It was with some relief that she handed over responsibility to PC Ingram in the corridor outside. "The Sister's discharging him at five, but the way things are going, I'm not sure he'll be leaving at all," she said ruefully. "He's got every nurse wound around his little finger, and he looks set for the duration. Frankly, if they turf him out of this bed, it wouldn't surprise me if he ends up in a nice warm one somewhere else. I can't see the attraction myself, but then I've never been too keen on wankers."
Ingram gave a muted laugh. "Hang around. Watch the fun. If he doesn't walk out of his own accord on the dot of five, I'll clap the irons on him in there."
"I'm game," she agreed cheerfully. "You never know, you might need a hand."
The video film was difficult to watch, not because of its content, which was as discreet as the Dartmouth sergeant had promised, but because the picture rose and fell with the movement of the Frenchman's boat. Nevertheless, his daughter had succeeded in capturing considerable footage of Harding in close detail. Carpenter, sitting behind his desk, played it through once, then used the remote to rewind to where Harding had first sat down on his rucksack. He held the image on pause and addressed the team of detectives crammed into his office. "What do you think he's doing there?"
"Releasing Godzilla?" said one of the men with a snigger.
"Signaling to someone?" said a woman.
Carpenter played back a few frames to follow, in reverse, the panning of the camera lens across the shadowy, out-of-focus glare of the white motor cruiser and the blurry bikini-clad figure lying facedown across the bow. "I agree," he said. "The only question is, who?"
"Nick Ingram listed the boats that were there that day," said another man. "They shouldn't be too difficult to track down."
"There was a Fairline Squadron with two teenage girls on board," said Carpenter, passing across the report from Bournemouth about the abandoned dinghy. "Gregory's Girl out of Poole. Start with that one. It's owned by a Poole businessman called Gregory Freemantle."
Ingram detached himself from the wall and blocked the corridor as Steven Harding, arm in sling, came through the door of the ward at 4:45. "Good afternoon, sir," he said politely. "I hope you're feeling better."
"Why would you care?"
Ingram smiled. "I'm always interested in anyone I help to rescue."
"Well, I'm not going to talk to you. You're the bastard who got them interested in my boat."
Ingram showed his warrant card. "I questioned you on Sunday. PC Ingram, Dorsetshire Constabulary."
Harding's eyes narrowed. "They say they can keep Crazy Daze for as long as is necessary but won't explain what gives them the right. I haven't done anything, so they can't charge me, but they can sure as hell steal my boat for no reason." His angry gaze raked Ingram. "What does 'as long as is necessary' mean, anyway?"
"There can be any number of reasons why it's deemed necessary to retain seized articles," explained the constable helpfully, if somewhat misleadingly. The rules surrounding retention were woolly in the extreme, and policemen had few qualms about smothering so-called evidence in mountains of paperwork to avoid having to return it. "In the case of Crazy Daze, it probably means they haven't finished the forensic examination, but once that's done you should be able to effect its release almost immediately."
"Bollocks to that! They're holding it in case I abscond to France."
Ingram shook his head. "You'd have to go a little farther than France, Steve," he murmured in mild correction. "Everyone's mighty cooperative in Europe these days." He stood aside and gestured down the corridor behind him. "Shall we go?"
Harding backed away from him. "Dream on. I'm not going anywhere with you."
"I'm afraid you must," said Ingram with apparent regret. "Miss Jenner's accused you of assault, which means I have to insist that you answer some questions. I would prefer it if you came voluntarily, but I will arrest you if necessary." He jerked his chin toward the corridor behind Harding. "That doesn't lead anywhere-I've already checked it out." He pointed toward a door at the end where a woman was consulting a notice board. "This is the only exit."
Harding began to ease his arm out of its sling, clearly fancying his chances in a sprint dash against this simple, forelock-tugging, 240-pound yokel in a uniform, but something changed his mind. Perhaps it was the fact that Ingram stood four inches taller than he did. Perhaps the woman by the door signaled that she was a detective. Perhaps he saw something in Ingram's lazy smile that persuaded him he might be making a mistake...
He gave an indifferent shrug. "What the hell! I've nothing else to do. But it's your precious Maggie you should be arresting. She stole my phone."
*23*
Secured in the passenger seat of the police Range Rover, where Ingram could keep an eye on him, Harding sat huddled in moody silence for most of the trip back to Swanage. Ingram made no attempt to talk to him. Once in a while their eyes met when the policeman was checking traffic to his left, but he felt none of the empathy for Harding that Galbraith had experienced on Crazy Daze. He saw only immaturity in the young man's face and despised him because of it. He was reminded of every juvenile delinquent he'd arrested down the years, not one of whom had had the experience or the wisdom to understand the inevitability of consequence. They saw it in terms of retribution and justice and whether they would do "time," never in terms of the slow destruction of their lives.
It was as they drove through the little town of Corfe Castle, with its ruined medieval ramparts commanding a gap in the Purbeck chalk ridge, that Harding broke the silence. "If you hadn't jumped to conclusions on Sunday," he said in a reasonable tone of voice, "none of this would have happened."
"None of what?"
"Everything. My arrest. This." He touched a hand to his sling. "I shouldn't be here. I had a part lined up in London. It could have been my breakthrough."
"The only reason you're here is because you attacked Miss Jenner this morning," Ingram pointed out. "What have the events of Sunday got to do with that?"
"She wouldn't know me from Adam but for Kate's murder."
"That's true."
"And you won't believe I didn't have anything to do with that-none of you will-but it's not fair," Harding complained with a sudden surge of bitterness. "It's just a bloody awful coincidence, like the coincidence of bumping into Maggie this morning. Do you think I'd have shown myself to her if I'd known she was there?"
"Why not?" The car sped up as they exited the thirty-mile speed limit.
He turned a morose stare on Ingram's profile. "Have you any idea what it's like to have your movements monitored by the police? You've got my car, my boat. I'm supposed to stay at an address you've chosen for me. It's like being in prison without the walls. I'm being treated like a criminal when I haven't done anything, but if I lose my temper because some stupid woman treats me like Jack the Ripper I get accused of assault."
Ingram kept his eyes on the road ahead. "You hit her. Don't you think she had a right to treat you like Jack the Ripper?"
"Only because she wouldn't stop screaming." He gnawed at his fingernails. "I guess you told her I was a rapist, so of course she believed you. That's what got me riled. She was fine with me on Sunday, then today..." He fell silent.
"Did you know she might be there?"
"Of course not. How could I?"
"She rides that gully most mornings. It's one of the few places she can give her horses a good gallop. Anyone who knows her could have told you that. It's also one of the few places with easy access to the beach from the coastal path."