Breaker

There was fingerprint and palm evidence that Kate and Hannah Sumner had been on board Crazy Daze, but too many of the prints were overlaid with other prints, few of which were Steven Harding's, for the SOCOs to be confident that the visit had been a recent one. Considerable interest was raised by the fact that twenty-five different sets of fingerprints, excluding Carpenter's, Galbraith's, Kate's, Hannah's, and Steven's-at least five of the sets being small enough to be children's-were lifted from the saloon, some of which matched prints lifted from Bridges' house, but few of which were replicated in the cabin. Demonstrably, therefore, Harding had entertained people on board, although the nature of the entertainment remained a mystery. He explained it by saying he always invited fellow sailors into the saloon whenever he took a berth in a marina, and in the absence of proof to the contrary, the police accepted his explanation. Nevertheless, they remained curious about it.

In view of the cheese and apples in the galley, Kate Sumner's last meal looked like something the police could run with until the pathologist pointed out that it was impossible to link semidigested food with a particular purchase. A Tesco's Golden Delicious, minced with gastric acids, showed the same chemical printout as a Sainsbury's Golden Delicious. Even the child's bib proved inconclusive when the fingerprint evidence on the plastic surface demonstrated that, while Steven Harding and two unidentified others had certainly touched it, Kate Sumner had not.

Briefed by Nick Ingram, attention was paid to the only rucksack found on the boat, a triangular black one with a handful of sweet wrappers in the bottom. Neither Paul nor Danny Spender had been able to give an accurate description of it-Danny: 'It was a big black one...'; Paul: 'It was quite big ... I think it might have been green...'- but it told them nothing about what it might have contained on Sunday morning or indeed identified it as the one the boys had seen. Steven Harding, who seemed baffled by police interest in his rucksack, claimed it was certainly the one he had been using that day and explained he had left it on the hillside because it had a liter bottle of water in it, and he couldn't be bothered to lug it down to the boat sheds simply to lug it all the way up again. He further said that PC Ingram had never asked him about a rucksack, which is why he hadn't mentioned it at the time. The nail in the coffin of police suspicion was supplied by a cashier at Tesco's in Lymington High Street who had been on duty the previous Saturday.

' 'Course I know Steve,' she said, identifying his photograph. 'He comes in every Saturday for provisions. Did I see him talking to a blond woman and child last week? Sure I did. He spotted them as he was about to leave and he said, 'Damn!' so I said, 'What's the problem?' and he said, 'I know that woman and she's going to talk to me because she always does,' so I said, jealous-like, 'She's very pretty,' and he said, 'Forget it, Dawn, she's married, and anyway I'm in a hurry.' And he was right. She did talk to him, but he didn't hang around, just tapped his watch and scarpered. You want my opinion? He had something good lined up, and he didn't want delaying. She looked mighty miffed when he left, but I didn't blame her for it. Steve's a bit of a hunk. I'd go for him myself if I wasn't a grandmother three times over.'

William Sumner claimed to know little about the management of Langton Cottage or his wife's regular movements. 'I'm away from the house for twelve hours a day, from seven in the morning till seven at night,' he told Galbraith as if it were something to be proud of. 'I was much more au fait with her routine in Chichester, probably because I knew the people and the shops she was talking about. Things register better when you recognize names. It's all so different here.'

'Did Steven Harding feature in her conversation?' asked Galbraith.

'Is he the bastard who had Hannah's shoes?' demanded Sumner angrily.

Galbraith shook his head. 'We'll get on a lot faster if you don't keep second-guessing me, William. Let me remind you that we still don't know if the shoes belonged to Hannah.' He held the other man's gaze. 'And, while I'm about it, let me warn you that if you start speculating on anything to do with this case, you could prejudice any prosecution we try to bring. And that could mean Kate's killer going free.'

'I'm sorry.' He raised his hands in apology. 'Go on.'

'Did Steven Harding feature in her conversation?' Galbraith asked again.

'No.'

Galbraith referred to the lists of names he had produced. 'Are any of the men on here ex-boyfriends? The ones in Portsmouth, for example. Did she go out with any of them before she went out with you?'

Another shake of the head. 'They're all married.'

Galbraith wondered about the naivete of that statement, but didn't pursue the issue. Instead, he went on to try to build a picture of Kate's early life. It was about as easy as building houses out of straw. The potted history that William gave him was notable more for its gaps than its inclusions. Her maiden name had been Hill, but whether that was her mother's or her father's surname, he didn't know.

'I don't think they were married,' he said.

'And Kate never knew him?'

'No. He left when she was a baby.'

She and her mother had lived in a council flat in Birmingham, although he had no idea where it was, which school Kate had gone to, where she had trained as a secretary, or even where she had worked before joining Pharmatec UK. Galbraith asked him if she had any friends from that time with whom she had kept in contact, but William shook his head and said he didn't think so. He produced an address book from a drawer in a small bureau in the corner of the room and said Galbraith could check for himself. 'But you won't find anyone from Birmingham in there.'

'When did she move?'

'When her mother died. She told me once that she wanted to put as much distance between herself and where she grew up as she could, so she moved to Portsmouth and rented a flat over a shop in one of the back streets.'

'Did she say why distance was important?'

'I think she felt she'd have less of a chance to get on if she stayed put. She was quite ambitious.'

'For a career?' asked Galbraith in surprise, recalling Sumner's assertion the day before that Kate's one ambition had been to have a family of her own. 'I thought you said she was happy to give up working when she got pregnant.'

There was a short silence. 'I suppose you're planning to talk to my mother?'

Galbraith nodded.

He sighed. 'She didn't approve of Kate, so she'll tell you she was a golddigger. Not in so many words, perhaps,