Breaker

by Minette Walters

  Sumner didn't answer.

  "You must have thought you'd got yourself a good bargain at the beginning. A pretty wife who worshipped the ground you trod on. All right, you didn't have much in common with her, and fatherhood left a lot to be desired, but all in all, life was rosy. The sex was good, you had a mortgage you could afford, the journey to work was a doddle, your mother was keeping tabs on your wife during the day, your supper was on the table when you came home of an evening, and you were free to go sailing whenever you wanted." He paused. "Then you moved to Lymington, and things started to turn sour. I'm guessing Kate grew less and less interested in keeping you happy because she didn't need to pretend anymore. She'd got what she wanted-no more supervision from her mother-in-law ... a house of her own ... respectability-all of which gave her the confidence to make a life for herself and Hannah which didn't include you." He eyed the other man curiously. "And suddenly it was your turn to be taken for granted. Is that when you began to suspect Hannah wasn't yours?"

  Sumner surprised him by laughing. "I've known since she was a few weeks old that she couldn't possibly be mine. Kate and I are blood group O, and Hannah's blood group A. That means her father has to be either blood group A or AB. I'm not a fool. I married a pregnant woman, and I had no illusions about her, whatever you or my mother may think."

  "Did you challenge Kate with it?"

  Sumner pressed a finger to his fluttering lid. "It was hardly a challenge. I just showed her an Exclusions of Paternity table on the ABO system and explained how two blood group O parents can only produce a group O child. She was shocked to have been found out so easily, but as my only purpose in doing it was to show her I wasn't as gullible as she seemed to think I was, it never became an issue between us. I had no problem acknowledging Hannah as mine, which is all Kate wanted."

  "Did she tell you who the father was?"

  He shook his head. "I didn't want to know. I assume it's someone I work with-or have worked with-but as she broke all contact with Pharmatec after she left, except for the odd visit from Polly Garrard, I knew the father didn't figure in her life anymore." He stroked the arm of his chair. "You probably won't believe me, but I couldn't see the point of getting hot under the collar about someone who had become an irrelevance."

  He was right. Galbraith didn't believe him. "Presumably the fact that Hannah isn't your child explains your lack of interest in her?"

  Once again the man didn't answer, and a silence lengthened between them.

  "Tell me what went wrong when you moved to Lymington," Galbraith said then.

  "Nothing went wrong."

  "So you're saying that from day one"-he emphasized the word-"marriage was like living with a landlady? That's a pretty unattractive proposition, isn't it?"

  "It depends what you want," said Sumner. "Anyway, how would you describe a woman whose idea of an intellectual challenge was to watch a soap opera, who had no taste in anything, was so houseproud that she believed cleanliness was next to godliness, preferred overcooked sausages and baked beans to rare steak, and accounted voluntarily for every damn penny that either of us ever spent?"

  There was a rough edge to his voice, which to Galbraith's ears sounded more like guilt at exposing his wife's shortcomings than bitterness that she'd had them, and he had the impression that William couldn't make up his mind if he'd loved his wife or loathed her. But whether that made him guilty of her murder, Galbraith didn't know.

  "If you despised her to that extent, why did you marry her?"

  Sumner rested his head against the back of his chair and stared at the ceiling. "Because the quid pro quo for helping her out of the hole she'd dug for herself was sex whenever I wanted it." He turned to look at Galbraith, and his eyes were bright with unshed tears. "That's all I was interested in. That's all any man's interested in. Isn't it? Sex on tap. Kate would have sucked me off twenty times a day if I'd told her to, just so long as I kept acknowledging Hannah as my daughter." The memory brought him little pleasure, apparently, because tears streamed in murky rivers down his cheeks while his uncontrollable lid winked ... and winked...

  It was an hour and a half before Ingram returned to Broxton House, carrying something wrapped in layers of cling film. Maggie saw him pass the kitchen window and went through the scullery to let him in. He was soaked to the skin and supported himself against the doorjamb, head hanging in exhaustion.

  "Did you find anything?" she asked him.

  He nodded, lifting the bundle. "I need to make a phone call, but I don't want to drip all over your mother's floor. I presume you were carrying your mobile this morning, so can I borrow it?"

  "Sorry, I wasn't. So no. I got it free two years ago in return for a year's rental, but it was so bloody expensive I declined to renew my subscription and I haven't used it in twelve months. It's in the flat somewhere." She held the door wide. "You'd better come in. There's an extension in the kitchen, and the quarry tiles won't hurt for getting water on them." Her lips gave a brief twitch. "They might even benefit. I dread to think when they last saw a mop."

  He padded after her, his shoes squelching as he walked. "How did you phone me this morning if you didn't have a mobile?"

  "I used Steve's," she said, pointing to a Philips GSM on the kitchen table.

  He pushed it to one side with the back of his finger and placed the cling film bundle beside it. "What's it doing here?"

  "I put it in my pocket and forgot about it," she said. "I only remembered it when it started ringing. It's rung five times since you left."

  "Have you answered it?"

  "No. I thought you could deal with it when you came back."

  He moved across to the wall telephone and lifted it off its bracket. "You're very trusting," he murmured, punching in the number of the Kate Sumner incident room. "Supposing I'd decided to let you and your mother stew in your own juices for a bit?"

  "You wouldn't," she said frankly. "You're not the type."

  He was still wondering how to take that when he was put through to Detective Superintendent Carpenter. "I've fished a boy's T-shirt out of the sea, sir ... almost certainly belonging to one of the Spender boys. It's got a Derby County Football Club logo on the front, and Danny claimed Harding stole it from him." He listened for a moment. "Yes, Danny could have dropped it by accident ... I agree, it doesn't make Harding a pedophile." He held the phone away from his ear as Carpenter's barking beat against his eardrums. "No, I haven't found the rucksack yet, but as a matter of fact ... only that I've a pretty good idea where it is." More barking. "Yes, I'm betting it's what he came back for..." He grimaced into the receiver. "Oh, yes, sir, I'd say it's definitely in Chapman's Pool." He glanced at his watch. "The boat sheds in an hour. I'll meet you there." He replaced the receiver, saw amusement at his discomfort in Maggie's eyes, and gestured abruptly toward the hall. "Has the doctor been to see your mother?"

  She nodded.

  "Well?"

  "He told her she was a fool not to take the paramedic's offer to have her admitted as an emergency this morning, then patted her on the head and gave her some painkillers." Her lips twitched into another small smile. "He also said she needs a walker and wheelchair, and suggested I drive to the nearest Red Cross depot this afternoon and see what they can do for her."

  "Sounds sensible."

  "Of course it does, but since when did sense feature in my mother's life? She says if I introduce any such contraptions into her house, she won't use them and she'll never speak to me again. And she means it, too. She says she'd rather crawl on her hands and knees than give anyone the impression she's passed her sell-by date." She gave a tired sigh. "Ideas on a postcard, please, care of Broxton House Lunatic Asylum. What the hell am I supposed to do?"

  "Wait," he suggested.

  "What for?"

  "A miraculous cure or a request for a walker. She's not stupid, Maggie. Logic will prevail once she gets over her irritation with you, me, and the doctor. Meanwhile, be kind to her. She crippled herself for you this morning
, and a little gratitude and TLC will probably have her on her feet quicker than anything."

  "I've already told her I couldn't have done it without her."

  He looked amused. "Like mother like daughter, eh?"

  "I don't understand."

  "She can't say sorry. You can't say thank you."

  Sudden light dawned. "Oh, I see. So that's why you went off in a huff two hours ago. It was gratitude you wanted. How silly of me. I thought you were angry because I told you to mind your own business." She wrapped her arms about her thin body and gave him a tentative smile. "Well, thank you, Nick, I'm extremely grateful for your assistance."

  He tugged at his forelock. "Much obliged I'm sure, Miss Jenner," he said in a rolling burr. "But a lady like you don't need to thank a man for doing his job."

  Her puzzled eyes searched his for a moment before it occurred to her he was taking the piss, and her overwrought nerves snapped with a vengeance. "Fuck off!" she said, landing a furious fist on the side of his jaw before marching into the hall and slamming the door behind her.

  Two Dartmouth policemen listened with interest to what the Frenchman told them, while his daughter stood in embarrassed silence beside him, fidgeting constantly with her hair. The man's English was good, if heavily accented, as he explained carefully and precisely where he and his boat had been the previous Sunday. He had come, he said, because he had read in the English newspapers that the woman who had been lifted off the shore had been murdered. He placed a copy of Wednesday's Telegraph on the counter in case they didn't know which inquiry he was referring to. "Mrs. Kate Sumner," he said. "You are acquainted with this matter?" They agreed they were, so he produced a videocassette from a carrier bag and put it beside the newspaper. "My daughter made a film of a man that day. You understand-I know nothing about this man. He may-how you say-be innocent. But I am anxious." He pushed the video across the desk. "It is not good what he is doing, so you play it. Yes? It is important, perhaps."

  Harding's mobile telephone was a sophisticated little item with the capacity to call abroad or be called from abroad. It required an SIM (Subscriber Identification Module) card and a PIN number to use it, but as both had been logged in, presumably by Harding himself, the phone was operational. If it hadn't been, Maggie wouldn't have been able to use it. The card had an extensive memory and, depending on how much the user programmed into it, could store phone numbers and messages, plus the last ten numbers dialed out and the last ten dialed in.

  The screen was displaying "5 missed calls" and a "messages waiting" sign. With a wary look toward the door into the hall, Ingram went into the menu, located "voice mail" followed by "mailbox," pressed the "call" button, and held the receiver to his ear. He massaged his cheek tenderly while he listened, wondering if Maggie had any idea how powerful her punch was.

  "You have three new messages," said a disembodied female voice at the other end.

  "Steve?" A lisping, lightweight-foreign?-voice, although Ingram couldn't tell if it was male or female. "Where are you? I'm frightened. Please phone me. I've tried twenty times since Sunday."

  "Mr. Harding?" A man's voice, definitely foreign. "This is the Hotel Angelique, Concarneau. If you wish us to keep your room, you must confirm your reservation by noon today, using a credit card. I regret that without such confirmation the reservation cannot be honored."

  "Hi," said an Englishman's voice next. "Where the fuck are you, you stupid bastard? You're supposed to be kipping here, for Christ's sake. Dammit, this is the address you've been bailed to, and I swear to God I'll take you to the cleaners if you get me into any more trouble. Just don't expect me to keep my mouth shut next time. I warned you I'd have your stinking hide if you were playing me for a patsy. Oh, and in case you're interested, there's a sodding journalist nosing around who wants to know if it's true you've been questioned about Kate's murder. He's really bugging me, so get your arse back PDQ before I drop you in it up to your neck."

  Ingram touched "end" to disconnect, then went through the whole process again, jotting down bullet points on the back of a piece of paper which he took from a notepad under the wall telephone. Next he pressed the arrow button twice to scroll up the numbers of the last ten people who had dialed in. He discounted "voice mail" and made a note of the rest, together with the last ten calls Harding had made, the first of which was Maggie's call to him. For further good measure-To hell with it! In for a penny, in for a pound!-he scrolled through the entries under "names" and took them down together with their numbers.

  "Are you doing something illegal?" asked Maggie from the doorway.

  He had been so engrossed he hadn't heard the door open, and he looked up with a guilty start. "Not if DI Galbraith already has this information." He flattened his palm and made a rocking motion. "Probable infringement of Harding's rights under the Data Protection Act, if he hasn't. It depends whether the phone was on Crazy Daze when they searched it."

  "Won't Steven Harding know you've been playing his messages when you give it back to him? Our answerphone never replays the ones you've already listened to unless you rewind the tape."

  "Voice mail's different. You have to delete the messages if you don't want to keep hearing them." He grinned. "But if he's suspicious, let's just hope he thinks you buggered it up when you made your phone call."

  "Why drag me into it?"

  "Because he'll know you phoned me. My number's in the memory."

  "Oh God," she said in resignation. "Are you expecting me to lie for you?"

  "No." He stood up, lacing his hands above his head and stretching his shoulder muscles under his damp clothes. He was so tall he could almost touch the ceiling, and he stood like a Colossus in the middle of the kitchen, easily dominating a room that was big enough to house an entire family.

  Watching him, Maggie wondered how she could ever have called him an overweight Neanderthal. It had been Martin's description, she remembered, and it galled her unbearably to think how tamely she had adopted it herself because it had raised a laugh among people she had once regarded as friends but whom she now avoided like the plague. "Well, I will," she said with sudden decision.

  He shook his head as he lowered his arms. "It wouldn't do me any good. You couldn't lie to save your life. And that's a compliment, by the way," he said as she started to scowl, "so there's no need to hit me again. I don't admire people who lie."

  "I'm sorry," she said abruptly.

  "No need to be. It was my fault. I shouldn't have teased you." He started to gather the bits and pieces from the table.

  "Where are you going now?"

  "Back to my house to change, then down to the boat sheds at Chapman's Pool. But I'll look in again this afternoon before I go to see Harding. As you so rightly pointed out, I need to take a statement from you." He paused. "We'll talk about this in detail later, but did you hear anything before he appeared?"

  "Like what?"

  "Shale falling?"

  She shook her head. "All I remember is how quiet it was. That's why he gave me such a fright. One minute I was on my own, the next he was crouching on the ground in front of me like a rabid dog. It was really peculiar. I don't know what he thought he was doing, but there's a lot of scrub vegetation and bushes around there, so I think he must have heard me coming and ducked down to hide."

  He nodded. "What about his clothes? Were they wet?"

  "No."

  "Dirty?"

  "You mean before he bled all over them?"

  "Yes."

  She shook her head again. "I remember thinking that he hadn't shaved, but I don't remember thinking he was dirty."

  He stacked the cling film bundle, notes, and phone into a pile and lifted them off the table. "Okay. That's great. I'll take a statement this afternoon." He held her gaze for a moment. "You'll be all right," he told her. "Harding's not going to come back."

  "He wouldn't dare," she said, clenching her fists.

  "Not if he has any sense," murmured Ingram, moving out of her range.

&nb
sp; "Do you have any brandy in your house?"

  The switch was so abrupt that he needed time to consider. "Ye-es," he murmured cautiously, fearing another assault if he dared to question why she was asking. He suspected four years of angry frustration had gone into her punch, and he wished she'd chosen Harding for target practice instead of himself.

  "Can you lend me some?"

  "Sure. I'll drop it in on my way back to Chapman's Pool."

  "If you give me a moment to tell Ma where I'm going, I'll come with you. I can walk back."

  "Won't she miss you?"

  "Not for an hour or so. The painkillers have made her sleepy."

  Bertie was lying on the doorstep in the sunshine as Ingram drew the Jeep to a halt beside his gate. Maggie had never been inside Nick's little house, but she had always resented the neatness of his garden. It was like a reproach to all his less organized neighbors with its beautifully clipped privet hedges and regimented hydrangeas and roses in serried ranks before the yellow-stone walls of the house. She often wondered where he found the time to weed and hoe when he spent most of his free hours on his boat, and in her more critical moments put it down to the fact that he was boring and compartmentalized his life according to some sensible duty roster.

  The dog raised his shaggy head and thumped his tail on the mat before rising leisurely to his feet and yawning. "So this is where he comes," she said. "I've often wondered. How long did it take you to train him, as a matter of interest?"

  "Not long. He's a bright dog."

  "Why did you bother?"

  "Because he's a compulsive digger, and I got fed up with having my garden destroyed," he said prosaically.

  "Oh God," she said guiltily. "Sorry. The trouble is he never takes any notice of me."

  "Does he need to?"

  "He's my dog," she said.

  Ingram opened the Jeep door. "Have you made that clear to him?"

  "Of course I have. He comes home every night, doesn't he?"