Free The Breaker by Minette Walters Page A

thousand miles. That's a hell of a lot of driving."
    "Which may explain why he fainted," was Galbraith's dry response.
    "Oh, great!" she said sarcastically. "I've always wanted to spend quality time with a rapist."
    "There's no compulsion, Sandy. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, but the only other option is to leave Hannah in the care of foster parents until we're satisfied it's safe to return her to her father. How about you go back tonight and see how it goes? I've got a team searching the house at the moment, so I'll instruct one of the chaps to stay on and shadow you. Can you live with that?"
    "What the hell!" she said cheerfully. "With any luck, it'll give me a chance to work babies out of my system."
    As far as Sumner himself was concerned, Griffiths was the official "friend" who was supplied by any police force to a family in distress. "I can't possibly cope on my own," he kept telling Galbraith as if it was the fault of the police that he found himself a widower.
    "We don't expect you to."
    The man's color had improved after he had been given something to eat when he admitted he'd had nothing since a cup of tea at breakfast that morning. Renewed energy had set him chasing explanations again. "Were they kidnapped?" he asked suddenly.
    "We don't think so. Lymington police checked the house inside and out, and there's no indication of any sort of disturbance. The neighbor let them in with a spare key, so the search was a thorough one. That doesn't mean we're ignoring the possibility of abduction, just that we're keeping an open mind. We're conducting a second search ourselves at the moment, but on the evidence so far it looks as if Kate and Hannah left of their own accord sometime after the post was delivered on Saturday morning. The letters had been opened and stacked on the kitchen table."
    "What about her car? Could she have been taken from her car?"
    Galbraith shook his head. "It's parked in your garage."
    "Then I don't understand." Sumner appeared genuinely confused. "What happened?"
    "Well, one explanation is that Kate met someone when she was out, a friend of the family perhaps, who persuaded her and Hannah to go for a sail in his boat." He was careful to avoid any idea of a prearranged meeting. "But whether she expected to be taken as far as Poole and the Isle of Purbeck we simply don't know."
    Sumner shook his head. "She'd never have gone," he said with absolute certainty. "I keep telling you, she didn't like sailing. And, anyway, the only people we know with boats are couples." He stared at the floor. "You're not suggesting a couple could have done something like this, are you?" He sounded shocked.
    "I'm not suggesting anything at the moment," said Galbraith patiently. "We need more information before we can do that." He paused. "Her wedding ring seems to be missing. We assume it was removed because it could identify her. Was it special in some way?"
    Sumner held out a trembling hand and pointed to his own ring. "It was identical to this one. We had them engraved inside with our initials. 'K' entwined with 'W.' "
    Interesting, thought Galbraith. "When you're ready, I'd like a list of your friends, particularly the ones who sail. But there's no immediate hurry." He watched Sumner crack his finger joints noisily, one after the other, and wondered what had attracted the pretty little woman in the mortuary to this gauche, hyperactive man.
    Sumner clearly hadn't been listening. "When was Hannah abandoned?" he demanded.
    "We don't know."
    "My mother said she was found in Poole at lunchtime yesterday, but you said Kate died in the early hours of the morning. Doesn't that mean Hannah must have been on board when Kate was raped and was put ashore in Poole after Kate was dead? I mean, she couldn't possibly have been wandering around on her own for twenty-four hours before somebody saw her, could she?"
    He was certainly no fool, thought Galbraith. "We don't think so."
    "Then her mother was killed in front of