“So what you’re saying, Zosia, is that you’ve drawn a blank? You haven’t met anyone who knew your brother?”
“I meet the woman at the pub he work. Cat and Fiddle. But she no use. She did not seem to know him at all.”
“Shona Nuttall. A friend and I met her too, and that was the impression we got. I think your brother was just cheap labour to her. She seemed to be a bit of a slave-driver.”
“She not even know Tadek was interested in music. That means she did not know him at all.”
“No.”
“It is strange, Jude. Tadek is a warm person, he always have friends. But no one in the house at Littlehampton know him. And that woman in the pub, she not interested in him.”
“I don’t think Shona Nuttall’s interested in anyone but herself.”
“No. But, Tadek…how can he come somewhere and make no friends?”
“He may not have made friends where he lived, but perhaps he had some somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“At college?”
“Tadek was at university in Warsaw. I tell you. He finish there last year.”
“Yes, I know. But we’ve got a lead that he might have had some connection with a college near here. Clincham College. Now called the University of Clincham.” Jude briefly outlined the information they had got from Harold Peskett. “Tadek didn’t say anything to you about going to college here?”
“No.”
“I mean, he was in touch with you, was he?”
“Tadek was never very good at keeping in touch. Oh, he always meant to, but other things would take his attention. He was a dreamer. So, since he leave for England, maybe he send one letter to our mother.”
“Was he close to her?”
“No. Like me, he did not get on with her.”
“But was he in touch with you?”
“More. But not a lot. A few texts on the mobile phone.”
“When was the last one you had from him?”
“I do not remember. Not since Christmas perhaps.”
“Well,” said Jude, “I’m planning to make contact with Clincham College. Just see if anyone there knows anything about your brother.”
“Yes. You will tell me, please, if you find out something.”
“Of course.”
“You will keep in touch, Jude?” The appeal in Zofia’s voice was naked. She sounded much younger than the nineteen or twenty that she must be. Jude felt a sudden rush of pity for the girl. Already shaken by bereavement, she had rushed to a country where she had no contacts, and had just experienced encounters with the English at their most aloof. She must have been feeling very alone.
“Zosia, have you got somewhere to stay while you’re here?” Jude asked gently. “Where did you spend last night?”
“Last night I was fine.” She clearly didn’t want to give details. Jude wondered if the girl had slept rough. Not very pleasant when the weather was cold.
“And what about tonight?”
“I will find somewhere.” The girl dismissed the question as if it wasn’t a problem. “Somewhere cheap. A pension, a…what is it called in England? A Bed and Breakfast?”
“That’s what it’s called, yes. But if you’d like to, Zosia, you could stay here with me.”
“Oh; but I couldn’t. No, I don’t want to be trouble to anyone. I can do on my own.”
It took a bit of cajoling; not much, though. The girl’s pride obliged her to put up some resistance, but Jude’s arguments soon blew it away. There was a spare bedroom in Woodside Cottage; it made sense that it should be used. Jude didn’t mention money, but she couldn’t imagine that Zofia had much with her. The cost of living in Poland was a lot lower than in England, and even in the off-season B and Bs along the South Coast eould be quite pricey. She was pleased when the girl gratefully accepted her offer, and suggested she should come straight from Littlehampton to Woodside Cottage.
By the time she arrived, the spare room would be made up for her.
As she put the phone down, Jude felt a double glow of satisfaction. Part came from the altruism of doing something that would be of help to someone in need. The other part was more selfish. Having the victim’s sister on the premises might well prove very useful in the murder enquiry on which she and Carole had embarked.
Her recapitulation of what Harold Peskett had said about Clincham College prompted a new question. Had the old boy told the police what he had overheard Tadek say in the betting shop? Were they aware of the Clincham College connection?
She rang through to Harold. No, he hadn’t been contacted by the police. Why should he have been, Jude reflected. He hadn’t been in the betting shop on the relevant afternoon.
Jude was now faced with a moral dilemma. She had information which the police might not have. And her sense of duty told her that she should immediately share it with them. She felt certain that was the course Carole, with her Home Office background, would have recommended. An immediate call to the police was required, to alert them to Tadek’s connection with Clincham College.
On the other hand…The police might have heard about the young man’s enquiry from another of the betting shop regulars…There was a very strong temptation to leave them in ignorance…
No, she should do the right thing. Unfair though it was – because she knew there was no chance of the police reciprocating by sharing their findings with an amateur detective – she should let them know what she’d heard.
Reluctantly, Jude rang the number Detective Sergeant Baines had given her. She got his voicemail. She didn’t give details of what she knew, merely said that there was another regular of the betting shop whom it might be worth their contacting for information in connection with the case of Tadeusz Jankowski. And gave Harold Peskett’s number.
She put the phone down with mixed feelings. Her sense of virtue at having done the right thing was transient. Stronger was the hope that the police might classify her message as just the witterings of a middle-aged woman, over-excited by her proximity to a criminal investigation. That, in fact, they would ignore it.
¦
Zofia Jankowska had very few belongings with her, and the clothes she unpacked looked pitifully cheap. But she was extremely grateful to her hostess. “Please, I pay you money…?”
“No need,” said Jude.
“But for food? Already you cook me one meal.”
“All right. If that happens more often, you can make a contribution.”
“Please. You not ask how long I stay?”
“It’s not a problem.”
“No, but I not be trouble you long. I go when I find out all I can find out. I just want to know why my brother died.”
“Which is exactly what I want to know,” said Jude.
¦
Ryan the betting shop manager looked more nervous than ever when he appeared in the Crown and Anchor very soon after five-thirty that evening. He wore a fur-hooded anorak over his uniform, but made no attempt to remove or even unzip it when he sat down in the booth opposite Carole and Jude. The latter introduced the former. He told Carole his name was Ryan Masterson and accepted Jude’s offer of a drink, asking for “A double Smirnoff, please, just with some ice.”
The two women had planned the way they wanted the conversation to go. From her snatched exchange with him in the morning, Jude had concluded that Ryan thought she knew something discreditable about him. She reckoned that was probably the fact that he had denied ever seeing Tadek in the betting shop before the afternoon of his death, but it might be something else, possibly something he thought she’d witnessed that morning. So she and Carole had decided to keep the one bit of information they did have on hold, and see if the manager had
