Breaker

over that kind of trash.' He pulled a plastic bag out from the recesses of his chair and started to fill the Rizla papers. 'They must have had a field day with those photographs.'

Harding shook his head. 'I got rid of the lot over the side before they came. I didn't want any'-he thought about it-'confusion.'

'Jesus, you're an arsehole! Why can't you be honest for once? You got shit-scared that if they had evidence of you performing sex acts with an underage kid, they'd have no trouble pinning a rape on you.'

'It wasn't for real.'

'Chucking the photos away was. You're an idiot, mate.'

'Why?'

'Because you can bet your bottom dollar William will have mentioned photos. I sure as hell did. Now the filth will be wondering why they can't find any.'

'So?'

'They'll know you were expecting a visit.'

'So?' said Harding again.

Bridges cast him another thoughtful glance as he licked the edges of the spliff. 'Look at it from their point of view. Why would you be expecting a visit if you didn't know it was Kate's body they'd found?'

*13*

We can go to the pub,' said Ingram, locking Miss Creant onto her trailer behind his Jeep, 'or I can give you some supper at home.' He glanced at his watch. 'It's nine thirty, so the pub'll be pretty raucous by now, and it'll be difficult to get anything to eat.' He started to peel off his waterproofs, which still streamed water from his immersion in the sea. He had stood at the bottom of the slip as he had guided Miss Creant onto the trailer while Galbraith operated the winch. 'Home, on the other hand,' he said with a grin, 'has drying facilities, a spectacular view, and silence.'

'Do I get the impression you'd rather go home?' asked Galbraith with a yawn, levering off his inadequate waders and turning them upside down to empty them in a Niagara Falls over the slip. He was soaked from the waistband down.

'There's beer in the fridge, and I can grill you a fresh sea bass if you're interested.'

'How fresh?'

'Still alive Monday night,' said Ingram, taking some spare trousers from the back of the Jeep and tossing them across. 'You can change in the lifeboat station.'

'Cheers,' said Galbraith, setting off in stockinged feet toward the gray stone building that guarded the ever- ready Swanage lifeboat, 'and I'm interested,' he called over his shoulder.

Ingram's cottage was a tiny two-up, two-down, backing onto the downs above Seacombe Cliff, although the two downstairs rooms had been knocked into one with an open-plan staircase rising out of the middle and a kitchen extension added to the back. It was clearly a bachelor establishment, and Galbraith surveyed it with approval. Too often, these days, he felt he still had to be persuaded of the joys of fatherhood.

'I envy you,' he said, bending down to examine a meticulously detailed replica of the Cutty Sark in a bottle on the mantelpiece. 'Did you make this yourself?'

Ingram nodded.

'It wouldn't last half an hour in my house. I reckon anything I ever had of value was smashed within hours of my son getting his first football.' He chuckled. 'He keeps telling me he's going to make a fortune playing for Manchester United, but I can't see it myself.'

'How old is he?' asked Ingram, leading the way through to the kitchen.

'Seven. His sister's five.'

The tall constable took the sea bass from the fridge, then tossed Galbraith a beer and opened one for himself. 'I'd have liked children,' he said, splitting the fish down its belly, filleting out the backbone, and splaying it spatchcock fashion on the grillpan. He was neat and quick in his movements, despite his size. 'Trouble is I never found a woman who was prepared to hang around long enough to give me any.'

Galbraith remembered what Steven Harding had said on Monday night about Ingram fancying the woman with the horse and wondered if it was more a case of the right woman not hanging around long enough. 'A guy like you'd do well anywhere,' he said, watching him take some chives and basil from an array of herbs on his windowsill and chop them finely before sprinkling them over the sea bass. 'So what's keeping you here?'

'You mean apart from the great view and the clean air?'

'Yes.'

Ingram pushed the fish to one side and started washing the mud off some new potatoes before chucking them into a saucepan. 'That's it,' he said. 'Great view, clean air, a boat, fishing, contentment.'

'What about ambition? Don't you get frustrated? Feel you're standing still?'

'Sometimes. Then I remember how much I hated the rat race when I was in it, and the frustrations pass.' He glanced at Galbraith with a self-deprecating smile. 'I did five years with an insurance company before I became a policeman, and I hated every minute of it. I didn't believe in the product, but the only way to get on was to sell more, and it was driving me nuts. I had a long think over one weekend about what I wanted out of life, and gave in