The Fethering Mysteries 08; Death under the Dryer

the mirror here.”

The image did not match the picture of the woman that had formed in Jude’s mind. Connie had her standards as the owner of the salon; she wouldn’t do her make-up in the mirror when she had a client present. She didn’t say anything, but Connie seemed to feel she needed further self-justification. “I just got delayed that morning, that’s all.”

“Do you remember what delayed you?”

“The fact that my alarm clock didn’t ring. With the result that I overslept.” Jude’s welcome was in danger of being outstayed. “Now, I really do have things to do…”

“Of course. Thanks for the coffee. See you.” As she walked back to Woodside Cottage, Jude felt certain that, whatever had delayed the owner from reaching Connie’s Clip Joint on the morning after Kyra Bartos’s murder, it wasn’t just that she’d overslept.

? Death under the Dryer ?

Eighteen

“But would you do that, Carole?”

“I’m not sure that I’m the best person to ask. I’m not one of those women who cakes herself in make-up every time I leave the house.”

“I know you’re not. But you always look smart when you go out, don’t you?”

Carole wasn’t sure whether or not what Jude had just said was a compliment. She hadn’t had much practice with compliments and did not receive them naturally. “I don’t know,” she conceded. “I certainly don’t like to look a mess.”

“No, none of us do. It’s a feminine instinct. You check you look OK before you leave the house.”

Surely you don’t, Carole was tempted to ask. Jude always looked as though her hair and her clothes had just been thrown together on a whim. But maybe she had to work at that look just as carefully as Carole had to check that the belt of her Burberry wasn’t twisted. Anyway, it certainly did the business for Jude. Wherever she went, men drooled.

“Well,” she went on, “imagine how much stronger that instinct must be for someone in what in the broadest sense can be called the ‘beauty industry’. Connie Rutherford has to be a walking advertisement for what she’s selling. If she looks a mess, she’s going to discourage customers to Connie’s Clip Joint. So we come back to the same point: what made her late that Thursday morning?”

“She didn’t give you any answer?”

“Not a detailed one. Just that she’d overslept. I’m afraid once she noticed that I’d had my hair cut somewhere else, I ceased to be a welcome guest. I don’t think I’m going to get a lot more information out of her now.”

“Perhaps it’s as well that I didn’t come in with you then. At least she doesn’t have anything against me.”

“Except that you’re a friend of mine.”

“Maybe.”

“And a fellow lover of organic vegetables.”

“I only bought these as an experiment. To see if they taste any different.” This was said very sniffily. Carole had low expectations for the results of her taste test.

“I was only teasing.”

“Oh.” From schooldays onwards, Carole had never been very good at recognizing when she was being teased.

“There’s another thing, though, Carole…”

“What?”

“Well, OK, let’s say Connie does sometimes leave the house in a hurry in the morning…for whatever reason…one of her car crash encounters with a man perhaps…and so she gets to the salon and she hasn’t done her hair or make-up…”

“Like on that Thursday?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she couldn’t do her make-up then, because I was waiting to have my hair washed and cut.”

“But I’m sure if all had gone to plan…if Kyra had opened the salon at eight forty-five as she was meant to and had already been washing your hair when her boss arrived straight from bed…there’s no way Connie would have done her make-up in the mirror where you could see her.”

“No, I’m sure she wouldn’t.”

“So she would have put on her war paint in the back room. She virtually said that to me. She said she’d ‘go through’ – and then she stopped herself and said she’d do it in the mirror at the front.”

“Except that morning she couldn’t do what she’d normally do, because I was already there waiting for my appointment.”

“Exactly.” Jude had a hand up in the bird’s nest of hair and was tapping her skull reflectively. “Every time I’ve gone into that salon, the first thing Connie’s done is to offer me a cup of coffee. Did she offer you coffee that morning?”

“No, she didn’t. I wouldn’t have accepted it, because she was already late and it would have just taken more time and – ”

“Are you sure she didn’t offer you any coffee?”

“Yes. I remember thinking it was quite odd. Because it sounded as though she was about to offer me something…and then she stopped…”

“Hmm. You know what the reason for that could be?”

“No.”

“The coffee machine’s in the back room. It’s possible that Connie didn’t offer you coffee because she didn’t want to go into the back room…because she knew there was something she didn’t want you to see back there.”

¦

The following morning, the Tuesday, Jude was on the way down the High Street for a walk on the beach when she saw someone she recognized. Sitting in a parked car, looking patiently out towards the sea, was Wally Grenston. The day was warm and his window was down, so she greeted him as she passed.

After the customary pleasantries, she said, “So Mim’s let you out on your own, has she?”

The grizzled head turned nervously at the suggestion and nodded towards the building outside which he was parked. “She’s in at the chiropodist. A martyr to her feet, Mim. I tell her it’s down to all those ridiculous stiletto things she wore when she was a singer. If God had intended women to walk like that He’d have put prongs on their heels. You don’t go for shoes like that, do you?”

Jude laughed and lifted up one brown sandaled foot.

“Very sensible. If Mim’d worn shoes like that all her life, she wouldn’t have her current trouble.”

“I haven’t worn shoes like this all my life, Wally. I’ve had my time in stilettos.”

“Well, clearly not as much time as Mim.” Again he looked with some anxiety at the chiropodist’s door, but he was all right. She hadn’t come out yet. “And are you still doing the amateur sleuthing, Jude?”

“Still trying to work out how Kyra Bartos died, yes.”

He nodded, mulling over an idea, then said, “I had a call from her father yesterday.”

“Joe?”

“Jiri, yes. There is a meeting of the Czech Club in Brighton tomorrow night. He asked me if I was going.”

“You mean he is?”

He caught the eagerness in her voice. “Yes, he is going. And no, Jude, there is no chance that you could go there too to meet him. The club is Members Only.”

“Ah,” she said, disappointed. “And what do you do when you’re there?”

“We sit and drink.” He smiled fondly. “Some drink beer, some slivovitz. I drink Becherovka. And we talk about times…” There was a catch in his voice. “…about times that will never come back.”