Western Approaches (Jimmy Suttle) (13 page)

He was still deciding how to develop each of these when Houghton returned. She eyed the spread of paperwork on Suttle’s desk. He brought her up to speed. Two more potential suspects for the pot. Maybe.

‘But what has he been doing since selling up?’

‘Property development.’

‘Where? How?’

‘He’s got a new company now, Kittiwake Oceanside. He seems to be catering to a particular demographic. These are couples in their sixties, made a bit of money – often in London – and they want to buy somewhere down here, nice view, private beach, total privacy, total peace of mind, full service, like-minded people, all that bollocks. Think retirement lite.’

Suttle had skimmed the Kittiwake files. Kinsey had been paying estate agents in Cornwall to scout for suitable sites. So far he’d identified three and was in ongoing contact with the relevant planning authorities. In every case his pitch was the same. As a successful businessman committed to developments of the highest standard, he was keen – in his phrase – to add value to outstanding locations. In this context, he defined value in terms of employment opportunities, net capital inflows and what he called ‘the aesthetic and social gain from the provision of signature destinations’.

Kittiwake Oceanside, he said, would attract high net worth individuals to areas of Cornwall that were demonstrably struggling. These discreet, beautifully designed retirement communities would kick-start the local economy. From every point of view, he wrote, ‘we’re looking at the perfect win-win’.

Houghton was studying one of the brochures Suttle had extracted from the Kittiwake files. A sleek collection of apartment blocks towered above a line of sand dunes. There was lots of glass, lots of boasts about sustainability, and lots of hints that slouching in front of crap telly was strictly for losers. Couples playing tennis. A peleton of gym-honed retirees departing for a spin on their bikes. A woman in a bikini heading for the nearby surf. Kittiwake Oceanside, thought Suttle, was selling a kind of immortality. Settle here and your body will never let you down.

‘I wonder what the locals think?’ Houghton was equally unimpressed.

‘Exactly. Maybe we should talk to the local journos and find out. People are getting pissed off with tosh like this. Views are for everyone. They shouldn’t be something you have to reserve with a huge deposit.’

‘Sweet. Where have you been these last few years?’

Suttle ignored the question. He sensed already that
Constantine
was dead in the water.

‘So what happened at the PM?’

‘Nothing. The guy died of impact injuries. Cranial contusions, severe spinal trauma and heart failure. Quick, if you’re looking for a way out.’

‘And you think he was?’

‘There’s no evidence to suggest otherwise.’

Suttle nodded. Post-mortems were never less than thorough. Scrapings from under the fingernails to indicate some kind of resistance. Special attention to the throat and larynx to determine possible strangulation. Try as he might to find evidence of prior assault, the pathologist had drawn a blank. Houghton was right: there was absolutely nothing to suggest that Kinsey hadn’t been alone when he met his death.

‘But why?’ Suttle asked, ‘Why would he have done it?’

Houghton shrugged. ‘Not our call, Jimmy. People do what they do.’

‘And Mr Nandy?’

‘I haven’t managed to talk to him yet. We’ve got a body in a field down near Bodmin. It hasn’t got a head. I expect Mr Nandy thinks that’s a bit of a clue.’

Gill Reynolds turned up just before lunch. Lizzie, deeply grateful that the sun had come out, met her on the patch of muddy gravel that served as parking for Chantry Cottage. She was driving a new-looking scarlet Megane convertible, a perfect match for her nails. Newsroom pay rates were clearly on the up.

She swung her long legs out of the car and leaned back to retrieve a bag of goodies. Lizzie had Grace beside her. When Gill knelt for a kiss Grace turned away and hid her face in Lizzie’s jeans, plainly terrified by this sudden intrusion.

‘Lunch?’ Lizzie led Grace back towards the open kitchen door, determined to stay ahead of the game. Even when she was fit and well, doing a job she loved, Gill had always had a habit of swamping her.

The kitchen, for once, looked almost presentable. Lizzie had worked all morning to clean the place up. There was nothing she could do about the dripping tap and the state of the units, but she’d brightened the general shabbiness with the last of the daffodils from the garden and she had a pot of chilli con carne bubbling on the stove. Gill had a famous appetite, a tribute to her hours at the gym.

With the chilli went hunks of newly baked bread and a salad Lizzie had bought from the village store. Gill was in the garden, striding through the long grass, peering into a hedgerow, stooping to retrieve something from the reeds beside the stream. Frothy white blossom was beginning to appear on both fruit trees and she paused, gazing up, her face splashed with sunshine.

Seconds later, she was at the kitchen door.

‘Fantastic,’ she announced. ‘So wild. So unspoiled. So fucking
authentic
. Lucky girl. Lucky old you. You have to keep it exactly this way. Promise me you will.’

Lizzie smiled but said nothing. She was tempted to suggest that Gill stay a while, get a real taste of life in the country, see whether she could cope with the isolation and the damp and the mobile signal that seemed to come and go like the wind. Instead she perched Grace in her high chair and dished out the chilli.

Gill had already started on office gossip. It seemed there’d been a big turnover of staff recently, and most of the new people Lizzie had never heard of, but Gill – as ever – had identified a target or two and was currently shagging a married man in his thirties who worked on the sports desk. Three times a week they’d been meeting at the leisure centre for a midday game of squash. Lately they’d given up on the squash and gone straight back to Gill’s new place.

‘The guy goes at it like a madman,’ she said. ‘The squash used to knacker me but this is ridiculous.’

She paused to try and tease a spoonful of chilli into Grace’s mouth. Sex was the closest Gill had got to ever having babies and she’d always been clueless about the dos and don’ts of motherhood. Grace spat the chilli out and started to cry.

Gill seemed oblivious. A couple of months back she’d been offered the kind of feature pieces that had always gone Lizzie’s way and she’d leapt at the chance. Her speciality just now was celebrity interviews, and she was speculating on the chances of bedding a soap star Lizzie had never heard of when she remembered a call she had to make.

Lizzie was still trying to settle Grace. Gill poked at her Blackberry, not understanding why it wouldn’t respond.

‘You have to take it outside,’ Lizzie said. ‘Point it at the sun and hope for the best.’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘I am.’

‘What about the laptop? Have you got broadband?’

‘Dial-up.’

‘
Dial-up?
Christ. You’ll be sending pigeons next.’

Lizzie offered her landline but Gill was already out of the door. Minutes later she was back. Pointing it at the sun had evidently worked. She’d also remembered there was someone else in the room, another life, so different to hers.

‘So tell me,’ she said. ‘How’s it going?’

Lizzie had been anticipating this question all morning. In truth she’d have liked nothing better than to get the whole thing off her chest but she was determined to hang on to what was left of her dignity.

‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Just different.’

‘You hate it.’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘You don’t have to. I can see it on your face. So let’s start again. What’s it
really
like?’

Lizzie was nonplussed. This was the last thing she’d expected. Gill Reynolds, it turned out, was infinitely more tuned-in than she’d ever remembered. No wonder they’d given her promotion.

‘You want the truth? It’s a nightmare.’

She talked about what she’d found when they’d first moved down. She described the state of the cottage, and the garden, and the life she seemed incapable of putting together when her husband was at work. She told Gill about Christmas, two long days of unrelieved gloom while Jimmy tried to coax a little heat from the fire. And then she brought the story up to date. She’d decided she was a lousy wife and – even worse – a hopeless mother. By giving in to Jimmy, by agreeing to go along with his rural fantasy, she’d probably inflicted untold damage on her daughter. Kids were smart. They sensed when things were going wrong. For her sake and for Grace’s, before it was too late, she needed to take a few decisions.

‘You’ll
leave
him?’

‘Not him, Gill. This. I’ll leave this. We both will, me and Grace. It’s beaten us. I’ve tried. Believe me I’ve tried. I’ve
really
tried. But every time I think I’m getting somewhere something else kicks off and I’m back where I started. Central heating? Windows that fit? Maybe a little car to get out in? Is that too much to ask?’

Gill was trying to think this thing through. Another novelty.

‘Maybe you haven’t tried hard enough,’ she said at last.

‘That’s an insult.’

‘No, it’s not. Of course this is different. You must have expected that. No way is this Fratton or Southsea or wherever. It’s the country, Lou. Different mindset. Different everything. Like I say, try harder.
Adapt
.’

‘Christ . . .’ Lizzie turned away. She had an overpowering urge to cry again. Then came an arm round her shoulders.

‘I believe you, Lou. I really do. I’m just thinking about the alternative, that’s all. Where will you go? What will you do?’

Lizzie was back in control of herself. She apologised for losing it and began to get to her feet.

‘Don’t.’ Gill put out a restraining hand. ‘Just answer my question. What will you
do
?’

Lizzie gazed at her for a long moment. The fact was she didn’t know. On the phone yesterday she’d nearly asked Gill whether there was room for them at this new place of hers but in the end she’d drawn back. That wasn’t something she’d shared with Jimmy last night but it hadn’t seemed to matter because she’d assumed Gill’s answer would be yes. Now she wasn’t so sure.

‘You’re think of coming back?’ Once again Gill was ahead of the game. ‘Staying at my place?’

‘It had crossed my mind, yes.’

‘Forget it, Lou. It won’t happen.’

‘Why?’

‘It just won’t.’

‘You don’t want us?’

‘Of course I want you. That’s not the issue.’

‘So what is? I don’t understand.’

Gill studied her, then shook her head. No clues. No conferring.

‘We’ll go to my mum’s then.’ Lizzie was getting angry again. ‘She’ll definitely have us.’

‘Not a great idea.’

‘But why? Is it the job?’

‘The job’s fine. I’m sure the job’s yours for the asking. It’s just . . .’ She shrugged, picked at her chilli, then looked up again. ‘Never go backwards, Lou. It never works.’

‘That’s what Jimmy said.’

‘Then believe him. He’s right. One way or another you have to make this work.’ She paused. ‘Is the seaside near here? Only I really fancy a walk on the beach.’

By mid-afternoon, Jimmy Suttle suspected it was all over. He’d tasked a handful of D/Cs to start exploring the new lines of enquiry – Henri Laffont and Kinsey’s vengeful ex-wife – but Nandy was due any time and Suttle knew that Houghton would have told him about the post-mortem. These days, through no fault of his own, Nandy had become a juggler, forever trying to keep all the force’s investigative balls in the air. As calls increased on precious Major Crime resources, there were balls he knew he’d have to put to one side, and while he’d never abandon an enquiry that showed genuine promise, he was bound by the iron demands of the Criminal Prosecution Service. No one had ever invented a form for a hunch, and if there was no evidence to suggest that Kinsey had died at someone else’s hands, then Detective Superintendent Nandy would be moving swiftly on.

He arrived at the makeshift office within the hour. Suttle briefed him on the problems Kinsey had been facing in his business and personal life and tallied the actions he’d commissioned to find out more. Nandy nodded, unimpressed. No one, he said, got that rich without making enemies. That was one of the joys of capitalism, something you could rely on, but from where he was sitting there wasn’t a particle of evidence that a pissed-off Swiss engineer or a homicidal ex-wife had chucked Kinsey into oblivion. The thing just didn’t fly. While he was happy to have Suttle’s D/Cs complete their preliminary enquiries in both instances, he was minded to redeploy the rest of the squad.

‘Including me, sir?’

‘No.’ Nandy closed the door. ‘Carole tells me you’ve been under some pressure lately.’

‘Does she?’ Suttle was astonished.

‘Yeah. Not much gets by her, believe me. You should be grateful, son.’ He paused. ‘Everything OK at home?’

‘Yeah . . .’ Suttle ducked his head. ‘More or less.’