“What else is there to think?”
“Well, if you listen to Fethering gossip…”
“If you listen to Fethering gossip, you waste a lot of time.”
“But you must hear a lot, being in the shop all day.”
“I manage to tune most of it out.”
“Do you like your job?” asked Jude suddenly.
“What’s that to you?” he responded aggressively.
“Just a detail that might shed light on other details.”
Jude wasn’t sure whether her answer actually meant anything, but it seemed to contain some threat to Ryan, because with commendable honesty he said, “No, I don’t like my job.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s dull and repetitive, for a start. The hours are long, particularly in the summer. And you have to spend your day smiling at people you wouldn’t normally give the time of day to. You don’t exactly choose your own company. Some of the punters are pretty rude. Then you get the down-and-outs and the Care in the Community lot. Some of them smell, too.”
“Then why do you stick at it?”
“It’s secure. I’m paid just about enough to make me think that the idea of giving it up and retraining for something else is a bad one.” For a moment he looked haunted by self-doubt. “Don’t know whether I’ve got it in me to train for anything else now – don’t know if I could hack it. Anyway, I’ve got a wife and two kids – not the time to cut loose. I can’t afford to take risks.”
“Risks that might mean you’d get fired?”
Ryan evaded a direct answer to Jude’s question. He just shrugged and said, “It’s a job. Probably no better and no worse than any other job. How many people do you know who enjoy what they do?”
Jude did actually know quite a lot, but it wasn’t the moment to say so. “Why did you agree to meet me?”
Her question seemed to make him even more nervous. He swallowed and his voice was strained as he replied, “You wanted to talk. I can’t really do that while I’m in the shop.”
“I said I wanted to talk about Tadeusz Jankowski.”
“Yes.”
“Which is why you agreed so readily to meet me.”
“OK, yes. Him coming into the shop and then dying wasn’t exactly good for business. Head Office are keen that the publicity is kept to the minimum. They would approve of my meeting you if it means there’s less chat around the shop about what happened.”
It was a relatively convincing answer, but Jude reckoned he was still holding something back. And a straight question seemed as good a way as any other of finding out what that was. “Is there anything you know about the case that you’ve been keeping to yourself?”
“No,” he replied. “I’ve given the police my full cooperation.”
There was a silence. Ryan took another desperate swallow of his vodka. Jude exchanged a look with Carole which confirmed that neither of them expected to get much more out of the interview. Time to put the big question.
Carole did the honours. “I believe you told the police that you’d only seen Tadeusz Jankowski on one occasion.”
“I did, yes. The afternoon he died.”
“Well, we’ve heard from other regulars in the betting shop that he actually went in on a previous occasion.”
“Last October,” Jude supplied.
“Yes,” said Ryan. “I heard that as well.”
“Then why didn’t you tell the police you’d seen him before?”
“Because I hadn’t. I was on holiday last October.”
He answered so readily that they could not doubt the honesty of his reply. As simple as that. Ryan Masterson had not seen Tadeusz Jankowski the previous October because he had been on holiday with his family. Annual leave. It could be checked, presumably, with his employers, but neither Jude nor Carole thought the effort would be worth it. He was telling the truth.
And dealing with the question seemed to relax him. If that was all they were interested in, his manner seemed to say, then no problem. He downed the remainder of his drink – just melting ice, he’d long since finished the vodka – and said he should be on his way.
“Couple of other things we’d like to ask you…” said Jude.
The panic returned instantly to his dark eyes. He thought he had been off the hook; now it seemed he wasn’t.
“Nikki…?”
“Yes.”
“She says she never notices anything that goes on in the shop.”
“Don’t I bloody know it? Doesn’t notice anything that goes on anywhere. Walks around in a dream, planning how she’s going to decorate her sitting room when she gets married. Only thing she thinks about is her bloody wedding, and it’s still over a year away.”
“That might be a front,” Carole suggested. “And all the time she’s really keeping her eye on everything that goes on?”
Ryan looked at her pityingly. “Tell you, with Nikki, what you see is what you get. She is seriously thick.”
“Oh.” This didn’t seem very gallant, but presumably he knew the woman he worked with.
“If that’s it, I’d better…”
“One more thing…” Jude raised a hand to detain him. “I asked you about this before. There’s a woman who’s a regular at the betting shop…”
“There are a few.”
“Well, I say she is a regular. I should have said was a regular. Stopped coming in around October last year.”
“People come and go, that’s up to them.”
“This one was well dressed, sort of middle class.”
Ryan narrowed his eyes with the effort of recollection. “I think I know the one you mean.”
“You wouldn’t know her name, would you?”
He shook his head. “Some people tell us their names, some don’t. If they don’t, we’ve no means of knowing.”
“No. And I suppose if you don’t know her name, the chances of you knowing where she lives…”
“Are about as slender as those of one of Harold Peskett’s bloody accumulators coming up.” This moment of levity showed how relaxed he now was. “Why do you want to know about her?”
“Apparently Tadeusz Jankowski spoke to her when he went into the betting shop last October.”
“Ah, well, I wouldn’t know about that,” said the manager with something approaching smugness. “I was on holiday.”
Shortly after he reiterated that he must be on his way and left.
“There goes a relieved man,” said Jude.
“How do you mean?”
“He was very relieved when he found out what we were interested in – just whether he’d seen Tadeusz Jankowski before. He had no worries about answering that enquiry. Which means…” Jude grimaced “…that there was something else he was afraid we wanted to talk to him about.”
“Any idea what?”
“Well, only conjecture…but I’m pretty sure I’m right. Seeing the way he put away that vodka…and given the fact that he’s always sucking peppermints, I would think it’s a pretty fair bet that young Ryan has a drink problem.”
“And he thought we wanted to talk to him about that?”
“That’s my theory. When I saw him in the back yard this morning, he was out there having a swig from his secret supply. He thought I’d actually seen him drinking. That’s the only reason he agreed to meet us. He was afraid we might shop him to Head Office.”
“But why on earth would he think that?”
“Alcoholics are paranoid. Like all addicts. Including gamblers.”
“Well,” said Carole sniffily, “you’d know about that.”
Thirteen
The decision to stay in the Crown and Anchor for another glass of the Chilean Chardonnay was quickly made. And they were soon joined by other after-work regulars. Shortly after six Ewan Urquhart and his younger clone Hamish appeared. Maybe they did this every evening after a hard day’s estate agenting (though Jude sometimes wondered whether ‘a hard day’s estate agenting’ wasn’t the perfect definition of an oxymoron). Certainly the speed with which Ted Crisp set up a pair of unordered pints for them suggested a daily ritual.