The Breaker

by Minette Walters

  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 humour 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 McPherson and Claudia Schiffer rolled into one, and throws a tantrum if she isn’t being constantly petted and spoilt. 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 6.15 and I know we were travelling 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 sceptical 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 re-examined 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 travelling 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 dialled 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 into 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 manoeuvre 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 on to 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 towards 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 enquiring 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 sheered they’d still be attached to the rings.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’d say it’s more likely it was launched off a trailer, which means we need to ask questions at Swanage, Kimmeridge Bay or Lulworth.’ He stood up and glanced towards the west. ‘Unless it came out of Chapman’s Pool, of course, and then we need to ask how it got there in the first place. There’s no public access, so you can’t just pull a trailer down and launch a dinghy for the fun of it.’ He rubbed his jaw. ‘It’s curious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Couldn’t you carry it down and pump it up in situ?’

  ‘It depends how strong you
are. They weigh a ton these things.’ He stretched his arms like a fisherman sizing a fish. ‘They come in huge canvas holdalls but, trust me, you need two people to carry them any distance, and it’s a good mile from Hill Bottom to the Chapman’s Pool slip.’

  ‘What about the boatsheds? The SOCOs took photographs of the whole bay and there are plenty of dinghies parked on the hard standing beside the sheds. Could it be one of those?’

  ‘Only if it was nicked. The fishermen who use the boatsheds wouldn’t abandon a perfectly good dinghy. I haven’t had any reports of one being stolen but that might be because no one’s noticed it’s missing. I can run some checks tomorrow.’

  ‘Joyriders?’ suggested Galbraith.

  ‘I doubt it.’ Ingram touched his foot to the hull. ‘Not unless they fancied the hardest paddle of their life to get it out into the open sea. It couldn’t have floated out on its own. The entrance channel’s too narrow and the thrust of the waves would have forced it back on to the rocks in the bay.’ He smiled at Galbraith’s lack of comprehension. ‘You couldn’t take it out without an engine,’ he explained, ‘and your average joyrider doesn’t usually bring his own means of locomotion with him. People don’t leave outboards lying around any more than they leave gold ingots. They’re expensive items so you keep them under lock and key. That also rules out your pumping up in situ theory. I can’t see anyone lugging a dinghy and an outboard down to Chapman’s Pool.’

  Galbraith eyed him curiously. ‘So?’

  ‘I’m thinking on the hoof here, sir.’

  ‘Never mind. It sounds good. Keep going.’

  ‘If it was stolen out of Chapman’s Pool that makes it a premeditated theft. We’re talking someone who was prepared to lug a heavy outboard along a mile-long path in order to nick a boat.’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Why would anyone want to do that? And, having done it, why abandon ship? It’s a bit bloody odd, don’t you think? How did they get back to shore?’

  ‘Swam?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ingram’s eyes narrowed to slits against the brilliant orange sun. He didn’t speak for several seconds. ‘Or maybe they didn’t have to,’ he said then. ‘Maybe they weren’t in it.’ He lapsed into a thoughtful silence. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the stern board so the outboard should have pulled it under as soon as the sides started to deflate.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘The outboard wasn’t on it when it capsized.’

  Galbraith waited for him to go on and, when he didn’t, he made impatient winding motions with his hand. ‘Come on, Nick. What are you getting at? I know sweet FA about boats.’

  The big man laughed. ‘Sorry. I was just wondering what a dinghy like this was doing in the middle of nowhere without an outboard.’

  ‘I thought you said it must have had one.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

  Galbraith gave a groan. ‘Do you want to stop talking in riddles, you bastard? I’m wet, I’m freezing to death here and I could do with a drink.’

  Ingram laughed again. ‘I was only thinking that the most obvious way to take a stolen rib out of Chapman’s Pool would be to tow it out, assuming you’d come in by boat in the first place.’

  ‘In which case, why would you want to steal one?’

  Ingram stared down at the collapsed hull. ‘Because you’d raped a woman and left her half-dead in it?’ he suggested. ‘And you wanted to get rid of the evidence? I think you should get your scene-of-crime people out here to find out why it deflated. If there’s a blade puncture then I’d guess the intention was to have the boat and its contents founder in the open sea when the tow rope was released.’

  ‘So we’re back to Harding?’

  The constable shrugged. ‘He’s your only suspect with a boat in the right place at the right time,’ he pointed out.

  Tony Bridges listened to Steven Harding’s interminable tirade against the police with growing irritation. His friend paced the sitting room in a rage, kicking at anything that got in his way and biting Tony’s head off every time he tried to offer advice. Meanwhile, Bibi, a silent and frightened observer to their mounting anger, sat cross-legged on the floor at Tony’s feet, hiding her feelings behind a curtain of thick blonde hair and wondering whether it would make the situation better or worse if she announced her intention of going home.

  Finally, Tony’s patience snapped. ‘Get a grip before I bloody flatten you,’ he roared. ‘You’re acting like a two-year-old. Okay, so the police arrested you. Big deal! Just be grateful they didn’t find anything.’

  Steve slammed down into an armchair. ‘Who says they haven’t? They’ve refused to release Crazy Daze . . . my car’s in a pound somewhere . . . What the hell am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Get the solicitor on to it. That’s what he’s paid to do, for Christ’s sake. Just don’t keep bellyaching on to us. It’s fucking boring, apart from anything else. It’s not our fault you went to Poole for the sodding weekend. You should have come to Southampton with us.’

  Bibi stirred uncomfortably on the floor at his feet. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again when caution prevailed. Anger was bubbling in the room like overheated yeast.

  Harding slammed his feet on to the floor in a rage. ‘The solicitor’s worse than useless, told me the bastards were entitled to hold evidence for as long as is necessary or some legalized crap like that . . .’ His voice tailed off on a sob.

  There was a long silence.

  This time fondness for Tony’s friend got the better of caution and nervously Bibi raised her head. She scraped a gap in her hair to look at him. ‘But if you didn’t do it,’ she said in her soft, rather childish way, ‘then I don’t see what you’re worrying about.’

  ‘Right,’ agreed Tony. ‘They can’t prosecute you without evidence, and if they’ve released you then there isn’t any evidence. QED.’

  ‘I want my phone,’ said Harding, surging to his feet again with crackling energy. ‘What did you do with it?’

  ‘Left it with Bob,’ said Tony. ‘Like you told me to do.’

  ‘Has he put it on charge?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t spoken to him since Monday. He was pretty stoned when I gave it to him, so the chances are he’s forgotten all about it.’

  ‘That’s all I need.’ The angry young man launched a kick at one of the walls.

  Bridges took a pull at his lager can, eyeing his friend thoughtfully over the top of it. ‘What’s so important about the phone?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Then leave my fucking walls alone!’ he bellowed, surging out of his own chair and thrusting his face into Harding’s. ‘Show some respect, you bastard! This is my house, not your crappy little boat.’

  ‘Stop it!’ screamed Bibi, cowering back behind the chair. ‘What’s wrong with you both? One of you’s going to get hurt in a minute.’

  Harding frowned down at her, then held up his hands. ‘All right, all right. I’m expecting a call. That’s why I’m twitched.’

  ‘Then use the phone in the hall,’ said Bridges curtly, flinging himself into the armchair again.

  ‘No.’ He backed towards the wall and leaned against it. ‘What did the police ask you?’

  ‘What you’d expect. How well you knew Kate . . . whether I thought the harassment was genuine . . . whether I saw you on Saturday . . . where I was . . . what kind of pornography you were into . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I knew that garbage would come back to haunt you.’

  ‘Leave it out,’ said Harding tiredly. ‘I told you I’d had enough of your bloody lectures on Monday. What did you tell them?’

  Tony frowned warningly at Bibi’s bent head, then touched a hand to the back of her neck. ‘Do you want to do me a favour, Beebs? Hop down to the off-licence and get an eight-pack. There’s some money on the shelf in the hall.’

  She rose to her feet with obvious relief. ‘Sure. Why not? I’ll leave them in the hall then go home. Okay?’ She held out a reluctant hand. ‘I’m really
tired, Tony, and I could do with a decent night’s kip. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He gripped her fingers for a moment, squeezing them hard. ‘Just so long as you love me, Beebs.’

  She tore herself free, cradling her hand under her arm, and made for the hall. ‘You know I do.’

  He didn’t speak again until he heard the front door close behind her. ‘You want to be careful what you say around her,’ he warned Harding. ‘She had to give a statement, too, and it’s not fair to get her any more involved than she is already.’

  ‘Okay, okay . . . So what did you tell them?’

  ‘Aren’t you more interested in what I didn’t tell them?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Right. Well, I didn’t tell them you shagged Kate’s brains out.’

  Harding breathed deeply through his nose. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I thought about it,’ Bridges admitted, reaching for a packet of Rizla papers on the floor and setting about rolling himself a joint. ‘But I know you too well, mate. You’re an arrogant son of a bitch with an over-inflated opinion of yourself’ – he squinted up at his friend with a return of good humour in his eyes – ‘but I can’t see you murdering anyone, particularly not a woman, and never mind she was pissing you off something rotten. So I kept shtoom.’ He gave an eloquent shrug. ‘But if I live to regret it, I’ll have your stinking hide . . . and you’d better believe that.’