referee. As well as being a personal friend. He looked forward to ribbing him after the game.
He looked up at the stars for a moment and his thoughts suddenly flashed back to his childhood. His father had had a small telescope on a tripod and spent many hours studying the sky, often encouraging Roy to look as well. Grace’s favourite had been the rings of Saturn, and at one time he could have distinguished all the constellations, but the Plough was the only one he recognized easily now. He needed to re-educate himself, he decided, so that one day he could pass on that same knowledge – and passion – to his child. Although, he wondered wryly, would it again be mostly forgotten in time?
Then his focus went back to the inquiry. Unknown Males 1 and 2 and Unknown Female.
Three bodies. Each short of the same vital organs. Each of them teenagers. Just one possible clue to their identity: a badly executed tattoo on the upper left forearm of the dead young woman. A name perhaps…
One that meant nothing to him. But one that, he sensed, held the clue to all their identities.
Had they come from Brighton? If not, from where? He wrote down on his pad: Coastguard report. Drifting?
They could not have drifted far with those weights attached. In his own mind he was sure their proximity to Brighton made it likely that the three teenagers had died in England.
What was happening? Was there a monster at large in Brighton who killed people and stole their organs?
Experienced surgeon, he wrote down, echoing Nadiuska De Sancha’s assessment.
He looked 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
‘You know, 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.
Towers just 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 your health.’ 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 where those bodies would never be found. You took me to a dredge area that is just a hundred square miles. Do the maths, Mr Towers.’