Breaker

*5*

It bad been a long twenty-four hours, and WPC Sandra Griffiths was yawning as her telephone started to ring again at noon on Monday. She had done several local radio and television interviews to publicize the abandonment of Lily (named after Lilliput, where she was found), but although the response to the programs had been good, not one caller had been able to tell her who the child was. She blamed the weather. Too many people were out in the sunshine; too few watching their sets. She stifled the yawn as she picked up the receiver.

The man at the other end sounded worried. "I'm sorry to bother you," he told her, "but I've just had my mother on the phone. She's incredibly het-up about some toddler who looks like my daughter wandering the streets. I've told her it can't possibly be Hannah, but"-he paused-"well, the thing is we've both tried phoning my wife, and neither of us can get an answer."

Griffiths tucked the receiver under her chin and reached for a pen. This was the twenty-fifth father to phone since the toddler's photograph had been broadcast, and all were estranged from their wives and children. She had no higher hopes of this one than she'd had of the previous twenty-four, but she went through the motions willingly enough. "If you'll answer one or two questions for me, sir, we can establish very quickly whether the little girl is Hannah. May I have your name and address?" "William Sumner, Langton Cottage, Rope Walk, Lymington, Hampshire."

"And do your wife and daughter still live with you, Mr. Sumner?"

"Yes."

Her interest sharpened immediately. "When did you last see them?"

"Four days ago. I'm at a pharmaceutical conference in Liverpool. I spoke to Kate-that's my wife-on Friday night and everything was fine, but my mother's positive this toddler's Hannah. It doesn't make sense though. Mum says she was found in Poole yesterday, but how could Hannah be wandering around Poole on her own when we live in Lymington?"

Griffiths listened to the rising alarm in his voice. "Are you phoning from Liverpool now?" she asked calmly.

"Yes. I'm staying in the Regal, room number two-two-three-five. What should I do? My mother's beside herself with worry. I need to reassure her that everything's all right."

And yourself, too, she thought. "Could you give me a description of Hannah?"

"She looks like her mother," he said rather helplessly. "Blond, blue eyes. She doesn't talk very much. We've been worrying about it, but the doctor says it's just shyness."

"How old is she?"

"She'll be three next month."

The policewoman winced in sympathy as she put the next question, guessing what his answer was going to be. "Does Hannah have a pink cotton dress with smocking on it and a pair of red sandals, Mr. Sumner?"

It took him a second or two to answer. "I don't know about the sandals," he said with difficulty, "but my mother bought her a smocked dress about three months ago. I think it was pink-no, it was pink. Oh God"-his voice broke-"where's Kate?"

She waited a moment. "Did you drive to Liverpool, Mr. Sumner?"

"Yes."

"Do you know roughly how long it will take you to get home?"

"Five hours maybe."

"And where does your mother live?"

"Chichester."

"Then I think you'd better give me her name and address, sir. If the little girl is Hannah, then she can identify her for us. Meantime I'll ask Lymington police to check your house while I make inquiries about your wife here in Poole."

"Mrs. Angela Sumner, Flat Two, The Old Convent, Osborne Crescent, Chichester." His breathing became labored-with tears?-and Griffiths wished herself a million miles away. How she hated the fact that, nine times out of ten, she was the harbinger of bad news. "But there's no way she can get to Poole. She's been in a wheelchair for the last three years and can't drive. If she could, she'd have gone to Lymington to check on Kate and Hannah herself. Can't I make the identification?"

"By all means, if that's what you prefer. The little girl's in the care of a foster family at the moment, and it won't harm her to stay there a few more hours."

"My mother's convinced Hannah's been abused by some man. Is that what's happened? I'd rather know now than later."

"Assuming the little girl is Hannah, then, no, there's no evidence of any sort of physical abuse. She's been thoroughly checked, and the police doctor's satisfied that she hasn't been harmed in any way." She glossed over Dr. Murray's damning psychological assessment. If Lily were indeed Hannah Sumner, then that particular issue would have to be taken up later.

"What kind of inquiries can you make about my wife in Poole?" he asked in bewilderment, reverting to what she'd said previously. "I told you, we live in Lymington."

The hospital kind... "Routine ones, Mr. Sumner. It would help if you could give me her full name and a description of her. Also the type, color, and registration number of her car, and the names of any friends she has in the area."

"Kate Elizabeth Sumner. She's thirty-one, about five feet tall, and blond. The car's a blue Metro, registration F-five-two VXY, but I don't think she knows anyone in Poole. Could she have been taken to hospital? Could something have gone wrong with the pregnancy?"

"It's one of the things I'll be checking, Mr. Sumner." She was flicking through the accident reports on the computer while she was talking to him, but there was no mention of a blue Metro with that registration being involved in a road accident. "Are your wife's parents living? Would they know where she is?"

"No. Her mother died five years ago, and she never knew her father."

"Brothers? Sisters?"

"She hasn't got anyone except me and Hannah." His voice broke again. "What am I going to do? I won't be able to cope if something's happened to her."

"There's no reason to think anything's happened," said Griffiths firmly, while believing the exact opposite. "Do you have a mobile telephone in your car? If so I can keep you up to date as you drive down."

"No."

"Then I suggest you break your journey at the halfway mark to ring from a callbox. I should have news from the Lymington police by then, and with luck I'll be able to set your mind at rest about Kate. And try not to worry, Mr. Sumner," she finished kindly. "It's a long drive from Liverpool, and the important thing is to get yourself back in one piece."

She put through a call to the Lymington police, explaining the details of the case and asking for a check to be made of Sumner's address, then as a matter of routine dialed the Regal Hotel in Liverpool to inquire whether a Mr. William Sumner had been registered in room two-two-three-five since Thursday. "Yes, ma'am," said the receptionist, "but I can't put you through, I'm afraid. He left five minutes ago."

Reluctantly, she started on the list of hospitals.

For various reasons, Nick Ingram had no ambitions to move away from his rural police station, where life revolved around community policing and the hours were predictable. Major cases were handled thirty miles away at County HQ Winfrith, and this left him free to deal with the less glamorous side of policing, which for ninety-five percent of the population was the only side that mattered. People slept sounder in their beds knowing that PC Ingram had zero tolerance for lager louts, vandals, and petty thieves.

Real trouble usually came from outside, and the unidentified woman on the beach looked like being a case in point, he thought, when a call came through from Winfrith at 12:45 p.m. on Monday, 11 August. The coroner's office at Poole had ordered a murder inquiry following the postmortem, and he was told to expect a DI and a DS from headquarters within the hour. A scene-of-crime team had already been dispatched to search the beach at Egmont Bight, but Ingram was requested to stay where he was.

"I don't think they'll find anything," he said helpfully. "I had a bit of a scout around yesterday, but it was fairly obvious the sea had washed her up.

"I suggest you leave that to us," said the unemotional voice at the other end.

Ingram gave a shrug at his end. "What did she die of?"

"Drowning," came the blunt response. "She was thrown into the open sea after an attempt at manual strangulation which failed. The pathologist guesstimates she swam half a mile to try and save herself before she gave up from exhaustion. She was fourteen weeks pregnant, and her killer held her down and raped her before pitching her over the side."

Ingram was shocked. "What sort of man would do that?"

"An unpleasant one. We'll see you in an hour."

Griffiths drew a series of blanks with the name Kate Sumner-there was no record of her at any hospital in Dorset or Hampshire. It was only when she made a routine check through Winfrith to see if there was any information on the whereabouts of a small blond woman, aged thirty-one, who appeared to have gone missing from Lymington within the last forty-eight hours, that the scattered pieces of the jigsaw began to come together.

The two detectives arrived punctually for their meeting with PC Ingram. The sergeant, an arrogant, pushy type with ambitions to join the Met, who clearly believed that every conversation was an opportunity to impress, went down like a lead balloon with his rural colleague, and Ingram was never able afterward to remember his name. He talked in bullet points: "reference a major investigation" in which "speed was of the essence" before the murderer had a chance to get rid of evidence and/or strike again. Local marinas, yacht clubs, and harbors were being "targeted" for information on the victim and/or her killer. Victim identification was the "first priority." They had a possible lead on a missing female, but no one was counting chickens until her husband identified a photograph and/or the body. The second priority was to locate the boat she'd come off and give forensics a chance to strip it top-to-bottom in search of nonintimate samples that would connect it to the body. Give us a suspect, he suggested, and DNA testing would do the rest.

Ingram raised an eyebrow when the monologue came to an end but didn't say anything.

"Did you follow all that?" asked the sergeant impatiently.

"I think so, si-rr," he said in a broad Dorsetshire burr, resisting the temptation to tug his forelock. "If you find some of her hairs on a man's boat, that'll mean he's the rapist."

"Near enough."

"That's amazing, sir-rr," murmured Ingram.

"You don't sound convinced," said DI Galbraith, watching his performance with amusement.

He shrugged and reverted to his normal accent. "The only thing that nonintimate samples will prove is that she visited his boat at least once, and that's not proof of rape. The only useful DNA tests will have to be done on her."

"Well, don't hold your breath," the DI warned. "Water doesn't leave trace evidence. The pathologist's taken swabs, but he's not optimistic about getting a result. Either she was in the sea too long and anything useful was flushed away, or her attacker was wearing a condom." He was a pleasant-looking man with cropped ginger hair and a smiling, freckled face that made him look younger than his forty-two years. It also belied a sharp intelligence that caught people unawares if they were foolish enough to stereotype him by his appearance.

"How long was long?" asked Ingram with genuine curiosity. "Put it this way, how does the pathologist know she swam half a mile? It's a very precise estimate for an unpredictable stretch of water."

"He based it on the condition of the body, prevailing winds and currents, and the fact that she must have been alive when she reached the shelter of Egmont Point," said John Galbraith, opening his briefcase and extracting a sheet of paper. "Victim died of drowning at or around high tide, which was at one fifty-two a.m. British Summer Time on Sunday, ten August," he said, skip-reading the document. "Several indicators, such as evidence of hypothermia, the fact that a keeled boat couldn't have sailed too close to the cliffs, and the currents around St. Alban's Head suggest she entered the sea"-he tapped the page with his finger-"a minimum of half a mile west-southwest of where the body was found."

"Okay, well, assuming the minimum, that doesn't mean she swam half a mile. There are some strong currents along this part of the coast, so the sea would have caused her eastward drift. In real terms she would only have swum a couple of hundred yards."

"I presume that was taken into account."

Ingram frowned. "So why was she showing evidence of hypothermia? The winds have been light for the last week, and the sea's been calm. In those conditions, an average swimmer could cover two hundred yards in fifteen to twenty minutes. Also, the sea temperature would have been several degrees higher than the night air, so she'd be more likely to develop hypothermia on the beach than she would in the water, especially if she was naked."

"In which case she wouldn't have died from drowning."

"No."

"So what's the point you're making?" asked Galbraith.

Nick shook his head. "I don't know, except that I'm having trouble reconciling the body I saw with what the pathologist is saying. When the lifeboat crew at Swanage fished a corpse out of the sea last year, it was black with bruises and had swelled to twice its normal size."

The DI consulted the paper again. "Okay, well, there's a time constraint. He says the time of death must have coincided with high water to leave it stranded on the beach as the tide receded. He also makes the argument that if she hadn't reached the shelter of Egmont Point before she drowned, the body would have been pulled under by back eddies and towed out around St. Alban's Head. Put those two together and you have your answer, don't you? In simple terms she must have died within yards of the shore, and her body was stranded shortly afterward."

"That's very sad," said Ingram, thinking of the tiny hand waving in the spume.

"Yes," agreed Galbraith, who had seen the body in the mortuary and was as moved by the unnecessary death as Ingram was. He found the constable easy to like. But then he always preferred policemen who showed emotion. It was a sign of honesty.

"What evidence is there that she was raped if everything useful was flushed away?"

"Bruising to the inside of her thighs and back. Rope marks on her wrists. Bloodstream full of benzodiazepine ... probably Rohypnol. Do you know what that is?"

"Mmm. The date-rape drug ... I've read about it ... haven't come across it, though."

Galbraith handed him the report. "It'll be better if you read it yourself. They're preliminary notes only, but Warner never commits anything to paper unless he's pretty damn sure he's right."

It wasn't a long document, and Ingram read it quickly. "So you're looking for a boat with bloodstains?" he said, laying the pages on the desk in front of him when he'd finished.

"Also skin tissue if she was raped on a wooden deck."

The tall policeman gave a doubtful shake of his head. "I wouldn't be too optimistic," he said. "He'll hose down the deck and the topsides the minute he gets into a marina, and what the sea hasn't already taken, fresh water will finish off."

"We know," said Galbraith, "which is why we need to get a move on. Our only lead is this tentative identification, which if it's true suggests the boat she was on might have come from Lymington." He took out his notebook. "A three-year-old kid was found abandoned near one of the marinas in Poole yesterday, and the description of the missing mother matches our victim. Her name's Kate Sumner, and she lives in Lymington. Her husband's been in Liverpool for the last four days, but he's on his way back now to make the identification."

Ingram picked up the incident report he'd typed that morning and squared it between his large hands. "It's probably just coincidence," he said thoughtfully, "but the guy who made the emergency call keeps a boat in Lymington. He sailed it into Poole late on Saturday night."

"What's his name?"

"Steven Harding. Claimed to be an actor from London."

"You think he was lying?"

Ingram shrugged. "Not about his name or his occupation, but I certainly think he was lying about what he was doing there. His story was that he'd left his boat in Poole because he fancied some exercise, but I've done a few calculations and by my reckoning there's no way he could have made it on foot in time to make the call at ten forty-three. If he was berthed in one of the marinas then he'd have to have taken the ferry to Studland, but as the first crossing isn't until seven that means he had to cover sixteen-odd miles of coastal path in just over three hours. If you take into account that a good percentage is sandy beach and the rest is a roller-coaster ride of hills, I'd say it was an impossibility. We're talking an average of over five miles an hour, and the only person I can think of who could sustain that sort of speed on that kind of terrain is a professional marathon runner." He pushed the report across. "It's all in there. Name, address, description, name of boat. Something else that's interesting is that he sails into Chapman's Pool regularly and knows everything there is to know about the back eddies. He's very well informed about the seas around here."

"Is he the one who found the body?"

"No, that was two young lads. They're on holiday with their parents. I doubt there's any more they can tell you, but I've included their names and the address of their rented cottage. A Miss Maggie Jenner of Broxton House talked to Harding for an hour or so after he made the call, but he doesn't appear to have told her much about himself except that he grew up on a farm in Cornwall." He laid a hand the size of a dinner plate on the report. "He was sporting an erection, if that's of any interest. Both Miss Jenner and I noticed it."

"Jesus!"

Ingram smiled. "Don't get too excited. Miss Jenner's a bit of a looker, so it may have been her that brought it on. She has that effect on men." He lifted his hand. "I've also included the names of the boats that were anchored in the bay when the body was found. One was registered in Poole, one in Southampton, and the third was French, although it shouldn't be too hard to find. I watched it leave yesterday evening, and it was heading for Weymouth, so I guess they're on holiday and working their way along the coast."

"Good work," said Galbraith warmly. "I'll be in touch." He tapped the pathologist's report as he turned to go. "I'll leave this with you. Maybe something will strike you that hasn't struck any of us."

Steven Harding woke to the sound of a dying outboard motor, followed by someone banging his fist on the stern of Crazy Daze. It was at its permanent mooring, a buoy in the Lymington River, and was well out of reach of casual visitors unless they had a dinghy of their own. The swell was sometimes unpleasant, particularly when the Lymington-Yarmouth ferry went past on its way to the Isle of Wight, but it was affordable, private, and suitably remote from prying eyes.

"Hey, Steve! Get up, you bastard!"

He groaned as he recognized the voice, then rolled over in his bunk, pulling the pillow over his head. His brain was splitting from a piledriver of a hangover, and the last person he wanted to see at the crack of dawn on Monday morning was Tony Bridges. "You're banned from coming aboard, arsehole," he roared angrily, "so bugger off and leave me alone!"

But Crazy Daze was sealed up as tight as a can of beans, and he knew his friend couldn't have heard him.

The boat tilted as Tony climbed aboard after securing his dinghy next to Harding's on the aft cleat. "Open up!" he said, hammering on the companionway hatch. "I know you're in there. Have you any idea what time it is, you stupid sod? I've been trying to get you on your mobile for the last three hours."

Harding squinted at his watch. Three ten, he read. He sat bolt upright and banged his already aching head on the planked ceiling. "Fucking Ada!" he muttered, crawling off his bunk and stumbling into the saloon to pull the bolt on the hatch. "I was supposed to be in London by midday," he told Tony.

"So your agent keeps telling me. He's been calling me nonstop since eleven thirty." Tony pulled back the main hatch and dropped down into the saloon, sniffing the ripe atmosphere with an expression of distaste. "Ever heard of fresh air?" he asked, pushing past his friend to open the forward hatch in the cabin and create a through draft. He looked at the rumpled sheets and wondered what the hell Steve had been doing. "You're a bloody fool," he said unsympathetically.

"Go away. I'm sick." Harding groaned again as he slumped onto the port settee in the saloon and dropped his forehead into his hands.

"I'm not surprised. It's like an oven in here." Tony handed him a bottle of mineral water from the galley. "Get some of this into you before you die of dehydration." He stood over him until he'd downed half the bottle, then lowered himself onto the facing settee. "What's going on? I talked to Bob and he said you were supposed to be crashing at his place last night and catching the early train to town this morning."

"I changed my mind."

"So I gather." Tony looked at the empty bottle of whisky on the table between them and the photographs scattered across its surface. "What the hell's up with you?"

"Nothing." He pushed the hair out of his eyes with a frown of irritation. "How did you know I was here?"

Tony jerked his head toward the stern. "I spotted your dinghy. Also I've tried everywhere else. Graham's after your blood, in case you're interested. He's pissed off that you missed the audition. It was in the bag, according to him."

"He's lying."

"Your big chance, he said."

"Fuck that!" said Harding dismissively. "It was a bit part in a kids' TV series. Three days' filming with spoiled brats to make something I wouldn't be seen dead in. Only idiots work with children."

Malice stirred briefly in Tony's eyes before he cloaked his anger behind a harmless smile. "Is that a dig at me?" he asked mildly.

Harding shrugged. "No one forced you to be a teacher, mate. It was your choice." He rocked his flattened palm. "Your funeral when the little bastards finally do your head in."

Tony held his gaze for a moment then picked up one of the photographs. "So how come you don't have a problem with this kind of crap?" he said, jabbing his finger at the image. "Doesn't this count as working with kids?"

No answer.

"You're being exploited by experts-mate-but you can't see it. You might as well sell your arse in Piccadilly Circus as let perverts drool over tacky porno pics of you in private."

"Shut it," growled Harding angrily, touching his fingertips to his eyelids to suppress the pain behind them. "I've had enough of your bloody lectures."

Tony ignored the note of warning. "What do you expect if you keep behaving like an idiot?"

An unfriendly smile thinned the other man's lips. "At least I'm up-front about what I do"-his smile broadened-"in every respect." He stared Bridges down. "Unlike you, eh? How's Bibi these days? Still falling asleep on the job?"

"Don't tempt me, Steve."

"To do what?"

"Shop you." He stared at the photograph in a confusion of disgust and jealousy. "You're a fucking deviant. This kid's barely fifteen."

"Nearly sixteen ... as you damn well know." Harding watched him tear the photograph to shreds. "Why are you getting so het-up about it?" he murmured dispassionately. "It's only acting. You do it in a movie and they call it art. You do it for a mag and they call it pornography."

"It's cheap filth."

"Wrong. It's exciting cheap filth. Be honest. You'd swap places with me any day. Hell, the pay's three times what you get as a teacher." He raised the bottle of mineral water to his mouth and tilted his head back, smiling cynically. "I'll talk to Graham," he said, wiping his wet lips with the back of his hand. "You never know. A little guy like you might go down a wow on the Internet. Pedophiles like 'em small."

"You're sick."

"No," said Harding, dropping his head into his hands, energy spent. "Just broke. It's the inadequate bastards who jerk off over my pictures who're sick."