Breaker

'Yes.'

'Did you refer to Kate as a 'tart'?'

He hunched his shoulders. 'It was just an expression.'

'Did you tell Tony Kate was easy?'

'Listen, it was a joke. He used to have a real hang-up about sex. Everyone used to tease him, not just me ... then Bibi came along and he ... well, lightened up.'

Carpenter studied him closely for a moment. 'So did you sleep with Bibi for a joke?'

Harding stared at his hands. 'I didn't do it for any particular reason. It just happened. I mean she really was easy. The only reason she hangs around with Tony is because she's got a thing about me. Look'-he hunched farther into his seat-'you don't want to get the wrong idea about all of this.'

'What wrong idea's that, Steve?'

'I don't know, but you seem to have it in for Tony.'

'With reason,' said Carpenter, easing another piece of paper from the pile in front of him and hiding the contents with cupped fingers. 'We've been told you watched him feed Bibi a drug called'-he lowered his eyes to the paper, as if the word were written there-'Rohypnol so she wouldn't complain about his performance. Is that true?'

'Oh, shit!' He rested his head in his hands. 'I suppose Marie's been spouting her mouth off?' His fingers caressed his temples in soft, circular movements, and Galbraith was fascinated by the gracefulness of his actions. He was an extraordinarily beautiful young man, and it didn't surprise him that Kate had found him more attractive than William.

'Is it true, Steve?'

'Sort of. He told me he slipped it to her once when she was giving him a load of grief, but I didn't see him do it, and for all I know he was lying through his teeth.'

'How did he know about Rohypnol?'

'Everyone knows.'

'Did you tell him?'

Harding lifted his head to look at the paper in front of the superintendent, clearly wondering how much information was written there. 'His granddad hasn't been sleeping too well since his wife died, so the GP prescribed him Rohypnol. Tony was telling me about it, so I laughed and said it could sort all his problems if he could get hold of some of it. It's not my fault if the stupid fucker used it.'

'Have you used it, Steve?'

'Do me a favor! Why would I need to?'

A faint smile crossed Carpenter's face as he changed tack. 'How soon after the incident with the nappy did Kate start smearing Hannah's feces on your car and setting the alarm off?'

'I don't know. A few days, maybe.'

'How did you know it was her?'

'Because she'd left Hannah's crap on the sheets in my boat.'

'Which was sometime toward the end of April?' Harding nodded. 'But she didn't start this'-Carpenter sought a suitable phrase-' 'dirty campaign' until after she realized you weren't interested in pursuing a relationship with her?'

'It's not my fault,' he said despairingly. 'She was ... so ... fucking ... boring.'

'The question I asked you, Steve,' repeated Carpenter patiently, 'was did she start her 'dirty campaign' after she realized you weren't interested in her?'

'Yes.' He jabbed the heels of his palms against his eye in an effort to recall detail. 'She just made my life hell until I couldn't stand it any longer. That's when I thought of persuading William to tell her I was an arse- bandit.'

The superintendent ran a finger down Harding's statement. 'Which was in June?'

'Yes.'

'Any particular reason why you waited a month and a half to put a stop to it?'

'Because it was getting worse not better,' the young man said with a sudden rush of anger as if the memory still rankled deeply. 'I thought she'd run out of steam if I was patient, but when she started targeting my dinghy, I decided enough was enough. I reckoned she'd start on Crazy Daze next, and there was no way I was going to let her do that.'

Carpenter nodded as if he thought the explanation a reasonable one. He pulled out Harding's statement again and ran his finger down it. 'So you sought out William and showed him photographs of yourself in a gay magazine because you wanted him to tell his wife you were gay?'

'Yes.'

'Mmm.' Carpenter reached for Tony Bridges' statement. 'Tony, on the other hand, says that when you told him you were going to report Kate to the police for harassing you, he advised you to move your car instead. According to him that's what sorted the problem. In fact, he thought it was pretty funny when we told him last night that your solution to Kate's harassment was to show William gay pictures of yourself. He said: 'Steve always was as thick as two short planks.' '

Harding shrugged. 'So? It worked. That's all I was interested in.'