Breaker

'Were you pleased when he married Kate?'

There was a short silence. 'Why wouldn't I be?'

Galbraith shrugged. 'No reason. I'm just interested.'

Her eyes twinkled suddenly. 'I suppose he's told you I thought his wife was a golddigger?'

'Yes.'

'Good,' she said. 'I hate having to tell lies.' She raised the back of a gnarled hand to her cheek to wipe away a stray hair. 'In any case there's no point pretending I was happy about it when anyone around here will tell you I wasn't. She was a golddigger, but that wasn't why I thought he was mad to marry her. It was because they had so little in common. She was ten years younger than he was, virtually uneducated, and completely besotted by all the material things in life. She told me once that what she really enjoyed in life was shopping.' She shook her head in bewilderment that anything so mundane could produce a height of sensation. 'Frankly, I couldn't see what was going to keep them together. She wasn't remotely interested in sailing and refused point-blank to have anything to do with that side of William's life.'

'Did he go on sailing after they married?'

'Oh, yes. She didn't have a problem with him doing it, she just wouldn't go herself.'

'Did she get to know any of his sailing friends?'

'Not in the way you mean,' she said bluntly.

'What way's that, Mrs. Sumner?'

'William said you think she was having an affair.'

'We can't ignore the possibility.'

'Oh, I think you can, you know.' She gave him an old-fashioned look. 'Kate knew the price of everything and the value of nothing, and she'd certainly have calculated the cost of adultery in terms of what she'd lose if William found out about it. In any case, she wouldn't have been having an affair with any of William's sailing friends in Chichester. They were all far more shocked by his choice of wife than I was. She made no effort to fit in, you see, plus there was a generation gap between her and most of them. Frankly, they were all completely bemused by her rather inane conversation. She had no opinions on anything except soap operas, pop music, and film stars.'

'So what was her attraction for William? He's an intelligent man and certainly doesn't give the impression of someone who likes inane conversation.'

A resigned smile. 'Sex, of course. He'd had his fill of intelligent women. I remember him saying that the girlfriend before Kate'-she sighed-'her name was Wendy Plater, and she was such a nice girl ... so suitable ... that her idea of foreplay was to discuss the effects of sexual activity on the metabolism. I said, how interesting, and William laughed and said, given the choice, he preferred physical stimulation.'

Galbraith kept a straight face. 'I don't think he's alone, Mrs. Sumner.'

'I'm not going to argue the point, Inspector. In any case, Kate was obviously far more experienced than he was, even though she was ten years younger. She knew William wanted a family, and she gave him a baby before you could say Jack Robinson.' He heard the reservation in her voice and wondered about it. 'Her approach to marriage was to spoil her husband rotten, and William reveled in it. He didn't have to do a damn thing except take himself to work every day. It was the most old-fashioned arrangement you can imagine, with the wife as chief admirer and bottle-washer, and the husband swanking around as breadwinner. I think it's what's known as a passive-aggressive relationship, where the woman controls the man by making him dependent on her while giving the impression she's dependent on him.'

'And you didn't approve?'

'Only because it wasn't my idea of a marriage. Marriage should be a meeting of minds as well as bodies, otherwise it becomes a wasteground where nothing grows. All she could talk about with any enthusiasm were her shopping expeditions and who she'd bumped into during the day, and it was quite clear William never listened to a word she said.'

He wondered if she realized William had yet to be eliminated as a suspect. 'So what are you saying? That he was bored with her?'

She gave his question long consideration. 'No, I don't think he was bored,' she said then, 'I think he just realized he could take her for granted. That's why his working day got progressively longer and why he didn't object to the move to Lymington. She approved of whatever he did, you see, so he didn't have to bother spending time with her. There was no challenge in the relationship.' She paused. 'I hoped children would be something they could share, but Kate appropriated Hannah at birth as something that was the preserve of women, and if I'm honest the poor little thing created even more distance between them. She used to roar her head off every time William tried to pick her up, and he soon got bored with her. I took Kate to task about it, as a matter of fact, told her she wasn't doing the child any good by swamping her in mother love, but it only made her angry with me.' She sighed. 'I shouldn't have interfered. It's what drove them away, of course.'

'From Chichester?'

'Yes. It was a mistake. They made too many changes in their lives too quickly. William had to pay off the mortgage on my flat when he sold the house across the road, then take out a much larger one to buy Langton Cottage. He sold his boat, gave up sailing. Not to mention flogging himself to death driving to and from work every day. And all for what? A house he didn't even like very much.'

Galbraith was careful to keep the interest out of his voice. 'Then why did they move?'

'Kate wanted it.'

'But if they weren't getting on, why did William agree to it?'

'Regular sex,' she said crossly. 'In any case, I didn't say they weren't getting on.'

'You said he was taking her for granted. Isn't it the same thing?'

'Not at all. From William's point of view she was the perfect wife. She kept house for him, provided him with children, and never pestered him once to put himself out.' Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. 'They got on like a house on fire as long as he paid the mortgage and kept her in the manner to which she was rapidly becoming