“I hope you don’t mind if I close the door,” said Theo. “I’m not sure what it is you suspect me of, but I don’t in fact have any intention of either raping or murdering you.”
His words so closely matched the anxieties running through her head that Carole found herself blushing. Theo indicated an armchair for her and sat down opposite, his bright brown eyes fixed on her pale blue ones. She looked away. She got the unpleasant sensation that he was enjoying her discomfiture.
“So…what’s this all about? You following me two days running? With your chubby friend yesterday…when I managed to give you the slip…and today on your own? As they say in the worst kind of thrillers – what’s your game?”
Carole decided to brazen it out. “I’ve been following you because I think you have a guilty secret.”
His hands flew up to his mouth in a theatrical gesture of shock. For the first time that afternoon, she saw some of the high campness he had demonstrated in Connie’s Clip Joint. “I heard you used to be a civil servant. Don’t tell me you’re from the Inland Revenue.”
“No, I’m not.”
He did an equally elaborate impression of relief. “Thank God for that. If you had been, then I might have had to admit to the odd guilty secret, but then I regard it as a point of honour to deceive the taxman in any way possible. If it’s not tax, though…” he spread his hands wide in a display of innocence, “…my conscience is clear.”
“It’s nothing to do with tax.” Having started on a course of confrontation, she had to continue. “It’s to do with the murder of Kyra Bartos.”
“Ah.” The small brown eyes narrowed. “I might have guessed. In a hotbed of gossip like Fethering, I’m sure there are quite a lot of busybodies who have their crackpot theories about that. Yes, I suppose every second pensioner over there sees herself as the reincarnation of Miss Marple.”
Carole’s first instinct was to be affronted, until she realized that ‘pensioner’ was in fact an entirely accurate definition of her status. She tried being a little less combative. “All right. Everyone is gossiping about the case, I agree. And everyone is making wild conjectures about all the people involved with Connie’s Clip Joint…”
“Thank you for the ‘wild conjectures’. The use of the expression displays remarkable self-knowledge.”
“So,” she persevered, “it therefore does become of interest when one of those people turns out to have a guilty secret.”
Theo looked puzzled. “But I thought we’d established that, apart from a little finessing on my tax returns…” Light dawned. “Ah. You are referring to my habit of changing cars at Yeomansdyke…”
“Not just cars. Changing personalities too, I’d say.”
She didn’t know how he was going to react to this, and was surprised to see him laugh. “Well, I can assure you it’s quite legitimate. My membership at Yeomansdyke is fully up to date. And I have special permission to park a car there overnight. I drive to the hotel in the morning, do a work-out in the gym, and then drive on to be a stylist at Connie’s Clip Joint. Anything wrong with that?”
“You change clothes.”
“And when you were employed as a civil servant, Carole, didn’t you quite frequently change out of your work clothes at the end of the day?”
“Maybe. But I didn’t change cars. Changing clothes and cars suggests very definitely to me that you have something to hide.”
“Perhaps.” But the accusation still seemed to amuse rather than annoy him. “Before we go into that…in your Miss Marple role…” Carole found herself blushing again. “In that role, where do you see me fitting into…‘The Case of Kyra Bartos’?”
She didn’t enjoy being sent up and came back with some vigour, “I see you as a murder suspect.”
“Do you?” This amused him even more.
“Yes, I do. And quite a strong suspect too.”
“I see. And would you be generous enough to tell me why?”
“Very well. First, you work at Connie’s Clip Joint, which was the scene of the crime…”
He slapped the back of his hand on his forehead in a ‘Foiled again!’ gesture. “How on earth did you work that out?”
Carole wasn’t to be deterred. “What’s more you presumably have keys to the place, so you could get in and out at any time of the day and night…”
“That too I can’t deny. God, where did you learn to be so devilishly clever?”
“What is more,” Carole pressed on, “you had a very strong feeling of dislike for Kyra Bartos.”
“Did I? And where did that come from?”
“It arose, because she was the one who had got Nathan Locke to fall in love with her, and you loved him.”
Her previous statements had tickled his sense of humour, but this one reduced him to uncontrollable hysterics. Carole sat rigidly still and deeply embarrassed until the paroxysms died down.
“Oh, that is wonderful!” said Theo, wiping the tears from his eyes. “That is so brilliant! Thank you, Carole. We all need a good laugh, and that is the funniest thing anyone has said to me for years and years. “I killed Kyra because she had stolen the affections of the man I love…” Too wonderful.” Relishing the idea brought on another spasm of laughter.
When the last ripples had died down, Carole said, “I don’t know that it’s such a ridiculous idea. I’ve seen photographs of Nathan – he’s a very attractive young man. Just the sort who would appeal to a…” she couldn’t bring herself to say ‘gay man’ “…to a homosexual.”
“A homosexual like me, you mean? How many gays – how many homosexuals do you actually know, Carole?”
“Erm…” Her knowledge wasn’t that extensive. There were one or two men in Fethering who everyone said were, but she didn’t actually know any of them to speak to. “There were quite a few in the Home Office,” she concluded lamely.
“I’m sure there were. And were they homosexuals just like me?”
“Well…”
Her answer was interrupted by the sound of a key in the front door. As soon as it opened, a tornado of two small children and a large Old English Sheepdog thundered into the sitting room and wrapped itself around Theo. Behind them, closing the door, stood a tall slender woman with long black hair. She moved forward and, picking her way between children and dog, planted a large kiss on Theo’s lips.
“You haven’t lost your sense of timing, Zara.” He grinned across at his guest. “Carole – my wife Zara. Our children Joey and Mabel. And our dog, Boofle.”
“Ah.”
“I’m actually tied up for a little while, love.”
“Don’t worry,” said Zara. “The horde needs feeding. Come on, kids. Come on, Boofle. Teatime.” And she led them out into the hall, discreetly closing the door behind her.
Carole was lost for words. All she could come up with was, “That’s an Old English Sheepdog. You said you had a little Westie called Priscilla.”
“Ah – discovered! Mea culpa! Yes, I knew I could not keep my guilty secret from you forever. I do not have a little Westie called Priscilla.”
“Look, what is all this, Theo? Am I to gather that you’re not…homosexual?”
“Once again nothing escapes the eagle eye of Miss Marple. It’s uncanny. How does she do it?”
“But you…I mean, the way you behave at Connie’s Clip Joint…Even when I was there, when you were talking to Sheena, you said things that definitely implied you were…homosexual.”
“I did. I admit it. So far as Connie’s Clip Joint is concerned, I’m as gay as a pair of Elton John’s glasses.”
“But I don’t understand.”
He dropped into his arch hairdresser’s drawl. “Give the customers what they want, darling. Someone like Sheena positively loves having her hair cut by a gay man. She’d be disappointed if she didn’t have a gay man doing it. So, if that’s what she wants…” He gave a helpless, camp shrug.