Western Approaches (Jimmy Suttle) Read online

  She broke off, embarrassed. Rare, dare, care. She hadn’t meant it to come out that way. Garbage like that belonged in a Hallmark card.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So how would you feel about it? Hopping aboard and sailing away?’

  They were nose to nose now, the wind fluting through the marram grass.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ she said.

  ‘You do.’

  ‘No.’ She moistened a finger and traced the shape of his lips. ‘But maybe we could remedy that.’

  ‘Sure.’ He didn’t sound at all certain. ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we’d be closer. Then we’d get to know each other. Properly.’

  He nodded, said nothing. He seemed to have lost focus. He was gazing out to sea again. He wanted to talk about the places they could go, the beaches he could show her, the people she could meet. Simple people. Real people. People who’d never let you down.

  ‘Are we talking Thailand?’ she said softly.

  ‘Yeah. And a thousand other places. Think about it, Lizzie. Please.’

  The conversation appeared to be over. They lay in silence for a while. The stiffening wind was blowing sand in Lizzie’s face. She thought about seizing the initiative, about taking him by the hand and going back to the van and making a space in the back for the airbed. It might work. It might even be wildly successful. But something told her that this was the last thing he wanted and she didn’t understand why.

  ‘Do you find me attractive?’ she asked after a while. ‘Be honest.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘That’s a big word.’

  ‘I know. I mean it.’

  ‘But how do you know?’

  ‘I just do. It’s something you feel. Don’t ask me how. It’s just there. It’s happened. It’s real. It exists. It just feels . . .’ he shrugged ‘. . . right.’

  Lizzie said nothing. This was a conversation that was fast getting out of control. She closed her eyes. Could you really fall in love that quickly? And if you could, should you ever admit it?

  She felt a movement beside her and became aware of his face looming over hers. He was smiling.

  ‘The answer’s yes,’ he said softly. ‘Of course I find you attractive.’

  ‘Do you fancy me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s good.’ She nodded. ‘Good.’

  Another silence, longer this time. Pendrick lay back again, his huge hands clasped behind his head, his eyes closed. She wanted to kiss him properly, to unpick a little of the mystery that was complicating something that should have been so simple, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It wasn’t meant to be this way. She’d wanted them to make love, to share each other physically, to get to a place beyond the rights and wrongs of stony-hearted developers and the wickedness of the Western world, but deep down she realised it wasn’t going to work. For all his talk of falling in love, something was holding him back.

  At length she picked the brochure up and flicked through it again, aware that he was watching her. She looked up at him.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘Kinsey’s apartment.’ He seemed to be smiling at the memory. ‘If you want the truth, I nicked it.’

  It was gone six before John Hamilton phoned back. Suttle had left a message on his mobile asking him to call. Suttle was still introducing himself when Hamilton interrupted.

  ‘I know who you are,’ he said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I got a call from Gina. She seems to think you’re all right. Does that come as a surprise?’

  ‘Yes, definitely.’

  ‘Should I know more?’

  ‘There isn’t more to know.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Suttle thought he caught the softest of chuckles. ‘Then I think I understand.’

  Suttle briefly described the meet he was setting up for Monday night. Bournemouth seemed a good location, but he didn’t know the town and he needed a steer on an appropriate rendezvous.

  ‘Is that all you need?’

  ‘No. I want someone to watch my back. Put me down as paranoid but in this kind of company I need to have a backstop.’

  ‘Sure. That’s understood.’

  Hamilton said he had a flat in Westbourne. There was a Café Rouge up the road at the end of a crescent of shops. Suttle could get directions from Google or his satnav. The parking was fine across the road and the cafe might do nicely. He’d be happy to ride shotgun.

  ‘That’s good of you.’

  ‘Not at all. Blame my crazy wife.’

  ‘You’re still married?’

  ‘Yes.’ The chuckle again, but louder. ‘She told you otherwise?’

  Lizzie was back in Exmouth by half six. She and Pendrick had shared the journey back in a companionable silence. He’d reached for her hand from time to time, a form of physical solace that made Lizzie begin to suspect that Pendrick – in some dimly understood way – was damaged goods. When he stopped on the seafront and let her out beside her car, he wanted to know when he’d see her again.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she said brightly. ‘I’m the girlie in bow making a fool of herself.’

  She drove home, increasingly perplexed. In many respects it had been a lovely afternoon. In others, though it shamed her to admit it to herself, it had been deeply disappointing. On the way up to the north coast she’d rather assumed they’d get it on. She was curious to know whether they’d work together, and to be blunt there was only one way of finding out. Yet it hadn’t happened, and the more she thought about it the more she realised that it probably never would.

  There was a wariness in Pendrick that seemed to stand guard against the encroachments of the outside world. You stepped towards him and extended a hand only to watch him back off. To begin with she’d blamed herself for being too eager, too pushy, but then she found herself wondering why he and his wife had never had kids. Did they ever screw? Or had the marriage been based on something else?

  In truth she didn’t know, and as she turned the Impreza onto the parking area beside Chantry Cottage she found herself confronting another surprise. Driving up the lane, she’d assumed that the curl of blue smoke had come from the adjoining farm. Now she was watching her husband circling a sizeable bonfire with his daughter in his arms.

  She got out of the car. Suttle met her on the patio. He smelled of woodsmoke. He told her he’d had a great day. Even Grace was beaming. Together, they toured the garden. Suttle, it turned out, had parked Grace in her playpen in the sunshine and taken a scythe to the long grass. He’d hacked away at the dead vegetation along the wall that led down to the brook and raked a small mountain of twigs and assorted leaves into a monster bonfire. A lot of the stuff was still wet, he said, hence the lack of a proper flame, but if the weather held over the coming week he’d have another go.

  Lizzie was surprised and impressed. With her eyes half closed the garden resembled a savage grade two. Far more importantly, her ever-distracted husband had at last made a start on the chaos of their domestic life. She lifted Grace from Suttle’s arms and gave her a hug. Suttle wanted to know how the clear-up at the club had gone.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But it took for ever.’

  Later, after Lizzie had put Grace to bed, Suttle made supper and explained about Monday night. Lizzie, who knew Dave Fallon by reputation from her days on the Pompey News, warned Suttle to be careful. He said he’d already taken care of it.

  ‘How?’

  ‘The D/I I saw last night? She’s got an estranged husband who lives in Bournemouth. He’s agreed to keep an eye on me.’

  ‘That’s nice of him.’

  ‘Gina’s doing. Not mine.’

  ‘She vouched for you?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘So what’s in it for her?’

  The moment she said it Lizzie knew she’d kicked open a door she should have left well alone.

  Suttle was standing by the cooker, stirrin
g a pan of fried rice.

  ‘How about you?’ he said softly.

  ‘How about me what?’

  ‘How about you and all your new buddies?’

  ‘You mean the rowing club?’

  ‘Sure. Unless it’s gone beyond that.’

  ‘Beyond what? I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You haven’t? A couple of nights ago you’re back at eleven. What’s going on with these people? Do they row in the dark?’

  ‘We had a drink.’

  ‘Who had a drink?’

  ‘A bunch of us. They’re very social. That’s nice. Bit of a novelty, if you want the truth.’

  ‘And today? Out at nine? Back at six? That’s a lot of sweeping-up.’

  ‘It was a shit heap. I told you.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You think I’m lying?’

  ‘I think you’re hiding something.’

  ‘Same thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘It is.’

  ‘Great. You want the truth? Then here it is.’ Lizzie stepped towards him. A vivid blush of colour pinked her face. He could feel her anger. ‘Just for the record I object to this cop routine. I’m your wife, not some bloody suspect. I’m sure you’re great in interview but marriage is a different gig. Have I been fucking some he-man rower? No. Have I been tempted? As it happens, yes. Why? Because I can’t stand living the way we live.’

  Suttle nodded. He’d given up on the fried rice.

  ‘So where did you go this afternoon?’

  ‘I’m not answering that question.’

  ‘But you did go somewhere?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Great.’ He turned back to the pan and gave the rice a savage poke. ‘Thanks for fucking nothing.’

  ‘You spent last night with a woman who just happens to live alone.’ Lizzie was in his face now. ‘You came home at God knows what time. Good was she? Worth it?’

  ‘She’s nuts, if you really want to know. Totally out of her tree.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means you could fuck the arse off her and walk away. No commitment on your part. No comeback. A totally risk-free screw. Like I say, perfect.’

  ‘And you think that’s what I did?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because you won’t tell me. And even if you told me, even if we had a conversation, I’m not sure I’d believe you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t?’

  ‘No. Not now. Not here. Not the way we are.’

  ‘Great. Then that’s it, yeah?’

  ‘That’s what?’

  ‘Everything. You. Me. Grace. This khazi of a house you hate so much. Let’s just bin it, shall we? The lot.’

  ‘Call it a day?’

  ‘Sure. If that’s what you want.’

  She stared at him for a long moment. She was shaking inside. She’d never imagined a scene like this. Never.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She reached for the car keys. ‘I’ll go.’

  She drove fast, keeping to the country lanes, swamped by her anger, fighting to concentrate on the next bend and the bend after that. Among the trees on top of the common, she nearly killed a fox. She had time to register the piercing redness of its eyes in the darkness as it turned to face her headlights. Instinctively, she stamped on the brakes and swung the wheel to the right, heading for woodland at the side of the road. The car shuddered and began to slide sideways. Finally it stopped. Lizzie closed her eyes. She was shaking again. Then she opened the door and threw up.

  Exmouth was fifteen minutes away. She knew that Pendrick lived in a web of streets near the river and the station. She drove up and down, looking for his van, trying to fix his front door in her mind. There’d been some kind of card in the window of the flat downstairs. A tatty knocker and peeling paint on the door itself.

  Finally, she found it. She parked across the road and switched the engine off. The light was on in the upstairs flat and the curtains were pulled back. She stared up at it for a long moment, trying to steady her pulse, trying to regain control of herself. She’d never snapped like that in her entire life, and the knowledge of where it might lead alarmed her deeply. She’d never been frightened of making decisions. On the contrary, especially at work, she’d won a reputation for being on top and ballsy in the trickiest situations.

  This, though, was different. She’d pushed married life to the very edge of the cliff and she wasn’t at all sure what she wanted to happen next. She needed to talk this thing through. She needed a listening ear, someone who’d understand, someone who wouldn’t take advantage. Pendrick, she knew, would give her that kind of space, that kind of attention. If necessary, she could stay over. Whether she slept in his bed or not didn’t matter. She wanted to be close to somebody. She wanted to be touched, to be held, to be told she wasn’t some ditzy slapper cheating on her husband. Chantry Cottage had never been a great idea. She wanted out.

  She rinsed her mouth with water from the bottle Jimmy kept in the glovebox. Then, reaching for the door handle, she paused. There was movement in the upstairs window. Someone was standing there, staring down at the street, a black silhouette against the light inside. It was a woman. She turned her head and must have said something because she was joined by another figure, bigger, broader. It was Pendrick. For a moment or two he and the woman were both immobile, watching her, then Pendrick reached out for the curtains and the tableau was gone.

  Lizzie stared up at the window, trying to make sense of this image. Then her gaze lowered to Pendrick’s van at the kerbside. Parked in front, neatly wedged into a tiny space, was a small black sports car.

  Suttle was asleep when Lizzie slipped into bed beside him. She touched his face, told him she loved him, told him she was sorry, promised it would never happen again. Suttle stirred, grunted something she didn’t catch, then rolled over. When dawn broke, hours later, she was still lying there, staring up at the damp patches on the ceiling, the tears cold on her cheeks.

  Eight

  SUNDAY, 17 APRIL 2011

  It was Suttle’s idea to drive the whole family to Exmouth for the Kinsey tribute. Lizzie, exhausted, was tempted to phone Tessa and cancel, but Suttle insisted she see the thing through. The way he read it, they were offering her a leading role in this morning’s ceremony. If the rowing was doing her good, if she enjoyed it, the last thing she should do was let them down.

  Lizzie knew she had no choice but to agree. Last night, to her immense relief, appeared to be history. Suttle was cheerful, positive and starving hungry. Making bonfires, he told her, was hard-core exercise. He made porridge for them all and patiently monitored Grace’s attempts to spoon-feed herself in her high chair.

  They were on the road by half nine. Suttle dropped Lizzie on the seafront, a discreet distance from the club compound, and drove on towards Exmouth Quays. The porridge hadn’t quite filled the hole. He and the Constantine team had used the Docks Café earlier in the week and now he decided to share an egg and bacon butty with his infant daughter.

  The café was packed. With Grace in his arms he was about to step back into the street when he caught a wave from a table in the corner. It was Carole Houghton. She was with her partner, a tall handsome woman called Jules. He went over, did the introductions. Grace gave them both a precautionary look and then nestled on her father’s lap as he took the spare seat.

  Houghton insisted on buying their egg and bacon butty. Suttle had mentioned the Kinsey tribute on Friday and she had thought it only proper to make an appearance. A full week had gone by since the investigation kicked off and, in the absence of a result, this was the least she could do on behalf of what remained of the Constantine squad.

  ‘Does Grace like brown sauce?’ Houghton was already on her feet, en route to the counter.

  ‘Loves it.’

  Suttle turned to her companion. Jules, he knew, was a lawyer, and he’d alwa
ys suspected that Houghton shared one or two details of the more interesting jobs with her. He was right.

  ‘Carole tells me you’re the last man standing.’

  ‘On Constantine?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s true. Short straw, me.’

  ‘Coroner’s file?’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘And it stops there?’ She smiled. ‘I think not.’

  Houghton was still at the counter. Suttle was looking at Jules. He wanted to know more.

  ‘Carole really rates you,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you but it’s true. She thinks you’re shrewd. And more to the point she thinks you’re honest.’

  ‘That’s nice to hear. What does honest mean?’

  ‘It means you’re hard on yourself. It means you don’t take short cuts. And I guess that means life isn’t always easy.’

  ‘Too right.’ Suttle was thinking of last night. ‘What else did she say?’

  ‘She said that this investigation of yours, whatever it’s called, is still in the balance. That you shouldn’t give up.’

  Suttle blinked. Houghton, he knew, was a class operator. Was this why she’d volunteered to fetch the butty? So her partner could deliver a discreet message? He voiced the thought as Houghton returned.

  ‘Of course.’ Jules was clearing a space on the table. ‘You read her well, young man.’

  Lizzie met Tash Donovan at the club compound. Tessa did the introductions and said that Tash would be rowing in the number two seat ahead of Lizzie in bow. The rest of the crew, including Tash’s partner Milo, were already on the beach helping to rig the boats. God speed, Tessa said, and when it comes to the row-past be sure to give it some welly.

  Lizzie and Tash crossed the seafront road and headed down the slipway towards the beach. The tide was falling fast, flooding out of the estuary, and a ledge of high cloud had thinned the sunshine.

  Lizzie wanted to know how long Tash had been rowing. She loved the colour of her hair.

  ‘Couple of years. I’m first reserve with this lot.’ She nodded at the nearest quad. ‘Four of them are bloody good. Kinsey was deadweight.’