Western Approaches (Jimmy Suttle)

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘That’s what everyone says.’

  ‘It’s true. The poor lamb had his strengths but rowing wasn’t one of them.’

  They joined the rest of the crew at the water’s edge. Tash did the introductions. Lizzie recognised Milo from the Thursday session. This was the guy with the camera, she thought. Andy Poole offered her a crushing handshake and a wide grin. Lenahan, the cox, asked whether she was cool with rowing bow.

  ‘I need to be out of the way,’ Lizzie said. ‘Bow sounds fine to me.’

  ‘A little bird told me that you and racing starts are strangers.’

  ‘Your little bird’s right.’

  ‘We can fix that. Leave it to me. No problem.’

  He was as good as his word. He supervised the launch, and the quad nosed out into the current. There was still plenty of water over the offshore sandbank and they crabbed away from the beach towards the nose of a distant promontory.

  Lenahan was calling the stroke rate, warming the crew up, and Lizzie could feel the power in the boat. Despite her exhaustion, she realised she was beginning to enjoy this. Then came a small dot powering out of the harbour. The dot grew rapidly bigger and Lenahan gave the speeding safety boat a wave as it circled the quad. There were two men aboard. The portly guy at the wheel Lizzie had never seen before. The other one was all too familiar. Pendrick.

  Suttle and Grace found a space near the edge of the dock for the tribute ceremony. Houghton had taken Jules for a stroll round Regatta House. Under the circumstances, she thought her partner deserved a proper look at the crime scene. They’d rejoin Suttle later.

  The last of the sunshine had gone by now and it was appreciably colder. Suttle bent to the buggy, tucking Grace in. Earlier he’d watched Lizzie’s boat out in the far distance, stopping and starting, time after time. Now the other quads from the club were pulling hard against the tide, forming a protective square around a couple of smaller skiffs, slowly closing on the dancing water off the dock. All the rowers were wearing club colours, red and white, and as the boats approached, each crew in perfect time, a murmur of approval went through the watching spectators.

  By now a decent crowd had gathered and a second TV crew had joined the BBC South West team who had earlier been prowling around Regatta Court. Suttle had watched the reporter on the phone before doing his piece to camera. He’d stationed himself on the stretch of promenade immediately below Kinsey’s apartment, trying to flatten his thinning hair in the rising wind. Suttle was too far away to catch what he was saying, but the cameraman’s dramatic tilt upwards towards Kinsey’s balcony was all too eloquent. The dead man fell from here, and still nobody knows why.

  ‘Mummy!’

  Grace had seen her first. She was waving her little arms in excitement. Suttle turned to find himself looking at the Kinsey boat as it passed through the rest of the fleet on its way upriver. Lizzie was at the front and Suttle felt a jolt of admiration at the way she seemed to have mastered the business. He supposed that rowing was difficult. Lizzie had told him so. And yet there she was, perfectly in tune with this strange music, her blades dipping in and out with the rest of the crew, her back straight as she pulled on the oars, her body moving sweetly forward to take the next stroke.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘At the front there. The small one.’

  Houghton had appeared behind them. She pointed Lizzie out to Jules, who stepped forward and cupped her hands.

  ‘Go Lizzie!’

  Someone else in the crowd took up the chant. Then another. Then a third. Even Grace was having a squeal. Lizzie had caught the chant. Suttle saw the tiny nod of her head, an acknowledgement. Suttle cupped his own hands.

  ‘Go! Go Lizzie! GO!’ he roared.

  She recognised his voice. A grin this time, spreading and spreading. Suttle turned to Houghton.

  ‘She’s not bad, eh? For a probationer?’

  Lenahan had elected to make the turn about 500 metres upstream from the dock. His cue to start would be an orange distress maroon fired from the quad dropping the wreath. Molly Doyle had cleared this through the Coastguard at Brixham late last night and they’d assured her they’d resist the temptation to launch the lifeboat or a chopper.

  ‘Red, please.’

  Lenahan had got to the turn point. The crew hauled on their right-hand blades, pivoting the quad around a buoy.

  ‘Next stroke, easy up.’

  The crew stopped rowing. Lizzie could feel the tide beneath her, lifting the hull and carrying it downstream. Lenahan was waiting for the maroon.

  ‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘Jesus, what’s the matter with those eejits?’

  Lizzie wanted to glance over her shoulder and watch the maroon go off, but she knew she’d get bollocked. Eyes in the boat. Always eyes in the boat.

  ‘Whole crew come forward to row.’ Lenahan had his gaze locked on the dock.

  The whole crew came forward, blades in the water, ready for the racing start. The first time she’d tried it, half an hour ago, Lizzie had nearly totalled Tash’s oars. Her second attempt had been better and after that she’d started to get the feel of what was required. She was still playing catch-up, though, and just hoped that no one watching had binos.

  ‘Ready to row?’ Lizzie caught the muffled bang of the maroon. ‘ROW!’

  Andy Poole was leader of this tiny orchestra. Rigid in his seat, he took a swift choppy stroke. Then another. Then a third. The quad surged forward. After five strokes, in a blur of scarlet, the crew went to half slide, a foot of movement under their bums, the strokes longer, more power in the water. Another five strokes and they settled into racing speed, thirty-two strokes a minute, every oarsman intent on pouring maximum effort into the churning blades.

  To her immense relief, Lizzie was still in one piece. She hadn’t caught a crab, she hadn’t got in Tash’s way, and while she knew she was a minim off the beat she quickly settled down. By now the quad was, in Lenahan’s phrase, at battle speed. With the looming orange presence of Regatta House fast approaching, Lizzie concentrated on giving it everything. Lean forward, she told herself. Take the catch. Push back hard with legs. Arms straight. Accelerate the blade through the water. Feel it in the thighs. Go for the burn. Big tug at the end. Then hands away quickly and do it all over again.

  Off to her right she could hear cheering and applause from the dock. She pictured Jimmy and Grace. She hoped they were watching her. She hoped they weren’t laughing. Then, much closer, came the other club boats, the rowers keeping station with tiny movements of their blades, and a brief snatched glimpse of Kinsey’s wreath bobbing gently in the middle of the formation.

  ‘Forty-one big ones. GO!’

  They’d passed the wreath. Lenahan was driving them on. This could have been a race, easily. Tash had already warned her about what to expect. Flat out, she’d said, it’s the lungs that seize up first. Keep sucking in the air. Keep pushing hard on the footstretcher. Above all, watch the timing. Catch, extract. Catch, extract. Get it right. Exactly right. Keep on the beat.

  ‘Twenty to go. Own the water, people. Make it yours.’

  Lizzie was starting to struggle. Then she remembered her first outing on the rowing machine, how she’d kept the pressure up until the very end, chasing the numbers on the readout, ignoring all the distress calls her body was putting out.

  ‘Five of your best. Your very best.’

  Lizzie’s eyes were shut. She was rowing on empty. She squeezed every last ounce of effort into those final strokes. Then, quite suddenly, it was all over.

  ‘Easy up, guys. Angels, all of you.’

  She barely heard Lenahan. She let go of her oars and reached forward to pat Tash on the back. The boat was still moving at speed. The water caught her blades, smashing both against her midriff and sweeping her overboard. It happened so quickly Lizzie hadn’t a clue what had happened. All she knew was that she was underwater, being dragged along by the boat.

  She struggled, starting to panic. One of her feet was still trapped in the
footstretcher. She must have over-tightened the strap. She shut her eyes a moment, fighting the temptation to take a breath, trying to get her head out of the water. It was hopeless. Her body was twisted and she no longer had the energy or the strength to break free. By now her lungs were bursting. They must have seen me, she kept telling herself. A couple of hundred people can’t all be blind.

  Desperate for air, she opened her mouth. The water was ice cold. She could feel it in her chest. She began to cough, to choke. More water. Then she sensed hands beneath her arms and her head at last broke the surface, and seconds before she passed out she caught the looming face of Pendrick, treading water beside her, the white hull of the safety boat inches from his back.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ she heard him say. ‘I’ve got you.’

  A chopper flew her to A & E in Exeter. Wrapped in a space blanket with another blanket on top, she’d managed to stop the shakes. The accompanying paramedic told her it was the shock as well as the water temperature. She supposed that was a comfort but she wasn’t sure.

  In A & E they put her in a giant suit that looked like a duvet with arms. She lay in a cubicle trying not to relive those final few strokes before she’d gone overboard. It had to be her own fault, had to be, but she simply couldn’t work out why. One moment she’d been telling Tash what a star she was. The next she’d been fighting for her life.

  Jimmy and Grace turned up minutes later. They squeezed into the tiny cubicle. Jimmy gave her a hug and then found a chair and sat by the bed while Lizzie clung to Grace. Jimmy’s boss seemed to have come too. She’d found some change for the machine in the waiting room and returned with teas and coffees, keeping a discreet distance while Jimmy described the scene on the dock.

  Most people, including him, had been unaware of the incident. All they’d seen was the safety boat racing to the still-moving quad, and then a big guy going overboard to fish someone out of the water. Only a nearby birdwatcher in the crowd on the quay had the full story. He’d watched the whole episode through his binos. It’s the girl in the front, he told Suttle. She seems to have come a cropper.

  ‘That was me,’ Lizzie said. ‘What a wuss.’

  Suttle told her to forget it. Stuff happens. Thank Christ someone had been on hand to fish her out.

  ‘Who was it?’ he asked.

  ‘Pendrick.’ She found his hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Who else?’

  Lizzie was released a couple of hours later. The consultant took Suttle aside and told him not to hesitate to seek help if there were any after-effects.

  ‘Your wife’s been through serious trauma,’ he warned. ‘This can mess with people’s idea of themselves in all kinds of ways.’

  Suttle was intrigued by the phrase. He’d have liked to find out more but one glance at the consultant’s face told him this wasn’t the place or the time. Lizzie’s GP, he said, should be the first port of call. After, of course, a little home-grown TLC.

  ‘No problem.’ Suttle thanked him and returned to the cubicle. To his delight, Lizzie wanted to go home.

  ‘Say it again –’ he bent to kiss her ‘– then I’ll believe it.’

  That evening, for the first time in months, they felt good with each other. Houghton had offered Suttle a couple of days off to help Lizzie get over her little accident but Lizzie herself wouldn’t hear of it. She was embarrassed, and grateful to the small army of folk who’d fished her out, emptied her lungs, strapped her into the chopper and flown her away. Now she’d be grateful for a little time on her own with just the baby for company and the knowledge that Suttle would be back before nightfall.

  ‘That could be a problem.’ He was thinking about tomorrow’s meet in Bournemouth. ‘I’ll cancel.’

  ‘Don’t.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m a strong girl. Stronger than you think. Stick with the arrangements, but nothing silly, eh?’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. And you know something else?’ She beckoned him closer, kissed him on the lips and nodded towards the stairs. ‘I owe you.’

  Nine

  MONDAY, 18 APRIL 2011

  Suttle was in his office at Middlemoor by eight o’clock next morning. Lizzie had insisted he leave early to beat the rush-hour traffic and had dismissed his offer to return at midday to sort her out a bit of lunch. She had a long list of apologetic phone calls to make. Mea culpa. My fault. Sitting beside the bed, Suttle had wondered whether the list of calls included Pendrick. Given the fact that he’d saved his wife’s life, he fancied the answer was liable to be yes. Lizzie was watching him carefully. In certain moods, like now, Jimmy Suttle was an open book.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she’d said. ‘That man’s the reason I’m still here.’

  ‘How does that work?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’ She’d kissed him. ‘One day, if you’re good, I might tell you.’

  Now, Suttle took a call from D/I Houghton. She had good news and bad. Preferably face to face.

  Suttle went upstairs. Houghton had found a traffic cone from somewhere to keep her office door open when she was in the mood for callers. Now she asked Suttle to close it.

  He took a seat in front of her desk. A large Manila envelope had his name on it.

  ‘I had Traffic on first thing,’ she said. ‘About Friday night.’

  Suttle owned up at once. He’d been going way too fast. He’d had a couple of drinks. Next time he’d suss these Traffic numpties way earlier.

  ‘That’s not what bothers me.’

  ‘It’s not?’

  ‘No. I understand you’d just been to Modbury.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘D/I Hamilton lives in Modbury.’

  ‘Right again, boss. We had dinner together. I needed to sort some stuff out.’

  ‘Constantine stuff?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘Private stuff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She nodded. The more Suttle saw of her, the more he liked her. It was rare to find someone so astute, so direct, so switched on, who applied that intelligence to the people around her. Suttle had never been quite clear about the phrase grown-up but fancied that it pretty much covered Carole Houghton.

  ‘D/I Hamilton is neediness on legs,’ she said. ‘You ought to be aware of that.’

  ‘I am, boss. Believe me.’

  ‘She has a talent for wrecking other people’s marriages. It may not be her fault but it happens nonetheless. She’s an attractive woman. She can talk a good war. But beware, Jimmy. This job’s tough enough as it is.’

  ‘Crime wise?’ Suttle was intrigued.

  ‘No.’ Houghton was reaching for the envelope. ‘Some days I think the bad guys are the least of our problems. Do we understand each other?’

  ‘We do, boss.’

  Suttle took the envelope downstairs. It had come from the force intel department and contained Kinsey’s financial records. Grateful, once again, to have the office to himself Suttle sorted the information into separate piles on a neighbouring desk and began to go through it. Expecting a complicated web of accounts, he was surprised by its simplicity. On the business side, Kinsey had operated two accounts, one for Kittiwake and one for Kittiwake Oceanside. When it came to his personal life, he drew on a single account in his own name.

  By mid-morning, after an initial trawl through all three piles, Suttle had enough information to map the shape of Kinsey’s growing business empire. Over the past few months the Kittiwake account had been largely dormant. All Kinsey’s energies had been spent on the development of a series of sites across north Cornwall. Most of these, as far as Suttle could judge, were no more than a wish list of locations that might, one day, host Kittiwake Oceanside gated retirement communities. Cheques drawn on the Oceanside business account had gone to a range of planning and landscape consultants, all of whom had featured in the business files Suttle had analysed earlier. Only one of the sites, Trezillion, showed any signs of happening, and this was reflected in payments to a Leeds-based firm o
f solicitors. A couple of these tied in with credit card payments to Flybe for return tickets to Leeds Bradford Airport.

  Suttle had hung on to Kinsey’s business correspondence in the belief that it might feature in the file he was preparing for the Coroner. Cheque by cheque, he tied the payments to the paperwork. Planning permission for Trezillion was clearly a huge obstacle to the project going forward, but phrases in a couple of the letters to his legal adviser hinted that this problem might be far from insoluble. Hence, Suttle assumed, the £4.5K Kinsey had been prepared to blow on the design and printing of glossy brochures.

  He was about to start on the personal bank records when his eye was caught by another large cheque. On 21 January 2011 Kinsey had paid £13,000 to a Mr Waheed Akhtar. The name alone was totally out of keeping with the rest of Kinsey’s disbursements. There was no matching invoice in his business records, and no correspondence that Suttle could find. Was this an Asian businessman Kinsey had tapped up for advice? Was he taking the Kittiwake concept abroad? Would elderly couples with a taste for year-round sunshine be spending their twilight years in Oceanside Dubai?

  Suttle thought it was worth a note. He scribbled the details on his pad and reached for the pile of personal bank account statements. Most of this stuff was mundane – direct debits on power, water and council tax, card payments for anything from petrol to booze, plus a recent cheque for £607 to the Exeter Porsche dealer for a service. On top of that came regular expenditure that had to be connected to the rowing club. Repairs to the new quad after a collision with an estuary buoy. Hotel and ferry bills for a winter training camp on Lake Garda. Three-figure payments to Andy Poole for ‘miscellaneous services’.

  Month by month, Suttle went backwards, looking for anomalies that might flag something interesting, but after a full year and a half he’d found nothing. Kinsey seemed to have lived his life exactly in step with everything the intel had already established. He kept himself to himself, didn’t go out much, and spent more than was probably wise on his precious rowing.