? Death under the Dryer ?
Fifteen
“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.
Her sleuthing with Jude had helped to fill the void from time to time, but on their current case they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Once again she wished she was privy to what the police were doing, what was going on at the Major Crime Unit in Littlehampton, how far their enquiries had progressed. She felt isolated in the austere and sensible comfort of High Tor.
“My name,” said the voice on the phone, “is Martin Rutherford.”
“Ah.” That he should be calling was so unexpected that the monosyllable came out almost as a gasp. Still, she could no longer complain that nothing was happening on the case.
“I’m the ex-husband of – ”
“I know who you are.”
“I’m sorry to ring you out of the blue, but I hear that you saw me yesterday morning coming out of the back of Connie’s Clip Joint.”
“Yes.” So Connie had done her stuff. The police had already been in touch with him.
“Listen, I’m calling from the salon and it’s rather difficult to talk.”
“Maybe we could meet?” Carole wasn’t going to let slip any opportunity to pursue the investigation.
“I’d like that.” He sounded relieved. He must have been anticipating resistance. Little did he know how welcome his call had been.
She suggested meeting in the Crown and Anchor, but he didn’t have time that day to come so far. If she wouldn’t mind coming to see him…There was a Gaffe Nero just along the road from Martin & Martina.
Carole readily assented and, pausing only to tell her neighbour of this new development, set off for Worthing in her neat little Renault.
¦
Martin Rutherford was again wearing a charcoal linen suit – maybe it was a kind of Martin & Martina livery – but today’s shirt was very pale blue. He carried himself with a certain poise, though Carole could tell he was nervous. The fact that he’d arrived early for their eleven o’clock rendezvous was an indication of that, as well as the slight shake of his hand as he brought her cappuccino across to their table.
He got straight down to business. “I gather you had the misfortune to be there when the poor kid’s body was discovered, Mrs Seddon.”
“Yes, I did. And please call me Carole.”
“Thank you.” That seemed to relax him a little. He’d been expecting a more adversarial attitude. “It must have been terrible for you. And for Connie too, of course,” he added, concern for his ex-wife apparently an afterthought.
Carole didn’t say anything. As he was the one who had made contact, he must have some kind of agenda. She waited to hear what it was.
“And you saw me yesterday morning.”
“Yes. I had been taking my dog for a walk.”
He smiled wryly. “Early risers in Fethering.” He paused hefore asking, “Did you inform the police?”
“No. My friend Jude told Connie ahout it, and Connie said she would tell the police. Mind you, it could have been me who passed on the information. The detectives did ask me to keep them informed of anything I discovered that might have relevance to the murder case.”
He gave a rueful nod. “Yes, of course. And you would have been absolutely right to do so. Though, as it happens, what I was doing at Connie’s Clip Joint had nothing to do with the murder case.”
“I’m sorry. I could only react to what I saw, and I’m afraid to me it seemed suspicious. I know the state of affairs between you and Connie since the divorce.”
“Do you?” He looked surprised.
“Yes, she talked to me while she was doing my hair. She talked to my friend Jude as well. It sounded as though you are still very much in conflict…”
“Well…”
“…so I couldn’t imagine that you’d been at the salon to meet her…even assuming that she’d have been there on a Sunday morning.”
“No. All right. I take your point.” He looked relieved, as though he’d been expecting her to say something worse.
“So if you weren’t there with Connie’s knowledge, and since I assume you don’t still have any legal rights in the property…well, I came to the conclusion that you couldn’t have been there for any legitimate reason.”
“You’re a very logical woman, Carole.”
“I like to think so.”
“All right. I’ll tell you why I was there.” And he did. He confirmed exactly the conjecture that Jude had spelled out to his ex-wife the day before. Kyra Bartos’s departure from the Worthing Martin & Martina salon had followed her resistance to his advances. He tried to make light of what had happened. “It was only in fun. Just jokey chatting-up, the kind of thing that goes on in the salon all the time, you know between the men and the girls.”
Carole sat stone-faced during his attempt to laugh it off and, embarrassed, he continued his explanation. Kyra, he said, did not have much of a sense of humour and she took his playfulness more seriously than he had intended. So yes, there had been a bit of awkwardness about her leaving. And though, on one of the rare occasions when he’d spoken to Connie, she’d said something about the girl contemplating legal action, he’d never taken it seriously…until he’d heard what Jude had to say to him in Martin & Martina on the Saturday morning.
“That made me think there was a real threat, and so I thought it was just possible that, if Kyra had actually got any information together or approached a solicitor or something, there might be a record of it left at Connie’s Clip Joint. I knew she had a fairly tense relationship with her father, so she was more likely to have kept that kind of documentation at the salon than at home.”
He looked pleadingly up at Carole, offering himself to her judgement. “So that’s why I was there yesterday morning. I wasn’t thinking very rationally. I just got it into my head that it was worth trying. If the police had found anything which suggested Kyra was contemplating legal action against me…well, suddenly that would put me in the frame with a motive to do away with the girl.”
“Yes,” Carole agreed implacably.
“Which, for anyone who knows me, is an absolutely daft idea. If there’s any criticism ever made of me, it’s that I’m a bit soft. I haven’t got it in me to hurt anyone. It would just go against all my instincts.”
“Hmm. Did your wife not think it was odd, you going off early yesterday morning?”
“She would have done, I’m sure. I always give her exact details of where I’m going at any time. It’s necessary when you’re running a business together. But she’s away this weekend. Her mother lives in Prague and she’s not well…dying in fact, so Martina flies over there roughly once a month. She got a flight on Saturday afternoon and she’s coming back tomorrow.”
