“Yes.”
“So his songs, if he’d recorded them, would probably have identified the woman he was in love with?” Zofia nodded. “And if that person had something to do with his murder, then she would try to remove anything in his room that might make the connection between them?”
“Certainly.”
“Then I think that must be the explanation. It becomes even more imperative that we find the woman your brother was in love with.”
“We may be closer to that than we were before,” Carole interposed with renewed pride. And she told Zofia of the advances they had made in tracking down Melanie Newton.
“This is good. There must be a way we can contact the woman.”
“I’ve tried the number a few more times. Still just get the voicemail.”
“But you will keep trying?”
“Yes, of course,” replied Carole, slightly affronted by Zofia’s question.
“Mind you,” said Jude, uncharacteristically sceptical, “we don’t know for sure that a woman was the reason why your brother came over here.”
Zofia beamed. “Yes, this we do know. This is another thing Marek tell me. When Tadek first contact him, he say that he has come to England because he has met a woman with whom he has fallen in love and she lives in England.”
“He didn’t volunteer her name?”
“No. He say no more than that he is madly in love, and that this is different from every other time he has been in love. Mind you,” Zofia concluded sadly, “that is what he say every time he meet a new woman.”
“And your brother hadn’t been to England before last summer? He couldn’t have met the woman over here?” asked Carole.
The girl shook her head firmly. “Tadek has travelled a lot in Europe. But this is the first time he come to England.”
“So we’re looking for a woman who has been to Europe relatively recently.”
“Giles Newton told me his wife had been travelling in Europe,” said Carole with some satisfaction.
“Yes, we must talk to her.” Jude had another thought. “Have the police spoken to Marek? Have they been in touch with him?”
“I ask him this and he tell me no. But the police might not know the connection between my brother and Marek. It is a long time ago they play in Twarz together.”
Carole looked bemused, but then had the name of the band explained to her. “Well,” she announced, full of Home Office sternness, “what you must do immediately is ring Marek back and tell him to phone the police in charge of the investigation.”
“But I cannot do that. As Marek was talking to me, the power on his phone run out. The battery needs recharging. And Marek tell me he will not be able to do this recharging until he is back in Brighton.”
“Oh, good,” said Jude.
¦
Later that Sunday the phone rang in Woodside Cottage. Jude answered it, and was not wholly surprised to hear Andy Constant’s voice.
“Listen, I’m sorry, I was a bit churlish on Friday.” Though this was undoubtedly true, she made no comment. “Sorry, I was preoccupied with the show. You know, I get like that when I’m in production. A kind of creative tunnel vision, if you know what I mean.” Oh yes, I know what you mean, thought Jude. You’re full of pretentious self- importance. “Anyway, now the show’s finished…”
“Did last night go well?”
“Bloody brilliant. Though I say it myself. Wish you’d seen last night, in fact, rather than Friday. It really gelled. The kids made me bloody proud of them, they kind of realized my vision.”
“I thought it was their vision that was meant to be realized.”
“Well, yeah, but, you know,
“OK.”
“But the reason I was ringing was…I wonder if my churlishness put you off too much…” He paused, but she wasn’t about to put him out of his suspense “…or if maybe we could meet up again?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Just a drink. I mean, not some heavy date or anything like that. I just thought, we got on all right, be nice to, you know, chat further about this and that.” His voice was by now so laid-back as almost to be comatose.
“When had you in mind?”
“After work tomorrow? Sixish?”
“I might not be able to do tomorrow.” Caution dictated that she shouldn’t sound too available.
“Tuesday then, same sort of time…?”
“Might be possible. Where were you thinking of? As you know, I live in Fethering.”
“Yeah. Bit difficult for me to get down there…you know, what with my commitments at the college. But we could meet up in the Bull again. At least you know where that is…”
“Yes.” The lazy, arrogant, mean bastard, not prepared to make the effort to stray off his own patch, not even inviting her out to dinner.
“So, what do you say? Shall we meet up at the Bull at six on Tuesday?”
Against her better judgement, Jude said, “Yes.” And once again she tried, without much success, to convince herself she’d only agreed to the meeting to further her murder investigation.
? Blood at the Bookies ?
Twenty-Three
“Is that Carole Seddon?”
“Yes.”
“Are you feeling lucky?”
“I’m sorry, who is this speaking?”
“It’s Gerald. Gerald Hume.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t recognize your voice.” She should have done. Those precise, clipped tones were very distinctive. “How nice to hear from you.”
“Have you finished the
“I did most of it over breakfast. About three clues left. But please don’t – ”
“Carole.” He sounded aggrieved by the imputation. “There is honour among crossword-solvers. I would never give away an answer to a fellow cruciverbalist, unless specifically asked to do so. And if someone did ask me for an answer, I have to confess that I wouldn’t regard that person as a proper cruciverbalist.”
“Good. We understand each other.”
“So I revert to my original question. Are you feeling lucky?”
“I don’t think I ever feel lucky,” Carole responded with rather dispiriting honesty.
“I was referring to the likelihood of your being successful on the horses today.”
“I don’t think I’m ever likely to be successful on the horses.”
“Why not? You have a keen analytical mind.”
“That’s as may be. The fact remains that the only way of being successful on the horses is by putting bets on them, and since I never put bets on them, my chances of success in that arena are correspondingly diminished.” Strange, she thought, how whenever she spoke to Gerald, her locutions became as mandarin as his own.
“But if you were to come down to the betting shop and make some investments, your chances would be correspondingly increased.”
“But why should I come down to the betting shop?”
“Because you might enjoy it.”
“I don’t think that’s a good enough reason.” For anything, her puritan upbringing might have added.
