‘What are the green ticks?’ Suttle was still looking at the calendar.
‘I go running. The green ticks make me feel virtuous. Anything else you want to know about my social life?’
Suttle looked harder. Not much seemed to have happened over the last fortnight.
‘You find the Job knackers you?’
‘Yeah. But for the wrong reasons.’
She shot him a look but wouldn’t take the conversation further. She nodded at the vegetable basket beneath the work surface and asked him to sort out an onion and some garlic. Tomato paste in the fridge. Olive oil in the cupboard. She also fancied something to drink.
Suttle was looking at the remaining bottles of wine. The red he’d bought had been on offer, a South African Merlot that Lizzie adored.
‘You’ve got a corkscrew?’
‘Silly question. Drawer on the left.’
They sat down to eat half an hour or so later. The lounge diner extended the full depth of the house: magnolia walls, a big plasma TV and a line of stuffed animals carefully arranged on the Ikea sofa. This house, Suttle thought, might have belonged to Kinsey. No clutter. None of the chaos of normal life. No photos of family or friends. Just somewhere to crash after yet another day among the performance reviews.
Suttle poured more wine and asked how long she’d been in Modbury.
‘Just over a year. John and I went our separate ways and this was all I could afford. We used to have a place in Tavistock. It was sweet.’
‘John?’
‘My husband. He was a D/C on the drugs squad. The best. The very best. And that’s not just my opinion.’
She’d met him, she said, on the operation that had taken her to Pompey five years ago. He’d been driving the intel and she’d fancied him from the off. He was an older man, a grizzly bear of a guy, rock solid. The drugs operation had won her a commendation from the Chief, plus lots of media exposure, and she and John had got married within months.
‘That job was a real result,’ she said. ‘One of those moments when you think you’re immortal.’
Suttle nodded, telling her he’d been through something similar himself back in Pompey. He explained about the u/c operation to pot Bazza Mackenzie and all the plaudits that had followed. This guy had dicked them around for years and it was sweet to have finally nailed him.
‘Literally?’
‘Yeah. It got heavy at the end and the ninjas had to take him out. Incredible evening. He ended up in a shop full of snakes he happened to own. He was about to do something evil to the key informant and we had no choice. Bam-bam. You’re right. After that you feel you can do anything.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘Afterwards I came down here.’
‘Good move?’
‘The best.’
‘You mean that?’
‘I do, yeah. But it’s not just about me, is it?’
There was a silence. Then Hamilton asked him whether he wanted to talk about it. Suttle told her about finding the cottage, about moving the family down, about living with a woman who couldn’t wait to take her life in another direction.
‘Why?’
‘Because living in the country drives her nuts.’
‘You still love her?’
‘I do, yes.’
‘Then sort it out.’
‘I can’t. I try and I can’t. It just doesn’t work.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s become someone different, a different person. Because everything’s different. Have you ever had kids?’
‘No.’
‘They don’t help. We’ve got a daughter. She’s lovely. I adore her. But she doesn’t help.’
‘That’s harsh.’
‘But it’s true, believe me. If there’s something wrong in a relationship, if something’s not working, a child makes everything worse.’
Hamilton nodded and reached for the bottle. Her third glass. When she offered Suttle a refill, he shook his head. He wanted to know more about Hamilton’s marriage.
‘That didn’t work either.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I couldn’t let go of the Job. I’m good. I know I’m good. I’m ambitious too. It’s not going to end with D/I, not if I have anything to do with it, but these days that kind of pressure eats you up. You have to watch your back all the time. You have to make the right friends in the right places, walk the walk, talk the talk, make sure there’s nothing in your in-tray that’s going to come back and bite you in the arse. At the end of every day you’re wasted. And since you’ve asked, there’s another problem too.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’m two people. At work I’m Ms Efficient. Ms Gimme. Ms Sort It. But you know something? It’s all pretend. I do pretend brilliantly. Pretend decisive. Pretend organised. Pretend savvy. People look at me and think wow, that woman’s got it cracked. But you want to know the truth?’ She touched her chest. ‘In here it’s all mush. I haven’t got a clue what’s going on. It’s horrible. Just horrible. Some days I think I’m going mad.’
‘And John? Your husband?’
‘He saw right through it. He understood. He tried to make me get a grip, do something about myself, take the Job less seriously, but I never could. He’d got the Job totally sussed. He knew exactly what he was good at and he knew exactly where to draw the line. I don’t do lines. Which is why the marriage turned to rat shit. John gave up in the end and I don’t blame him. You’re right. You become strangers to each other. And after that you’re dead in the water.’
In the end, she said, John applied for a job in another force. She knew that it had been for her sake more than his and the gesture had touched her deeply.
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘Dorset. He works out of Bournemouth. They’re lucky to have him.’
‘You’re divorced?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you still talk?’
‘Yes. Occasionally.’
‘And that’s OK?’
‘It’s weird. It’s like we were never married in the first place. You know my theory? We’ve all got a default setting and no matter what you do it’ll always reset.’
‘So what’s yours?’
‘Don’t go there.’
She went into the kitchen to fetch another bottle of wine. Suttle was looking at the stuffed animals on the sofa. The biggest, the elephant, was pink.
Hamilton had appeared at the kitchen door.
‘Red or white?’
‘You choose. I’m driving.’
‘Yeah?’ She lingered a moment, then disappeared again. Suttle heard the pop of the cork. When she came back, Suttle asked her about the running.
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That was another drama. There’s a bunch of local joggers here and I joined up. They go out a couple of nights a week, decent distances, nice enough people I thought at first, but then some of the guys turned out to be pretty gross. We’d go to the pub afterwards and they’d find out you were living alone and after that they just wanted to get into your knickers. It wasn’t anything personal. They were all happily married, or that’s what they’d tell you, but then they’d come on to me like it was some kind of favour. It was so blatant. They assumed I couldn’t wait to get fucked. Like I say. Totally gross.’
In the end, she said, she’d abandoned the group outings and started running by herself. She had a handful of favourite circuits and lately she’d been wondering about getting a dog for company when winter came and the nights drew in. Either way she felt the exercise was keeping her half sane but there were moments when she doubted even that.
‘It’s really hard to explain. Some nights when I go out I take me with me. Then other nights I’m running with a total stranger. Does that make sense? Is that normal?’
Suttle laughed. Mercifully, he always excused himself serious exercise. He asked to use the loo. She directed him upstairs. Afterwards, drying his hands, Suttle could hear the clatter of plates in the kitchen. Her bedroom lay across the tiny landing at the top of the stairs. The door was open and he could see a pair of running shoes abandoned on the carpet. He stepped inside. The bed was turned down. A Tiffany-style lamp on the bedside table cast a soft light across the whiteness of the sheet. There were more stuffed animals on the duvet, partly covered by a powder-blue towelling gown. Over the bed, hanging on the wall, a framed poster of Amy Winehouse.