‘Known her long?’ She was smiling.
‘Not that long.’
‘Business or pleasure?’
‘Both.’
‘So how’s life in Devon?’
‘Fraught.’
He returned to the table with the drinks. Marie looked up at him. The last thing Suttle wanted was silence.
‘Been somewhere nice?’ he enquired.
‘Madeira. Big mistake.’
‘No good?’
‘The weather was lovely. But you need to be over seventy to have a conversation.’
‘You went by yourself?’
‘No.’ Marie glanced at her watch. ‘So what’s this about?’
Suttle saw no point in glossing over what had happened. A bunch of Pompey guys were giving him a hard time. They wanted to lay hands on Paul Winter and thought Suttle had the key to his door. All this he could cope with but he drew the line at pressure on his wife and daughter. They’d staked out his house. They’d photographed Lizzie and Grace. The threat was explicit. We know where you live. We know who you love. He needed this kind of stuff to stop.
‘What’s any of this got to do with me?’
‘These people were mates of your husband. They think Winter needs a seeing-to.’
‘Maybe they’re right.’
‘Maybe they are, but that’s not the point. Number one I haven’t a clue where Winter is. Number two I wouldn’t tell them if I did.’
‘Do they know that?’
‘Yes.’
‘You told them?’
‘I did.’
‘And?’
‘They weren’t pleased.’
For the first time Suttle detected a flicker of approval. Was she applauding the heavies who’d driven down to Devon? Or was there something in Suttle’s defiance that had won her respect? In truth he didn’t know but sensed there was no point in taking his foot off the throttle.
‘I could take this to the police,’ he said.
‘You are the police.’
‘I know. But I could make it official, make life hard for these guys. That’s not something I want to do.’
‘Why not? I thought that’s what you people were for?’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘It never is.’ She leaned forward, toying with her drink. ‘You know what I liked about Winter? Apart from the fact that he made me laugh? I liked his mind. I liked his deviousness. He did us a lot of favours, that man. I’d be the first to admit it. Which makes what he did all the more unforgivable. We took him in. We treated him as one of the family. And then he betrayed us.’
Suttle nodded. He wasn’t here for a moral debate. If you were looking for devious, serious devious, Paul Winter was world class. All Suttle wanted to do was to get these monkeys off his back.
Marie hadn’t finished. Winter, she said, had often talked about Suttle. This was the young kid he’d turned into a detective of real quality. More to the point, Jimmy Suttle had remained one of the few ex-colleagues prepared to give Winter the time of day.
‘Is that true?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. More or less. I’d no time for what he’d done and I told him so, but yeah, we stayed friends.’
‘He told me you once saved his life.’
‘I did what I could. He was a sick man.’
‘He appreciated that.’
‘I’m sure he did.’
‘And he appreciated the way you stuck with him.’
‘That was different. I had a job to do. There was always a reason we got together.’
‘On his part?’
‘On mine.’
‘I see.’ She was watching him carefully. ‘So does that make my husband’s death your fault?’
‘Yes. We never set out to kill him. . but yes. It’s my job to put people like your husband away and that’s exactly what we did.’
‘We?’
‘The team.’
‘Including Winter?’
‘Obviously. It wouldn’t have happened without him. I’ve no idea how much you know about all this, Mrs Mackenzie, but your husband exposed Winter to situations that seriously upset him.’
‘Are you telling me that came as some kind of surprise? That’s what he signed up for.’
‘Really? Murder? In cold blood? Not just the target but the target’s girlfriend? Someone this guy had known for a couple of days? Someone who never deserved to be killed?’
Marie blinked. She knows nothing of this, Suttle thought. Absolutely fuck all.
‘This is nonsense,’ she said. She didn’t sound convinced.
Suttle shook his head. The day before he’d ghosted himself into another life, Winter had shared a story or two that explained his decision to grass Mackenzie up. One of them had to do with a contract killing in the shell of a hotel near Malaga. Winter had been the sole witness when the gunman stepped into a half-built bar and blew two people away. Minutes later he was still picking tiny gobbets of brain off his best suit. The memory had haunted him ever since and the nightmare had worsened as the prospect of a European Arrest Warrant drew steadily closer. The last thing Winter wanted was the rest of his life in a Spanish prison cell.
‘Are you going to tell me more?’ Marie was reaching for her drink.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I promised him I wouldn’t.’
‘Do you always keep your word?’
‘I try.’
‘That’s admirable.’ She offered Suttle a cold smile. ‘Tell me something else then.’
‘What?’
‘This friendship with Winter. Do you think he deserved you?’
‘That’s a silly fucking question.’
‘Is it? Is it really? I trusted that man. I trusted him with our lives. And you know what? He screwed us.’
Suttle fought the waves of scalding anger that threatened to engulf him. For reasons he’d never understood, he also regarded Winter as family.
‘I’m sorry.’ He ducked his head. ‘I’m not here to lose my rag.’
‘Whatever. I just want you to know how I might feel about it.’
‘It?’
‘Winter. He killed my husband.’
‘Got him killed.’
‘Sure. And from where I’m sitting that’s hard to forgive.’
A silence settled on the conversation. Then Marie pushed her glass away and stood up.
‘It’s been a revelation,’ she said. ‘And I mean that.’
Suttle didn’t know what to do with himself afterwards. It was still early, barely half past seven. He’d set up this conversation in the hope that he might be able to sweet-talk Marie into calling off Bazza’s attack dogs, but blood and battle ties were thick in this city and he was beginning to suspect that the guys he’d met down in Exeter were way beyond listening to the likes of Bazza’s widow. Even if she put the word out, tried to call them to heel, Suttle doubted they’d listen. Winter was a grass. Winter had fucked Bazza over. Winter deserved everything that was coming to him.
Suttle left the restaurant and walked the half-mile to the Royal Trafalgar Hotel. Barely a year ago this had been the jewel in Bazza’s crown. A fourth AA rosette was living proof that he could cut it as a legitimate businessman, and he’d relished the evenings when he hosted discreet dinners for the city’s movers and shakers, paving the way for his bid to become one of the city’s two MPs. It was Winter who’d sussed that the general election would trigger Mackenzie’s downfall, and so it had proved. With his commercial empire in free fall, Bazza had staked everything on a final throw of the dice. His campaign for Portsmouth North had burned money he didn’t have, and by the time he died, taken out by the Tactical Firearms Unit in a shop called Pompey Reptiles, he was effectively bankrupt.
The Royal Trafalgar had gone to a rival businessman, a heavyset Pole from nearby Southampton, which made him a Scummer. Suttle paused at the door and then stepped inside. The bar lay beyond reception. This was where the 6.57 would gather for a drink on football nights, reliving old campaigns over a couple of Stellas, and Suttle half-hoped that a face or two would still be around. Maybe he should talk to these people in person, get them to recognise that Winter was history. Maybe Marie had been the wrong place to start.