Western Approaches (Jimmy Suttle)

by Hurley, Graham

  She pulled out another box, extracted another file. This one was more recent. Inside she found an appointment slip for an SD clinic in Bristol. Mr T. Pendrick was due to attend on three dates in January this year. Beside each date was a pencilled tick. SD? Lizzie returned to the file, extracting a printout from the Internet: The web address was www.nhs.uk/conditions/erectile-dysfunction. She stared at it a moment, beginning dimly to understand. SD meant sexual dysfunction. Pendrick, poor man, couldn’t get it up.

  She sat back on her haunches, her gaze returning to the photos of Kate. Was this something that had happened to Pendrick recently? Or had it been casting a shadow for years? If the latter was true, she could only imagine the consequences. SD had never played a role in her life. Far from it. None of her boyfriends had ever let her down in that respect, and even a night on the Stella didn’t seem to affect her husband’s prowess. Pendrick on the other hand clearly had a problem.

  She began to read. Physical causes of SD apparently included diabetes and nerve damage after prostate surgery. Psychologically, you could blame guilt, depression or some kind of unresolved conflict. She gazed at the list of triggers. As far as she could gather, it pretty much summed up the person that Pendrick had become. Guilt about Kate. Depression about the fate awaiting Trezillion and all the other Cornish coves. And the conflict with Kinsey, which, until a wet Saturday night a couple of weeks ago, had defied resolution.

  She picked up a photo. It could have been one of a million beaches – the blueness of the ocean, the curl of faraway surf, hints of a palm tree in the corner of the frame – but what took her eye was the grin on Pendrick’s face. It was natural, unforced, wholly genuine. This was a man who was happy in his skin. In the last hours of his life had he met that person again? Before he’d slipped under the waves had he found a kind of peace?

  She thought about that last question, knowing she’d never be able to satisfy herself with an answer. Then she heard Grace beginning to stir. The tiny cry took her back to Chantry Cottage, and she shut her eyes, trying not to think about the wreckage of her private life.

  After a while she got to her feet. Her mobile was in the bedroom. Grace, thankfully, was still asleep. She took the phone back to the living room and scrolled through the directory until she found the number she wanted. After a while she thought she might have got the time difference wrong but then came the familiar voice.

  ‘Lizzie? How the fuck are you?’

  ‘Crap, if you want the truth. We need help. Badly. And so do you.’

  Thirteen

  FRIDAY, 22 APRIL 2011

  The search for Pendrick’s body resumed at first light. By now there was no chance he was still alive. Exhaustion and hypothermia would have killed him long before the police chopper appeared once again over the boiling sea.

  Suttle went to work as usual. The downstairs office, briefly busy after Constantine rose from the dead, was empty. A house fire in Seaton had taken the lives of two kids and their mother was gravely ill in a burns unit in Salisbury. Growing suspicions about the role of her estranged partner had triggered an MCIT investigation. Nandy, as ever, was blitzing the job, but Houghton had tactfully let Suttle sleep in.

  ‘Appreciate it, boss, but there’s no need. The last thing I want is time on my hands.’

  Lizzie spent the day in Exmouth. She was in regular contact with Molly Doyle, who had the ear of the Coastguard, but by midday the search for Pendrick’s body was called off.

  Shortly afterwards, she took a call from a voice she didn’t recognise. D/C Andy Maffett wanted to interview her with regard to a Mr Tom Pendrick. She parked Grace with Tessa and walked to Exmouth police station. With Andy Maffett was another detective called Rosie Tremayne. Offered the services of the duty solicitor, Lizzie chose to say no.

  The interview, conducted under caution, lasted longer than she’d anticipated. Lizzie kept the details of her brief relationship with Pendrick to a minimum, only too aware of the detectives’ curiosity. Yes, she’d got quite close to the missing rower. Yes, he’d been more than helpful in all kinds of ways. And yes, he’d finally trusted her with the story of what had really happened to Jake Kinsey. Had she been surprised by his confession? Of course she had. Had she had grounds to suspect anything of the sort earlier? Absolutely not. Had she been shielding him in any way? No.

  The interview over, Andy Maffett had fashioned her account into a formal statement which she’d signed. Warned that she might be recalled for a second interview, she had no choice but to say yes. Murder wasn’t something anyone would take lightly. Of course she’d assist in any way she could.

  Shaken, she’d returned to Tessa’s house. The last thing she wanted was conversation and in her heart she wanted to hide away with Grace in the silence of Pendrick’s flat but the premises had been sealed off by the police pending a thorough search. For a while she’d thought about contacting her husband but in the end she knew she wasn’t up to hearing his voice. The last few nightmare days seemed to have grown darker still. At the police station she’d sensed that the two detectives wanted a lot more. Chantry Cottage, and now Tom Pendrick, had taken her to a very bad place indeed.

  Her mobile rang at just gone seven. Gill Reynolds.

  ‘How’s life in the country?’

  ‘Crap.’

  Lizzie briefly explained about Pendrick. The man had wanted out. He’d taken a boat and gone to sea. By now, she said, he was probably dead.

  ‘Christ. So how does that make you feel?’

  ‘Terrible.’

  She described the night that Jimmy had returned to find Pendrick at her kitchen table. Since then, she said, they’d barely exchanged a word.

  ‘Bloody hell. So what happens next?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘You have to do something, Lou. You have to have a sort-out.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then do it. Just do it.’

  ‘I can’t. I don’t know how to.’

  ‘That’s pathetic. I’m not hearing this. Of course you can. You’ve shafted that man, Lou. You’ve crapped all over him. You’ve got a child too. Think of Grace. Pull your bloody finger out, kiddo, and do something.’

  ‘Yeah? Like what?’

  The question disappeared into silence because Gill was too busy to talk any longer. In truth there was something Lizzie had done, but since making the call last night she’d heard nothing. It was a long shot, she knew, but just now she couldn’t think of anything better.

  He phoned around eleven when she was about to join Grace in Tessa’s spare bed. There was comfort in hearing the voice she knew so well. He wanted directions to the cottage. He’d meet her there next day. She told him how to find Colaton Raleigh. She had to spell the name.

  ‘What time?’ she said.

  ‘Midday.’

  ‘That’s great. I’m having to rely on buses at the moment.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To get out to the cottage. It’s the back of beyond.’

  ‘You’re not even living there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Fuck. So where’s Jimmy?’

  She looked at the phone, realising that she didn’t know.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ she said.

  The following day was Saturday. It was raining when Suttle awoke. One look at the chaos of the kitchen convinced him he needed to get out. He toasted the last of the bread, piled the dishes in the sink, fed the cat and headed out into the rain. With no particular destination in mind, he pointed the Impreza west. After Exeter he took the A30 up to Okehampton. The word Bude on a signpost seemed to hold some promise but half an hour or so later he changed his mind. By the time he found Trezillion, the rain had stopped.

  He parked behind the dunes and set out on foot. The wind was rising and the tide was in, pushing at the line of seaweed and assorted debris at the top of the beach. He skirted the dunes and found a path that led up onto a headland. From here, sitting among the rocks, he could look down on the nearly perfect crescent t
hat was Trezillion. Any decent detective, he told himself, had to be able to get into other people’s heads, other people’s hearts. That was an early lesson he’d learned from Paul Winter. You have to become these guys, he’d always said. You have to see the world through their eyes. Only then can you be sure how to make life tough for them.

  So what was Pendrick’s story? And how come this place had meant so much to him? The answer seemed all too obvious. Anyone growing up here would have fallen in love with the place. That might explain the start of his quarrel with Kinsey. It might also account for bringing Lizzie out here. Pendrick had wanted to share an important bit of himself, just the way Suttle had once taken Lizzie back to the New Forest village where he’d spent his childhood years. That’s what you did when you met someone you fell for. It was a kind of homing instinct, impossible to resist, and it meant that you’d stumbled over someone who really mattered.

  He shook his head, not wanting to take the thought any further. Pendrick had brought Lizzie here because she’d suddenly become part of his life. More importantly, she’d gone along with him, conspired with him, borrowed the key and let herself into this secret place of his. He wasn’t at all sure that he bought Thursday’s story about Pendrick sculling off into oblivion, but in truth he didn’t much care whether the man was alive or dead. Either way, it was too late. From where he was sitting, among a scatter of spring flowers in the spongy wetness of the turf, the damage had been done.

  He got to his feet and headed away from Trezillion, following the cliff path. The next town of any size was Newquay. Maybe he could get a bus back from there to pick up the Impreza. Maybe he’d even be up for the return walk. But after half an hour he’d had enough. Trekking on for mile after mile seemed purposeless. He’d lost some inner sense of direction. He felt like a piece of debris, useless, inert, adrift in deep space. Increasingly depressed, he turned back towards the cove, his head bent against the first flurries of the returning rain.

  For maybe a mile the cliff path zigzagged upwards. Then came a fork beneath an outcrop of black granite. A path less trodden led to the very edge of the cliff. The cove lay off to his right, the whiteness of the beach fringed by the sand dunes. That’s where my wife wanted to make love to Pendrick, he told himself. That’s where my marriage came to an end. The wind was gusting now, blasts of cold air off the ocean, and he felt the salty prick of moisture in his eyes. He took a step forward, then another, peering over the edge of the cliff. The sea boiled on the rocks below, surging back and forth. Easy, he told himself. A second or two of gathering terror and then nothing but darkness. For a moment he was perfectly still, telling himself that it would be for the best, that it would offer the kindest way out, but then he shook his head, thinking of Kinsey, of Pendrick, of Lizzie, of Grace, glad of the hot jolts of anger that flooded through him, an anger he could almost taste. He turned and headed inland, away from the cove and the roar of the incoming surf.

  The path was steep. Minutes later, maybe a quarter of a mile inland, he found himself climbing through torn rags of grey mist towards a single tree bent almost double by the wind. His doubts had flooded back again. Had all this started way back, with his decision to go for Chantry Cottage? Had he bullied Lizzie into coming with him, into sharing this fantasy life he’d promised her? Should he have been a bit more cluey about the signals she was sending him, about her growing sense of lostness? Should he have been a better husband? A better dad? And just as important in another way, should he be making a bigger effort to get a word of warning to Paul Winter? A man he’d once revered? The questions hammered at his brain: three betrayals, three ways he seemed to have got life so comprehensively wrong. Maybe all this wasn’t Lizzie’s fault at all, but his.

  He was still staring at the tree. The way it had shied away from the wind, the way it had given in to the elements, spoke of an implacable force beyond the power of resistance. But then he climbed a little closer, buffeted by that same wind, and stopped again, barely feet away. Despite everything, he realised the tree was still alive. On bough after bough he could see tiny green buds pushing through. Despite the wind, despite the salt off the ocean, despite the mountain of odds stacked against it, the tree was hanging on. Why? Because it hadn’t – wouldn’t – surrender. Because it had clung to a life of its own. Come back in a week or two, he thought, and it would be in full leaf. Climb up here on a glorious day in midsummer, with the temperature in the eighties, and he might pause a while to enjoy the shade it offered. He found himself grinning, suddenly alive again. The rain was harder now but he didn’t care. He’d had enough of chasing the same old questions around and around. Guilt, in the end, took you nowhere. He checked his watch. Early afternoon. Perfect.

  He was in Modbury within the hour. A petrol station on the edge of the town had pink carnations in a bucket outside the pay-booth. He bought three bunches and a bottle of Sauvignon. Minutes later he was parked across the road from Gina Hamilton’s house. Her Golf was on the hardstanding. He stood at the front door for a second or two, dripping from the rain. She must have the radio on, he thought. Adele. Bless.

  He rang the front-door bell, the flowers and the wine readied. When the door finally opened, he barely recognised her. Her feet were bare and she was wearing a pair of blue overalls, way too big. A crimson scarf was knotted over her hair and the brush in her right hand was threatening to drip white gloss all over the doormat.

  She looked at him for a moment, then her eyes strayed to the flowers. If she was in any way surprised, it didn’t show.

  ‘You’ve come to give me a hand?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘My pleasure.’

  He left next morning at five past eight. Lizzie had been trying to get through to him all evening. Finally, he’d texted her back, asking if Grace was OK. ‘Grace is fine,’ came the reply. ‘We have to talk.’ But Suttle didn’t want to talk. Not yet.

  Then, in the early hours, came another text. ‘Please meet us in the cafe at St David’s Station. We’re on the 09.28 to Portsmouth.’ Suttle hadn’t responded, rolling over and telling Gina it could wait.

  Now he slipped into the Impreza and headed towards the A38. He was in Exeter by nine. Driving into the big car park outside St David’s station, he wondered how Lizzie and Grace had made it over from Colaton Raleigh. The buses were hopeless on a Sunday. Had she got a taxi? Or had someone given her a lift?

  He found her at a table in the far corner of the café. She looked pale and drawn. She’d gelled her hair too, and it didn’t suit her. Her coffee mug was empty. Suttle asked her whether she wanted another. She shook her head.

  ‘And you, young lady?’

  Suttle had picked Grace up. She was wearing a dress Gill Reynolds had brought down from Pompey and already it looked too small.

  Grace wanted cake. Suttle carried her to the counter. Already this little tableau felt surreal. His wife crouched over her empty coffee mug, staring into the middle distance. A rucksack and a bulging holdall on the floor beside Grace’s buggy. A retired couple by the window having a quiet ruck about God knows what. Horrible.

  Suttle carried the cake and a coffee back to the table and settled Grace on his knee.

  ‘You’ll need a hand with that lot.’ He nodded at the bags.

  Lizzie shook her head. She could manage. She’d always managed. It wouldn’t be a problem.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’ll give you a hand.’

  She shook her head again. She seemed close to tears. She glanced at her watch, fumbled in her bag for the tickets, anything to soak up the silence. Then, for the first time, she met his gaze.

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You don’t think we mean it? You don’t think we’re off?’

  ‘Your decision, Lizzie. Not mine.’

  ‘Going, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah. And everything else.’

  She looked at him for a long moment.

  ‘You won’t ever let this go, will you?’

&n
bsp; ‘I’ve no idea. I haven’t been here before.’

  ‘But you won’t. I know you won’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because all men are the same. Black and white. One strike and you’re out.’

  ‘One strike? Is that how you see it? Some kind of game?’

  ‘Don’t.’ She turned away. ‘This isn’t helping.’

  Suttle shrugged. If she wanted the satisfaction of a full-scale domestic, then he was happy to oblige. Otherwise there wasn’t a lot to say.

  ‘Your mum’s, is it?’ He broke off a chunk of cake and gave it to Grace.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what’s the story? What have you told her?’

  ‘I told her the truth. I told her we’re sick of living in the country. I told her we need a real home.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me. Does that sound selfish?’

  ‘Yes, since you ask.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  Suttle fed Grace more cake and then brushed the crumbs off her dress. A voice on the tannoy announced the imminent departure of the Waterloo train. Passengers for Portsmouth should change at Salisbury.

  Suttle was nuzzling the warmth and softness of his daughter. At this rate, he thought, he’d be the one in tears.

  Lizzie’s hand was back in her bag. Then Suttle was looking at two pairs of keys on the table.

  ‘Are they for me?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re both for the cottage.’

  ‘You won’t be back?’

  ‘No. Not there. I’m through with it, Jimmy. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘So it’s over. Is that what you’re saying?’