Breaker

sake.'

'Losing your nerve already?'

'I could sue you for this.'

'No chance. This was your choice, remember. I explained that if I had to arrest you, I would take you out as you were, and your response was: Go on then.'

Bridges looked wildly up the road as a man rounded the corner, and Galbraith was rewarded with a scrambling stampede for the safety of the corridor. He shut the door and stood with his back to it, halting further flight by a jerk on the handcuffs. 'Right. Shall we start again? Why did Steve go back to Chapman's Pool this morning?'

'I don't know. I didn't even know he was there.' His eyes widened as Galbraith reached for the door handle again. 'Listen, dickhead, that guy coming up the street's a journalist, and he's been pestering me all morning about Steve. If I'd known where the bastard was I'd have sent the bloke after him, but I can't even get him to answer his mobile.' He jerked his head toward the sitting room. 'At least let's get out of earshot,' he muttered. 'He's probably listening at the door, and you don't want the press on your back any more than I do.'

Galbraith released the handcuffs on his own wrist and followed Bridges into the sitting room again, treading on the spliff as he went. 'Tell me about the relationship between Steve and Kate,' he said, resuming his seat. 'And make it convincing, Tony,' he added, taking his notebook from his pocket with a sigh, 'because A: I'm knackered; B: you're getting up my nose; and C: it's completely immaterial to me if your name is plastered across the newspapers tomorrow morning as a probable suspect on a rape and murder charge.'

'I never did understand the attraction. I only met her once, and as far as I'm concerned, she's the most boring woman I've ever come across. It was in a pub one Friday lunchtime, and all she could do was sit and look at Steve as if he were Leonardo DiCaprio. Mind you, when she started talking, it was even worse. God, she was stupid! Having a conversation with her was like listening to paint dry. I think she must have lived on a diet of soap operas, because whatever I said reminded her of something that had happened in Neighbours or EastEnders, and it got on my tits after a while. I asked Steve later what the hell he thought he was doing, and he laughed and said he wasn't interested in her for her conversation. He reckoned she had a dream of an arse, and that was all that mattered. To be honest, I don't think he ever intended it to get as serious as it did. She met him in the street one day after the incident with Hannah's buggy and invited him back to her house. He said it was all pretty mind-blowing. One minute he was struggling to find something to talk about over a coffee in the kitchen, and the next she was climbing all over him. He said the only bad part was that the kid sat in a highchair watching them do it because Kate said Hannah would scream her head off if she tried to take her out.

'As far as Steve was concerned, that was it. That's what he told me anyway. Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, and bye-bye. So I was a bit surprised when he asked if he could bring her here on a couple of occasions in the autumn term. It was during the day, while her husband was at work, so I never saw her. Other times, they did it on his boat or in her house, but mostly they did it in his Volvo. He'd drive her out into the New Forest and they'd dose the kid with paracetamol so she'd sleep on the front seat while they set to in the back. All in all it went on for about two months, until he started to get bored. The trouble was Kate had nothing going for her except her arse. She didn't drink, she didn't smoke, she didn't sail, she had no sense of humor and all she wanted was for Steve to get a part in EastEnders. It was pathetic really. I think it was the ultimate dream for her, to get hitched to a soap star and swan around being photographed on his arm.

'In all honesty, I don't think it ever occurred to her that he was only balling her because she was available and didn't cost him a penny. He said she was completely gobsmacked when he told her he'd had enough and didn't want to see her again. That's when she turned nasty. I guess she'd been conning idiots like her husband for so long it really pissed her off to find she'd been taken for a ride by a younger guy. She rubbed crap all over the sheets in his cabin, then she started setting off his car alarm and smearing shit all over his car. Steve got incredibly uptight about it. Everything he touched had crap on it. What really bugged him was his dinghy. He came down one Friday and found the bottom ankle-deep in water and slushy turds. He said she must have been saving them up for weeks. Anyway, that's when he started talking about going to the police.

'I told him it was a crazy idea. If you get the filth involved, I said, you'll never hear the end of it. And it won't be just Kate who's after you, it'll be William, too. You can't go around sleeping with other guys' wives and expect them to turn a blind eye. I told him to cool down and move his car to another parking place. So he said, what about his dinghy? And I said I'd lend him one that she wouldn't recognize. And that was it. Simple. Problem sorted. As far as I know he didn't have any more aggro from her.'

It was a while before Galbraith responded. He had been listening attentively and making notes, and he finished writing before he said anything. 'Did you lend him a dinghy?' he asked.

'Sure.'

'What did it look like?'

Bridges frowned. 'The same as any dinghy. Why do you want to know that?'

'Just interested. What color was it?'

'Black.'

'Where did you get it from?'

He started to pluck Rizla papers from their packet and make a patchwork quilt of them on the floor. 'A mailorder catalogue, I think. It's the one I had before I bought my new rib.'

'Has Steve still got it?'

He hesitated before shaking his head. 'I wouldn't know, mate. Wasn't it on Crazy Daze when you searched it?'

Thoughtfully, the DI tapped his pencil against his teeth. He recalled Carpenter's words of Wednesday: 'I didn 't like him. He's a cocky little bastard, and a damn sight too knowledgeable about police interviews.' 'Okay,' he said next. 'Let's go back to Kate. You say the problem was sorted. What happened then?'

'Nothing. That's it. End of story. Unless you count the fact that she ends up dead on a beach in Dorset the weekend Steve just happens to be there.'

'I do. I also count the fact that her daughter was found wandering along a main road approximately two hundred yards from where Steve's boat was moored.'

'It was a setup,' said Bridges. 'You should be giving William the third degree. He had far more reason to murder Kate than Steve did. She was two-timing him, wasn't she?'