Fethering 08 (2007) - Death under the Dryer (30 page)

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.

R
owiey Locke had been just as shocked as Carole by the sudden change in his brother’s manner. “Arnold, what are you saying?”

“I am saying that that girl Kyra was not worthy of Nathan. We can’t allow anyone into the Locke family who thinks that the Wheal Quest is funny. That girl would only have been a disruptive influence.”

Rowley now looked positively worried. “I agree, it’s a family thing, and it should be kept within the family.” And then he said something so out of keeping with his usual attitude that it showed the extent of his anxiety. “But we shouldn’t take it too seriously. The Wheal Quest is only a game.”

“No, it’s more than that! It’s a philosophy, it’s a life system!” The sudden vehemence with which Arnold spoke drew disturbed glances from people at adjacent tables. The serenity of Fethering Beach on a September afternoon was rarely broken by shouting.

But if the geriatric onlookers had been shocked by Arnold’s outburst, they were about to get more free entertainment. Before he could say more, the group at Carole’s table was joined by a fast-striding Bridget Locke, with an embarrassed Eithne in her wake.

“Rowley! What the hell have you been doing?”

He quailed visibly under his wife’s onslaught and asked feebly, “What are you talking about?”

“You know bloody well what I’m talking about! What you did to Nathan.”

“I did it for his own good. I was trying to protect him.”

“Rowley, that is so much crap! I can’t believe that you didn’t tell me what you’d done. I’ve spent the past three weeks worried sick about the boy, when you could have put my mind at rest at any moment by telling me where Nathan was.”

“But I thought if you knew, you’d have told the police.”

“Too bloody right I would.”

“Bridget, if the police had got hold of him, God knows what would have happened. Our fine boys in blue are not—”

“Oh, shut up, Rowley! You sound like a record whose needle’s stuck. I’ve had enough of your right-on Guardian-reading claptrap to last me a lifetime!” (Carole was rather enjoying this conversation. What a very sensible woman Bridget Locke was. She thought exactly like Carole did.) “You weren’t thinking about Nathan at all! I wonder if you’ve ever thought about anyone else apart from yourself, except to see if you can make an anagram out of their name. As ever, with Nathan in trouble, your first thought was about you. A Locke family crisis? Someone’s got to take control here. And, because the rest of the family are so bloody pusillanimous, it had to be you, didn’t it? He’s only your nephew, not your son, but it’s still got to be you who comes to the rescue. Don’t worry, Rowley can sort everything out! Here comes the hero, galloping up on his white charger.”

“And then what did you do? What was your solution to the crisis? You made it all part of a game. Yes, the bloody Wheal Quest. And you took advantage of your vulnerable daughter Mopsa and made her play along with your stupid, sub-Tolkien fantasy. And you never for one moment thought of what you might be doing to Nathan!”

Bridget Locke paused for breath. Her geriatric audience settled in their seats, and took another sip of tea in anticipation of Act Two.

“How do you know all this?” Rowley managed to ask.

“I know because the police rang the house to tell me that they were questioning Nathan. Because he’s a juvenile, they wanted a family member there.” She turned the beam of her displeasure on the shrinking Eithne. “And apparently I was the one who he wanted to be there with him.”

“But surely you should be at work?”

“Yes, Rowley, it’s a Friday. I should be at work. But some things are more important than work. Listen, that call I had from the police was the first I knew that the poor boy was still alive. So, since I couldn’t get hold of you anywhere, after I’d been to the police station to see Nathan, I went straight round to Eithne’s, and made her tell me what the hell had been going on.”

Arnold’s wife appealed apologetically to the two brothers. “I’m sorry. You know what she’s like when she gets forceful.” She still looked to Carole like Mrs Bun the Baker’s Wife, but the game was no longer Happy Families.

“Anyway,” Bridget steamed on, “the police are extremely interested in talking to you, Rowley. I’m sure they won’t have any problem finding you, but you might make things easier by turning yourself in.”

“What do you mean, ‘turning myself in’?” he asked petulantly. “I haven’t committed any crime.”

“No? I think the police could probably think of a few. ‘Perverting the Course of Justice’…? I don’t know the proper terms, but I’m sure there’s one called ‘Abduction of a Juvenile’. And there’s certainly ‘Unlawful Imprisonment’.”

“For heaven’s sake, Bridget! These weren’t crimes. They were all in the family.”

“God, Rowley, that sums you up, doesn’t it? “All in the family.” Everything’s all right so long as it’s kept within the magic circle of the Lockes. That’s always been your escape. When you fail publicly, when you lose a job…never mind, because you’re still a little god within the family. And everyone in the family does as you say. I’ve even done it myself. Pretended to have a bad back, so that you can find out if some woman’s snooping on you. But that’s always been your approach. Never mind your inadequacies in the real world—in the Wheal Quest you are still a hero. Rowley, if you only knew how bloody pathetic you are!”

He rose from his chair with an attempt at dignity. “I’m not going to stay here to be insulted.”

“Fine. Go to the police. Let them start insulting you instead.”

“That kind of remark is not worth responding to. Come on, we’re going.”

Arnold rose obediently to his feet and crossed to his wife, who had yet to sit down. Rowley joined them, then looked back at Bridget. “Are you coming?”

“No. Certainly not now. And I’ll have to think about whether I ever come back.”

He did not respond to that, but led his acolytes back across the sand towards the front. The animated language of his back-view showed that he was telling Eithne off for her betrayal of Locke confidentiality. And Arnold was joining in the castigation.

Exhausted, Bridget dropped into a seat next to Carole. “Sorry about all that. I was just bloody furious. Letting off the steam of a good few years, I’m afraid.”

Realizing the climax of the play had passed, Fethering’s elderly matinee-goers returned once more to their tea and cakes.

“Yes.” Now the others had gone, Carole felt awkward. The dissection of the Lockes’ family life—and indeed marriage—had been rather public. She didn’t quite know where the conversation should move next. Jude, she knew, would instinctively have found the right direction.

Still, there was always one safe English fallback. “Would you like me to get you a cup of tea?”