Breaker

*19*

Inside Broxton House, Nick Ingram abandoned both women in the kitchen to put through a call to the incident room at Winfrith. He spoke to Detective Superintendent Carpenter, and gave him details of Harding's activities that morning. "He's been taken to the Poole hospital, sir. I shall be questioning him later about the assault, but meanwhile you might want to keep an eye on him. He's not likely to go anywhere in the short term because his arm needs stitching, but I'd say he's out of control now or he wouldn't have attacked Miss Jenner."

"What was he trying to do? Rape her?"

"She doesn't know. She says she shouted at him when her horse bolted, so he slapped her and knocked her to the ground."

"Mmm." Carpenter thought for a moment. "I thought you and John Galbraith decided he was interested in little boys."

"I'm ready to be proved wrong, sir."

There was a dry chuckle at the other end. "What's the first rule of policing, son?"

"Always keep an open mind, sir."

"Legwork first, lad. Conclusions second." There was another brief silence. "The DI's gone off in hot pursuit of William Sumner after reading your fax. He won't be at all pleased if Harding's our man after all."

"Sorry, sir. If you can give me a couple of hours to go back to the headland, I'll see if I can find out what he was up to. It'll be quicker than sending any of your chaps down."

But he was delayed by the wretched state of the two Jenner women. Celia was in such pain she was unable to sit down, and so she stood in the middle of the kitchen, legs splayed and leaning forward on her two sticks, looking more like an angry praying mantis than a crab. Meanwhile, Maggie's teeth chattered nonstop from delayed shock. "S-s-sorry," she kept saying, as she took a filthy, evil-smelling horse blanket from the scullery and draped it around her shoulders, "I'm j-just s-s-so c-cold."

Unceremoniously, Ingram shoved her onto a chair beside the Aga and told her to stay put while he dealt with her mother. "Right," he said to Celia, "are you going to be more comfortable lying down in bed or sitting up in a chair?"

"Lying down," she said.

"Then I'll set up a bed on the ground floor. Which room do you want it in?"

"I don't," she said mutinously. "It'll make me look like an invalid."

He crossed his arms and frowned at her. "I haven't got time to argue about this, Mrs. Jenner. There's no way you can get upstairs, so the bed has to come to you." She didn't answer. "All right," he said, heading for the hall. "I'll make the decision myself."

"The drawing room," she called after him. "And take the bed out of the room at the end of the corridor."

Her reluctance, he realized, had more to do with her unwillingness to let him go upstairs than fear of being seen as an invalid. He had had no idea how desperate their plight was until he saw the wasteland of the upper floor. The doors stood open to every room, eight in all, and there wasn't a single piece of furniture in any but Celia's. The smell of long-lying dust and damp permeating through an unsound roof stung his nostrils, and he wasn't surprised that Celia's health had begun to suffer. He was reminded of Jane Fielding's complaints about selling the family heirlooms to look after her parents-in-law, but their situation was princely compared with this.

The room at the end of the corridor was obviously Celia's own, and her bed probably the only one left in the house. It took him less than ten minutes to dismantle and reassemble it in the drawing room, where he set it up close to the French windows, overlooking the garden. The view was hardly inspiring, just another wasteland, untended and uncared for, but the drawing room at least retained some of its former glory, with all its paintings and most of its furniture still intact. He had time to reflect that few, if any, of Celia's acquaintances could have any idea that the hall and the drawing room represented the extent of her remaining worth. But what sort of madness made people live like this? he wondered. Pride? Fear of their failures being known? Embarrassment?

He returned to the kitchen. "How are we going to do this?" he asked her. "The hard way or the easy way?"

Tears of pain squeezed between her lids. "You really are the most provoking creature," she said. "You're determined to take away my dignity, aren't you?"

He grinned as he put one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, and lifted her gently. "Why not?" he murmured. "It may be my only chance to get even."

I don't want to talk to you," said William Sumner angrily, barring the front door to DI Galbraith. Hectic spots of color burned in his cheeks, and he kept tugging at the fingers of his left hand as he spoke, cracking the joints noisily. "I'm sick of the police treating my house like a damn thoroughfare, and I'm sick of answering questions. Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Because your wife's been murdered, sir," said Galbraith evenly, "and we're trying to find out who killed her. I'm sorry if you're finding that difficult to cope with but I really do have no option."

"Then talk to me here. What do you want to know?"

The DI glanced toward the road, where an interested group of spectators was gathering. "We'll have the press here before you know it, William," he said dispassionately. "Do you want to discuss your alleged alibi in front of an audience of journalists?"

Sumner's jittery gaze jumped toward the crowd at his gate. "This isn't fair. Everything's so bloody public. Why can't you make them go away?"

"They'll go of their own accord if you let me in. They'll stay if you insist on keeping me on the doorstep. That's human nature, I'm afraid."

With a haunted expression, Sumner seized the policeman's arm and pulled him inside. Pressure was beginning to take its toll, thought Galbraith, and gone was the self-assured, if tired, man of Monday. It meant nothing in itself. Shock took time to absorb, and nerves invariably began to fray when successful closure to a case remained elusive. He followed Sumner into the sitting room and, as before, took a seat on the sofa.

"What do you mean, alleged alibi?" the man demanded, preferring to stand. "I was in Liverpool, for God's sake. How could I be in two places at once?"

The DI opened his briefcase and extracted some papers. "We've taken statements from your colleagues, hotel employees at the Regal, and librarians at the university library. None of them supports your claim that you were in Liverpool on Saturday night." He held them out. "I think you should read them."

Witness statement: Harold Marshall, MD Campbell Ltd., Lee Industrial Estate, Lichfield, Staffordshire

I remember seeing William at lunch on Saturday, 9 August 1997. We discussed a paper in last week's Lancet about stomach ulcers. William says he's working on a new drug that will beat the current frontrunner into a cocked hat. I was skeptical, and we had quite a debate. No, I didn't see him at the dinner that evening, but then I wouldn't expect to. He and I have been attending these conferences for years, and it'll be a red-letter day when William decides to let his hair down and join the rest of us for some lighthearted entertainment. He was certainly at lunch on Sunday, because we had another argument on the ulcer issue.

Witness statement: Paul Dimmock, Research Chemist, Wryton's, Holborae Way, Colchester, Essex

I saw William at about 2:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon. He said he was going to the university library to do some research, which is par for the course for him. He never goes to conference dinners. He's only interested in the intellectual side, hates the social side. My room was two doors down from his. I remember seeing the do not disturb notice on the door, when I went up to bed about half past midnight, but I've no idea when he got back. I had a drink with him before lunch on Sunday. No, he didn't seem at all tired. Matter of fact he was in better form than usual. Positively cheerful, in fact.

Witness statement: Anne Smith, Research Chemist, Bristol University, Bristol

I didn't see him at all on Saturday, but I had a drink with him and Paul Dimmock on Sunday morning. He gave a paper on Friday afternoon, and I was interested in some of the things he said. He's researching the drug treatment of stomach ulcers, and it sounds like good stuff.

Witness statement: Jane Riley, Librarian, University Library, Liverpool

(Shown a photograph of William Sumner) Quite a few of the conference members came into the library on Saturday, but I don't remember seeing this man. That doesn't mean he wasn't here. As long as they have a conference badge and know what they're looking for, they have free access.

Witness statement: Carrie Wilson, Chambermaid, Regal Hotel, Liverpool

I remember the gentleman in number two-two-three-flve. He was very tidy, unpacked his suitcase, and put everything away in the drawers. Some of them don't bother. I finished about midday on Saturday, but I made up his room when he went down to breakfast and I didn't see him afterward. Sunday morning, there was a do not disturb notice on his door so I left him to sleep. As I recall, he went down at about 11:30, and I made up his room then. Yes, his bed had certainly been slept in. There were science books scattered all over it, and I think he must have been doing some studying. I remember thinking he wasn't so tidy after all.

Witness statement: Les Allen, Librarian, University Library, Liverpool

(Shown a photograph of William Sumner) He came in on Friday morning. I spent about half an hour with him. He wanted papers on peptic and duodenal ulcers, and I showed him where to find them. He said he'd be back on Saturday, but I didn't notice him. It's a big place. I only ever notice the people who need help.

Witness statement: David Forward, Concierge, Regal Hotel, Liverpool

We have limited parking facilities, and Mr. Sumner reserved a parking space at the same time as he reserved his room. He was allocated number thirty-four, which is at the back of the hotel. As far as I'm aware, the car remained there from Thursday 7 to Monday 11. We ask guests to leave a set of keys with us, and Mr. Sumner didn't retrieve his until Monday. Yes, he could certainly have driven his car out if he had a spare set. There are no barriers across the exit.

"You see our problem?" asked Galbraith when Sumner had read them. "There's a period of twenty-one hours, from two o'clock on Saturday till eleven thirty on Sunday, when no one remembers seeing you. Yet the first three statements were made by people whom you told us would give you a cast-iron alibi."

Sumner looked at him in bewilderment. "But I was there," he insisted. "One of them must have seen me." He stabbed a finger at Paul Dimmock's statement. "I met up with Paul in the foyer. I told him I was going to the library, and he walked part of the way with me. That had to be well after two o'clock. Dammit, at two o'clock I was still arguing the toss with that bloody fool Harold Marshall."

Galbraith shook his head. "Even if it was four o'clock, it makes no difference. You proved on Monday that you can do the drive to Dorset in five hours."

"This is absurd!" snapped Sumner nervously. "You'll just have to talk to more people. Someone must have seen me. There was a man at the same table as me in the library. Ginger-haired fellow with glasses. He can prove I was there."

"What was his name?"

"I don't know."

Galbraith took another sheaf of papers out of his briefcase. "We've questioned thirty people in all, William. These are the rest of the statements. There's no one who's prepared to admit they saw you at any time during the ten hours prior to your wife's murder or the ten hours after. We've also checked your hotel account. You didn't use any hotel service, and that includes your telephone, between lunch on Saturday and prelunch drinks on Sunday." He dropped the papers onto the sofa. "How do you explain that? For example, where did you eat on Saturday night? You weren't at the conference dinner, and you didn't have room service."

Sumner set to cracking his finger joints again. "I didn't have anything to eat, not a proper meal anyway. I hate those blasted conference dinners, so I wasn't going to leave my room in case anyone saw me. They all get drunk and behave stupidly. I used the mini-bar," he said, "drank the beer and ate peanuts and chocolate. Isn't that on the account?"

Galbraith nodded. "Except it doesn't specify a time. You could have had them at ten o'clock on Sunday morning. It may explain why you were in such good spirits when you met your friends in the bar. Why didn't you order room service if you didn't want to go down?"

"Because I wasn't that hungry." Sumner lurched toward the armchair and slumped into it. "I knew this was going to happen," he said bitterly. "I knew you'd go for me if you couldn't find anyone else. I was in the library all afternoon, then I went back to the hotel and read books and journals till I fell asleep." He lapsed into silence, massaging his temples. "How could I have drowned her anyway?" he demanded suddenly. "I don't have a boat."

"No," Galbraith agreed. "Drowning does seem to be the one method that exonerates you."

A complex mixture of emotions-relief? triumph? pleasure?-showed briefly in the man's eyes. "There you are then," he said childishly.

"Why do you want to get even with my mother?" asked Maggie when Ingram returned to the kitchen after settling Celia and phoning the local GP. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and she had finally stopped shaking.

"Private joke," he said, filling the kettle and putting it on the Aga. "Where does she keep her mugs?"

"Cupboard by the door."

He took out two and transferred them to the sink, then opened the cupboard underneath and found some washing-up liquid, bleach, and pan scourers. "How long has her hip been bad?" he asked, rolling up his sleeves and setting to with the scourers and the bleach to render the sink hygienic before he even began to deal with the stains in the mugs. From the strong whiffs of dirty dog and damp horse blankets that seemed to haunt the kitchen like old ghosts, he had a strong suspicion that the sink was not entirely dedicated to the purpose of washing crockery.

"Six months. She's on the waiting list for a replacement operation, but I can't see it happening before the end of the year." She watched him sluice down the draining board and sink. "You think we're a couple of slobs, don't you?"

" 'Fraid so," he agreed bluntly. "I'd say it's a miracle neither of you has gone down with food poisoning, particularly your mother, when her health's not too brilliant in the first place."

"There are so many other things to do," she said dispiritedly, "and Ma's in too much pain most of the time to clean properly ... or says she is. Sometimes I think she's just making excuses to get out of it because she thinks it's beneath her to get her hands dirty. Other times..." She sighed heavily. "I keep the horses immaculate, but cleaning up after myself and Ma is always at the bottom of the list. I hate coming up here anyway. It's so"-she sought a suitable word-"depressing."

He wondered how she had the nerve to stand in judgment on her mother's lifestyle, but didn't comment on it. Stress, depression, and waspishness went together in his experience. Instead, he scrubbed the mugs, then filled them with diluted bleach and left them to stand. "Is that why you moved down to the stables?" he asked her, turning around.

"Not really. If Ma and I live in each other's pockets we argue. If we live apart we don't. Simple as that. Things are easier this way."

She looked thin and harassed, and her hair hung in limp strands about her face as if she hadn't been near a shower for weeks. It wasn't surprising in view of what she'd been through that morning, particularly as the beginnings of a bruise were ripening on the side of her face, but Ingram remembered her as she used to be, pre-Robert Healey, a gloriously vibrant woman with a mischievous sense of humor and sparkling eyes. He regretted the passing of that personality-it had been a dazzling one-but she was still the most desirable woman he knew.

He glanced idly around the kitchen. "If you think this is depressing, you should try living in a hostel for the homeless for a week."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"This one room could house an entire family."

"You sound like Ava, my bloody sister-in-law," she said testily. "According to her, we live in the lap of luxury despite the fact that the damn place is falling down about our ears."

"Then why don't you stop whinging about it and do something constructive to change it?" he suggested. "If you gave this room a lick of paint it would brighten it up and you'd have less to feel depressed about and more to be thankful for."

"Oh, my God," she said icily, "you'll be telling me to take up knitting next. I don't need DIY therapy, Nick."

"Then explain to me how sitting around moaning about your environment helps you. You're not helpless, are you? Or maybe it's you, and not your mother, who thinks that getting her hands dirty is demeaning."

"Paint costs money."

"Your flat over the stables costs a damn sight more," he pointed out. "You balk at forking out for some cheap emulsion, yet you'll pay two sets of gas, electricity, and telephone bills just in order to avoid having to get on with your mother. How does that make things easier, Maggie? It's hardly sound economics, is it? And what are you going to do when she falls over and breaks her hip so badly she's confined to a wheelchair? Pop in once in a while to see she hasn't died of hypothermia in the night because she hasn't been able to get into bed on her own? Or will that be so depressing you'll avoid her entirely?"

"I don't need this," she said tiredly. "It's none of your business anyway. We manage fine on our own."

He watched her for a moment, then turned back to the sink, emptying the mugs of bleach and rinsing them under the tap. He jerked his head toward the kettle. "Your mother would like a cup of tea, and I suggest you put several spoonfuls of sugar in it to bring up her energy levels. I also suggest you make one for yourself. The GP said he'd be here by eleven." He dried his hands on a tea towel and rolled down his sleeves.

"Where are you going?" she asked him.

"Up to the headland. I want to try and find out why Harding came back. Does your mother have any freezer bags?"

"No. We can't afford a freezer."

"Cling film?"

"In the drawer by the sink."

"Can I take it?" "

"I suppose so." She watched him remove the roll and tuck it under his arm. "What do you want it for?"

"Evidence," he said unhelpfully, making for the door.

She watched him in a kind of despair. "What about me and Ma?"

He turned with a frown. "What about you?"

"God, I don't know," she said crossly. "We're both pretty shaken, you know. That bloody man hit me, in case you've forgotten. Aren't the police supposed to stay around when women get attacked? Take statements or something?"

"Probably," he agreed, "but this is my day off. I turfed out to help you as a friend, not as a policeman, and I'm only following up on Harding because I'm involved in the Kate Sumner case. Don't worry," he said with a comforting smile, "you're in no danger from him, not while he's in Poole, but dial nine-nine-nine if you need someone to hold your hand."

She glared at him. "I want him prosecuted, which means I want you to take a statement now."

"Mmm, well, don't forget I'll be taking one from him, too," Ingram pointed out, "and you may not be so eager to go for his jugular if he opts to counterprosecute on the grounds that he's the one who suffered the injuries because you didn't have your dog under proper control. It's going to be your word against his," he said, making for the door, "which is one of the reasons why I'm going back up there now."

She sighed. "I suppose you're hurt because I told you to mind your own business?"

"Not in the least," he said, disappearing into the scullery. "Try angry or bored."

"Do you want me to say sorry?" she called after him. "Well, okay ... I'm tired ... I'm stressed out, and I'm not in the best of moods but"-she gritted her teeth-"I'll say 'sorry' if that's what you want."

But her words fell on stony ground, because all she heard was the sound of the back door closing behind him.

The detective inspector had been silent so long that William Sumner grew visibly nervous. "There you are then," he said again. "I couldn't possibly have drowned her, could I?" Anxiety had set his eyelid fluttering, and he looked absurdly comical every time his lid winked. "I don't understand why you keep hounding me. You said you were looking for someone with a boat, but you know I haven't got one. And I don't understand why you released Steven Harding when WPC Griffiths said he was seen talking to Kate outside Tesco's on Saturday morning."

WPC Griffiths should learn to keep her mouth shut, thought Galbraith in annoyance. Not that he blamed her. Sumner was bright enough to read between the lines of newspaper reports about "a young Lymington actor being taken in for questioning" and then press for answers. "Briefly," he said, "then they went their separate ways. She talked to a couple of market stallholders afterward, but Harding wasn't with her."

"Well, it wasn't me who did it." He winked. "So there must be someone else you haven't found yet."

"That's certainly one way of looking at it." Galbraith lifted a photograph of Kate off the table beside him. "The trouble is looks are so often deceptive. I mean, take Kate here. You see this?" He turned the picture toward the husband. "The first impression she gives is that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but the more you learn about her the more you realize that isn't true. Let me tell you what I know of her." He held up his fingers and ticked the points off as he spoke. "She wanted money and she didn't really mind how she got it. She manipulated people in order to achieve her ambitions. She could be cruel. She told lies if necessary. Her goal was to climb the social ladder and become accepted within a milieu she admired, and as long as it brought the goalposts closer, she was prepared to play-act whatever role was required of her, sex being the major weapon in her armory. The one person she couldn't manipulate successfully was your mother, so she dealt with her in the only way possible-by moving away from her influence." He dropped his hand to his lap and looked at the other man with genuine sympathy. "How long was it before you realized you'd been suckered, William?"

"I suppose you've been talking to that bloody policewoman?"

"Among other people."

"She made me angry. I said things I didn't mean."

Galbraith shook his head. "Your mother's view of your marriage wasn't so different," he pointed out. "She may not have used the terms 'landlady' or 'cheap boarding-house,' but she certainly gave the impression of an unfulfilled and unfulfilling relationship. Other people have described it as unhappy, based on sex, cool, boring. Are any of those descriptions accurate? Are they all accurate?"

Sumner pressed his finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. "You don't kill your wife because you're bored with her," he muttered.

Galbraith wondered again at the man's naivete. Boredom was precisely why most men killed their wives. They might disguise it by claiming provocation or jealousy, but in the end, a desire for something different was usually the reason-even if the difference was simply escape. "Except I'm told it wasn't so much a question of boredom but more a question of you taking her for granted. And that interests me. You see, I wonder what a man like you would do if the woman you'd been taking for granted suddenly decided she wasn't going to play the game anymore."

Sumner stared back at him with disdain. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Or if," Galbraith went on relentlessly, "you discovered that what you'd been taking for granted wasn't true. Such as being a father, for example."

Ingram's assumption was that Harding had come back for his rucksack because, despite the man's claim that the rucksack found on board Crazy Daze was the one he'd been carrying, Ingram remained convinced that it wasn't. Paul and Danny Spender had been too insistent that it was big for Ingram to accept that a triangular one fitted the description. Also, he remained suspicious about why Harding had left it behind when he took the boys down to the boat sheds. Nevertheless, the logic of why he had descended to the beach that morning, only to climb up again empty-handed, was far from obvious. Had someone else found the rucksack and removed it? Had Harding weighted it with a rock and thrown it into the sea? Had he even left it there in the first place?

In frustration, he slithered down a gully in the shale precipice to where the grassy slope at the end of the quarry valley undulated softly toward the sea. It was a western-facing cliff out of sight of the sun, and he shivered as the cold and damp penetrated his flimsy T-shirt and sweater. He turned to look back toward the cleft in the cliff, giving himself a rough idea of where Harding must have emerged in front of Maggie. Shale still pattered down the gully Ingram himself had used, and he noticed what was obviously a recent slide farther to the left. He walked over to it, wondering if Harding had dislodged it in his ascent, but the surface was damp with dew and he decided it must have happened a few days previously.

He turned his attention to the shore below, striding down the grass to take a closer look. Pieces of driftwood and old plastic containers had wedged themselves into cracks in the rocks, but there was no sign of a black or green rucksack. He felt exhausted suddenly, and wondered what the hell he was doing there. He'd planned to spend his day in total idleness aboard Miss Creant, and he really didn't appreciate giving it up for a wild-goose chase. He raised his eyes to the clouds skudding in on a southwesterly breeze and sighed his frustration to the winds..

Maggie put a cup of tea on the table beside her mother's bed. "I've made it very sweet," she said. "Nick said you needed your energy levels raised." She looked at the dreadful state of the top blanket, worn and covered in stains, then noticed the tannin dribbles on Celia's bed-jacket. She wondered what the sheets looked like-it was ages since Broxton House had boasted a washing machine-and wished angrily that she had never introduced the word "slob" into her conversation with Nick.

"I'd rather have a brandy," said Celia with a sigh.

"So would I," said Maggie shortly, "but we haven't got any." She stood by the window, looking at the garden, her own cup cradled between her hands. "Why does he want to get even with you, Ma?"

"Did you ask him?"

"Yes. He said it was a private joke."

Celia chuckled. "Where is he?"

"Gone."

"I hope you thanked him for me."

"I didn't. He started ordering me about, so I sent him away with a flea in his ear."

Her mother eyed her curiously for a moment. "How odd of him," she said, reaching for her tea. "What sort of orders was he giving you?"

"Snide ones."

"Oh, I see."

Maggie shook her head. "I doubt you do," she said, addressing the garden. "He's like Matt and Ava, thinks society would have better value out of this house if we were evicted and it was given to a homeless family."

Celia took a sip of her tea and leaned back against her pillows. "Then I understand why you're so angry," she said evenly. "It's always irritating when someone's right."

"He called you a slob and said it was a miracle you hadn't come down with food poisoning."

Celia pondered for a moment. "I find that hard to believe if he wasn't prepared to tell you why he wanted to get even with me. Also, he's a polite young man and doesn't use words like 'slob.' That's more your style, isn't it, darling?" She watched her daughter's rigid back for a moment but, in the absence of any response, went on: "If he'd really wanted to get even with me, he'd have spiked my guns a long time ago. I was extremely rude to him, and I've regretted it ever since."

"What did you do?"

"He came to me two months before your wedding with a warning about your fiance, and I sent him away"-Celia paused to recall the words Maggie had used-"with a flea in his ear." Neither she nor Maggie could ever think of the man who had wheedled his way into their lives by his real name, Robert Healey, but only by the name they had come to associate with him, Martin Grant. It was harder for Maggie, who had spent three months as Mrs. Martin Grant before being faced with the unenviable task of informing banks and corporations that neither the name nor the title belonged to her. "Admittedly the evidence against Martin was very thin," Celia went on. "Nick accused him of trying to con Jane Fielding's parents-in-law out of several thousand pounds by posing as an antiques dealer-with everything resting on old Mrs. Fielding's insistence that Martin was the man who came to their door-but if I'd listened to Nick instead of castigating him..." She broke off. "The trouble was he made me angry. He kept asking me what I knew of Martin's background, and when I told him Martin's father was a coffee-grower in Kenya, Nick laughed and said, how convenient."

"Did you show him the letters they wrote to us?"

"Supposedly wrote," Celia corrected her. "And, yes, of course I did. It was the only proof we had that Martin came from a respectable background. But, as Nick so rightly pointed out, the address was a PO box number in Nairobi, which proved nothing. He said anyone could conduct a fake correspondence through an anonymous box number. What he wanted was Martin's previous address in Britain, and all I could give him was the address of the flat Martin was renting in Bournemouth." She sighed. "But as Nick said, you don't have to be the son of a coffee planter to rent a flat, and he told me I'd be wise to make a few inquiries before I allowed my daughter to marry someone I knew nothing about."

Maggie turned to look at her. "Then why didn't you?"

"Oh, I don't know." Her mother sighed. "Perhaps because Nick was so appallingly pompous ... Perhaps because on the one occasion that I dared to question Martin's suitability as a husband"-she lifted her eyebrows- "you called me a meddling bitch and refused to speak to me for several weeks. I think I asked you if you could really marry a man who was afraid of horses, didn't I?"

"Ye-es," said her daughter slowly, "and I should have listened to you. I'm sorry now that I didn't." She crossed her arms. "What did you say to Nick?"

"More or less what you just said about him," said Celia. "I called him a jumped-up little oik with a Hitler complex and tore strips off him for having the brass nerve to slander my future son-in-law. Then I asked him which day Mrs. Fielding claimed to have seen Martin, and when he told me, I lied and said she couldn't possibly have done because Martin was out riding with you and me."

"Oh my God!" said Maggie. "How could you do that?"

"Because it never occurred to me for one moment that Nick was right," said Celia with an ironic smile. "After all, he was just a common or garden-variety policeman and Martin was such a gent. Oxford graduate. Old Etonian. Heir to a coffee plantation. So who wins the prize for stupidity now, darling? You or me?"

Maggie shook her head. "Couldn't you at least have told me about it? Forewarned might have been forearmed."

"Oh, I don't think so. You were always so cruel about Nick after Martin pointed out that the poor lad blushed like a beetroot every time he saw you. I remember you laughing and saying that even beetroots have more sex appeal than overweight Neanderthals in policemen's uniforms."

Maggie squirmed at the memory. "You could have told me about it afterward."

"Of course I could," said Celia bluntly, "but I didn't see why I should give you an excuse to shuffle the guilt off onto me. You were just as much to blame as I was. You were living with the wretched creature in Bournemouth, and if anyone should have seen the flaws in his story it was you. You weren't a child in all conscience, Maggie. If you'd asked to visit his office just once, the whole edifice of his fraud would have collapsed."

Maggie sighed in exasperation-with herself-with her mother-with Nick Ingram. "Don't you think I know that? Why do you think I don't trust anyone anymore?"

Celia held her gaze for a moment, then looked away. "I've often wondered," she murmured. "Sometimes I think it's bloody-mindedness, other times I think it's immaturity. Usually I put it down to the fact that I spoiled you as a child and made you vain." Her eyes fastened on Maggie's again. "You see it's the height of arrogance to question other people's motives when you consistently refuse to question your own. Yes, Martin was a con man, but why did he pick on us as his victims? Have you ever wondered about that?"

"We had money."

"Lots of people have money, darling. Few of them get defrauded in the way that we did. No," she said with sudden firmness, "I was conned because I was greedy, and you were conned because you took it for granted that men found you attractive. If you hadn't, you'd have questioned Martin's ridiculous habit of telling everyone he met how much he loved you. It was so American and so insincere, and I can't understand why any of us believed it."

Maggie turned back to the window so that her mother wouldn't see her eyes. "No," she said unevenly. "Neither can I-now."

A gull swooped toward the shore and pecked at something white tumbling at the water's edge. Amused, Ingram watched it for a while, expecting it to take off again with a dead fish in its beak, but when it abandoned the sport and flapped away in disgust, screaming raucously, he walked down the waterline, curious about what the intermittent flash of white was that showed briefly between each wave. A carrier bag caught in the rocks? A piece of cloth? It ballooned unpleasantly as each swell invaded it, before rearing abruptly in a welter of spume as a larger wave flooded in.