The Breaker

by Minette Walters

  ‘How can I? She’s almost as badly off as we are, and it’s our fault.’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘That’s not true. She lost ten thousand pounds, peanuts compared with what we lost, but she knows she only has to turn on the waterworks for half a second and you fall for it every time.’ She gestured impatiently towards the hall and the drawing room beyond. ‘We can’t pay the bills if we don’t collect the money, which means we either decide to hand everything over now to Matthew and go and live in a council flat or you go to him, cap in hand, and beg for some kind of allowance.’ She gave a helpless shrug at the thought of her brother. ‘If I believed there was any point in my trying, I would, but we both know he’d slam the door in my face.’

  Celia gave a mirthless laugh. ‘What makes you think it would be any different if I tried? That wife of his can’t stand me. She’d never agree to keeping her mother-in-law and sister-in-law in what she chooses to call the lap of luxury when her real pleasure in life would be to see us destitute.’

  ‘I know,’ said Maggie guiltily, ‘and it serves us right. We should never have been rude about her wedding dress.’

  ‘It was difficult not to be,’ said Celia tartly. ‘The vicar nearly had a heart attack when he saw her.’

  Her daughter’s eyes filled with humour. ‘It was the greenfly that did it. If there hadn’t been a plague of the blasted things the year they got married, and if her wretched veil hadn’t collected every single one in a twenty-mile radius while she walked from the church to the reception . . . What was it you called her? Something to do with camouflage.’

  ‘I didn’t call her anything,’ said Celia with dignity. ‘I congratulated her for blending so well into her surroundings.’

  Maggie laughed. ‘That’s right, I remember now. God, you were rude.’

  ‘You found it funny at the time,’ her mother pointed out, easing her bad hip on the chair. ‘I’ll talk to Mary,’ she promised. ‘I can probably bear the humiliation of dunning my friends rather better than I can bear the humiliation of begging off Matthew and Ava.’

  Chapter Four

  Physical/psychological assessment of unidentified toddler: ‘Baby Smith’

  Physical: The child’s general health is excellent. She is well nourished and well cared for, and is not suffering from any disease or ailment. Blood test indicates minute traces of benzodiazepine (possibly Mogadon) and stronger traces of paracetamol in her system. There is no evidence of past or recent abuse, sexual or physical, although there is some evidence (see below) that she has suffered past, continuing or recent psychological trauma. The physical evidence suggests that she was separated from her parent/guardian within 3–4 hours of being found – most notably in terms of her overall cleanliness and the fact that she hadn’t soiled herself. In addition she showed no signs of dehydration, hypothermia, hunger or exhaustion which would have been expected in a child who had been abandoned for any length of time.

  Psychological: The child’s behaviour and social skills are typical of a two-year-old, however her size and weight suggest she is older. She presents evidence of mild autism although knowledge of her history is needed to confirm a diagnosis. She is uninterested in other people/children and reacts aggressively when approached by them. She is overly passive, preferring to sit and observe rather than explore her environment. She is unnaturally withdrawn and makes no attempt to communicate verbally, although will use sign language to achieve what she wants. Her hearing is unimpaired and she listens to everything that’s said to her; however, she is selective about which instructions she chooses to obey. As a simple example, she is happy to point to a blue cube when asked, but refuses to pick it up.

  While she is unable or unwilling to use words to communicate, she resorts very quickly to screams and tantrums when her wishes are thwarted or when she feels herself stressed. This is particularly evident when strangers enter the room, or when voices rise above a monotone. She invariably refuses any sort of physical contact on a first meeting but holds out her arms to be picked up on a second. This would indicate good recognition skills, yet she evinces a strong fear of men and screams in terror whenever they intrude into her space. In the absence of any indication of physical or sexual abuse, this fear may stem from: unfamiliarity with men as a result of being raised in a sheltered, all-female environment; witnessing male aggression against another – e.g. mother or sibling.

  Conclusions: In view of the child’s backward development and apparent stress-related disorders, she should not be returned to her family/guardians without exhaustive enquiries being made about the nature of the household. It is also imperative that she be placed on the ‘at risk’ register to allow continuous monitoring of her future welfare. I am seriously concerned about the traces of benzodiazepine and paracetamol in her bloodstream. Benzodiazepine (strong hypnotic) is not recommended for children, and certainly not in conjunction with paracetamol. I suspect the child was sedated, but can think of no legitimate reason why this should have been necessary.

  N.B. Without knowing more of the child’s history, it is difficult to say whether her behaviour is due to: (1) autism; (2) psychiatric trauma; (3) taught dependence which, while leaving her ignorant of her own capabilities, has encouraged her to be consciously manipulative.

  Dr Janet Murray

  Chapter Five

  IT HAD BEEN a long twenty-four hours and WPC Sandra Griffiths was yawning as her telephone started to ring again at noon on Monday. She had done several local radio and television interviews to publicize Lily’s abandonment (named after Lilliput where she was found), but although the response to the programmes had been good, not one caller had been able to tell her who the child was. She blamed the weather. Too many people were out in the sunshine; too few watching their sets. She stifled the yawn as she picked up the receiver.

  The man at the other end sounded worried. ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he told her, ‘but I’ve just had my mother on the phone. She’s incredibly het-up about some toddler wandering the streets who looks like my daughter. I’ve told her it can’t possibly be Hannah, but’ – he paused – ‘well, the thing is we’ve both tried phoning my wife and neither of us can get an answer.’

  Griffiths tucked the receiver under her chin and reached for a pen. This was the twenty-fifth father to phone since the toddler’s photograph had been broadcast, and all were estranged from their wives and children. She had no higher hopes of this one than she’d had of the previous twenty-four but she went through the motions willingly enough. ‘If you’ll answer one or two questions for me, sir, we can establish very quickly whether the little girl is Hannah. May I have your name and address?’

  ‘William Sumner, Langton Cottage, Rope Walk, Lymington, Hampshire.’

  ‘And do your wife and daughter still live with you, Mr Sumner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her interest sharpened immediately. ‘When did you last see them?’

  ‘Four days ago. I’m at a pharmaceutical conference in Liverpool. I spoke to Kate – that’s my wife – on Friday night and everything was fine, but my mother’s positive this toddler’s Hannah. It doesn’t make sense though. Mum says she was found in Poole yesterday, but how could Hannah be wandering around Poole on her own when we live in Lymington?’

  Griffiths listened to the rising alarm in his voice. ‘Are you phoning from Liverpool now?’ she asked calmly.

  ‘Yes. I’m staying in the Regal, room number two-two-three-five. What should I do? My mother’s beside herself with worry. I need to reassure her that everything’s all right.’

  And yourself, too, she thought. ‘Could you give me a description of Hannah?’

  ‘She looks like her mother,’ he said rather helplessly. ‘Blonde, blue eyes. She doesn’t talk very much. We’ve been worrying about it but the doctor says it’s just shyness.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘She’ll be three next month.’

  The policewoman winced in sympathy as she put the next question, guessing w
hat his answer was going to be. ‘Does Hannah have a pink cotton dress with smocking on it and a pair of red sandals, Mr Sumner?’

  It took him a second or two to answer. ‘I don’t know about the sandals,’ he said with difficulty, ‘but my mother bought her a smocked dress about three months ago. I think it was pink – no, it was pink. Oh God’ – his voice broke – ‘where’s Kate?’

  She waited a moment. ‘Did you drive to Liverpool, Mr Sumner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know roughly how long it will take you to get home?’

  ‘Five hours maybe.’

  ‘And where does your mother live?’

  ‘Chichester.’

  ‘Then I think you’d better give me her name and address, sir. If the little girl is Hannah, then she can identify her for us. Meantime I’ll ask Lymington police to check your house while I make enquiries about your wife here in Poole.’

  ‘Mrs Angela Sumner, Flat Two, The Old Convent, Osborne Crescent, Chichester.’ His breathing became laboured – with tears? – and Griffiths wished herself a million miles away. How she hated the fact that, nine times out of ten, she was the harbinger of bad news. ‘But there’s no way she can get to Poole. She’s been in a wheelchair for the last three years and can’t drive. If she could, she’d have gone to Lymington to check on Kate and Hannah herself. Can’t I make the identification?’

  ‘By all means, if that’s what you prefer. The little girl’s in the care of a foster family at the moment, and it won’t harm her to stay there a few more hours.’

  ‘My mother’s convinced Hannah’s been abused by some man. Is that what’s happened? I’d rather know now than later.’

  ‘Assuming the little girl is Hannah, then, no, there’s no evidence of any sort of physical abuse. She’s been thoroughly checked and the police doctor’s satisfied that she hasn’t been harmed in any way.’ She glossed over Dr Murray’s damning psychological assessment. If Lily were indeed Hannah Sumner, then that particular issue would have to be taken up later.

  ‘What kind of enquiries can you make about my wife in Poole?’ he asked in bewilderment, reverting to what she’d said previously. ‘I told you, we live in Lymington.’

  The hospital kind . . . ‘Routine ones, Mr Sumner. It would help if you could give me her full name and a description of her. Also the type, colour and registration number of her car and the names of any friends she has in the area.’

  ‘Kate Elizabeth Sumner. She’s thirty-one, about five feet tall and blonde. The car’s a blue Metro, registration F52 VXY, but I don’t think she knows anyone in Poole. Could she have been taken to hospital? Could something have gone wrong with the pregnancy?’

  ‘It’s one of the things I’ll be checking, Mr Sumner.’ She was flicking through the RTA reports on the computer while she was talking to him, but there was no mention of a blue Metro with that registration being involved in a road accident. ‘Are your wife’s parents living. Would they know where she is?’

  ‘No. Her mother died five years ago and she never knew her father.’

  ‘Brothers? Sisters?’

  ‘She hasn’t got anyone except me and Hannah.’ His voice broke again. ‘What am I going to do? I won’t be able to cope if something’s happened to her.’

  ‘There’s no reason to think anything’s happened,’ said Griffiths firmly, while believing the exact opposite. ‘Do you have a mobile telephone in your car? If so I can keep you up to date as you drive down.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I suggest you break your journey at the halfway mark to ring from a callbox. I should have news from Lymington police by then, and with luck I’ll be able to set your mind at rest about Kate. And try not to worry, Mr Sumner,’ she finished kindly. ‘It’s a long drive from Liverpool, and the important thing is to get yourself back in one piece.’

  She put through a call to Lymington police, explaining the details of the case and asking for a check to be made of Sumner’s address, then as a matter of routine dialled the Regal Hotel in Liverpool to enquire whether a Mr William Sumner had been registered in room two-two-three-five since Thursday. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the receptionist, ‘but I can’t put you through, I’m afraid. He left five minutes ago.’

  Reluctantly, she started on the list of hospitals.

  For various reasons, Nick Ingram had no ambitions to move away from his rural police station where life revolved around community policing and the hours were predictable. Major cases were handled thirty miles away at County HQ Winfrith, and this left him free to deal with the less glamorous side of policing which for 95 per cent of the population was the only side that mattered. People slept sounder in their beds knowing that PC Ingram had zero tolerance for lager louts, vandals and petty thieves.

  Real trouble usually came from outside, and the unidentified woman on the beach looked like being a case in point, he thought, when a call came through from Winfrith at 12.45 p.m. on Monday, 11 August. The Coroner’s Office at Poole had ordered a murder inquiry following the postmortem, and he was told to expect a DI and a DS from headquarters within the hour. A scene of crime team had already been dispatched to search the beach at Egmont Bight but Ingram was requested to stay where he was.

  ‘I don’t think they’ll find anything,’ he said helpfully. ‘I had a bit of a scout round yesterday but it was fairly obvious the sea had washed her up.’

  ‘I suggest you leave that to us,’ said the unemotional voice at the other end.

  Ingram gave a shrug at his end. ‘What did she die of?’

  ‘Drowning,’ came the blunt response. ‘She was thrown into the open sea after an attempt at manual strangulation which failed. The pathologist guestimates she swam half a mile to try and save herself before she gave up from exhaustion. She was fourteen weeks pregnant, and her killer held her down and raped her before pitching her over the side.’

  Ingram was shocked. ‘What sort of man would do that?’

  ‘An unpleasant one. We’ll see you in an hour.’

  Griffiths drew a series of blanks with the name Kate Sumner – there was no record of her at any hospital in Dorset or Hampshire. It was only when she made a routine check through Winfrith to see if there was any information on the whereabouts of a small blonde woman, aged thirty-one, who appeared to have gone missing from Lymington within the last forty-eight hours that the scattered pieces of the jigsaw began to come together.

  The two detectives arrived punctually for their meeting with PC Ingram. The sergeant, an arrogant, pushy type with ambitions to join the Met, who clearly believed that every conversation was an opportunity to impress, went down like a lead balloon with his rural colleague and Ingram was never able afterwards to remember his name. He talked in bullet points ‘reference a major investigation’ in which ‘speed was the essence’ before the murderer had a chance to get rid of evidence and/or strike again. Local marinas, yacht clubs and harbours were being ‘targeted’ for information on the victim and/or her killer. Victim identification was the ‘first priority’. They had a possible lead on a missing IC/1 female, but no one was counting chickens until her husband identified a photograph and/or the body. The second priority was to locate the boat she’d come off and give forensics a chance to strip it top-to-bottom in search of non-intimate samples that would connect it to the body. Give us a suspect, he suggested, and DNA testing would do the rest.

  Ingram raised an eyebrow when the monologue came to an end but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Did you follow all that?’ asked the sergeant impatiently.

  ‘I think so, si-rr,’ he said in a broad Dorsetshire burr, resisting the temptation to tug his forelock. ‘If you find some of her hairs on a man’s boat that’ll mean he’s the rapist.’

  ‘Near enough.’

  ‘That’s amazing, sir-rr,’ murmured Ingram.

  ‘You don’t sound convinced,’ said DI Galbraith, watching his performance with amusement.

  He shrugged and reverted to his normal accent. ‘The only th
ing that non-intimate samples will prove is that she visited his boat at least once, and that’s not proof of rape. The only useful DNA tests will have to be done on her.’

  ‘Well, don’t hold your breath,’ the DI warned. ‘Water doesn’t leave trace evidence. The pathologist’s taken swabs but he’s not optimistic about getting a result. Either she was in the sea too long and anything useful was flushed away or her attacker was wearing a condom.’ He was a pleasant-looking man with cropped, ginger hair and a smiling, freckled face that made him look younger than his forty-two years. It also belied a sharp intelligence that caught people unawares if they were foolish enough to stereotype him by his appearance.

  ‘How long was long?’ asked Ingram with genuine curiosity. ‘Put it this way, how does the pathologist know she swam half a mile? It’s a very precise estimate for an unpredictable stretch of water.’

  ‘He based it on the condition of the body, prevailing winds and currents, and the fact that she must have been alive when she reached the shelter of Egmont Point,’ said John Galbraith, opening his briefcase and extracting a sheet of paper. ‘Victim died of drowning at or around high water which was at 1.52 a.m. British Summer Time on Sunday, 10 August,’ he said, skip-reading the document. ‘Several indicators, such as evidence of hypothermia, the fact that a keeled boat couldn’t have sailed too close to the cliffs and the currents around St Alban’s Head suggest she entered the sea’ – he tapped the page with his finger – ‘a minimum of half a mile west-south-west of where the body was found.’

  ‘Okay, well assuming the minimum, that doesn’t mean she swam half a mile. There are some strong currents along this part of the coast, so the sea would have caused her eastward drift. In real terms she would only have swum a couple of hundred yards.’