"Thanks." He gave the man a searching look. "Did you get any sleep?"
"Not really. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It's all so illogical. I could understand if they'd both drowned, but it doesn't make sense that Kate's dead and Hannah's alive."
Galbraith agreed. He and Carpenter had been puzzling over that very fact most of the night. Why had Kate had to swim for her life while the toddler was allowed to live? The neat explanation-that the boat was Crazy Daze, that Hannah had been on board but had managed to release herself while Harding was walking to Chapman's Pool-failed to address the questions of why the child hadn't been pushed into the sea along with her mother, why Harding was so unconcerned about her wails being heard by other boat users in the marina that he'd left her on her own, and who had fed, watered, and changed her nappy in the hours before she was found.
"Have you had time to go through your wife's wardrobe, Mr. Sumner? Do you know if any of her clothes are missing?"
"Not that I can tell ... but it doesn't mean much," he added as an afterthought. "I don't really notice what people wear, you see."
"Suitcases?"
"I don't think so."
"All right." He opened his briefcase on the sofa beside him. "I've some articles of clothing to show you, Mr. Sumner. Please tell me if you recognize any of them." He removed a plastic bag containing the flimsy blouse found on board Crazy Daze, which he held out for the other man to look at.
Sumner shook his head, without taking it. "It's not Kate's," he said.
"Why so positive," Galbraith asked curiously, "if you didn't notice what she wore?"
"It's yellow. She hated yellow. She said it didn't suit people with fair hair." He gestured vaguely toward the door. "There's no yellow anywhere in the house."
"Fair enough." He took out the bags containing the bra and panties. "Do you recognize either of these as belonging to your wife?"
Sumner reached out a reluctant hand and took both bags, examining the contents closely through the clear plastic. "I'd be surprised if they were hers," he said, handing them back. "She liked lace and frills, and these are very plain. You can compare them with the other things in her drawers, if you like. You'll see what I mean."
Galbraith nodded. "I'll do that. Thank you." He took out the bag with the child's shoes and laid them on his right palm. "What about these?"
Sumner shook his head again. "I'm sorry. All children's shoes look alike to me."
'They have H. Sumner printed inside the strap."
He shrugged. "Then they must be Hannah's."
"Not necessarily," said Galbraith. "They're very small, more suited to a one-year-old than a three-year-old, and anyone can write a name into some shoes."
"Why would they want to do that?"
"Pretense, perhaps."
The other man frowned. "Where did you find them?"
But Galbraith shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't reveal that at this stage." He held the shoes up again. "Would Hannah recognize them, do you think? They may be a pair of cast-offs."
"She might if the policewoman showed them to her," said Sumner. "There's no point in my trying. She screams her head off every time she sees me." He swept imaginary dirt from the arm of the chair. "The trouble is I spend so much time at work that she's never had the chance to get to know me properly."
Galbraith gave him a sympathetic smile while wondering if there was any truth in the statement. Who could contradict him, after all? Kate was dead; Hannah was tongue-tied; and the various neighbors who'd already been interviewed claimed to know little about William. Or indeed, Kate herself.
"To be honest I've only met him a couple of times and he didn't exactly impress me. He works very hard, of course, but they were never ones for entertaining. She was quite sweet, but we were hardly what I'd call friends. You know how it is. You don't choose your neighbors; they get thrust upon you..."
"He's not what you'd call sociable. Kate told me once that he spent his evenings and weekends working out formulas on his computer while she watched soaps on the telly. I feel awful about her dying like that. I wish I'd had more time to talk to her. I think she must have been quite lonely, you know. The rest of us all work, of course, so she was a bit of a rarity, staying at home and doing the housework..."
"He's a bully. He took my wife to task about one of the fencing panels between our gardens, said it needed replacing, and when she told him it was his ivy that was pulling it down, he threatened her with court proceedings. No, that's the only contact we've had with him. It was enough. I don't like the man..."
"I saw more of Kate than I saw of him. It was an odd marriage. They never did anything together. I sometimes wondered if they even liked each other very much. Kate was very sweet, but she hardly ever talked about William. To be honest, I don't think they had much in common..."
"I understand Hannah cried most of the night. Does she usually do that?"
"No," Sumner answered without hesitation, "but then Kate always cuddled her when she was upset. She's crying for her mother, poor little thing."
"So you haven't noticed any difference in her behavior?"
"Not really."
"The doctor who examined her after she was taken to the Poole police station was very concerned about her, described her as unnaturally withdrawn, backward in her development, and possibly suffering from some sort of psychological trauma." Galbraith smiled slightly. "Yet you're saying that's quite normal for Hannah?"
Sumner colored slightly as if he'd been caught out in a lie. "She's always been a little bit"-he hesitated-"well, odd. I thought she was either autistic or deaf so we had her tested, but the GP said there was nothing wrong and just advised us to be patient. He said children were manipulative, and if Kate did less for her she'd be forced to ask for what she wanted and the problem would go away."
"When was this?"
"About six months ago."
"What's your GP's name?"
"Dr. Attwater."
"Did Kate take his advice?"
He shook his head. "Her heart wasn't in it. Hannah could always make her understand what she wanted, and she couldn't see the point of forcing her to talk before she was ready."
Galbraith made a note of the GP's name. "You're a clever man, Mr. Sumner," he said next, "so I'm sure you know why I'm asking you these questions."
A ghost of a smile flickered across the man's tired face. "I prefer William," he said, "and yes, of course I do. My daughter screams every time she sees me; my wife had ample opportunity to cheat on me because I'm hardly ever at home; I'm angry because I didn't want to move to Lymington; the mortgage on this place is way too high and I'd like to get shot of it; she was lonely because she hadn't made many friends; and wives are more usually murdered by their partners out of fury than by strangers out of lust." He gave a hollow laugh. "About the only thing in my favor is a cast-iron alibi, and believe me, I've spent most of the night thanking God for it."
Under the rules governing police detention, there is a limit to how long a person may be held without charge, and the pressure to find evidence against Steven Harding mounted as the hours ticked by. It was notable more for its absence. The stains on the floor of the cabin, which had looked so promising the night before, turned out to be whisky-induced vomit-blood group A, matching Harding's-and a microscopic examination of his boat failed to produce any evidence that an act of violence had occurred on board.
If the pathologist's findings were right-"bruising and abrasions to back (pronounced on shoulder blades and buttocks) and inside of thighs, indicative of forced intercourse on a hard surface such as a deck or an uncarpeted floor-some blood loss from abrasions in vagina"-the wooden planking of the deck and/or saloon and/or cabin should have had traces of blood, skin tissue, and even semen trapped between the grooved joints or under rogue splinters of wood. But no such traces were found. Dried salt was scraped in profusion from the deck planking, but while this might suggest he had scrubbed the topsides down with sea water to remove evidence, it was axiomatic that dried salt would be found on a sailing boat.