Western Approaches (Jimmy Suttle) (20 page)

‘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.

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 & 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 & 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.