Death under the Dryer

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…”

“Yes.”

“I’ve suddenly done something to my back. I don’t know if you do backs. Maybe I should be talking to an osteopath?”

“I do backs.”

“Well, mine’s suddenly gone and – ”

“Gone in what way?”

“Sort of seized up down in the small of my back, but the pain comes all over the place, if I try to turn my head round or lift my legs in a certain way.”

“Mmm. Lower back pain. So you’d like to make an appointment?”

“Please.”

“Well, I live in Fethering, just on the High Street. I’m fairly free at the moment, so if you name a time when – ”

“Ah. The trouble is, I can’t drive. I mean, I can drive normally, but at the moment I can hardly move off my bed, and even just lying there’s terribly painful. I certainly can’t bend my body to get into the car. It’s agony. Look, I’m sorry, but would it be possible for you to come and see me?”

Jude needed no second invitation. She had heard enough from Carole about the Lockes’ set-up to want to see it at first hand. If she could cure Bridget Locke’s back pain – and she had a high success rate in such cases – then good. And if she could find out any more about Kyra Bartos’s murder and the disappearance of Nathan Locke, then even better.

“Yes, of course I could come to you. Where do you live?” she asked, knowing the answer full well.