Breaker

'So what's the point you're making?' asked Galbraith.

Nick shook his head. 'I don't know, except that I'm having trouble reconciling the body I saw with what the pathologist is saying. When the lifeboat crew at Swanage fished a corpse out of the sea last year, it was black with bruises and had swelled to twice its normal size.'

The DI consulted the paper again. 'Okay, well, there's a time constraint. He says the time of death must have coincided with high water to leave it stranded on the beach as the tide receded. He also makes the argument that if she hadn't reached the shelter of Egmont Point before she drowned, the body would have been pulled under by back eddies and towed out around St. Alban's Head. Put those two together and you have your answer, don't you? In simple terms she must have died within yards of the shore, and her body was stranded shortly afterward.'

'That's very sad,' said Ingram, thinking of the tiny hand waving in the spume.

'Yes,' agreed Galbraith, who had seen the body in the mortuary and was as moved by the unnecessary death as Ingram was. He found the constable easy to like. But then he always preferred policemen who showed emotion. It was a sign of honesty.

'What evidence is there that she was raped if everything useful was flushed away?'

'Bruising to the inside of her thighs and back. Rope marks on her wrists. Bloodstream full of benzodiazepine ... probably Rohypnol. Do you know what that is?'

'Mmm. The date-rape drug ... I've read about it ... haven't come across it, though.'

Galbraith handed him the report. 'It'll be better if you read it yourself. They're preliminary notes only, but Warner never commits anything to paper unless he's pretty damn sure he's right.'

It wasn't a long document, and Ingram read it quickly. 'So you're looking for a boat with bloodstains?' he said, laying the pages on the desk in front of him when he'd finished.

'Also skin tissue if she was raped on a wooden deck.'

The tall policeman gave a doubtful shake of his head. 'I wouldn't be too optimistic,' he said. 'He'll hose down the deck and the topsides the minute he gets into a marina, and what the sea hasn't already taken, fresh water will finish off.'

'We know,' said Galbraith, 'which is why we need to get a move on. Our only lead is this tentative identification, which if it's true suggests the boat she was on might have come from Lymington.' He took out his notebook. 'A three-year-old kid was found abandoned near one of the marinas in Poole yesterday, and the description of the missing mother matches our victim. Her name's Kate Sumner, and she lives in Lymington. Her husband's been in Liverpool for the last four days, but he's on his way back now to make the identification.'

Ingram picked up the incident report he'd typed that morning and squared it between his large hands. 'It's probably just coincidence,' he said thoughtfully, 'but the guy who made the emergency call keeps a boat in Lymington. He sailed it into Poole late on Saturday night.'

'What's his name?'

'Steven Harding. Claimed to be an actor from London.'

'You think he was lying?'

Ingram shrugged. 'Not about his name or his occupation, but I certainly think he was lying about what he was doing there. His story was that he'd left his boat in Poole because he fancied some exercise, but I've done a few calculations and by my reckoning there's no way he could have made it on foot in time to make the call at ten forty-three. If he was berthed in one of the marinas then he'd have to have taken the ferry to Studland, but as the first crossing isn't until seven that means he had to cover sixteen-odd miles of coastal path in just over three hours. If you take into account that a good percentage is sandy beach and the rest is a roller-coaster ride of hills, I'd say it was an impossibility. We're talking an average of over five miles an hour, and the only person I can think of who could sustain that sort of speed on that kind of terrain is a professional marathon runner.' He pushed the report across. 'It's all in there. Name, address, description, name of boat. Something else that's interesting is that he sails into Chapman's Pool regularly and knows everything there is to know about the back eddies. He's very well informed about the seas around here.'

'Is he the one who found the body?'

'No, that was two young lads. They're on holiday with their parents. I doubt there's any more they can tell you, but I've included their names and the address of their rented cottage. A Miss Maggie Jenner of Broxton House talked to Harding for an hour or so after he made the call, but he doesn't appear to have told her much about himself except that he grew up on a farm in Cornwall.' He laid a hand the size of a dinner plate on the report. 'He was sporting an erection, if that's of any interest. Both Miss Jenner and I noticed it.'

'Jesus!'

Ingram smiled. 'Don't get too excited. Miss Jenner's a bit of a looker, so it may have been her that brought it on. She has that effect on men.' He lifted his hand. 'I've also included the names of the boats that were anchored in the bay when the body was found. One was registered in Poole, one in Southampton, and the third was French, although it shouldn't be too hard to find. I watched it leave yesterday evening, and it was heading for Weymouth, so I guess they're on holiday and working their way along the coast.'

'Good work,' said Galbraith warmly. 'I'll be in touch.' He tapped the pathologist's report as he turned to go. 'I'll leave this with you. Maybe something will strike you that hasn't struck any of us.'

Steven Harding woke to the sound of a dying outboard motor, followed by someone banging his fist on the stern of Crazy Daze. It was at its permanent mooring, a buoy in the Lymington River, and was well out of reach of casual visitors unless they had a dinghy of their own. The swell was sometimes unpleasant, particularly when the Lymington-Yarmouth ferry went past on its way to the Isle of Wight, but it was affordable, private, and suitably remote from prying eyes.

'Hey, Steve! Get up, you bastard!'

He groaned as he recognized the voice, then rolled over in his bunk, pulling the pillow over his head. His brain was splitting from a piledriver of a hangover, and the last person he wanted to see at the crack of dawn on Monday morning was Tony Bridges. 'You're banned from coming aboard, arsehole,' he roared angrily, 'so bugger off and leave me alone!'

But Crazy Daze was sealed up as tight as a can of beans, and he knew his friend couldn't have heard him.