by Simon Brett
“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.
∨ Blood at the Bookies ∧
Twenty-One
Though 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. A
nd 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.”
“Well, that’s what I want to do, Mr Newton, but I don’t have any means of contacting her.”
“I can give you a mobile number.”
“Is it still current?”
“I’ve no idea. I’ve made no attempt to contact Melanie since last November.”
And so it was that Carole got hold of Melanie Newton’s phone number. The words ‘Home Office’ did still command a measure of authority.
She knew she should really share her discovery with Jude, but the temptation to present her neighbour with some kind of dramatic coup was too strong. Carole rang the number. It went straight on to voicemail. No identification of the phone’s owner, just a terse, “Leave a message after the tone.”
A pity, but Carole’s gratification outweighed her disappointment. She now had a name and a phone number for Melanie Newton. And she had heard the woman’s voice.
♦
Zofia Jankowska stayed in her bedroom late on the Sunday morning, but Jude knew the girl was awake because she could hear music. At about half-past eleven she tapped on the door. “Just wondered what you’d like to do about lunch?”
The girl was dressed and sitting on her bed. She looked as though she might have been crying, her pigtails once again emphasizing her youth and frailty. After a quick look at her watch, she said, “No, I don’t think I have time for lunch. Ted wants me to do a shift at the pub starting at twelve.”
“So you must have done all right last night.” Jude had been in bed before Zofia returned from the Crown and Anchor.
“I think so. Not that you’d have known it from Ted. He watch me all evening like he thought I was about to steal from the cash register.”
“He’ll get used to you. He’s naturally distrustful.”
“Distrustful of ‘foreigners’, yes.”
“If he’s asked you to come back, he can’t be too worried.”
“He does not make it sound like he is happy. He offer me shift today only because he is very busy at Sunday lunchtime, and his other staff let him down. Still he don’t say whether there will be more work for me.”
“You’ll win him round.”
Zofia grinned. “Yes, I think I will.”
“Well, look, would you like me to rustle up something quickly for you before you go?”
“No, I’m OK. I’ll just have a cup of coffee.”
“How long’s the shift?”
“Ted wants me to work till three.”
“I’ll have something nice and hot waiting for you when you come back.”
“Please, Jude, you don’t have to do this.”
“I want to.”
“You are very kind to me.”
Jude grinned and there was a silence between them. She became aware of the music. Soft acoustic guitar and a gentle voice in a yearning song, some kind of folk-tune in a language Jude could not understand. The sound quality was not professional, as though a primitive microphone had just been placed in front of the singer in an ordinary room.
“This is your brother, Zosia?” The girl nodded and once again tears welled in her eyes. “He’s very good. Is it one of his own songs?”
The girl gave another nod, not daring to speak lest it start her weeping. Jude sat down on the bed and put her ample arms around the thin shoulders. “We will find out what happened to him. Don’t worry. I promise we will.”
“Yes.” Zofia’s hazel eyes sought Jude’s. “That will not bring Tadek back, will it?”
“No, I’m afraid it won’t. Nothing will do that.”
“But finding out who killed him, is that supposed to bring me…closure?”
“I hate the word. American psychological claptrap. But I think knowing how and why Tadek was killed may make it easier for you to live with what has happened. I’m not stupid or simplistic enough to tell you that the grief will ever go away.” Another silence. Jude could feel in the tension of the girl’s shoulders how hard she was trying not to cry. “I’m sorry, not knowing any Polish, I’ve no idea what this song is about.”
“What does it sound as if it’s about?”
Jude listened to the music for a moment. “Love. Yearning. A love that is doomed.”
“Then Tadek has written a good song, if you can understand the feeling without understanding the words. Yes, it is about a love that is doomed. He wrote songs for all of the women he loved.” She let out a wry little laugh. “And with every woman he loved, I’m afraid the relationship was doomed.”
“You said most of them were older women?”
“Yes, this song was for one of his music teachers at the university. She was married with two small children.”
“So did they have an affair?”
“No, no. A lot of his relationships were not…what do you say? Hands on?”
“He worshipped from afar?”
“That is a good way of saying it, yes. The love was mostly in his head. He put the women on…what was
that word you told me…?”
“A pedestal.”
“That is correct.”
“What do the words of the song say?”
“I can’t translate exactly, but Tadek is saying that, though he and the woman can never be together, this does not stop his love from being beautiful.”
Jude nodded. “That explains it. Because, although the song is yearning, it doesn’t actually sound sad. It isn’t a miserable song.”
“No, sometimes I think Tadek likes it that his love affairs never work out. Perhaps he finds it is easier to write about an imagined woman than a real woman.”
“Typical romantic. It’s much easier to remain romantic about an imagined woman than a real one.” There was a moment of stillness as Jude listened to the song. “He was very talented.”
“I don’t know. I like his music, but he is my brother. And he writes old·fashioned songs. If he could be successful in the commercial world, that I do not know.”
“Did he write songs about all the women who he…put on a pedestal?”
“Yes, I think so. I think it is these hopeless loves that make him able to write songs. Perhaps if he had had a real love affair that really worked, he would not have felt he needed to write songs.”
“So if, and I suppose it’s possible, he came to England because of a woman…then you might have expected him to have written songs about her?”
“I am sure he would have done. I am sure Tadek could not have been in England as long as he had without writing songs.”
“And yet there was no evidence of any in the belongings you collected from the police?”
“No, not only his guitar is missing. Also there are no notebooks, no CDs, no tapes.”
“So, if we could find those…?”
“If we could find those, where we found them might be a good clue to what happened to him.”
“Yes, and if the songs were written to another older woman here in England, finding that older woman would be another very good clue.”
At that moment Carole rang, to tell Jude the good news that she’d now got a mobile number for Melanie Newton.
∨ Blood at the Bookies ∧
Twenty-Two
“The police could do it,” said Carole gloomily.
“Do what?”
