really a singing voice, but which could still find the right weight and value of each word, he sang:
The song spiralled away in a little tinkling of notes.
“Did you write that, Wally?”
“Of course. And Mim sang it. A minor hit. I don’t think it would get far now on
“It’s a beautiful tune.”
“Oh yes, of course. All my tunes are beautiful.”
“And sad.”
“All my tunes are sad.” He was silent for a moment, then firmly closed the lid of the white piano and came back to sit opposite her. “So, what do you really want to know about Jiri Bartos?” He looked at his large old gold wristwatch. “We must be quick. I am about to lose my…” he smiled, “…window of opportunity.”
“I really want to know about his relationship with his daughter. Someone suggested that he was quite a difficult father.”
“Difficult…? Strong…?” The old man opened out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Perhaps they are different words for the same thing. Jiri, like most of my generation who come from Czechoslovakia, has quite a long history. He is an old man, older even than me. He was married when he lived in Czechoslovakia, with children I think. Then the war came and I do not know what happened. He never talks about such things, but when he came to England, he was alone. His first family…” Wally gave an expressively hopeless shrug. “So he was old, seventy perhaps, when he married again. To an English girl…well, I say ‘girl’, but she was no chicken either…Young enough, though, to give him a child. A little girl, Krystina.”
“So ‘Kyra’ was…?”
“Yes. The young always want to reinvent themselves, don’t they? New names, new clothes, new body- piercings…”
He sounded contemptuous, so Jude said, in mitigation, “They’re only trying to find their own identities.”
“Of course. And that is something that people like Jiri and me understand all too well. ‘Grenston’ – do you think that is my real name? I think ‘Grunstein’ might be closer to the mark. But who cares? What is a change of name if you feel happier with the result, if you fit in better because of the result? We all find our own ways of survival.” He looked thoughtful, but a glimpse at his watch brought him out of introspection. “Anyway, ‘Krystina’ is a good Czech name. ‘Kyra’…I don’t know where ‘Kyra’ comes from. The girl only changed her name to annoy her father.”
“It was an adversarial relationship, was it then?”
“It was not an easy relationship. But for reasons that came from outside, the pressure of events. Krystina’s mother died when the girl was only twelve. Breast cancer. Not an easy time for a child to lose a parent. So she was left with Jiri, who was…not the most natural person to look after a teenage girl.”
“Was he cruel to her?”
“Not deliberately. He did the best he could, did what was right according to his view of things. But his view of things was…I suppose you would say old–fashioned. Children, he felt, should always be on their best behaviour, always respectful to their parents. He didn’t encourage his daughter to make friends. I don’t think she ever invited anyone from school back to the house. And, of course, Jiri had no domestic skills, so after his wife died, Krystina was expected to do everything about the house. He did not want her to leave him. He could not manage without her.”
“Are you saying that in the emotional sense?”
“Jiri would deny it. He would say he only needed the girl to act as housekeeper for him. But Jiri was never one to wear his heart on his sleeve. To show his emotions costs him more than he is prepared to pay.”
“So presumably…a man like that…he would not have found it easy when his daughter started to lead a life of her own…when she got a job…when she got a boyfriend…?”
Wally Grenston shrugged. “I would not have thought so, but I don’t know for sure. Jiri Bartos is an acquaintance, not a close friend. He doesn’t unburden his feelings to me. Mind you, I don’t imagine he unburdens his feelings to anyone.”
“Do you think he’d agree to talk to me?”
The old musician’s mouth narrowed doubtfully. “It depends what you were offering him. Maybe, if you had some information that would tell him how his daughter came to die…? I don’t know. I cannot speak for him.”
“But do you have his phone number?”
“It is in the local phone book. There is no secrecy about where he lives.”
“No.”
Wally Grenston looked uneasily at his watch. Jude realized her window of opportunity was closing. She thanked him for talking to her, and said she must leave.
“Yes. I am sorry it cannot be for longer. I would like to play you some other tunes. I always like playing tunes for a beautiful lady.” But even as he spoke the words of flirtation, he looked worried. From seeing the two of them in Connie’s Clip Joint, Jude had got the impression that Wally wasn’t genuinely henpecked, that his subservient behaviour to Mim was part of a public double act. But his current anxiety made her question that assumption. Maybe he really was afraid of his wife.
Still he kept up his facade of roguish gallantry. “It is a pity that you do not wear make-up, that you could not have left the tell-tale trace on the coffee cup…”
Jude grinned at him and, reaching down into the bottom of her capacious African straw basket, produced a battered lipstick. She painted her lips, and then deliberately picked up her cup and pretended to drink. A very satisfactory smudge of pink appeared on the gold rim of the china.
Wally smiled, absolutely delighted. “Oh, that is good, very good.” But his eyes could not stay long away from his watch. “I think perhaps though, the time has come…”
“Of course.”
“Would you mind,” he asked nervously, “going down the back way, through the garden? There is a gate at the end that only opens from this side. It leads directly on to the beach path.”
“No, that’s fine. It’s a nicer walk back.”
So that was the route by which she left, clandestinely, like a spy or a lover. When she reached the gate to the beach, Jude looked back. She could see the huge wide window of the sitting room. Next to it was a smaller one, clearly belonging to the kitchen. In front of this, Wally Grenston, unaware of her scrutiny, was carefully washing both coffee cups.
? Death under the Dryer ?
Eight
Jude looked up Jiri Bartos’s number as soon as she got back to Woodside Cottage. She rang it straight away and he answered. But before she had finished saying, “Mr Bartos, I wanted to talk to you about your daughter,” he had put the phone down.
¦
Carole and Jude had agreed to meet for lunch in the Crown and Anchor that Thursday. They both ordered Ted Crisp’s recommendation of Local Pork and Leek Sausages with Mash and Onion Gravy and, while they waited for
