Breaker

wouldn't see me again until the following weekend. He mentioned that he had an audition in London on Monday, 11 August, and said he was planning to catch the last train back on Sunday night. Later, a mutual friend, Bob Winterslow, who lives near the station, told me that Steve had rung from his boat to ask if he could borrow a sofa Sunday night in order to catch the first train on Monday morning. But he stayed on board and missed his audition. This is standard for Steve. He tends to come and go as he pleases. I became aware that Steve had cocked up when his agent, Graham Barlow, phoned me on Monday morning to say there was no sign of Steve in London and he wasn't answering his mobile phone. I phoned friends to see if anyone knew where he was, then borrowed a dinghy to go out to Crazy Daze. I discovered that Steve was badly hung over, and that this was the reason for his nonappearance.

I spent the weekend, 9-10 August, with my girlfriend Beatrice 'Bibi' Gould, whom I've known for four months. On Saturday night we went to a rave at the Jamaica Club in Southampton, returning home at approximately 4:00 a.m. We slept through till sometime Sunday p.m. I know nothing about Kate Sumner's death, although I am completely sure that Steven Harding had nothing to do with it. He is not an aggressive person.

(Police note: this rave certainly took place, but there is no way of checking whether A. Bridges & B. Gould were present. Rough estimate of numbers at the Jamaica Club on Saturday night: 1,000+.)

Beatrice Gould's statement supported Bridges' and Harding's in all relevant details.

I'm nineteen years old, and I work as a hairdresser in Get Ahead in Lymington High Street. I met Tony Bridges at a pub disco about four months ago, and he introduced me to Steve Harding a week later. They've been friends for a long time, and Steve uses Tony's house as a base in Lymington when he can't stay on his boat for any reason. I've come to know Steve quite well over the time Tony and I have been together. Several of my friends would like to go out with him, but he's not interested in settling down and tends to avoid heavy relationships. He's a good-looking bloke, and because he's an actor as well, girls throw themselves at him. He told me once that he thinks they see him as a stud and that he really hates it. I know he's had a lot of problems in that way with Kate Sumner. He was nice to her once, and afterward she wouldn't leave him alone. He said he thought she was lonely, but that didn't give her the right to make his life a misery. It got to the point that he'd hide behind corners while Tony or I checked to see if she was on the other side. I think she must have been mentally disturbed. The worst thing she did was smear her daughter's dirty nappies on his car. I thought that was completely disgusting and told Steve that he should report her to the police.

I didn't see Steve the weekend of 9-10 August. I went to Tony's house at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, 9 August, and at about 7:30 p.m. we left for the Jamaica Club in Southampton. We go there a lot because Daniel Agee is a brilliant DJ and we really like his style. I stayed at Tony's until 10:00 p.m. on Sunday night, then went home. My permanent address is Sixty-seven Shorn Street, Lymington, where I live with my parents, but I spend most weekends and some weekday nights with Tony Bridges. I like Steve Harding a lot, and I don't believe he had anything to do with Kate Sumner's death. He and I get on really well together.

Detective Superintendent Carpenter sat in silence while John Galbraith read through all three statements. 'What do you think?' he asked when the other had finished. 'Does Harding's story ring true? Is that a Kate Sumner you recognize?'

Galbraith shook his head. 'I don't know. I haven't got a feel for her yet. She was like Harding, a bit of a chameleon, play-acted different roles to suit different people.' He reflected for a moment. 'I suppose one thing in Harding's defense is that when she rubbed someone up the wrong way she did it in spades-really got under their skin, in other words. Did you read those statements I sent you? Her mother-in-law didn't like her at all, and neither did Wendy Plater, William's ex-girlfriend, who was cut out of the running by Kate. You could argue it was straightforward jealousy on both counts, but I got the impression there was more to it than that. They used the same word to describe her. 'Manipulative.' Angela Sumner referred to her as the most self-centered and calculating woman she had ever met, and the girlfriend said lying was second nature to her. William said she was single- minded about what she wanted and had him wound around her finger from the first time she met him.' He shrugged. 'Whether any of that means she was stalking a man she became infatuated with, I don't know. I wouldn't have expected her to be so blatant but'-he spread his hands in perplexity-'she was pretty blatant in her pursuit of a comfortable lifestyle.'

'I hate these cases, John,' said Carpenter with genuine regret. 'The poor little woman's dead, but her character's going to be blackened whichever way you look at it.' He pulled Harding's statement across the desk toward him and drummed his fingers on it in irritation. 'Shall I tell you what this smells of to me? The classic defense against rape. She was panting for it, guv. Couldn 't keep her hands off me. I just gave her what she wanted, and it's not my fault if she cried foul afterward. She was an aggressive woman, and she liked aggressive sex.' His frown deepened to a chasm. 'All Harding's doing is laying some neat groundwork in case we manage to bring charges against him. Then he'll tell us her death was an accident ... she fell off the back of the boat and he couldn't save her.'

'What did you make of Anthony Bridges?'

'I didn't like him. He's a cocky little bastard, and a damn sight too knowledgeable about police interviews. But his and his blowsy girlfriend's stories tally so closely with Harding's that, unless they're operating some sort of sick conspiracy, I think we have to accept they're telling the truth.' A sudden smile banished his frown. 'For the moment anyway. It'll be interesting to see if anything changes after he and Harding have had a chance to talk together. You know we've bailed him to Bridges' address.'

'Harding's right about one thing,' said Galbraith thoughtfully. 'Hannah gives me the creeps, too.' He leaned forward, elbows on knees, a troubled expression on his face. 'It's codswallop about her screaming every time she sees a man. I was waiting for her father to bring me some lists he'd made, and she came into the room, sat down on the carpet in front of me, and started to play with herself. She had no knickers on, just pulled up her dress and got going like there was no tomorrow. She was watching me the whole time she was doing it, and I swear to God she knew exactly what she was about.' He sighed. 'It was bloody unnerving, and I'll eat my hat if she hasn't been introduced to some sort of sexual activity, whatever that doctor said.'

'Meaning you've got your money on Sumner?'

Galbraith considered for a moment. 'Put it this way, I'd says he's a dead cert if, one: his alibi doesn't check out and, two: I can work out how he managed to have a boat waiting for him off the Isle of Purbeck.' His pleasant face broke into a smile. 'He gets under my skin something rotten, probably because he thinks he's so damned clever. It's hardly scientific but, yes, I'd put my money on him any day before Steven Harding.'

For seventy-two hours, local and national newspapers had been carrying reports of a murder inquiry following the finding of a body on a beach on the Isle of Purbeck. On the theory that the dead woman and her daughter had been traveling by boat, sailors between Southampton and Weymouth were being asked to come forward with any sightings of a small blond woman and/or a three-year-old child on the weekend of 9-10 August. During her lunch break that Wednesday, a shop assistant in one of the big department stores in Bournemouth went into her local police station and suggested diffidently that, while she didn't want to waste anyone's time, she thought that something she'd seen on Sunday evening might be connected to the woman's murder.

She gave her name as Jennifer Hale and said she'd been on a Fairline Squadron called Gregory's Girl belonging to a Poole businessman called Gregory Freemantle. 'He's my boyfriend,' she explained.