Peter James: Dead Man's Grip

Then he thought of the image of the boy, suspended by his arms from the lock gates. Anything that might save his life was worth it.

Half climbing, half sliding, he descended as fast as he could. Looking ahead all the time, never down. He still had his gloves on, he realized, and they protected his hands for a few seconds until the ladder cut through them, burning into his hands as he slid.

Then his feet hit the bottom and he tumbled over on to his back. He scrambled to his feet. Over to his right he could see the light on the bow of the Arco Dee dredger slipping steadily past the end of the power station. He saw red lights on the lock ahead, starting to flash.

No. No. No.

He ran to the steel fence and realized, to his frustration, that he was trapped in here. It had been OK coming in, over the pallets, but it wasn’t so easy to get back again. There was nothing to give him a leg-up now.

‘Glenn!’ he screamed, having no idea where his friend might be at this moment. ‘Glenn!’

‘I’m here, boss!’ he shouted back, from – to Grace’s immense relief – the other side of the fence.

‘Give me a hand out of here!’

Moments later, Glenn was leaning over the top of the fence. Grace grabbed his strong hand and was hoisted up. He scrambled over the top and on to the tarpaulin over the first pallet. As he jumped down on the ground, the front of the dredger was drawing level with them.

‘Is anyone at the lock gate?’ Grace yelled.

Branson shook his head.

‘We have to stop it opening!’

Grace broke into a sprint, with Branson alongside him. As they ran, Grace could hear a cacophony of police sirens approaching. They raced down the quay and reached the entrance to the gate. Red lights were flashing and a klaxon was sounding loudly. As Grace stepped on to the lock walkway, he felt it vibrating. He continued running, the gate juddering harder and harder beneath him. Then he reached the join.

Suddenly the vibration stopped. The gates had paused. He looked down and saw the boy beneath him. The helicopter was right overhead, Tyler clearly illuminated like some grotesque crucifixion figurine, water swirling wildly beneath him. He was about to be torn in half at any second.

‘Stop the fucking gates!’ Grace screamed at Branson, as he clambered over the top of the gate. He could see one end of the rope, tied around a wooden peg just below the top and frantically pulled at it.

A wild froth of water was building up beneath him. The gates juddered, the gap widening, inch by inch.

Branson ran on, over to the far side, the gate juddering more and more. He threw himself over the metal plates, pushed open the unlocked gate and then ran towards the control room. As he did so, he suddenly felt something wrap around his legs and he hurtled, face down, to the ground.

Roy Grace tugged again at the rope, which was getting tighter by the second. He could hear, above the roar of the helicopter and the wind and the rain and the klaxon, a muffled crying sound. Suddenly, an instant before the gates opened wider, the rope fell free.

The boy dropped down into the water and disappeared with a splash, as the gates parted, one of them swinging steadily away, out of sight to the left.

Grace dived into the mad, thrashing cold water. Bubbles exploded all around him. It was ten times colder than he had imagined. He burst back up to the surface, gulping air. In front of him, towering above him like a skyscraper, he saw the bow of the dredger, less than a couple of hundred yards away. He tried to swim, but the undertow dragged him back down. When he surfaced again, he was choking on vile oily water. He spat it out, then, despite the weight of his clothes, he swam with all his strength across the width of the lock, to the far side, where he saw a rope hanging straight down into the water from the gate.

He grabbed it and pulled, pulled as hard as he could, and after a few moments a deadweight surfaced. He cradled the boy’s head in his arms, trying with his wet, slippery hands to pull the tape free from his mouth.

They both went under, then came back up again, Grace coughing and spluttering.

‘You’re OK! You’re OK!’ he tried to reassure Tyler.

Then they went under again.

They surfaced again. The dredger seemed to have stopped. They were bathed in a pool of light from the helicopter. The boy was thrashing, in wild panic. Grace struggled, kicking with his feet, trying to get a purchase on the weeds and at the same time hold the boy. He was shivering. He gripped a handful of weed and it held. The boy’s head went under. He brought it back up again, then he clung on to the boy and the weed as hard as he could, his hand almost numb with cold.

Glenn Branson rolled over and saw a small man running towards the door of the control room. He scrambled to his feet, lunged after him and grabbed him just at he was pulling the door open.

The man turned and punched him in the face, then ran off down the dock.

The wrong way, Branson realized, dazed, but not so badly he couldn’t think straight. He stumbled after him, then blocked his path as the man tried to zigzag back past him, forcing him close to the edge of the quay. The man tried a feint, to dodge round him, but Branson grabbed him. The man aimed a punch at his face. Branson, who had trained in self-defence in his former life as a nightclub bouncer, dodged the blow and swung his leg round in a classic kick-boxing manoeuvre, deadening the man’s right leg. As he fell, Branson slammed a punch into the man’s left kidney. He hadn’t realized they were so close to the edge of the dock. The man plunged backwards, over the edge, and vanished under the surface of the maelstrom of water.

The helicopter beam momentarily swept over them. The man had disappeared.

Then he heard a voice shouting, ‘Hey! Someone! Glenn! Where the hell are you? Someone get us out of here! Come on! It’s sodding freezing!’

It was the first really warm day of the year, with the thermometer in Brighton hitting seventy-five degrees, and the beaches of the city, along with its bars and cafés, were crowded. Roy Grace and Cleo returned home after a short walk with Humphrey, mindful of the instructions of the consultant gynaecologist that Cleo was not to do too much exercise.

Then they sat on the roof terrace of her house, Grace drinking a glass of rosé, Cleo with an elderflower cordial and Humphrey gnawing on a chew.

‘So what happens next with Carly Chase? Your suspect is presumed drowned in Shoreham Harbour and Tony Revere’s mother is dead, right?’

‘They’re diving and dragging the harbour. But it’s pretty murky down there. You can’t see anything with underwater lights, so you have to do it all by sonar and feel. And there are some pretty strong currents. A body could get pulled out to sea very quickly.’

‘I thought they floated to the surface after a few days?’

‘Takes about a week for the internal gases to build up. But if they do surface, say at night, with the tide and wind in the wrong direction, they’ll go on out to sea. Then eventually they’ll sink again, and when they do, they’ll get picked clean by fish and crabs and lobsters.’

‘What about Tony Revere’s father?’

‘I’ve spoken to Detective Investigator Lanigan in New York. The guy who could be the problem going forward is his wife’s brother – the dead boy’s uncle, Ricky Giordino. With his father, Sal, locked up in jail for the rest of his life, realistically, it sounds like this guy is the one to watch. Lanigan thinks he’s the man who probably hired the killer in the first place. We’re going to continue with protection on Carly Chase and her family for a while, but I personally don’t think the threat is as severe now.’