Fethering 08 (2007) - Death under the Dryer (14 page)

“I mean, let me tell you, mine has been a life not without incident. I’ve had a few shocks in my time—particularly where men have been concerned—but nothing like this. Actually to have been present at a murder scene—it’s the last thing in the world I would have wanted to happen to me.” Even though the opposite was clearly the case, this was spoken with great vehemence. “And the thought that the perpetrator of this awful crime is still at large…well, it’s too, too ghastly even to think about. I mean, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I am positively terrified. I am currently living on my own and I get these appalling fantasies. Suppose the murderer wants to silence all the people who were witnesses to his crime…?”

She left a pause for this awful thought to sink in, thus giving Jude the opportunity to interject, “But you weren’t strictly a witness to the crime, were you?”

“I was a witness to the effects of the crime. I saw the poor girl with that flex around her neck. I tell you, the image of her face is one that I will keep with me to my dying day.”

She attempted to punctuate this line with a dramatic swallow from her gin and tonic glass, but found it to be empty. Jude went up to the bar for refills. Ted Crisp was betting another customer a fiver that he couldn’t say which fingers hairdressers held their scissors in.

When she returned with the drinks, further discussion of Kyra Bartos’s murder was delayed by Sheena saying, “I see you don’t wear a wedding ring, Jude. Have you had trouble with men?”

“Yes, sometimes,” came the even reply. “I have also had more pleasure with men than with anything else in my life.”

“Oh yes, me too,” Sheena hastened to assure her.

“I have known the heights of sexual ecstasy…many, many times. But I have also known the hideous free-fall from that ecstasy…the moments of betrayal…the moment when one realizes one has just been too trusting…that one has once again listened to too many lies. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s the fate which we women are born to.”

This did not coincide exactly with Jude’s view of relationships with men, but she didn’t want to break the growing mood of complicity, so let it pass with a casual “Mmm.”

Which Sheena, of course, took as agreement. “Have you ever been married?”

“Yes,” Jude replied, rightly confident that she would not be asked for any more details. Very few people knew about her marriages—or indeed her divorces. Jude’s soothing company drew confidences from people about their own lives rather than questions about hers. Which suited her well. And so it proved in the current situation. It was her own experiences Sheena wanted to discuss, not anyone else’s.

“Oh, I was married. For twelve years. I thought we loved each other. I thought he loved me. But suddenly, after twelve years, he said he wanted it to end. Now why would he do that?”

‘Emotional exhaustion’ was the answer that offered itself to Jude, but she kept it to herself. Anyway, the question turned out to have been only a rhetorical flourish. “I’ll tell you why he did that. Because he had another woman. For seven of the twelve years we had been together, he had been seeing another woman.

“A stupid girl at his office, hardly out of her teens. She couldn’t offer any of the things I could offer him.”

Like bent ears, thought Jude.

“And he’s now gone and married her—and serve him bloody well right.”

“You don’t know whether they’re happy together?”

Sheena let out a derisive laugh. “I can hardly think they would be. The girl’s total number of brain cells is in single figures.”

“There’s no logic to who gets on with who.”

“There certainly isn’t. Otherwise he’d still be with me. God, the adjustments I’ve had to make in my lifestyle since the divorce!”

“Were you left very hard up?”

“Well, I got a house down here, but it’s not nearly as big as the house we used to live in. Where Miss Pinhead is currently doing her impression of the Lady of the Manor.”

“But have you had to work hard to make ends meet?”

“No, not work as such. But my house has only got four bedrooms, hers has got six. I’m not nearly as well off as she is.”

Jude’s sympathy for the divorcee’s plight was waning. From what she said—and from the clothes she was wearing—she hadn’t done at all badly out of the settlement. Her feelings might not yet have healed, but in material terms she was OK.

Time to move the conversation on. “Going back to that morning in Connie’s Clip Joint—”, Fat chance of getting Sheena off her favourite subject, though. “Since the divorce,” she went on, “I’ve had many attempts to find love again, but they’ve all ended in disappointment. Men are such bastards, why do we love them so much?”

Jude didn’t offer an opinion. She reckoned she’d have to ride out the tide of anti-men hatred before she got back to investigation.

“I mean, this man I was meant to be seeing this weekend…usual thing. We meet, it’s all magical. The sex is just stunning. He’s never met anyone like me. And then it slips out that he’s married. OK, I’ve been there before. But his marriage is a sham, he hasn’t made love to his wife for years. And everything’s so wonderful with me, he never wants to see his wife again. And I say, OK, divorce is a possibility, you know. People do it. I’m living proof that people do it. And he says, yes, great, he’ll talk to his wife. But time passes and he hasn’t got round to talking to her. And then I discover they’ve got children. And, of course, he doesn’t want to hurt his precious children. So I say, well, look, you’ve got to make some choices here, and he says yes he will, because he adores me and he’s never known sex could be like that. And still he doesn’t do anything. But this week he promises he’s going to talk to his wife, and does he? Does he hell? No, instead the bastard rings me and says he still loves me and he can’t wait to be with me, but this weekend, no, sorry he can’t make it. His wife’s ill and he’s got to stay at home with her and look after the children. Huh!”

Jude hoped the pause for breath would be an opportunity to get back to the murder, but Sheena hadn’t finished yet. “And how does that leave me? Washed up on the shore once again, like some piece of rubbish that’s past its sell-by date, He was younger than me, of course. Men of my own age just don’t seem able to keep up with me. And I suppose he was immature. Didn’t know when he was well off. Thought opportunities of being with a woman like me would keep cropping up for him. Huh, he’ll find out. Serves him bloody well right.” Her hand moved instinctively up to the scarf covering her head. “I’ll go to Theo tomorrow. Get a completely new style. I can’t stand the sight of myself in the mirror with this one.”

Jude did the sum. Another restyling so soon after the previous one. If Sheena used a visit to Connie’s Clip Joint to resolve all her emotional crises, it could be an expensive business. Mind you, Jude thought, I’m a fine one to be criticizing, me with my two haircuts in five days. But mine, she reassured herself, were in the cause of investigation.

Still, Sheena had at least brought the subject back to the murder scene. Better grab hold of that before she flitted off again. “The morning Kyra Bartos’s body was found…” Jude began firmly.

“Yes. Oh, it was terrible! I was just sitting there having my hair done when—”

“I do know everything that happened. My friend Carole told me.”

“Carole?” What Jude had said on the phone that morning, her minimal justification for getting in touch, had already been forgotten. Sheena didn’t care about the reason people wanted to talk to her, so long as they did want to talk to her.

“Yes, I’ve heard all the circumstances of what was actually seen, but I was interested in something you said at the time.”

“How do you know what I said. You weren’t there.”

“No, but as I explained, my friend Carole was there and she told me everything that happened.”

“And she actually remembered everything I said?” Sheena was quite impressed.

“She remembered one thing in particular. You said that Kyra Bartos deserved something, but not something as bad as what had happened to her.”

“Did I? I honestly can’t remember. I was in such a terrible state. I mean, I’d left home that morning feeling sort of doomy, like it was going to be a bad day, and suddenly I’m at a murder scene and I’m being interviewed by the police and…Oh, it’s too, too ghastly,” she announced with relish.

“What you said,” Jude persisted, “implied that you knew Kyra.”

“I’d seen her around in the salon. She’d washed my hair a few times.”

“No, that you knew more about her than that.”

“How do you mean?” Either Sheena was very stupid or she was deliberately prevaricating.

“You said ‘Though the poor girl may have deserved something, she didn’t deserve this.’ Now to me that implies that you knew something about the girl’s past, something about her behaviour, which meant that she deserved some kind of punishment.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I didn’t know her well. As I say, she just did my hair. But, you know, you often get chatting to the girls who wash your hair…”

“Yes.”

“And we were talking about men…” I bet I know who was doing most of the talking, thought Jude. “And she was saying that she’d got this boyfriend…”

“Called Nathan Locke.”

“I don’t remember her saying the name at the time, but from what I’ve heard since that must’ve been who she was talking about. Anyway, she said she didn’t know how serious it was and she didn’t want to get involved if it was likely to go pear-shaped. And she didn’t want to raise the boy’s expectations if the relationship wasn’t going to go the distance.”

“That sounds eminently sensible. She didn’t deserve punishment for that.”

“No, I agree. But we’re only talking about what she told me. You may change your mind when I tell you what I heard from another source.” She held her hands dramatically apart, asking Jude to let her pace her own narrative. “Anyway, I said to Kyra at the time that the only real test—or at least the first test of a relationship—has to be: is the sex any good? And do you know—she was amazingly reticent about that. I mean, I thought these kids nowadays were screwing everything in sight from the first flicker of puberty, but you wouldn’t have believed it from the prim way that girl Kyra talked about sex.”

“Again, nothing wrong with that.”

“Jude, will you please let me tell the story my way!”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Sheena was not a woman used to being crossed. Maybe another reason why her relationships with men hadn’t worked out.

“All right, that was how Kyra talked to me, playing the little, shy, butter-wouldn’t-melt-between-her-legs girl. I heard a rather different story from Theo.”

“Oh?”

“Well, she was actually out of the salon when he was doing my hair—I was trying strawberry blonde that time—and he said that young Kyra was ‘a right little cock-teaser’.”

“Did he?”

“Yes. Which was quite strong language from Theo. He usually hasn’t got a harsh word to say about anyone. But he said Kyra was leading this poor boyfriend of hers a terrible dance. You know, blowing hot and cold—ooh, unfortunate turn of phrase there perhaps. Theo said the boy was a really nice boy—yes, Nathan, he did mention the name Nathan—and that he deserved better than being messed around by ‘a right little cock-teaser’.”

She seemed to relish repeating the phrase, and her penetrating whisper of it had prompted some uncomfortable reactions from worthy Fethering pensioners enjoying a Sunday drink at adjacent tables.

“So Theo knew Nathan?”

“Well, he’d at least talked to him. I can’t think that Kyra was going to describe herself as ‘a right little cock-teaser’.” The whisper was even louder this time. Old men cleared their throats and tried to avoid the eyes of their wives. “No, Theo clearly felt sorry for Nathan. He said it was awful how a good-looking boy like that could be messed around by some little…” The old men froze in anticipation, but in fact Sheena contented herself with ‘…tart.’

“Hmm.” This did open up a new dimension. Jude was more inclined to accept Kyra’s own presentation of herself, as a young girl confused by her first love affair, than the alternative description reported by Sheena. But why should Theo be so violently anti the salon junior? Unless, of course, she was monopolizing the attention of the young man who he himself had his eye on…? It was a thought.

Jude didn’t really think she was going to get a lot more useful information out of Sheena, and she was right. But that realization did not allow her to escape another hour of the woman’s self-dramatizing moaning. And keeping pace with Sheena’s drinking meant that she left the Crown and Anchor with an annoying and unnecessary headache.

As she walked back via the beach to get some air, Jude reflected that she couldn’t have asked for a more indiscreet witness. Anything that Sheena knew about the case—however confidential—she would have been happy to blurt out. The trouble was that she didn’t know very much.

Still, the thought she had inadvertently planted about Theo having an interest in Nathan…that would be worth following up.

“Hello. Is that Carole Seddon?” The voice was male and unfamiliar. It had a light, almost joshing quality, but with an undercurrent of tension.

She confirmed her identity. It was about ten o’clock on the Monday morning. She had just had a very relieved call from Stephen. Gaby had spent a restful night. There had been no more bleeding and the baby was still moving as it should be. The only small cloud on his sunny horizon was that there were some worries about her blood pressure. The consultant wanted to keep her in for another twenty-four hours.

The news had come as a relief to Carole too, but after she had put the phone down, she felt restless. The day stretched ahead of her without enough to fill it. A bit of housework, a light lunch with the Times crossword, another walk with Gulliver. She was a woman who needed things to fill her time. Even after all these years, she missed the imperative of setting off every morning to her job at the Home Office. She didn’t dare, hope that the arrival of her grandchild would give her much more to do. In spite of their oft-stated intentions to move to West Sussex, Stephen and Gaby still lived in London. Carole couldn’t see herself being used by them for childcare on a frequent basis. When Gaby went back to work at her theatrical agency, they’d get a nanny or a childminder. Which would of course be a blessing. Carole didn’t reckon her grandmaternal skills would turn out to be much more instinctive than her maternal skills had been. So her life would remain empty.