Fethering 08 (2007) - Death under the Dryer

by Simon Brett

  “If you like,” the hairdresser concluded, “I’ll ask him in the morning.”

  “Ask him what?” asked Jude.

  “Whether he does visit people’s houses to cut their hair.”

  “Oh, yes.” She’d completely forgotten her cover story. “Don’t worry, it’s not important. I think my friend has a lead to someone else, anyway.” She looked around the salon. “So did neither of you have any bookings this afternoon?”

  “I had a two o’clock shampoo. One of the old dears who’s never washed her own hair in her life. There are still a few of them around.”

  “And that was it?”

  “Yes. Might get someone else wandering in later…After school finishes, quite often get girls in with their mums…which is usually quite entertaining.”

  “Why?”

  “The mums want them to look like innocent little cherubs. The girls want shocking pink colouring and razor cuts.”

  “Ah yes, of course. Don’t you get frustrated when you’re just sitting around?”

  Connie shrugged. “You get used to it. Part of the business.”

  “But not a very lucrative part of the business.”

  “No. You get used to that too. Business comes and goes. That’s just part of being a freelance.”

  “I suppose so.” But Jude was surprised how laid-back Connie seemed about the salon’s lack of success. Fethering gossip said that the business was in a dire state, and bets were almost being taken on how long it could survive. But the proprietor seemed unbothered. Indeed, she was as relaxed as Jude had ever seen her. The habitual restlessness that accompanied her every movement was no longer in evidence. Her make-up was perfectly in place, and her hair hung neatly, its red highlights recently done, a fine advertisement for her skills. Around her glowed an aura of fulfilment.

  Which made Jude think of a time when Connie had not looked quite so soignee. Gently she moved the conversation back to the morning that Kyra Bartos’s body had been discovered in the back room.

  “It seems a long time ago,” said Connie.

  “You haven’t got around to getting another junior yet?”

  “No.” She gave the impression that she hadn’t thought about the subject for some time. “No. I must do something about it, but…” She shrugged a gesture that took in the empty salon “…no great need when business is like this. Saves me a bit of money too.” But she didn’t make it sound as though saving money was that important.

  “And have you had any more contact with the police?”

  “Nothing. Presumably they’re still trying to track down that boy Nathan.”

  “Maybe. They didn’t give you any indication of how far they’d got with the investigation, when you spoke to them yesterday?”

  Connie Rutherford looked puzzled. “Sorry?”

  “When you spoke to them yesterday? About Carole having seen Martin skulking round the back of this place?”

  “Ah yes, of course.” It all came back to her. “Sorry, I’d forgotten, because it was all over so quickly. I rang through to the number the detective chief inspector had given me, told him my piece, and that was it. Hardly even a thank you, let alone any useful information about how the murder case was proceeding.”

  “And you don’t know whether they’ve been in touch with Martin yet?”

  “Jude, Martin and I are divorced. We contact each other as little as is humanly possible.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

  “So unless they suddenly arrest him for Kyra’s murder…which is very unlikely…I can’t really think it likely that I’ll hear anything about his encounter with the police.”

  “No.” Jude felt duly chastened. “Thinking back to that time, though, Connie…”

  “Mmm?”

  “You know, the morning when Kyra didn’t open up the salon as she should have done…”

  “Yes?” The hairdresser looked wary. She had recovered a degree of equanimity since the tragedy, and apparently didn’t want to have the memory brought back.

  “Carole Seddon gave me a blow-by-blow account of what happened…”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Connie with some edge.

  “Probably the most exciting thing that had happened in her life for some time. But she at least was quite restrained while it was all happening. Unlike that woman Sheena…”

  “Yes, I heard.” Not necessary to mention her recent encounter with the drama queen. But it did remind her of something Sheena had suggested. “Sorry, Connie, going off at a tangent…back to Theo…”

  “Mmm?” The hairdresser sounded more enthusiastic. She hadn’t liked reviving the images of discovering Kyra’s body. Discussing her fellow stylist was much more appealing.

  “I mean, presumably he is gay…?”

  “Oh, come on, Jude! Is the Pope Catholic?”

  “Yes. OK. Well, you never saw any sign of Theo…coming on to anyone, did you?”

  “No. As I said, we don’t mix socially. What he gets up to in his spare time…well, that’s not my business, is it?”

  “Of course not. I only mentioned it, because…” What the hell, time for another indiscretion. “Someone suggested that Theo might have made a play for Nathan Locke.”

  This was a real surprise for Connie. “I don’t know that he even met Nathan. I never saw them together.”

  “But could there have been an evening when, say…you’d left early and Theo was still here, and Nathan came round to pick up Kyra…?”

  “Well, yes, there could have been. Quite possible, but I’m not aware of that ever having happened. And, even if they had met, I really can’t see Theo having ‘made a play’, as you put it, for Nathan. He’s a very professional stylist. I’ve met a lot of gay men in this business—it goes with the territory—and they’re all very camp with the clients, but I’ve never met one who came on to anyone in the salon.”

  “No.” Jude was being tarred with the brush of homophobia, but it wasn’t the moment to correct Connie’s misapprehension. “Sorry, it was just something someone said.”

  “Everyone in Fethering’s got something to say about Kyra’s death, and I wish they’d stop it. Nobody really knows anything…except perhaps the police.”

  “And they’re keeping anything they know very firmly to themselves.”

  “Yes.” Their recent conversation had spoiled the serenity of Connie’s mood. “Look, there are some things I’ve got to sort out, Jude.”

  “Yes, of course, I must be on my way.”

  “Just a minute.”

  Jude stopped on her way to the door. “What?”

  Connie was looking curiously at her hair. “You haven’t had it cut again since I did it, have you?”

  “No, of course not,” came the guilty reply.

  But Connie was not deceived. Looking closely at the hair, she echoed exactly the words of Kelly-Jane at Martin & Martina, “Dear, oh dear. Now do tell me where this was done.”

  “No, look, I can’t. Sorry, I must be on my way.” It took a lot to fluster Jude, but this had achieved the feat. She realized she had overstepped a diplomatic boundary. Having another haircut by another stylist at another salon within a week is probably about the most offensive insult you can give a hairdresser. And Connie’s face reflected the affront she had just received.

  Jude opened the door, but before she went out, turned back and said, “There was one other thing I wanted to ask you…”

  “Oh?” Connie wasn’t a natural at being frosty, but the welcome had definitely gone from her voice.

  “Something Carole told me. The morning Kyra’s body was discovered…”

  “Yes?” The hairdresser had already had quite enough of that subject.

  “Well, I’m sure she must have got it wrong, because you always take such care of your appearance, but Carole said that morning you weren’t wearing any make-up, and you hadn’t done your hair.”

  “No, I hadn’t. I sometimes do all that after I’ve arrived here. Go through to�
��” She corrected herself. “Do it in the mirror here.”

  The image did not match the picture of the woman that had formed in Jude’s mind. Connie had her standards as the owner of the salon; she wouldn’t do her make-up in the mirror when she had a client present. She didn’t say anything, but Connie seemed to feel she needed further self-justification. “I just got delayed that morning, that’s all.”

  “Do you remember what delayed you?”

  “The fact that my alarm clock didn’t ring. With the result that I overslept.” Jude’s welcome was in danger of being outstayed. “Now, I really do have things to do…”

  “Of course. Thanks for the coffee. See you.” As she walked back to Woodside Cottage, Jude felt certain that, whatever had delayed the owner from reaching Connie’s Clip Joint on the morning after Kyra Bartos’s murder, it wasn’t just that she’d overslept.

  EIGHTEEN

  “But would you do that, Carole?”

  “I’m not sure that I’m the best person to ask. I’m not one of those women who cakes herself in make-up every time I leave the house.”

  “I know you’re not. But you always look smart when you go out, don’t you?”

  Carole wasn’t sure whether or not what Jude had just said was a compliment. She hadn’t had much practice with compliments and did not receive them naturally. “I don’t know,” she conceded. “I certainly don’t like to look a mess.”

  “No, none of us do. It’s a feminine instinct. You check you look OK before you leave the house.”

  Surely you don’t, Carole was tempted to ask. Jude always looked as though her hair and her clothes had just been thrown together on a whim. But maybe she had to work at that look just as carefully as Carole had to check that the belt of her Burberry wasn’t twisted. Anyway, it certainly did the business for Jude. Wherever she went, men drooled.

  “Well,” she went on, “imagine how much stronger that instinct must be for someone in what in the broadest sense can be called the ‘beauty industry’. Connie Rutherford has to be a walking advertisement for what she’s selling. If she looks a mess, she’s going to discourage customers to Connie’s Clip Joint. So we come back to the same point: what made her late that Thursday morning?”

  “She didn’t give you any answer?”

  “Not a detailed one. Just that she’d overslept. I’m afraid once she noticed that I’d had my hair cut somewhere else, I ceased to be a welcome guest. I don’t think I’m going to get a lot more information out of her now.”

  “Perhaps it’s as well that I didn’t come in with you then. At least she doesn’t have anything against me.”

  “Except that you’re a friend of mine.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And a fellow lover of organic vegetables.”

  “I only bought these as an experiment. To see if they taste any different.” This was said very sniffily. Carole had low expectations for the results of her taste test.

  “I was only teasing.”

  “Oh.” From schooldays onwards, Carole had never been very good at recognizing when she was being teased.

  “There’s another thing, though, Carole…”

  “What?”

  “Well, OK, let’s say Connie does sometimes leave the house in a hurry in the morning…for whatever reason…one of her car crash encounters with a man perhaps…and so she gets to the salon and she hasn’t done her hair or make-up…”

  “Like on that Thursday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, she couldn’t do her make-up then, because I was waiting to have my hair washed and cut.”

  “But I’m sure if all had gone to plan…if Kyra had opened the salon at eight forty-five as she was meant to and had already been washing your hair when her boss arrived straight from bed…there’s no way Connie would have done her make-up in the mirror where you could see her.”

  “No, I’m sure she wouldn’t.”

  “So she would have put on her war paint in the back room. She virtually said that to me. She said she’d ‘go through’—and then she stopped herself and said she’d do it in the mirror at the front.”

  “Except that morning she couldn’t do what she’d normally do, because I was already there waiting for my appointment.”

  “Exactly.” Jude had a hand up in the bird’s nest of hair and was tapping her skull reflectively. “Every time I’ve gone into that salon, the first thing Connie’s done is to offer me a cup of coffee. Did she offer you coffee that morning?”

  “No, she didn’t. I wouldn’t have accepted it, because she was already late and it would have just taken more time and—”

  “Are you sure she didn’t offer you any coffee?”

  “Yes. I remember thinking it was quite odd. Because it sounded as though she was about to offer me something…and then she stopped…”

  “Hmm. You know what the reason for that could be?”

  “No.”

  “The coffee machine’s in the back room. It’s possible that Connie didn’t offer you coffee because she didn’t want to go into the back room…because she knew there was something she didn’t want you to see back there.”

  §

  The following morning, the Tuesday, Jude was on the way down the High Street for a walk on the beach when she saw someone she recognized. Sitting in a parked car, looking patiently out towards the sea, was Wally Grenston. The day was warm and his window was down, so she greeted him as she passed.

  After the customary pleasantries, she said, “So Mim’s let you out on your own, has she?”

  The grizzled head turned nervously at the suggestion and nodded towards the building outside which he was parked. “She’s in at the chiropodist. A martyr to her feet, Mim. I tell her it’s down to all those ridiculous stiletto things she wore when she was a singer. If God had intended women to walk like that He’d have put prongs on their heels. You don’t go for shoes like that, do you?”

  Jude laughed and lifted up one brown sandaled foot.

  “Very sensible. If Mim’d worn shoes like that all her life, she wouldn’t have her current trouble.”

  “I haven’t worn shoes like this all my life, Wally. I’ve had my time in stilettos.”

  “Well, clearly not as much time as Mim.” Again he looked with some anxiety at the chiropodist’s door, but he was all right. She hadn’t come out yet. “And are you still doing the amateur sleuthing, Jude?”

  “Still trying to work out how Kyra Bartos died, yes.”

  He nodded, mulling over an idea, then said, “I had a call from her father yesterday.”

  “Joe?”

  “Jiri, yes. There is a meeting of the Czech Club in Brighton tomorrow night. He asked me if I was going.”

  “You mean he is?”

  He caught the eagerness in her voice. “Yes, he is going. And no, Jude, there is no chance that you could go there too to meet him. The club is Members Only.”

  “Ah,” she said, disappointed. “And what do you do when you’re there?”

  “We sit and drink.” He smiled fondly. “Some drink beer, some slivovitz. I drink Becherovka. And we talk about times…” There was a catch in his voice. “…about times that will never come back.”

  “Does the club have its own premises?”

  “No, no. We meet sometimes in a hotel room, a pub, sometimes at the house of one of the members. Two times a year we have big dinners, socials…with food from Czechoslovakia. Mmm, carp…” He smacked his lips nostalgically. “Guests come then, to those dinners. They are good evenings.”

  “Maybe you’d invite me to one, one day…?” Jude joked.

  Wally Grenston chuckled. “Nothing that I would like more. Nothing, though, that Mim would like less.”

  “Ah.”

  He smiled and lightly whistled a couple of bars of a lilting but melancholy tune, almost definitely one of his own. Then he announced, “I think it is good that Jiri rang me…”

  “In what way?”

  “It means perhaps he is coming out of his
grief a little. Since Krystina died, so far as I can tell, he has hardly left the house.”

  “Bereavement is a terrible thing.” Suddenly Jude had an idea for another approach to the old man. “I have actually done work with the bereaved.”

  “Work? How do you mean?”

  “I do healing…you know, like counselling. It has proved very effective. Maybe Joe Bartos would—”

  But her suggestion was cut short by a wry laugh. “You couldn’t have chosen a worse idea for Jiri. He does not believe in asking help from anyone, and certainly not help of the kind that might be called ‘psychological’. Joe is very much of the old ‘suffer in silence’ school. He has never talked about his emotions to me—or, I’m sure, anyone else. No, he will sort himself out. And, in fact, that he is talking of going to the Czech Club, this I think is good news. He is, as you say, ‘coming out of himself’.”

  “Do you think that means he’s more likely to talk to me?”

  The old man shrugged. “Who knows? It’s quite possible that he doesn’t want to talk to anyone about Krystina, that the reason he wants to go to the club is to talk about other things. I will only know when I see him.”

  “Well, if he does want to talk…”

  “Yes, yes. I have your number. I will tell him.” But Wally Grenston didn’t sound optimistic.

  “I don’t want to put pressure on him to—”

  But Wally was frantically shaking his head and gesturing for her to leave. He had seen something through the chiropodist’s window. Jude moved off just as she heard the door opening. By the time Mim had emerged on to the pavement, Jude was twenty yards away. Once again Wally Grenston had lived dangerously and survived.

  §

  The landline was ringing when she returned to Woodside Cottage after her walk. “Hello?”

  “Is your name Jude?” A woman’s voice, cultured, confident.

  “Yes.”

  “My name’s Bridget Locke.”

  “Ah.” A coincidence? Except Jude didn’t really believe in coincidences. There was an intention and synchronicity to everything that happened. Nor had she any doubt that the Bridget Locke on the phone was the one married to Rowley Locke.

  “I was given your name by a friend called Sonia Dalrymple.” A horse-owning client with whom Jude had had some recent dealings. “She said you do healing and stuff…”