"How old is she?"
"She'll be three next month."
The policewoman winced in sympathy as she put the next question, guessing what his answer was going to be. "Does Hannah have a pink cotton dress with smocking on it and a pair of red sandals, Mr. Sumner?"
It took him a second or two to answer. "I don't know about the sandals," he said with difficulty, "but my mother bought her a smocked dress about three months ago. I think it was pink-no, it was pink. Oh God"-his voice broke-"where's Kate?"
She waited a moment. "Did you drive to Liverpool, Mr. Sumner?"
"Yes."
"Do you know roughly how long it will take you to get home?"
"Five hours maybe."
"And where does your mother live?"
"Chichester."
"Then I think you'd better give me her name and address, sir. If the little girl is Hannah, then she can identify her for us. Meantime I'll ask Lymington police to check your house while I make inquiries about your wife here in Poole."
"Mrs. Angela Sumner, Flat Two, The Old Convent, Osborne Crescent, Chichester." His breathing became labored-with tears?-and Griffiths wished herself a million miles away. How she hated the fact that, nine times out of ten, she was the harbinger of bad news. "But there's no way she can get to Poole. She's been in a wheelchair for the last three years and can't drive. If she could, she'd have gone to Lymington to check on Kate and Hannah herself. Can't I make the identification?"
"By all means, if that's what you prefer. The little girl's in the care of a foster family at the moment, and it won't harm her to stay there a few more hours."
"My mother's convinced Hannah's been abused by some man. Is that what's happened? I'd rather know now than later."
"Assuming the little girl is Hannah, then, no, there's no evidence of any sort of physical abuse. She's been thoroughly checked, and the police doctor's satisfied that she hasn't been harmed in any way." She glossed over Dr. Murray's damning psychological assessment. If Lily were indeed Hannah Sumner, then that particular issue would have to be taken up later.
"What kind of inquiries can you make about my wife in Poole?" he asked in bewilderment, reverting to what she'd said previously. "I told you, we live in Lymington."
The hospital kind... "Routine ones, Mr. Sumner. It would help if you could give me her full name and a description of her. Also the type, color, and registration number of her car, and the names of any friends she has in the area."
"Kate Elizabeth Sumner. She's thirty-one, about five feet tall, and blond. The car's a blue Metro, registration F-five-two VXY, but I don't think she knows anyone in Poole. Could she have been taken to hospital? Could something have gone wrong with the pregnancy?"
"It's one of the things I'll be checking, Mr. Sumner." She was flicking through the accident reports on the computer while she was talking to him, but there was no mention of a blue Metro with that registration being involved in a road accident. "Are your wife's parents living? Would they know where she is?"
"No. Her mother died five years ago, and she never knew her father."
"Brothers? Sisters?"
"She hasn't got anyone except me and Hannah." His voice broke again. "What am I going to do? I won't be able to cope if something's happened to her."
"There's no reason to think anything's happened," said Griffiths firmly, while believing the exact opposite. "Do you have a mobile telephone in your car? If so I can keep you up to date as you drive down."
"No."
"Then I suggest you break your journey at the halfway mark to ring from a callbox. I should have news from the Lymington police by then, and with luck I'll be able to set your mind at rest about Kate. And try not to worry, Mr. Sumner," she finished kindly. "It's a long drive from Liverpool, and the important thing is to get yourself back in one piece."
She put through a call to the Lymington police, explaining the details of the case and asking for a check to be made of Sumner's address, then as a matter of routine dialed the Regal Hotel in Liverpool to inquire whether a Mr. William Sumner had been registered in room two-two-three-five since Thursday. "Yes, ma'am," said the receptionist, "but I can't put you through, I'm afraid. He left five minutes ago."
Reluctantly, she started on the list of hospitals.
For various reasons, Nick Ingram had no ambitions to move away from his rural police station, where life revolved around community policing and the hours were predictable. Major cases were handled thirty miles away at County HQ Winfrith, and this left him free to deal with the less glamorous side of policing, which for ninety-five percent of the population was the only side that mattered. People slept sounder in their beds knowing that PC Ingram had zero tolerance for lager louts, vandals, and petty thieves.
Real trouble usually came from outside, and the unidentified woman on the beach looked like being a case in point, he thought, when a call came through from Winfrith at 12:45 p.m. on Monday, 11 August. The coroner's office at Poole had ordered a murder inquiry following the postmortem, and he was told to expect a DI and a DS from headquarters within the hour. A scene-of-crime team had already been dispatched to search the beach at Egmont Bight, but Ingram was requested to stay where he was.
"I don't think they'll find anything," he said helpfully. "I had a bit of a scout around yesterday, but it was fairly obvious the sea had washed her up.
"I suggest you leave that to us," said the unemotional voice at the other end.
Ingram gave a shrug at his end. "What did she die of?"
"Drowning," came the blunt response. "She was thrown into the open sea after an attempt at manual strangulation which failed. The pathologist guesstimates she swam half a mile to try and save herself before she gave up from exhaustion. She was fourteen weeks pregnant, and her killer held her down and raped her before pitching her over the side."
Ingram was shocked. "What sort of man would do that?"
"An unpleasant one. We'll see you in an hour."
Griffiths drew a series of blanks with the name Kate Sumner-there was no record of her at any hospital in Dorset or Hampshire. It was only when she made a routine check through Winfrith to see if there was any information on the whereabouts of a small blond woman, aged thirty-one, who appeared to have gone missing from Lymington within the last forty-eight hours, that the scattered pieces of the jigsaw began to come together.
The two detectives arrived punctually for their meeting with PC Ingram. The sergeant, an arrogant, pushy type with ambitions to join the Met, who clearly believed that every conversation was an opportunity to impress, went down like a lead balloon with his rural colleague, and Ingram was never able afterward to remember his name. He talked in bullet points: "reference a major investigation" in which "speed was of the essence" before the murderer had a chance to get rid of evidence and/or strike again. Local marinas, yacht clubs, and harbors were being "targeted" for information on the victim and/or her killer. Victim identification was the "first priority." They had a possible lead on a missing female, but no one was counting chickens until her husband identified a photograph and/or the body. The second priority was to locate the boat she'd come off and give forensics a chance to strip it top-to-bottom in search of nonintimate samples that would connect it to the body. Give us a suspect, he suggested, and DNA testing would do the rest.
Ingram raised an eyebrow when the monologue came to an end but didn't say anything.
"Did you follow all that?" asked the sergeant impatiently.
"I think so, si-rr," he said in a broad Dorsetshire burr, resisting the temptation to tug his forelock. "If you find some of her hairs on a man's boat, that'll mean he's the rapist."
"Near enough."
"That's amazing, sir-rr," murmured Ingram.