Minutes later, Houghton was gone. She had a meet with Nandy at force HQ in Exeter, and then she was due at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital for the post-mortem on Kinsey. She’d be back, fingers crossed, in time for a bite of lunch. By which time, the future of Constantine might be a great deal clearer.
Suttle went through the morning’s tasking for Houghton’s squad of D/Cs. In truth, the guys were already beginning to run out of doors to knock on and Suttle knew that the preliminary findings from the PM would probably be decisive. Evidence of injury to Kinsey before the fall would bump up the enquiry to a full murder investigation. Anything else, especially with Nandy at the helm, might well be curtains.
Already Suttle had started the process of applying for the dead man’s financial records, plus billing on his landline and mobile. It would be a day or two before the banks and the phone companies came through with anything solid and in the meantime Suttle needed to get a feel for exactly how this man had led his life. What did he do for a living? Where had his money come from? And who else might have shared his life in Regatta Court?
By late morning, with the help of a couple of phone calls, Suttle had the answers to most of these questions. Kinsey, it turned out, had been an engineer. For a while he’d worked for Boeing in Seattle. Afterwards, still living in the States, he’d run a one-man consultancy, Kittiwake, which specialised in wind-turbine technology. He’d come up with a new way of configuring the power train that converted blade movement to grid-ready electricity, and had sold the process to a major international corporation with operations across the globe. The proceeds of this deal appeared nowhere in the files at Suttle’s disposal but a conversation with a contact in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills put the figure at not less than $35 million. In three short years Kinsey had made himself a very rich man.
At this point, though, his success had been evidently soured by two developments. An industrial competitor, in the shape of a Swiss engineer called Henri Laffont, had threatened to sue Kinsey for patent infringement. Laffont claimed that Kinsey had ripped off key elements of his own wind-turbine design and owed him compensation that would have taken a huge bite out of the $35 million.
As far as Suttle could judge, this was an ongoing battle. Kinsey had refused Laffont’s claims point blank and hired a firm of expensive commercial lawyers, Zurich-based, to put the Swiss engineer back in his box. The last email in the file was dated 8 February 2011, barely two months ago. Laffont, it seemed, was currently working on a contract in Shanghai. He was due to fly into London ‘in early April’ and was demanding a meet. He was tired of dealing through attorneys and suggested they could sort out a settlement, amicable or otherwise, face to face. Kinsey didn’t seem to have replied to this suggestion but Suttle made a note to check on the seized PC. ‘Amicable or otherwise’ was an interesting phrase and he ringed it before putting the file aside.
Kinsey’s other source of grief was his ex-wife. He’d met Sonya in Seattle. Her half-brother lived in Bristol. Suttle had found a phone number in one of Kinsey’s files and given him a ring. Sonya, of course, needed to be made aware of Kinsey’s death, but the brother-in-law, whose name was Bill, was more than happy to fill in a little of the background.
His half-sister, he said, had been making a decent living in the real estate business when she married Kinsey, but the crash of 2008-9 had wiped her out. At this point Kinsey had decided to return to the UK to look for new business opportunities. With some reluctance Sonya followed, but the marriage was a disaster. After less than a year, she’d maxed out her credit cards, emptied the joint bank account, left a pile of plastic on Kinsey’s desk and flown back to Seattle. Since then she’d been fighting to extract every last cent from the divorce settlement. Even now, said Bill, she was still harassing Jay for money, and lately her demands had escalated. Only last week, to his certain knowledge, she’d been threatening to pay her ex-husband a personal visit.
Surprised by his candour, Suttle had asked Bill how things were between himself and his half-sister.
‘You want the truth?’ he’d said. ‘Those two folks deserved each other. Anything for money. And I mean anything.’
‘Do you see her at all, Sonya? Fly over for the occasional visit maybe?’
‘Never.’
‘And Kinsey?’
‘I wouldn’t spend a second with the guy. You’ve got an experience to share with him? A holiday, maybe? A trip to some nice Polynesian island? He’s been there already, probably owns the place. You’re proud of your new Prius? Want to show off about it a little? He tells you you’ve just made the dumbest purchase of your life. He knew everything about everything. He just didn’t need the other ten trillion people on the planet. This is a guy happiest in his own company. This stuff about the rowing is news to me. Those other guys must have had a lot of patience.’
The conversation had ended shortly afterwards. Reviewing his notes, Suttle knew he’d unearthed two fresh lines of enquiry, both of which needed serious attention. A multi-million-dollar settlement for patent infringement might offer ample motivation for a personal visit, while a vengeful ex-wife — under the right circumstances — could do worse than dump her ex-husband off his fifth-floor balcony.
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.