“When did you go there?”
“About seven, before the girl arrived.”
“But you didn’t stay?”
“No, I had to get back to Brighton.”
“For your Hair and Nail Conference?”
“Yes.”
“To establish your alibi.”
“If you like.” He now sounded very weary. “Yes, I sat through a dinner there and talked to a lot of people.”
“But then you went back to Fethering.” He nodded. “What time did you get back?”
“Ten, half past.”
“And you went back to Connie’s Clip Joint?”
“Yes, but I didn’t go inside.”
“Really? You expect me to believe that, Martin?”
“I don’t know whether I expect you to believe that or not, but it’s the truth.”
“So why didn’t you go in?”
“Because the boy was there, with Kyra. I saw them through the window.”
“So you went in through the back gate…” That would explain the noise Nathan Locke had heard, “…you saw the young couple were there, and then you left?”
“That’s exactly what I did, yes.”
“But surely you must have been furious to see Kyra with another man?”
“For heaven’s sake, I had no interest in Kyra! I never had!”
“Never even when you came on to her downstairs in this very salon?”
“No. No. No…” The monosyllable got weaker with repetition. Martin Rutherford let out a deep sigh, then seeming to reach some conclusion, went on, “Look, I’m going to tell you what actually happened. Not because I particularly want to, but because you seem to have got some dangerous ideas fixed in your mind, and if you start passing them on to the police…well, it could be very inconvenient.”
“And what if I pass on to the police what you’re about to tell me?”
“It’s possible that when you’ve heard it, you won’t want to. And if you do, that may not be such a bad thing. I’m sick to death of lying.” His head sank into his hands. “Maybe telling the truth will take some of this bloodypressure off me!” The outburst was so sudden and uncharacteristic that it was a measure of the stress he was under.
Carole waited while he composed himself. Then he started. “Most of my life I must have heard the expression ‘living a lie’, but only when it happens to you do you understand what it means. I’ve been living a lie for the past few years, and it’s been destroying me.” Again Carole let him take his own time. “Obviously you know that I divorced Connie and married Martina.” He gestured round the room. “That had a very good effect on all this. Martina is a wonderfully talented businesswoman. I could never have built up Martin & Martina to this level without her.”
“On the emotional side, though…” he was having difficulty framing the words, “…things didn’t work out so well. Some people have said Martina only married me because she had her eyes on the business. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but certainly after the first few months…the emotional side of the marriage…” You mean the sexual side, thought Carole. “Well, it virtually ended, and I realized I had made a horrible mistake…”
“And was that when you started coming on to the young girls in the salon…like Kyra?”
He shook his head in exasperation. “No! I’ve never come on to any girl in my salon. For a start, younger women have never appealed to me that much and, then again…well, it’s one of the first things you learn. If you’re going to run a successful business, keep your hands off the staff.”
“Oh, come on, Martin, that won’t wash. Connie told Jude there was a great history of you touching up the juniors, going right back to when you were married to her.”
“Oh, God,” he groaned. “How complicated things become. You invent one little untruth to get you out of a hole, and suddenly you find you’re having to fabricate more and more of them, and the hole is getting bigger and bigger.”
“I think you’d better tell me about those little untruths,” said Carole in her most magisterial Home Office committee-chairing voice.
“All right. I said I’d made a mistake in marrying Martina, but I did it because I was infatuated with her. When the infatuation faded, I looked around and realized what I’d done. And I also realized that there was only one woman I had ever loved and that was Connie.”
“Did she feel the same?”
“Yes. I had to summon up a lot of nerve to ask her, but yes, she did.”
“So all that business about what a bastard you’d been to her…?”
“That bit was true.” A wry chuckle. “I had been a bastard to her.”
“But you touching up the juniors in your salons…?”
“Was a complete fabrication. A smokescreen. Connie and I would do anything to hide the fact that we still loved each other.”
“But why? Surely if you’d divorced once, you could do it again?”
His lips tightened as he said, “Not from Martina. Martina is a Czech Catholic. She doesn’t believe in divorce. Or at least she didn’t object to marrying a divorcee, but there’s no way she’d let me divorce her.”
“But these days a lot of people don’t bother with divorce. They just move out.”
“I don’t think I could just move out from Martina.”
The chill with which he spoke made it abundantly clear that Martin Rutherford was actually terrified of his second wife. “She is a very powerful woman.”
“So, going back to where we started this evening, were the red roses for Connie?”
He nodded. “It was very hard for us to meet. I had to fabricate alibis. Martina did not trust me being out of her sight. So the Hair and Nail Conference seemed perfect. I set up to meet Connie that evening.”
“In the salon?”
“Yes. I couldn’t risk our being recognized in a hotel. Then where Connie lives – the house we used to share when we were married – well, there’s a snoopy neighbour, old boy at the back who watches everyone’s comings and goings, So that wasn’t safe. But in the salon…I could park out of sight, go in the back way. It had worked well for us in the past.”
“But when you went back there that particular night, you found out that someone else had set up their own romantic encounter?”
“Kyra, yes. As I say, I went in early to set up the flowers, did the dinner in Brighton, and came back to find our little love nest occupied.”
“So you told Connie?”
“Our arrangement was that I’d get there and give her a call on my mobile, to say that the coast was clear, then she’d come and join me. But of course the coast wasn’t clear.”
“What did you do?”
“I was stupid. I should have gone straight back to the conference hotel in Brighton. But I thought: I’ve actually managed to get a night off from Martina. I’ve got my alibi. Who knows when I’ll next get a chance to be with Connie? So I went to her place.”
“And stayed all night?”
“Much longer than I should have done. We were just so happy to be together. The time was so precious. We talked and talked all night and well into the morning.”
“Was that why Connie was late into the salon? And why she hadn’t done her hair or make-up?”
Martin Rutherford nodded ruefully. “We talked about everything. About what we were going to do. About how I was finally going to face up to Martina and tell her it was all over. But then, when I heard about Kyra’s death, everything had to be put on hold. Connie and I couldn’t risk letting the police find out what we’d been up to. If they found out I’d been at the salon that night…” He shuddered, then concluded glumly, “Everything still is on hold.”
“But you are planning to see Connie tonight, aren’t you? Because Martina’s going to Prague? Is that why you couldn’t fix to see me later?”