anything else to reveal.
“Busy day?” asked Carole uncontroversially.
“All right. Not too frantic this time of year.” The answer was automatic; there was tension in his voice.
“Do you know,” said Carole, uncharacteristically winsome, “today was the first day I’d ever been into a betting shop.”
“Yes, I saw you come in.”
“You take note of everyone who enters the premises, do you?”
“Have to. There are a lot of villains around.”
“What, they’re likely to cause fights, are they?”
“Not that. Some shops, maybe. Not in Fethering.”
“So what kind of villains are they?”
“Crooked punters. There are some who’ve got systems going. Multiple bets on fixed races, gangs of them going into a lot of different betting shops. We have to watch out for them.”
“Ah.” There was a silence. The question about his taking note of everyone who came into the shop had brought Carole the perfect cue to ask Ryan about Tadek’s former appearance, but that was the one thing she didn’t want to raise yet. And she couldn’t think of anything else to ask him about.
Fortunately, Jude arrived at that moment with their interviewee’s large vodka. As ever, her presence relaxed the atmosphere, though Ryan remained taut and watchful.
“Have the police been back to the shop since the weekend?” He shook his head and took a swig of vodka so urgent that it might have been some life-saving medicine. “So you don’t know what their current thinking on the murder is…?”
He shrugged. “That the bloke was stabbed somewhere else and just came into the shop to sit down.”
“But he didn’t sit down.”
“No. Thank goodness for that. If he’d actually died on the premises, I’d have had even more hassle.”
“You didn’t see which direction he came from, did you?” asked Carole.
“No. The way that hailstorm was coming down, you couldn’t see anything outside. I was only aware of him when he was actually inside the door.”
“And did you think anything particular when you saw him? Was there anything odd about him?”
“Well, he was swaying about a bit. I thought he might be trouble because he’d been on the booze.”
“Do people on the booze often cause trouble in betting shops?”
Ryan looked up sharply at Jude’s question, then mumbled, “Can happen.”
“And watching out for that kind of thing is part of your job?”
“Yes, we’re trained to stop trouble before it starts.”
“Hm.” Jude twisted a tendril of hair around one of her fingers. “And do you think the same as the police do, Ryan – that the young man came into the betting shop by chance?”
“What else is there to think?”
“Well, if you listen to Fethering gossip…”
“If you listen to Fethering gossip, you waste a lot of time.”
“But you must hear a lot, being in the shop all day.”
“I manage to tune most of it out.”
“Do you like your job?” asked Jude suddenly.
“What’s that to you?” he responded aggressively.
“Just a detail that might shed light on other details.”
Jude wasn’t sure whether her answer actually meant anything, but it seemed to contain some threat to Ryan, because with commendable honesty he said, “No, I don’t like my job.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s dull and repetitive, for a start. The hours are long, particularly in the summer. And you have to spend your day smiling at people you wouldn’t normally give the time of day to. You don’t exactly choose your own company. Some of the punters are pretty rude. Then you get the down-and-outs and the Care in the Community lot. Some of them smell, too.”
“Then why do you stick at it?”
“It’s secure. I’m paid just about enough to make me think that the idea of giving it up and retraining for something else is a bad one.” For a moment he looked haunted by self-doubt. “Don’t know whether I’ve got it in me to train for anything else now – don’t know if I could hack it. Anyway, I’ve got a wife and two kids – not the time to cut loose. I can’t afford to take risks.”
“Risks that might mean you’d get fired?”
Ryan evaded a direct answer to Jude’s question. He just shrugged and said, “It’s a job. Probably no better and no worse than any other job. How many people do you know who enjoy what they do?”
Jude did actually know quite a lot, but it wasn’t the moment to say so. “Why did you agree to meet me?”
Her question seemed to make him even more nervous. He swallowed and his voice was strained as he replied, “You wanted to talk. I can’t really do that while I’m in the shop.”
“I said I wanted to talk about Tadeusz Jankowski.”
“Yes.”
“Which is why you agreed so readily to meet me.”
“OK, yes. Him coming into the shop and then dying wasn’t exactly good for business. Head Office are keen that the publicity is kept to the minimum. They would approve of my meeting you if it means there’s less chat around the shop about what happened.”
It was a relatively convincing answer, but Jude reckoned he was still holding something back. And a straight question seemed as good a way as any other of finding out what that was. “Is there anything you know about the case that you’ve been keeping to yourself?”
“No,” he replied. “I’ve given the police my full cooperation.”
There was a silence. Ryan took another desperate swallow of his vodka. Jude exchanged a look with Carole which confirmed that neither of them expected to get much more out of the interview. Time to put the big question.
Carole did the honours. “I believe you told the police that you’d only seen Tadeusz Jankowski on one occasion.”
“I did, yes. The afternoon he died.”
“Well, we’ve heard from other regulars in the betting shop that he actually went in on a previous occasion.”
“Last October,” Jude supplied.
“Yes,” said Ryan. “I heard that as well.”
“Then why didn’t you tell the police you’d seen him before?”
“Because I hadn’t. I was on holiday last October.”
He answered so readily that they could not doubt the honesty of his reply. As simple as that. Ryan Masterson had not seen Tadeusz Jankowski the previous October because he had been on holiday with his family. Annual leave. It could be checked, presumably, with his employers, but neither Jude nor Carole thought the effort would be worth it. He was telling the truth.
And dealing with the question seemed to relax him. If that was all they were interested in, his manner seemed to say, then no problem. He downed the remainder of his drink – just melting ice, he’d long since finished the vodka – and said he should be on his way.
“Couple of other things we’d like to ask you…” said Jude.
The panic returned instantly to his dark eyes. He thought he had been off the hook; now it seemed he wasn’t.
“Nikki…?”
“Yes.”
“She says she never notices anything that goes on in the shop.”
“Don’t I bloody know it? Doesn’t notice anything that goes on anywhere. Walks around in a dream, planning how she’s going to decorate her sitting room when she gets married. Only thing she thinks about is her bloody
