Breaker

'She frowned a lot.'

So what's new?

'Why do you want to know if we liked him?' asked Paul, his agile mind darting back to Ingram's original question. 'Didn't you like him?'

'He was all right,' said Ingram, echoing Paul's own answer. 'A bit of a moron for setting out on a hike on a hot day without any suntan lotion or water, but otherwise okay.'

'I expect they were in his rucksack,' said Paul loyally, who hadn't forgotten Harding's kindness even if his brother had. 'He put it down to make the telephone call, then left it there because he said it was too heavy to lug down to the police car. He was going to pick it up again on his way back. It was probably water that was making it heavy.' He looked earnestly toward their host. 'Don't you think?'

Ingram closed his eyes under the brim of his cap. 'Yes,' he agreed, while wondering what had been in the rucksack that meant Harding hadn't wanted a policeman to see it. Binoculars? Had he seen the woman, after all? 'Did you describe the lady on the beach to him?' he asked Paul.

'Yes,' said the boy. 'He wanted to know if she was pretty.'

There were two hidden agendas behind the decision to send WPC Griffiths home with William and Hannah Sumner. The first derived entirely from the child's unfavorable psychiatric report and was intended to safeguard her welfare; the second was based on years of statistical evidence that showed a wife was always more likely to be murdered by her husband than by a stranger. However, because of the distances involved and the problems of jurisdiction-Poole being Dorsetshire Constabulary and Lymington being Hampshire Constabulary-Griffiths was advised that the hours would be long ones.

'Yes, but is he really a suspect?' Griffiths asked Galbraith.

'Husbands are always suspects.'

'Come on, guv, he was definitely in Liverpool, because I phoned the hotel to check, and it's a hell of a long way from there to Dorset. If he's driven to and fro twice in five days, then he's done over a thousand miles. That's a hell of a lot of driving.'

'Which may explain why he fainted,' was Galbraith's dry response.

'Oh, great!' she said sarcastically. 'I've always wanted to spend quality time with a rapist.'

'There's no compulsion, Sandy. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, but the only other option is to leave Hannah in the care of foster parents until we're satisfied it's safe to return her to her father. How about you go back tonight and see how it goes? I've got a team searching the house at the moment, so I'll instruct one of the chaps to stay on and shadow you. Can you live with that?'

'What the hell!' she said cheerfully. 'With any luck, it'll give me a chance to work babies out of my system.'

As far as Sumner himself was concerned, Griffiths was the official 'friend' who was supplied by any police force to a family in distress. 'I can't possibly cope on my own,' he kept telling Galbraith as if it was the fault of the police that he found himself a widower.

'We don't expect you to.'

The man's color had improved after he had been given something to eat when he admitted he'd had nothing since a cup of tea at breakfast that morning. Renewed energy had set him chasing explanations again. 'Were they kidnapped?' he asked suddenly.

'We don't think so. Lymington police checked the house inside and out, and there's no indication of any sort of disturbance. The neighbor let them in with a spare key, so the search was a thorough one. That doesn't mean we're ignoring the possibility of abduction, just that we're keeping an open mind. We're conducting a second search ourselves at the moment, but on the evidence so far it looks as if Kate and Hannah left of their own accord sometime after the post was delivered on Saturday morning. The letters had been opened and stacked on the kitchen table.'

'What about her car? Could she have been taken from her car?'

Galbraith shook his head. 'It's parked in your garage.'

'Then I don't understand.' Sumner appeared genuinely confused. 'What happened?'

'Well, one explanation is that Kate met someone when she was out, a friend of the family perhaps, who persuaded her and Hannah to go for a sail in his boat.' He was careful to avoid any idea of a prearranged meeting. 'But whether she expected to be taken as far as Poole and the Isle of Purbeck we simply don't know.'

Sumner shook his head. 'She'd never have gone,' he said with absolute certainty. 'I keep telling you, she didn't like sailing. And, anyway, the only people we know with boats are couples.' He stared at the floor. 'You're not suggesting a couple could have done something like this, are you?' He sounded shocked.

'I'm not suggesting anything at the moment,' said Galbraith patiently. 'We need more information before we can do that.' He paused. 'Her wedding ring seems to be missing. We assume it was removed because it could identify her. Was it special in some way?'

Sumner held out a trembling hand and pointed to his own ring. 'It was identical to this one. We had them engraved inside with our initials. 'K' entwined with 'W.' '

Interesting, thought Galbraith. 'When you're ready, I'd like a list of your friends, particularly the ones who sail. But there's no immediate hurry.' He watched Sumner crack his finger joints noisily, one after the other, and wondered what had attracted the pretty little woman in the mortuary to this gauche, hyperactive man.

Sumner clearly hadn't been listening. 'When was Hannah abandoned?' he demanded.

'We don't know.'

'My mother said she was found in Poole at lunchtime yesterday, but you said Kate died in the early hours of the morning. Doesn't that mean Hannah must have been on board when Kate was raped and was put ashore in Poole after Kate was dead? I mean, she couldn't possibly have been wandering around on her own for twenty-four hours before somebody saw her, could she?'