Western Approaches

by Graham Hurley

  ‘Yeah.’ He lifted his glass. ‘Happy anniversary, eh?’

  Lizzie didn’t know where to take this conversation next. As a working journalist she’d have had no problems. There were ways you could get people to open up. But this was different. She felt she’d begun to know this man a little. She’d shared something precious with him. She might have fucked up just now in the double but she’d fallen in love with rowing and that she owed to Pendrick.

  ‘You want to talk about it?’ she said at last.

  ‘You want to listen?’

  ‘Of course.’ Lizzie fought an urge to reach for his hand. ‘Tell me.’

  He gazed at her then looked away. For a moment Lizzie thought she’d blown it – too hasty, too blatant – but then he was back with her. He wanted to start somewhere else. He wanted to start in Thailand.

  He and his wife, he said, had spent the best part of three years bumming round the world with a couple of surfboards and not much else. They’d spent time in California, in Oz, in New Zealand. He was an electrician by trade, and Kate had nursing qualifications, and whenever the money ran out they’d work for a couple of months then hit the beaches again.

  ‘Is that when you got your scar?’ Lizzie had been dying to ask.

  ‘Yeah. I got dumped on a reef down near Melbourne. Place called Suicide Beach. Split my face open from here to here . . .’ His finger tracked down from the corner of his eye. ‘Thank Christ Kate was there. She stopped most of the bleeding and got me to a hospital. My own bloody fault.’

  ‘It didn’t put you off?’

  ‘Never. Surfing’s a drug. You can’t get enough.’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘It was. Kate and I? We had nothing in the world except the ocean. It’s amazing how rich that can make you feel.’

  ‘I’m sure. Did Kate think that way as well?’

  ‘Most of the time.’ He nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  After New Zealand, he said, they took a flight to Bangkok, bought an old camper van from a Scouser heading home and drove south.

  ‘You know Thailand at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The best bits are down by the Malay border. We ended up in a village just inland from the beach, place called Ao Lok. We spent the whole summer there, Mr and Mrs Idle, just surfing, swimming, making friends with the locals, totally lovely people. It was a brilliant time.’

  After a while, he said, they’d become part of the village. They were renting a hut from someone who’d gone off to work in Phuket. Pendrick would do the odd wiring job for various neighbours while Kate would help out with the kids when they got sick. In return, families would give them food and invite them along for the party when a daughter was getting married or a long-lost cousin flew in from Europe or the States.

  ‘It was like we belonged.’ He was smiling. ‘It was a nice feeling.’

  ‘And Kate?’

  ‘She was cool with it. In fact she loved it. I think it gave her something we’d never had before. We both came from broken homes. The last thing these people were was broken.’

  Ao Lok, he said, was as perfect as perfect can be.

  ‘Like how? Tell me.’

  ‘You could hear the surf at night through the trees. We lived on fruit and bread and fish and rice. Like I say, we were in the water most days. Kate used to look after this little boy, Niran, and she taught him to swim. Once he’d got his confidence, I’d paddle him out on the surf board. He loved it. Fantastic little kid. Always grinning. Happiness on legs. We wanted to kidnap him. Tuck him in the back of the camper and drive away. But what would be the point? Where in the world would ever be more perfect than Ao Lok?’

  Lizzie mistook this as a question. She was trying to offer something similar in her own life but failed completely. Pendrick hadn’t finished.

  ‘You know something really strange?’ he said. ‘For years we’d always been moving on. It becomes a kind of habit, maybe stronger than that, maybe a kind of addiction. You’re convinced there’s always something better round the next corner, and so you look and you look and then you find somewhere like Ao Lok and you realise you’ve found it. It’s the end of the line. It’s where you belong. It’s where you want to stay. Maybe for ever. Except we couldn’t. Because it became impossible.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Daft question.’

  Pendrick got up to fetch another Guinness. Then he was back.

  ‘Boxing Day.’ He wiped his mouth. ‘We’re up and about and Kate’s taken Niran down to the beach. I’ve told them I’ll be along later. We’ve sold the camper and I’m trying to sort an old moped we’ve just bought. Next thing I know, there’s this roaring noise, a bit like thunder. It gets louder and louder then there are people running up from the beach through the trees. They’re yelling about a huge wave coming. I run down towards the beach and get there in time to see this wave breaking way out in the bay. They’re right. It’s vast. Kate’s down there too. The water is being sucked out to sea ahead of the wave and she’s running after Niran. By the time she catches him, the wave’s on top of them both. That’s the last I saw of the kid. No one ever found him.’

  ‘And Kate?’

  ‘She survived. Sort of.’

  Afterwards, he said, he and Kate went to America. They’d made friends a while back with a couple from California, surfers like themselves. Kate was really close to the woman – nice girl, half Sri-Lankan. They picked up casual jobs for a while, then got green cards, which made it all legit. They were still spending time by the ocean, he said, but it was never the same.

  ‘That was five years ago.’ He was studying his hands. ‘Time’s supposed to be the healer, isn’t it? Time’s supposed to make the difference. No chance. Kate had lost it. She became someone else.’

  Lizzie nodded. This, at last, sounded familiar. She was getting to know a lot about strangers in her life.

  ‘Difficult,’ she said simply.

  ‘It was, believe me. And it was especially hard because I couldn’t see an end to it. There was no way Kate could make peace with what had happened because there was no peace to make. Ao Lok and Niran and all the rest of it had taken us to a place we could never get back to. And once that happens, believe me, you’re fucked.’

  Lizzie reached for his hand. It seemed the simplest thing in the world.

  ‘So what did you do?’ she said.

  ‘In the end, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I figured we had to do something big, something amazing. Double or quits time. The ocean again. Another crap decision.’

  They’d saved like crazy for a couple of years and moved east to Cape Cod. Backers had paid for the boat and the provisions and everything else they needed, and they’d made contact with one of the charities that had sprung up after the tsunami. They’d put together a support team in a town called Woods Hole and spent a week or two rowing up and down the coast to get the feel of the boat.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We went for it. April’s supposed to be kind, and to be fair the weather wasn’t that bad, but what nobody ever tells you about is the rowing, the routine, the sheer fucking monotony of going on and on, day after day, just on and on. If you’re not careful, if you’re not strong, something like that can break your heart.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘You’re talking about me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I more or less survived.’

  ‘But Kate?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘It broke her heart?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked up. His eyes were glassy. He gave Lizzie’s hand a squeeze and then withdrew his own.

  ‘We had a couple of storms on the way over.’ He reached for his drink. ‘In that kind of sea there’s no way you can keep rowing so you get into this shithole of a cabin, the pair of you, and try and make sure the hatch is watertight, and just ride the storm out. This kind of
stuff can go on for days. The cabin’s tiny, just room for the two of you. Kate had done her best to cheer the place up. She’d put photos everywhere, places we’d been, friends we were missing, but it’s dark most of the time because you’re trying to preserve the batteries, and the boat’s all over the place and you start to recognise the pattern of the waves, the intervals before they hit you, and you realise after a while that you’re just helpless, a sitting target, tense as fuck, waiting for the big one.’

  ‘And did it come?’

  ‘Yeah. Middle of the night. Turned us over. Total capsize. Kate was crying. She wanted out. She’d had enough. In the end the boat bobbed up again, righted itself, but she cried for hours, really quietly, no big drama. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could say. She’d gone. It was hopeless.’

  Lizzie wanted to know if this was when she disappeared. Pendrick shook his head. That happened weeks later. By the next day, he said, the storm had blown itself out. They did their best to get everything back together again, to lash stuff down, to figure out what was missing and what wasn’t, but the truth was that the fight had gone out of them.

  ‘You lose heart,’ he said. ‘Because you keep realising there’s something else you’ve lost, something else you can’t put your hand on. It’s a bit like being burgled. This stuff’s personal. It hurts.’

  The worst, he said, was a stone that Kate had kept from the beach at Ao Lok. She’d hung onto it from the day Niran had disappeared, and now it too had gone.

  ‘We looked for it everywhere. We emptied the cabin, shook everything out, looked under the thwarts, tore the boat apart, but it had gone. That did it for her. After that, I knew she’d had enough.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘She wanted to end it all. Slip overboard. Go where Niran had gone.’

  ‘And that’s what happened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you talk about it? Before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Good question.’ His glass was empty again. Lizzie wondered whether to buy him another Guinness but knew this wasn’t the moment. Her hand was back in his.

  ‘You know something about the sea?’ He nodded out beyond the promenade.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It puts you to the test. Take on a voyage like we did, day after day, and if there’s the slightest weakness in the relationship, the sea will find you out. You set off on a high. You think you’re immortal. You think you’ll conquer the world. And then it turns out you’re wrong.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘We got found out.’

  ‘Because of Niran?’

  ‘Because of me.’

  ‘You blame yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I should have been bigger, stronger, more attentive, more loving, more understanding, more . . .’ He shrugged. ‘What the fuck do I know?’

  ‘You know everything. Because you were there. And from where I’m sitting I doubt there’s anything else you could have done. We’re talking serious depression, right? Depression’s a horrible thing. It eats you away inside. You try really hard to get on top of it, you think you’ve got it nailed, and then you wake up next day and it’s still there. That’s Kate . . . no?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was studying her. ‘So how come you know all this?’

  Lizzie held his gaze. Then she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ she muttered.

  It was dark by the time Suttle decided to make the call. He’d put together a rudimentary stew and boiled a panful of rice. Twice he’d tried to call Lizzie but both times her mobile was on divert. There was no more Stella in the fridge and he couldn’t find the remains of Gill Reynolds’ Stolly.

  ‘Gina? Jimmy.’

  ‘Hi.’ She sounded far away. Non-committal.

  ‘I was just wondering about a meet.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yeah. We’re still on?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She paused. ‘Do you always call this time of night? Only I might have difficulty getting my head round that.’

  ‘Round what?’

  ‘Becoming your answering service.’

  ‘That’s not the way it is.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Tell me more.’

  ‘Like I said last night, I just need to talk.’

  ‘About Pendrick?’

  ‘About me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s what I want to talk about.’

  Another silence, longer this time.

  ‘Tell me something, Jimmy. Are you married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Kids?’

  ‘A daughter. Grace. She’s asleep upstairs.’

  ‘And do you love her?’

  ‘Yes. Very much.’

  ‘I meant your wife.’

  It was Suttle’s turn to hesitate. The silence stretched and stretched.

  ‘That’s a no then,’ he said at last.

  ‘No to what?’

  ‘No to a meet. No to a conversation. I just thought . . . you know . . . sometimes you meet someone and you think there’s something there and you need someone to share stuff with and you lift the phone and . . . whatever.’

  ‘That someone would be me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you think I felt the same? When we met?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we’re still talking. Because you haven’t told me to fuck off.’

  ‘You think I’d do that?’

  ‘I do, yes.’

  ‘Good, because you’re right.’

  ‘You’re telling me to fuck off?’

  ‘No, Jimmy, I’m not. I’m telling you to sort out exactly what you’re after in that lovely head of yours and then pay me the compliment of a decent conversation . . .’ she paused ‘. . . at a reasonable hour.’

  ‘Like tomorrow?’

  ‘Like when you start to make some kind of sense. I’m in bed, by the way. If that’s important.’

  The phone went dead. Suttle could hear Grace beginning to stir. Within seconds she was crying. Suttle brought her down and settled in the rocker again, trying to calm her.

  It was gone eleven when Lizzie finally returned. She stood in the open doorway, framed against the chaos of the kitchen. Both the stew and the rice were cold.

  Suttle asked her about the rowing.

  ‘Fabulous evening.’ Lizzie was grinning. ‘The best.’

  Six

  FRIDAY, 15 APRIL 2011

  D/I Carole Houghton was back from Brittany. She’d been enchanted by Saint-Malo but despite some promising intel she still hadn’t found the head.

  ‘So how’s Constantine?’

  Suttle brought her up to date. The Coroner’s file was coming along nicely but he thought it a shame not to explore a new lead or two.

  ‘Like?’

  Suttle explained about the possibility that Kinsey might have had a gaming buddy.

  ‘Where would that take us?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, boss, until I bottom it out.’

  ‘And you can do that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was a bold claim and he’d no idea whether Luke Golding could deliver, but Constantine was no longer a mission for the faint-hearted. With everything else falling apart around him, Suttle had decided to pile all his chips on a single square. Shit or bust wasn’t a phrase he’d ever had much time for, but just now he told himself he didn’t have an option. One way or another, something good had to come out of this new life of his.

  ‘Then there’s a couple of other developments.’

  He told her about the Scenes of Crime find in Kinsey’s bedroom, the single blonde hair, and about Peggy Brims keeping watch on the lift. Houghton was even less impressed.

  ‘He was a rich man, Jimmy. There’s nothing wrong with buying a sex life if he needed it that badly. What’s in it for us?’

  ‘Here, b
oss.’

  Suttle handed her the photos retrieved from Kinsey’s iPhone. A very beautiful Thai girl was sprawled on Kinsey’s bed doing something inventive with an empty bottle of Krug. The little wave with her spare hand was far from convincing.

  ‘You’re telling me she did it? She killed him?’ Houghton was having a bad day. First the still-missing head. Now her newest D/S trying to turn a probable suicide into something wildly implausible.

  ‘Not her, boss. Not the girl.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. It’s just part of the picture.’

  ‘And you think the Coroner will be interested in this?’

  ‘Probably not. But maybe we should.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Kinsey simply wasn’t the kind of guy to top himself.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Me. And pretty much everyone who knew him.’

  ‘Have you talked to Mr Nandy about this?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He doesn’t agree. He thinks people are unknowable.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got a point.’

  ‘Sure. And maybe he needs to save on the budget.’

  There was a long silence. Suttle wondered whether he’d gone too far. Houghton was studying the photo again.

  ‘She’s not blonde.’ She looked up. ‘So maybe you ought to find someone else who is.’

  Molly Doyle, it turned out, worked as a solicitor at a partnership in Exmouth town centre. In answer to Suttle’s phone call, the Viking had freed up half an hour at lunchtime and was happy to help him in whatever way she could.

  Suttle found her in an office at the top of the building. She was wearing a black suit, smartly cut. Her nails were carefully varnished and she’d applied a little make-up to hide the shadows beneath her eyes. The only concession to the woman Suttle had met on Sunday morning was a playful pair of black plastic earrings.

  ‘You’ve heard about the little ceremony we’re having for Kinsey?’ She told him about the wreath and the escort of boats from the club. The weather forecast, she said, wasn’t brilliant, but fingers crossed they’d be able to launch.

  She fetched Suttle a coffee from the machine down the corridor. When she got back she wanted to know how he was getting on.