“Yes. Her father’s very old. Kyra was the product of his second marriage, but then her mother died a few years back. If she didn’t get something of her own going, Kyra could see the prospect of being stuck here in Fethering as a carer for her old dad.”
“He must have taken it hard…you know, what happened to her.”
“I assume so. I don’t know. Although he lives only in the next street to me, I’ve never actually spoken to him. I don’t think he goes out much.”
Jude’s hair was now towel-dry. Connie appraised it in the mirror. “You’re lucky, you know, not to need colouring…”
“At my age.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you thought it. You’re right, though. I am lucky. I think I’ve got the kind of hair where I won’t suddenly start finding grey ones. I think it’ll just get paler and paler until one day I look at it in the mirror, and it’s all white.”
“Maybe.” Connie grinned. “Now, is today going to be the day?”
“The day I look at it in the mirror and – ?”
“No, no.”
“The day for what then?” Jude asked innocently.
“You know perfectly well. The day you decide to do something different with your hair.”
“Are you about to use the dreaded ‘short’ word, Connie?”
“Look, it’s lovely hair. It should be shown to advantage. It’s funny, Jude, I don’t think of you as someone who’s afraid to take risks.”
“I’m not. And let me tell you, my hair has probably been through more metamorphoses than Madonna’s. Back when I was modelling…God, it was a new style every couple of days. Which is why I really feel I’ve done my experimenting. I’m happy with it the way it is.”
“But you could look so much smarter. With it like this you look like…I don’t know…”
Perhaps delicacy prevented Connie from continuing, but Jude provided a suggestion. “A superannuated hippy?”
“You said it. Come on, Jude, make today the day.”
Firmly, the client shook her head. “Nope. Don’t feel like it. One day I will feel like it, and I promise you, when that happens, I will have the transformation done at Connie’s Clip Joint. But today is not the day.”
“Huh.” Connie picked up her scissors without enthusiasm. “So today it’s just like your neighbour’s, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Same shape, but shorter.”
The impression wasn’t perfect, but it did capture something of Carole’s manner, and Jude chuckled. “That’s right.”
Connie started cutting, and her client relaxed into the experience. Theo didn’t have an appointment for a while and sat reading a motor-racing magazine, a choice that seemed butchly at odds with his public demeanour. Jude was once again amazed at how people in certain jobs coped with the waiting. Shop assistants, restaurant staff and hairdressers had an ability to slip into a half-life, go inert and yet come immediately to energetic life when a customer entered. That was another part of the job, she reflected, that a salon junior like Kyra might have found hard to cope with.
“Ooh, Jude, something I was going to ask you…”
“Yes?”
“You’re into alternative therapies and that, aren’t you?”
“Well, to some extent,” Jude replied cautiously.
“I’d really like to talk about that at some point.”
“Why? Have you got some problem that you need help with?”
“No, no, it’s not for that, not for me. It’s just increasingly salons are offering other services, apart from the straight hairdressing. Manicure, ear-piercing, massage, all that stuff. Lot of modern salons are getting more like beauty spas. Sunbeds, detox wraps, you name it. That’s certainly the way Martin & Martina are going.” She couldn’t keep the resentment out of her voice when she mentioned her ex-husband’s business. “I just wondered if you were into any of that stuff, Jude…?”
“Not really. What I do is therapeutic…you know, helping people feel better.”
Connie grinned. “So you’re just like a hairdresser. I tell you, we’re very definitely therapists – for all the listening we do, apart from anything else.”
“Yes, I’m sure you are.”
“Well, if there were some service, you know, that I could refer my clients to you for…we’d make it a business deal. Look, take one of my cards. That’s got my mobile number on it too. And give me a call if you can think of a way we can make it work.”
“I will.” Jude couldn’t envisage anything coming of it. She didn’t want her healing services to become part of anyone’s pampering regime, but discussion of the project might be another way of keeping in touch with the hairdresser and maybe, eventually, rinding out more about what had happened at Connie’s Clip Joint. In the meantime, the best way of eliciting information remained the direct question.
“Have you had any more contact from the police, Connie, you know, since you reopened?”
“No, thank God. The amount of questioning I had to go through in the first couple of days…it was pretty wearing. They wanted to know all kinds of things that I wouldn’t have thought could be relevant in a million years…asking about my marriage and a whole lot of other private stuff.”
“Did they talk to your ex-husband as well?”
“Yes, I gather Martin went through quite a grilling. But after the first couple of days, they seemed to decide there was nothing more I could tell them.”
“Did they lay off him too?”
She seemed about to make a different answer, but then said brusquely, “That I wouldn’t know. Anyway, the good thing was that quite suddenly they seemed to lose interest in me. Maybe that was when they got more news about Nathan Locke disappearing…I don’t know. The detectives in charge told me to stay in touch, but – thank God – since then they’ve left me alone. Oh, they’ve given me lots of numbers to ring if I remember anything else, or if anything happens that might have a bearing on the crime. But then I can’t imagine that anything is going to happen that has a bearing on the crime.”
“Unless Nathan Locke suddenly turned up on your doorstep one day…?”
“I can’t think that’s very likely.”
“Do you mean you share the general Fethering view that he’s committed suicide?”
“It’d be an explanation, wouldn’t it?”
“Mmm.” There was a silence, disturbed only by the snipping of Connie’s scissors. Eventually Jude broke it. “You said you hadn’t met Kyra’s father?”
“That’s right.”
“But Wally Grenston knows him. Talked about him as Joe, didn’t he?”
“Yes. When Wally was last in he said hello to Kyra like he’d met her somewhere before. Probably seen her round her old man’s place. From what he says, he’s one of the privileged few who’s allowed in there. The Bartos place backs on to my garden, but I’ve never had so much as a ‘How do you do?’ from the old boy.”
“Mmm.” Jude looked thoughtful. “Do you still live in the house you did when you were married?”
“Yes. Part of my settlement. That and this place…” she smiled ruefully “…while Martin went on to greater things.”
After a few moments’ silence, Jude said, “You know, I’d like to talk to Wally Grenston…”
She had no inhibitions about saying this. You could tell everything to a hairdresser. Whatever you said, they’d always heard worse. And generally speaking, they were discreet about keeping things to themselves.
“He’s in the phone book.”
“Right.”
“Mind you, Jude, if you’re going to call him, I’d recommend you do it on a Thursday morning.”
“Oh. Why?”
“That’s when Mini goes out to her flower arranging club.”
Six
“Is that Mrs Seddon?” The voice on the telephone was male, cultured, even slightly academic.