"Do you know the boys' father, sir?" asked Ingram, examining the binoculars.
"No, of course not. I've only just met them."
"Then you've only their word that these belong to him?"
"Well, yes, I suppose so." Harding looked uncertainly at Paul and saw the return of panic in the boy's eyes. "Oh, come on," he said abruptly. "Where else could they have got them?"
"Off the beach. You said you saw the woman when you rounded Egmont Point," he reminded Paul and Danny.
They nodded in petrified unison.
"Then why do these binoculars look as if they've fallen down a cliff? Did you find them beside the woman and decide to take them?"
The boys, growing red in the face with anxiety about their Peeping Tom act, looked guilty. Neither answered.
"Look, lighten up," said Harding unwarily. "It was a bit of fun, that's all. The woman was nude, so they climbed up for a better look. They didn't realize she was dead until they dropped the binoculars and went down to get them."
"You saw all this, did you, sir?"
"No," he admitted. "I've already told you I was coming from St. Alban's Head."
Ingram turned to his right to look at the distant promontory topped by its tiny Norman chapel, dedicated to St. Alban. "You get a very good view of Egmont Bight from up there," he said idly, "particularly on a fine day like this."
"Only through binoculars," said Harding.
Ingram smiled as he looked the young man up and down. "True," he agreed. "So where did you and the boys run into each other?"
Harding gestured toward the coastal path. "They started shouting at me when they were halfway up Emmetts Hill, so I went down to meet them."
"You seem to know the area well."
"I do."
"How come, when you live in London?"
"I spend a lot of time here. London can be pretty hellish in the summer."
Ingram glanced up the steep hillside. "This is called West Hill," he remarked. "Emmetts Hill is the next one along."
Harding gave an amiable shrug. "Okay, so I don't know it that well, but normally I come in by boat," he said, "and there's no mention of West Hill on the Admiralty charts. This whole escarpment is referred to as Emmetts Hill. The boys and I ran into each other approximately there." He pointed toward a spot on the green hillside above them.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ingram noticed Paul Spender's frown of disagreement, but he didn't remark on it.
"Where's your boat now, Mr. Harding?"
"Poole. I sailed her in late last night, but as the wind's almost nonexistent and I fancied some exercise"-he favored Nick Ingram with a boyish smile-"I took to my legs."
"What's the name of your boat, Mr. Harding?"
"Crazy Daze. It's a play on words. Daze is spelled D-A-Z-E, not D-A-Y-S."
The tall policeman's smile was anything but boyish. "Where's she normally berthed?"
"Lymington."
"Did you come from Lymington yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
There was a tiny hesitation. "Yes."
Ingram held his gaze for a moment. "Are you sailing back tonight?"
"That's the plan, although I'll probably have to motor if the wind doesn't improve."
The constable nodded in apparent satisfaction. "Well, thank you very much, Mr. Harding. I don't think I need detain you any longer. I'll get these boys home and check on the binoculars."
Harding felt Paul and Danny sidle in behind him for protection. "You will point out what a good job they've done, won't you?" he urged. "I mean, but for these two, that poor little woman could have floated out on the next tide, and you'd never have known she was there. They deserve a medal, not aggro from their father."
"You're very well informed, sir."
"Trust me. I know this coast. There's a continuous south-southeasterly stream running toward St. Alban's Head, and if she'd been sucked into that, the chances of her resurfacing would have been nil. It's got one hell of a back eddy on it. My guess is she'd have been pounded to pieces on the bottom."
Ingram smiled. "I meant you were well informed about the woman, Mr. Harding. Anyone would think you'd seen her yourself."
*3*
Why were you so bard on him?" asked Maggie critically as the policeman shut the boys into the back of his Range Rover and stood with eyes narrowed against the sun watching Harding walk away up the hill. Ingram was so tall and so solidly built that he cast her literally and figuratively into the shade, and he would get under her skin less, she often thought, if just once in a while he recognized that fact. She only felt comfortable in his presence when she was looking down on him from the back of a horse, but those occasions were too rare for her self-esteem to benefit from them. When he didn't answer her, she glanced impatiently toward the brothers on the backseat. "You were pretty rough on the children, too. I bet they'll think twice before helping the police again."
Harding disappeared from sight around a bend, and Ingram turned to her with a lazy smile. "How was I hard on him, Miss Jenner?"
"Oh, come on! You all but accused him of lying."
"He was lying."
"What about?"
"I'm not sure yet. I'll know when I've made a few inquiries."
"Is this a male thing?" she asked in a voice made silky by long-pent-up grudges. He had been her community policeman for five years, and she had much to feel resentful for. At times of deep depression, she blamed him for everything. Other times, she was honest enough to admit that he had only been doing his job.
"Probably." He could smell the stables on her clothes, a musty scent of hay dust and horse manure that he half liked and half loathed.
"Then wouldn't it have been simpler just to whip out your willy and challenge him to a knob-measuring contest?" she asked sarcastically.
"I'd have lost."
"That's for sure," she agreed.
His smile widened. "You noticed then?"
"I could hardly avoid it. He wasn't wearing those shorts to disguise anything. Perhaps it was his wallet. There was precious little room for it anywhere else."
"No," he agreed. "Didn't you find that interesting?"
She looked at him suspiciously, wondering if he was making fun of her. "In what way?"
"Only an idiot sets out from Poole for Lulworth with no money and no water. That's twenty-five miles."
"Maybe he was planning to beg water off passersby or telephone a friend to come and rescue him. Why is it important? All he did was play the Good Samaritan to those kids."
"I think he was lying about what he was doing here. Did he give a different explanation before I got back?"
She thought about it. "We talked about dogs and horses. He was telling the boys about the farm he grew up on in Cornwall."
He reached for the handle on the driver's-side door. "Then perhaps I'm just suspicious of people who carry mobile telephones," he said.
"Everyone has them these days, including me."
He ran an amused eye over her slender figure in its tight cotton shirt and stretch jeans. "But you don't bring yours on country rambles, whereas that young man does. Apparently he leaves everything behind except his phone."
"You should be grateful," she said tartly. "But for him, you'd never have got to the woman so quickly."
"I agree," he said without rancor. "Mr. Harding was in the right place at the right time with the right equipment to report a body on a beach, and it would be churlish to ask why." He opened the door and squeezed his huge frame in behind the wheel. "Good day, Miss Jenner," he said politely. "My regards to your mother." He pulled the door closed and fired the engine.