‘You have to believe me, please!’
Cosmescu nodded. ‘Oh yes. I’ve done the maths. A hundred feet is the maximum depth for a dredger. In just a hundred and thirty feet of water, no one would have found them, Mr Towers. Are you going to tell me that an experienced boatman like yourself did not know this? That in all the years you have been operating your business from Shoreham, you never saw the dredge area marked on the chart?’
‘I made a navigation error, I swear it!’
Cosmescu smoked in silence for a short while, then continued, ‘You see, I’m a gambler, Mr Towers, and I think that you are too. You took a punt on this dredge area and you got lucky. You figured that if the bodies were discovered, you could blackmail me for a lot of money to keep quiet.’
‘That’s really not true,’ Towers said.
‘If you had had the opportunity to get to know me better, Mr Towers, you would know that I am a man who always plays the percentages. You might not win so much that way, but you stay in the game longer.’
Cosmescu finished his cigarette and tossed it overboard, watching the hot red tip sail through the air, before disappearing into the black water.
‘I’m sure we can work this out – find something that you will be happy with.’
Cosmescu watched the compass. The boat was very skittish and he had to correct the wheel sharply to bring her back on course.
‘You see, Mr Towers, I have to take a gamble now. If I kill you, there is a chance I will get caught. But if I let you live, there is also a chance I will get caught. In my view, that is a much bigger chance, I’m sorry to inform you.’
Cosmescu pulled a roll of duct tape from his windcheater pocket, together with the bone-handle knife that he always carried. It was one he had learned to trust over the years. A button in the side released the blade, which with a flick of his wrist, would swing out and lock into place. And, as past experience showed, it was tough enough not to break when it struck human bone. He kept it as sharp as a razor and indeed on one occasion on his travels, when he did not have his razor with him, it had given him a very satisfactory shave.
‘I think now we have said everything we have to say to each other, no?’
‘Please – look – I could-’
But that was as far as he got before the Romanian sealed his lips again.
Forty minutes later the lights of the Brighton and Hove coastline were still visible, but disappearing every few moments behind the inky blackness of waves. Cosmescu, finishing another cigarette, killed the engine and switched off the navigation lights. There was a comfortable 150 feet of water beneath them. This was a good place.
He was still smarting from the phone call he had received two nights ago in the casino, when he was told in no uncertain terms by his paymaster that he had fucked up. The man was right, he had fucked up. He had broken the rule that you never involve others unless you absolutely had to. He should have just hired a boat and taken the bodies out himself in the first place. There was nothing at all to driving it and navigating – a child of four could do it.
But he’d had a good reason; or at least it had seemed good at the time. A guy repeatedly hiring a boat in the cold winter months and going out on his own would soon arouse suspicion. All boats heading in and out of the harbour were noticed, and suspicious ones watched. But the coastguard would not bat an eyelid at a local fisherman taking his charter boat in and out, however often he went.
Now, watched only by the stars and the silent eyes of the boat’s owner, he unclipped and pulled up some of the decking, then, with the aid of a torch, identified the sea cocks. He tested one and instantly icy seawater flooded in. Good. At least Towers kept his boat well maintained.
He walked to the stern, unrolled the grey, inflatable Zodiac dinghy he had bought the previous day, and lifted clear the oxygen cylinder, petrol tank and Yamaha outboard motor, which were parcelled up inside it, along with a paddle.
Ten minutes later, perspiring from exertion, the Romanian had the Zodiac in the water, tied up alongside, with its engine running at tick-over speed. It bobbed up and down alarmingly, but it would be more stable, he reckoned, when he added his body weight to it.
The deck was now awash and water was bubbling up steadily from the two opened sea cocks. It was already almost up to Jim Towers’s chin. Cosmescu, glad of his rubber boots, shone the beam on his face, watching the man’s eyes, which were frantically trying to communicate with him.
Now the water was over Towers’s chin. Cosmescu switched off the torch and scanned the horizon. Except for the lights of Brighton and the occasional sparkle of phosphorescence on a cresting wave, there was just darkness. He listened to the slap of the sea on the hull. He could feel the Scoob-Eee settling down deeper into the water, rocking progressively less under the water ballast it was now shipping at a fast rate.
He switched the torch back on and saw Jim Towers frantically trying to raise his head above the water, which now completely covered his mouth.
‘My advice, Mr Towers, is, just before the water reaches your nostrils, take a very deep breath. That will buy you a good extra minute or so of life. There are a lot of things that a human being can do in sixty seconds. You may even have an extra ninety seconds, if you are a fit man.’
But by this time he wasn’t sure if the other man could still hear him. It seemed unlikely, as the water was immersing his face.
And the dinghy was parallel with the deck rail.
Textbook stuff! Never leave a sinking boat until you can step up into the life raft. Ninety seconds later, he did just that and cast it free, then motored away into the darkness. Then he waited, circling slowly, until the black silhouette disappeared beneath the surface, sending up large bubbles, some of which he could hear above the burble of the outboard.
Then he twisted the throttle grip and felt the surge of acceleration as the prow of the Zodiac rose, then thumped over a wave. Spray lashed his face. The prow surged down the far side of a wave, then thumped over another. Freezing, salty water sloshed over him. The little craft pulled sharply left, then right. For a moment he felt a twinge of panic that he was not going to make it, that he was going to get flipped over. But then they crested a wave and the lights of Brighton, blurry through his salty eyes, seemed just that little bit brighter. That little bit closer.
Gradually, the sea quietened as he neared the coast. He aimed for the lights of the pier and the Marina to the east of it. Beyond the Marina was the under-cliff walk. Few people, if anyone at all, would be there on this blustery, freezing November night. Or on any of the beaches.
That it was Jim Towers’s wedding anniversary tonight was a problem. Another potential fuck-up. Unless he had been lying. What if the man’s wife had called the police? The coastguard? Perhaps his disappearance would be reported in the local paper. He would have to watch carefully and see what was printed, then work around it.
Twenty minutes later, the silhouette of the cliffs in front of him, the Marina a safe distance to his left, he twisted the throttle up to maximum for several seconds, then cut the engine. He unscrewed the two wing nuts holding the five-horsepower engine to the transom and jettisoned the outboard into the sea.
The Zodiac continued travelling forward under its own momentum. In the lee of the cliffs, there was barely any wind to impede his progress. Gripping the paddle, he kept the prow of the craft pointing inshore, listening to the increasingly loud sound of breaking waves on shingle, until they jerked to an abrupt halt.