Western Approaches

by Graham Hurley

  ‘Not Lenahan, then.’

  ‘Not if we’re talking murder.’

  ‘And what’s your view on that?’

  ‘I haven’t got one. Not yet.’

  ‘And this guy Lenahan?’

  ‘He says he’s agnostic.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘He thinks the jury’s out. He says Kinsey was too self-interested to end it all, and too sensible to put himself in harm’s way.’

  ‘Kinsey was pissed,’ Houghton pointed out.

  ‘Sure. But he’d thrown most of it up. I’m not saying he was sober. Just that he’d probably have stayed in bed.’

  Houghton nodded, said nothing. Then she glanced over her shoulder at the adjacent desk. The young D/C’s name was Golding. He’d just spent half an hour in Exeter with Andy Poole.

  ‘So how was he?’ Suttle adjusted his chair.

  ‘Same story, Sarge. They won the race. They had a bevvy or two. Kinsey got rat-arsed. The girl sorted a taxi. End of.’

  ‘But how did he take it?’

  ‘Take what?’

  ‘Kinsey dying.’

  ‘He was gobsmacked. He couldn’t believe it. Neither could his missus.’

  ‘She’s alibied him?’

  ‘Yeah. She was still up when he got back, watching some DVD or other. They talked a bit about the race then they went to bed.’

  ‘She knew Kinsey?’

  ‘Not especially well but I think they’d all socialised a bit. Poole couldn’t get his head around it. At one point he was wondering whether he ought to have stayed in the apartment last night, kept an eye on the guy, stopped him doing anything silly.’

  ‘As if.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s what his missus said. Sanest man I ever met. Direct quote.’

  ‘Because he was the go-to guy?’

  ‘Because he was rich. Because he had it all. Because he’d just won his first race. Because he had everything to look forward to.’

  ‘And Poole?’

  ‘Agreed. In spades. Apparently he’d helped Kinsey map out a whole load of these regatta things, pretty much every weekend over the whole summer. Money was obviously no problem. They were going everywhere. The big deal was to get into the South Coast Championships. On yesterday’s evidence, Poole thought that might be possible.’

  ‘Even with The Passenger aboard?’

  ‘The who?’

  Suttle explained about Kinsey’s nickname around the club. The D/C consulted his notes.

  ‘Yeah. Poole had just found another old mate who’d really strengthen the crew but Kinsey was obviously there for the duration.’

  ‘So who was going to get dumped?’

  The D/C went back to his notes again. ‘A guy called Symons. Apparently he’s really good for a novice, but Poole knows this other bloke will row the arse off him.’ He looked up. ‘Milo Symons? Name ring any bells?’

  Lizzie was back at Chantry Cottage in time to give Grace her lunch. The prospect of Gill’s visit had begun to weigh heavily on her and she was wondering whether she might dream up an excuse and put her off. They’d been mates for years, fellow journos on the Pompey News, and they’d ended up forging a friendship that owed more to Gill’s pushiness than anything else. This was a woman who always needed a best friend, a mother confessor, someone she could rely on to share a drink or two and an account of her latest conquest.

  Last in a longish line of failed relationships had been with a Major Crimes D/I called Joe Faraday, much respected by Jimmy, who’d brought his life to an end with three packs of painkillers and a bottle of decent red. Gill had regarded Faraday’s suicide as a personal tragedy, hers rather than anyone else’s, although her claim to a special place in her new beau’s life had never stood up to serious scrutiny. Jimmy had discovered that his boss had shagged her just twice before locking his door and taking the phone off the hook.

  The real problem, in Lizzie’s view, was simple. Gill Reynolds had never mastered the knack of letting a relationship develop at its own pace. She had a bad habit of crowding her man from the off and never understood why thigh-length boots and a dab or two of Chanel wouldn’t guarantee the love affair of her dreams. In this respect Lizzie suspected that nothing would have changed and wasn’t at all sure whether she could cope with a couple of days of heavy-duty angst. Gill never arrived at any meeting without an agenda. Taking an interest in anyone else’s life was beyond her.

  But what could she say? And wasn’t company – of any description – a brighter prospect than yet another wet afternoon banged up in Chantry Cottage?

  The endless rain had made the front door stick again. She turned the key and gave it a kick at the bottom before stamping the mud from her wellies and wrestling the buggy indoors. For some reason she’d left her mobile in the kitchen. Half-expecting a text from Jimmy, she took it out onto the back patio and fired it up. She wasn’t wrong about a text, but oddly enough it came from Gill. She’d had to change her plans. Instead of descending on Tuesday she’d arrive tomorrow in time for lunch. ‘Lucky us,’ she’d texted at the end, ‘Can’t wait.’

  It was mid-afternoon before Suttle got to Tusker Farm. Constantine had yet to be upgraded to a full HOLMES 2 enquiry and in the absence of a statement reader, Houghton wanted Suttle to sort out the scraps of feedback from the marina, which were beginning to fatten into something more substantial. The house-to-house teams, while failing to unearth the bankable evidence that would turn Constantine into a fully fledged murder enquiry, were reporting widespread resentment of Kinsey and his behaviour.

  According to one resident, a mainstay of the Exmouth Quays development, this was a guy who’d never had any time for his neighbours. He openly flouted some of the by-laws by having midsummer barbecues on his balcony and riding his mountain bike around the marina basin. He never turned up at the community fund-raising events – Canapes on the Quay, Carols on the Quay – that had become such a feature of waterside life. He never put his hand in his pocket when appeals were launched for a commemorative bench or a fighting fund to battle a nearby development, and when she’d confronted him, knocking on his door and trying to shame him into writing a cheque, he’d told her to go away and get a life.

  None of this, of course, suggested grounds for dumping the guy off his own balcony and leaving his body to cool in the rain, but it confirmed a wider irritation. The landlord of the Beach pub, re-interviewed at his own request after the Sunday lunchtime drinkers had drifted away, confirmed that Kinsey had also upset a fair number of locals in the town, firstly by writing to the local paper and complaining about early-morning noise from fishermen putting to sea from the dock beneath his apartment, and later by mounting a vigorous defence of a bunch of developers planning yet another multi-storey block of flats within shouting distance of the marina. To upset these two very different groups of locals – working trawler men and middle-class worthies – took some talent, and in the view of the landlord Kinsey definitely had some kind of death wish. The interviewing D/C had underlined the phrase, bringing it to the attention of Houghton when he got back to Constantine’s temporary home.

  Suttle was thinking about it now, as he bumped the Impreza into the farmyard. Houghton wanted him to develop the intel picture on Kinsey – the kind of guy he’d been, the risks he’d run, the people he’d upset – and barely hours into the enquiry he was already tallying an ever-longer list of potential enemies. Paul Winter, a Pompey D/C who’d taught him everything he needed to know about the darker arts of CID work, had once told him that money, serious money, carried a smell of its own. At the time Suttle hadn’t really understood what Winter had been getting at, but his years on the tastier Major Crime jobs had wised him up. Money puts you in the bubble, he thought. And that’s when you’re truly vulnerable.

  The farmer’s wife answered Suttle’s knock. Molly Doyle had been wrong about a caravan. Half a field away, tucked beside the shelter of a hedge, he could see what looked like a mobile home.

  Suttle introduced himself. He said he
was looking for a Mr Milo Symons. The farmer’s wife was still studying Suttle’s warrant card.

  ‘In trouble is he?’ She didn’t seem surprised.

  ‘Not at all.’

  Suttle asked whether she’d been at home last night.

  ‘Of course I was. We both were.’

  ‘And does Mr Symons come in this way? Through the farmyard?’

  ‘No. They’ve got a separate entrance up beyond their place. It’s a gate we use to get the tractor into the field.’

  ‘So would you hear anything when they come and go?’

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On the wind. And Bess.’

  Bess, it turned out, was their sheepdog. Ears like a bat.

  ‘So last night?’

  ‘She heard nothing. Nothing that I can remember.’

  ‘Around midnight? Maybe later?’

  ‘Nothing. But the wind had died so she probably wouldn’t.’ Suttle brought the conversation to an end. Symons and his fancy woman had evidently been renting the mobile home for a couple of years. So far the farmer’s wife had no complaints. The woman dressed like a tart, but these days that was so common you barely noticed.

  Suttle thanked her and set off up the field. The grass was still damp underfoot but the sky was cloudless and there was a definite hint of the coming summer in the golden drifts of buttercups. Several fields away, Suttle could see lambs worrying their mums to death and he found himself thinking of Grace. There were lambs on a hobby farm up the lane from Chantry Cottage. Maybe Lizzie had wheeled their daughter up there for a look. Maybe.

  The mobile home was bigger than he’d expected. A line of washing was flapping in the breeze and a sodden cardboard box beside the door was brimming with crushed tinnies. Behind the mobile home, invisible from the farmhouse, Suttle found a white Transit van. The van was pocked with rust around the sills. There was paperwork all over the passenger seat, and half a cup of something that looked like tea was balanced on the dashboard. In the well beneath the glovebox, a litter of empty crisp packets.

  Suttle had phoned ahead, making sure Symons was available for interview. He’d wanted to talk to his partner too, but it seemed Tash was elsewhere.

  Symons came to the door. He was tall and thin, dark complexion, single ear stud, a mane of jet-black hair tied at the back with a twist of yellow ribbon. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt under an embroidered waistcoat. With the gypsy look went the hands of an artist: long fine-boned fingers, delicate wrists.

  ‘Come in. Yeah. Good.’ Symons dismissed the proffered warrant card with a wave of his hand. Already, he seemed to be saying, Suttle was some kind of mate.

  On the phone Suttle had been vague about the reason for his visit. Now he told Symons about Kinsey.

  ‘Dead? Shit. How did that happen?’ His amazement seemed genuine.

  Suttle said he didn’t know. In the circumstances it was his job to put together Kinsey’s last movements and try and understand what might have led to his death.

  ‘But the guy was cool with everything. Why . . .?’

  Suttle was looking around the space that obviously served as a living room. There was a built-in sofa that probably doubled as a spare bed and an Ikea rocking chair that had seen better days. The far end opened into a galley kitchen and Suttle could smell fresh coffee. But what took Suttle’s eye was the PC on the desk in the corner. An image hung on the screen, two bodies on a bed. One of them was Symons. Straddling him was a woman. The long fall of hair down her naked back was a violent shade of mauve.

  ‘That’s Tash.’ Symons laughed. ‘You want to see the rest?’

  Without waiting for an answer he stepped across to the desk. A single keystroke brought the sequence to life. Tash was moving very slowly, barely lifting her arse, her hands cupping her breasts. Symons’ eyes were closed. These people have been at it a while, Suttle thought. Years and years. Perfect control. Lots of practice.

  ‘Then this.’

  Symons bent forward. Tash seemed to be almost immobile, waiting, poised. Then, seconds later, she arched her back and grunted and the shot cut to a stretch of sand, black with birds erupting from their roost. White flashes from a thousand wings filled the screen, a dizzying explosion of movement as the camera held them in frame, slowly panning across the gleaming expanse of the estuary. Suttle was transfixed. He’d seen exactly this landscape only this morning. From Kinsey’s apartment.

  ‘This is some sort of movie?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s a rough cut. You want to see more?’

  Suttle shook his head. He had business to transact, questions to ask. Luke Golding, the young D/C who’d talked to Andy Poole, thought that Kinsey had backed Symons on some kind of project by bunging him money. Maybe this was it.

  ‘Tell me about yesterday.’ Suttle took a seat on the sofa. ‘Talk me through it.’

  Symons, sprawled in the rocker, described the race. They’d been great. It was his first ever race. 58.27. Total result.

  ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘Afterwards was great too.’ He described the pub. Toasting themselves in champagne was definitely a novelty. It was good, he said, to see Kinsey so relaxed. He deserved it. And so did everyone else.

  Suttle wanted to know about the impromptu party afterwards. Had Kinsey shown any signs of stress? Had Symons noticed anything that might account for what happened later?

  ‘The guy threw up. Then he went to bed.’

  ‘And the rest of you?’

  ‘We pushed off. Tash organised a cab.’

  ‘For everyone?’

  ‘No. She’d driven over. It’s a sports car. It’s only got room for two. The rest of the guys went off in the taxi.’

  ‘Leaving Kinsey by himself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what time did you get back here?’

  Symons thought about the question.

  ‘After midnight,’ he said at last. ‘Then we crashed.’

  ‘Anyone else see you?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘And this morning?’

  ‘I ran Tash up to Honiton and dropped her at the station. It’s her mum’s birthday. Normally you can get a train to Yeovil but on Sundays there’s a coach service. She was well pissed off.’ He grinned. ‘Back tonight though. I’m driving over to pick her up. You know Yeovil at all? Evil place.’

  Suttle shook his head and scribbled himself a couple of notes. There was something slightly childlike about this man. In ways he couldn’t quite define he reminded Suttle slightly of J-J, Joe Faraday’s deaf-mute son. The same hints of vulnerability. The same feeling that bits of the wiring didn’t quite connect.

  ‘So how did you come across Kinsey?’

  ‘I didn’t. It was Tash who met him first. Someone told her about the club after she’d seen the boats when she was out jogging and she went down to find out more. Kinsey was on the beach. He was still a bit of a novice himself in those days – he hadn’t bought the new boat – and they sort of shared notes. He bigged himself up from the off, did Kinsey, told Tash all about his penthouse apartment in the marina, how he’d watched the club boats from his window going up the estuary, and how he’d fancied getting involved. They went out together that morning, same boat, half experienced guys, half novices, and it was funny because Tash came back and told me how crap he was, completely out of time, always ahead of the stroke. Stick insect she called him.’

  ‘You were a rower then?’

  ‘No. It was Tash who got me into it. That was a bit later. She said it was brilliant and she was right. She’s like that, Tash. She’s the one who sorts me out. Always has done. Ever since the off.’

  They’d first met, he said, when he was in his early twenties. All his life he’d lived beside the river up in Topsham, but after leaving school with pretty much nothing to his name he’d bailed out of Devon and signed up for a film course in west London. Too much dope was doing his head in, and after a near-terminal bust-up with his dad he knew he had to
get his shit together. The film course included a chance to work with professional actors and one of them had been Tash.

  ‘We’d spent the afternoon shooting a whole load of stuff in some studios in Hammersmith. Afterwards we went to the pub, a place in Chiswick down by the Thames, and I was telling her about my own river, and what it meant to me, what it’s always meant to me, and how hard that feeling was to express, and she said film, you need to make a film about it, you need to dream up a story, or make something associative, an image-based thing, something that does justice to this feeling of yours. And you know what? That was the most wonderful thing I’d ever heard. It was like a door opening in my head, or maybe somewhere way down in here . . .’ He touched his chest, leaning forward in the rocker, trying to draw Suttle into this story of his. ‘Tease it out, she said. Take it in your hands. Nurture it, understand it, shape it, treasure it. Why? Because something’s calling you. Maybe it’s the spirit of the river. Maybe it’s something else. But either way you’re lucky. Because that kind of thing doesn’t happen very often. So be aware. Stay in tune. Listen to the river. And do it.’ His eyes found the PC on the desk. ‘She was right, too. And it’s worked.’

  Suttle smiled. He could imagine a conversation like this. It sounded more like therapy than idle pub chat. Symons was a good-looking guy, no question, and Suttle could picture this new woman in his life, probably older, undoubtedly wiser.

  ‘And this film has a story?’

  ‘Sure. It’s about the river. Actually it’s more than that. It’s a story about the river and a story about a love affair, about two people who live on the river, who are part of the river, who maybe are the river, its mirror image, its other self, the river made flesh. They live on an old barge. The barge sits on a mooring up off Dawlish Warren. That’s where the tide flows strongest, where the river talks loudest. These two people, the man, the woman, they have no names. They just are. They’re part of the river, part of each other. The word Tash uses is flux.’

  ‘Flux?’ Suttle was lost.