‘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.

A wave broke over the stern, drenching him.

Cursing, he jumped out, and into water far deeper and far colder than he had estimated. Right up to his shoulders. A wave sucked him back and for an instant he panicked. Shingle gave way beneath his boots. He leaned forward, determinedly, dragging the craft by the line attached to its bow. Then he tumbled on to the hard pebbles of the beach.

Another wave broke and this time the prow of the Zodiac bashed him on the back of his head. He cursed again. Stumbling to his feet, he fell forward again. Then he clambered up, struggling to get a purchase on all the mad loose stuff beneath him. He took several more steps forward, until the dinghy became a dead weight behind him.

He dragged it on up the beach, then listened carefully in the darkness, watching all around him. Nothing. No one. Just the crashing of waves and the sucking of water on shingle.

He pulled the rubber stops out of each side of the dinghy, and slowly rolled it up, expelling the air. Then, using his knife, he cut the deflated craft, which was like a giant bladder, into several strips and scooped them into a bundle.

Struggling under its wet weight, he made his way along the walk beneath the cliffs to where he had left his van earlier today, in the ASDA superstore car park in the Marina, depositing strips into each of the rubbish bins he came to on his route.

It was a few minutes to midnight. He could have used a drink and a couple of hours at the roulette table in the Rendezvous Casino to calm down. But in his bedraggled state that was not a smart option.