Western Approaches (Jimmy Suttle)

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘They went back to his place,’ she said. ‘After the pub last night.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He texted me an invite. Silly man.’

  It had finally stopped raining by the time Lizzie got to the village church. It lay on the road that led down to the river, a sturdy plain-looking structure with a bulky tower that seemed out of proportion with the rest of the building. She opened the gate and pushed the buggy up the path towards the half-open door. Lizzie had never been a practising Christian and had avoided worship for most of her adult life, but this morning, for whatever reason, she felt the need to quieten herself, to find somewhere she might find a bit of privacy and a little peace.

  Until she stepped into the gloom of the nave, it didn’t occur to her that the church might be in use. Shit, she reminded herself. Sunday.

  Heads turned, all of them old. There weren’t many people, twenty tops. The nearest face looked familiar. She lived down the road, Mrs Peacock. They’d talked a couple of times in the village shop. She’d become the village’s self-appointed chronicler and archivist, contributing badly punctuated articles to the parish magazine on various episodes in Colaton Raleigh’s long history. It was May Peacock who’d confirmed the estate agent’s belief that Chantry Cottage had once been a Nonconformist chapel, and – in the depths of winter – it was Mrs Peacock who’d battled through the snow and posted some additional information through Lizzie’s letter box. There was some kind of tomb, she’d written, at the bottom of the cottage’s garden. It had been constructed hundreds of years ago and was rumoured to contain the bodies of two children.

  At the time Lizzie had dismissed the story as a figment of Mrs Peacock’s imagination. This kind of legend was the currency of village life and Mrs P was obviously a big spender. Lately, though, as the damp walls of Chantry Cottage pressed closer and closer, Lizzie had begun to think more about the story. Anything to revive the numbness that used to be my brain, she’d thought. Anything to stop me becoming a complete vegetable.

  Now, aware of Lizzie’s hesitation, Mrs Peacock was beckoning her into the church. She had a long, slightly horsey face and wisps of white hair curling from her chin. Come in, she seemed to be saying. We won’t bite.

  Lizzie found a perch on the end of an empty pew. Grace, mercifully, seemed to have gone to sleep. At the altar a line of elderly worshippers waited to take communion. They were all women and most of them used walking sticks. Watching them as they shuffled painfully towards the altar rail, Lizzie found herself wondering what had happened to their menfolk. Were their husbands at home, sorting out the midday roast, or had the retirement years in Colaton Raleigh finally throttled the life out of them?

  She had no way of knowing, of course, and as Mrs Peacock threw her another smile and struggled to her feet to join the communicants, Lizzie remembered the morning she’d taken up the carpet in the sitting room. Back then, in December, she’d still had the energy and the self-belief to pit herself against the challenges of Jimmy’s little find. Chantry Cottage, she’d told herself, was simply bricks and mortar. She could make a difference; she could roll her sleeves up and have a proper sort-out.

  The previous occupant, according to Jimmy, had been a lifelong hippy who’d read a couple of books about some Indian guru and become a yoga teacher. Living on virtually nothing, she’d tried to bypass the electricity meter with the aid of instructions from an anarchist site on the Internet but she’d screwed up badly and nearly burned the place down. This seemed to explain both the lingering sourness Lizzie caught from time to time, plus the sooty patches on the living room ceiling, but the latter, according to Jimmy, had come from the candles the woman had burned every night. This was someone who’d evidently lived by candlelight for most of her life and saw no reason to change. Quaint, he’d said. And very Devon.

  It was at this point that Lizzie had decided to turn the year on its head and go for an early spring clean. The following morning, once Jimmy had gone to work, she moved Grace’s playpen into the kitchen, shooed Dexter into the garden, cleared the tiny sitting room of furniture and began to roll up the carpet. For once the sun was shining. She’d strung a rope between two fruit trees and intended to give the carpet the beating of its life. With luck, she’d thought, the rest of the house would listen and take note. Pompey girl on the loose. Mend your ways.

  In the event, though, the house – yet again – had won. The carpet had seen better days. Years of abuse had larded it with every conceivable spillage – grease, candle wax, coffee, wine – and when she took her gloves off to get a firmer grip it was sticky to the touch. That was bad enough, but as she began to roll the carpet back, she found herself looking at layer after layer of newsprint. These were papers from the early 60s. Headlines about the death of JFK. Feature articles asking why the Brits had to suffer yet another sterling crisis. She started to go through the papers story by story. This was a treasure trove of living history, she told herself, something to spark conversation when Jimmy came home. But then her interest flagged, and she stopped turning the pages, only too aware that Chantry Cottage had the feeling of a morgue, of time arrested under her very feet, a malevolent force dragging her unaccountably backwards, into a darkness that first alarmed and then depressed her.

  That night, with the carpet in all its squalor back down on the sitting room floor, she’d tried to voice a little of this to her husband. She and Grace were still newcomers to the countryside. They’d been living here for barely a month. But already she could feel a sense of near-despair beginning to seep into her life. In some dimly remembered past she’d been the one pitching stories, conducting interviews, writing copy, dreaming up headlines, earning herself the beginnings of a serious reputation. Now, as the days implacably shortened and yet more rain blew in from the west, she felt totally helpless, a creature without either direction or worth.

  Jimmy, as ever, had tried to understand. The winter was bound to be tough. They’d both known that. But the seasons would roll round, and spring would come, and then they’d all have a chance to take stock. At work, he said, they still think I’m great. He’d made sure that word of his last job in Portsmouth had reached the ears of his new colleagues, and there were still moments in the MCIT offices when he could feel the warmth of all that reflected glory. He’d been the key to the undercover operation that had potted Pompey’s biggest criminal. If there’d been a medal struck for the death of drug baron Bazza Mackenzie, it would have had Suttle’s name on it.

  Lizzie loved her husband in moods like these. He’d always been a blaze of auburn curls in her life. With his freckles and his easy grin, he had an untiring optimism, an almost visible sunniness that was the very bedrock of their relationship. She’d always fancied him, and there were times even now when she still did, but she knew that her depression had begun to affect him as well, yet another reason to hate her new self. Evenings at home were beginning to be difficult. There was too much stuff that was better avoided – the state of the house, Lizzie’s sheer isolation – and once Grace was tucked up, they both settled for silence or the telly rather than risk another row. But deep down, where it had always mattered, she suspected that Jimmy was right. Stuff comes and goes. You have to walk tall on life’s road. But how on earth was she going to get back to the person she’d once been?

  Thinking suddenly of Gill Reynolds, she watched the communicants returning to their pews. The last to take her seat was May Peacock. Lizzie gave her a little wave, hearing Grace beginning to stir, knowing that she had to get out of the church before the service came to an end. Her dread of conversation extended to pretty much anyone. She’d lost the knack of talking to people. She was no longer able to get the right words in the right order. Better therefore to keep the world at arm’s length and pray that something, anything, turned up to make things better.

  Suttle phoned D/I Houghton from his car. He had names and contact details for Kinsey’s crew and knew
that these would be priority interviews for the Constantine squad. When Houghton at last picked up, she told him to come to Exmouth nick for half eleven. Mr Nandy had sorted a couple of offices before departing for another enquiry in Torbay and he wouldn’t return until mid-afternoon. By half eleven, she was expecting feedback from the house-to-house calls. After which she and Suttle could plot a sensible path forward.

  Suttle checked his watch. Nearly eleven. Exmouth nick was round the corner, a two-minute drive. With time in hand, he fancied a little detour.

  Molly Doyle had given him directions to the seafront compound which served as the base for Exmouth Rowing Club. Suttle found it tucked up a wide alley behind a building that belonged to the RNLI. A wooden fence enclosed a patch of scrubland beneath the looming shadow of a half-completed leisure complex. A raised Portakabin served as a clubhouse and one of the sagging doors was an inch or two open. Suttle picked his way between a litter of abandoned rubber bootees, pausing on the steps to check out the ERC fleet.

  In the compound he counted five big sea boats, all of them red and white, readied on launching trolleys beneath the spreading branches of a huge tree. Someone had attached a plastic owl to the roof of the Portakabin. Suttle was looking at the boats again. If the owl was a bid to keep the gulls off, it had failed completely. There was bird shit everywhere.

  Suttle pushed at the door of the clubhouse and stepped inside. Neon tubes threw a cold hard light over the sparseness of the interior. Lighter boat shells hung from racks on the walls and a pile of ancient yellow life jackets occupied a corner at the back. There was an overpowering smell of sweat and effort, and among the handful of faces on the rowing machines he recognised the Viking’s daughter. Even now he didn’t know her name but he responded to her nod of recognition, wondering whether news of Kinsey’s death had yet to reach this far.

  A coach was squatting beside the nearest rowing machine, monitoring the performance readout on the tiny heads-up screen. The last thing Suttle wanted was a conversation, but the guy got to his feet and asked whether he could help.

  Suttle shook his head. It was way too early to extend the investigation this far and in any case the circumstances were all wrong. He needed four walls, a desk, a couple of chairs and a door to ensure a little privacy. Not this place.

  ‘You’re interested?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘In rowing. Only we do taster sessions for novices. Think of it as three free goes. If you like it, you become a member. If you don’t . . .’ He shrugged. ‘No harm done.’

  Suttle looked around. It seemed like the place was falling apart: the sagging doors, the piles of abandoned kit, the bird shit. Yet at the same time there was no arguing with the buzz. These kids were really going for it.

  ‘So anyone can turn up?’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Sundays are best. As long as the weather’s not too evil, you’ll find us on the beach.’

  The coach turned back to the rowing machine and checked the readout again. Suttle couldn’t resist a look: 4,567 metres. In 19.03. The rower, a young lad of maybe seventeen, was cranking up for a final push. Sweat darkened his T-shirt. His face was contorted with effort, and every time he pushed back against the footstretchers the effort squeezed a grunt from his gasping lungs.

  Suttle caught his eye. ‘This is good for you?’ he murmured.

  The boy had the grace to muster a smile.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he mouthed back.

  Exmouth police station occupied the middle of an otherwise picturesque square on rising ground beyond the main shopping centre. An undistinguished 1960s building, it had a slightly alien presence. An apron of parking contained a handful of cars and the clock on the church opposite had stopped at twenty to four. Suttle, already struck by the slightly retro feel of the seafront, regarded this as somehow symbolic. Exmouth, he thought. The town that time forgot.

  Houghton was putting the finishing touches to the smaller of the two offices commandeered for Constantine. Three desks: one for Nandy, one for Houghton, the third for Suttle. A poster featuring a Thai beach occupied one wall. A second poster warned uniformed coppers that FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT.

  ‘This used to be the sergeants’ locker room,’ Houghton grunted. ‘You should feel at home, Jimmy.’

  Suttle tallied the names of Kinsey’s crew he’d picked up from Molly Doyle. Eamonn Lenahan, he said, served as cox. He lived up the river in Lympstone. Andy Poole, who turned out to work for a hedge fund partnership, had a flash apartment in Exeter. Tom Pendrick, who rowed in the seat behind Poole, was listed with an Exmouth address. While a guy called Milo Symons evidently dossed with his girlfriend in a caravan on farmland near Budleigh Salterton. She’d been at the party too. Her name was Natasha Donovan.

  Houghton had scribbled down the names. Kinsey’s body, she said, had been removed after the Scenes of Crime photographer had done his work. A Crime Scene Manager had joined the CSI and they’d made a start on boshing Kinsey’s apartment. Documents from the desk that served as his office and from a filing cabinet in one of the spare bedrooms were waiting for Suttle’s attention, and Kinsey’s computer had been bagged for full analysis.

  ‘The CSI also pinged me this.’ She beckoned Suttle closer. ‘He found it on the man’s Blackberry.’

  Suttle read the text on Houghton’s iPhone. It read, ‘V. We stuffed them. The whole lot. Decent time too. The Krug’s on ice. Usual place. J. xx’.

  Houghton wanted to know who V might be.

  ‘The Viking. Her real name’s Doyle. Molly Doyle. She’s the one who gave me the crew names.’

  ‘“Usual place”?’

  ‘Yeah. Interesting.’

  ‘You sound surprised.’

  ‘I am, boss. The woman’s no fan of Kinsey.’

  ‘Are we sure?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But?’

  Suttle shrugged. He honestly didn’t know. Molly Doyle, in his judgement, had her finger on the pulse of the club and her description of Kinsey had sounded all too plausible.

  ‘The guy muscled his way in,’ he said. ‘No one liked him. He thought money could buy him anything.’

  ‘Including her?’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Suttle made a mental note to check the lead out.

  Houghton nodded, then updated Suttle on the house-to-house calls. Gerald Smart, who occupied the apartment below Kinsey, confirmed that his neighbour had entertained guests last night. He’d heard laughter and music and a bit of stamping around but not much else. Getting on for midnight, everything had gone quiet and after that he and his wife had retired to bed.

  ‘Nothing afterwards?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about the other properties? Line of sight?’

  ‘Zilch. The guys aren’t through yet but we seem to be talking a particular demographic. These are retired people. They’re older rather than younger. I get the feeling they party early, get pissed and go to bed.’

  ‘How many of them knew Kinsey?’

  ‘Very few. There’s a residents’ association which is pretty active but it seems he could never be arsed. Most of these good folk knew him by name because of the property he’d bought but that’s pretty much as far as it went. You’re going to ask me whether he was popular but I don’t think it’s that simple. When it came to socialising and all that, he just wasn’t interested. Apparently he didn’t even have a Facebook account.’

  Suttle nodded. This is exactly what Molly Doyle had told him. This is the kind of guy who takes what he wants and turns his back on the rest.

  ‘Mr Loner,’ Suttle muttered.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What about the pub?’

  ‘The landlord was pretty helpful. Turned out to be an ex-marine. His line on Kinsey was pretty much everyone else’s. The guy very rarely made an appearance and when he did stuck to fizzy water. Last night seems to have been a one-off. Three bottles of Moët? The landlord couldn’t believe it.’
>
  ‘And the crack? The chat? Anything there?’

  ‘Not so far. The landlord was too busy to listen in but he’s given us the names of some regulars who were in last night in case they picked up a clue or two. I’ve scheduled the follow-ups for this afternoon.’ Her eye strayed to the list she’d made of Kinsey’s crew. ‘These guys need sorting. Where do you want to start?’

  Eamonn Lenahan lived in a rented cottage in Lympstone, a waterside village a couple of miles upstream from Exmouth. Suttle’s first call had been Tom Pendrick, but his attempts to raise an answer on the phone or in person had come to nothing. Before leaving Exmouth nick, he’d run all six names – including Kinsey – through the Police National Computer but drawn a blank. No previous convictions. No one ever charged or even arrested. Model citizens, all of them.

  Lenahan’s cottage lay in a tiny cobbled street with a glimpse of the river at the far end. Clouds of gulls swooped over the rooftops and Suttle could hear the soft lap of water on the pebbles that fringed the tiny harbour. He knocked again, wondering if Kinsey’s cox was still sleeping off last night’s piss-up, and then stepped back from the door and offered his face to a sudden burst of sunshine. The weather had brightened from the west, and standing in the quiet of this little village, listening to the gulls, Suttle realised that he was beginning to enjoy Constantine.

  Most of the jobs that came to Major Crime were, to be frank, tacky. In Portsmouth he’d lost touch of the number of pissed retards who’d ended up battering a friend or a stranger to death. There was no mystery, no challenge, to enquiries like these, and even the drug scene – a dependable source of more interesting work – was riddled with lowlife. Heading west, he’d somehow assumed that he’d be stepping into a different world, classier, more sophisticated, but crime hot spots like Torbay and Plymouth were as squalid and mindlessly violent as anywhere in Pompey. To date, he’d worked on two murders and an alleged stranger rape. In all three cases the real culprit had been cheap vodka and the girl reporting the rape had turned out to have been as pissed as the rest of them. These were lives in free fall, tiny domestic tragedies played out against a landscape of crappy bedsits, cheap drugs and increasingly elaborate benefit scams.