The Fethering Mysteries 09; Blood at the Bookies tfm-9

by Simon Brett

  It was of course all an exercise in retro marketing. The beams had been affixed to the bare nineteen-thirties walls in the late nineteen-nineties, and the ‘homemade’ delicacies were delivered daily from a specialist manufacturer in Brighton. Those who liked to use pretentious terms could have described Polly’s Cake Shop as a post-modernist gloss on the traditional cake shop. But the residents of Fethering were not bothered about such niceties, and the older ones relaxed into the environment as if it had been unchanged since their childhoods. The only difference was in the prices. Nostalgia never did come cheap.

  Pauline wasn’t a regular customer at Polly’s Cake Shop, but, offered the chance of a free meal, wasn’t going to waste it. From the variety of teas proposed she asked for ‘ordinary tea’, then added a toasted teacake and the ‘selection of cakes’ to her order. Jude went for the same tea, together with a huge (and hugely sinful) eclair.

  “Nice place,” said Pauline, looking around. “I used to be called Polly, you know.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “That’s what my old man used to call me. Kind of pet name, I suppose.”

  “How long ago did he…?”

  “Twelve years now. Women live longer, don’t they?”

  “But have you got used to – ?”

  “You never get used to it. You just learn to live with it.”

  Anonymous in the betting shop, on her own Pauline seemed a much stronger personality. Her little-old-lady looks, white permed hair and heavily powdered pinkish face presented an image that was perhaps more benign than the reality. The grey coat she wore over a flowered print dress also fostered the ideal of a cosy little grandmother, but Jude was beginning to think that Pauline might have a bit of the wolf in her too.

  “Yes,” she said sympathetically. “But you manage OK?”

  Pauline shrugged. “OK. Moved into a smaller place after he passed on. Got the pension and he left me a bit. Not much, considering how much’d been through his hands over the years, but…yes, I manage.”

  “And your husband…you didn’t say exactly what he did…?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Pauline did another of her mischievous grins. “Let’s just say that what my old man earned…well, the taxman didn’t know much about it.”

  “Right. I think I get your message.”

  Jude might have asked more about the dubious past of Pauline’s late husband, but their teas were delivered then, and the moment passed.

  When the pouring was done and they’d both taken a comforting sip, Jude got straight to the point. “You said you’d seen Tadeusz Jankowski in the betting shop before.”

  The old woman looked her straight in the eye. “Before I answer your questions, there’s something I want to get clear.”

  “What?”

  “Why you’re asking them.”

  “There’s been a murder. It’s natural to be curious, isn’t it?”

  “Is it? It’s natural to be curious if you’re a police officer, yes.”

  “I can assure you I’m not a police officer.”

  “No? Because they use the most unlikely people in plain clothes.”

  A beam spread across Jude’s chubby face. “Not as unlikely as me, I promise.”

  The moment of levity seemed to have allayed some of Pauline’s suspicion. “So what’s your interest in all this then? You another of Fethering’s self-appointed amateur detectives?”

  Jude found herself blushing as she admitted that she was.

  Pauline chuckled. “I don’t know, place like this, a bit of crime gets all the old biddies excited.”

  Jude wasn’t bothered about being categorized as an old biddy. So long as Pauline would talk to her. Which now the old woman seemed prepared to do. “All right,” she said. “So yes, I had seen the Polish boy in the betting shop before.”

  “Often?”

  “Just the once.”

  “When was it?”

  “Last year. Late September, maybe early October, I’d say. He come in the shop in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “You have a very good memory.”

  The little old lady smiled complacently. “It’s a matter of training, you know. Everyone could have a good memory if they trained it. These old biddies who go senile…what do they call it now – Alzheimer’s? If they’d trained their memories when they was younger, they wouldn’t have no problems. My old man, he used to get me to train my memory. “Focus on things,” he used to say. “Concentrate. Every face you see, clock it. Use your mind like a camera, store the image.” And since he taught me how, that’s what I’ve always done.”

  “Why was he so keen for you to do that?” asked Jude, knowing that the question was slightly mischievous.

  Pauline instantly picked up the nuance, and winked as she replied, “Let’s just say my old man had a well-developed sense of self-preservation. He was always watching his back, so he liked me to keep my eyes peeled in case there was anyone dodgy about.”

  “With faces then, for you it’s ‘once seen, never forgotten’.”

  “That is exactly right, Jude. For faces I got this photographic memory.”

  “So the minute that young man walked into the betting shop last Thursday, you knew who he was?”

  “Well, you’re overstating things a bit there. I never knew who he was…not till I heard on the telly like you did. But the minute he come in the betting shop on Thursday I knew I’d seen him before. Mind you, I didn’t know it was going to be important. I didn’t know he was just about to die, did I?”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Jude took a huge bite of her eclair and felt the cream squirting. She wiped her mouth before asking, “You didn’t speak to him then?”

  “No. He was just another punter coming into the betting shop.”

  “You say a punter. The first time he came in, did you actually see him put on a bet?”

  “Oh, come on, Jude. We’re talking last October. I may have a photographic memory for faces. I can’t do an instant replay of my whole blooming life.”

  “Sorry. Thought it was worth asking. So, so far as you remember, you’didn’t see him put on a bet?”

  “I don’t recall seeing him do that. But I’m not saying he didn’t.”

  “You didn’t hear him speak? You didn’t notice that he had an accent?”

  “I don’t recall hearing him speak either. I just remember that I seen him in the betting shop last October.”

  “Right. Thank you.” Jude didn’t think she was going to get a lot more information out of the canny old woman, but it might be worth trying a slight change of direction. “It’s confusing, isn’t it, all the different ideas that are buzzing around the grapevine? So far as I can see, everyone in Fethering seems to have their own theory about the murder.”

  “Everyone in Fethering has their own theory about everything,” said Pauline with some asperity. “People here have too much time on their hands, so they spend it snooping into other people’s business. Load of blabbermouths they are.”

  “But have you heard any of the blabbermouths saying anything that might have any relevance to the case?”

  “Some, maybe.”

  “So, what theories have you heard?”

  Pauline focused on another fairy cake and slowly bit the tiny slice of angelica off the top. “Well, I’ve heard theories ranging from Russian hit men to Mafia gang wars. The only sensible theory I’ve heard is that no one has a clue why the poor bugger was stabbed.”

  “And do you have any theories of your own?” Pauline looked at Jude shrewdly and said, “What my old man always used to say was, “If a crime of violence happens, the first question to ask is why the issue couldn’t have been sorted out without violence.” And the answer to that might be because the people you’re dealing with are psychopaths or people of a highly nervous temperament, or there could be any number of other reasons. Moving on to the matter of murder, my old man used to say, “The only reason for murdering someone is to keep them quiet. If you just want to put th
e frighteners on them, you don’t have to go as far as murder. So you only murder someone when the consequences of what they might tell another party constitute a bigger risk than the risk of actually committing a murder.” That’s what he always said, and my old man knew what he was talking about.”

  Jude nodded. “That makes very good sense.” But then Pauline added, rather mischievously, “Though, of course, the reason for this murder could be something else entirely.”

  “Yes, but going along for a moment with your husband’s theory…the question we should be asking is: what did Tadeusz Jankowski know that represented a threat to someone else?”

  “That’s the question. Mind you, finding the answer might be more difficult, since we don’t know anything about the poor bugger except for his unpronounceable name.”

  Jude nodded ruefully. It always came back to the same thing for amateur detectives; they suffered from a dearth of information.

  “And there’s nothing else,” she asked without much hope, “that you can remember about when you saw him in October? Presumably he wasn’t wearing the big overcoat?”

  “No, T·shirt and jeans, as far as I remember.”

  “And you’ve said you don’t recall him going up to the counter to place a bet…You didn’t see him speak to anyone, did you?”

  To her surprise, Jude’s last despairing question brought a response. “Oh yes, he did talk to someone.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “A woman who’s often in there.”

  A spark of excitement had rekindled in Jude. “One of the regulars?”

  “She used to be in there a lot. Well-dressed woman, early forties maybe.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Ah, I never found that out. Kept herself to herself. Put on a lot of bets, but never joined in any of the backchat.”

  “But you could point her out to me if she came into the betting shop?”

  “Oh yes, of course I could.”

  Jude’s pulse quickened. At least she’d got the beginnings of a lead.

  “Mind you,” Pauline went on, “she hasn’t been in for some months.”

  “Oh? Since when?”

  “I suppose I stopped seeing her…” The old lady screwed up her face with the effort of memory “…quite a few months back…October probably.”

  “Just after you’d seen her talking to Tadeusz Jankowski?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” replied Pauline, before cramming a whole coconut kiss into her mouth.

  ♦

  “I went back to the betting shop and asked around,” Jude told Carole. “Most of them remembered the woman all right, but none of them had ever seen her off the premises.”

  “Did you get a name?”

  “No.”

  “Well, couldn’t you have asked the manager?”

  “I did ask the manager, Carole.”

  “Without giving away why you were interested?”

  “Of course without giving away why I was interested. I said something about a woman matching the description of a friend of mine having been seen in the betting shop and described her as Pauline had to me.”

  “You do seem to find lying easy, Jude.”

  “Yes, never been a problem for me. Except in certain relationship situations.”

  “Ah.” Though intrigued, Carole didn’t feel moved to pursue that subject.

  “Anyway, what did the manager say to you?”

  “Like everyone else, Ryan remembered the woman, but didn’t have a name for her.”

  “Surely they keep records?”

  “Placing a bet is an anonymous exercise. Generally speaking, you pay in cash and, unless you have an account, no one has a clue who you are.”

  “Hm.” Carole still looked a bit pale, but she was a lot better than she had been at the end of the previous week. Her hands were wrapped round a cup of coffee in the kitchen at High Tor. By the Aga Gulliver snuffled comfortably. His mistress was taking him out for walks again and all was even more serene in his comfortable doggy world.

  “So this woman,” she went on, “used to be a regular at the betting shop…?”

  “Semi-regular, it seems. She didn’t go absolutely every afternoon, and she never stayed for long.”

  “All right. So she was a semi-regular till round October…and then suddenly she disappeared?”

  “I think that’s over-dramatic, Carole. She stopped going into the betting shop, that’s all. We have no evidence that she disappeared from the rest of her life…chiefly because we know absolutely nothing about the rest of her life. Anything might have happened. Most likely she moved out of the area. Or maybe she lost interest in the horses…or she underwent a religious conversion and decided that gambling was sinful…There are so many possibilities that, quite honestly, any of them could be viable.”

  Carole looked thoughtful. Though she was still physically weakened by the flu, her brain was once again firing on all cylinders. “So this unknown woman was in the betting shop one day last October…and Tadeusz Jankowski came into the place and spoke to her?”

  “That’s what Pauline told me.”

  “And did he speak to her as though he knew her?”

  “Apparently, yes.”

  “So we have got something to go on.”

  “Not much. A man about whom we know nothing except his name met a woman whose name we don’t even know…I think it’d be a while before we could get that case to court.”

  “But it’s interesting. Did any of the other regulars see Tadeusz Jankowski last October?”

  “I asked them. They all said no. But although they’re regulars, they’re not there every single day. Or it’s quite possible he did go in when they were there and they didn’t notice. Not everyone has Pauline’s photographic memory for faces.”

  “But the manager…”

  “Yes, there’s something funny there. He told me it’s part of his job to clock everyone who goes in and out of the place. And he also told me he’d never seen the dead man before last Thursday.”

  “So something doesn’t quite ring true, does it?”

  “Well, unless Pauline’s lying and, although I’m sure she’s quite capable of it in the right circumstances, I can’t imagine why she’d do so in this instance.”

  “So what can we do?”

  “I think, given our current lack of information, the only thing we can do is to try and get a quiet word with Ryan.”

  ∨ Blood at the Bookies ∧

  Seven

  Jude went into the betting shop the following morning, the Tuesday, at around eleven, thinking it would be a good time to talk to the manager before the main racing fixtures started. But Ryan wasn’t there. His place had been taken by an older man of uncongenial appearance. Jude’s immediate thought was that the police had spotted the same inconsistency in Ryan’s statements that she had, and he was ‘helping them with their enquiries’. But a question to the vacuous Nikki provided a much less dramatic explanation. Ryan was laid up with the ‘nasty flu’ that had been going round.

  At a loose end, Jude decided that she and Carole should have lunch at the Crown and Anchor. Her neighbour initially opposed the idea – she opposed anything that smacked of self-indulgence – but was persuaded. She was, after all, in a convalescent state after her own bout of flu. She wasn’t yet up to cooking for herself. A meal out would be a necessary part of her recovery.

  Carole was secretly pleased at the plan. All morning she’d been putting off ringing her daughter-in-law. After the postponement of the weekend, she needed to fix another date to meet up with Lily and her parents. But Carole didn’t feel up to the challenge of such a call. She was always shy of Gaby, and she knew that any discussion of rescheduling their meeting would also involve mention of David. She wasn’t sure she felt strong enough to state the truth: that she didn’t want to see her granddaughter with her ex-husband present.

  So going off to the Crown and Anchor gave her the perfect excuse to put off her difficult phone call ti
ll the afternoon.

  “Heard you’d been out of sorts,” said Ted Crisp when they arrived at the pub. “Still looking a bit peaky, aren’t you?”

  Carole had to think about her response. Every fibre of her being revolted against the idea of ever ‘making a fuss’, but then again she didn’t want anyone to underestimate how ghastly she had felt for the previous few days. So she contented herself with a brave, “Getting better, but it’s been a really nasty bug.”

  “Tell me about it. Everyone in the pub seems to have had it. Can’t hear yourself speak in here for all the coughing and spluttering. And my latest barmaid’s using it as an excuse for not turning up.”

  “Poor kid,” said Jude.

  “I’m not so sure about that. Quite capable of ‘taking a sickie’. She’s a right little skiver, that one. Most of them seem to be these days, certainly the youngsters. Whatever happened to the concept of ‘taking pride in your work’? This lot all seem to want to get paid for doing the absolute minimum. Bloody work ethic’s gone out the window in this country, you know.”

  Jude was once again struck by how right-wing Ted was becoming. Ironic how almost all of those who had derided the establishment in their youth came round later in life to endorsing its continued existence.

  “The younger generation are all hopeless,” he went on. “But round here older people are too well-heeled to bother with bar work. Hey, you wouldn’t like to be a barmaid, would you, Jude? You’d bring lots of custom in, someone like you.”

  She grinned. “I have a sneaking feeling the word ‘buxom’ is about to be mentioned.”

  “I wasn’t going to say it.”

  “But you were thinking it, Ted.”

  “Well, maybe.”

  “I’ll consider your offer. If I run out of clients for my healing services. It’s not as if I haven’t done it before.”

  Carole, reminded of this detail from her neighbour’s past, shuddered to the core of her middle·class heart.

  Ted Crisp grinned at her discomfiture. “Anyway, I’m the one in charge of the bar for the time being. So, what are you ladies drinking? Is it the old Chilean Chards again?”

  “I should probably have something soft,” said Carole. “You know, I’m not a hundred per cent yet.”