Western Approaches (Jimmy Suttle) Read Online Free PDF Page B

you’re out there you have to rely on each other and that can build something pretty special. Not everyone races. A lot of our guys are social rowers. But I guess it boils down to the same thing. The sea’s the sea. You don’t mess with it.’
    ‘And Kinsey?’
    ‘He was never a social rower.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘Kinsey was a competitor. In everything. Winning mattered.’
    ‘And that’s unusual?’
    ‘To his degree, yes. This is me speaking, my opinion, but – hey – you did ask . . .’
    She offered him a bleak smile. She believed him now. Kinsey was dead and gone. No more cups. No more glory.
    Suttle let the silence stretch and stretch. Footsteps hurrying overhead and then the splash of water in a shower.
    ‘Did you like him?’
    ‘ Like him?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why do you ask?’
    ‘Because these things can be important. I’m getting a picture here. People like Kinsey can be uncomfortable to have around.’
    ‘That’s true.’
    ‘So was he liked? Was he popular?’
    She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head. It had been obvious from the start, she said, that Kinsey was rich. Not just that, but he was arrogant too. Wealth, like winning, mattered.
    ‘He came to us from nowhere. Just walked into the clubhouse on a Sunday and signed himself up.’
    ‘Had he rowed before?’
    ‘Never. He said he’d watched us out of his window when we rowed up the river. That was important.’
    ‘Seeing you row?’
    ‘Telling us where he lived. That huge penthouse flat. It wasn’t just pride. It was something else.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘He needed us to know the kind of guy he was. Rich. Successful. All that nonsense. Ours is a funny little club. We get all sorts. But money never comes into it. In a boat on the sea you are who you are. Kinsey never seemed to quite get that.’
    Coaches at the club, she said, had taught Kinsey the basic drills. After a couple of outings, like every other novice, he’d sculled with an experienced crew, one oar in either hand, and hadn’t let himself down.
    ‘Was he good?’
    ‘Not really. Some people are naturals. You can see it. Their body posture is right. They pick up the rhythm, the stroke rate, really quickly. They know know how to turn all that energy into real power. It’s a bit like dancing. Either you have it or you don’t.’
    ‘And Kinsey didn’t?’
    ‘No. Don’t get me wrong. He was OK, he was competent. But he got into bad habits from the start and never really listened to people who wanted to put him right.’ The smile again, hesitant, almost apologetic. ‘Am I making sense?’
    Suttle nodded. He could hear a radio now from upstairs. Heart FM. The last thing he wanted was one or other of the kids to stumble in through the door and bring this interview, this conversation, to an end.
    ‘Tell me about the racing,’ he said. ‘How many other cups did he win?’
    ‘None. Yesterday was their first outing. That was why he was so chuffed.’
    About a year ago, she said, Kinsey had bought the club a brand new quad.
    ‘Quad?’
    ‘Four rowers and a cox. This was a sea boat. They don’t come cheap.’
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Eighteen thousand, including the bits and pieces that go with it.’
    The extras, she said, included oars, safety equipment plus a couple of trailers for the road and for the beach. The club had never had a windfall like that but Kinsey soured the gift with a major precondition. He and his crew always had first claim on the boat, regardless of who else might be in the queue.
    ‘And that was unusual?’
    ‘Absolutely. And it didn’t stop there.’
    Kinsey’s crew, she said, was hand-picked. These weren’t a bunch of mates he happened to get on with, like-minded souls with a taste for exercise and a laugh or two, but serious athletes he cherry-picked from the club’s membership.
    ‘It was like he was playing God. It put a lot of backs up. Here was a guy from nowhere, a virtual stranger, buying himself into the top boat. And no