Fethering 09 (2008) - Blood at the Bookies (24 page)

“How?” asked Carole, incredulous.

“Because I’d win!” replied Melanie Newton, as if speaking to an idiot. “I’d win a lot of money and then have the freedom to do what I wanted.”

“But did you win a lot of money?”

“Sometimes,” came the defiant reply.

“Did you need a lot of money, though? If you had a good job in PR, and your husband must have been earning quite a bit in oil exploration…”

“I didn’t need money then. And soon I won’t need it again.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she explained patiently, “I’ll soon have a big win. Soon I’ll pay off all the debts, on all the credit cards. And then I’ll get my life back on track.”

Carole indicated the computer screen. “Through roulette?”

“I’m playing roulette at the moment. I’m on a winning streak on the roulette. You have to be sensible, you know. When you’re on a losing’ streak, you must change games. Then your luck will change.”

“And does your luck often change?”

All that got was another recalcitrant “Sometimes.”

“Melanie, have you ever asked for help?”

“Help? I don’t need help. I can gamble perfectly adequately on my own, thank you.”

“I meant help with stopping gambling.”

This sparked another paranoia of suspicion. “Has someone sent you? Is Giles behind this?”

“No, I have come completely of my own accord. I’m nothing to do with your debts or your gambling problem. I’m—”

“I don’t have a gambling problem,” Melanie Newton insisted. “When I get the big win, everything’ll be sorted out.”

“All right.” Carole held her hands out in a pacifying gesture. “Then I’ll just ask you what I came to ask you.”

“What was that?” The woman sounded distracted now. Her eyes kept darting to the laptop screen and her hand was itching for the keyboard.

“About Tadeusz Jankowski…”

“The boy. Oh yes.”

“How did you come to meet him?”

“He came to the house in Fedborough last autumn.”

“Just out of the blue?”

“No.”

“By arrangement then?”

“Yes.”

“So, after your first meeting in Leipzig you kept—?”

“What?” Melanie Newton asked curiously.

“Your husband told me that you went travelling in Holland and Germany last summer.”

“I wanted to get away. I wanted a clean break. Giles was abroad, as ever. I thought going off on my own might be the answer. It wasn’t. I’d booked a fortnight and I came back after five days.”

“But during those five days you met Tadeusz Jankowski?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He came to see me in Fedborough in answer to an advertisement.”

“An advertisement for what?”

“I put a card in the newsagent’s window. Advertising a room in the house. I…Well, the fact is…I was rather hard up. Giles was going to be away for four months. He would never know if I got in a lodger—not that I’d have cared much if he did find out. We’d already decided to split up and sell the place. I thought a bit of income would help the interest payments on the credit cards, so I advertised. Tadeusz Jankowski was about the only response I got.”

“But he didn’t take the room?”

“No. He didn’t think he could afford what I was asking. He said he’d look around and get back to me. But he never did.”

“Though you did see him again in the betting shop?”

“Yes. That was while I still used to go in there.”

“Why did you stop going?”

The woman gestured to her laptop as if it were something of exotic and unparalleled value. “Why bother making the effort to go into a betting shop when I can get all this at home?”

Carole found it sad to see how narrow the focus of the woman’s life had become. “So what did you say to Tadeusz Jankowski in the betting shop?”

“I can’t remember. We’re talking about last October. I don’t know. I suppose I said hello, how are you, asked him about how his girlfriend was.”

“His girlfriend?” Carole, who had been about to question Melanie Newton about her affair with the boy, was completely wrong-footed.

“Yes. He mentioned a girlfriend when he came to see the room. He said she was why he had come to England. But that he just wanted the room for himself, they wouldn’t be cohabiting.”

“Did he tell you her name?”

“No.”

“Anything about her?”

“Just that she went to the University of Clincham. He asked me how to get there. I didn’t know where it was, so he asked somebody else. ”

“Ah,” said Carole. “Thank you.”

A
ndy Constant strode through the University of Clincham campus as though he owned the place. And the proprietorial manner was increased when he pulled out a large bunch of keys to open the block marked ‘DRAMA STUDIO AND REHEARSAL ROOMS’.

“Is this where the admissions records are kept?” asked Jude, with some scepticism.

“I keep everything to do with me here.”

“A little empire?”

“Yes, one that has declared UDI from the rest of the university and its policies.” He pushed open the glass door and ushered her into the unlit lobby. As Jude knew he would, he put his arm around her ample waist as he propelled her into the darkness.

He opened another heavy door and she found herself in a space which felt larger, but was totally black. Andy released his hold on her and said, “Just get some light on the situation.”

He seemed to know the way around his empire blindfold. There was a click of another door, then after a few seconds, the space was filled with light. Not bright light, but subtle warming light which seemed to focus on the edges and corners of the room. Jude looked up and saw the source, stage lights hanging from a gantry in the ceiling, their harshness muted by gels of pink and orange.

The space they revealed was painted matt black, a functional studio for drama workshops or even small-scale productions. Folding audience chairs were stacked against the walls. On the floor were large blocks, a free-standing door in a frame, other chairs, all painted matt black. Against the wall were a couple of crestfallen sofas and—surprise, surprise—a double bed mattress covered with black sheets.

Andy Constant appeared from the lighting box, a bottle of whisky and two not very clean glasses in one hand. “Drink?” he asked.

Jude nodded. “You seem to have got yourself very nicely set up here.”

He shrugged as he poured the drinks and gestured to one of the sofas. “Need a versatile space for the kind of stuff I do.”

Jude wondered if the ambiguity was deliberate, and decided it probably was. She sat down on the sofa and he slumped beside her, passing across a glass of Scotch.

“Cheers.”

She echoed the toast and took a long swallow. The whisky burned its comfort down her throat. “So…are you going to have a look through the admissions files…to see if Tadeusz Jankowski ever applied for a place here?”

“I’ll do that in a little while,” he replied. “Let’s just enjoy a drink first. I’ve had a hard day. I need a break.”

They both took a long swallow.

“Workshopping, were you?”

“Yes. Right here. We were doing some role-playing about broken relationships.”

“Which no doubt involved a lot of rolling about on the bed over there?”

“A certain amount, yes.” He read the potential censure in her eye. “Nothing inappropriate, I can assure you. This generation of kids are very hot on what’s appropriate and inappropriate. What they get up to in their own time is not my problem; here on the campus they’re quite sophisticated in their approach to gender politics.”

“And you have a position of trust with them?”

“Very definitely. A duty of responsibility. Which I take very seriously. I wouldn’t last long here if I didn’t.”

“Which could bring us back to the mysterious Joan.”

“It could, but it needn’t.” His hand was now resting gently on Jude’s shoulder. She could have told him to remove it, but she didn’t want a scene. Not yet, not before she’d got some more information out of him. Besides, she was a grown woman. She could look after herself. And having his hand on her shoulder was not a wholly unpleasant sensation.

“So you deny that you’re having a relationship with her?”

“I’ve told you. It’d be more than my job’s worth. And it’d be far too public for me to do such a thing. A campus like this is a breeding ground for gossip. Everyone would immediately know all the details. How could I possibly manage it?”

“This place seems quite private. We didn’t see anyone when we came in here this evening, did we?”

“The CCTV cameras would have clocked us.”

“Yes, and the security people might be interested in me. Because I have nothing to do with the university. But you…it’s part of your job to come and go as you please. And presumably Joan’s enrolled as a student here, so there’s nothing odd about her wandering around. If she’s studying Drama, why shouldn’t she come into the Drama Studio?”

“Jude, might I say that you do have rather a one-track mind?”

“Maybe.”

His hand was now holding her shoulder rather than just resting on it. And he was moving his face closer, as if to kiss her.

Jude, tempted but strong, held up a hand. “I came here because you said you kept the admission files here.”

“Yes, they’re on my laptop.” Recognizing that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with her at that moment, he raised himself out of the sofa’s depths. “I’ll get it.” He went back to the lighting box.

Jude swallowed the rest of her whisky. She topped up her grubby glass from the bottle on the floor. She looked around the room. Andy Constant’s convenient little seduction venue. Against the walls were racks of costumes, rifles, banners, swords, kitchen equipment, stepladders. All the impedimenta of the fantasies worked out by the students in the space. The fantasies which were engendered and controlled by Andy Constant during workshop sessions. And others that he realized out of academic hours.

He returned, holding his laptop open and already keying instructions into it. “What period were you talking about?”

“He came over to England round the end of last September. Any time since then, I imagine.”

“University term starts at the end of September. He’d have had to apply much earlier than that if he wanted to enrol as a full-time student…”

“Are there part-time courses?”

“Some.”

“Could you check those too, please?”

“Jude, I would be within my rights to ask you why the hell you want to know all this stuff?”

“If you did, I’d reply that I want to know why Tadeusz Jankowski was murdered.”

“Whatever the reason for his death, I can assure you it had nothing to do with Clincham College.”

“The information I’m asking you to check could maybe prove that. You do have it there, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he replied tartly. “The main records are over in the Admin block, but I keep copies of everything here. It is my job, you know.” He seemed to resent Jude’s insinuation that he might be less than diligent in his duties. Looking at the laptop screen, he said, “No, the name’s not here.”

“May I have a look?”

He sighed at her suspicion, but obediently sat down and placed the laptop on her plump knees. “OK, we’re in the file ‘ALLAPP’, short for ‘All Applications’. As you see, the dates are on different tabs. Check along the period you are interested in. The applicants’ names, you’ll see, are in alphabetical order.”

Jude went through the files for the previous nine months. The name ‘Tadeusz Jankowski’ did not appear. She handed the laptop back.

“So now do you believe me?”

“About that,” said Jude, “yes.”

He deliberately closed the laptop and placed it down on the floor. Then he put his hand on her shoulder and moved it quickly round to her neck. He drew her face towards his.

He had cleaned his teeth. He had at least made that effort to meet her. She could smell the fresh mint from his mouth. She could feel the strength of his eyes as they locked with hers. And he did have very kissable lips.

Jude had no puritan instincts in sexual matters. She tended to let her actions be dictated by the promptings of instinct. Such an attitude had frequently led to disaster, but the way to that disaster had sometimes been a pretty one.

Their mouths engaged. It was pleasant. He seemed in no hurry. His lips teased and nibbled at hers, his tongue flicking against her teeth.

Their eyes had disengaged, and over Andy’s shoulder Jude could see the contours of the room, the black walls washed by honey-coloured light, the jumble of stage equipment against the wall. She felt his hand slip over the curves of her shoulder towards the more rewarding curves of her breast. She liked the feeling. She didn’t like the man, but she liked what he was doing to her.

Suddenly her eye was caught by a flash of colour amongst the black of the props. She saw the outline of a face, red, with two black and white eyes over a circular mouth.

Propped up against the wall of the Drama Studio was a red-painted guitar.

“H
e said he had no idea where it came from,” Jude announced. “He’d asked the students to bring in musical instruments for some workshop they were doing. One of them brought in that guitar.”

“Which one?”

“He claimed he couldn’t remember, Carole. He didn’t notice. A lot of them brought stuff in.”

“Do you think he was telling the truth?”

“From what I know of Andy Constant, I’d think it was unlikely.”

“Hm.” Carole looked at her neighbour curiously. “And how did you actually come to be in the Drama Studio with him?”

For the first time in their acquaintance, she saw Jude look embarrassed. “Oh, I was just checking out with him whether Tadek had ever applied to the university.”

“And Andy Constant kept those records in the Drama Studio?”

“Yes, he did.” Although she was speaking absolute truth, Jude found herself blushing like the biggest liar on earth.

“I see,” said Carole witheringly. “Anyway, that ties in with what I found out from Melanie Newton. About the connection with the University of Clincham.”

“Yes, I haven’t congratulated you properly yet on tracking her down. That was a brilliant bit of detective work.”