Griffiths moved protectively in front of the little girl, worried about how much she understood. She exchanged a glance with John Galbraith, who had been waiting in the room with her. "My colleague from Dorset Constabulary Headquarters, DI Galbraith, knows more about that than I do, Mr. Sumner, so I think the best thing is that you talk it through with him while I take Hannah to the canteen." She reached out an inviting hand to the toddler. "Would you like an ice cream, sweetheart?" She was surprised by the child's reaction. With a trusting smile, Hannah scrambled to her feet and held up her arms. "Well, that's a change from yesterday," she said with a laugh, swinging her on to her hip. "Yesterday, you wouldn't even look at me." She cuddled the warm little body against her side and deliberately ignored the danger signals that shot like Cupid's arrows through her bloodstream, courtesy of her frustrated thirty-five-year-old hormones.
After they'd gone, Galbraith pulled forward a chair and sat facing Sumner. The man was older than he'd been expecting, with thinning dark hair and an angular, loose-limbed body that he seemed unable to keep still. When he wasn't plucking nervously at his lips, he was jiggling one heel in a constant rat-a-tat-tat against the floor, and it was with reluctance that Galbraith took some photographs from his breast pocket and held them loosely between his hands. When he spoke it was with deep and genuine sympathy. "There's no easy way to tell you this, sir," he said gently, "but a young woman, matching your wife's description, was found dead yesterday morning. We can't be sure it's Kate until you've identified her, but I think you need to prepare yourself for the fact that it might be."
A look of terror distorted the man's face. "It will be," he said with absolute certainty. "All the way back I've been thinking that something awful must have happened. Kate would never have left Hannah. She adored her."
Reluctantly, Galbraith turned the first close-up and held it for the other man to see.
Sumner gave an immediate nod of recognition. "Yes," he said with a catch in his voice, "that's Kate."
"I'm so sorry, sir."
Sumner took the photograph with trembling fingers and examined it closely. He spoke without emotion. "What happened?"
Galbraith explained as briefly as possible where and how Kate Sumner had been found, deeming it unnecessary at this early stage to mention rape or murder.
"Did she drown?"
"Yes."
Sumner shook his head in bewilderment. "What was she doing there?"
"We don't know, but we think she must have fallen from a boat."
"Then why was Hannah in Poole?"
"We don't know," said Galbraith again.
The man turned the photograph over and thrust it at Galbraith, as if by putting it out of sight he could deny its contents. "It doesn't make sense," he said harshly. "Kate wouldn't have gone anywhere without Hannah, and she hated sailing. I used to have a Contessa thirty-two when we lived in Chichester, but I could never persuade her to come out on it because she was terrified of turning turtle in the open sea and drowning." He lowered his head into his hands again as the meaning of what he'd said came home to him.
Galbraith gave him a moment to compose himself. "What did you do with it?"
"Sold it a couple of years ago and put the money toward buying Langton Cottage." He lapsed into another silence, which the policeman didn't interrupt. "I don't understand any of this," he burst out then in despair. "I spoke to her on Friday night, and she was fine. How could she possibly be dead forty-eight hours later?"
"It's always worse when death happens suddenly," said the DI sympathetically. "We don't have time to prepare for it."
"Except I don't believe it. I mean, why didn't someone try to save her? You don't just abandon people when they fall overboard." He looked shocked suddenly. "Oh, God, did other people drown as well? You're not going to tell me she was on a boat that capsized, are you? That was her worst nightmare."
"No, there's no evidence that anything like that happened." Galbraith leaned forward to bridge the gap between them. They were on hard-backed chairs in an empty office on the first floor, and he could have wished for friendlier surroundings for a conversation like this one. "We think Kate was murdered, sir. The Home Office pathologist who performed the postmortem believes she was raped before being deliberately thrown into the sea to die. I realize this must be a terrible shock to you, but you have my assurance that we're working around the clock to find her killer, and if there's anything we can do to make the situation easier for you, we will of course do it."
It was too much for Sumner to take in. He stared at the detective with a surprised smile carving ridges in his thin face. "No," he said, "there's been a mistake. It can't have been Kate. She wouldn't have gone anywhere with a stranger." He reached out a tentative hand for the photograph again, then burst into tears when Galbraith turned it over for him.
The wretched man was so tired that it was several minutes before he could stem his weeping, but Galbraith kept quiet because he knew from past experience that sympathy more often exacerbated pain than ameliorated it. He sat quietly looking out of the window, which faced toward the park and Poole Bay beyond, and stirred only when Sumner spoke again.
"I'm sorry," he said, striking the tears from his cheeks. "I keep thinking how frightened she must have been. She wasn't a very good swimmer, which is why she didn't want to go sailing."
Galbraith made a mental note of the fact. "If it's any comfort, she did everything in her power to save herself. It was exhaustion that beat her, not the sea."
"Did you know she was pregnant?" Tears gathered in his eyes again.
"Yes," said Galbraith gently, "and I'm sorry."
"Was it a boy?"
"Yes."
"We wanted a son." He took a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his eyes for several moments before getting up abruptly and walking to the window to stand with his back to Galbraith. "How can I help you?" he said then in a voice stripped of feeling.
"You can tell me about her. We need as much background information as you can give us-the names of her friends, what she did during the day, where she shopped. The more we know the better." He waited for a response, which never came. "Perhaps you'd rather leave it until tomorrow? I realize you must be very tired."
"Actually, I think I'm going to be sick." Sumner turned an ashen face toward him, then, with a small sigh, slid to the floor in a dead faint.
The Spender boys were easy company. They demanded little from their host other than the odd can of Coke, occasional conversation, and help with threading their hooks with bait. Ingram's immaculate fifteen-foot day-boat, Miss Creant, sat prettily on the surface of a calm turquoise sea off Swanage, her white topsides turning pale pink in the slowly setting sun and a fine array of rods bristling along her rails like porcupine quills. The boys loved her.
"I'd rather have Miss Creant than a stupid cruiser any day," said Paul after helping the mighty policeman launch her down the Swanage slip. He had allowed the boy to operate the winch at the back of his ancient Jeep while he himself had waded into the sea to float her off the trailer and make her fast to a ring on the slip wall. Paul's eyes had gleamed with excitement because boating was suddenly more accessible than he'd realized. "Do you reckon Dad might buy one? Holidays would be great if we had a boat like this."