Suttle pushed at the door of the clubhouse and stepped inside. Neon tubes threw a cold hard light over the sparseness of the interior. Lighter boat shells hung from racks on the walls and a pile of ancient yellow life jackets occupied a corner at the back. There was an overpowering smell of sweat and effort, and among the handful of faces on the rowing machines he recognised the Viking’s daughter. Even now he didn’t know her name but he responded to her nod of recognition, wondering whether news of Kinsey’s death had yet to reach this far.
A coach was squatting beside the nearest rowing machine, monitoring the performance readout on the tiny heads-up screen. The last thing Suttle wanted was a conversation, but the guy got to his feet and asked whether he could help.
Suttle shook his head. It was way too early to extend the investigation this far and in any case the circumstances were all wrong. He needed four walls, a desk, a couple of chairs and a door to ensure a little privacy. Not this place.
‘You’re interested?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘In rowing. Only we do taster sessions for novices. Think of it as three free goes. If you like it, you become a member. If you don’t. .’ He shrugged. ‘No harm done.’
Suttle looked around. It seemed like the place was falling apart: the sagging doors, the piles of abandoned kit, the bird shit. Yet at the same time there was no arguing with the buzz. These kids were really going for it.
‘So anyone can turn up?’
‘No problem.’
‘When?’
‘Sundays are best. As long as the weather’s not too evil, you’ll find us on the beach.’
The coach turned back to the rowing machine and checked the readout again. Suttle couldn’t resist a look: 4,567 metres. In 19.03. The rower, a young lad of maybe seventeen, was cranking up for a final push. Sweat darkened his T-shirt. His face was contorted with effort, and every time he pushed back against the footstretchers the effort squeezed a grunt from his gasping lungs.
Suttle caught his eye. ‘This is good for you?’ he murmured.
The boy had the grace to muster a smile.
‘Fuck off,’ he mouthed back.
Exmouth police station occupied the middle of an otherwise picturesque square on rising ground beyond the main shopping centre. An undistinguished 1960s building, it had a slightly alien presence. An apron of parking contained a handful of cars and the clock on the church opposite had stopped at twenty to four. Suttle, already struck by the slightly retro feel of the seafront, regarded this as somehow symbolic. Exmouth, he thought. The town that time forgot.
Houghton was putting the finishing touches to the smaller of the two offices commandeered for Constantine. Three desks: one for Nandy, one for Houghton, the third for Suttle. A poster featuring a Thai beach occupied one wall. A second poster warned uniformed coppers that FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT.
‘This used to be the sergeants’ locker room,’ Houghton grunted. ‘You should feel at home, Jimmy.’
Suttle tallied the names of Kinsey’s crew he’d picked up from Molly Doyle. Eamonn Lenahan, he said, served as cox. He lived up the river in Lympstone. Andy Poole, who turned out to work for a hedge fund partnership, had a flash apartment in Exeter. Tom Pendrick, who rowed in the seat behind Poole, was listed with an Exmouth address. While a guy called Milo Symons evidently dossed with his girlfriend in a caravan on farmland near Budleigh Salterton. She’d been at the party too. Her name was Natasha Donovan.
Houghton had scribbled down the names. Kinsey’s body, she said, had been removed after the Scenes of Crime photographer had done his work. A Crime Scene Manager had joined the CSI and they’d made a start on boshing Kinsey’s apartment. Documents from the desk that served as his office and from a filing cabinet in one of the spare bedrooms were waiting for Suttle’s attention, and Kinsey’s computer had been bagged for full analysis.
‘The CSI also pinged me this.’ She beckoned Suttle closer. ‘He found it on the man’s Blackberry.’
Suttle read the text on Houghton’s iPhone. It read, ‘V. We stuffed them. The whole lot. Decent time too. The Krug’s on ice. Usual place. J. xx’.
Houghton wanted to know who V might be.
‘The Viking. Her real name’s Doyle. Molly Doyle. She’s the one who gave me the crew names.’
‘“Usual place”?’
‘Yeah. Interesting.’
‘You sound surprised.’
‘I am, boss. The woman’s no fan of Kinsey.’
‘Are we sure?’
‘Of course not.’
‘But?’
Suttle shrugged. He honestly didn’t know. Molly Doyle, in his judgement, had her finger on the pulse of the club and her description of Kinsey had sounded all too plausible.
‘The guy muscled his way in,’ he said. ‘No one liked him. He thought money could buy him anything.’
‘Including her?’
‘I doubt it.’ Suttle made a mental note to check the lead out.
Houghton nodded, then updated Suttle on the house-to-house calls. Gerald Smart, who occupied the apartment below Kinsey, confirmed that his neighbour had entertained guests last night. He’d heard laughter and music and a bit of stamping around but not much else. Getting on for midnight, everything had gone quiet and after that he and his wife had retired to bed.
‘Nothing afterwards?’
‘No.’
‘What about the other properties? Line of sight?’
‘Zilch. The guys aren’t through yet but we seem to be talking a particular demographic. These are retired people. They’re older rather than younger. I get the feeling they party early, get pissed and go to bed.’
‘How many of them knew Kinsey?’
‘Very few. There’s a residents’ association which is pretty active but it seems he could never be arsed. Most of these good folk knew him by name because of the property he’d bought but that’s pretty much as far as it went. You’re going to ask me whether he was popular but I don’t think it’s that simple. When it came to socialising and all that, he just wasn’t interested. Apparently he didn’t even have a Facebook account.’
Suttle nodded. This is exactly what Molly Doyle had told him. This is the kind of guy who takes what he wants and turns his back on the rest.
‘Mr Loner,’ Suttle muttered.
‘Exactly.’
‘What about the pub?’
‘The landlord was pretty helpful. Turned out to be an ex-marine. His line on Kinsey was pretty much everyone else’s. The guy very rarely made an appearance and when he did stuck to fizzy water. Last night seems to have been a one-off. Three bottles of Moët? The landlord couldn’t believe it.’
‘And the crack? The chat? Anything there?’
‘Not so far. The landlord was too busy to listen in but he’s given us the names of some regulars who were in last night in case they picked up a clue or two. I’ve scheduled the follow-ups for this afternoon.’ Her eye strayed to the list she’d made of Kinsey’s crew. ‘These guys need sorting. Where do you want to start?’
Eamonn Lenahan lived in a rented cottage in Lympstone, a waterside village a couple of miles upstream from Exmouth. Suttle’s first call had been Tom Pendrick, but his attempts to raise an answer on the phone or in person had come to nothing. Before leaving Exmouth nick, he’d run all six names — including Kinsey — through the Police National Computer but drawn a blank. No previous convictions. No one ever charged or even arrested. Model citizens, all of them.
Lenahan’s cottage lay in a tiny cobbled street with a glimpse of the river at the far end. Clouds of gulls swooped over the rooftops and Suttle could hear the soft lap of water on the pebbles that fringed the tiny harbour. He knocked again, wondering if Kinsey’s cox was still sleeping off last night’s piss-up, and then stepped back from the door and offered his face to a sudden burst of sunshine. The weather had brightened from the west, and standing in the quiet of this little village, listening to the gulls, Suttle realised that he was beginning to enjoy Constantine.