Breaker

by Minette Walters

  He told me on more than one occasion this year that he was having problems with a woman called Kate Sumner, who was stalking him. He described her and her child as weird, and said they scared him. His car alarm kept going off, and he told me he thought it was Kate Sumner who was activating it and asked me if he should report it to the police. It was a pretty odd story, so I wasn't sure whether to believe him or not. Then he pointed out the feces on the car-door handle and told me how Kate Sumner had wiped her child's nappy on his sheets. I told him that if he brought the police into it it would get worse rather than better and suggested he find somewhere else to park his car. As far as I know, that sorted the problem.

  I have never spoken to Kate or Hannah Sumner. Steve pointed them out to me once in the middle of Lymington then dragged me around a corner so we wouldn't have to speak to them. His reluctance was genuine. I believe he found her seriously intimidating. I met William Sumner once in a pub at the beginning of this year. He was drinking alone and invited Steve and me to join him. He knew Steve already because they'd been introduced to each other by Kate after Steve had helped her with her shopping. I left after about half an hour, but Steve told me later that he went back to William's house to continue a discussion they were having about sailing. He said William used to race a Contessa and was interesting to talk to.

  Steve's a good-looking bloke and has an active sex life. He has at least two girls on the go at the same time because he's not interested in settling down. He's obsessed with sailing and told me once that he could never get serious about anyone who didn't sail. He's not the kiss-and-tell type, and as I never listen to names, I've no idea who he's got on the go at the moment. When he's not acting, he can always get regular work as a photographic model. Mostly he models clothes, but he's done a few sessions for pornographic magazines. He needs money to fund the flat in London and keep Crazy Daze afloat, and that kind of work pays well. He's not ashamed of the photographs, but I've never known him to show them around. I've no idea where he stores them.

  I saw Steve on the evening of Friday, 8 August. He dropped in to tell me he was off to Poole the next day and wouldn't see me again until the following weekend. He mentioned that he had an audition in London on Monday, 11 August, and said he was planning to catch the last train back on Sunday night. Later, a mutual friend, Bob Winterslow, who lives near the station, told me that Steve had rung from his boat to ask if he could borrow a sofa Sunday night in order to catch the first train on Monday morning. But he stayed on board and missed his audition. This is standard for Steve. He tends to come and go as he pleases. I became aware that Steve had cocked up when his agent, Graham Barlow, phoned me on Monday morning to say there was no sign of Steve in London and he wasn't answering his mobile phone. I phoned friends to see if anyone knew where he was, then borrowed a dinghy to go out to Crazy Daze. I discovered that Steve was badly hung over, and that this was the reason for his nonappearance.

  I spent the weekend, 9-10 August, with my girlfriend Beatrice "Bibi" Gould, whom I've known for four months. On Saturday night we went to a rave at the Jamaica Club in Southampton, returning home at approximately 4:00 a.m. We slept through till sometime Sunday p.m. I know nothing about Kate Sumner's death, although I am completely sure that Steven Harding had nothing to do with it. He is not an aggressive person.

  (Police note: this rave certainly took place, but there is no way of checking whether A. Bridges & B. Gould were present. Rough estimate of numbers at the Jamaica Club on Saturday night: 1,000+.)

  Beatrice Gould's statement supported Bridges' and Harding's in all relevant details.

  I'm nineteen years old, and I work as a hairdresser in Get Ahead in Lymington High Street. I met Tony Bridges at a pub disco about four months ago, and he introduced me to Steve Harding a week later. They've been friends for a long time, and Steve uses Tony's house as a base in Lymington when he can't stay on his boat for any reason. I've come to know Steve quite well over the time Tony and I have been together. Several of my friends would like to go out with him, but he's not interested in settling down and tends to avoid heavy relationships. He's a good-looking bloke, and because he's an actor as well, girls throw themselves at him. He told me once that he thinks they see him as a stud and that he really hates it. I know he's had a lot of problems in that way with Kate Sumner. He was nice to her once, and afterward she wouldn't leave him alone. He said he thought she was lonely, but that didn't give her the right to make his life a misery. It got to the point that he'd hide behind corners while Tony or I checked to see if she was on the other side. I think she must have been mentally disturbed. The worst thing she did was smear her daughter's dirty nappies on his car. I thought that was completely disgusting and told Steve that he should report her to the police.

  I didn't see Steve the weekend of 9-10 August. I went to Tony's house at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, 9 August, and at about 7:30 p.m. we left for the Jamaica Club in Southampton. We go there a lot because Daniel Agee is a brilliant DJ and we really like his style. I stayed at Tony's until 10:00 p.m. on Sunday night, then went home. My permanent address is Sixty-seven Shorn Street, Lymington, where I live with my parents, but I spend most weekends and some weekday nights with Tony Bridges. I like Steve Harding a lot, and I don't believe he had anything to do with Kate Sumner's death. He and I get on really well together.

  Detective Superintendent Carpenter sat in silence while John Galbraith read through all three statements. "What do you think?" he asked when the other had finished. "Does Harding's story ring true? Is that a Kate Sumner you recognize?"

  Galbraith shook his head. "I don't know. I haven't got a feel for her yet. She was like Harding, a bit of a chameleon, play-acted different roles to suit different people." He reflected for a moment. "I suppose one thing in Harding's defense is that when she rubbed someone up the wrong way she did it in spades-really got under their skin, in other words. Did you read those statements I sent you? Her mother-in-law didn't like her at all, and neither did Wendy Plater, William's ex-girlfriend, who was cut out of the running by Kate. You could argue it was straightforward jealousy on both counts, but I got the impression there was more to it than that. They used the same word to describe her. 'Manipulative.' Angela Sumner referred to her as the most self-centered and calculating woman she had ever met, and the girlfriend said lying was second nature to her. William said she was single-minded about what she wanted and had him wound around her finger from the first time she met him." He shrugged. "Whether any of that means she was stalking a man she became infatuated with, I don't know. I wouldn't have expected her to be so blatant but"-he spread his hands in perplexity-"she was pretty blatant in her pursuit of a comfortable lifestyle."

  "I hate these cases, John," said Carpenter with genuine regret. "The poor little woman's dead, but her character's going to be blackened whichever way you look at it." He pulled Harding's statement across the desk toward him and drummed his fingers on it in irritation. "Shall I tell you what this smells of to me? The classic defense against rape. She was panting for it, guv. Couldn 't keep her hands off me. I just gave her what she wanted, and it's not my fault if she cried foul afterward. She was an aggressive woman, and she liked aggressive sex." His frown deepened to a chasm. "All Harding's doing is laying some neat groundwork in case we manage to bring charges against him. Then he'll tell us her death was an accident ... she fell off the back of the boat and he couldn't save her."

  "What did you make of Anthony Bridges?"

  "I didn't like him. He's a cocky little bastard, and a damn sight too knowledgeable about police interviews. But his and his blowsy girlfriend's stories tally so closely with Harding's that, unless they're operating some sort of sick conspiracy, I think we have to accept they're telling the truth." A sudden smile banished his frown. "For the moment anyway. It'll be interesting to see if anything changes after he and Harding have had a chance to talk together. You know we've bailed him to Bridges' address."

  "Harding's right about one thing," said Galbraith thou
ghtfully. "Hannah gives me the creeps, too." He leaned forward, elbows on knees, a troubled expression on his face. "It's codswallop about her screaming every time she sees a man. I was waiting for her father to bring me some lists he'd made, and she came into the room, sat down on the carpet in front of me, and started to play with herself. She had no knickers on, just pulled up her dress and got going like there was no tomorrow. She was watching me the whole time she was doing it, and I swear to God she knew exactly what she was about." He sighed. "It was bloody unnerving, and I'll eat my hat if she hasn't been introduced to some sort of sexual activity, whatever that doctor said."

  "Meaning you've got your money on Sumner?"

  Galbraith considered for a moment. "Put it this way, I'd says he's a dead cert if, one: his alibi doesn't check out and, two: I can work out how he managed to have a boat waiting for him off the Isle of Purbeck." His pleasant face broke into a smile. "He gets under my skin something rotten, probably because he thinks he's so damned clever. It's hardly scientific but, yes, I'd put my money on him any day before Steven Harding."

  For seventy-two hours, local and national newspapers had been carrying reports of a murder inquiry following the finding of a body on a beach on the Isle of Purbeck. On the theory that the dead woman and her daughter had been traveling by boat, sailors between Southampton and Weymouth were being asked to come forward with any sightings of a small blond woman and/or a three-year-old child on the weekend of 9-10 August. During her lunch break that Wednesday, a shop assistant in one of the big department stores in Bournemouth went into her local police station and suggested diffidently that, while she didn't want to waste anyone's time, she thought that something she'd seen on Sunday evening might be connected to the woman's murder.

  She gave her name as Jennifer Hale and said she'd been on a Fairline Squadron called Gregory's Girl belonging to a Poole businessman called Gregory Freemantle. "He's my boyfriend," she explained.

  The desk sergeant found the description amusing. She'd never see thirty again, and he wondered how old the boyfriend was. Approaching fifty, he guessed, if he could afford to own a Fairline Squadron.

  "I wanted Gregory to come and tell you about it himself," she confided, "because he could have given you a better idea of where it was, but he said it wasn't worth the bother because I didn't have enough experience to know what I was looking at. He believes his daughters, you see. They said it was an oil drum, and woe betide anyone who disagrees with them. He won't argue with them in case they complain to their mother when what he ought to be doing..." She heaved the kind of sigh that every potential stepmother has sighed down the ages. "They're a couple of little madams, frankly. I thought we should have stopped at the time to investigate, but"-she shook her head-"it wasn't worth going into battle over. Frankly, I'd had enough for one day."

  The desk sergeant, who had stepchildren of his own, gave her a sympathetic smile. "How old are they?"

  "Fifteen and thirteen."

  "Difficult ages."

  "Yes, particularly when their parents..." She stopped abruptly, reconsidering how much she wanted to say.

  "It'll get better in about five years when they've grown up a bit."

  A gleam of humor flashed in her eyes. "Assuming I'm around to find out, which at the moment doesn't look likely. The younger one's not too bad, but I'd need a skin like a rhinoceros to put up with another five years of Marie. She thinks she's Elle MacPherson and Claudia Schiffer rolled into one, and throws a tantrum if she isn't being constantly petted and spoiled. Still..." She returned to her reason for being there. "I'm sure it wasn't an oil drum. I was sitting at the back of the flying bridge and had a better view than the others. Whatever it was, it wasn't metal ... although it was black ... it looked to me like an upturned dinghy ... a rubber one. I think it may have been partially deflated, because it was pretty low in the water."

  The desk sergeant was taking notes. "Why do you think it was connected with the murder?" he asked her.

  She gave an embarrassed smile, afraid of making a fool of herself. "Because it was a boat," she said, "and it wasn't far from where the body was found. We were in Chapman's Pool when the woman was lifted off by helicopter, and we passed the dinghy only about ten minutes after we rounded St. Alban's Head on our way home. I've worked out that the time must have been about six fifteen and I know we were traveling at twenty-five knots because my boyfriend commented on the fact as we rounded the Head. He says you'll be looking for a yacht or a cruiser, but I thought-well-you can drown off a dinghy just as easily as off a yacht, can't you? And this one had obviously capsized."

  Carpenter received the report from Bournemouth at three o'clock, mulled it over in conjunction with a map, then sent it through to Galbraith with a note attached.

  Is this worth following up? If it hasn't beached between St. Alban's Head and Anvil Point, then it'll have gone down in deep water somewhere off Swanage and is irretrievable. However, the timings seem very precise, so assuming it washed up before Anvil Point, your friend Ingram can probably work out where it is. You said he was wasted as a beat copper. Failing him, get on to the coastguards. In fact it might be worth going to them first. You know how they hate having their thunder stolen by landlubbers. It's a long shot-can't see where Hannah fits in or how anyone can rape a woman in a dinghy without turning turtle- but you never know. It could be that boat off the Isle of Purbeck you wanted.

  In the event, the coastguards happily passed the buck to Ingram, claiming they had better things to do at the height of the summer season than look for imaginary "dinghies" in unlikely places. Equally skeptical himself, Ingram parked at Durlston Head and set off along the coastal path, following the route Harding claimed to have taken the previous Sunday. He walked slowly, searching the shoreline at the foot of the cliffs every fifty yards through binoculars. He was as conscious as the coastguards of the difficulties of isolating a black dinghy against the glistening rocks that lined the base of the headland, and constantly reexamined stretches he had already decided were clear. He also had little faith in his own estimate that a floating object seen at approximately 6:15 p.m. on Sunday evening, some three hundred yards out from Seacombe Cliff-his guess at where a Fairline Squadron might have been after ten minutes traveling at twenty-five knots from St. Alban's Head-could have beached approximately six hours later halfway between Blackers Hole and Anvil Point. He knew how unpredictable the sea was, and how very unlikely it was that a partially deflated dinghy would even have come ashore. The more probable scenario was that it was halfway to France by now-always assuming it had ever existed-or twenty fathoms under.

  He found it slightly to the east of where he had predicted, nearer to Anvil Point, and he smiled with justifiable satisfaction as the powerful lenses picked it out. It was upside down, held in shape by its wooden floor and seats, and neatly stranded on an inaccessible piece of shore. He dialed through to DI Galbraith on his mobile. "How good a sailor are you?" he asked him. "Because the only way you'll get close to this little mother is by boat. If you meet me in Swanage I can take you out this evening. You'll need waterproofs and waders," he warned. "It'll be a wet trip."

  Ingram invited along a couple of friends from the Swanage lifeboat crew to keep Miss Creant on station while he took Galbraith in to the shore in his own inflatable. He killed the outboard motor and swung it up out of the water thirty yards from land, using his oars to maneuver them carefully through the crops of jagged granite that lay in wait for unwary sailors. He steadied the little craft against a good-sized rock, nodded to Galbraith to get out and start wading, then followed him into the water and used the painter to guide the lightened dinghy onto what passed for a beach in that desolate spot.

  "There she is," he said, jerking his head to the left while he lifted his inflatable clear of the waterline, "but God only knows what she's doing out here. People don't abandon perfectly good dinghies for no reason."

  Galbraith shook his head in amazement. "How the hell did you spot it?" he asked, gazing up
at the sheer cliffs above them and thinking it must have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  "It wasn't easy," Ingram admitted, leading the way toward it. "More to the point, how the hell did it survive the rocks?" He stooped over the upturned hull. "It must have come in like this, or its bottom would have been ripped out, and that means there won't be anything left inside. Still"-he raised an inquiring eyebrow-"shall we turn it over?"

  With a nod, Galbraith grasped the stern board while Ingram took a tuck in the rubber at the bow. They set it right-way-up with difficulty because the lack of air meant there was no rigidity in the structure and it collapsed in on itself like a deflated balloon. A tiny crab scuttled out from underneath and slipped into a nearby rock pool. As Ingram had predicted, there was nothing inside except the wooden floorboards and the remains of a wooden seat, which had snapped in the middle, probably on its journey to and fro across the rocks. Nevertheless, it was a substantial dinghy, about ten feet long and four feet wide, with its stern board intact.

  Ingram pointed to the indentations where the screw clamps of an outboard motor had bitten into the wood, then squatted on his haunches to examine two metal rings screwed into the transom planking aft and a single ring screwed into the floorboarding at the bow. "It's been hung from davits off the back of a boat at some point. These rings are for attaching the wires before it's winched up tight against the davit arms. That way it doesn't swing about while the host boat's in motion." He searched the outside of the hull for any sign of a name, but there was none. He looked up at Galbraith, squinting against the setting sun. "There's no way this dropped off the back of a cruiser without anyone noticing. Both winching wires would have to snap at the same moment, and the chances of that happening would be minimal, I should think. If only one wire snapped-the stern wire, for example-you'd have a heavy object swinging like a pendulum behind you, and your steering would go haywire. At which point you'd slow right down and find out what the problem was." He paused. "In any case, if the wires had sheared they'd still be attached to the rings."