The Breaker

by Minette Walters

  ‘Then talk to me here. What do you want to know?’

  The DI glanced towards the road where an interested group of spectators was gathering. ‘We’ll have the Press here before you know it, William,’ he said dispassionately. ‘Do you want to discuss your alleged alibi in front of an audience of journalists?’

  Sumner’s jittery gaze jumped towards the crowd at his gate. ‘This isn’t fair. Everything’s so bloody public. Why can’t you make them go away?’

  ‘They’ll go of their own accord if you let me in. They’ll stay if you insist on keeping me on the doorstep. That’s human nature, I’m afraid.’

  With a haunted expression, Sumner seized the policeman’s arm and pulled him inside. Pressure was beginning to take its toll, thought Galbraith, and gone was the self-assured, if tired, man of Monday. It meant nothing in itself. Shock took time to absorb, and nerves invariably began to fray when successful closure to a case remained elusive. He followed Sumner into the sitting room and, as before, took a seat on the sofa.

  ‘What do you mean, alleged alibi?’ the man demanded, preferring to stand. ‘I was in Liverpool, for God’s sake. How could I be in two places at once?’

  The DI opened his briefcase and extracted some papers. ‘We’ve taken statements from your colleagues, hotel employees at the Regal and librarians at the university library. None of them supports your claim that you were in Liverpool on Saturday night.’ He held them out. ‘I think you should read them.’

  Witness statement: Harold Marshall, MD Campbell Ltd, Lee Industrial Estate, Lichfield, Staffordshire

  I remember seeing William at lunch on Saturday, 9 August 1997. We discussed a paper in last week’s Lancet about stomach ulcers. William says he’s working on a new drug that will beat the current frontrunner into a cocked hat. I was sceptical, and we had quite a debate. No, I didn’t see him at the dinner that evening but then I wouldn’t expect to. He and I have been attending these conferences for years, and it’ll be a red-letter day when William decides to let his hair down and join the rest of us for some light-hearted entertainment. He was certainly at lunch on Sunday because we had another argument on the ulcer issue.

  Witness statement: Paul Dimmock, Research Chemist, Wryton’s, Holborne Way, Colchester, Essex

  I saw William at about 2.00 p.m. Saturday afternoon. He said he was going to the university library to do some research, which is par for the course for him. He never goes to conference dinners. He’s only interested in the intellectual side, hates the social side. My room was two doors down from his. I remember seeing the DO NOT DISTURB notice on the door when I went up to bed about half-past midnight, but I’ve no idea when he got back. I had a drink with him before lunch on Sunday. No, he didn’t seem at all tired. Matter of fact he was in better form than usual. Positively cheerful in fact.

  Witness statement: Anne Smith, Research Chemist, Bristol University, Bristol

  I didn’t see him at all on Saturday but I had a drink with him and Paul Dimmock on Sunday morning. He gave a paper on Friday afternoon and I was interested in some of the things he said. He’s researching the drug treatment of stomach ulcers and it sounds like good stuff.

  Witness statement: Carrie Wilson, Chambermaid, Regal Hotel, Liverpool

  I remember the gentleman in number two-two-three-five. He was very tidy, unpacked his suitcase and put everything away in the drawers. Some of them don’t bother. I finished about midday on Saturday, but I made up his room when he went down to breakfast and I didn’t see him afterwards. Sunday morning, there was a DO NOT DISTURB notice on his door so I left him to sleep. As I recall he went down at about 11.30 and I made up his room then. Yes, his bed had certainly been slept in. There were science books scattered all over it, and I think he must have been doing some studying. I remember thinking he wasn’t so tidy after all.

  Witness statement: David Forward, Concierge, Regal Hotel, Liverpool

  We have limited parking facilities, and Mr Sumner reserved a parking space at the same time as he reserved his room. He was allocated number thirty-four which is at the back of the hotel. As far as I’m aware the car remained there from Thursday 7 to Monday 11. We ask guests to leave a set of keys with us, and Mr Sumner didn’t retrieve his until the Monday. Yes, he could certainly have driven his car out if he had a spare set. There are no barriers across the exit.

  Witness statement: Jane Riley, Librarian, University Library, Liverpool

  (Shown a photograph of William Sumner)

  Quite a few of the conference members came into the library on Saturday, but I don’t remember seeing this man. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t here. As long as they have a conference badge, and know what they’re looking for, they have free access.

  Witness statement: Les Allen, Librarian, University Library, Liverpool

  (Shown a photograph of William Sumner)

  He came in on Friday morning. I spent about half an hour with him. He wanted papers on peptic and duodenal ulcers, and I showed him where to find them. He said he’d be back on Saturday, but I didn’t notice him. It’s a big place. I only ever notice the people who need help.

  ‘You see our problem?’ asked Galbraith when Sumner had read them. ‘There’s a period of twenty-one hours, from two o’clock on Saturday till 11.30 on Sunday, when no one remembers seeing you. Yet the first three statements were made by people whom you told us would give you a cast-iron alibi.’

  Sumner looked at him in bewilderment. ‘But I was there,’ he insisted. ‘One of them must have seen me.’ He stabbed a finger at Paul Dimmock’s statement. ‘I met up with Paul in the foyer. I told him I was going to the library and he walked part of the way with me. That had to be well after two o’clock. Dammit, at two o’clock I was still arguing the toss with that bloody fool Harold Marshall.’

  Galbraith shook his head. ‘Even if it was four o’clock, it makes no difference. You proved on Monday that you can do the drive to Dorset in five hours.’

  ‘This is absurd!’ snapped Sumner nervously. ‘You’ll just have to talk to more people. Someone must have seen me. There was a man at the same table as me in the library. Ginger-haired fellow with glasses. He can prove I was there.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Galbraith took another sheaf of papers out of his briefcase. ‘We’ve questioned thirty people in all, William. These are the rest of the statements. There’s no one who’s prepared to admit they saw you at any time during the ten hours prior to your wife’s murder or the ten hours after. We’ve also checked your hotel account. You didn’t use any hotel service, and that includes your telephone, between lunch on Saturday and pre-lunch drinks on Sunday.’ He dropped the papers on to the sofa. ‘How do you explain that? For example, where did you eat on Saturday night? You weren’t at the conference dinner and you didn’t have room service.’

  Sumner set to cracking his finger joints again. ‘I didn’t have anything to eat, not a proper meal anyway. I hate those blasted conference dinners, so I wasn’t going to leave my room in case anyone saw me. They all get drunk and behave stupidly. I used the mini-bar,’ he said, ‘drank the beer and ate peanuts and chocolate. Isn’t that on the account?’

  Galbraith nodded. ‘Except it doesn’t specify a time. You could have had them at ten o’clock on Sunday morning. It may explain why you were in such good spirits when you met your friends in the bar. Why didn’t you order room service if you didn’t want to go down?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t that hungry.’ Sumner lurched towards the armchair and slumped into it. ‘I knew this was going to happen,’ he said bitterly. ‘I knew you’d go for me if you couldn’t find anyone else. I was in the library all afternoon, then I went back to the hotel and read books and journals till I fell asleep.’ He lapsed into silence, massaging his temples. ‘How could I have drowned her anyway?’ he demanded suddenly. ‘I don’t have a boat.’

  ‘No,’ Galbraith agreed. ‘Drowning does seem to be the one method that exonerates you.’


  A complex mixture of emotions – relief? triumph? pleasure? – showed briefly in the man’s eyes. ‘There you are then,’ he said childishly.

  ‘Why do you want to get even with my mother?’ asked Maggie when Ingram returned to the kitchen after settling Celia and phoning the local GP. Some colour had returned to her cheeks and she had finally stopped shaking.

  ‘Private joke,’ he said, filling the kettle and putting it on the Aga. ‘Where does she keep her mugs?’

  ‘Cupboard by the door.’

  He took out two and transferred them to the sink, then opened the cupboard underneath and found some washing-up liquid, bleach and pan scourers. ‘How long has her hip been bad?’ he asked, rolling up his sleeves and setting to with the scourers and the bleach to render the sink hygienic before he even began to deal with the stains in the mugs. From the strong whiffs of dirty dog and damp horse blankets that seemed to haunt the kitchen like old ghosts, he had a strong suspicion that the sink was not entirely dedicated to the purpose of washing crockery.

  ‘Six months. She’s on the waiting list for a replacement operation but I can’t see it happening before the end of the year.’ She watched him sluice down the draining board and sink. ‘You think we’re a couple of sluts, don’t you?’

  ‘’Fraid so,’ he agreed bluntly. ‘I’d say it’s a miracle neither of you has gone down with food poisoning, particularly your mother when her health’s not too brilliant in the first place.’

  ‘There are so many other things to do,’ she said dispiritedly, ‘and Ma’s in too much pain most of the time to clean properly . . . or says she is. Sometimes I think she’s just making excuses to get out of it because she thinks it’s beneath her to get her hands dirty. Other times . . .’ She sighed heavily. ‘I keep the horses immaculate but cleaning up after myself and Ma is always at the bottom of the list. I hate coming up here anyway. It’s so’ – she sought a suitable word – ‘depressing.’

  He wondered she had the nerve to stand in judgement on her mother’s lifestyle, but didn’t comment on it. Stress, depression and waspishness went together in his experience. Instead, he scrubbed the mugs, then filled them with diluted bleach and left them to stand. ‘Is that why you moved down to the stables?’ he asked her, turning round.

  ‘Not really. If Ma and I live in each other’s pockets we argue. If we live apart we don’t. Simple as that. Things are easier this way.’

  She looked thin and harassed, and her hair hung in limp strands about her face as if she hadn’t been near a shower for weeks. It wasn’t surprising in view of what she’d been through that morning, particularly as the beginnings of a bruise were ripening on the side of her face, but Ingram remembered her as she used to be, pre-Robert Healey, a gloriously vibrant woman with a mischievous sense of humour and sparkling eyes. He regretted the passing of that personality – it had been a dazzling one – but she was still the most desirable woman he knew.

  He glanced idly around the kitchen. ‘If you think this is depressing, you should try living in a hostel for the homeless for a week.’

  ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

  ‘This one room could house an entire family.’

  ‘You sound like Ava, my bloody sister-in-law,’ she said testily. ‘According to her, we live in the lap of luxury despite the fact that the damn place is falling down about our ears.’

  ‘Then why don’t you stop whingeing about it and do something constructive to change it?’ he suggested. ‘If you gave this room a lick of paint it would brighten it up and you’d have less to feel depressed about and more to be thankful for.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she said icily, ‘you’ll be telling me to take up knitting next. I don’t need DIY therapy, Nick.’

  ‘Then explain to me how sitting around moaning about your environment helps you? You’re not helpless, are you? Or maybe it’s you, and not your mother, who thinks that getting her hands dirty is demeaning?’

  ‘Paint costs money.’

  ‘Your flat over the stables costs a damn sight more,’ he pointed out. ‘You baulk at forking out for some cheap emulsion, yet you’ll pay two sets of gas, electricity and telephone bills just in order to avoid having to get on with your mother. How does that make things easier, Maggie? It’s hardly sound economics, is it? And what are you going to do when she falls over and breaks her hip so badly she’s confined to a wheelchair? Pop in once in a while to see she hasn’t died of hypothermia in the night because she hasn’t been able to get into bed on her own? Or will that be so depressing you’ll avoid her entirely?’

  ‘I don’t need this,’ she said tiredly. ‘It’s none of your business anyway. We manage fine on our own.’

  He watched her for a moment, then turned back to the sink, emptying the mugs of bleach and rinsing them under the tap. He jerked his head towards the kettle. ‘Your mother would like a cup of tea, and I suggest you put several spoonfuls of sugar in it to bring up her energy levels. I also suggest you make one for yourself. The GP said he’d be here by eleven.’ He dried his hands on a tea towel and rolled down his sleeves.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked him.

  ‘Up to the headland. I want to try and find out why Harding came back. Does your mother have any freezer bags?’

  ‘No. We can’t afford a freezer.’

  ‘Cling film?’

  ‘In the drawer by the sink.’

  ‘Can I take it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She watched him remove the roll and tuck it under his arm. ‘What do you want it for?’

  ‘Evidence,’ he said unhelpfully, making for the door.

  She watched him in a kind of despair. ‘What about me and Ma?’

  He turned with a frown. ‘What about you?’

  ‘God, I don’t know,’ she said crossly. ‘We’re both pretty shaken, you know. That bloody man hit me, in case you’ve forgotten. Aren’t the police supposed to stay around when women get attacked? Take statements or something?’

  ‘Probably,’ he agreed, ‘but this is my day off. I turfed out to help you as a friend, not as a policeman, and I’m only following up on Harding because I’m involved in the Kate Sumner case. Don’t worry,’ he said with a comforting smile, ‘you’re in no danger from him, not while he’s in Poole, but dial nine-nine-nine if you need someone to hold your hand.’

  She glared at him. ‘I want him prosecuted which means I want you to take a statement now.’

  ‘Mmm, well, don’t forget I’ll be taking one from him, too,’ Ingram pointed out, ‘and you may not be so eager to go for his jugular if he opts to counter prosecute on the grounds that he’s the one who suffered the injuries because you didn’t have your dog under proper control. It’s going to be your word against his,’ he said, making for the door, ‘which is one of the reasons why I’m going back up there now.’

  She sighed. ‘I suppose you’re hurt because I told you to mind your own business?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ he said, disappearing into the scullery. ‘Try angry or bored.’

  ‘Do you want me to say sorry?’ she called after him. ‘Well, okay . . . I’m tired . . . I’m stressed out and I’m not in the best of moods but’ – she gritted her teeth – ‘I’ll say sorry if that’s what you want.’

  But her words fell on stony ground because all she heard was the sound of the back door closing behind him.

  The Detective Inspector had been silent so long that William Sumner grew visibly nervous. ‘There you are then,’ he said again. ‘I couldn’t possibly have drowned her, could I?’ Anxiety had set his eyelid fluttering and he looked absurdly comical every time his lid winked. ‘I don’t understand why you keep hounding me. You said you were looking for someone with a boat, but you know I haven’t got one. And I don’t understand why you released Steven Harding when WPC Griffiths said he was seen talking to Kate outside Tesco’s on Saturday morning.’

  WPC Griffiths should learn to keep her mouth shut, thought Galbraith in annoyance. Not that he
blamed her. Sumner was bright enough to read between the lines of newspaper reports about ‘a young Lymington actor being taken in for questioning’, and then press for answers. ‘Briefly,’ he said, ‘then they went their separate ways. She talked to a couple of market stallholders afterwards, but Harding wasn’t with her.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t me who did it.’ He winked. ‘So there must be someone else you haven’t found yet.’

  ‘That’s certainly one way of looking at it.’ Galbraith lifted a photograph of Kate off the table beside him. ‘The trouble is looks are so often deceptive. I mean, take Kate here. You see this?’ He turned the picture towards the husband. ‘The first impression she gives is that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but the more you learn about her the more you realize that isn’t true. Let me tell you what I know of her.’ He held up his fingers and ticked the points off as he spoke. ‘She wanted money and she didn’t really mind how she got it. She manipulated people in order to achieve her ambitions. She could be cruel. She told lies if necessary. Her goal was to climb the social ladder and become accepted within a milieu she admired and, as long as it brought the goalposts closer, she was prepared to playact whatever role was required of her, sex being the major weapon in her armoury. The one person she couldn’t manipulate successfully was your mother, so she dealt with her in the only way possible by moving away from her influence.’ He dropped his hand to his lap and looked at the other man with genuine sympathy. ‘How long was it before you realized you’d been suckered, William?’

  ‘I suppose you’ve been talking to that bloody police-woman?’

  ‘Among other people.’

  ‘She made me angry. I said things I didn’t mean.’

  Galbraith shook his head. ‘Your mother’s view of your marriage wasn’t so different,’ he pointed out. ‘She may not have used the terms “landlady” or “cheap boarding house”, but she certainly gave the impression of an unfulfilled and unfulfilling relationship. Other people have described it as unhappy, based on sex, cool, boring. Are any of those descriptions accurate? Are they all accurate?’