Breaker

She whipped the knife off the chopping board and waved it under his nose. 'Then you'd bloody well better be right,' she said fiercely, 'or I'll take your testicles off-personally-and laugh while I'm doing it. I love my dog.'

'So do I,' Ingram assured her, putting a finger on the hilt of the knife and moving it gently to one side. 'The difference is I don't encourage him to slobber all over me in order to prove it.'

'I've sealed the garage for the moment,' Galbraith told Carpenter over the phone, 'but you'll have to sort out priorities with Customs and Excise. We need a scene-of-crime team down here pronto, but if you want a hard charge on which to hold Steven Harding, then C and E can probably deliver for you. My guess is he's been ferrying illegal immigrants in wholesale and dropping them off along the south coast ... Yes, it would certainly explain the fingerprint evidence in the saloon area. No, no sign of the stolen Fastrigger outboard...' He felt the young man beside him stir, and he glanced at him with a distracted smile. 'Yes, I'm bringing Tony Bridges in now. He's agreed to make a new statement ... Yes, very cooperative. William? ... No, it doesn't eliminate him any more than it eliminates Steve ... Mmm, back to square one, I'm afraid.' He tucked the telephone into his breast pocket and wondered why he'd never thought of taking up acting himself.

At the other end, Superintendent Carpenter looked at his receiver in surprise for a moment before cutting the line. He hadn't a clue what John Galbraith had been talking about.

Although he hadn't been aware of it, Steven Harding had been under observation by a woman detective constable from the moment he was admitted to the hospital. She sat out of sight in the Sister's office, making sure he stayed put, but he appeared in no hurry to leave. He flirted constantly with the nurses, and much to the WPC's irritation, the nurses reciprocated. She spent the waiting hours pondering the naivete of women, and wondered how many of these selfsame nurses would argue vehemently that they hadn't given him any encouragement if and when he decided to rape them. In other words, what constituted encouragement? Something a woman would describe as innocent flirting? Or something a man would call a definite come-on?

It was with some relief that she handed over responsibility to PC Ingram in the corridor outside. 'The Sister's discharging him at five, but the way things are going, I'm not sure he'll be leaving at all,' she said ruefully. 'He's got every nurse wound around his little finger, and he looks set for the duration. Frankly, if they turf him out of this bed, it wouldn't surprise me if he ends up in a nice warm one somewhere else. I can't see the attraction myself, but then I've never been too keen on wankers.'

Ingram gave a muted laugh. 'Hang around. Watch the fun. If he doesn't walk out of his own accord on the dot of five, I'll clap the irons on him in there.'

'I'm game,' she agreed cheerfully. 'You never know, you might need a hand.'

The video film was difficult to watch, not because of its content, which was as discreet as the Dartmouth sergeant had promised, but because the picture rose and fell with the movement of the Frenchman's boat. Nevertheless, his daughter had succeeded in capturing considerable footage of Harding in close detail. Carpenter, sitting behind his desk, played it through once, then used the remote to rewind to where Harding had first sat down on his rucksack. He held the image on pause and addressed the team of detectives crammed into his office. 'What do you think he's doing there?'

'Releasing Godzilla?' said one of the men with a snigger.

'Signaling to someone?' said a woman.

Carpenter played back a few frames to follow, in reverse, the panning of the camera lens across the shadowy, out-of-focus glare of the white motor cruiser and the blurry bikini-clad figure lying facedown across the bow. 'I agree,' he said. 'The only question is, who?'

'Nick Ingram listed the boats that were there that day,' said another man. 'They shouldn't be too difficult to track down.'

'There was a Fairline Squadron with two teenage girls on board,' said Carpenter, passing across the report from Bournemouth about the abandoned dinghy. 'Gregory's Girl out of Poole. Start with that one. It's owned by a Poole businessman called Gregory Freemantle.'

Ingram detached himself from the wall and blocked the corridor as Steven Harding, arm in sling, came through the door of the ward at 4:45. 'Good afternoon, sir,' he said politely. 'I hope you're feeling better.'

'Why would you care?'

Ingram smiled. 'I'm always interested in anyone I help to rescue.'

'Well, I'm not going to talk to you. You're the bastard who got them interested in my boat.'

Ingram showed his warrant card. 'I questioned you on Sunday. PC Ingram, Dorsetshire Constabulary.'

Harding's eyes narrowed. 'They say they can keep Crazy Daze for as long as is necessary but won't explain what gives them the right. I haven't done anything, so they can't charge me, but they can sure as hell steal my boat for no reason.' His angry gaze raked Ingram. 'What does 'as long as is necessary' mean, anyway?'

'There can be any number of reasons why it's deemed necessary to retain seized articles,' explained the constable helpfully, if somewhat misleadingly. The rules surrounding retention were woolly in the extreme, and policemen had few qualms about smothering so-called evidence in mountains of paperwork to avoid having to return it. 'In the case of Crazy Daze, it probably means they haven't finished the forensic examination, but once that's done you should be able to effect its release almost immediately.'

'Bollocks to that! They're holding it in case I abscond to France.'

Ingram shook his head. 'You'd have to go a little farther than France, Steve,' he murmured in mild correction. 'Everyone's mighty cooperative in Europe these days.' He stood aside and gestured down the corridor behind him. 'Shall we go?'

Harding backed away from him. 'Dream on. I'm not going anywhere with you.'

'I'm afraid you must,' said Ingram with apparent regret. 'Miss Jenner's accused you of assault, which means I have to insist that you answer some questions. I would prefer it if you came voluntarily, but I will arrest you if necessary.' He jerked his chin toward the corridor behind Harding. 'That doesn't lead anywhere-I've already checked it out.' He pointed toward a door at the end where a woman was consulting a notice board. 'This is the only exit.'

Harding began to ease his arm out of its sling, clearly fancying his chances in a sprint dash against this simple, forelock-tugging, 240-pound yokel in a uniform, but something changed his mind. Perhaps it was the fact that Ingram stood four inches taller than he did. Perhaps the woman by the door signaled that she was a detective. Perhaps he saw something in Ingram's lazy smile that persuaded him he might be making a mistake...

He gave an indifferent shrug. 'What the hell! I've nothing else to do. But it's your precious Maggie you should