The Breaker by Minette Walters Page B

interview with Tony Bridges. He clamped the receiver tight against his ear as the name "Bibi" was mentioned, and lowered his eyes curiously to the young man opposite. Galbraith watched Steven Harding while the one-sided conversation proceeded. The man was listening acutely, straining to pick up what was being said at the other end, all too aware that the topic under discussion was probably himself. Most of the time he stared at the table, but once or twice he raised his eyes to look at Galbraith, and Galbraith felt a curious empathy with him as if he and Harding, by dint of their mutual ignorance of the conversation, were ranged against Carpenter. He had no sense that Harding was guilty, no intuition that he was sitting with a rapist; yet his training told him that that meant nothing. Sociopaths could be as charming and as unthreatening as the rest of humanity, and it was always a potential victim who thought otherwise.
    Galbraith resumed his inspection of the interior, picking out shapes in the shadows beyond the gaslight. His eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, and he was able to make out a great deal more now than he had ten minutes ago. With the exception of the clutter on the chart table, everything else was neatly stowed away in lockers or on shelves, and there was nothing to indicate the presence of a woman. It was a masculine environment of wooden planking, black leather seats, and brass fittings, and no color intruded anywhere to adorn its austere simplicity. Monastic, he thought, with approval. His own house, a noisy toy-filled establishment created by a wife who was a power in the National Childbirth Trust, was too cluttered and ... God forbid, child-centered! ... for an endlessly weary policeman.
    The galley, which was to starboard of the companionway, particularly interested him. It was built into an alcove beside the laddered steps and contained a small sink and Calor-gas hob set into a teak worktop with lockers below and shelves above. His attention had been caught by some articles pushed back into the shadows in the corner, and with the passage of time, he had been able to identify them as a half-eaten lump of cheese in a plastic wrapper with a Tesco's sticker and a bag of apples. He felt the shift of Harding's gaze as it followed his, and he wondered if the man had any idea that a forensic pathologist could detail what a victim had eaten before she died.
    Carpenter disconnected and placed the telephone on the logbook. "You said you had a feeling the body was Kate Sumner's," he reminded Harding.
    "That's right."
    "Could you elaborate? Explain when and why you got this feeling?"
    "I didn't mean I had a feeling it was going to be her , only that it was bound to be somebody I knew otherwise you wouldn't have come out to my boat." He shrugged. "Put it this way, if you do this kind of follow-up every time somebody makes an emergency call, then it's not bloody surprising the country's awash with unconvicted criminals."
    Carpenter chuckled, although the frown didn't leave his face, and remained fixed on the young man opposite. "Never believe what you read in newspapers, Steve. Trust me, we always catch the criminals who matter." He examined the actor closely for several seconds. "Tell me about Kate Sumner," he invited. "How well did you know her?"
    "Hardly at all," said Harding with airy unconcern. "I've met her maybe half a dozen times since she and her husband moved to Lymington. The first time was when she was having trouble pushing her little girl's buggy over the cobbles near the old Customs House. I gave her a hand with it, and we had a brief chat before she went on up the High Street to do her shopping. After that she always stopped to ask me how I was whenever she saw me."
    "Did you like her?"
    Harding's gaze strayed toward the telephone while he considered his answer. "She was all right. Nothing special."
    "What about William Sumner?" asked Galbraith. "Do you like him?"
    "I don't know him well enough to