Death under the Dryer

Thirty-Three

Though in his eighties, Jiri Bartos was still an impressive man. Well over six foot and hardly stooping at all, he towered over Jude as he rose to shake her hand. There was still a full head of hair, white and cut to about an inch’s length all over. His face was the shape of a shield, concave beneath high cheekbones, and his eyes were still piercingly blue. In the Grenstons’ sitting room he seemed too large an exhibit, amidst the array of awards and the tables littered with tiny objets d’art.

While Wally made the introductions, Mim fluttered around over her tea tray, on which lay an unbelievable array of Victoria sponge, fairy cakes, tiny eclairs, coconut kisses and other fancies that Jude remembered from her childhood. There were even some slices of chequered Battenberg, which her father had always called ‘stained-glass window cake’.

But Jiri Bartos did not appear interested in the spread of goodies. As soon as he sat down, he took a packet of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” said Mim, “but we don’t smoke in the house.”

“I do,” he replied, lighting up. His voice was deep, like the creaking of old timber, and heavily accented.

“It isn’t nice when we are eating food,” Mim protested.

“I will not eat food.”

“But I’ve prepared all this – ”

“Walter…” He spoke it in the German way. “We will have drink. Where is drink? Where is slivovitz? Where do you hide Becherovka?”

Mim tried again. “Um, Wally doesn’t drink in the afternoon.”

“Yes, he does. When with me he drink and smoke in afternoon.”

Mim turned to her husband, who studiously looked out of the window towards the sea. Then she turned back to Jiri Bartos. “Listen, Joe, this is our house and – ”

“Go. Leave us to talk. This is not wife’s subject we talk of.”

She tried one more appeal to Wally, whose eyes still managed to evade hers, and then, with as much dignity as she could muster, left the room. As soon as her back was to him, her husband watched her go with a kind of wistfulness. Maybe he should have tried the Jiri Bartos approach a lot earlier in his marriage.

To Jude the exchange between Jiri and Mim had sounded unusual. Although his words were rude, he had not come across as ill-mannered. It had been a clash of wills rather than of words, and there had been no doubt whose will was the stronger.

Silently, Wally Grenston rose from his chair and went to a glass corner cupboard, from which he extracted a tall green bottle. He looked at Jude. “You join us?”

“Please. I love Becherovka.”

Wally picked up three small glasses with a whirly design of red and gold on them. He put them on the table, unscrewed the Becherovka and after pouring about an inch into the bottom of each glass, handed them round.

He and his old friend looked into each other’s eyes as they raised their glasses and in unison said, “Na Zdravi!”

Jiri made no attempt to include Jude in the toast, but again for some strange reason this did not feel offensive. She took a sip of her drink, anyway, remembering and relishing the stickiness on her lips and the herbal, almost medicinal, glow that filled her mouth.

“I am very sorry about what happened to your daughter,” she said.

“Thank you.” Jiri Bartos left it at that. Jude did not imagine there were many circumstances in which he would let his emotions show. “You find boy who police think killed her?”

“Yes. Yes, a friend and I went down to Cornwall and…we found him.”

Jude didn’t particularly want to go into the details, but the old man insisted. Though hardened against showing any emotion about his daughter’s death, he wanted to find out everything that might have some connection to it.

So Jude told him how Carole and she had tracked down the boy to Treboddick. She did not spell out the fact that he had not been hiding there voluntarily. At the end of her narrative, there was a silence. Then Jiri Bartos asked, “You think he kill her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“For a start, I don’t think it’s in his nature to kill anyone.”

The old man let out a guttural hawk of dissent. “It’s in all men’s nature to kill when they have to. We know that – yes, Walter?”

Wally nodded uncomfortably. Jude wondered what secrets the two men shared, and reckoned it was pretty unlikely that they’d ever share them with her.

“So, if not boy, who you think kill Krystina?”

Jude was forced to admit she didn’t have an answer. “But there are quite a few suspects.”

Jiri Bartos shrugged at the inadequacy of her reply. “Boy was there. Boy have motive.”

“What motive?”

“He want make love Krystina. She good girl, no want to. He lose control. He kill her.”

Jude would have liked to reveal the true nature of Nathan and Kyra’s sexual encounter, if only to exonerate the boy, but she realized she would be betraying a confidence. So instead she said, “You didn’t approve of Kyra – Krystina seeing Nathan, did you?”

“Girl too young. One day she meet right boy. Now she too busy with job, look after house. Both too young.”

She decided to take a risk. “You had another family once, didn’t you? Another wife and children, in Czechoslovakia?”

Wally didn’t like the direction of the conversation. “Jude, I don’t think – ”

“No. She ask me. I answer. Yes, I have other family. Not in Czechoslovakia. Well, first in Czechoslovakia. Then the name changed. Then it called ‘Protectorate of Bohemia ⁄ Moravia’.”

“That was when the Nazis took over?”

“Of course.”

“What happened to your other family?”

The old man shook his head. “They do not exist.” That was all she was going to get out of him on the subject. “I come to England.”

“Do you think it was because of what happened to your other family that you were so protective of Krystina?”

The blue eyes looked at her bleakly. That question wasn’t going to get any kind of answer. Someone like Jiri Bartos did not have time for psychology; his only imperative was survival. Jude tried another tack. “Do you know Connie Rutherford…the one who runs the salon?”

“I meet. Pick up Krystina from work one day. Also she live near.”

“Near your house?”

“Yes. Two gardens meet at back, only fence between.”

Distantly this rang a bell with something she had heard from Carole. “And did Krystina like Connie?”

“I think. Krystina happy in job.”

“But she wasn’t happy in her previous job?”

Puzzlement etched new lines in his craggy brow. “Not happy? This I not know.”

“She worked at Martin & Martina in Worthing. But not for long. Then she went to Connie’s Clip Joint. Why?”

“Better job, she tell me.”

“No other reason?”

He shook his massive head.

“Did she say whether she got on with her boss at the Worthing salon? His name was Martin.”

“I know who you mean, yes. I’ve seen him around. Krystina say she like him very much.”

It made sense. If her father was so protective, Kyra wouldn’t have told him about Martin Rutherford coming on to her. It could have made for rather an ugly confrontation.

Jude sighed and went back to the most basic of questions. “Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill your daughter?”

“If not boy, no.”

“I’m absolutely certain it wasn’t Nathan.”

He shrugged. Tell me why, he seemed to be saying, you still haven’t convinced me.

“Look, you disapproved of their relationship, Nathan and K – Krystina.”

“Yes, I disapprove. That not mean I kill my own daughter.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that. But can you think of anyone else who might have disapproved of their relationship?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know boy at all. Maybe he have other girlfriend not happy.”

“From what I can find out, Krystina was his first girlfriend.”

“Then I not know. Unless his parents disapprove of my daughter.”

“Did you ever meet his parents?”

“Of course, no. I only meet boy once. But his parents…maybe rich. Maybe think they important family. Maybe not think daughter of Czech electrician good enough for boy.” He looked at her, challenging, almost amused through his pain. “Maybe they kill her…?”

It’s a possibility, thought Jude, that I certainly haven’t ruled out.