by Simon Brett
He finally put in an appearance round twenty past eleven. When he took off his anorak, he was wearing black trousers and a black shirt with the logo of the café embroidered on its short sleeves. Tall with a shaven head and mischievous blue eyes, Marek Wisniewski was greeted by Zofia with a kiss, immediately followed by what was clearly a dressing-down. Neither Carole nor Jude could understand a word of it, but the tone of voice and the body language made the nature of what the girl said absolutely clear.
When she had finished, Marek looked sheepish but not really cowed. “I tell him,” said Zofia, “it is bad to not be good time-keeper. It is bad for the image of Polish people here in England. Already people worry about us taking jobs. They call us ‘spongers’. We must show we are efficient and hard workers, so people cannot criticize us for that.”
Then Marek, completely unsubdued by his carpeting, was introduced to Carole and Jude. He smiled, shook hands and greeted them in English which was adequate, though his accent was much thicker than Zofia’s. He said how desolated he had been to hear of Tadek’s death. “He was good friend of me. I not really good musician, but he support me when I in band with him.”
Zofia had got out her blue notebook and was poised to record any information they got from Marek. Carole, too, was eager to get on with the business of investigation. “Did you see a lot of Tadek since he came to England?” she asked.
“A few times I see him. We are both busy with work. It is not always easy to meet. But we stay in touch…messages, texts on phone.”
“That’s a thought,” said Jude. “What happened to Tadek’s mobile phone? It wasn’t among the possessions that the police gave you, was it, Zosia?”
The girl shook her head. “Perhaps the police keep it still? To check the phone calls my brother make?”
“I should think that’s quite likely,” said Carole.
“Or perhaps,” suggested Marek, “the phone is taken from his room by the person who take his other things.”
“You’re certain that other things were taken from his room?”
“Yes. I go there to meet with Tadek at end of December. His room is like his room always is in Warsaw. Cassettes, CDs all over the place. And of course his guitar. When I go there two weeks ago none of these things is there.”
“So it does sound like someone cleaned them out,” said Jude.
“To avoid incriminating themselves,” added Carole. Then she fixed the focus of her pale blue eyes on the young Pole. “Zofia told us that you had said her brother definitely came over here because of a woman.”
“This is what he tell me, yes. With Tadek it is always a woman.” He and the girl exchanged wistful grins. “Always it is the big romance.”
“Which is not how you treat women, Marek,” said Zofia knowingly.
He grinned with shamefaced cockiness. “No, with me it is always the big sex.”
“So this girl you have just been away with for a week…?”
“It is very good, Zosia. Good sex.” He grinned again. “Now I think over. Time to move on.”
“You do not change, Marek.”
“I hope not. I like women very much, but not one woman,” he explained for the benefit of Carole and Jude.
Carole didn’t think tales of his philandering were really germane to the current discussion. “This woman,” she said, firmly redirecting the conversation, “did you know her name?”
“Tadek do not tell me. But he say she is very beautiful, he has never felt like this before, she is the one.” Again he and Zofia exchanged rueful smiles.
“Did he say where he’d met her?”
“Yes. It was at a music festival last summer. In Leipzig.”
“Ah,” said Jude, pleased to have at least one of her conjectures confirmed. Zofia wrote down the new fact in her notebook.
“Did he say whether the woman was older or younger than him?” asked Carole.
“No, he do not say.” Marek looked at Zofia for endorsement as he went on. “But with Tadek it is always older woman, no?”
The girl nodded. “Well,” said Carole, “there seems a strong likelihood that it was this woman…this older woman who cleared out his room of all his music stuff.”
The boy shrugged. “Perhaps. Do you know who this woman is?”
“We may do.” But Jude didn’t give any more information about Melanie Newton.
“I think,” said Zofia, “that Tadek would have written songs for this woman.”
“Oh yes,” Marek agreed. “Always if he is in love, he write songs.”
“But he didn’t play you any?” asked Jude.
“No. Tadek knows I not very good with music. Only a drummer. When he was asked about the line-up for his band, he always say old joke: “Three musicians and a drummer.” I join Twarz because I like other people, not because I have musical talent. Which is why,” he added philosophically, “the others ask me to leave. So no, Tadek does not play me any songs. If he want to discuss songs, it is always with Pavel.”
“I told you about him, Jude,” said Zofia. Then she explained for Carole’s benefit, “Pavel is the other song-writer in the band. Very close friend of my brother. They write songs together sometimes. If Tadek write a song, he probably show it to Pavel.”
“What, he’d post a copy to him?” asked Carole.
She had turned on her the young person’s stare that is reserved for Luddites and other dinosaurs. “No, he’d email the MP3.”
“Oh. Right,” Carole responded, as though she had a clue what was being said.
“Why didn’t I think of that before?” exclaimed Zofia.
“You speak to Pavel since Tadek die?” asked Marek.
“No, he is playing music in Krakow. But I will email him, ask if he has received anything from Tadek. If my brother had written new songs, I am sure he would have sent them to Pavel.”
“Aren’t the police likely to have been in touch with him?” asked Jude. “They would know the connection between the two of them.”
“Perhaps, The police in Poland maybe are following this up.”
“Speaking of the police,” said Carole severely. “I think you, Marek, should be in touch with them.”
“Oh?” Immediately he looked defensive, guilty even.
“The fact that you had been in Tadek’s room on the afternoon he was killed is something of which they should be informed,” she went on in her best Home Office manner.
“You think so?” the young man pleaded.
“Certainly. It’s your duty to do it. You will, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Marek wretchedly.
♦
As she drove the Renault demurely along the coast road towards Fethering, Carole announced, “I’m very glad that Marek’s going to tell the police what he knows. It may be relevant to their enquiries.”
“Yes,” said Zofia. “I do not think he will do it, though.”
“What?”
“Marek does not want dealings with the police.”
“Why? Is there something wrong with his immigration status?”
“No. He just does not want dealings with the police.”
“You mean you don’t think he will get in touch with them?”
“No. I am sure he won’t.”
Carole snorted with exasperation. Jude didn’t say anything, but she was delighted.
∨ Blood at the Bookies ∧
Twenty-Five
Before she started her shift at the Crown and Anchor, Zofia just had time to send an email to Pavel from the Woodside Cottage laptop. She didn’t know when she was likely to get a response. It would depend on how long he stayed in Krakow.
Jude’s afternoon was committed to a client whose whiplash injuries after a car accident needed massage and healing. Carole said she was going to spend a quiet few hours reading. But in fact she had other plans.
Jude knew she had other plans. Why else would Carole have asked to borrow her mobile? But, as she handed it across, she didn’t ask for any explanation.
The Times crossword was there as an ostensible reason for sitting in the Renault by the towpath at the end of River Road, but Carole had to admit she felt cold. Whenever she’d seen cops doing a stake-out on television, they seemed to have supplied themselves with bottomless hipflasks and a copious supply of cigarettes, and now she could understand why. Surveillance was very boring and unrewarding work.
Nor did her distracted concentration allow her to make much headway on the crossword. She knew Tuesday’s could sometimes be tricky, but her mind that afternoon was not dissecting and analysing words as it should have been. A few clues made sense, and she got them so quickly that she suspected the others were equally easy. But her brain couldn’t see through the verbal obfuscation to the patent truth. She knew if she failed to complete the puzzle, the answers in the next morning’s paper would make her kick herself for her ineptitude.
There was a phone number that could be rung to get answers to the day’s crossword, but Carole Seddon would never resort to that. For a start, calls were priced at the exorbitant rate of seventy-five pence per minute, and then again…well, it just wasn’t the sort of thing she’d do. She felt sure that Gerald Hume would be as much of a purist in such matters as she was.
The road by the River Fether was not busy on a chilly February afternoon. The few people out walking their dogs were what Carole thought of dismissively as ‘pensioners’ (until she realized that she and Gulliver would also fit the description). Between half-past three and four a few schoolchildren, defiantly coatless in the cold weather, returned to their homes. But as the shadows of the encroaching evening closed together and lights came on in the houses before their curtains were closed, the area was deserted.
It was nearly five o’clock and Carole could hardly even see the crossword, though she knew that two corners of clues remained intractable. There was a fifteen-letter word straight down the middle of the grid. She knew if she could get that, all the other answers would fall into place. She also knew that the solution was quite easy, but she could not for the life of her see what it was.
Stuff this for a game of soldiers, thought Carole. It was not an expression that she would ever have spoken out loud, but it was one she had learnt from her father and cherished. Time to get back to High Tor.
Before she turned the key in the ignition, however, movement from one of the houses along the road drew her attention. A woman was coming out of the front door. She moved, in a manner which to Carole’s imagination looked furtive, towards the turning into River Road. In the deepening gloom, Carole couldn’t make out the woman’s face well, nor could she see Gerald Hume’s photograph clearly enough to make comparisons. But the stranger was about the right age.
When the woman was close to her, Carole put the next part of her plan into action. On Jude’s phone she keyed in the number given her by Giles Newton, and pressed the ‘call’ button.
The woman reacted. She didn’t answer the phone, but she definitely reacted to its ringing.
She was Melanie Newton.
∨ Blood at the Bookies ∧
Twenty-Six
Jude felt empowered after her session with the whiplash sufferer. There were times when her healing really worked and, though she might be drained by the transfer of energy entailed, she felt the peace of knowing she had actually done someone some good.
But her contentment was not total. There was something else that was making her feel bad. Her agreement to meet Andy Constant at the Bull that evening. She tried to convince herself that she’d only made the arrangement because he might be able to give her some useful information about the murder case, but she knew that was casuistry. She was going to see Andy Constant because she wanted to see him. And she knew he was seriously bad news.
Jude rather despised herself for the aromatic bath she took before her excursion. Also for the care she took with what she wore.
Andy Constant was an arrogant, selfish boor. He hadn’t even had the decency to invite her on a proper date, just a drink in a location which involved her in either a train journey and a long walk or an expensive cab ride. He didn’t deserve her attention.
But she still wanted to see him. Some instincts were stronger than logic.
♦
Carole really did feel like something out of a television cop show. She waited till Melanie Newton was halfway up River Road before driving the Renault slowly along and parking again a little behind her. Then, when her quarry turned right into the High Street, she edged the car further up till she could just see round the corner. Melanie Newton’s errand appeared to be the same as when Gerald Hume had seen her. She disappeared into Allinstore.
While the woman was in the shop, Carole turned the Renault round and parked at the top of River Road, facing towards the Fether. Sure enough, Melanie Newton soon passed by, carrying two loaded carrier bags, and retraced her steps. Carole waited till the woman was about to turn at the end of River Road and then drove the Renault back to where she had originally been parked. She was just in time to see Melanie Newton use a key to let herself into the house whence she had emerged some ten minutes earlier.
Carole hadn’t really planned her next step. Having found where the woman lived was perhaps achievement enough for that afternoon, but not for the first time she wanted to present Jude with a more tangible advance in their investigation. Also she recalled that Jude had a client that afternoon and was then going out somewhere for the evening. Either Carole would have to wait till the following morning to tell her neighbour of their quarry’s whereabouts, or she should try to consolidate her achievement straight away. She got out of the car.
It had felt cold inside, but that was as nothing compared to the freezing blast that hit her when she emerged. That cold evening in Fethering worries about global warming seemed seriously exaggerated.
She crossed resolutely to the house into which her suspect had disappeared. It was a semi, probably with three bedrooms. Before she had time for second thoughts, Carole rang the doorbell. A moment passed before it opened, and she found herself face to face with a young teenage girl in school uniform.
“Good afternoon, I’m looking for Melanie Newton.”
“She’s in her room at the top of the house.”
“Could I see her?”
The response was one of those ‘no skin off my nose’ shrugs which only teenage girls can really do properly. After it, the shrugger seemed to lose interest in the proceedings and disappeared into the kitchen from which she’d presumably come.
Carole closed the front door behind her, and set off up the stairs. She found herself on a landing with four doors leading off, presumably to three bedrooms and a bathroom. But the girl had said ‘the top of the house’. That must mean up the uncarpeted wooden staircase which led up to what must be a loft conversion.
Carole went on up. The final step at the top of the flight was not much wider than the others. She stood there for a moment, gathering her thoughts, and then knocked on the door.
There was a gasp from inside, then silence. She knocked again. This time she heard movement from the room, footsteps approaching, and the door was opened a fraction. In the narrow gap Carole could see the frightened face of the woman Gerald Hume had photographed.
“Melanie Newton?” Carole asked, although she knew the answer.
“How did you find me?” The voice was cultured but taut almost to breaking point. “Who let you in?”
“A girl in school uniform.”
“She’s not supposed to. The fact that I’m renting this room is supposed to be a secret. Her mother swore they wouldn’t let anyone in.”
“Well, she let me in.”
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Carole Seddon.”
“And which one of them do you come from? Who do you represent?”
Carole couldn’t really supply an answer to that rather strange question, so she just said, “I want to talk to you about Tadeusz Jankowski.”
The woman’s reaction w
as mixed. Her face still showed fear and suspicion, but there was also something in it that looked like relief.
♦
Andy Constant wasn’t there when Jude arrived in the Bull. It was loud with University of Clincham students, taking advantage of the ‘Happy Hour’ offers and, in the time-honoured student fashion, converting their grants into alcohol. They looked very young, and completely harmless.
She was annoyed with herself for ordering a pint of Stella for Andy along with her glass of Chardonnay, but given the scrum at the bar it was once again the sensible thing to do. Sitting down at a table for two, she wondered again why the hell she was there. She had no illusions about the kind of man Andy Constant was, and she ought to be too old to go deliberately looking for trouble. And yet there she was.
Jude didn’t recognize any of the students, but she saw again the poster for Magic Dragon with the blurred photograph of Sophia Urquhart. It reminded her that she wanted to ask the girl about Joan, the other Drama Studies student, and Joan’s relationship with Andy Constant.
When he came in, though, sweeping back his long grey hair, she couldn’t curb a little kick of excitement. It wasn’t just his similarity to Laurence Hawker that got to her; Andy Constant affected her viscerally in a way that few men had. And the men who did trigger that response had always been bad news. Jude made a pact with herself to be extremely sensible that evening. No joining him in a guided tour of the Drama Studio.
He brushed his lips against her cheek, and slumped down into the chair opposite. He reached for the pint of Stella and took a long swig. “God, that’s good,” he said as he put the glass down. No thanks for the drink, just ‘God, that’s good.’
“Ooh, am I knackered?” he continued. He was one of those men, Jude felt sure, who were always more tired than anyone else, the implication being that they put so much more energy into their creative lives than mere mortals could even contemplate.
“What have you been doing – lecturing?”