Western Approaches

Eight

SUNDAY, 17 APRIL 2011

It was Suttle’s idea to drive the whole family to Exmouth for the Kinsey tribute. Lizzie, exhausted, was tempted to phone Tessa and cancel, but Suttle insisted she see the thing through. The way he read it, they were offering her a leading role in this morning’s ceremony. If the rowing was doing her good, if she enjoyed it, the last thing she should do was let them down.

Lizzie knew she had no choice but to agree. Last night, to her immense relief, appeared to be history. Suttle was cheerful, positive and starving hungry. Making bonfires, he told her, was hard-core exercise. He made porridge for them all and patiently monitored Grace’s attempts to spoon-feed herself in her high chair.

They were on the road by half nine. Suttle dropped Lizzie on the seafront, a discreet distance from the club compound, and drove on towards Exmouth Quays. The porridge hadn’t quite filled the hole. He and the Constantine team had used the Docks Café earlier in the week and now he decided to share an egg and bacon butty with his infant daughter.

The café was packed. With Grace in his arms he was about to step back into the street when he caught a wave from a table in the corner. It was Carole Houghton. She was with her partner, a tall handsome woman called Jules. He went over, did the introductions. Grace gave them both a precautionary look and then nestled on her father’s lap as he took the spare seat.

Houghton insisted on buying their egg and bacon butty. Suttle had mentioned the Kinsey tribute on Friday and she had thought it only proper to make an appearance. A full week had gone by since the investigation kicked off and, in the absence of a result, this was the least she could do on behalf of what remained of the Constantine squad.

‘Does Grace like brown sauce?’ Houghton was already on her feet, en route to the counter.

‘Loves it.’

Suttle turned to her companion. Jules, he knew, was a lawyer, and he’d always suspected that Houghton shared one or two details of the more interesting jobs with her. He was right.

‘Carole tells me you’re the last man standing.’

‘On Constantine?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s true. Short straw, me.’

‘Coroner’s file?’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘And it stops there?’ She smiled. ‘I think not.’

Houghton was still at the counter. Suttle was looking at Jules. He wanted to know more.

‘Carole really rates you,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you but it’s true. She thinks you’re shrewd. And more to the point she thinks you’re honest.’

‘That’s nice to hear. What does honest mean?’

‘It means you’re hard on yourself. It means you don’t take short cuts. And I guess that means life isn’t always easy.’

‘Too right.’ Suttle was thinking of last night. ‘What else did she say?’

‘She said that this investigation of yours, whatever it’s called, is still in the balance. That you shouldn’t give up.’

Suttle blinked. Houghton, he knew, was a class operator. Was this why she’d volunteered to fetch the butty? So her partner could deliver a discreet message? He voiced the thought as Houghton returned.

‘Of course.’ Jules was clearing a space on the table. ‘You read her well, young man.’

Lizzie met Tash Donovan at the club compound. Tessa did the introductions and said that Tash would be rowing in the number two seat ahead of Lizzie in bow. The rest of the crew, including Tash’s partner Milo, were already on the beach helping to rig the boats. God speed, Tessa said, and when it comes to the row-past be sure to give it some welly.

Lizzie and Tash crossed the seafront road and headed down the slipway towards the beach. The tide was falling fast, flooding out of the estuary, and a ledge of high cloud had thinned the sunshine.

Lizzie wanted to know how long Tash had been rowing. She loved the colour of her hair.

‘Couple of years. I’m first reserve with this lot.’ She nodded at the nearest quad. ‘Four of them are bloody good. Kinsey was deadweight.’

‘That’s what everyone says.’

‘It’s true. The poor lamb had his strengths but rowing wasn’t one of them.’

They joined the rest of the crew at the water’s edge. Tash did the introductions. Lizzie recognised Milo from the Thursday session. This was the guy with the camera, she thought. Andy Poole offered her a crushing handshake and a wide grin. Lenahan, the cox, asked whether she was cool with rowing bow.

‘I need to be out of the way,’ Lizzie said. ‘Bow sounds fine to me.’

‘A little bird told me that you and racing starts are strangers.’

‘Your little bird’s right.’

‘We can fix that. Leave it to me. No problem.’

He was as good as his word. He supervised the launch, and the quad nosed out into the current. There was still plenty of water over the offshore sandbank and they crabbed away from the beach towards the nose of a distant promontory.

Lenahan was calling the stroke rate, warming the crew up, and Lizzie could feel the power in the boat. Despite her exhaustion, she realised she was beginning to enjoy this. Then came a small dot powering out of the harbour. The dot grew rapidly bigger and Lenahan gave the speeding safety boat a wave as it circled the quad. There were two men aboard. The portly guy at the wheel Lizzie had never seen before. The other one was all too familiar. Pendrick.

Suttle and Grace found a space near the edge of the dock for the tribute ceremony. Houghton had taken Jules for a stroll round Regatta House. Under the circumstances, she thought her partner deserved a proper look at the crime scene. They’d rejoin Suttle later.

The last of the sunshine had gone by now and it was appreciably colder. Suttle bent to the buggy, tucking Grace in. Earlier he’d watched Lizzie’s boat out in the far distance, stopping and starting, time after time. Now the other quads from the club were pulling hard against the tide, forming a protective square around a couple of smaller skiffs, slowly closing on the dancing water off the dock. All the rowers were wearing club colours, red and white, and as the boats approached, each crew in perfect time, a murmur of approval went through the watching spectators.

By now a decent crowd had gathered and a second TV crew had joined the BBC South West team who had earlier been prowling around Regatta Court. Suttle had watched the reporter on the phone before doing his piece to camera. He’d stationed himself on the stretch of promenade immediately below Kinsey’s apartment, trying to flatten his thinning hair in the rising wind. Suttle was too far away to catch what he was saying, but the cameraman’s dramatic tilt upwards towards Kinsey’s balcony was all too eloquent. The dead man fell from here, and still nobody knows why.

‘Mummy!’

Grace had seen her first. She was waving her little arms in excitement. Suttle turned to find himself looking at the Kinsey boat as it passed through the rest of the fleet on its way upriver. Lizzie was at the front and Suttle felt a jolt of admiration at the way she seemed to have mastered the business. He supposed that rowing was difficult. Lizzie had told him so. And yet there she was, perfectly in tune with this strange music, her blades dipping in and out with the rest of the crew, her back straight as she pulled on the oars, her body moving sweetly forward to take the next stroke.

‘Which one?’

‘At the front there. The small one.’

Houghton had appeared behind them. She pointed Lizzie out to Jules, who stepped forward and cupped her hands.

‘Go Lizzie!’

Someone else in the crowd took up the chant. Then another. Then a third. Even Grace was having a squeal. Lizzie had caught the chant. Suttle saw the tiny nod of her head, an acknowledgement. Suttle cupped his own hands.

‘Go! Go Lizzie! GO!’ he roared.

She recognised his voice. A grin this time, spreading and spreading. Suttle turned to Houghton.

‘She’s not bad, eh? For a probationer?’

Lenahan had elected to make the turn about 500 metres upstream from the dock. His cue to start would be an orange distress maroon fired from the quad dropping the wreath. Molly Doyle had cleared this through the Coastguard at Brixham late last night and they’d assured her they’d resist the temptation to launch the lifeboat or a chopper.

‘Red, please.’

Lenahan had got to the turn point. The crew hauled on their right-hand blades, pivoting the quad around a buoy.

‘Next stroke, easy up.’

The crew stopped rowing. Lizzie could feel the tide beneath her, lifting the hull and carrying it downstream. Lenahan was waiting for the maroon.

‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘Jesus, what’s the matter with those eejits?’

Lizzie wanted to glance over her shoulder and watch the maroon go off, but she knew she’d get bollocked. Eyes in the boat. Always eyes in the boat.

‘Whole crew come forward to row.’ Lenahan had his gaze locked on the dock.

The whole crew came forward, blades in the water, ready for the racing start. The first time she’d tried it, half an hour ago, Lizzie had nearly totalled Tash’s oars. Her second attempt had been better and after that she’d started to get the feel of what was required. She was still playing catch-up, though, and just hoped that no one watching had binos.

‘Ready to row?’ Lizzie caught the muffled bang of the maroon. ‘ROW!’

Andy Poole was leader of this tiny orchestra. Rigid in his seat, he took a swift choppy stroke. Then another. Then a third. The quad surged forward. After five strokes, in a blur of scarlet, the crew went to half slide, a foot of movement under their bums, the strokes longer, more power in the water. Another five strokes and they settled into racing speed, thirty-two strokes a minute, every oarsman intent on pouring maximum effort into the churning blades.

To her immense relief, Lizzie was still in one piece. She hadn’t caught a crab, she hadn’t got in Tash’s way, and while she knew she was a minim off the beat she quickly settled down. By now the quad was, in Lenahan’s phrase, at battle speed. With the looming orange presence of Regatta House fast approaching, Lizzie concentrated on giving it everything. Lean forward, she told herself. Take the catch. Push back hard with legs. Arms straight. Accelerate the blade through the water. Feel it in the thighs. Go for the burn. Big tug at the end. Then hands away quickly and do it all over again.

Off to her right she could hear cheering and applause from the dock. She pictured Jimmy and Grace. She hoped they were watching her. She hoped they weren’t laughing. Then, much closer, came the other club boats, the rowers keeping station with tiny movements of their blades, and a brief snatched glimpse of Kinsey’s wreath bobbing gently in the middle of the formation.

‘Forty-one big ones. GO!’

They’d passed the wreath. Lenahan was driving them on. This could have been a race, easily. Tash had already warned her about what to expect. Flat out, she’d said, it’s the lungs that seize up first. Keep sucking in the air. Keep pushing hard on the footstretcher. Above all, watch the timing. Catch, extract. Catch, extract. Get it right. Exactly right. Keep on the beat.

‘Twenty to go. Own the water, people. Make it yours.’

Lizzie was starting to struggle. Then she remembered her first outing on the rowing machine, how she’d kept the pressure up until the very end, chasing the numbers on the readout, ignoring all the distress calls her body was putting out.

‘Five of your best. Your very best.’

Lizzie’s eyes were shut. She was rowing on empty. She squeezed every last ounce of effort into those final strokes. Then, quite suddenly, it was all over.

‘Easy up, guys. Angels, all of you.’

She barely heard Lenahan. She let go of her oars and reached forward to pat Tash on the back. The boat was still moving at speed. The water caught her blades, smashing both against her midriff and sweeping her overboard. It happened so quickly Lizzie hadn’t a clue what had happened. All she knew was that she was underwater, being dragged along by the boat.

She struggled, starting to panic. One of her feet was still trapped in the footstretcher. She must have over-tightened the strap. She shut her eyes a moment, fighting the temptation to take a breath, trying to get her head out of the water. It was hopeless. Her body was twisted and she no longer had the energy or the strength to break free. By now her lungs were bursting. They must have seen me, she kept telling herself. A couple of hundred people can’t all be blind.

Desperate for air, she opened her mouth. The water was ice cold. She could feel it in her chest. She began to cough, to choke. More water. Then she sensed hands beneath her arms and her head at last broke the surface, and seconds before she passed out she caught the looming face of Pendrick, treading water beside her, the white hull of the safety boat inches from his back.

‘You’ll be fine,’ she heard him say. ‘I’ve got you.’

A chopper flew her to A amp; E in Exeter. Wrapped in a space blanket with another blanket on top, she’d managed to stop the shakes. The accompanying paramedic told her it was the shock as well as the water temperature. She supposed that was a comfort but she wasn’t sure.

In A amp; E they put her in a giant suit that looked like a duvet with arms. She lay in a cubicle trying not to relive those final few strokes before she’d gone overboard. It had to be her own fault, had to be, but she simply couldn’t work out why. One moment she’d been telling Tash what a star she was. The next she’d been fighting for her life.

Jimmy and Grace turned up minutes later. They squeezed into the tiny cubicle. Jimmy gave her a hug and then found a chair and sat by the bed while Lizzie clung to Grace. Jimmy’s boss seemed to have come too. She’d found some change for the machine in the waiting room and returned with teas and coffees, keeping a discreet distance while Jimmy described the scene on the dock.

Most people, including him, had been unaware of the incident. All they’d seen was the safety boat racing to the still-moving quad, and then a big guy going overboard to fish someone out of the water. Only a nearby birdwatcher in the crowd on the quay had the full story. He’d watched the whole episode through his binos. It’s the girl in the front, he told Suttle. She seems to have come a cropper.

‘That was me,’ Lizzie said. ‘What a wuss.’

Suttle told her to forget it. Stuff happens. Thank Christ someone had been on hand to fish her out.

‘Who was it?’ he asked.

‘Pendrick.’ She found his hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Who else?’

Lizzie was released a couple of hours later. The consultant took Suttle aside and told him not to hesitate to seek help if there were any after-effects.

‘Your wife’s been through serious trauma,’ he warned. ‘This can mess with people’s idea of themselves in all kinds of ways.’

Suttle was intrigued by the phrase. He’d have liked to find out more but one glance at the consultant’s face told him this wasn’t the place or the time. Lizzie’s GP, he said, should be the first port of call. After, of course, a little home-grown TLC.

‘No problem.’ Suttle thanked him and returned to the cubicle. To his delight, Lizzie wanted to go home.

‘Say it again — ’ he bent to kiss her ‘- then I’ll believe it.’

That evening, for the first time in months, they felt good with each other. Houghton had offered Suttle a couple of days off to help Lizzie get over her little accident but Lizzie herself wouldn’t hear of it. She was embarrassed, and grateful to the small army of folk who’d fished her out, emptied her lungs, strapped her into the chopper and flown her away. Now she’d be grateful for a little time on her own with just the baby for company and the knowledge that Suttle would be back before nightfall.

‘That could be a problem.’ He was thinking about tomorrow’s meet in Bournemouth. ‘I’ll cancel.’

‘Don’t.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m a strong girl. Stronger than you think. Stick with the arrangements, but nothing silly, eh?’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure. And you know something else?’ She beckoned him closer, kissed him on the lips and nodded towards the stairs. ‘I owe you.’