'More likely he got rid of everything over the side when it occurred to him I might put his name forward for further questioning.' Ingram thought for a moment. 'Did you ask him about what Danny Spender told me? Why he was rubbing himself with the phone?'
'He said it wasn't true, said the kid made it up.'
'No way. I'll stake my life on Danny getting that right.'
'Why then?'
'Reliving the rape? Getting himself excited because his victim had been found? Miss Jenner?'
'Which?'
'The rape,' said Ingram.
'Pure speculation, based on the word of a ten-year-old and a policeman. No jury will believe you, Nick.'
'Then talk to Miss Jenner tomorrow. Find out if she noticed anything before I got there.' He started to stack the dirty dishes. 'I suggest you use kid gloves, though. She's not too comfortable around policemen.'
'Do you mean policemen in general, or just you?'
'Probably just me,' said Ingram honestly. 'I tipped off her father that the man she'd married had bounced a couple of bad checks, and when the old boy tackled him about it, the bastard did a runner with the small fortune he'd conned out of Miss Jenner and her mother. When his fingerprints were run through the computer, it turned out half the police forces in England were looking for him, not to mention the various wives he'd acquired along the way. Miss Jenner was number four, although as he never divorced number one, the marriage was a sham anyway.'
'What was his name?'
'Robert Healey. He was arrested a couple of years ago in Manchester. She knew him as Martin Grant, but he admitted to twenty-two other aliases in court.'
'And she blames you because she married a creep?' asked Galbraith in disbelief.
'Not for that. Her father had had a bad heart for years, and the shock of finding out they were on the verge of bankruptcy killed him. I think she feels that if I'd gone to her instead of him, she could somehow have persuaded Healey to give the money back and the old man would still be alive.'
'Could she?'
'I wouldn't think so.' He placed the dishes in front of him. 'Healey had the whole scam down to a fine art, and being open to persuasion wasn't part of his MO.'
'How did he work it?'
Ingram pulled a wry face. 'Charm. She was besotted with him.'
'So she's stupid?'
'No ... just overly trusting...' Ingram marshaled his thoughts. 'He was a professional. Created a fictitious company with fictitious accounts and persuaded the two women to invest in it, or more accurately persuaded Miss Jenner to persuade her mother. It was a very sophisticated operation. I saw the paperwork afterward, and I'm not surprised they fell for it. The house was littered with glossy brochures, audited accounts, salary checks, lists of employees, Inland Revenue statements. You'd have to be very suspicious indeed to assume anyone would go to so much trouble to con you out of a hundred thousand quid. Anyway, on the basis that the company stock was going up by twenty percent a year, Mrs. Jenner cashed in all her bonds and securities and handed her son-in-law a check.'
'Which he converted back into cash?'
Ingram nodded. 'It passed through at least three bank accounts on the way, and then vanished. In all, he spent twelve months working the scam-nine months softening up Miss Jenner, and three months married to her-and it wasn't just the Jenners who got taken to the cleaners. He used his connection with them to draw in other people, and a lot of their friends got their fingers burned as well. It's sad, but they've become virtual recluses as a result.'
'What do they live on?'
'Whatever she can make from the Broxton House livery stables. Which isn't much. The whole place is getting seedier by the day.'
'Why don't they sell it?'
Ingram pushed his chair back, preparatory to standing up. 'Because it doesn't belong to them. Old man Jenner changed his will before he died and left the house to his son, with the proviso that the two women can go on living there as long as Mrs. Jenner remains alive.'
Galbraith frowned. 'And then what? The brother throws the sister on the streets?'
'Something like that,' said Ingram dryly. 'He's a lawyer in London, and he certainly doesn't plan to have a sitting tenant on the premises when he sells out to a developer.'
Before he left to interview Maggie Jenner on Thursday morning, Galbraith had a quick word with Carpenter to bring him up to speed on the beached dinghy. 'I've organized a couple of SOCOs to go out to it,' he told him. 'I'll be surprised if they find anything-Ingram and I had a poke around to see what had caused it to deflate, and frankly it's all a bit of a mess- but I think it's worth a try. They're going to make an attempt to reinflate it and float it off the rocks, but the advice is, don't hold your breath. Even if they get it back, it's doubtful we'll learn much from it.'
Carpenter handed him a sheaf of papers. 'These'll interest you,' he said.
'What are they?'
'Statements from the people Sumner said would support his alibi.'
Galbraith heard a note of excitement in his boss's voice. 'And do they?'
The other shook his head. 'Quite the opposite. There are twenty-four hours unaccounted for, between
