The Breaker

by Minette Walters

  Conclusions: While I am prepared to accept that Hannah’s backward development (which I believe to be serious) may not be due to any recent event, I can only reiterate that this child’s welfare must be continuously monitored. Without supervision, I consider it probable that Hannah will suffer psychological, emotional and physical neglect as William Sumner (father) is immature, lacks parental skills and appears to have little affection for his daughter.

  Dr Janet Murray

  Chapter Twelve

  STEVEN HARDING WAS released without charge shortly before 9.00 a.m. on Wednesday, 13 August 1997, when the review officer declined to authorize his continued detention due to lack of evidence. However, he was informed that both his car and his boat would be retained for ‘as long as is necessary’. No further explanation was offered for their retention. With the co-operation of the Hampshire Constabulary, he was remanded on police bail to twenty-three Old Street, Lymington, the house of Anthony Bridges, and was ordered to present himself at Lymington police station daily so that a regular check could be kept on his movements.

  On the advice of a solicitor, he had made a detailed statement about his relationship with Kate Sumner and his movements over the weekend of 9/10 August, although it added little to what he had already told the police. He explained the fingerprint evidence and the presence of Hannah’s shoes on Crazy Daze in the following manner:

  They came on board in March when I had the boat lifted out of the water to clean and repaint the hull. Crazy Daze was in Berthon’s yard, sitting on a wooden cradle, and when Kate realized I couldn’t get away from her because I had to finish the painting, she kept coming to the yard and hanging around, making a nuisance of herself and irritating me. In the end, just to get rid of her, I agreed to let her and Hannah climb the ladder and look at the inside while I stayed below. I told them to take their shoes off and leave them in the cockpit. When the time came for them to climb down again, Kate decided Hannah couldn’t manage the ladder so lowered her down to me instead. I strapped Hannah into her buggy but I didn’t notice whether or not she was wearing shoes. To be honest I never look at her much. She gives me the creeps. She never says anything, just stares at me as if I’m not there. Some time later I found some shoes in the cockpit with H. SUMNER written on the strap. Even if they were too small to be the ones Hannah was wearing that day, I have no other explanation for their presence there.

  Although I knew where the Sumners lived, I did not return Hannah’s shoes because I was sure that Kate had left them there deliberately. I did not like Kate Sumner and I did not want to be alone with her in her house because I knew she had a serious crush on me which I did not reciprocate. She was very peculiar and her constant pestering worried me. I can only describe her behaviour as harassment. She used to hang around by the yacht club waiting for me to come ashore in my dinghy. Most of the time she just stood and watched me, but sometimes she’d deliberately bump into me and rub her breasts against my arm. The mistake I made was to visit Langton Cottage with her husband shortly after she introduced me to him in the street at the end of last year. I believe that was the beginning of her infatuation. At no time was I inclined to respond to her advances.

  Some time later, at the end of April, I think, I was moored up to the Berthon fuelling pontoon, waiting for the dockie to come and operate the pump, when Kate and Hannah walked down ‘C’ pontoon towards me. Kate said she hadn’t seen me for a while but had spotted Crazy Daze and felt like a chat. She and Hannah came on board without invitation which annoyed me. I suggested Kate go into the aft cabin to retrieve Hannah’s shoes from the port shelf. I knew there were some clothes belonging to other women in the cabin and I thought it would be a good thing if Kate saw them. I hoped it would make her realize that I wasn’t interested in her. She left soon afterwards and when I went into the cabin, I found she’d taken off Hannah’s nappy, which was dirty, and had ground the mess into the bedclothes. She had also left the shoes behind again. I believe both acts were done deliberately to show me that she was angry about the women’s underclothes in the cabin.

  I became seriously concerned about Kate Sumner’s harassment of me when she found out where I parked my car and took to setting off the alarm to get Tony Bridges and his neighbours riled with me. I have no proof it was Kate who was doing it, although I am sure it must have been because I kept finding faeces smeared on the driver’s handle. I did not tell the police about my suspicions because I was afraid of becoming even more involved with the Sumner family. Instead I sought out William Sumner some time in June and showed him photographs of myself in a gay magazine because I wanted him to tell his wife I was gay. I realize this must seem odd after I had shown Kate evidence that I entertain girlfriends on board Crazy Daze but I was becoming desperate. Some of the photographs were quite explicit and William was shocked by them. I don’t know what he told his wife but, to my relief, she stopped harassing me almost immediately.

  I have seen her in the street maybe five times since June but did not speak to her until the morning of Saturday, 9 August, when I realized I couldn’t avoid her. She was outside Tesco’s, and we said good morning to each other. She told me she was looking for some sandals for Hannah, and I said I was in a hurry to get off because I was sailing to Poole for the weekend. That was the extent of our conversation. I did not see her again. I admit that I was very aggrieved by her persecution of me, and developed a strong dislike for her, but I have no idea how she came to drown in the sea off the Dorset coast.

  A long interview with Tony Bridges produced a corroborative statement. As DS Campbell had predicted, Bridges was known to the Lymington police as a cannabis user but they took a tolerant view of it. ‘Once in a while his neighbours complain when he has a party in there, but it’s alcohol that makes them raucous, not cannabis, and even the blue-rinse brigade are finally beginning to realize that.’ Rather more surprisingly, he was also a respected chemistry teacher at one of the local schools. ‘What Tony does in the privacy of his home is his own affair,’ said his headmaster. ‘As far as I’m concerned, the policing of my colleagues’ morals outside school hours isn’t part of my job description. If it were, I would probably lose some of my better staff. Tony’s an inspirational teacher who enthuses children in a difficult subject. I have a lot of time for him.’

  I’ve known Steven Harding for eighteen years. We attended the same primary and secondary schools and have been friends ever since. He sleeps in my house when his boat’s out of commission or during the winter when it’s too cold for him to stay on board. I used to know his parents quite well before they moved to Cornwall in 1991 but I have not seen them since. Steve sailed down to Falmouth two summers ago but I don’t believe he’s made any other visits to Cornwall. He divides his life between his flat in London and his boat in Lymington.

  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 faeces 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 round 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 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. In the event 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 hungover, and that this was the reason for his non-appearance.

  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 some time 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 afterwards 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 defence 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-centred 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 round 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 towards him and drummed his fingers on it in irritation. ‘Shall I tell you what this smells of to me? The classic defence 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 afterwards. 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 blousy 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 thoughtfully. ‘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 say 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 damne
d 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 travelling by boat, sailors between Southampton and Weymouth were being asked to come forward with any sightings of a small, blonde 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.’