Fethering 08 (2007) - Death under the Dryer (13 page)

Connie took the news in slowly. “And how did he react?”

“He changed the subject and moved on.”

“Yes, I’m not surprised.”

“But what I’m saying, Connie, is that, having heard about the potential legal action against him, Martin might have let himself into Connie’s Clip Joint this morning, hoping to find and destroy any evidence…you know, papers Kyra might have got together for her case against him.”

“Yes.” Connie seemed very relieved to have a possible explanation for her ex-husband’s appearance at the salon. “Yes, that would make very good sense.”

“But, whatever his reason for being there, I think the police should be told about it. Even if it’s not criminal, it is at the very least rather odd behaviour. I mean, that is assuming that you didn’t know he was going to be there…?”

“Good heavens, no!” Connie responded vehemently.

“Well, I suppose Carole could talk to the police. She has got a connection with the case, after all, having been there when the body was discovered. They did give her contact numbers, but…there’s always a danger that the police will treat her as some nosy local crank. Alternatively, you could do it…”

“That’d make much more sense,” said Connie firmly. “It was my premises he was making an illegal entry into, after all. No, leave it with me, Jude. I’ll speak to the police.”

And she sounded relieved that that decision had been made.

“The question is,” said Carole, “do I share this information with the Lockes?”

“Ah, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Rowley asked me to pass on anything I found out that might be relevant to the case…”

“Yes.”

“On the other hand, to tell them I saw Martin Rutherford coming out of Connie’s Clip Joint this morning would be tantamount to making an accusation against him.”

“Which I’m sure the Lockes would seize on. Anything which offered a suspect apart from their precious Nathan.”

“Hmm. Again, you know, Jude, it struck me as odd yesterday how little Rowley Locke seemed to be worried about Nathan.”

“Well, I suppose the boy’s not his son. He’s only his nephew.”

“Yes, but when I met the parents, they were equally unruffled about it.” Even though her own maternal skills might be open to criticism, this still seemed odd to Carole. “Not natural.”

“People hide their emotions.”

“Of course they do. But I still have a sneaking suspicion that the reason they’re so calm about it is that they know Nathan’s all right. They’re in contact with him. They know where he is.”

Jude grinned ruefully. “I don’t think I can help you much in following up on that. You’re the one with an open invitation to the Lockes’ camp. Maybe you should tell them about seeing Martin this morning. It’d at least maintain the continuity of contact.”

“Yes.” But Carole felt disinclined to pick up the phone in a hurry. A little of the Lockes, she had found, went a long way. “I won’t do it straight away. See what else develops.”

“Maybe when Connie tells the police about Martin, that’ll be the breakthrough they’ve needed.”

“You think he did it?”

Jude shrugged. “I’ve no idea. But what Connie said about Kyra and the sexual harassment thing does at least give him a motive. Though there’s still something odd about the way she told me that. I still can’t quite put my finger on it. The whole story came out too pat, as though she’d prepared it. I don’t know…Anyway, Connie’s and Martin’s does seem to have been a very bitter divorce.” Out of sensitivity towards Carole, she restrained herself from adding ‘like most divorces’. “Maybe there’s another motive out there of him trying to sabotage the business prospects of Connie’s Clip Joint.”

“I’m not sure that he needed to do that. From what you were saying, the salon’s not very healthy, anyway.”

“No.” Jude screwed up her face in puzzlement. “I get the feeling we’re missing something.”

“I get the feeling we’re missing everything,” said Carole tartly. “Our investigation can’t really be said to be making much headway, can it?”

“But I’m sure there’s someone else we should be talking to…someone we’ve forgotten about.”

“Well, there’s Joe Bartos. You’ve tried without success to make contact there.”

Jude screwed up her eyes and shook her head. Even after two haircuts in a week, there was enough left for her topknot to wobble precariously. “Someone else…Someone who had something to do with the day of the murder…or the day of the discovery of the murder…”

“Well, I can’t—”

Jude’s brown eyes sprang open. “The woman! The other woman in Connie’s Clip Joint when you had your hair cut. The very dramatic one.”

“Oh, her. Her name was Sheena. That’s all I know about her.”

“But there was something you told me she said.”

“I can’t remember. She was behaving so hysterically, she said all kinds of things.”

“No, there was one thing…Something about Kyra deserving her fate…?”

Carole’s memory cleared, and the words came back to her, exactly as she had heard them that morning. “Yes. “Though the poor girl may have deserved something, she didn’t deserve this!”

“Well, wouldn’t that suggest to you that this Sheena knew something about Kyra or her background?”

“Yes. Yes, it would.”

“In that case,” said Jude, “I think we ought to see if we can get in touch with Sheena.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“I’ll ring Connie back. She’ll have a number.”

“Hello?”

§

“Hello.” The voice was so tense with emotion that at first she didn’t recognize it. “It’s Stephen.”

“Stephen. What on earth’s the matter?”

“It’s Gaby. She’s been taken into hospital.”

“What—something wrong with the baby?”

“With the baby, with her, I don’t know.” He sounded totally distracted, so unlike himself, not the buttoned-up distant personality he had presented to the world ever since his mother could remember.

“Calm down, Stephen. Tell me what happened.”

“It was in the middle of the night. I don’t know, one-thirty, two…? Gaby woke up, feeling pain in her stomach. And, you know, we thought maybe the baby was starting, because it’s due in less than four weeks and I suppose it could be premature…” He still didn’t sound in control of his speech. “So we rang the hospital and I suggested I should drive her round, but they said, no, they’d send an ambulance…and then Gaby was bleeding a bit…and they took her in…and she’s on a drip and…I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to Gaby.”

“Stephen…Is the baby moving all right?”

“What? Oh, yes, yes, apparently so.” In his anxiety about his wife, their unborn baby was an irrelevance. “Or at least the doctor said it was OK.”

“What else did the doctor say?”

“The one I saw said Gaby’d be fine. But that they wanted to keep her in for observation.”

“Well, if that’s what he said, I’m sure that’s what he meant.”

“But suppose he only said it to keep me calm? I mean, she’s been bleeding and I don’t know what—”

“Stephen…That kind of thing can happen. There are very few completely straightforward pregnancies. I had a similar scare when I was expecting you.”

“Did you?” He was shocked, partly by the information itself and partly by the fact that he and his mother were talking about such a subject.

“Yes, David and I were scared witless, just as you are now. It was a couple of months before you were born. I was kept in overnight, then sent home and told to take things easy. I did just that and, as you know, everything was fine. As I’m sure it will be with Gaby.”

“Yes.” He didn’t sound convinced, but he must have relaxed a bit, because he now became aware of the kind of conversation he was participating in. “I’m sorry to worry you, Mother.” Not that relaxed, thought Carole wryly. Not relaxed enough for a ‘Mum’. He went on, “I just couldn’t think of anyone else to talk to.”

Carole liked that a lot more.

“I mean, Gaby’s mother…well, I don’t think she’s strong enough to cope.”

Even better. “No, probably not. Have you talked to your father?”

Stephen seemed amazed by the suggestion. “What would be the point of talking to him? He wouldn’t know what to do. It’d just make him flap.”

He was right. Just the sort of news to send David into a tailspin of panic. Carole couldn’t deny herself a little glow from the fact that she had been Stephen’s first port of call in the crisis. Emboldened, she said firmly, “Stephen, Gaby’s going to be absolutely fine. So’s your baby.”

What she spoke was what she felt. Though by nature perpetually prone to self-doubt and suspicion, Carole Seddon had never had any misgivings about the safe arrival of her forthcoming grandchild. She had no medical knowledge, she wasn’t privy to Gaby’s current state of health; she just knew the birth would be all right. The only anxieties she had were about her ability to form a bond with the imminent arrival.

“Would you mind telling her that, Mother?”

“What, telling Gaby?”

“Yes. She’s so scared. I’ve never seen her looking so scared…even when, you know, she was worried that someone was trying to murder her. If you could just have a word…?”

“Of course. Can I ring her?”

“No, no mobiles allowed in the hospital. I’m out in the car park talking to you now. Gaby’s not allowed out of bed at the moment, but I think they bring a phone trolley round to the wards or something, so she could ring you. Are you going to be about later?”

“I’ll have to take Gulliver out for another walk at some point, but basically I’m here.”

“Oh, great. I’ll get Gaby to call you. I just hope she’s…” Once again he sounded lost, like one of those rare moments when he came home from school having got into trouble for transgressing some rule he did not understand.

“Stephen, Gaby and the baby will both be fine.”

“Right. Thank you, Mum.”

He’d never know how much that last word had meant to her.

§

Gaby rang just before lunch. Carole was very calm and reassuring, and in fact the mother-to-be was also more relaxed. Her panic of the early hours had receded. The bleeding had stopped and she drew comfort from being surrounded by experts in pregnancy and childbirth. Gaby had sent Stephen home to catch up on some sleep, and she thought she’d probably doze through the afternoon herself. She was definitely going to be kept in overnight, but she’d know more after her consultant had done his rounds in the morning.

Carole was surprised how easily she found herself sharing her own comparable experience with Gaby. She’d never really talked about such things, except to a doctor. Carole Seddon had never been part of a group of female friends who discussed their entire gynaecological history. Finding herself talking to her daughter-in-law about these things, building on the bond of their mutual gender, was a novel experience, but a rewarding one. When she put down the phone at the end of their conversation, she felt she had really been of use to Gaby.

And she tried to keep at bay the insidious thoughts that maybe her uncharacteristic confidence was misplaced, that there really was something wrong with the pregnancy.

She contemplated steeling herself to ring David. He was secure in his little flat in Swiss Cottage; maybe he ought to be informed of the family crisis. Oh dear, that would mean talking to him, something she had pretty thoroughly avoided since they’d both put on such a good show of being civilized to each other at the wedding. It would also mean looking up his telephone number. Her photographic memory for figures blanked out that particular piece of information. Still, she supposed she should ring him.

But then she thought: why? As Stephen had said, hearing the news about Gaby’s scare would just make him flap. David had always been prone to flapping. When her son needed a rock in his life, it was his mother he turned to, not his father. The knowledge gave Carole a surge of guilty pleasure.

J
ude was a shrewd judge of character and, even though they hadn’t met, Carole’s description had made her certain Sheena was the kind of woman who would seize any opportunity to talk about herself. So it proved. In response to a phone call from a complete stranger who wanted to talk about what she’d seen at Connie’s Clip Joint, Sheena was more than ready to fix a meeting. “Soon as you like. Friend was going to come down and see me today, but he’s cried off. Apparently has to spend the weekend with his
wife
. What a feeble excuse. Bloody men, eh?”

So a rendezvous at the Crown and Anchor when it opened at noon was easily arranged.

Sheena must have been there waiting before Ted Crisp unlocked the doors, because she was well into a large gin and tonic when Jude arrived only a couple of minutes after twelve. “Oh, I should have got you a drink, Sheena. I set this up.”

“Don’t worry, darling. You can get the next one. What’re you having?”

Sheena managed to get Ted’s attention away from the customer whom he was asking which fingers hairdressers use to hold their scissors, and bought a large Chilean Chardonnay for her interrogator. Jude had instantly recognized the woman from Carole’s description. As when she’d made her entrance that morning at Connie’s Clip Joint, Sheena was wearing dark glasses and had her hair swathed in a scarf. She was maintaining that illusion of unobtrusiveness so often affected by people who like to be the centre of attraction. Her silk top and linen suit were expensive, showing just enough fussy decoration to be designer garments.

“There you are, darling. Cheers!”

It was still warm enough to sit outside—and that might have been a justification for the dark glasses—but Sheena had selected one of the pub’s shady individual booths. Again the attempt at self-effacement had the reverse effect, exacerbated by the loud husky whisper in which she insisted on talking. Any casting director looking for someone to play a spy would have rejected her as too obvious.

“Jude, I’m so glad you got in touch. Because I must confess I’m still traumatized by what I saw that morning at Connie’s. I keep wanting to talk about it, but holding back. You know, a shock on that scale is not something you can talk about to just anyone.”

But evidently—and fortunately for Jude—something she could talk about to an unknown woman who’d rung her up out of the blue that morning.