Breaker

contradict him, after all? Kate was dead; Hannah was tongue-tied; and the various neighbors who'd already been interviewed claimed to know little about William. Or indeed, Kate herself.

'To be honest I've only met him a couple of times and he didn't exactly impress me. He works very hard, of course, but they were never ones for entertaining. She was quite sweet, but we were hardly what I'd call friends. You know how it is. You don't choose your neighbors; they get thrust upon you...'

'He's not what you'd call sociable. Kate told me once that he spent his evenings and weekends working out formulas on his computer while she watched soaps on the telly. I feel awful about her dying like that. I wish I'd had more time to talk to her. I think she must have been quite lonely, you know. The rest of us all work, of course, so she was a bit of a rarity, staying at home and doing the housework...'

'He's a bully. He took my wife to task about one of the fencing panels between our gardens, said it needed replacing, and when she told him it was his ivy that was pulling it down, he threatened her with court proceedings. No, that's the only contact we've had with him. It was enough. I don't like the man...'

'I saw more of Kate than I saw of him. It was an odd marriage. They never did anything together. I sometimes wondered if they even liked each other very much. Kate was very sweet, but she hardly ever talked about William. To be honest, I don't think they had much in common...'

'I understand Hannah cried most of the night. Does she usually do that?'

'No,' Sumner answered without hesitation, 'but then Kate always cuddled her when she was upset. She's crying for her mother, poor little thing.'

'So you haven't noticed any difference in her behavior?'

'Not really.'

'The doctor who examined her after she was taken to the Poole police station was very concerned about her, described her as unnaturally withdrawn, backward in her development, and possibly suffering from some sort of psychological trauma.' Galbraith smiled slightly. 'Yet you're saying that's quite normal for Hannah?'

Sumner colored slightly as if he'd been caught out in a lie. 'She's always been a little bit'-he hesitated-'well, odd. I thought she was either autistic or deaf so we had her tested, but the GP said there was nothing wrong and just advised us to be patient. He said children were manipulative, and if Kate did less for her she'd be forced to ask for what she wanted and the problem would go away.'

'When was this?'

'About six months ago.'

'What's your GP's name?'

'Dr. Attwater.'

'Did Kate take his advice?'

He shook his head. 'Her heart wasn't in it. Hannah could always make her understand what she wanted, and she couldn't see the point of forcing her to talk before she was ready.'

Galbraith made a note of the GP's name. 'You're a clever man, Mr. Sumner,' he said next, 'so I'm sure you know why I'm asking you these questions.'

A ghost of a smile flickered across the man's tired face. 'I prefer William,' he said, 'and yes, of course I do. My daughter screams every time she sees me; my wife had ample opportunity to cheat on me because I'm hardly ever at home; I'm angry because I didn't want to move to Lymington; the mortgage on this place is way too high and I'd like to get shot of it; she was lonely because she hadn't made many friends; and wives are more usually murdered by their partners out of fury than by strangers out of lust.' He gave a hollow laugh. 'About the only thing in my favor is a cast-iron alibi, and believe me, I've spent most of the night thanking God for it.'

Under the rules governing police detention, there is a limit to how long a person may be held without charge, and the pressure to find evidence against Steven Harding mounted as the hours ticked by. It was notable more for its absence. The stains on the floor of the cabin, which had looked so promising the night before, turned out to be whisky-induced vomit-blood group A, matching Harding's-and a microscopic examination of his boat failed to produce any evidence that an act of violence had occurred on board.

If the pathologist's findings were right-'bruising and abrasions to back (pronounced on shoulder blades and buttocks) and inside of thighs, indicative of forced intercourse on a hard surface such as a deck or an uncarpeted floor-some blood loss from abrasions in vagina'-the wooden planking of the deck and/or saloon and/or cabin should have had traces of blood, skin tissue, and even semen trapped between the grooved joints or under rogue splinters of wood. But no such traces were found. Dried salt was scraped in profusion from the deck planking, but while this might suggest he had scrubbed the topsides down with sea water to remove evidence, it was axiomatic that dried salt would be found on a sailing boat.

On the more likely probability that a blanket or rug had been spread on the hard surface before Kate Sumner had been forced onto it, every item of cloth on board was examined with similarly negative results, although it was all too obvious that any such item would have been thrown overboard along with Kate's clothes and anything else connecting her to the boat. Kate's body was re-examined inch by inch, in the hope that splinters of wood, linking her to Crazy Daze, had become embedded under her skin, but either the flaying action of the sea on open wounds had washed the evidence away or it had never been there in the first place. It was a similar story with her broken fingernails. If anything had ever been underneath them, it had long since vanished.

Only the sheets in the cabin showed evidence of semen staining, but as the bedclothes hadn't been washed for a very long time it was impossible to say whether the stains were the product of recent intercourse. Indeed, as only two alien hairs were discovered on the pillows and bedclothes-neither of which was Kate's although both were blond-the conclusion was that, far from being the promiscuous stallion portrayed by the harbormaster, Steven Harding was in fact a lonely masturbator.

A small quantity of cannabis and a collection of unopened condoms were discovered in the bedside locker, together with three torn Mates wrappers minus their contents. No used condoms were found. Every container was examined for benzodiazepine, Rohypnol and/or any hypnotic. No indications were found. Despite a comprehensive search for pornographic photographs and magazines, none were found. Subsequent searches of Harding's car and flat in London were equally disappointing, although the flat contained thirty-five adult movies. All were on general release, however. A warrant was issued to search Tony Bridges' house in Lymington, but there was nothing to incriminate Steven Harding or to connect him or anyone else there with Kate Sumner. Despite extensive inquiries, police could come up with no other premises used or owned by Harding, and bar a single sighting of him talking to Kate outside Tesco's on Saturday morning, no one reported seeing them together.