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?”
“Track down where a person is by their mobile phone. The technology’s there. It’s just not yet available to amateurs.”
“Just as well for some.”
“Hm?”
“If you could always tell where someone was phoning from on their mobile, it would considerably slow down the activities of certain philanderers. “Oh, darling, I’m in the office,” when in fact the speaker is in a Travelodge bedroom – and not unaccompanied. Would spell the death of adultery as we know it.”
Carole couldn’t stop her face from looking disapproving at that. Though she was fully aware that adultery existed – indeed, even thrived – something in her background prompted a knee-jerk reaction of censure.
“So we’re really no further on,” she continued in gloomy vein.
“How can you say that? We’ve not only got a name for the woman Tadek spoke to in the betting shop, we’ve now also got her mobile number. That’s a huge advance.”
“Yes, but she’s not answering the phone.”
“True.”
“So how on earth are we going to track her down?”
“I could try the internet. If she’s in a phonebook, wherever she happens to be…”
“But if she only moved out of the Fedborough house in November, she isn’t likely to be in a phonebook yet.”
“Maybe not, but there are other things I could try on the laptop. Just googling her name, see if that brings anything up.”
Carole was silent. She was still a bit of a dinosaur when it came to computers. Which she knew was silly, because she had the kind of brain that would respond well to that sort of technology. And indeed, had computers played much of a part in her work at the Home Office, she would have embraced them and developed her skills. But they hadn’t, and as always when faced by something new, Carole Seddon didn’t want to expose her ignorance.
“Well, you can try,” she said, her voice full of resentful scepticism.
“I will,” Jude responded, her optimism, as ever in such circumstances, even stronger than usual.
Carole looked at her watch. “Is Zofia at the Crown and Anchor?”
“No, she’s having a lie-down. We had some lunch together. She’s exhausted. I think the reality of what’s happened to her is beginning to hit home.”
“Yes. I’m surprised to hear that Ted would take on a foreigner. He seems to be getting more right-wing with every passing day.”
“I kind of put him in a position where it was difficult for him to refuse. Give him a few days with Zosia and I bet he’ll come round.”
“Zosia? I thought her name was Zofia.”
“Her friends call her Zosia. Apparently most people in Poland have kind of pet names. Like Tadek.”
“Ah.” A sudden thought came to Garole. “I say, you don’t think that what you heard the boy say, that ‘Fifi’… could be a reference to his sister?
“I asked her. No. He’d only ever called her Zosia.”
“Well, maybe ‘Fifi’ means something in Polish?”
“I asked her that too. She said it could be the beginning of certain Polish words, you know, that he was trying to get out, but she couldn’t think of any that had any potential relevance.”
“Ah,” said Carole, disappointed.
Her disappointment, however, was short-lived, as Zofia came rushing down the stairs, holding her mobile phone.
“Jude! Oh, hello, Carole. Listen, I have just had a call from Mafek!”
“Is he back in Brighton?”
“No, not yet, but they did give him the message to call me when he rang the restaurant.”
“And had he seen Tadek since he’d been in England?”
“Oh yes. They were in contact, but Marek did not know about what happened to my brother.”
“How could he avoid knowing?” asked Carole. “It’s been all over the national newspapers and on television.”
“Marek has been off travelling with a girlfriend the last week. He does not see any television.”
“When did he last see Tadek?” asked Jude.
“Round Christmas they meet and drink, but – and this is the interesting part – he fix to see Tadek on the day he die.”
“But he didn’t see him?”
“No.”
“Where were they going to meet?”
“At Tadek’s room in Littlehampton. The door is left open, in case Tadek is not there when Marek arrive. They are both not good with being on time. Marek gets to the room, he waits an hour, two hours, Tadek does not come. Marek goes back to Brighton. He has a shift to be at work.”
“So he was probably in your brother’s room,” asked Carole, “at the time the murder took place?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Did he say what he did while he was waiting?”
“He sat around, being bored, he tell me. Then he find Tadek has a bottle of vodka, so he drinks some. He wants to play music, but there is nothing there.”
“No CDs, no nothing?”
Zofia shook her head so vigorously that the pigtails slapped against her face. “No. And that is not like Tadek. Wherever Tadek is, he always has his music.”
“And his guitar.”
“Yes, and his guitar. So someone must have been into the room to steal those things. And I do not know why anyone would do that.”
Jude pieced her thoughts together slowly. “You said your brother always wrote songs about the women he was in love with…?”
