“This is my nine o’clock. Carole Seddon. First time she’s been here.”
“Really? I’m Theo.” He gave a little wave; she couldn’t have shaken his hand from under the robe, anyway. “But you do look awfully familiar, Carole.”
“I live right here in Fethering. Just along the High Street.”
“Oh, then I must have seen you around.” A hand flew up to his mouth in mock-amazement. “With a dog! Yes, I’ve seen you with a dog. Lovely big Labby.”
“He’s called Gulliver.”
“Ooh, I’m such a dog person. I’ve got a little Westie called Priscilla.”
“Ah.”
“Connie’s into cats, aren’t you, love. I can never see the point of cats. Nasty, self-obsessed, spiteful little beasts.”
“Takes one to know one,” riposted Connie.
“Ooh, you bitch!”
Their badinage was a well-practised routine, insults batted back and forth without a vestige of malice. Carole Seddon got the feeling that for regulars it was as much a part of the Connie’s Clip Joint ambience as the Abba soundtrack.
Theo looked around the salon. “Where’s the human pincushion?”
“Late. She’d got the spare set of keys and was meant to open up at eight forty-five. No sign of her.”
“Probably stayed in bed for naughties with that young boyfriend of hers. And actually…” he raised an eyebrow towards his boss’s mirror image “…you look as if you might have been doing something similar.”
His insinuation prompted a rather sharper response. “Don’t be ridiculous!” Embarrassed by her own outburst, Connie looked at her watch. “I don’t know what she’s doing, but when she does finally deign to arrive, I may have a thing or two to say to Miss Kyra Bartos.”
Theo slapped his hands to his face in a parody of Munch’s
“Just as I’ve had to do with my nine o’clock.”
“Yes.” Theo grinned in the mirror at Carole. “I hope you’re appreciative of the quality of service you’re getting.” And he flounced off to hang up his leather jacket.
Carole caught Connie’s eye and mouthed, “What did he mean about ‘the human pincushion’?”
“Ah. Young Kyra’s taste for body piercing. It seems to be her ambition to get more perforations than a tea bag.” Another peeved look at her watch. “Where is the bloody girl? I’ll ring her when I’ve finished with you. Now do you want the cut slightly layered?”
“No,” Carole countered doggedly. “I want it the same shape, but shorter.”
“Right.” Whatever reservations Connie might have had to this conservative approach, she kept them to herself, and started cutting.
At that moment Theo’s nine-thirty skulked into the salon. In spite of the mild September day, she wore a raincoat with the collar turned up, a headscarf and dark glasses.
“Sheeeeeena!” Theo emoted. “Sheena, my love, how gorgeous to see you.”
“Not gorgeous at all, Theo darling,” his client drawled. “That’s why I’m here. Morning, Connie,” she said as Theo removed her coat.
“Morning, Sheena. This is Carole.”
“Hi. I tell you, Theo, I just need the most total makeover since records began. When I looked at myself in the mirror this morning…well, it took great strength of will not to top myself on the spot.”
“Oh, come on,” Theo wheedled, “we’ll soon have you looking your beautiful self again. Now let’s take off that scarf and those glasses.”
“No, no. I’m just not fit to be seen!”
“You’re amongst friends here, Sheena darling. Nobody’ll breathe a word about what you looked like
Though rather unwilling to pander to the woman’s vanity, Carole agreed that she wouldn’t.
“And when we get to
“Oh, Theo, you’re so full of nonsense.” But it was clearly nonsense his client liked.
After further dramatic delays, Sheena was finally settled into the chair, and there followed the great ceremony of removing her scarf and glasses. Carole, squinting at an angle into the adjacent mirror, wondered what horrors were about to be unveiled. What optical disfigurement lay behind the glasses? What trichological disaster beneath the scarf?
After the build-up, the revelation was a bit of a disappointment. Sheena was a perfectly attractive woman in her late forties – and, what’s more, one whose blonded hair appeared to have been cut quite recently.
But she had set up her scenario, and was not going to be deterred from playing it out. “There, Theo. Now that’s going to be a challenge, even for you, isn’t it?”
Her stylist, who must have been through the same scene many times before, knew his lines. “Don’t worry, darling. Remember, Theo is a miracle worker. So what are we going to do?”
“We are going to make me so attractive, Theo, that I become a positive man-magnet.”
“Too easy. You’re a man-magnet already.”
“I wish, I don’t understand.” Sheena let out a long sigh. “There just don’t seem to be any men in Fethering.”
“Ooh, I wouldn’t say that,” he said coyly.
“Are you saying you’ve taken them all, Theo? I bet you never have any problem finding men.”
The stylist let out an enigmatic, silvery laugh.
Throughout Carole’s haircut, this archness continued. Connie, who had tried commendably hard to keep conversation going with her client, eventually gave up and joined in the false brightness of Sheena and Theo. Carole found it quite wearing. A little too lively for her taste. She wasn’t sure whether Connie’s Clip Joint was going to be a long-term replacement for Graham and the anonymous salon in Worthing.
On the other hand, Connie did cut hair very well. Though keeping within Carole’s minimal guidelines, she had somehow managed to give a freshness to her client’s traditional style. With glasses restored, Carole couldn’t help admiring the result she saw in the mirror.
“Excuse me for a moment,” said Connie, “I must just ring Kyra and find out what on earth’s happened to her. Now, I’ve got her mobile number somewhere.” She crossed to the cash register table and started shuffling through papers.
Carole felt awkward about the business of paying. When booking the appointment, she hadn’t asked how much it would cost and now she was worried it might have been very expensive. Prices varied so much. And then there was the big challenge of tipping. Should she tip and, if so, how much? She’d never tipped Graham – that had been an accepted feature of their austere relationship – but she was in a new salon now and she wasn’t sure of the protocol.
Connie listened impatiently to the phone. “Well, she’s not answering.”
She was poised to end the call, when suddenly they were all aware of a new noise, cutting through the harmonies of Abba. The insistent jangle of a phone ringing.
Carole and Connie exchanged looks. The hairdresser huffed in exasperation, “Oh, don’t say the bloody girl’s left her mobile here.”
As Connie moved towards the source of the sound, Carole, curiosity overcoming her natural reticence, found herself following.
A door led through to the back area, storeroom, kitchenette and lavatory. As Connie opened it, there was a smell of stale alcohol and cigarette smoke. Beer cans and a vodka bottle on its side lay on a low table. On the work surface beside the sink stood a vase containing twelve red roses.
But it wasn’t those that prompted the involuntary scream from Connie’s lips. It was what she could see – and Carole could see over her shoulder – slumped in a chair over which loomed the dome of a spare dryer.
The girl’s clothes were torn. There were scratches on her metal-studded face.
And, tight as a garrotte, around the neck of her slumped body was the lead from the unplugged dryer.
