‘Yes.’
‘There aren’t any, sir. Not immediately. Not that I can see.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘I suggest we charge them anyway. And leave it to the jury.’
‘You mean the CPS.’
‘Of course.’
‘Charge them with what?’
‘Theft, obviously. Plus murder.’
There was a silence. Bold move. Two of the D/Cs exchanged glances. Rosie Tremayne was looking at her hands.
‘But we have no evidence, Jimmy. All we have is supposition, which, if my memory serves me correctly, is where we began.’
‘I still think he was killed.’
‘By them? By these two?’
‘Everything points that way. Motive. Opportunity. You said it yourself, sir. Other people are a mystery. No one really knows. What you see isn’t necessarily what you get.’
‘That’s true. Do you think the CPS feel the same way? We need evidence, Jimmy. And we haven’t got it. This is very nice, very tidy. But it doesn’t prove they did it.’
‘No, sir. It doesn’t.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘I don’t know, sir. It’s your call not mine.’
He nodded. Suttle thought he caught a hint of disappointment in his face. Maybe I’ve given up too easily, he thought. Maybe Nandy was expecting more of a fight. Fat chance.
‘Carole?’ Nandy had turned to D/I Houghton.
‘I suggest we go for an extension, sir. A night in the cells sometimes does the trick.’
‘And what are we proposing in the way of fresh evidence? Mr Cattermole will need to know.’
Cattermole was the duty uniformed Superintendent. Without active ongoing inquiries, he wouldn’t sanction a custody extension.
Suttle stirred. He was looking at Houghton.
‘There’s still one call I need to make,’ he said.
‘On who?’
‘Pendrick.’
It was gone nine when Suttle made it down to Exmouth. The light was on in Pendrick’s flat, and Suttle’s finger on the bell brought him to the door. His lower face was still swollen from last night and when he led the way upstairs he seemed to have difficulty walking.
‘Is this personal?’
‘No.’
‘What do you want then?’
‘I need to talk about Kinsey. We made a couple of arrests last night, Tash and Milo Symons. We’ll be charging them tomorrow.’
‘For what?’
‘Theft and murder.’
‘Murder?’ The word drew the faintest smile. ‘You think they killed Kinsey?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can prove it?’
‘We can get a result in court.’
‘How does that work?’
Suttle walked him through the evidence: a hundred grand’s worth of motivation and the key to Kinsey’s door.
‘But why? Why would they do it?’
‘You know why they’d do it. Symons was jealous as fuck and they both wanted the money. A couple of minutes in the apartment? The two of them? No CCTV? Middle of the night? Job done.’
Pendrick was brooding. Suttle wanted him to say something. Anything.
‘Well?’
‘Kinsey was an arsehole. He deserved it.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means he’s better dead. It means there’s one less of his breed to fuck things up.’
‘So we owe Tash and Milo a thank you? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Are you surprised they did what they did?’
‘I’m glad he’s gone.’
‘That wasn’t my question. I asked you whether you were surprised or not.’
Pendrick’s head came up. He held Suttle’s gaze.
‘Nothing surprises me any more,’ he said.
Suttle was in Colaton Raleigh by half ten. He stopped for a beer at the pub up the road, brooding on the day’s developments. He’d rarely felt so knackered. The last couple of weeks seemed to have emptied him of everything. He toyed with the pint for a while, then took a couple of mouthfuls and left it on the counter.
At the cottage the lights were off downstairs. He found a note from Lizzie on the kitchen table telling him there was food in the oven but he didn’t even bother to look. Upstairs, he checked on Grace then went into their bedroom. Lizzie appeared to be asleep, her face turned towards the wall. Suttle got undressed in the bathroom, hanging his suit on the door ready for tomorrow morning. He sponged his face, brushed his teeth and spent a long minute eyeballing the image in the mirror. When he returned to the bedroom, Lizzie hadn’t moved. He slipped into bed and turned his back on her. Enough, he thought.
Twelve
THURSDAY, 21 APRIL 2011
Lizzie waited until she heard the burble of the departing Impreza before she got up next morning. Suttle must have fed Grace first thing because when she went next door she found tiny gobbets of porridge on her daughter’s nightgown. She took Grace back to bed, knowing she had to get them both out of the house for a bit. The thin curtains had never met properly in the middle and the broad blue stripe told her it was a lovely morning.
‘The seaside, eh?’ She gave Grace a hug.
They took a bus from the stop outside the village store. By half past nine they were in Exmouth. It was a five-minute walk to the seafront. The tide was out and the offshore sandbank was busy with gulls and oystercatchers. Heading east, Lizzie could feel a real warmth in the sun. Imperceptibly, her spirits began to rise.
Curiosity took her to the rowing club. To her surprise the gates were open, the door to the Portakabin unlocked. She parked the buggy at the foot of the steps and lifted Grace out. She wanted to sit her on one of the rowing machines, slide her up and down, pretend they were at the funfair. She mounted the steps and pushed at the half-open door.
After the blaze of spring sunshine, she stepped into the chill of the semi-darkness inside. She could hear someone on one of the rowing machines at the very back of the clubhouse, a steady rhythm, pull after pull, but it was seconds before she could make out a shape in the gloom. A face turned briefly towards her. The rate quickened, then fell back again.
Pendrick.
She knew she should leave. Then she changed her mind. Picking her way over the machines, she carried Grace towards him. He was still rowing, still pushing himself up and down the slide. She stopped beside the readout. Nearly twenty kilometres.
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Since seven. More than three hours.’
‘Christ.’
He was still moving, his rhythm undisturbed. He didn’t look up at her. Finally, she turned to go.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I have to tell you something.’
‘Please, no.’
‘It’s not that. I promise.’
‘What then?’
‘It’s about this Kinsey thing. They’ve arrested Tash and Milo.’
‘What for?’
‘Theft. .’ the sweat glistened on his swollen face ‘. . and murder.’
‘They killed Kinsey?’ Lizzie was staring at him.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I did.’
‘You did?’
‘Yeah. I killed the man. It was me who did it.’
She took a tiny step backwards. Mad, she thought. Insane.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘You’re making this up. It’s a story. You’re trying to impress me. You’re trying to get us back to wherever you want us to be. I don’t want to know. There’s no point. It’s over.’
‘I know that.’
‘Then enough’s enough. You needn’t say any more.’
‘You’re wrong. I have to tell someone. You walked in. You’re here. All you have to do is listen.’ At last he looked up at her. ‘Will you do that?’
Kinsey, he said, had been getting under his skin for more than a year. The boasts. The money. The big fuck-off apartment. The way he went out and bought himself a crew. Everything. Then came the discovery that he was going to build at Trezillion. And not just Trezillion but other sites up and down the coast. These sites were almost holy. The man was into serious desecration. The man wanted to leave his scent, his smell, everywhere. Why? To make more money. He’d had a conversation about it, warned the man.