Fethering 09 (2008) - Blood at the Bookies (18 page)

“Just along there on the right. Beyond the lamppost.”

“Oh, I’ve sold a good few properties along here, let me tell you. Prices skyrocketing. If you’re ever thinking of selling, Jude…”

“Well, I had thought of having the place valued. You know, to sort of see where I stand.”

“We’d be happy to do it. All part of the service at Urquhart & Pease. Isn’t that right, Hamish?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“By the way, I’m intrigued to know…” Jude asked. “Who’s Pease?”

“My partner?”

“Yes, the other part of Urquhart & Pease.”

“Ah.” Ewan Urquhart chuckled, before producing another well-rehearsed line. “He doesn’t exist. When I set up the business, I reckoned two names sounded more authoritative than one. So that’s how Mr Pease got invented.”

“Thank you for explaining that. It’d been intriguing me. Anyway, I might take you up on your offer of a valuation.”

“Do, by all means.”

Then, as the big car slowed down, Jude asked Sophia, “Tell me, while you were in East Germany, did you go to Leipzig?”

The girl looked at her with some surprise. Then the line of her mouth hardened as she replied, “No. I’ve never been there.”

B
oth Carole and Jude had shopping to do on the Saturday morning, but they joined up for coffee in the kitchen of High Tor at about eleven. Jude had not suggested meeting at Woodside Cottage because Zofia Jankowska had come in very late the night before and the poor girl needed her sleep. She was exhausted by the emotional rollercoaster she had been riding since she heard of her brother’s death.

Carole was very pleased with herself about the information she had received from Gerald Hume and presented it to Jude with considerable aplomb. “So at last we have a name. Someone who, did actually know Tadek—or at least spoke to him in the betting shop.”

“Pauline implied that he knew the woman. Melanie Newton, eh?”

“And Gerald seemed to think she lived in Fedborough.”

“Sounds like a job for the local phone book.”

Flicking through the directory, they were beginning to wish their quarry had a less common name. There were forty Newtons listed. But when they narrowed the search down to Fedborough addresses, it looked easier.

Only four. None of them had the initial ‘M’, but, as Carole and Jude agreed, the listing might well be under the name of Melanie Newton’s husband or another relation.

“Well, let’s see if we get any joy. Are you going to call them or shall I?”

“You do it, Jude.” Carole was suddenly embarrassed by the idea of phoning up complete strangers. “You’re better at lying than I am.”

“Why do I need to lie?”

“You can’t just ring up someone out of the blue, can you?”

“A lot of people do. The number of calls I get about replacement windows and making wills and investing in land…”

“Yes, or trying to sell you a mobile phone,…”

“Perhaps I should do that. Make up some story. Pretend I’m from a call centre.” Jude made up her mind. “No, I think it’d be simpler—as usual—just to tell the truth.”

“‘Hello, I want to talk to you about someone you spoke to five months ago’?” suggested Carole with disbelief.

“Something along those lines, yes.” Jude phoned the first of the numbers. An answering machine message. She pressed the red button to end the call. “Bob and Marie Newton are not available at the moment. No Melanie.”

She keyed in the next number. “Oh, hello, could I speak to Melanie?”

She was informed, with some huffiness, that there was no one of that name living at the address.

“Two more to go,” she said as she tried the third. Again someone answered. A woman’s voice.

“Oh, hello, could I speak to Melanie Newton, please?”

“I’m sorry. She no longer lives here.”

“You don’t by any chance know where she lives now, do you?”

“I’m not sure. I got the impression the marriage was breaking up and I think she and her husband went their separate ways.”

“So don’t you have any means of contacting her?”

“I’ve got a mobile number for her husband, Giles. I’ve never used it, so I don’t know if it’s still current.”

“Could you give it to me?”

For the first time the voice at the other end of the line sounded suspicious. “Who am I talking to here?”

“My name’s Jude.” Which was true. “I’m an old friend of Melanie’s.” Which was a lie. Carole raised her eyes to heaven.

“All right.” And the voice gave the mobile number.

“Thank you so much. And can you tell me how long ago the Newtons moved?”

“We moved in here on the third of November.”

As soon as she had finished the call, Jude keyed in the mobile number she’d been given.

“Hello?” said a wary answering voice.

“Is that Giles Newton?”

“Yes.” He still sounded guarded.

“You don’t know me, but I’m trying to contact Melanie Newton and—”

Giles Newton ended the call.

When Jude returned to Woodside Cottage, Zofia Jankowska was up and dressed, making coffee in the kitchen. “Aren’t you going to have something to eat too?” asked Jude.

“No, I have too much food of yours already. You do not let me pay.”

“You don’t need to pay.”

“It makes me feel not good. I do not like to be…what is the word I heard? A ‘sponger’? I read in newspaper that many Poles in England are spongers.”

“Then you should read different newspapers. You’re not sponging off me. You’re here as my guest.”

“I should be paying something. I do not know how long I will be here. If I could get a few hours’ work, I could pay you.”

“Well, I’m sure you could get something if you really wanted to.” A thought came to Jude. “Tell you what…the landlord of the Crown and Anchor was complaining how he couldn’t get any decent bar staff.”

“That is the pub here in Fethering?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if I could work some hours for him, I could pay you some rent.”

“I’ve told you, you don’t need to.”

“It would make me feel better. And I have worked in a bar a lot. I know what to do. In Warsaw I work in bars. There of course I take money in zlotys, but I am quick learner. I soon catch on to money in pounds.”

“Well, I’ll give him a call. His name’s Ted Crisp.” Jude hesitated. “I just wonder, though…”

“What?”

“Ted’s…um, how shall I put this? Very English.”

“English in the way that he does not like foreigners?”

“Yes,” Jude admitted.

“This is perhaps because he has not met many foreigners?”

“Quite possibly, yes.”

“Then I think he should meet one. Me. Zofla Jankowska. I will show him how a good worker works.”

Jude chuckled and looked at her watch. “I’ll give him a call later. After the Saturday lunchtime rush. Ooh, by the way, there is something more we’ve found out about that woman your brother spoke to in October.” And she told Zofia the information she’d had from Carole. “As I say, the husband hung up on me, but at least we’ve got a name, which is more than we had this time yesterday.”

“Maybe you will be able to find her.”

“I hope so.”

“I also thought of two people I could try to talk to.”

“Oh?”

“One is back in Warsaw. A friend of Tadek, called Pavel. He was in the band. I try to call him this morning, but his mother say he off playing music in Krakow. She will pass on message when he call her. But I think that will not be soon.”

“Why not?”

Zofia shrugged ruefully. “Pavel like Tadek. Not good keeping in touch.”

“But your message will get through eventually?”

“Eventually, yes. But his mother say he not even picking up emails in Krakow.” She looked glum for a moment, but then a spark returned to her eyes. “A second person I think of, though. I had forgotten about him until this morning, but there was another friend of Tadek who used to play in the band with him. In Twarz. Not for a long time. He was the drummer, but not a very good drummer. He left the band a year before Tadek finished at the university. He was called Marek Wisniewski and he used to get on well with my brother. But why I think of him is I remember he came to England. I think he get work as a waiter.”

“How long has he been here?”

“More than a year. A year and a half perhaps. But perhaps Tadek get in touch with Marek when he come to England.”

“Have you got a contact for him?”

“Not here in England, no. But I know his brother in Warsaw. I will ring him, see if he knows where Marek is working now.” The girl shrugged. “It may be nothing, but everything is worth trying, isn’t it?”

“Certainly,” said Jude.

They both made their phone calls that afternoon. Zofia got through to Warsaw and was given the address of a Brighton restaurant where Marek had been working when his brother had last heard from him. A bored man at the restaurant said he still worked there, but he was off on a few days’ leave. He thought he would be back on the Tuesday. She asked the man to give Marek her mobile number, but she didn’t feel very optimistic that the message would get through.

“Nothing else we can do at the moment,” Zofia said gloomily when she’d ended the call.

“No, but if you don’t hear, we can go and see him. Brighton’s not far away. Anyway, now I’ll phone Ted.”

The timing couldn’t have been better. The landlord of the Crown and Anchor had just been let down by one of the barmaids who was meant to be doing a shift that evening. If the girl Jude was talking about could come down straight away…“That is, if she has had experience of bar work. I haven’t got time to train anyone up.”

“Oh, she’s had experience of bar work,” said Jude. She and Zofia had agreed that they would not mention her relationship to Tadek. That might make for an uncomfortable atmosphere in the bar of the Crown and Anchor. Nor on the phone did Jude mention the fact that Zofia was Polish.

Of course, it was something that Ted couldn’t fail to notice when they were introduced. Behind the ragged beard his face took on a look of suspicion. “From Poland, you say?”

Zofia Jankowska smiled brightly. “Yes.”

“Well, you can help out tonight, because I’ve been let down,” he said grudgingly. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to offer you anything more.”

“Let’s see how tonight goes, yes?” said Zofia, unfazed by his less than enthusiastic welcome.

“All right,” he conceded.

“Please, you show me where everything is, and where is written down the costs of the drinks.”

As Ted Crisp turned to get a price-list, he cast a reproachful eye on Jude. She’d put him in a situation where he couldn’t really make a scene, and he felt she’d rather pulled a fast one on him. There were already far too many foreigners around the country; he didn’t want any of them actually working for him.

Jude, however, went home happy. She felt confident that Zofia would do everything that was required of her. And also from behind the bar of the Crown and Anchor, the girl would be perfectly placed to hear any gossip relating to the death of her brother.

T
hough Carole was not good at lying, that did not mean that she was incapable of deviousness. She woke in the small hours of the Sunday morning, frustrated by their inability to contact Melanie Newton. The only way to the woman was through her husband’s mobile phone, and when Jude rang him Giles Newton clearly had not wanted to play ball. There had to be another approach. And by the time, an hour later, Carole drifted back into sleep, she felt confident she had found it.

She reckoned half-past ten was a reasonable hour to call someone on a Sunday, so after a brisk walk on the beach with Gulliver and a skimpy perusal of the
Sunday Telegraph
, she called the number they had been given by the new owner of the Newtons’ house.

When Giles answered, she said, “Good morning. My name is Carole Seddon, formerly of the Home Office.” Which was entirely true, but she hoped the words ‘Home Office’ would have such a strong effect on the man that he would hardly be aware of the ‘formerly’.

“Oh yes?” He sounded puzzled, but not as if he was about to put the phone down. Which was already better than the response Jude had got.

“I’m calling in connection with the death of Tadeusz Jarikowski.” Again, not untrue, but hopefully misleading about the level of offlcialness in her enquiry.

“Who?” He sounded genuinely mystified by the name.

“Tadeusz Jankowski. A young man who died in Fethering some ten days ago.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“There’s been a lot of media coverage, on national television and in the papers.”

“I wouldn’t have seen it. I’ve been in Dubai the last three months.”

“Oh?”

“I work in oil exploration. I tend to be away for long periods.”

“Ah. Well, in fact, it was your wife I wanted to contact. Melanie…is that right?”

“Yes.”

“She wasn’t in Dubai with you?”

“No. So far as I know, she was here in England.”

“So far as you know?”

“Yes, as far as I know,” Giles Newton said testily. “She may have gone travelling. She went abroad last summer, to Holland and Germany, I believe.”

“You
believe?
” Carole echoed again.

“Yes. Look, Mrs…I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Carole Seddon.”

“Well, Mrs Seddon, as you may well have deduced, the fact is that my wife and I are no longer together.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Carole automatically.

“I’m not sure that I am. At least I’m no longer involved in the messes Melanie gets herself into.”

“Messes?”

But echoing his words was not so fruitful this time. “Look, Mrs Seddon, what do you want? If it’s something to do with my wife, you’re talking to the wrong person. What she does is her own business. I no longer have any contact with her.”

“But do you know where she’s living?”

“No, I don’t. We used to live together in a house in Fedborough, but since we sold that, we’ve gone our separate ways. And may I emphasize that I have no responsibility for her financial affairs. In fact, after some of the things she got me involved in, I hope I never see her again.”

“What kind of things did she get you involved in?”

The question was over-optimistic. “Mrs Seddon, if my wife has once again got herself into trouble, I suggest you talk to her rather than to me.”