by Simon Brett
“So, what can I do for you, Carole? I’m sorry I can’t be long. As I say, I have somewhere to go this evening.”
“With your wife?”
“No, Martina is going to Prague to see her mother, who’s very sick. She gets the 21:05 flight from Heathrow. I have to be away by six.”
“What I have to say won’t take very long.”
“Good. Now, something about red roses, wasn’t it…? How romantic.” The laid-back flippancy of his tone was contradicted by the unease in his darting brown eyes.
“Yes. As I say, I was told this by the missing boy Nathan Locke. When he arrived in the back room of the salon that night, the red roses were already there.”
“Perhaps Kyra had another admirer…?”
“That’s rather what I was thinking, Martin.” He looked genuinely puzzled for a moment before he caught on to what she was saying. “Oh, me? Are you suggesting that I had the hots for Kyra?”
“She used to work for you, right here in this salon.”
“A lot of young women work for me, in this salon and in many others. That doesn’t mean I fancy any of them.”
“No, but Kyra Bartos left the job here, because you were sexually harassing her.”
“Oh, we’re back to that again, are we? Incidentally, where did you hear about it?”
“Your ex-wife Connie told my friend Jude.”
“Ah. Yes.” The explanation seemed in some way to relax him. “Of course, your friend Jude. The other half of Fethering’s very own Marple Twins.”
Carole didn’t react to the gibe. “So there might be a logical connection between your ‘coming on’ to Kyra when she worked for you and your giving her red roses when she no longer worked for you.”
“There might be, but I wouldn’t say it was that logical. Nor would I say it’s the kind of thing that would be possible to prove.”
“Did the police ask you about the red roses?”
“Sorry? No, not at all. Remember, I only talked to them right at the beginning of the case. Then all they wanted to establish was the set-up at Connie’s Clip Joint…you know, the fact that Connie was my ex-wife, what our financial arrangements had been since the divorce. They didn’t ask me anything connected with the actual murder case.”
“I wasn’t referring to the first time, Martin.”
“What?” He looked puzzled.
“Not the first time the police talked to you, immediately after the murder. I’m talking about when they questioned you about having been in Connie’s Clip Joint last Sunday morning.” Now it made sense to him. “Because Connie told them about that break-in. And you’re not going to tell me they didn’t follow up on it with you.”
“No. No.” Martin Rutherford looked thoughtful. Then he said, “You know, Carole, I think you and your friend Jude are very stupid to get involved in situations like this.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because they’re potentially dangerous.” There was no twinkle in the brown eyes he fixed on hers. “It’s very common that someone who is about to be exposed for committing one murder doesn’t have much compunction about committing another.”
§
Jude was full of her news. When she got back, she went straight round to High Tor to share it with Carole. But there was no reply, just a disgruntled barking from Gulliver.
She returned to Woodside Cottage, the information about Martin Rutherford still bubbling inside her. Then she rang through to the Crown and Anchor, to see whether Carole had gone there, according to their earlier arrangement. But Ted Crisp said she hadn’t been in. Jude moved round the house, unable to settle to anything, and kept looking out of her front window to see whether the Renault had reappeared.
§
Martin stood up from his chair and moved round to the front of his desk. He sat on the edge, in what should have been a casual posture. But his body was tense, in the grip of some strong emotion. He was only a few feet from Carole, and she could feel the energy sparking off him.
“There’s a lot you don’t understand,” he said at length. “A lot of secrets that should stay secrets.”
“If keeping things secret leads to people being murdered, then I would have thought perhaps they ought to be made public.” The sentence was a lot more articulate and confident than Carole felt.
“Huh.” Martin Rutherford rubbed the back of his hand wearily across his brow. “It’s terrible how easily things go wrong, how easily they get out of hand.”
“Are you talking about what you did to Kyra?”
“I did nothing to Kyra.”
“No? Do you deny that you went round to Connie’s Clip Joint the night the girl died?”
He slowly blew out a long breath, then said, “No, I don’t deny it.”
“When did you go there?”
“About seven, before the girl arrived.”
“But you didn’t stay?”
“No, I had to get back to Brighton.”
“For your Hair and Nail Conference?”
“Yes.”
“To establish your alibi.”
“If you like.” He now sounded very weary. “Yes, I sat through a dinner there and talked to a lot of people.”
“But then you went back to Fethering.” He nodded. “What time did you get back?”
“Ten, half past.”
“And you went back to Connie’s Clip Joint?”
“Yes, but I didn’t go inside.”
“Really? You expect me to believe that, Martin?”
“I don’t know whether I expect you to believe that or not, but it’s the truth.”
“So why didn’t you go in?”
“Because the boy was there, with Kyra. I saw them through the window.”
“So you went in through the back gate…” That would explain the noise Nathan Locke had heard, “…you saw the young couple were there, and then you left?”
“That’s exactly what I did, yes.”
“But surely you must have been furious to see Kyra with another man?”
“For heaven’s sake, I had no interest in Kyra! I never had!”
“Never even when you came on to her downstairs in this very salon?”
“No. No. No…” The monosyllable got weaker with repetition. Martin Rutherford let out a deep sigh, then seeming to reach some conclusion, went on, “Look, I’m going to tell you what actually happened. Not because I particularly want to, but because you seem to have got some dangerous ideas fixed in your mind, and if you start passing them on to the police…well, it could be very inconvenient.”
“And what if I pass on to the police what you’re about to tell me?”
“It’s possible that when you’ve heard it, you won’t want to. And if you do, that may not be such a bad thing. I’m sick to death of lying.” His head sank into his hands. “Maybe telling the truth will take some of this bloodypressure off me!” The outburst was so sudden and uncharacteristic that it was a measure of the stress he was under.
Carole waited while he composed himself. Then he started. “Most of my life I must have heard the expression ‘living a lie’, but only when it happens to you do you understand what it means. I’ve been living a lie for the past few years, and it’s been destroying me.” Again Carole let him take his own time. “Obviously you know that I divorced Connie and married Martina.” He gestured round the room. “That had a very good effect on all this. Martina is a wonderfully talented businesswoman. I could never have built up Martin & Martina to this level without her.”
“On the emotional side, though…” he was having difficulty framing the words, “…things didn’t work out so well. Some people have said Martina only married me because she had her eyes on the business. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but certainly after the first few months…the emotional side of the marriage…” You mean the sexual side, thought Carole. “Well, it virtually ended, and I realized I had made a horrible mistake…”
“And was that when you started coming on to the youn
g girls in the salon…like Kyra?”
He shook his head in exasperation. “No! I’ve never come on to any girl in my salon. For a start, younger women have never appealed to me that much and, then again…well, it’s one of the first things you learn. If you’re going to run a successful business, keep your hands off the staff.”
“Oh, come on, Martin, that won’t wash. Connie told Jude there was a great history of you touching up the juniors, going right back to when you were married to her.”
“Oh, God,” he groaned. “How complicated things become. You invent one little untruth to get you out of a hole, and suddenly you find you’re having to fabricate more and more of them, and the hole is getting bigger and bigger.”
“I think you’d better tell me about those little untruths,” said Carole in her most magisterial Home Office committee-chairing voice.
“All right. I said I’d made a mistake in marrying Martina, but I did it because I was infatuated with her. When the infatuation faded, I looked around and realized what I’d done. And I also realized that there was only one woman I had ever loved and that was Connie.”
“Did she feel the same?”
“Yes. I had to summon up a lot of nerve to ask her, but yes, she did.”
“So all that business about what a bastard you’d been to her…?”
“That bit was true.” A wry chuckle. “I had been a bastard to her.”
“But you touching up the juniors in your salons…?”
“Was a complete fabrication. A smokescreen. Connie and I would do anything to hide the fact that we still loved each other.”
“But why? Surely if you’d divorced once, you could do it again?”
His lips tightened as he said, “Not from Martina. Martina is a Czech Catholic. She doesn’t believe in divorce. Or at least she didn’t object to marrying a divorcee, but there’s no way she’d let me divorce her.”
“But these days a lot of people don’t bother with divorce. They just move out.”
“I don’t think I could just move out from Martina.”
The chill with which he spoke made it abundantly clear that Martin Rutherford was actually terrified of his second wife. “She is a very powerful woman.”
“So, going back to where we started this evening, were the red roses for Connie?”
He nodded. “It was very hard for us to meet. I had to fabricate alibis. Martina did not trust me being out of her sight. So the Hair and Nail Conference seemed perfect. I set up to meet Connie that evening.”
“In the salon?”
“Yes. I couldn’t risk our being recognized in a hotel. Then where Connie lives—the house we used to share when we were married—well, there’s a snoopy neighbour, old boy at the back who watches everyone’s comings and goings, So that wasn’t safe. But in the salon…I could park out of sight, go in the back way. It had worked well for us in the past.”
“But when you went back there that particular night, you found out that someone else had set up their own romantic encounter?”
“Kyra, yes. As I say, I went in early to set up the flowers, did the dinner in Brighton, and came back to find our little love nest occupied.”
“So you told Connie?”
“Our arrangement was that I’d get there and give her a call on my mobile, to say that the coast was clear, then she’d come and join me. But of course the coast wasn’t clear.”
“What did you do?”
“I was stupid. I should have gone straight back to the conference hotel in Brighton. But I thought: I’ve actually managed to get a night off from Martina. I’ve got my alibi. Who knows when I’ll next get a chance to be with Connie? So I went to her place.”
“And stayed all night?”
“Much longer than I should have done. We were just so happy to be together. The time was so precious. We talked and talked all night and well into the morning.”
“Was that why Connie was late into the salon? And why she hadn’t done her hair or make-up?”
Martin Rutherford nodded ruefully. “We talked about everything. About what we were going to do. About how I was finally going to face up to Martina and tell her it was all over. But then, when I heard about Kyra’s death, everything had to be put on hold. Connie and I couldn’t risk letting the police find out what we’d been up to. If they found out I’d been at the salon that night…” He shuddered, then concluded glumly, “Everything still is on hold.”
“But you are planning to see Connie tonight, aren’t you? Because Martina’s going to Prague? Is that why you couldn’t fix to see me later?”
His nod had something of bravado in it, the action of a cheeky schoolboy doing something he shouldn’t. “Sad, isn’t it, a man having to set up elaborate deceptions so that he can go and see his ex-wife?” He looked at his watch. “Connie’s waiting for me in the back room of the salon even as we speak.”
They were interrupted by the sound of the outer office door closing. Carole looked up in alarm, but Martin said, “Don’t worry. Girls locking up. I must go down in a sec to check everything’s all right.”
“Yes, well, I don’t think I need to detain you much longer.” Carole looked at him sternly through her rimless glasses. “You realize you are going to have to tell all this to the police?”
He sighed, then dropped his head. “Yes, you’re right. We probably are.”
“It could be material to their investigations. Now they’re talking to Nathan Locke, they’ll need all the information they can find on what actually happened that evening.”
“All right. I’ll do it. But not tonight. Tonight’s just for me and Connie. Tomorrow we’ll face the consequences.”
“And stand up to Martina too?”
“Yes. I think facing the police is going to be easier than facing Martina.” He rose from his perch on the desk and picked up a briefcase. “I’d better be off.”
“Just one thing before you go…”
“Yes?”
“We’ve established that you never came on to any of your juniors…”
“I hope we have, because I can assure you—”
“No, no, that’s fine, but what I want to ask is: if Kyra Bartos didn’t leave this salon because you’d been molesting her, why did she leave? She hadn’t been here very long.”
“Ah.” Martin Rutherford looked embarrassed. “Yes, there was a bit of a problem.”
“What was it? Come on, you’ve told me all the rest.”
“Well, all right,” he said wretchedly. “The fact is, as I said, I’ve never touched any of the juniors. But the pretty ones…well, occasionally I might say something. Nothing offensive, just a compliment. And Kyra was very pretty, so…well, I never think it hurts to tell a woman she’s pretty. It was completely innocent.”
“Then why did it become a problem?” asked Garble implacably.
“Because of Martina. Martina did not like me making these compliments to Kyra. She got the wrong end of the stick. She thought that I fancied the girl.”
“So that’s why Kyra had to go? Because Martina was jealous of her?”
“Yes. Well, I suppose that’s right.”
“How jealous is she?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, if Martina had got it into her head that the relationship she imagined you to be having with Kyra was still continuing, then she might have a motive to—”
“No, no, you’re talking nonsense. Dangerous nonsense. Come on, I must go. Just check Kelly-Jane’s got everything tidied up.”
Down in the salon all was neat and swept clean. The manic activity of half an hour before might never have happened. A tall girl who must have been Kelly-Jane stood with a bundle of keys, clearly waiting for the all-clear to go home.
“Thanks, Kelly-Jane, looks great. Not sure whether I’ll be in in the morning or not.”
“Will Martina?”
“No, of course not. She’s off to Prague.”
“Oh, I thought she might have changed her plans.
”
“No, she’ll be on her way to Heathrow now. Friday night traffic, she’ll have left about five.”
“No, she was here.”
“Here? When?”
“Came in within the last half-hour. Went upstairs. I assumed she was talking to you in the office.”
“I didn’t see her.”
Kelly-Jane shrugged. This wasn’t her business. “Well, I don’t know what she was doing up there then.”
“Is she still here?”
“No, she rushed out about ten minutes ago.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“She didn’t say anything. She just swept out, looking absolutely furious.”
The realization came to Martin and Carole at the same moment. Martina must have been in the outer office. It had been she who had closed the door. She had heard all of their conversation.
“Oh, my God!” shrieked Martin. “Connie!”
The speed with which he rushed out of the salon left Carole in no doubt as to who he thought was responsible for the murder of Kyra Bartos.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Jude had been expecting to hear from Carole, but not from such a panicked Carole as the one who rang from the Martin & Martina in Worthing. It took a moment for Jude to take in the information that her friend was on her way, but that Connie Rutherford was at her salon and in immediate danger. Carole was going to call the police, but could Jude get down there as soon as possible?
She rushed to Connie’s Clip Joint as fast as her chubby legs could carry her. There was nobody around; the moment the shops shut, Fethering High Street became deserted.
A sleek green Jaguar was parked outside. No lights showed in the salon, but to her surprise when she tried the front door, it gave. Moving very slowly to avoid creaks, Jude advanced into the body of the shop.
The door to the back room was slightly ajar, and a pencil of light spread out across the salon floor.. As Jude advanced towards it, she became aware of a passionate, heavily accented voice coming from the back room.
“…and I know he is coming here, because I follow him. I see him bring in red roses and I think it is for that girl who work here. Martin always fancied her, I could see from the way he looked at her. I didn’t then know it was you he was visiting. I thought he had enough of you when you were married. I didn’t expect Martin to be coming back…like, how do you say it…a dog to his own vomit?”
