Fethering 08 (2007) - Death under the Dryer

by Simon Brett

Wally smiled, absolutely delighted. “Oh, that is good, very good.” But his eyes could not stay long away from his watch. “I think perhaps though, the time has come…”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you mind,” he asked nervously, “going down the back way, through the garden? There is a gate at the end that only opens from this side. It leads directly on to the beach path.”

  “No, that’s fine. It’s a nicer walk back.”

  So that was the route by which she left, clandestinely, like a spy or a lover. When she reached the gate to the beach, Jude looked back. She could see the huge wide window of the sitting room. Next to it was a smaller one, clearly belonging to the kitchen. In front of this, Wally Grenston, unaware of her scrutiny, was carefully washing both coffee cups.

  EIGHT

  Jude looked up Jiri Bartos’s number as soon as she got back to Woodside Cottage. She rang it straight away and he answered. But before she had finished saying, “Mr Bartos, I wanted to talk to you about your daughter,” he had put the phone down.

  §

  Carole and Jude had agreed to meet for lunch in the Crown and Anchor that Thursday. They both ordered Ted Crisp’s recommendation of Local Pork and Leek Sausages with Mash and Onion Gravy and, while they waited for them to appear, sipped their Chilean Chardonnays and brought each other up to date on their investigations.

  What Jude had found out from Wally Grenston seemed pathetically little in the retelling. “Couldn’t be more contrast between the two families,” Carole observed when her friend had finished. “Joe Bartos is very closed in, just him and his daughter…though now of course just him…and it doesn’t sound as though Kyra had many friends…whereas the Lockes seem to do everything as a pack.”

  “Did you find out how many children there were there?”

  “The way they talked there seemed to be hundreds. Nathan’s certainly got at least one brother, and Dorcas has an identical twin sister. Mind you, it’s doubly confusing because they’ve all got nicknames. And they have that quality close families often have, of assuming that everyone knows all about them, so it wasn’t easy to work out who was who.”

  “Did you discover whether the Lockes had actually met Kyra Bartos?”

  “Eithne had, but only by accident. And, given how his parents kept going on about how liberal they are, and how they wouldn’t mind him having a girlfriend in his room…well, that might suggest the boy deliberately kept them apart.”

  “He wouldn’t have been the first young man to have done that,” Jude mused. “A new relationship being seen as a new beginning…particularly if it represented getting away from a family where he wasn’t happy.”

  “The Lockes would have denied stoutly that Nathan wasn’t happy. They seemed to have this…I’m not quite sure how to explain it…pride, I suppose. Pride in themselves as a family unit…as if being a Locke was the highest achievement anyone could hope for. And they were at pains to give the impression Nathan subscribed to that view too.”

  “And yet from something you’ve said, Carole…or something someone’s said…I get the feeling Nathan felt differently…that he found all that family stuff a bit claustrophobic…suffocating even.”

  “It’s funny. I get that impression very strongly as well.”

  They were interrupted by the arrival of their Local Pork and Leek Sausages with Mash and Onion Gravy, which were delicious, Ted Crisp’s recommendations always were. Carole looked across to the bar where he stood, a bearded scruff in a colourless T-shirt, regaling late holidaymakers with more of his dreadful jokes. She still felt shock at the knowledge that they had for a time been lovers. But it was not a wholly unpleasant feeling.

  The Local Pork and Leek Sausages kept them quiet for some time, and it was only when they were mopping up the last of the Mash and Onion Gravy that Jude returned to the subject of Nathan Locke. “And you say they didn’t seem at all worried about where he was? Or that he might have committed suicide?”

  “No, that was really the strangest thing about the whole morning.”

  “Well, it would suggest one of two things.”

  “Which are?”

  “Either they have no imagination at all…”

  “Unlikely. I got the impression that all of the Lockes lived quite vividly in their imaginations.”

  “Then it must mean that they’ve heard from Nathan since he disappeared. They know where he is.”

  §

  Her neighbour wouldn’t have done what Jude did that afternoon on her way home from the Crown and Anchor, but Carole had had to hurry back to take Gulliver out for a walk, so Jude was alone when she found herself passing Connie’s Clip Joint. And since she could see through the window that there were no clients, she dropped in to talk to the owner.

  Connie was sitting at the small desk, going through a pile of correspondence, but she seemed to welcome the distraction.

  “I came in about that massage idea you talked about the other day,” said Jude, offering her hastily prepared cover story.

  “Oh yes. Nice to see you.”

  “Not stopping you from doing something you should be…?”

  “No, just going through some application letters. Like I said, I must appoint another junior soon, but somehow it seems, I don’t know, with Kyra only just…” Connie shook herself and stood up. “Would you like a coffee?”

  “Lovely, if you’re sure it’s no—”

  “I was just about to have one.” And Connie crossed to the machine in the back room, leaving the door open so that they could continue their conversation.

  “You given Theo the afternoon off?”

  “He’s given himself the afternoon off. He’s not an employee.”

  “Oh?”

  “No, he just works out of here as a freelance. Rents a chair from me. He hasn’t got any appointments this afternoon, so he’s off home.”

  “Ah.” Theo’s independent status was perhaps another indication that business at Connie’s Clip Joint was not exactly booming.

  Jude wondered whether she should begin by saying something more about her therapies, but since the girl’s name had just been mentioned, there did seem to be a natural cue…“Must be strange for you, Connie, being here without Kyra…”

  “It is. And sort of stranger as time goes on. You know, at the beginning there was the shock, and then I was busy with the police and everyone was talking about it, but now, as things have settled down…well, I’m more aware she’s not here.”

  “How long had she been working with you?”

  “Oh, only about four months. And we hadn’t always seen eye to eye. I’d had to put her right about a few things. Youngsters starting out at work have often got attitude problems, but Kyra wasn’t a bad kid…She certainly didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

  “I don’t think anyone would have deserved that.”

  “No.” Connie was silent for a moment, then brought her mind back to the coffee. “Milk or sugar?”

  “Just black, please.”

  “You know, I think my insides must be totally coffee-coloured,” the hairdresser said as she brought the cups across. “I hate to think how many cups I get through in a day. Live on the stuff.”

  “Do you have lunch?”

  “No. If I’m busy, there’s no time. And if I’m not busy…well, I forget about it.” Connie sat cosily beside Jude in one of the leather armchairs for waiting clients.

  “Was here Kyra’s first job?”

  “No, it wasn’t actually.” The hairdresser’s face clouded. “She’d started at a salon in Worthing. A Martin & Martina.”

  “Ah.” Jude was fully aware of the subtext of those words.

  “But it only lasted a few weeks.”

  “Why?”

  “She hadn’t got on with the management.” Jude stayed silent, hoping she was going to get more. And she did. “Well, not the management of the salon, the management of the chain.”

  “Are you talking about your ex-husband and his new wife?”
<
br />   “Yes.”

  “You don’t think he’s got anything to do with her death, do you?”

  “What?” Connie looked totally incredulous. “Martin? But why on earth…?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Look, he may have done me wrong, but there’s no evil in him. He’s basically a good man.”

  “Are you defending him now?”

  “No, no, I—”

  “You sound a bit as if you are. Do you still see each other?”

  “Only when we can’t possibly avoid it,” Connie replied fervently. She looked confused for a moment. Then she seemed to reach some decision and said, “Martin never comes over this way. The Worthing branch is his base, really. That’s where he has his office.” Her bright brown eyes were thoughtful for a moment, assessing how much she should confide. Fortunately, Jude’s presence worked its usual magic and Connie decided she could tell everything she wanted to. Her words came out like a prepared speech. “The fact is, Martin has never behaved very responsibly with the junior staff. I don’t think he ever did, even when we were working together. Shows how naive I was, didn’t even notice how he was chatting up the girls—and touching them up too. He seemed to think, because he was their boss, it gave him some sort of right to…I don’t know…”

  “Droit de seigneur…”. Jude suggested.

  “I’ve never heard of that, but if it means a boss thinking he’s got a God-given right to come on to any of his female staff…”

  “That’s exactly what it means.”

  “Well, I must remember the expression.” Suddenly Connie felt the need to defend herself. “Look, I’m not just saying this to badmouth Martin. It is true.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Well, good, ‘cause I know women talking about their ex-husbands aren’t always the most reliable witnesses…And when I first suspected what he was doing, I thought I must have got it wrong, must be making things up in my mind, but the more it went on…and on more than one occasion the girls would complain to me, you know, when Martin wasn’t there…”

  “You mean he used to do it when you were working together in this salon?”

  “Oh yes. As I say, at first I didn’t believe it, made excuses for him. Amazing what you’ll do when you’re in love, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Jude agreed. She’d done some pretty stupid things in her time too. “But I thought when you two split up, Martin remarried…?”

  “To Martina, yes.”

  “Well, do you think she’d put up with him coming on to the staff?”

  “Martina…how can I put this…?” Connie’s mouth screwed up with the effort of finding the right words. “Martina is a businesswoman. The success of the Martin & Martina chain is all down to her. Martin’s got a lot of surface charm, he’s good front-of-house, but he’s got no commercial sense. All that comes from Martina. I think when she took him on, from her point of view, it was purely as a business venture. I don’t think there was much love involved there.”

  Jude grinned knowingly. “Now what was it you said…? ‘Women talking about their ex-husbands aren’t always the most reliable witnesses’?”

  “Yes, all right. I’m probably not being fair. I certainly don’t want to be bloody fair to either of them. Maybe there was some wonderful magical moment of connection between the two of them…one day their eyes met across a crowded salon, and in an instant Martin and Martina knew it was the real thing, they were in lurve…Maybe that’s what happened. As you say, I’m probably not the best person to comment on that. From the way it seemed to me, Martina looked at Martin and saw a first-class ticket to a very nice lifestyle, thank you very much. From then on she devoted herself’single-mindedly to getting hold of that ticket.”

  “And succeeded.”

  “Yes.” Connie sighed. Though some years had passed since then, the defeat and humiliation were still with her. She took a savage sip of her coffee.

  “And what about Martin coming on to the juniors in all the salons? Are you saying that Martina doesn’t know about that?”

  “She can’t not know about it. She’s not as young and naive as I was. She’s a tough, hard-bitten foreigner.”

  “Oh. Where from?”

  “I don’t know. Hungary? One of those places like that. Martina’s just a gold-digger.”

  “But a hard-working gold-digger.”

  “Oh yes. Even I—who have great difficulty saying anything nice about the bloody woman—cannot deny that she’s a hard worker.”

  “So, going back to her husband groping the staff—”

  “How charmingly you put it, Jude.”

  “You say she must know it goes on…?”

  “Must.”

  “…but is prepared to turn a blind eye?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I’m surprised.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because it’s quite a risky thing for a man to do these days. There’s so much more legislation about sexual harassment and stuff. And young girls know all about it. Martin could be putting himself at risk of a court case if he goes on behaving like that.”

  “Yes.” Connie’s agreement contained a degree of satisfaction.

  “What? Are you saying someone has registered a complaint about him?”

  “Well, yes and no.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Look, when Kyra approached me about getting a job here…”

  “Yes?”

  “She was very upset. She’d just been unceremoniously asked to leave the Worthing Martin & Martina.”

  “Because she’d objected to Martin coming on to her?”

  “Basically, yes. He’d denied it obviously, and found some other reason to have her sacked. That was always his strength, you see—will always be the strength of men with power who behave like that. “You tell anyone about what I did to you and you’ll lose your job.” And who’s going to believe the word of a teenager against the boss’s? It usually worked for Martin, anyway.”

  “And was it just chatting them up, giving them the odd grope…or was he trying to get them to go to bed with him?”

  “No. It was just the groping.” Disgust twisted Connie’s face. Jude couldn’t lose the feeling that the hairdresser was somehow play acting…or maybe just enjoying her dramatic revelations. “I think I’d almost feel better about it if it was full sex he was after. Somehow that makes it more acceptable, just good old-fashioned lust. But no, he just liked touching them. And he even used that as a defence when I finally realized what was happening and challenged him about it. “What’s your problem,” he said. “I’m not being unfaithful to you. I don’t go to bed with any of them.” As if that somehow justified his behaviour. Yeugh, from my point of view, it seemed to make it worse.”

  “Perhaps that argument works for Martina?”

  “Maybe it does. I think she just closes her mind to it, concentrates on the business and the lavish lifestyle it’s brought her.” Connie could not keep the naked envy out of her voice.

  For a moment there was silence. Then Jude pressed on. “You said someone was going to register a complaint about him. Are you talking about Kyra?”

  “Yes. When she came to see me, she was so upset about what had happened—”

  “Was that why you took her on?”

  “One of the reasons, yes. And also because I thought that shouldn’t be allowed to happen to a kid her age. I thought she was in a perfect position to make a complaint against Martin.”

  “On the grounds of sexual harassment?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did Martin know that this was about to happen?”

  “Oh yes.” There was no disguising the satisfaction in Connie’s reply.

  When she’d heard Kyra’s story, she’d seen the perfect way of getting some kind of revenge on the man who’d humiliated her.

  But that wasn’t the dominant thought in Jude’s mind. She now knew of another person for whom Kyra Bartos’s continuing existence had represented a consi
derable threat.

  NINE

  Carole had just got back with Gulliver from their walk and was towelling the sand off his paws, when Jude dropped by to share what she’d heard at the salon.

  At the end, Carole asked, “Do you think Connie’s likely to have told the police about the threat to Martin…you know, over the sexual harassment charge?”

  “I didn’t actually ask, but she must have done, mustn’t she?”

  “Yes, from what you say about their relationship, she would have volunteered it at the first opportunity. Putting the police on to him as a murder suspect might be a very good form of revenge on an ex-husband.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Still, even if Connie didn’t tell them, the police might have got the information from another source. You don’t know whether Kyra had got as far as consulting a solicitor about what happened?”

  Jude shook her head, and Carole sighed with exasperation. “It is frustrating, isn’t it, not having a clue what’s happening in the official investigation?”

  “Not an unusual position for us, though, Carole.”

  “You’re right. Do we have any means of contacting Martin Rutherford?”

  “Well, Connie said the Worthing branch is his headquarters.” Jude ran her fingers through the knot of her recently trimmed tresses. “But I guess there’s a limit to the number of times one can book in for a haircut. And, also, I doubt whether Martin himself does much of the actual cutting these days. Mind you, it might be worth trying. Get a bit of background…”

  “Maybe.” Carole wasn’t really listening any more; she was tense and restless. “I do wish there was something else we could do. Somewhere else where we could get more relevant information.”

  “Apart from Martin Rutherford, the other person we really need to talk to is Joe Bartos.”

  “Who, from what you say, clearly doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

  “No.” Jude tapped her teeth thoughtfully. “I wonder if we can approach him through some different route. I might have another word with Wally Grenston. And maybe you can follow up with the Lockes.”

  “How?”

  “Come on, Carole. I thought Rowley Locke asked you to keep him up to date with any new information you got on the case…”