Fringes

Fringes

By

Mike O’Sullivan

Copyright © 2018 by Mike O’Sullivan

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Chapter 1

When Lauren Canning thought back to when Eva Cyclone first arrived in Ross on Wye she realised that no-one could have guessed that Eva was the eye of a storm of personal tragedy and international obsession. But really things had started before Eva arrived.

Early one morning shortly after opening time, the Mirror Images hairdressers where Lauren Canning was a stylist, realised that the number of police cars that were racing past the salon was bordering on insanity. They were all headed towards the lower carpark in Ross enthusiastically clogging up the air quality of the town. It turned out that a trainee hairdresser had been found bundled up in a corner of the carpark apparently attacked and murdered the night before. Lauren couldn’t help thinking that’s when the police cars should have been there in numbers. The rest of the day was then given over to detectives from Birmingham trailing from salon to salon asking the silliest questions of everyone. The death made no sense except for a rape gone wrong and by the end of the day that was the general conclusion.

It emerged in the press the next day that the young hairdresser’s parents couldn’t understand why their daughter had been attacked as she had only left school to start work at the hairdressers six weeks ago. There had been nothing much going on in town on the night of the murder so everyone supposed that would narrow down the suspects. She was murdered in a dark corner of the carpark where she was possibly taking a short cut. According to an eye witness, who was a client of Erin’s salon Fringes in the town, she had seen it all from her bedroom window. There had been only one car in the carpark at the time and immediately after the commotion that turned out to be the attack, and while she was on the phone to the police, a man had run from that corner, got into the car and driven off in a hurry. The car and the registration number should be on CCTV the police assured her, and told her to keep quiet and not to speak to anyone about what she had seen. But she felt self denial was too much to ask and had arranged an unscheduled hair appointment for the next day; that was how the word got out. An open and shut case; surely they just had to find the man who had run away from the scene. Erin’s words, according to Lauren’s boss were ‘God save us all from plodding overweight policemen.’

Police cars were still travelling through town full of noise and trouble as Erin was interviewing Eva to join her salon, Fringes. They were not a good omen and were spooking the juniors in the salon. All the hairdressers at Fringes except Eva were local to Ross and sort of knew each other either from school or since they started work because they met each other in town. They could place each other in life. All of them loved working at Fringes because the owner, the glamorous outgoing Erin Berkeley, was rumoured to be related to one of the ancient families of England. She was high profile in the town and was recognised everywhere she went. She was good to her employees. She encouraged them to be fashion- conscious and occasionally invited them on trips with her to Cheltenham and Birmingham to spend her money on the latest styles hitting the small specialised boutiques.

Eva was different. Her face was classic Celtic, proud, heavily tanned and strangely beautiful. She was slim and athletic and at interview had given her age to Erin as twenty four. A mysterious other worldly gaze would sometimes take over her mood and when she was like that she drew everyone’s attention. There was a feeling quietly whispered in the town, that maybe she could be a Druid, after all Ross on Wye was near the border with Wales a country known to be overflowing with Druids. She didn’t socialise all that much with the other hairdressers although she occasionally joined them at Emma’s Café after work. But she captured the Ross males’ attention right from the beginning and within a few days of starting work she could not take on any more new clients as her time was always fully loaded. She was acknowledged by Erin and the other hairdressers to be a very skilled hairdresser. Her clients, male or female, would leave the salon delighted with their cuts and there was something more about their delight that was over and above that shown by her colleagues’ clients. But surprisingly none of the others worried about Eva’s popularity. In fact they were proud to have her in their salon.

She had other talents as it turned out. She was a good cook and she would take in a cake to work now and then. She would leave it sitting on the small staff room table looking tantalising to the rest of her colleagues all very conscious of putting on the slightest bit of weight. In the end they’d all give in because they knew that they would feel much more relaxed having indulged, than before when they were just looking at it. Eva at first lived in a small narrow street just off the main shopping area in Ross. She had a room in a house which accommodated two other women. All three could walk to work from there.

Erin got the impression that there was a lot more to Eva than she was revealing at interview. She was too well spoken. It wasn’t the French twist in her accent mixed with a little of the New Yorker that made people listen more to her, but the sophistication of her language that seemed to hang on in the memory afterwards. She did admit to reading rather a lot, but Erin thought there was more. Eva was very personable. She had a quietness and a confidence that appealed to Erin. She had decided Eva would be good for the business. Eva had explained one interesting thing during her interview. She said she often wondered, as did some of the writers she liked, what was going through the minds of people she passed on the street when they weren’t talking into their mobiles. She had explained that the nearest she could get to finding out, was while they were sitting in the hairdresser’s chair. She didn’t know why this fascinated her but it did. Erin thought that it was inevitable that an avid reader would from time to time take on a theme they had read about and feel an urge to follow it.

‘You can’t really take on the minds of others, can you Eva?’ Erin had asked her.

‘I have a capacity for it,’ Eva had responded.

‘Putting thoughts to the faces?’ Erin suggested.

‘Getting into the street,’ Eva had replied ‘seeing the way it travels what it oversees and how it is sounding. I’m into all of that.’

‘Interesting,’ Erin had concluded ‘I wonder where it might end?’

‘It might be a passing fad,’ Eva acknowledged ‘I like the street. I like places. I like putting things into context. I don’t know why I do this yet. Maybe one day I’ll find out.’

‘If you come up with any theories let me know Eva. You might be of use to the citizens of Ross, service businesses like ours, even the police.’

‘Early on I thought about working for the police,’ Eva admitted ‘but they have too many rules, too many masters, and they are not very good with people. I didn’t want to be associated with any organisation like that.’

‘I can see that if you intend to say write a book, a novel for instance, in a hairdressers you would find out about all the people you could ever dream of. But you’d have to be careful not to spill the beans about our clients.’

‘I was thinking about stimulation,’ Eva responded ‘everyone goes to a hairdresser. And my experience is that they do a lot of talking while sitting, their life’s loves and those of their friends, local gossip, perhaps dressing up everyday thinking to bring out its colour. I hadn’t thought about writing. But there is opportunity like you say Erin. Principally though at the moment I believe I like the creativity side of things. I like the atmosphere.’

‘And you need a steady job to slow down,’ Erin had surmised.

‘You are right there Erin.’

‘After the salons in France and New York you will certainly find the pace of life a little slower here in Ross Eva. I’ve checked with your referees. Cindy in New York says that she thought you were looking for something you may not find. But I don’t think she read you well. New Yorkers are always looking for something they can’t find. It seems to be their way of life. I think you’ll fit in fine here.’

‘I knew I would as soon as I heard the name of your Salon Erin, Fringes suits me.’

Erin had taken Eva on immediately.

Lauren met Zoe, her travel agent friend at Emma’s Café in Broad Street for a quick sandwich lunch and catch up. It was clear that Zoe had things on her mind as they sat down at a table by the window.

‘These men we met at Olivia’s party a few weeks back Lauren, they don’t let your feet touch the ground do they?’ Zoe remarked munching her BLT, ‘how are you thinking about James?’ ‘Cautiously. He’s nice; he’s very attractive and good company. He’s attentive. But he has an edge too. Now why do I get the impression that you’d really welcome my thoughts on your situation? What’s going on?’

‘You always were perceptive Lauren. Well, Donald came around last Saturday as arranged, but I was surprised and a little alarmed at what he is proposing. I mean we’ve only just met really and I don’t know anything about him. He is thinking of starting a small hotel in the town. He has been planning the future to the extent that he has lined me up for the rest of my life if I want. He wants me to help him run the place and even suggested that I could start up a travel agency in the hotel or keep my current job by working from the hotel.’

‘Wow, that’s very fast Zoe. It sounds to me like he’s so hooked he wants to lay claim to you right away.’

‘It sounds really romantic when you put it like that Lauren. But it’s a bit overwhelming and I feel I haven’t had much time to think it through’.

‘What do you think about him Zoe? I mean would you seriously date him if he lived in Ross?’

‘Of course Lauren.’

‘Do you think that if you moved in with him he wouldn’t mind you keeping your current job at the travel agents?’

‘I think he’d be OK with that Lauren.’

‘So if he came down here, started the hotel and you became permanent partners while keeping your job, then you would get what you want.’

‘That’s true. But I don’t think it would be as clear cut as that. I’d have an obligation to help him run the hotel, otherwise he’d have to employ more help.’

‘And if he did, that might eventually cut you out of the business and who knows what else,’ Lauren suggested.

‘That’s exactly what I was thinking. I believe I should accept that I have a good deal going with Donald, after all staying with him is basically what I want, even if I am nervous about it happening too quickly.’

‘You could always keep on your apartment as insurance anyway Zoe.’

‘I intend to, at least for the foreseeable future.’

‘Then it’s all systems go.’

Zoe glanced at her watch -

‘Damn it, it is. I must go Lauren. I’m expecting a large party of Dutch tourists anytime now. I have to get them on their way and then it’s back here to meet Donald.’

As she dashed out of Emma’s, she saw that the out of town police cars were still prowling around Ross. Although the town had moved on from the murder, the police were still calling into hairdressing salons with questions and eying up its hairdressers like voyeurs. They were becoming pests and several of the salon owners had banned them from their salons citing the impact on their business because the police milled around their clients and staff asking the same question over and over. Although rumour suggested that the likely suspects’ car had been traced to Birmingham and the police strongly suspected the murderer was from out of town, some of the younger hairdressers had been spooked by the constant presence of police and the lack of progress in finding the murderer. Some were taking no chances and walked home in pairs when they had been working late or been out for the evening.

By contrast Eva’s first few days had gone without a hitch. She was now standing in the salon behind her client’s chair in her sleek tight black mini skirt, her long dark hair flowing over her shoulders. As she leaned forward over the school teacher Amelia Hanson, her green eyes flashed and her deep red lips smiled in self fulfilment, and with confidence in herself and in her ability to relax her clients, she said

‘How does that look to you? I think the shape highlights your cheek bones’, her voice little more than a whisper. Amelia was mesmerized and felt she was in the safest pair of hands imaginable.

Yet no-one really knew anything about Eva Cyclone. Keira and Jo had been with Erin for nearly four years straight from school. They both liked Eva but there was ‘a but.’

‘There’s something about her,’ Keira whispered after the first few days of Eva’s working at the salon. They were in the staff room looking out onto the back courtyard.

‘It’s her eyes,’ Jo responded. ‘They are sometimes wild, wild and attractive.’

‘That’s for men,’ Keira declared.

‘The way they all look at her, there’s animal passion there,’ Jo concluded.

‘I’ll have some of that,’ Keira demanded.

‘But you said that about Sophie, and she died a lonely death in a corner of the carpark,’ Jo reminded her.

‘Poor Sophie. You’re right, she had something extra too. I’d like to have it if it weren’t for the results,’ Keira commented with less enthusiasm.

‘It should never end that way,’ Jo agreed, ‘just because someone is that much more desirable. Men will have to wake up to the words ‘no I’m not interested.’

As Eva shaped Amelia’s hair she was reminded of her own mother, the slim body, ready smile and dark wavy hair. As Eva remembered from her childhood, her mother would only go around the corner to get her hair cut and they never did her good looks justice. When only a small child Eva had decided she would become a hairdresser and fix her mother’s hair for her to make her more beautiful. As things worked out she had been unable to do that because of the circumstances that overtook the family.

It was a long time ago now but the scene was imprinted on Eva’s memory forever. Late one night and half asleep, she had been sneaking downstairs to the fridge for a glass of milk when she had seen her mother repeatedly hit her father. It was only a few seconds before Eva realised her mother had a huge kitchen knife in her hand and it was crashing down on her father, again and again and again. Eva had stopped in her tracks gaping silently in horror, not daring to move a muscle in case her mother might detect her. She saw her mother just stare down at the prone body of her father as if not understanding what she had done. Eva was eight years old.

Speechless and not understanding what she had seen, Eva had quietly crept upstairs and hidden in her wardrobe as her mother had called for an ambulance. The police had arrived with it and taken her mother away. Somehow sheer survival mode had clicked in. Eva had thought about her friend Jane Summers whose father and mother had been killed in a road accident. Jane had been taken into care. When Eva and her mother visited Jane, Jane had told them everyone in the home was horrible to her. She had told stories of beatings and being put on her own in a tiny room for a whole day. Eva didn’t want to be taken into care.

Sitting in shock in the dark wardrobe, the swirling images of what she had seen retreated and Eva’s mind cleared as if it had happened somewhere else, to someone else. Now she was on her own and would have to be self reliant, look after herself. She went through a process of thinking about how she was going to escape the clutches of the care home. She thought it would not be long before the police realized they had left her behind and they would be back to take her away. She couldn’t hide in the wardrobe forever. Even if the police didn’t know about her, she knew her school would start asking questions sooner or later. But where could she go? She lived in a leafy road in suburban Highbury in North London. The only adult she trusted was her mother’s sister Caroline who lived alone in Brighton on the south coast. She decided that was where she must go. She knew that Brighton was a long way away and she would need to travel by train. She realised that in order not to cause suspicion she would have to look like she was going to school when she left for Brighton. She had searched her mother’s money drawers and found £75. 35.

She knew where the rail station was and she knew the buses that would get there from Highbury because she had completed the trip twice before, once with her mother, and then later on her own when her mother had gone away and left her to her own devices while her father was working abroad. Her mother was suffering from nerves, Eva had been told. Her aunt Caroline had been dismayed to see her niece at her door back then and didn’t know anything about her parents’ whereabouts. However, after considering the sobs and begging of her little niece she had decided that her unstable sister had just taken off again and so the best thing for the moment was to wait.

Two days later Eva’s mother had telephoned and Caroline had returned Eva back to Highbury. This time however, Eva knew it was different. She was escaping. She knew from her father that you needed special documents to travel abroad. In detective series on TV, people always tried to leave the country when they were escaping, so perhaps she would need her passport. She gathered that and her birth certificate that she found with it, and decided that she should destroy the photographs her mother kept of her on her dressing table. She put the album of her baby photos in her school bag along with some clean underwear and a T shirt and decided that she should leave right away. She arrived at her aunt’s flat just after lunch but was very worried to see that when her aunt opened the door there were suit cases lined up.

‘Oh, Eva, what are you doing here?’ her aunt said in consternation. ‘I am expecting the taxi to take me to the station for Dover. I’m off to France. It really is too bad of your mother; don’t say she has gone again.’

Eva was pleased to be able to confirm without lying that this was true and said as her father was not around either, she really must stay with her aunt, but had her passport if that was needed.

They took the ferry from Dover a few hours later. Eva knew that given the removal of her photographs and the chaotic state of the Highbury house, they were not about to see headlines calling for anyone who had seen Eva to report it to the police. By the time they started looking for her, she would have disappeared. She thought she would do very well in France with her new life in a different world. What she had seen in the last few hours belonged to another time and place; that was then, this was now. She was living in the now. Eva had been to France when she was four and again when she was six. She was learning French at school and could speak the language quite well. Besides her Aunt Caroline was a teacher of French and so Eva thought she could learn some more if she needed to.

On the ferry Caroline had tried to prise out of Eva where her parents were but with little success. She knew that Eva’s life was often chaotic and that she had had to learn self resilience during her young life, so decided she would leave the child in peace and phone the Highbury house when they got to her house in Collioure a small town on the Mediterranean coast near the Spanish border. This part of the region was Catalan and was a mixture of French and Spanish. It was packed with energy, the friendliness of the people, the shops of pottery, oil paintings, summer clothes, the patisseries, the restaurants and cafes, the market, the street jazz, and most important of all the beaches and the sea. Vineyards reached up to the Pyrenees.

However, Caroline soon found herself compromised when a few days later she read the London papers and the shocking story of Eva’s family tragedy, and the murder charge levelled at Eva’s mother. Like Eva she realised the likely outcome for Eva of any return to London and so Caroline made the drastic decision to remain under wraps in France and teach English in Collioure. Eva had been reported missing, last whereabouts unknown. One of the reasons why Eva was not detected in France was because her mother and father had never married. She had her mother’s maiden family name which matched Caroline’s.

There were many English ex-pats with holiday homes who turned into full time residents. Caroline fitted in from the start and soon Eva improved her French to speak like a native. She loved the town and the people. The presumption was that Caroline and Eva were mother and daughter. Eva went to school in Collioure, and as the years passed began helping a neighbour in her patisserie after school. Then when she was fifteen she started work in a hairdressing salon in her holidays and as a result of liking the atmosphere and the general mood of the town took an arts degree in design and fashion at Perpignan.

Caroline eventually married an academic who owned property locally and taught Human and Social Sciences at the University of Bordeaux further north. When he inherited a vineyard in that region they relocated permanently to manage the vineyard. About this time Eva, by now twenty and still living in the Collioure house, started drifting towards a possessive Russian financier, Anton Mager. He was thirty and Eva believed he was more of a financier for gangsters than a genuine banker. The Russian was part of what many called the Russian Mafia in France. These were people who thought they could carry on their Russian activities in France just like back