Breaker

his hands again as the meaning of what he'd said came home to him.

Galbraith gave him a moment to compose himself. 'What did you do with it?'

'Sold it a couple of years ago and put the money toward buying Langton Cottage.' He lapsed into another silence, which the policeman didn't interrupt. 'I don't understand any of this,' he burst out then in despair. 'I spoke to her on Friday night, and she was fine. How could she possibly be dead forty-eight hours later?'

'It's always worse when death happens suddenly,' said the DI sympathetically. 'We don't have time to prepare for it.'

'Except I don't believe it. I mean, why didn't someone try to save her? You don't just abandon people when they fall overboard.' He looked shocked suddenly. 'Oh, God, did other people drown as well? You're not going to tell me she was on a boat that capsized, are you? That was her worst nightmare.'

'No, there's no evidence that anything like that happened.' Galbraith leaned forward to bridge the gap between them. They were on hard-backed chairs in an empty office on the first floor, and he could have wished for friendlier surroundings for a conversation like this one. 'We think Kate was murdered, sir. The Home Office pathologist who performed the postmortem believes she was raped before being deliberately thrown into the sea to die. I realize this must be a terrible shock to you, but you have my assurance that we're working around the clock to find her killer, and if there's anything we can do to make the situation easier for you, we will of course do it.'

It was too much for Sumner to take in. He stared at the detective with a surprised smile carving ridges in his thin face. 'No,' he said, 'there's been a mistake. It can't have been Kate. She wouldn't have gone anywhere with a stranger.' He reached out a tentative hand for the photograph again, then burst into tears when Galbraith turned it over for him.

The wretched man was so tired that it was several minutes before he could stem his weeping, but Galbraith kept quiet because he knew from past experience that sympathy more often exacerbated pain than ameliorated it. He sat quietly looking out of the window, which faced toward the park and Poole Bay beyond, and stirred only when Sumner spoke again.

'I'm sorry,' he said, striking the tears from his cheeks. 'I keep thinking how frightened she must have been. She wasn't a very good swimmer, which is why she didn't want to go sailing.'

Galbraith made a mental note of the fact. 'If it's any comfort, she did everything in her power to save herself. It was exhaustion that beat her, not the sea.'

'Did you know she was pregnant?' Tears gathered in his eyes again.

'Yes,' said Galbraith gently, 'and I'm sorry.'

'Was it a boy?'

'Yes.'

'We wanted a son.' He took a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his eyes for several moments before getting up abruptly and walking to the window to stand with his back to Galbraith. 'How can I help you?' he said then in a voice stripped of feeling.

'You can tell me about her. We need as much background information as you can give us-the names of her friends, what she did during the day, where she shopped. The more we know the better.' He waited for a response, which never came. 'Perhaps you'd rather leave it until tomorrow? I realize you must be very tired.'

'Actually, I think I'm going to be sick.' Sumner turned an ashen face toward him, then, with a small sigh, slid to the floor in a dead faint.

The Spender boys were easy company. They demanded little from their host other than the odd can of Coke, occasional conversation, and help with threading their hooks with bait. Ingram's immaculate fifteen-foot day-boat, Miss Creant, sat prettily on the surface of a calm turquoise sea off Swanage, her white topsides turning pale pink in the slowly setting sun and a fine array of rods bristling along her rails like porcupine quills. The boys loved her.

'I'd rather have Miss Creant than a stupid cruiser any day,' said Paul after helping the mighty policeman launch her down the Swanage slip. He had allowed the boy to operate the winch at the back of his ancient Jeep while he himself had waded into the sea to float her off the trailer and make her fast to a ring on the slip wall. Paul's eyes had gleamed with excitement because boating was suddenly more accessible than he'd realized. 'Do you reckon Dad might buy one? Holidays would be great if we had a boat like this.'

'You can always ask,' had been Ingram's response.

Danny found the whole idea of sliding a long wriggling ragworm onto a barbed point until the steel was clothed in something resembling a wrinkled silk stocking deeply repugnant and insisted that Ingram do the business for him. 'It's alive,' he pointed out. 'Doesn't the hook hurt it?'

'Not as much as it would hurt you.'

'It's an invertebrate,' said his brother, whp was leaning over the side of the boat and watching his various floats bob on the water, 'so it doesn't have a nervous system like us. Anyway, it's near the bottom of the food chain so it exists only to be eaten.'

'Dead things are the bottom of the food chain,' said Danny. 'Like the lady on the beach. She'd've been food if we hadn't found her.'

Ingram handed Danny his rod with the worm in place. 'No fancy casting,' he said, 'just dangle it over the side and see what happens.' He leaned back and tilted his baseball cap over his eyes, content to let the boys do the fishing. 'Tell me about the bloke who made the phone call,' he invited. 'Did you like him?'

'He was all right,' said Paul.

'He said he saw a lady with no clothes on, and she looked like an elephant,' said Danny, joining his brother to lean over the side.

'It was a joke,' said Paul. 'He was trying to make us feel better.'

'What else did he talk about?'

'He was chatting up the lady with the horse,' said Danny, 'but she didn't like him as much as he liked her.'

Ingram smiled to himself. 'What makes you think that?'