"She was married," he said. "He was hardly going to parade a married woman around the town, was he?"
"Has he ever paraded a woman around town, Tony?"
There was a long silence. "Most of his girlfriends are married," he said then.
"Or mythical?" suggested Carpenter. "Like claiming Bibi as a girlfriend?"
Bridges looked baffled, as if he was struggling with half-heard, dimly understood truths that were suddenly making sense. He didn't answer.
Galbraith leveled a finger at the television screen. "What we're beginning to suspect is that the talk was a smokescreen for no action. Maybe he was pretending to like women because he didn't want anyone to know that his tastes lay in an entirely different direction? Maybe the poor bastard doesn't want to recognize it himself and lets off steam quietly in order to keep himself under control?" He turned the finger accusingly on Bridges. "But if that's true, then where does it leave you and Kate Sumner?"
The young man shook his head. "I don't understand." The DI took his notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. "Let me quote some of the things you said about her: 'I think she must have lived on a diet of soap operas...' 'Kate said Hannah would scream her head off...' 'I guess she'd been conning idiots like her husband for so long...' I could go on. You talked about her for fifteen minutes, fluently and with no prompting from me." He laid his notebook on the table. "Do you want to tell us how you know so much about a woman you only met once?"
"Everything I know is what Steve told me."
Carpenter nodded toward the recording machine. "This is a formal interview under taped conditions, Tony. Let me rephrase the question for you so there can be no misunderstandings. Bearing in mind that the Sumners are recent newcomers to Lymington, that both Steven Harding and William Sumner have denied there was any relationship between Steven and Kate Sumner, and that you, Anthony Bridges, claim to have met her only once, how do you explain your extensive and accurate knowledge of her?"
Marie Freemantle was a tall, willowy blond with waist-length wavy hair and huge doe-like eyes, which were awash with tears. Once assured that Steve was alive and well and currently answering questions about why he had been at Chapman's Pool on Sunday, she dried her eyes and favored the policemen with a heavily practiced triangular smile. If they were honest, both men were moved by her prettiness when they first saw her, although their sympathies were soon frayed by the self-centered, petulant nature beneath. They realized she wasn't very bright when it became clear that it hadn't occurred to her they were questioning her because Steven Harding was a suspect in Kate Sumner's murder. She chose to talk to them away from her father and his girlfriend, and her spite was colossal, particularly toward the woman whom she described as an interfering bitch. "I hate her," she finished. "Everything was fine till she stuck her nose in."
"Meaning you've always been allowed to do what you liked?" suggested Campbell.
"I'm old enough."
"How old were you when you first had sex with Steven Harding?"
"Fifteen." She wriggled her shoulders. "But that's nothing these days. Most girls I know had sex at thirteen."
"How long have you known him?"
"Six months."
"How often have you had sex with him?"
"Lots of times."
"Where do you do it?"
"Mostly on his boat."
Campbell frowned. "In the cabin?"
"Not often. The cabin stinks," she said. "He takes a blanket up on deck, and we do it in the sunshine or under the stars. It's great."
"Moored up to the buoy?" asked Campbell, with a rather shocked expression. Like Galbraith earlier, he was wondering about the generation gap that seemed to have opened, unobserved, between himself and today's youth. "In full view of the Isle of Wight ferry?"
"Of course not," she said indignantly, wriggling her shoulders again. "He picks me up somewhere and we go for a sail."
"Where does he pick you up?"
"All sorts of places. Like he says, he'd get strung up if anyone knew he was going with a fifteen-year-old, and he reckons if you don't use the same place too often, no one notices." She shrugged, recognizing that further explanation was necessary. "If you use a marina once in two weeks, who's going to remember? Then there's the salt flats. I walk around the path from the Yacht Haven, and he just shoots in with his dinghy and lifts me off. Sometimes I go to Poole by train and meet him there. Mum thinks I'm with Dad; Dad thinks I'm with Mum. It's simple. I just phone him on his mobile, and he tells me where to go."
"Did you leave a message on his phone this morning?"
She nodded. "He can't phone me in case Mum gets suspicious."
"How did you meet him in the first place?"
"At the Lymington yacht club. There was a dance there on St. Valentine's Day, and Dad got tickets for it because he's still a member even though he lives in Poole now. Mum said Fliss and me could go if Dad watched out for us, but he got shit-faced as usual and left us to get on with it. That's when he was going out with his bitch of a secretary. I really hated her. She was always trying to put him against me."
Campbell was tempted to say it wouldn't have been difficult. "Did your father introduce you to Steve? Did he know him?"
"No. One of my teachers did. He and Steve have been friends for years."
"Which teacher?"
"Tony Bridges." Her full lips curved into a malicious smile. "He's fancied me for ages, and he was trying to make this pathetic move on me when Steve cut him out. God, he was pissed about it. He's been needling away at me all term, trying to find out what's going on, but Steve told me not to tell him in case he got us into trouble for underage sex. He reckons Tony's so fucking jealous he'd make life hell for us if he could."
Campbell thought back to his interview with Bridges on Monday night. "Perhaps he feels responsible for you."
"That's not the reason," she said scornfully. "He's a sad little bastard-that's the reason. None of his girlfriends stay with him because he's stoned most of the time and can't do the business properly. He's been going out with this hairdresser for about four months now, and Steve says he's been feeding her drugs so she won't complain about his lousy performance. If you want my opinion, there's something wrong with him-he's always trying to touch up girls in class-but our stupid headmaster's too thick to do anything about it."
Campbell exchanged a glance with his colleague. "How does Steve know he's been feeding her drugs?" he asked.
"He's seen him do it. It's like a Mickey Finn. You dissolve a tablet in lager, and the girl passes out."
"Do you know what drug he's using?"
Another shrug. "Some sort of sleeping pill."
I'm not going to explain anything without a solicitor here," said Bridges adamantly. "Look, this was one sick woman. You think that kid of hers is weird? Well, trust me, she's as sane as you and me compared with her mother."
WPC Griffiths heard the sound of smashing glass from the kitchen and lifted her head in immediate concern. She had left Hannah watching television in the sitting room, and as far as she knew, William was still in his study upstairs, where he had retreated, angry and resentful, after his interview with DI Galbraith. With a perplexed frown, she tiptoed along the corridor and pushed open the sitting-room door to find Sumner standing just inside. He turned an ashen face toward her, then gestured helplessly toward the little girl, who stalked purposefully about the room, picking up pictures of her mother and throwing them with high-pitched guttural cries into the unlit fireplace.
Ingram put a cup of tea in front of Steven Harding and took a chair on the other side of the table. He was puzzled by the man's attitude. He had expected a long interview session, punctuated by denials and counteraccusations. Instead Harding had admitted culpability and agreed with everything Maggie had written in her statement. All that awaited him now was to be formally charged and held over till the next morning. His only real concern had been his telephone. When Ingram had handed it to the custody sergeant and formally entered it into the inventory of Harding's possessions, Harding had looked relieved. But whether because it had been returned or because it was switched off, Ingram couldn't tell.