"Like hell it is. You've had all day to work this one out, but by God, if that's the only explanation you've been able to come up with, you must have a very low opinion of policemen."

The young man turned back to him with an engaging smile. "I do."

"Then we'll have to see if we can change your mind." Ingram's smile was almost as engaging. "Won't we?"

Gregory Freemantle was pouring himself a drink in the front room of his flat in Poole when his girlfriend showed in two detectives. The atmosphere was thick enough to cut with a knife, and it was obvious to both policemen that they had walked in on a humdinger of a row. "DS Campbell and DC Langham," she said curtly. "They want to talk to you."

Freemantle was a Peter Stringfellow lookalike, an aging playboy with straggling blond hair and the beginnings of desperation in the sagging lines around his eyes and chin. "Oh God," he groaned, "you're not taking her seriously about that bloody oil drum, are you? She doesn't know the first thing about sailing"-he paused to consider-"or children, for that matter, but it doesn't stop her being lippy." He raised one hand and worked his thumb and forefingers to mimic a mouth working.

He was the kind of man other men take against instinctively, and DS Campbell glanced sympathetically at the girlfriend. "It wasn't an oil drum, sir, it was an upturned dinghy. And, yes, we took Miss Hale's information very seriously."

Freemantle raised his glass in the woman's direction. "Good one, Jenny." His eyes were already showing alcohol levels well above average, but he still downed two fingers of neat whisky without blinking. "What do you want?" he asked Campbell. He didn't invite them to sit down, merely turned back to the whisky bottle and poured himself another drink.

"We're trying to eliminate people from the Kate Sumner murder inquiry," Campbell explained, "and we're interested in everyone who was in Chapman's Pool on Sunday. We understand you were there on a Fairline Squadron."

"You know I was. She's already told you."

"Who was with you?"

"Jenny and my two daughters, Marie and Fliss. And it was a bloody nightmare, if you're interested. You buy a boat to keep everyone happy, and all they can do is snipe at each other. I'm going to sell the damn thing." His drink-sodden eyes filled with self-pity. "It's no fun going out on your own, and it's even less fun taking a menagerie of cats with you."

"Was either of your daughters wearing a bikini and lying facedown on the bow between twelve thirty and one o'clock on Sunday, sir?"

"I don't know."

"Does either of them have a boyfriend called Steven Harding?"

He shrugged indifferently.

"I'd be grateful for an answer, Mr. Freemantle."

"Well, you're not going to get one, because I don't know and I don't care," he said aggressively. "I've had a bucketful of women today, and as far as I'm concerned the sooner they're all genetically engineered to behave like Stepford wives the better." He raised his glass again. "My wife serves me with notice that she intends to bankrupt my company in order to take three-quarters of what I'm worth. My fifteen-year-old daughter tells me she's pregnant and wants to run away to France with some longhaired git who fancies himself as an actor, and my girlfriend"-he lurched his glass in Jenny Hale's direction-"that one over there-tells me it's all my fault because I've waived my responsibilities as a husband and a father. So cheers! To men, eh!"

Campbell turned to the woman. "Can you help us, Miss Hale?"

She looked questioningly toward Gregory, clearly seeking his support, but when he refused to meet her eyes, she gave a small shrug. "Ah, well," she said, "I wasn't planning on hanging around after this evening anyway. Marie, the fifteen-year-old, was wearing a bikini and was sunbathing on the bow before lunch," she told the two policemen. "She lay on her tummy so that her father wouldn't see her bump, and she was signaling to her boyfriend, who was jerking off on the shore for her benefit. The rest of the time she wore a sarong to disguise the fact that she's pregnant. She has since told us that her boyfriend's name is Steve Harding and that he's an actor in London. I knew she was plotting something because she was hyped up from the moment we left Poole, and I realized it must be to do with the boy on the shore, because she became completely poisonous after he left and has been a nightmare ever since." She sighed. "That's what the row has been about. When she turned up today in one of her tantrums I told her father he should take some interest in what's really going on because it's been obvious to me for a while that she's not just pregnant but has been taking drugs as well. Now open war has broken out."

"Is Marie still here?"

Jenny nodded. "In the spare bedroom."

"Where does she normally live?"

"In Lymington, with her mother and sister."

"Do you know what she and her boyfriend were planning to do on Sunday?"

She glanced at Gregory. "They were going to run away together to France, but when that woman's body was found they had to abandon the plan because there were too many people watching. Steve has a boat apparently, which he'd left at Salterns Marina, and the idea was for Marie to vanish into thin air out of Chapman's Pool after saying she was going for a walk to Worth Matravers. They thought if she changed into some men's clothes that Steve had brought with him, and slogged it back across land to the ferry, they could be on their way to France by the evening and no one would ever know where she'd gone or who she was with." She shook her head. "Now she's threatening to kill herself if her father doesn't let her leave school and go and live with Steve in London."

While the garage in Lymington, and its contents, were being taken apart systematically by scene-of-crime officers in search of evidence, Tony Bridges was being formally interviewed as a witness and under taped conditions by Detective Superintendent Carpenter and DI Galbraith.

He refused to repeat anything he had said to Galbraith about his or Harding's alleged smuggling activities, however, and, as that particular matter was being passed to Customs and Excise, Carpenter was less exercised by the refusal than he might otherwise have been. Instead, he chose to shock Bridges by showing him the videotape of Harding masturbating, then asked him if his friend made a habit of performing indecent acts in public.

Surprisingly, Bridges was shocked.

"Jesus!" he exclaimed, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. "How would I know? We lead separate lives. He's never done anything like that around me."

"It's not that bad," murmured Galbraith, who was sitting beside Carpenter. "Just a discreet wank. Why are you sweating over it, Tony?"

The young man eyed him nervously. "I get the impression it's worse than that. You wouldn't be showing it to me otherwise."

"You're a bright lad," said Carpenter, freeze-framing the video at the point where Harding was cleaning himself up. "That's a T-shirt he's using. You can just make out the Derby FC logo on the front. It belongs to a ten-year-old kid called Danny Spender. He thinks Steve stole it off him around midday on Sunday, and half an hour later we see him ejaculating all over it. You know the guy better than anyone. Would you say he has a yen for little boys?"

Bridges looked even more startled. "No," he muttered.

"We have a witness who says Steve couldn't keep his hands off the two lads who found Kate Sumner's body. One of the boys describes him using his mobile telephone to bring on an erection in front of them. We have a policeman who says he maintained the erection while the boys were around him."

"Ah, shit!" Bridges ran his tongue around dry lips. "Listen, I always thought he hated kids. He can't stand working with them, can't stand it when I talk about teaching." He looked toward the frozen image on the television screen. "This has to be wrong. Okay, he's got a thing about sex-talks about it too much-likes blue movies- boasts about three-in-a-bed romps, that kind of thing-but it's always with women. I'd have bet my last cent he was straight."

Carpenter leaned forward to examine the other man closely, then shifted his gaze to look at the television screen. "That really offends you, doesn't it? Why is that, Tony? Did you recognize anyone else in the sequence?"

"No. I just think it's obscene, that's all."

"It can't be worse than the pornography shoots he does."

"I wouldn't know. I've never seen them."

"You must have seen some of his photographs. Describe them for us."

Bridges shook his head.

"Do they include kids? We know he's done some gay poses. Does he pose with children as well?"

"I don't know anything about it. You'll have to talk to his agent."

Carpenter made a note. "Pedophile rings pay double what anyone else pays."

"It's got nothing to do with me."

"You're a teacher, Tony. You have more responsibility than most people toward children. Does your friend pose with children?"

He shook his head.

"For the purposes of the tape," said Carpenter into the microphone, "Anthony Bridges declined to answer." He consulted a piece of paper in front of him. "On Tuesday you told us Steve wasn't the kiss-and-tell type; now you're saying he boasts about three-in-a-bed sex. Which is true?"

"The boasting," he said with more confidence, glancing at Galbraith. "That's how I know about Kate. He was always telling me what they did together."

Galbraith wiped a freckled hand around the back of his neck to massage muscles made sore by too much driving that day. "Except it sounds like all talk and no action, Tony. Your friend goes in for solitary pursuits. On beaches. On his boat. In his flat. Did you ever wonder if he was lying about his relationships with women?"

"No. Why should I? He's a good-looking bloke. Women like him."

"All right, let me put it another way. How many of these women have you actually met? How often does he bring them to your house?"

"He doesn't need to. He takes them to his boat."

"Then why is there no evidence of that? There were a couple of articles of women's clothing and a pair of Hannah's shoes on board but nothing to suggest that a woman was ever in the bed with him."

"You can't know that."

"Oh, come on," said Galbraith in exasperation, "you're a chemist. His sheets have semen stains all over them but nothing that remotely suggests there was anyone else in the bed with him when he ejaculated."

Bridges looked rather wildly toward the superintendent. "All I can tell you is what Steve told me. It's hardly my fault if the stupid sod was lying."

"True," agreed Carpenter, "but you do keep shoving his prowess down our throats." He produced Bridges' statement from a folder on the table and spread it flat in front of him, holding it down with his palms stretched on either side. "You seem to have a bit of a thing about him being good-looking. This is what you said at the beginning of the week. 'Steve's a good-looking bloke,' "he read, " 'and has an active sex life. He has at least two girls on the go at the same time...'" He lifted inquiring eyebrows. "Do you want to comment on that?"

It was clear that Tony had no idea where this line of questioning was leading and needed time to think. A fact which interested both policemen. It was as if he were trying to predict moves in a chess game and had begun to panic because checkmate looked inevitable. Every so often his eyes flicked toward the television screen, then dropped away rapidly as if the frozen image was more than he could bear. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"In simple terms, Tony, we're trying to square your portrayal of Steve with the forensic evidence. You want us to believe your friend had a prolonged affair with an older married woman, but we're having difficulty substantiating that any such affair happened. For example, you told my colleague that Steve took Kate to your house on occasion, yet, despite the fact that your house clearly hasn't been cleaned in months, we couldn't find a single fingerprint belonging to Kate Sumner anywhere inside it. There is also nothing to suggest that Kate was ever in Steve's car, although you claim that he drove her to the New Forest on numerous occasions for sex in the back of it."

"He said they needed out-of-the-way places in case they were spotted together. They were scared of William finding out, because according to Steve, he was so jealous he'd go berserk if he knew he was being two-timed." He wilted before Carpenter's unconvinced expression. "It's not my fault if he was lying to me," he protested.

"He described William to us as middle-aged and straight," said Carpenter thoughtfully. "I don't recall him suggesting he was aggressive."

"That's what he told me."

Galbraith stirred on his chair. "So your entire knowledge of Steve's alleged"-he put careful stress on the word-"affair with Kate came from a single meeting with her in a pub and whatever Steve chose to tell you about her?"

Bridges nodded but didn't answer.

"For the purposes of the tape, Anthony Bridges gave a nod of agreement. So was he ashamed of the relationship, Tony? Is that why you only got to meet her once? You said yourself, you couldn't understand what the attraction was."

"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."