Fethering 08 (2007) - Death under the Dryer

by Simon Brett

  She nodded, then said, “You’re not Rowley’s first wife, are you?”

  “No. Sorry. Should have made that clear. His first wife, who was called Joan…went off with someone.”

  “So the girls…?”

  “Are hers. All of them. Not that she’s ever in touch. Rowley used to teach at a local girls’ school. I met him when I got a job there.”

  “But I gather he’s no longer teaching…?”

  “No.” Bridget Locke chose her words with delicacy. “Rowley’s always had a problem with authority. He’s one of those teachers who’d rather make a lasting impression on his students than guide them through the required curriculum.” Her mouth set in a rueful expression. “Just coming up for our tenth wedding anniversary.” She looked pleadingly at Carole. “I’m sorry, he doesn’t often behave like he did this morning. There’s much more to him than he sometimes shows to strangers.”

  There would need to be, thought Garole.

  “Do you think he will go to the police about what I told him? Because I’m not sure that that would be wise.”

  “I’ll see to it that he doesn’t.” Bridget Locke spoke with assurance. Her husband might never encounter any opposition from the other members of the family, but when necessary his wife could stand up to him. “The way he’s behaving at the moment is because he’s really worried about Nathan. It’s his way of showing it. Quite exhausting though.” Bridget Locke wrinkled up her nose in wry amusement. “Being part of the Locke Family Roadshow can sometimes be very wearing.”

  TEN

  Jude had been lucky to get an appointment at the Worthing Martin & Martina. When she rang the day before they’d just had a cancellation. Saturday was the busiest day of the week in any provincial hairdresser’s, and Jude seemed to be in the town’s most popular one. The decor was in marked contrast to that of Connie’s Clip Joint. Everything looked gleaming new. There was a lot of black glass with trim in brushed aluminium. And the silver ‘Martin & Martina’ logo was omnipresent. Looking round the salon, Jude saw a scene of almost manic activity. With all the chairs full, twelve stylists were snipping away, while clients sat under dryers or sipped coffee in the waiting area. There was a buzz about the place, an air of deliberately orchestrated chaos.

  Jude introduced herself to the woman at the reception desk and was told that her stylist Kelly-Jane was just finishing with another client and would be ready for her very soon. Would she like a cup of coffee? Jude accepted and took the only free seat in the waiting area, which was adjacent to the reception desk. The woman sent off a junior to get the coffee. She didn’t do menial tasks like coffee-making. There was an air of authority about her, and the speed at which the junior moved showed that it didn’t do to cross her.

  The woman was so smartly dressed and made up that she looked as though she’d just been taken out of her packaging. A slate-grey business suit with a froth of white blouse at the neck. Light brown hair cut immaculately short (maybe similar to the style Connie had had in mind for Jude). Blue eyes above Slavic cheekbones, and full red lips. But the eyes were cold, and the line of the mouth was hard.

  Jude flashed a grin at her, and was rewarded by a professional smile in return. “I am Martina,” the woman said. Her English was immaculate, but still flavoured with an accent from somewhere in central Europe.

  “Martina of Martin & Martina?”

  “Yes, Martina Rutherford. My husband and I run the chain.”

  “Congratulations. It seems to be doing very well.”

  “Yes, we have put a lot of work into the business and I am glad to say it is now paying off. We are opening a new salon in Folkestone soon.”

  “Moving all the way along the South Coast.”

  “We hope in time to go north to some of the big towns nearer London.”

  “And then throughout the whole country?”

  She took the question at face value. “Why not? Our standards are higher than most of the opposition. We are very successful.”

  “It certainly looks that way.” Jude knew she must take advantage of the situation into which she had so serendipitously arrived. She had come hoping to find out more about Martin & Martina, and here she was being offered one half of the partnership on a plate. “This is my first time in one of your salons,” she began cautiously.

  “I know. I have not seen you before.”

  “Do you remember all the clients in all the branches?”

  “Pretty well. I move around a lot, but we have our main office here.”

  “Previously I’ve had my hair done at Connie’s Clip Joint in Fethering.”

  “Ah.” Clearly Martina knew the name, but she responded without a flicker of any other intonation.

  “Presumably you heard about the dreadful thing that happened there?”

  “Of course.” The phone interrupted them. Martina answered with practised charm, booking someone in for highlights the following Wednesday. When she’d ended the call, she looked across at the row of stylists. “Kelly-Jane has nearly finished. She will be able to look after you soon.”

  “Thank you. So, the death at Connie’s Clip Joint…”

  “Yes.” Martina was too much of a professional to change the subject when a client was talking, but she seemed to have little interest in what had happened at the Fethering salon. No doubt, being so close, the event had already been the subject of a lot of gossip amongst her clients, and she was sick of it.

  “I gather that the girl who died had worked here…”

  “Yes. Very briefly.”

  “Oh?” It was the lightest of interrogatives, but it asked for an explanation.

  Martina shrugged. “Not everyone is suited to this business. It takes a special kind of personality to be a hairdresser, a special attitude. A lot of young girls start without having really thought about what the job entails.”

  “But in the case of Kyra Bartos—”

  “Ah, here is Kelly-Jane.” A lanky girl in her late twenties, with jet black hair rising in little spikes over her head, came across with a welcoming smile. “This is your client. Jude, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nice to see you, Jude. Come with me. We’ll get your hair washed first.”

  As she moved across to the chair, Jude was aware of the shrewd scrutiny of Martina’s blue eyes following her. She wondered if there was anything sinister in the interest, or was it just another manifestation of the woman’s control-freak personality?

  Jude might have known there would be no problem having another haircut so soon. There is nothing stylists like better than running fingers disdainfully through someone’s hair and asking, “Who on earth did this?” And after she’d had her hair washed by a junior, that was exactly what Kelly-Jane did.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “Bit of a salvage job, is it? I can tell it’s only been cut a couple of days ago. Normally I wouldn’t mention how badly someone’s hair’s been cut,” the girl lied, “but since you’ve come in here so quickly after, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know already.” The stylist trailed despairing fingers through the blonde tresses. “Dear, oh dear. Now do tell me where this was done.”

  “No, I’m sorry, I can’t.” Although she’d already mentioned the salon to Martina, Jude had too much loyalty to betray Connie to Kelly-Jane. Besides, she knew that there had been nothing wrong with the haircut she’d got in Fethering. But it was a point of honour amongst all stylists to disparage everything that had been done to a client before she had the good fortune to find them.

  “Oh well.” Kelly-Jane didn’t pursue the matter. She perhaps thought it better for the perpetrator of the previous haircut to remain anonymous. She didn’t want to intrude on private grief. Lifting Jude’s hair out to the sides and letting it drop, she said, “So…what are we going to do with it? You know, you’d look smashing with it really short.”

  Why is it everyone wants me to have short hair? Jude wondered. Could it be that stylists, like everyone else, like to see a positive effec
t for their efforts? Yes, there must be some kind of satisfaction in making a total transformation, completely changing the appearance of your client. But Jude, having rejected the ‘short’ option with Connie, wasn’t about to grant the honour to Kelly-Jane. Besides, she thought mischievously, since having my hair cut seems to be my main means of investigation in this case, I’d better proceed slowly, an inch at a time.

  “No, thanks,” she said easily. “I’d just like it tidied up, you know, maybe about an inch shorter all round.”

  Kelly-Jane gave a token sigh—she was clearly used to clients not knowing what was best for them—but didn’t press the point. Instead, she started combing Jude’s hair preparatory to the cutting. “Haven’t seen you here before. Your first time at a Martin & Martina?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh well, now you’ve found us, you’ll never change. It sounds like boasting, but it’s not boasting if something’s true. Martin & Martinas are by a long way the best salons on the South Coast. You’ll never want to go anywhere else.”

  Jude wasn’t convinced. Guilty for the badmouthing Connie’s skills had just received, she felt defensive. A new sense of loyalty developed within her. In future she’d regard Connie’s Clip Joint as her regular hairdresser’s.

  “It’s all down to the training, you see. All the staff at Martin & Martina salons are intensively trained. Martin—he’s the boss—is very hands-on.”

  So I’ve heard, thought Jude wryly. But now his name had come up, she wasn’t going to waste the cue. “So he’s a good person to work for?”

  “Oh yes. None of the staff ever want to leave, and if that’s not the measure of a good boss, I’d like to know what is.”

  Kyra Bartos had wanted to leave. For a moment Jude wondered whether Connie’s account of the circumstances of that departure had been entirely accurate, or had it been embroidered by the venom of a spurned wife?

  “And do you actually see a lot of Martin?”

  “Oh yes. As I said, he’s very hands-on. Goes round all the branches, but his office is here, so we probably get to see more of him than the others.”

  “Is he in today?”

  “Always here on a Saturday, yes. I’m surprised he hasn’t put in an appearance yet.”

  Good, thought Jude. And I’ve already met Martina. So my investment in a second haircut won’t be completely wasted. At the very least I should get to know what Martin Rutherford looks like.

  She pretended ignorance for her next question. “And are he and Martina actually married? Or are they just partners whose names give a nice unisex feeling to the salons?”

  “Oh no, they’re married. Very much so. I don’t think Martin ever does anything Martina doesn’t know about.” The warmth with which Kelly-Jane had spoken of Martin Rutherford did not extend to his second wife.

  Given that kind of monitoring, thought Jude, Martin must be very discreet in his approaches to the salon’s juniors. Maybe Connie had overdone her description of his behaviour, making out her husband was worse than he actually was. Now she thought about it, there had been something false and prepared about what she’d said.

  “Yes, I was just talking to Martina.” What she said next didn’t reflect her true feelings, but she thought it might prompt some more confidences. “She seems very nice.”

  Kelly-Jane, however, was not about to be drawn into indiscretion. She just said, “Oh yes. Mind you, I’m surprised she’s here today.”

  “Why?”

  “Last weekend of the month she usually flies over to Prague. Her mother’s out there and not very well. Oh well, maybe she’s not going this weekend, or catching a later flight or something.”

  “Does Martina actually cut hair?”

  “No. Used to be a stylist, but doesn’t do any now.”

  “And what about Martin? Does he still do any hair-dressing?”

  “For a few favoured clients. He’ll do a bride’s hair for her wedding, something like that. Not very often, though. He’s too busy schmoozing.”

  Jude took another look at Martina Rutherford. She was very beautiful, but her strength of will was written in every feature. Connie’s good-natured fluffiness would not have stood a chance against the force of that personality. And, though she hadn’t met Martin Rutherford yet, what Kelly-Jane had hinted at reinforced the feeling that he too would crumble to his wife’s every wish.

  Nothing was said for a few moments while the haircut began. Then suddenly Kelly-Jane asked, “Do you want to know a way of making money?”

  “What?” Jude was wary; she had expectations of being lured into some pyramid selling operation.

  “It’s to do with hairdressing.”

  “I haven’t got any skills as a hairdresser.”

  “You don’t need any.” Kelly-Jane stopped cutting and put her hands behind her back. “All you have to do is bet people that they can’t tell you which fingers hairdressers use to hold their scissors.”

  “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Jude looked down at her right hand and found that she was instinctively miming cutting with the two fingers next to the thumb. But that couldn’t be right. Fine for a visual shorthand, but you couldn’t get enough grip and you couldn’t move the scissors like that. “No, not those.”

  “Right, not those,” said Kelly-Jane, biding her time with the confidence of someone who had played the game many times before.

  “So let me think…Oh, this is daft. Goodness knows how many times in my life I’ve had my hair cut…Do all hairdressers use the same fingers?”

  “All,” the girl assured her. “All over the world.”

  “Right, let’s be logical here. I think the thumb must be involved…Yes, because that would give you a bit of leverage…” Jude was fishing for some kind of clue, but the stylist’s face in the mirror remained impassive. “OK, there aren’t many options. It can’t be the little finger, because that’s not strong enough…” She looked down at her hands in frustration. “It must be…It must be…” She made her decision. Pressing the top of her middle finger against her thumb, she announced, “It must be those two.”

  With gleeful triumph, Kelly-Jane brought her hands round from behind her back. “Wrong!” She raised her right hand, and showed Jude the unexpected combination of digits that hairdressers have always used for the purpose of holding their scissors.

  “Gosh, you’re right,” said Jude. “Yes, I think you could win a few bets that way.” Something to tell Ted Crisp. Another way for him to amuse his customers at the Crown and Anchor. And certainly better than his jokes.

  Kelly-Jane grinned as she resumed cutting. She’d done the little party trick she tried out on all her new clients. And once again it had worked. Back to more conventional chat. “Do you live in Worthing?”

  Jude had hardly got out a ‘Fethering’ before they were interrupted by a whirlwind of bonhomie. “Good morning, and how are you, Kelly-Jane? Looking lovely, as ever. And a new client—how exciting! What a pleasure to see you in Martin & Martina. I am one half of the salon’s name—Martin. And you…?”

  “I’m called Jude.”

  The first impression was of an attractive man in his early forties, though closer inspection revealed him to be a well-preserved man in his early fifties. Perhaps as much as ten years older than Connie. Jude wondered how they had met. In some salon where she’d been another junior he’d come on to…? He was of average height, and kept himself in shape. He wore a charcoal linen suit over a slate grey shirt, and the blackness of his short hair looked as if it might have been assisted. His teeth too were unnaturally white and even; some expensive veneer work had been done there. But his brown eyes were shrewd.

  “And where are you from, Jude?”

  “Fethering.”

  “Oh, so close. So why haven’t you been into a Martin & Martina salon before, you naughty girl?”

  She’d actually got him there. She wouldn’t get a better chance of raising the subject of Kyra Bartos’s murder. So Jude finessed the truth and said, �
�I normally have my hair done at Connie’s Clip Joint.”

  “Ah.” He had been taken by surprise, but was far too cool an operator to let it show. “And how is dear Connie?”

  “Pretty good.” Jude couldn’t see any other way of proceeding than the crassly direct. “I gather she’s your ex-wife.”

  “Yes. Pity it didn’t work out. Lovely girl. But, you know, we were young and…”

  She may have been young, you weren’t that young, Jude thought. “Have you managed to stay friends?”

  “I’m sure we’d be perfectly pleasant to each other if we ever met, but we haven’t seen each other for ages.” He was keen to move on. “So, anyway, Kelly-Jane, what are you going to do to Jude’s hair to make sure she never strays from the path of Martin &Martina again?”

  “Well, I—”

  Jude interrupted. It wasn’t her usual style, but they were meeting her for the first time and weren’t to know that she wasn’t by nature a woman of galumphing tactlessness. “Of course, you heard about the dreadful thing that happened at Connie’s Clip Joint? You know, that girl who was strangled?”

  “Yes, of course. It was all over the television news. You couldn’t miss it. Apart from the fact that none of the clients in the salon talked about anything else. Horrible for poor Connie. I was going to ring her to offer my sympathy, but, you know, there never seems to be any time for—”

  Having taken on the persona of a diplomatic rhinoceros, Jude stuck with it. “Connie said that Kyra Bartos used to work for you…”

  “Yes, yes. She was in this salon briefly.” But he didn’t want to be drawn on the subject. “I really must be checking other clients and—”

  Finding new extremes of crassness, Jude announced, “Connie mentioned that there was something funny about Kyra’s dismissal from here…that the girl had been consulting a solicitor about the rights and wrongs of it.”

  This time there was no mistaking the shock in Martin Rutherford’s face, even though he managed quickly to cover it up. “Well, it’s been such a pleasure talking to you, Jude. Welcome once again to Martin & Martina. Now excuse me…” And he swanned over to another client. “Darling, you’re looking just too fabulous. Is it for a special occasion or just your natural beauty shining through…?”