He made no objection. Though he didn’t welcome what lay ahead, he recognized its inevitability.
“If only to clear your name.”
“Yes.”
Jude joined in. “Did Rowley – your uncle – did he say precisely why he was locking you up at Treboddick?”
“He said he’d got my best interests at heart. He was afraid of what might happen to me under police interrogation.”
“Yes, he doesn’t have a very high opinion of what he insists on calling ‘our fine boys in blue’,” Carole recalled. “So he thought they’d force a confession out of you?”
“Something along those lines, yes. Uncle Rowley said the police always liked to get a conviction, and weren’t too bothered whether or not it was the right one.”
“That sounds like one of his lines. And do you think he thought you were guilty?”
“What?” Nathan Locke’s surprise was so unfeigned that clearly the idea had never occurred to him.
“Well, if your uncle did think you’d strangled Kyra, then there’d be an even stronger reason for him to lock you away at Treboddick. To stop you from being arrested…until the family had worked out a more permanent way of keeping you from justice.”
“What kind of way?”
“I don’t know.” Carole shrugged. “Sending you abroad? Changing your identity? Maybe even plastic surgery…?”
“Oh, come on, they wouldn’t do that.”
After what they’d witnessed at Treboddick, Carole and Jude’s estimation of what the Lockes might do had expanded considerably.
“I think Uncle Rowley really was doing the best for me.” But Nathan’s insistence was wavering. “At least what he thought was the best for me.”
“Hmm.”
“Presumably…” Jude posed the question very gently “…you didn’t kill Kyra?”
“No, of course I didn’t! I loved her! You don’t kill someone you love.”
Many authorities, including Oscar Wilde, would have questioned that assertion, but Jude didn’t take issue as Nathan continued, “I can’t imagine what happened. I mean – who would do that to her? She was a sweet girl…wouldn’t hurt anyone. I can’t even think of anyone she didn’t get on with…well, except her father…”
And possibly Martin Rutherford, thought Carole as Jude asked, “Yes, we’ve heard about some difficulties between Kyra and her father. What was the problem there?”
“I think basically he’s just old–fashioned.”
“Did you meet him?”
“Just the once. K – Kyra…” He did actually manage to get the word out that time, “…she took me home to meet him, thought it’d be all right.” He sighed wearily. “It wasn’t. He virtually showed me the door.”
“What was it about you that he disapproved of?”
“In a way, I don’t think it was anything about me. Kyra said I shouldn’t take it personally and I tried not to. It was just that I was interested in his daughter. He would have been equally down on any other person of the male gender who was interested in his daughter. He thought she was too young to have a boyfriend.”
“But, she was…what?”
“Seventeen.” He gulped down the emotion that the thought prompted. “Yes, well old enough to…do anything she wanted. But that wasn’t the way old man Bartos saw things. He got furious when she had her ears pierced and…It was…I don’t know…something to do with the way he was brought up…in Czechoslovakia.”
I really would like to talk to ‘old man Bartos’, thought Jude. I’ve somehow got a feeling that he holds the key to this whole case. I wonder if Wally Grenston could set up a meeting…?
“Nathan,” said Carole, her voice only just the right side of sternness, “you did go to Connie’s Clip Joint that evening with Kyra, didn’t you?”
There was no attempt at evasion. “Yes, I did. Perhaps it was a silly thing to do, but…well, it was very difficult for us to be alone together. Her father’s attitude ruled out the possibility of meeting at her place and then my parents…”
“They wouldn’t have objected to you taking a girl back to the house. They told me as much.”
“Yes, but it would have been hideously unrelaxing – particularly for Kyra. My parents can sometimes be so ‘right-on’ that it hurts.”
“Constantly saying how broad-minded they are…how delighted that you feel sufficiently relaxed to bring your girlfriends into the house…?”
He grinned without amusement. “You’ve clearly met them, Carole.”
“Yes. Yes, I have.”
“So what happened that evening?” Jude prompted gently.
“Well, as I say, Kyra and I found it very difficult to be alone together…you know, unless we were in one of the shelters on the sea front at Fethering…or on the golf course…neither of which were particularly romantic…or relaxing…And then that day she rang me on the mobile and said that Connie had given her the keys to the salon because she wanted her to open up the next morning and…it would be our opportunity to…you know, to do what we hadn’t had a chance to do before…”
“You mean make love to each other?”
He nodded agreement to Jude’s question. His speech slowed as he clawed back the painful recollection. “Yes, it was going to be our big night. I felt bad about sort of being in Connie’s salon without her knowing, but I did want to…you know…And Kyra said if I joined her there at about ten, there’d be nobody about, and it’d all be fine. So I bought some beer and vodka and…you know, some cigarettes…because I wanted us to be relaxed about it all and…I was dead nervous. I think Kyra was too.”
“So what happened when you got there?”
“Well…I don’t know whether I should tell you this…”
“You’re going to have to tell the police,” said Carole, “so you might as well have a dry run.”
Nathan saw the logic of that. “All right. Well, it’s embarrassing, but…” He took a deep breath. “Basically, it didn’t work. Nothing worked.”
Jude’s voice was mesmerizingly soft as she asked, “You mean the sex?”
He nodded, now looking very young and confused. “Maybe I was too nervous. There’d been such a long build-up and…I don’t know…I wanted it to be a really romantic moment.”
Hence the dozen red roses, thought Carole.
“But when I actually got there…you know, in the back room of the salon…I just lost it. In a strange place, afraid we’d be interrupted at any moment…I mean, at one stage it seemed to be going all right, but then I thought I heard someone coming in…”
“You mean coming into the salon?”
“Well, I thought I heard the back gate bang, and then like footsteps…”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not sure. As I say, I was terribly nervous…and also I’d got through most of the vodka…and I was worried about what Kyra would think of me. Anyway, it didn’t work…you know, the sex,” he concluded lamely.
There was a silence before Jude asked if he and Kyra had quarrelled.
“No, not exactly. It was…just awkward. I felt kind of humiliated…She said it didn’t matter, but…I just had to get away. I feel dreadful about it now…after what happened, but I left her on her own.”
“What time was that?”
“I don’t know exactly. Half-past twelve…one o’clock…?”
“You didn’t see anyone outside?”
“What?”
“You said you’d heard the gate bang.”
“That was a lot earlier. And I could have imagined it. I don’t know.” He let out a little gasp. “I suppose, if there really was someone there, it could have been the murderer.”
Jude agreed that this was quite possible, then Carole asked, “Why didn’t Kyra go home?”
“Because she’d set up this big alibi with her dad. You know, she was supposed to be with some school friend for the night, so she couldn’t suddenly say she wasn’t. Also she’d been drinking, and if her old man had smelt that on her breath…” He didn’t need to complete the sentence.