One of Us Is Dead

82 Monday 17 October 2022

Paul Anthony was having an anxious morning. According to Shannon, James Taylor’s flight from Barbados had touched down at London Heathrow at 7.11 a.m., forty-five minutes late, despite having made up some time thanks to a tailwind, due to being stacked for over half an hour.

He’d allowed half an hour for the couple’s checked baggage to come through, and calculated they should be on the road by around 8 a.m., give or take. Into the heart of rush hour on the M25 — or the world’s biggest car park, as it was less affectionately known.

Assuming Taylor was being a gentleman, and dropping Debbie home somewhere in Brighton, the earliest he would reach his apartment in Worthing would have been around 10 a.m. But, just to be safe, he’d despatched Shannon on the electric bike at 6.30 a.m. for the half-hour ride to Worthing, giving her time to arrive with still some cover of darkness. She would be in place in the Bayside apartment block’s underground visitors’ parking area by now, carefully avoiding any CCTV cameras.

When she returned, all being well, she would have captured the entire contents of the pilot’s phone. Although all he actually needed to see was Taylor’s diary. To establish which airport he would be flying from tomorrow to pick up his boss from Jersey and fly him to Brussels. And on which aircraft. For a short-haul job like that, almost certainly the Pilatus. Too bad for Taylor’s boss the plane would never arrive in Jersey.

Too bad for Taylor too.

Too bad for Shannon, perhaps. He needed his wingman. But she was nobody’s fool and must be sensing the tension in their relationship, too; he could see it in the way she looked at him sometimes. He just needed to keep treating her well and make sure she knew how trapped she was. Then be ready to strike.

Disposal of a body at sea was always a good plan, and he had the advantage that he did not exist. A no-body murder committed by someone who was long dead was getting as close to the perfect murder as it got. A few miles out to sea, and properly weighted, her body would never be found. And he had a very nice powerboat in the marina at Puerto Banús just along from Marbella.

For now, though, he would continue to play the charmer and — OK — not smoke a cigar indoors for the rest of today. He could live with that. Maybe it would do his health good. He grinned at the thought that not smoking would do his health a lot more good than it might do Shannon’s.

But, just to rebel, he lit a Cohiba now. And smoked it, accompanied by a small drop of cognac — well, not that small. As he blew a large smoke ring and watched it slowly rise to the ceiling, he imagined Shannon lounging in a fancy bikini, topless, on the padded foredeck of Naughtyboy. After sharing a bottle of Champagne with him. And making love for the last time. Followed by her surprised expression as she opened her eyes from a drugged sleep to feel the weight of the anchor chain he was winding around her ankle. Then bye-bye, Shannon.

Plop!

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But he wasn’t betting on it.