The Breaker

by Minette Walters

  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 door jamb, 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 juice 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 FC 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 paedophile.’ 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 boatsheds in an hour. I’ll meet you there.’ He replaced the receiver, saw amusement at his discomfort in Maggie’s eyes, and gestured abruptly towards 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 Zimmer frame 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 Zimmer frame. 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 over-wrought 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 video cassette 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 card (Subscriber Identification Module) 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 dialled out and the last ten dialled in.

  The screen was displaying ‘5 missed calls’ and a ‘messages waiting’ sign. With a wary look towards the door into the hall, Ingram went into the Menu, located ‘Voice mail’ followed by ‘Mail box’, 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 honoured.’

  ‘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 round 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 dialled 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 boatsheds 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 round 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.

  ‘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 neighbours 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?’

  He reached into the back for the stack of evidence. ‘I wasn’t questioning ownership,’ he told her. ‘I was questioning whether or not Bertie knows he’s a dog. As far as he’s concerned, he’s the boss in your establishment. He gets fed first, sleeps on your sofa, licks out your dishes. I’ll bet you even move over in bed in order to make sure he’s more comfortable, don’t you?’

  She coloured slightly. ‘What if I do? I’d rather have him in my bed than the weasel that used to be in it. In any case, he’s the closest thing I’ve got to a hot-water bottle.’

  Ingram laughed. ‘Are you coming in or do you want me to bring the brandy out? I guarantee Bertie won’t disgrace you. He has beautiful manners since I took him to task for wiping his bottom on my carpet.’

  Maggie sat in indecision. She had never wanted to go inside because it would tell her things about him that she didn’t want to know. At the very least it would be insufferably clean, she thought, and her bloody dog would shame her by doing exactly what he was told.

  ‘I’m coming in,’ she said defiantly.

  Carpenter took a phone call from a Dartmouth police sergeant just as he was about to leave for Chapman’s Pool. He listened to a description of what was on the Frenchman’s video then asked: ‘What does he look like?’

  Five eight, medium build, bit of a paunch, thinning dark hair.’

  ‘I thought you said he was a young chap.’

  ‘No. Mid-forties, at least. His daughter’s fourt
een.’

  Carpenter’s frown dug trenches out of his forehead. ‘Not the bloody Frenchman,’ he shouted, ‘the toe-rag on the video!’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Yes, he’s young all right. Early twenties, I’d say. Longish dark hair, sleeveless T-shirt and cycling shorts. Muscles. Tanned. A handsome bugger, in fact. The kid who filmed him said she thought he looked like Jean-Claude Van Damme. Mind you, she’s mortified about it now, can’t believe she didn’t realize what he was up to, considering he’s got a rod like a fucking salami. This guy could make a fortune in porno movies.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Carpenter testily. ‘I get the picture. And you say he’s wanking into a handkerchief?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Could it be a child’s T-shirt?’

  ‘Maybe. It’s difficult to tell. Matter of fact, I’m amazed the French geezer spotted what the bastard was up to. It’s pretty discreet. It’s only because his knob’s so damn big that you can see anything at all. The first time I watched it I thought he was peeling an orange in his lap.’ There was a belly laugh at the other end of the line. ‘Still, you know what they say about the French. They’re all wankers. So I guess our little geezer’s done a spot of it himself and knew what to look for. Am I right or am I right?’

  Carpenter, who spent all his holidays in France, cocked a finger and thumb at the telephone and pulled the trigger – bloody racist, he was thinking – but there was no trace of irritation in his voice when he spoke. ‘You said the young man had a rucksack. Can you describe it for me?’

  ‘Standard camping type. Green. Doesn’t look as if it’s got much in it.’

  ‘Big?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s a full-size job.’

  ‘What did he do with it?’

  ‘Sat on it while he jerked himself off.’

  ‘Where? Which part of Chapman’s Pool? Eastern side? Western side? Describe the scenery for me.’