river.”
“Why would she do that? She could have parked a lot nearer to Allinstore. And Gerald said she was weighed down by two quite heavy bags. She wouldn’t have done that, unless she lived down by the river. If you’ve got heavy bags, you take the shortest route between where you’ve been shopping and where you want to get to.”
“Yes, usually.”
“Jude, why are you being like this? Normally I’m the one who’s the wet blanket on everything.”
“I just thought I’d see what it felt like.”
“Oh, now you’re being tiresome.”
“No, I’m not. I’m playing devil’s advocate.”
“Well, it isn’t a role that suits you,” said Carole grumpily and flopped back on one of Jude’s draped sofas. She felt something hard through the bedspread that covered it, and pulled out a plastic potato masher.
“Oh, I wondered where that had got to,” said Jude.
Which didn’t improve Carole’s mood. As she looked round the soft curves of the Woodside Cottage sitting room, she longed for the antiseptic right angles of High Tor. But even as she had the thought, she knew that Jude’s home had a warmth and welcome hers would never achieve.
“I think you’re feeling grumpy because you’re still not over that flu.”
“I am quite over that flu, thank you very much. And I am not feeling grumpy,” said Carole grumpily.
“Look, I agree with you that it is most likely that Melanie Newton lives somewhere down by the river.”
“She must do, because if she lived further along, you know, near Marine Villas, that area, then her quickest route to Allinstore wouldn’t be along River Road.”
“Carole, I’ve said I agree with you. The question is how we find out exactly where she lives.”
Carole looked shame-faced, “I did sort of…lurk about a bit down there this afternoon, just to see if there was any sign of her.”
“‘Lurk about’?” Jude was intrigued and amused by the image. “Were you in disguise?”
“Don’t be silly, of course I wasn’t. I just…well, I took Gulliver down by the river for his walk. And I…made the walk rather longer and slower than I normally would. You know, I let Gulliver sniff at anything along the towpath that he wanted to. And then later…”
“What did you do later, Carole?” asked Jude, trying to keep the smile off her face.
“I drove down in the Renault and…parked there for a while.”
“You mean you did a ‘stake-out’?”
“I don’t think there’s any need to call it that, but I did kind of…well, look out to see who was coming and going.”
“How long did you stay there?”
“Till it got dark. Then I came back home.”
“Good. Because I wouldn’t like to think of you being arrested for kerb-crawling.”
“Jude, I don’t know why you’re being so childish this evening.”
“No, nor do I. Sorry.”
“You may have lost interest in this murder investigation, but I haven’t.”
“Nor have I. I promise, I promise.”
“Good.” Carole sighed. “Oh, it’s so frustrating! We’ve got this woman’s name, we’ve got her mobile number, we know what she looks like, we have strong reason to believe she lives in Fethering, but we can’t find her.”
“I’m sure, if we worked out the right thing to say, we could leave a message on her mobile that would make her ring us back.”
“What? “Hello, we’re from the
“No, it’s got to be something she’ll believe. Nobody believes it when the
“If Melanie Newton’s got anything to do with that, then there’s nothing that would frighten her off quicker.”
“No, I take your point. Well, we can ask around in Fethering, about new people who’ve just moved in.”
“Let’s be logical about it, Jude. If Melanie Newton only moved out of the Fedborough house in November and she moved into a new house of her own, surely her husband would have known about that. He’d have to, unless she’s got a lot of money of her own, which he implied she hadn’t. So that probably means she’s currently renting. We don’t have an in with any of the local estate agents, do we?”
“Well, perhaps we do. I was given a lift back here on Friday by Ewan Urquhart. Yes, I could give them a call.”
“I don’t think estate agents are meant to give out details of their clients, but I suppose he might respond to your ‘feminine wiles’.” Carole knew that Jude had these. She suspected that she herself didn’t.
“I’ll see how I go. And I think that’s probably all we can do at the moment. Are you going to continue your stake-out of the towpath of the River Fether tomorrow, Carole?”
“No, of course I’m not.”
“Well, Zosia should be able to contact Tadek’s friend Marek tomorrow. I’m pretty sure it was Tuesday he was due back. Let’s hope he knows something.”
¦
The Polish girl did indeed speak to her brother’s friend the following morning. He was working in a cafe?bar?restaurant in Hove. His shift started at twelve, but if they could be there by eleven, he could spare time for them. He wanted to talk to Zofia; he still hadn’t taken in the news of his friend’s death.
“If we leave Brighton by twelve, can we be back in Fethering by one o’clock?” she had asked Jude.
“Certainly if we go by car. I’m sure Carole would be happy to drive us. But why do you need to be back by one?”
The girl had grinned. “Ted wants me to do another shift.”
“Ah, coming round to the idea of employing
“You would not think so, the way he speak. It is only short term, he tell me, just till he gets his proper staff back. He has not said anything yet that he is pleased with me, with how I work for him.”
“The fact that he keeps asking you back means he must be.”
“But he do not say so.”
“God, Ted can sometimes be so curmudgeonly.”
“I’m sorry? I do not know this word.”
“I’m not surprised. Well, it means…” Jude had been perplexed as to how to explain it. “It means the way it sounds, really. Think of led, think of any other grumpy old man and yes, you know what curmudgeonly means.”
“Oh, thank you.”
That morning Jude put into practice a plan that she had been nursing for a while. Remembering the circular letter she’d had from Urquhart & Pease, she rang the office and asked to have her home valued. She spoke to Hamish Urquhart, who sounded surprisingly efficient, and they made an appointment for him to come to the house on the Thursday morning at ten. Jude thought, with the young man actually on her premises, she could easily question him about rentals in the area. And maybe get a lead to Melanie Newton.
Carole readily agreed to take on the role of driving to Hove, because that meant she would be part of the next stage of the investigation. And so at a quarter to ten on the Tuesday morning (Carole always left more time than was needed and she knew that parking in the Brighton conurbation was notoriously hard to find) the three women set off in her immaculate Renault. As it turned out, they found an empty meter easily and so reached their destination nearer half-past ten than eleven.
The place where Marek Wisniewski worked was in Church Road, Hove, which ran parallel to and up the hill from the sea front. Virtually every business there seemed to be a restaurant of one ethnicity or another. Hove had always had the image of being more staid and geriatric than its louche neighbour Brighton, but that was changing and its plethora of restaurants and clubs suggested that young people could thrive there too.
The ethnicity of Marek’s place of work had nothing to do with Poland. A glance at the menu suggested a more Mediterranean flavour, a mix of Italian, Greek and Turkish cuisine. But it was very much open for business at that
