The bar was empty. Suttle ordered a Guinness, sensing at once that the hotel was on the skids. One look at the clientele in the adjacent restaurant told him that Dobreslaw, the Pole, had taken the whole operation downmarket. Coach-loads of pensioners from up north were tucking into mountains of chicken nuggets. There wasn’t a soul under sixty-five, and when a guy in a shiny tux arrived to announce a bingo session afterwards, Suttle knew that this was the last place that any 6.57 would show up. The Pole had bought the hotel for a song and carefully destroyed Bazza’s hard-won reputation as a hotelier of serious quality. Revenge, in the ongoing war between the two cities, couldn’t have been sweeter.
Depressed, Suttle swallowed the Guinness and crossed the road to the seafront. No closer to fending off his new friends, he knew there was no way he was going to tackle the long drive home until he’d settled down. Maybe a walk by the sea. Maybe another pint or two. Anything to shake himself free of the troubling suspicion that life was beginning to gang up on him.
Lizzie spent the evening alone with Grace. After putting her daughter to bed, she drifted around the kitchen wondering what to make for supper. She’d no idea when Jimmy might be back and had half-expected a call by now. In the end she settled for making a salad with boiled eggs and new potatoes. By gone nine, when he still hadn’t appeared, she loaded a plate on a tray and ate a glum supper in front of a repeat of Shameless. At ten came the news. By now she was seriously worried. What if he’d had some kind of accident on the way home? Far more likely, what if his attempts to head off the threat to their little family had gone horribly wrong? She was on the point of putting a call through to A amp; E in Pompey when the phone rang. It was Jimmy. She knew at once he’d been drinking.
‘Where are you?’
‘Southsea.’
‘Still?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s complicated. I just wanted. .’ He tailed off.
‘Wanted what? What did you want?’
‘It’s hard, my love. It’s just hard.’
‘What’s just hard? For fuck’s sake, Jimmy. I’m sitting here waiting for you. We both are. So when are you back?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’
Lizzie was staring at the dodgy window. It was open again. Her clever wedge must have dropped out. Great.
Suttle was trying to apologise. He’d talked to someone he thought might help. Afterwards he’d had a bit of a think, trying to work out exactly what to do. This thing’s really tricky, he kept saying. It’s not as simple as you might expect.
Lizzie had ceased to be interested. A cold hard anger had iced what was left of her patience. She was alone in the middle of nowhere with an infant daughter and a bunch of lunatics trying to barge into her life. The very least she wanted was her husband back home to take care of them both. Yet here he was, 130 miles away, pissed as a rat.
‘So what’s going to happen?’ she asked.
There was a long silence. In the background Lizzie thought she caught the parp of a ship’s siren. Then Suttle was back on the line.
‘Fuck knows,’ he said. And rang off.
Suttle walked and walked, wondering whether he should drive home. The third pub had been a mistake, and he’d known it, but after the fourth pint he hadn’t much cared, a feeling of release that had taken him by surprise. The temptation now was to get back on the phone, bell a couple of his ex-colleagues, seek a little advice. That way, he told himself, he’d at least have something to show for his evening in Pompey, but the moment he tried to imagine these conversations the more he realised the idea was a non-starter. These guys would suss at once that he was shit-faced. He’d left this city with a decent reputation. Why put all that at risk?
The cheapest Southsea B amp; Bs were in Granada Road. By now it was raining. The first three doors he knocked on didn’t answer. The fourth was opened by an Asian guy in a grease-stained Pompey shirt. Yes, he had a room upstairs. Forty-five quid cash. In advance.
Suttle peeled off the notes, too knackered to barter. The room was horrible: pink bedspread, cracked handbasin, no shade on the overhead bulb, mauve carpet, everything stinking of cigarettes. Suttle lay on his back, staring up. There were damp patches on the ceiling and canned laughter from the TV in the next room. Forget the TV and the fags, he told himself, and he might easily have been at home. The dripping tap. The draught through the window stirring the thin strip of curtain. The overpowering evidence that someone didn’t care, that someone should have tried harder. The thought sobered him. Lizzie deserved better than this. He reached for his mobile and keyed her number. It rang and rang before going onto divert. He stared at it, perplexed, then tried again. Still no answer. Only on his third attempt did Lizzie answer.
‘Are you coming home?’ Her voice was cold.
‘I’ve hurt you,’ he said.
‘You’re right. So when are you coming home?’
‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’ll be up first thing. Should be back by-’
He broke off, staring at the phone. She’d hung up. He shut his eyes. For a minute or two he tried to think of nothing. When he opened them again, the damp patches, the canned laughter and the sour reek of a million cigarettes were still there. Rolling over, he hammered on the thin partition wall.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ he yelled.
Nothing happened. He beat on the wall again. Nothing. Finally he rolled off the bed and went out into the corridor. The door to the adjoining room was unlocked. He pushed it open. The room was empty. He bent to the TV and ripped the plug out of the socket in the skirting board.
Back in his own room, he sat on the bed, his elbows on his knees. Ten to midnight. At length he reached for the mobile again. He’d stored Gina Hamilton’s number only yesterday. She answered on the second ring.
‘Who is this?’
‘Jimmy. Jimmy Suttle.’
‘What do you want?’
Her voice wasn’t as hostile as he might have expected. He even sensed a a hint of warmth when she asked what he was up to.
‘Fuck knows,’ he said.
‘Where are you?’
‘Pompey. This is a room you will not believe.’
‘What room?’
Suttle tried to explain but gave up. When he tried to pretend a renewed interest in Tom Pendrick she saw through it at once.
‘What are you after?’ she said.
Suttle stared at the rain dripping down the window pane. Good question.
‘A meet. A drink,’ he said at last. ‘I need someone to talk to. You call it.’
‘You’re serious?’
‘Yeah.’ He’d shut his eyes again. ‘I think I am.’
Lizzie lay in bed. Grace’s cot was beside her. Lizzie had moved it in as a precaution. If anything happened, she told herself, better that they faced it together.
The last couple of hours the wind had got up. She pulled the duvet closer, buried herself in its warmth, tried not to listen to the noises outside in the garden, but every creak, every sigh, every rustle in the long grass beyond the patio sparked another image. Someone watching. Someone waiting. Someone stealing ever closer to the gaping window downstairs.
Once she switched on the light and risked a look at her watch. 03.17. In a couple of hours a pale grey light would wash through the thin curtains. After that, God willing, she might sleep. In the meantime she had to fight this sense of welling panic, this certainty that things could only get worse, and to do that she had to concentrate on something amusing, something positive, a single image that might keep the busy darkness at bay.
She tried and tried, raiding her memories from Gill’s visit. The ducklings in the stream at the bottom of the garden. The horses on the beach the afternoon they’d walked to Straight Point. The expression on Grace’s tiny face when her mum had staggered to her feet after the first session on the rowing machine. For a moment or two this worked. But then the images faded and the darkness crowded back in and she flailed around in her mind’s eye, looking for some place to hide.