much further.”
“You’re warning us off,” said Jude. He gave a relaxed laugh. “That sounds a little over-dramatic. Let’s just say I’m trying to avoid your being inconvenienced.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you. But the police have already questioned me, and I didn’t find it a particularly inconvenient experience.”
“Fine.” He shrugged. “Only trying to save you hassle.” Jude felt his grey eyes seeking out her brown ones and saw the half-insolent smile on his face. Andy Constant knew he was attractive and he knew that she was responding to him. He couldn’t know that part of the attraction came from his similarity to Laurence Hawker, another tall academic with whom she had spent time until his premature death a few years before. While she couldn’t deny the pull that Andy Constant exerted, Jude resented feeling it. In spite of the superficial likeness to Laurence, there was something about him that struck warning chords within her, something dangerous. Which of course only served to add to his appeal.
Carole, who seemed unaware of the subtext between them, took up the conversation. “You said you were Admissions Tutor.”
“I did, yes.”
“Then maybe you can at least answer the question we came here to ask.”
“Try me.”
“Was Tadeusz Jankowski ever enrolled here as a student?”
Andy Constant was silent for a moment, as if deliberating over his reply. He took another sip of his espresso, then put the tiny cup down on its tiny saucer. “I can’t actually see what harm my giving you that information can cause. Well, the answer’s no. Tadeusz Jankowski was never enrolled in any course at this university.” It was the first time he had used the word.
“And had he ever made enquiries about the courses he might have enrolled in?” asked Carole, pushing her luck.
“Not so far as I know. I suppose he might have made an approach by letter or email, but none of my colleagues has mentioned anything about his doing so. And, needless to say, given the amount of media coverage, people have been talking a lot about him. I think if anyone had had an approach from someone called Tadeusz Jankowski, they’d have said so. It’s not the kind of name you’d forget, is it?”
Jude joined in. “So you can’t think of any connection he might have had with Clincham College?”
“No.”
“Do you know if he’d ever even been on the premises?”
“Not to my knowledge,” replied Andy Constant, and then he gave Jude another of his lazy, but undeniably sexy smiles. “Still, if I hear from anyone that he has been seen here, I’ll let you know.” He smiled again. “Maybe you’d like to give me your number, Jude…?”
As she was scribbling it out on a scrap of paper, a girl came into the canteen. She was dark and pretty in a Hispanic way, dressed in the typical student uniform of jeans and layers of sweatshirts. Long black hair curtained her face. “Andy,” she said as she approached their table. Her voice sounded slightly Spanish.
He looked up and seemed pleased with what he saw. “Yes?”
“Andy, I thought you said we’d meet up in the Drama Studio at eleven.”
He looked at his watch. “Oh, sorry. Hadn’t noticed the time.” He turned the full power of his smile on to Carole and Jude. “Ladies, you will excuse me?”
And, pausing only to snatch up the piece of paper with Jude’s number on it, he walked with long strides out of the cafe. The dark-haired girl followed, her eyes glowing with puppy love.
Jude was too old for puppy love, but she couldn’t deny that Andy Constant was a very attractive man.
? Blood at the Bookies ?
Fifteen
Jude heard the sound of crying as soon as she came through the door of Woodside Cottage. Zofia was hunched up on one of the sitting room’s heavily draped sofas, her shoulders shaken by the sobs that ran through her body. On the floor beside her were a battered suitcase and a scruffy backpack. Immediately Jude’s arms were round the girl and her lips were murmuring soothing words.
“I am sorry,” was the first thing that Zofia managed to say. “I hear from the police this morning that I can come and collect Tadek’s things, his possessions, and seeing them…” She indicated the bags “…it makes me realize that he is really gone from me.”
“Do you want me to put them away somewhere, until you are ready to deal with them?”
“No, Jude, thank you.” Zofia wiped the back of her hand against her face to dismiss the tears. “No, I am ready to deal with them now. Maybe there is something in here that tells me what has happened to Tadek. I must not be emotional. I must try to piece together from his possessions what he was doing here in England, and perhaps the reason why someone want to kill him.”
“All right,” said Jude. “I’ll help you. But first let’s have a drink of something. What would you like, Zosia?”
“Coffee, please. Black, that would be good.”
“Don’t start opening the bags until I’m there.” Jude didn’t fool herself that her words were spoken from pure altruism. She was being offered a unique chance to further her investigation into Tadek’s death.
“Did the police say anything,” she called through from the kitchen, “about why they were letting you have his belongings so soon?”
“They just said they’d finished what they needed to do with them, and the landlord wants to rent out the room again as soon as possible so the stuff can’t go back to Littlehampton. Would I like to take it, please?”
“Did you go back to the house?”
“No, I collect from police station.”
“I wonder if their letting you take the stuff suggests the police are winding up their investigation?”
“I do not know.”
“Well, if they’ve made an arrest, we’ll hear pretty soon on the news.”
“Yes.”
When Jude came through with the coffee, Zofia had curbed her tears but she still looked lost and waiflike on the sofa. Her pigtails emphasized her vulnerability. “Come on,” said Jude, once the drinks were poured, “let’s be very unemotional about this; Try to distance yourself from what you’re looking at, Zosia.”
“I will try, but it is not easy.”
“I’m sure it isn’t. But just try to forget it is your brother whose things we are looking at. Imagine it is an assignment you are doing as a journalist. You have to write a story based on the information you can glean from what you find here.”
“Yes, this is a good way. I will try this.” She produced her blue notebook and opened it at a clean page. “I am writing a story about a murder investigation. And I will write my notes in English.”
“Right. Open the suitcase first.”
Zofia did as she was told. The contents of the case were pitifully few, mostly clothes, and fairly worn and threadbare clothes at that. Though they must all have been redolent of memories, the girl was commendably restrained as she neatly piled them up. She made a kind of inventory in her notebook.
“Nothing here that he didn’t have at the time he left Warsaw,” she announced when the suitcase was nearly empty. She picked up the last item, a sponge bag, and unzipped it.
The contents once again were unsurprising. Shaving kit, deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush, paracetamol. And in one compartment a pack of condoms.
“So it looks like something was happening in his life…” suggested Jude.
“Or just that Tadek was, as he always was, optimistic.” Zofia was making a joke at the expense of her brother’s romantic aspirations, but she could not say it without a tear glinting in her eye.
She moved on to the backpack. This had seen a lot of service. Its fabric was slack and discoloured, covered with a rough patchwork of stickers, old and illegible ones covered over by newer designs whose colours showed up against them.
