So she lit a fire and then sat down to read the manuscript of a book written by one of her healer friends. It was about control, not controlling others, but taking control of one’s own life, developing one’s own potentialities. Jude, who had read and been disappointed by more than her fair share of self-help books, thought this one was rather good.
But her mind kept straying. The pale image of the dying Tadeusz Jankowski recurred like an old reproach. What had happened to him? Why did he have to die? She hoped she would soon have answers to those questions.
The phone rang. Jude answered it.
“Hello. Is this, Jude, please?” The voice was female, young, heavily accented.
“Yes, it is.”
“It was you who found the body of Tadeusz Jankowski?”
“Yes.”
“Please, I like to meet you.”
“I’m sorry, who am I talking to?”
“My name is Zofia Jankowska. I am the sister of Tadeusz.”
? Blood at the Bookies ?
Eight
The girl was in her early twenties, with hazel eyes and blonded hair divided into two pigtails. She wore jeans and a blue waterproof jacket. There were silver rings on her fingers and in her pierced ears. She had a feeling of energy about her, as if all inactive time was wasted, as if she couldn’t wait to be getting on with something.
Zofia had come straight from the police, having rung Jude from the Major Crime Centre at Hollingbury near Brighton. And Jude had invited her straight over.
“They were helpful to me, the police, but not very helpful, if you understand.”
“Yes, I think I do,” said Jude. “Can I get you something to drink? Or have you eaten?”
“I have a sort of plastic breakfast on the plane.”
“And how long ago was that?”
“The flight left at 6.20 from Warsaw.”
“You must be starving. Come through to the kitchen and I’ll get you something.”
Bacon and eggs were the most obvious emergency rations and while Jude rustled them up, the two women continued their conversation. “When you say the police were helpful and unhelpful, what exactly did you mean?”
“They were helpful in the way how they were polite to me and answering my questions, but they did not give me a lot information.”
“They gave you my number, though.”
“They give me your name. I find your number in phonebook. I don’t think the police were keeping information from me. I think they just don’t have a lot information to give.”
“No, that was the impression I got.” Jude sat the girl down at her kitchen table and dished up the bacon and eggs. “What would you like to drink? Tea – or something stronger?”
“You have coffee?”
Jude had coffee. While she made it, Zofia wolfed down the food as if she hadn’t eaten for months. Whatever her reaction had been to the news of her brother’s death, it hadn’t affected her appetite.
Jude sat down and waited till the plate was empty. “Can I get you anything else?”
“No, I…You are very kind. You give me much.”
“I bought a rather self-indulgent ginger cake yesterday. Let’s have some of that by the fire, and you can tell me everything you know.”
“I prefer you tell me what you know. You are the one who find Tadek.”
“Tadek?”
“I’m sorry – Tadeusz. Tadek is short name for him. In family and friends, we all say Tadek.”
“Right.”
They sat down in a heavily draped sofa. Jude hadn’t put any lights on yet, though the February evening was encroaching and soon they would be needed. The flickering of the fire illuminated the clutter of Woodside Cottage’s sitting room, its shrouded furniture, its every surface crowded with memorabilia from the varied lives of its owner.
“Were you close to your brother?” asked Jude.
“When we live together as children with my mother, very close. Then he go to university, we do not see so much of each other. Still we stay close…from a distance, can you say?”
“Yes. You said your mother…are your parents not together?”
“My father he died when Tadek and I are small children. There is just my mother.”
“She must have been devastated when she heard the news about your brother.”
“Yes, I suppose. We do not get on, she and I. But, in her way, she is upset. She do not understand. I do not understand. That is why I know I must come here. I stop everything, get a flight, come here.”
“How much did you have to stop? Do you have a job?”
“I do not. Not yet. Not permanent job. I was student. At university in Warsaw.”
“Studying English? You speak it very well.”
“No, not English. Not major in English, though I try to get it better, because it is important. But I studied journalism. I wanted to be reporter.”
“‘Studied’? ‘Wanted’? Why the past tense? What went wrong?”
“I did not like the course, not good. I drop out. Wait tables, work in bars till I decide what I really want to do.”
“Maybe you’ve got enough reporter’s skills to get to the bottom of what happened to your brother.”
“This I hope. This is why I come.” She pulled a small notebook out of the back pocket of her jeans. “In this I write down my notes, everything I find out. I have to know something, have to know why Tadek was killed.”
“It must be terrible for you.”
“I think it will be. Now I am too full of…unbelieving…and angriness. Now I just want to know what happened. When I have found this out, then I think there will be time for sadness.”
“I’m sure there will.”
“So I must know everything that is known. This is why I need see you. Please, tell me about how you saw Tadek…my brother.”
As simply and sympathetically as she could, Jude re-created the events of the previous Thursday afternoon. It didn’t take long. She could only say what happened. She had no explanations, nothing that might assuage Zofia’s thirst for detail. Meanwhile the girl scribbled down notes in her little blue book.
When Jude had finished her narration, there was a long silence. Then Zofia spoke slowly. “It is terrible. That you should see Tadek like that. That I did not see him. That I will not see him again. That is the thing that is hard to understand. That he is not there any more, not anywhere any more.”
“When did you last see him, Zofia?”
“Please do not call me ‘Zofia’. That is very formal. My friends have a special name for me.”
A sudden thought came to Jude. “It isn’t ‘Fifi’, is it?”
The girl looked at her in bewilderment. “No. ‘Fifi’ I think is a name for a dog.”
Jude didn’t think the time was right to elaborate the reasoning behind her question. “I just thought…‘Zofia’… it might be shortened to – ”
“No, ‘Zosia’. That is the name everyone calls me. Please, you call me ‘Zosia’.”
“Very well. Zosia,” said Jude.
“Why you think I am ‘Fifi’?”
Jude explained about her brother’s dying word, hoping that now she might get some explanation for it. But Zofia was as puzzled as she was. So far as the girl knew, Tadek had not known a ‘Fifi’. He’d certainly never
