Fethering 09 (2008) - Blood at the Bookies (4 page)

He was clearly preaching to the converted as far as Ted Crisp was concerned. “Couldn’t agree with you more, Ewan. I don’t want to be ordered about by bloody Brussels.”

“Nor me,” Hamish managed to slip in before his father continued. “Being British used to be a cause for pride. Not showing-off pride like some other countries are so fond of. Not standing up and saying ‘Aren’t I wonderful?’ pride. But that quiet British pride that just does the right thing without crowing about it. And where’s that gone, I ask you? God knows. Now our bloody politicians seem to be apologizing all the time…desperate not to offend anyone ‘of a different ethnic background’. Margaret Thatcher never used to apologize for being British.”

Surely Ted was going to take issue with that? In his stand-up days Thatcher-bashing had been a major ingredient of his material. But he said nothing, as Ewan Urquhart steamrollered on. “Things like this murder should be a wake-up call, you know. Get people to stop and think what we’re actually doing to this country by allowing uncontrolled immigration. As I say, I’m not a racist, but I do think there comes a point when you have to recognize that enough is enough.”

“You’re too right, Dad,” said Hamish.

Jude had intended to have supper in the Crown and Anchor. But as Ewan Urquhart continued his tub-thumping, and as Ted Crisp and Hamish continued to agree with him, the prospect became less attractive. When she’d finished the one Chilean Chardonnay, she went back to Woodside Cottage. She’d find something in the fridge.

C
arole Seddon’s flu was slow to shift, but after the weekend the prospect of life continuing in some form did once again seem a possibility. She was pleased to feel better, but also guiltily relieved that it had lasted as long as it did. The weekend had been one she was dreading, and she was glad that the flu had prevented her from participating in it. Being Carole Seddon, she was also worried about the extent to which she had used the illness as an excuse.

The event she had avoided was a meeting with her son Stephen, his wife Gaby and their four-month-old daughter Lily. But it wasn’t them Carole didn’t want to see. Since the baby’s birth she had actually bonded more with the young couple, happy on occasions to go and help her daughter-in-law out at their Fulham house. And she found Lily a miracle. That something so tiny and so perfect could suddenly exist was a source of constant amazement to her. Though she was the last person to go all gooey in public about babies, Carole did find she was suffering from considerable internal gooeyness. Of course she didn’t vocalize such self-indulgent thoughts, but they did give her a warm glow.

It was all so different from when she’d had Stephen. Then she’d been in such turmoil, finding herself in the one state she had tried to avoid all her life—out of control. The strange things that had happened to her body, the demanding new presence in her life, the realignment of her relationship with her husband…everything conspired to make her feel threatened and useless. Had she gone to a doctor about her feeling, there might have been a diagnosis of mild post-natal depression, but Carole Seddon had always believed that doctors were there to deal with physical problems, not feelings. And depression was something that happened to other people.

So she hadn’t been worried about seeing Lily and her parents at the weekend. In fact she longed to witness her granddaughter’s every tiny development. But Stephen had included another person in the proposed visit to Fethering.

His father. Carole’s ex-husband David. Stephen was still under the illusion that, because he’d seen his estranged parents together at social events—like his wedding—when they hadn’t actually come to blows, a new rapprochement between them was possible. With a wistful innocence that made Carole feel even guiltier, her son was desperate to be part of a happy family. And, now Lily was on the scene, of a happy extended family.

It was an ambition that Carole couldn’t share. Getting over the divorce had taken a good few years and at times it still felt like an open wound. But one of the important components of rehabilitation into her new single life had been not seeing David. Even the sound of his voice on the phone could upset her hard-won equilibrium for days on end.

As a result of this, she had bought a new telephone with a Caller Display facility. If David were to ring her, she could then identify his number and choose whether or not to take the call. So far he hadn’t called—and in fact David’s was the one set of digits where Carole’s usual facility for remembering phone numbers failed (a psychological block no doubt, though she would never have recognized it as such). But the Caller Display did give her a sense of security.

The thought of seeing David in Fethering made Carole feel even more unsettled. High Tor had been bought as a weekend retreat for both of them in happier times, when the marriage was still more or less ticking over. Under the terms of the divorce settlement, Carole had taken sole possession, and had managed over the years to expunge all memories of their shared occupation. Seeing David back on the premises would stir up a hornets’ nest of unwanted recollection.

As soon as she’d made the arrangement for the weekend, Carole had regretted it. Stephen had caught her in an unguarded moment, when she had been cuddling Lily, and at such times all the world seemed benign and she hadn’t been able to refuse him. So the fated weekend had continued to loom ever larger on her horizon until the threat was removed by the mercy of her flu.

She felt deeply relieved that the encounter hadn’t happened. But she was sorry not to have seen Lily.

Still, now she was feeling better, she could begin to focus her mind on the death of Tadeusz Jankowski. With the return of her health came a prurient wistfulness, almost a jealousy, prompted by the fact that Jude had witnessed the young man’s dying moments. If there was to be an investigation, Carole wanted to be part of it. So she sought through the weekend papers and cut out all the coverage of the murder, anything that might have relevance to the case. She found quite a lot of material. Immigration, particularly from Poland, was a topical issue, and the murder had unleashed pages and pages of ill-informed speculation.

Jude was surprised it took till the Monday for the police to contact her again. They’d taken all her details when they’d questioned her on the Thursday, saying they’d be in touch. And on the old principle that the first suspect in a murder investigation tends to be the person who finds the body, she had expected them to show more interest in her.

But the two young detectives who came to Woodside Cottage seemed very relaxed. They certainly didn’t give her the impression that she was a suspect and, given her previous experience of dealing with the police, were surprisingly generous with information.

“We’re pretty sure,” said the one who was called Detective Sergeant Baines, “that the victim had nothing to do with anyone in the betting shop that afternoon.”

“No one in there knew him?”

“No. We took statements from them all, you know, after you’d gone. None of them knew him from Adam. The manager, who makes it his business to see who comes in and out, had never seen him before.”

“So why did he go into the betting shop?”

“No idea. Maybe he was walking past and, feeling weak after being stabbed, just went in there to sit down. Or to get some shelter from the hailstorm.”

“Don’t you think it’s odd he didn’t ask for help?” asked Jude, reiterating Carole’s point.

Baines shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t know how badly injured he was. Perhaps he was already too weak to speak. Or he could have been in shock. I don’t know.”

“And do you know where he actually was when he was stabbed?”

The other one, Detective Sergeant Yelland, exchanged a grin with Baines and said, “If we knew that, we’d be well on the way to solving the case, wouldn’t we?”

“But it can’t have been far away, can it? Or there would have been more blood at the bookie’s, wouldn’t there?”

Unlike previous detectives Jude had met, these two didn’t seem to object to her working out her own theories. “Maybe,” said Baines. “They won’t really know till they get the detailed post-mortem report. It could have been an injury that didn’t bleed much at first, but then got worse. In fact, that must have been the case, because there was no trail of blood leading towards the betting shop, only away from it.”

Jude found his use of the personal pronoun interesting. ‘They’ would get the post-mortem report, not ‘we’. The main part of the investigation was going on elsewhere. Baines and Yelland were juniors, minor players in the game. Realizing this encouraged her to ask more questions.

“I just heard the man’s name on the television. And they said he was Polish. Have you been able to find out much more about him?”

Baines showed no reticence in answering. “He was from Warsaw. Finished at university there last year. Been doing casual bar work over here.”

“Do you know where he lived?”

“Rented room in Littlehampton.”

“Not far away…” Jude looked thoughtful. “Have his family in Poland been contacted?”

Detective Sergeant Yelland seemed suddenly aware of the incongruity of the situation. “Just a minute. Aren’t we the ones who’re meant to be asking you the questions?” But he sounded amused rather than resentful.

“I agree that’s traditional,” said Jude with a winning smile. “But you haven’t asked many, and we don’t want to sit here in silence, do we?”

Both men grinned. “Yes, his family have been told,” Baines replied. “And there’s been contact with the Polish police authorities.”

“Oh?”

“Well, makes sense. Most likely the reason he was attacked is something to do with his own community. Probably goes back to some rivalry back home.”

“Can you be sure of that?”

“Can’t be sure of much in our business,” said Yelland.

Jude now understood the explanation for their relaxed demeanour. Neither Baines nor Yelland was particularly interested in the case. They were underlings who did as they were told. They had been told to interview her and they were following their instructions. But they had no expectations that anything she might say would be useful to the investigation. They regarded the murder as a foreign case, which just happened to have taken place on their patch.

Jude decided to test the limits of their goodwill and persist in her questioning. “I just wondered…whether it might be more local…?” Remembering Ewan Urquhart’s pontificating in the Crown and Anchor the previous week, she went on, “There does seem to be quite a lot of resentment of immigrants round here.”

“Not that much,” said Baines. “In some of the inner city areas, yes, there are problems. But down here, it’s not as if they’re taking people’s jobs or anything like that. Maybe a bit of trouble in the bigger cities…Brighton, Portsmouth, Southampton. Get a bit of racial conflict at chucking-out time, you know, the odd fight. But not somewhere as small as Fethering. We don’t get called out much on disputes with immigrants, do we?”

Yelland agreed that they didn’t.

“I would just have thought—”

“I can assure you that they are investigating every possibility.” Again Baines’s tell-tale use of ‘they’. “And if there is someone local involved, I’m sure they’ll find out about it. But the initial enquiries will be focusing on the Polish community.”

“Right.”

“So…” asked Yelland ironically, “is there anything else you want to ask us?”

“Not at the moment. But if there are any further questions, I’ll be in touch.”

Yelland grinned at his colleague. “Stealing all our lines, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Baines. “And if you remember anything else you might think is relevant, you be in touch too.”

“Will do.”

“Or if there’s anything you want to add to the statement you made on Thursday…?”

“I can’t think of anything at the moment.”

“Fine. Well, if there’s an arrest, you’ll hear about it on the telly.”

But Detective Sergeant Baines didn’t sound optimistic. Jude got the firm impression that neither he nor Yelland expected an early solution to the case. And that they weren’t that bothered.

A
fter the murder the betting shop had been closed while the police made their forensic examination of the premises, but it was allowed to reopen on the Monday. Which, Jude extrapolated, meant that they had been expecting to receive little information there. It wasn’t exactly a crime scene; the crime had happened elsewhere. Apparently detectives had made enquiries at other premises along the parade, but did not seem to have identified where the stabbing had taken place. Or if they had, they were keeping quiet about it.

No unsuspecting punter entering the betting shop on the Monday would have been aware that anything untoward had taken place there. But when she arrived that afternoon, Jude noticed that new, brighter blue carpet tiles had replaced the ones on to which the dying man’s blood had dripped. The originals were presumably under scrutiny in a police laboratory.

She had come in again to place Harold Peskett’s bets. The old man’s flu seemed to be hanging on. He felt lousy, but he still wanted to keep up with what he insisted on calling his ‘investments’. This had obviously been a problem over the weekend, with the betting shop closed, but Jude had found a solution. Using a laptop which she had inherited from a deceased lover, Laurence Hawker, she had opened up an online account.

The process had been so seductively easy that it gave her something of a shock. She had discovered that in a matter of moments anyone, armed only with an internet connection and a credit card, could have the capacity to lose money at will in the privacy of their own home. Jude was glad she didn’t have an addictive personality. Bankruptcy had never been so readily available.

But she only used her new account to put on Harold Peskett’s bets that weekend. Once the betting shop reopened, she thought it quite possible that she’d never log on again. She felt comforted to have the account, though. It was a convenience. If she fancied the name of a horse she saw in the paper or suddenly wanted to have a punt on the Grand National…well, the facility was there.