Read Lost for Free Online Page B

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    When I first came down from Lancashire I was posted with the Thames Water Police. We used to pul two bodies a week out of the river, mostly suicides. You see the wannabes al the time, leaning from bridges, staring into the depths. That's the nature of the river—it can carry away al your hopes and ambitions or deliver them up unchanged.
    The bul et that put a hole in my leg was traveling at high velocity: a sniper's bul et fired from long range. There must have been enough light for the shooter to see me. Either that or he used an infrared sight. He could have been anywhere within a thousand yards but was probably only half that distance. At five hundred yards the angle of dispersion can be measured in single inches—enough to miss the heart or the head.
    This was no ordinary contract kil er. Few have this sort of skil . Most hit men kil at close range, lying in wait or pul ing alongside cars at traffic lights, pumping bul ets through the window. This one was different. He lay prone, completely stil , cradling the stock against his chin, caressing the trigger . . . A sniper is like a computer firing system, able to calculate distance, wind speed, direction and air temperature. Someone had to train him—probably the military.
    Scanning the broken skyline of factories, cranes and apartment blocks, I try to picture where the shooter was hiding. He must have been above me. It can't have been easy trying to hit targets on the water. The slightest breeze and movement of the boat would have caused him to miss. Each shot would have created a flash, giving away his position.
    The tide is stil going out and the river shrinks inward, exposing a slick of mud where seagul s fight for scraps in the slime and the remnants of ancient pylons stick from the shal ows like rotting teeth.
    The Professor looks decidedly uncomfortable. I don't think speed or boats agree with him. “Why were you on the river?”
    “I don't know.”
    “Speculate.”

    “I was meeting someone or fol owing someone . . .”
    “With information about Mickey Carlyle?”
    “Maybe.”
    Why would someone meet on a boat? It seems an odd choice. Then again, the river at night is relatively deserted once the dinner-party cruises have finished. It's a quick escape route.
    “Why would someone shoot you?” asks Joe.
    “Perhaps we had a fal ing out or . . .”
    “Or what?”
    “It was a mopping-up operation. We haven't found any bodies. Maybe we're not supposed to.”
    Christ, this is frustrating! I want to reach into my skul and press my fingers into the gray porridge until I feel the key that's hidden there.
    “I want to see the boat.”
    “It's at Wapping, Sir,” replies the sergeant.
    “Make it so.”
    He spins the wheel casual y and accelerates, creating a wave of spray as the outboard engine dips deep into the water and the bow lifts. Spray clings to Ali's eyelashes and she holds her flapping hat to her head.
    Twenty minutes later, a mile downstream from Tower Bridge, we pul into the headquarters of the Marine Support Unit.
    The motor cruiser Charmaine is in dry dock, propped upright on wooden beams and surrounded by scaffolding. At first glance the forty-foot inland cruiser looks immaculate, with a varnished wooden wheelhouse and brass fittings. A closer inspection reveals the shattered portholes and splintered decking. Blue-and-white police tape is threaded around the guardrails and smal white evidence flags mark the various bul et holes and other points of interest.
    Ali explains how the Charmaine had been reported stolen from Kew Pier in West London fourteen hours after I was found. She rattles off the engine size, range and top speed.
    She knows I appreciate facts.
    A SOCO (scene of crime officer) in white overal s emerges from the wheelhouse and crouches near the stern. Running a tape measure across the deck, she makes a note of the measurement and adjusts a surveyor's theodolite mounted on a tripod beside her.
    Turning, she shields her