“The students too?”
“And how. Big excitement for them. Also rather frightening. A young man killed, possibly murdered, only a few miles away in Fethering. Comes a bit near home for them. Current crop of students have been brought up to be afraid of everything. The Health and Safety Generation, I call the poor saps. All afraid of being attacked, the girls afraid of being raped…Whatever happened to the innocence of youth?”
“Did it ever exist?” asked Carole.
“Maybe not, but I think when I was their age I did at least have the illusion of innocence. I kind of trusted the world, was prepared to give it a chance. I wasn’t afraid of everything.”
“You say they’re afraid of everything,” said Jude, “but you’re talking about a generation who think nothing of shooting off round the world on their gap years.”
“True. Except that’s just become another form of package tourism these days. For me it takes the excitement out of far-flung places, knowing there’ll be a nice familiar Macdonald’s waiting when you get there.”
“Maybe.” He had taken over the conversation so effortlessly that Jude wanted to find out more about Andy Constant. “You said you lecture in Drama. Does that mean you used to be an actor?” A theatricality about him made this quite a possibility.
“Very early in my career. Moved into directing for a while. Since then, teaching. Mind you, that involves a certain amount of directing too. And acting, come to think of it.”
He had considerable charm, and a strong sexual magnetism. The latter got through to Jude at an instinctive, visceral level, and she wondered whether Carole was aware of it too.
“Anyway,” Andy went on, “I couldn’t help overhearing what you said to Isobel at Reception. Sorry, I’m afraid she’s not the most imaginative of women. Whatever the question, she always comes up with the party line. But I heard you mentioning the name of Tadeusz Jankowski. I wondered why you were interested. Are you just another pair of Fethering residents fascinated by their proximity to a murder?”
Carole and Jude exchanged a look. The true answer was probably a yes, but they needed to come up with something a bit better than that. Jude thought of a solution which certainly had elements of truth in it. “The sister of the dead man came to see me. Naturally enough, she’s trying to find out everything she can about her brother. I just thought Carole and I could possibly help her.”
He nodded, as if he accepted this justification for their presence. “But why have you come here? What reason do you have for connecting the young man with Clincham College?”
Quickly Jude recounted what she had heard from Harold Peskett, about the young Pole’s earlier visit to the betting shop.
“Ah. That would explain something else.”
“What?”
“The police have been here too.”
“Asking about Tadeusz Jankowski?”
“Yes, Carole. Maybe they got the lead from the same source as you did.”
“When were they here?” asked Jude.
“Monday.”
“Then it wasn’t the same source as mine. I only suggested they should contact Harold yesterday – and up to then he said they hadn’t had any contact with him. So they must have heard about the Clincham College connection from someone else.”
“Not necessarily,” said Andy Constant. Apparently they didn’t seem very focused when they came here, more like it was just a routine enquiry.” Yes, thought Jude, “unfocused’ is a pretty good description of the approach Baines and Yelland had used when they interviewed her.
“I mean, I suppose it makes sense,” Andy went on. “Young people tend to congregate together. The dead man was young and had been living round here, so there’s quite a reasonable chance that he would have hooked up with some of the students from the college.” Carole noticed he didn’t use the word ‘university’ and wondered whether this was because he hadn’t yet got used to the idea or whether he was as cynical about the place’s status as she was.
The lecturer took a sip of his espresso and then continued in a different tone. “Anyway, one thing the police did say was that we on the staff here should keep our eyes and ears open for anyone who came here expressing interest in the murder victim…”
“Oh.”
“I thought I should warn you.”
“Why warn us?”
“Well, I’m sure you don’t want to be questioned by the police, do you? It’s very time-consuming and can, I believe, be quite unpleasant. I mean, you’re fine now. Isobel at Reception won’t say anything – that would involve her using her initiative and she doesn’t do that. And you can rely on me to keep quiet, but I can’t guarantee that the rest of the staff here would be so accommodating.”
“So what are you actually saying?” asked Carole.
“I’m saying that we’ve been told to let the police know if anyone comes here enquiring about Tadeusz Jankowski, and so I think there might be an argument for you not taking your investigations at Clincham College much further.”
“You’re warning us off,” said Jude. He gave a relaxed laugh. “That sounds a little over-dramatic. Let’s just say I’m trying to avoid your being inconvenienced.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you. But the police have already questioned me, and I didn’t find it a particularly inconvenient experience.”
“Fine.” He shrugged. “Only trying to save you hassle.” Jude felt his grey eyes seeking out her brown ones and saw the half-insolent smile on his face. Andy Constant knew he was attractive and he knew that she was responding to him. He couldn’t know that part of the attraction came from his similarity to Laurence Hawker, another tall academic with whom she had spent time until his premature death a few years before. While she couldn’t deny the pull that Andy Constant exerted, Jude resented feeling it. In spite of the superficial likeness to Laurence, there was something about him that struck warning chords within her, something dangerous. Which of course only served to add to his appeal.
Carole, who seemed unaware of the subtext between them, took up the conversation. “You said you were Admissions Tutor.”
“I did, yes.”
“Then maybe you can at least answer the question we came here to ask.”
“Try me.”
“Was Tadeusz Jankowski ever enrolled here as a student?”
Andy Constant was silent for a moment, as if deliberating over his reply. He took another sip of his espresso, then put the tiny cup down on its tiny saucer. “I can’t actually see what harm my giving you that information can cause. Well, the answer’s no. Tadeusz Jankowski was never enrolled in any course at this university.” It was the first time he had used the word.
“And had he ever made enquiries about the courses he might have enrolled in?” asked Carole, pushing her luck.
“Not so far as I know. I suppose he might have made an approach by letter or email, but none of my colleagues has mentioned anything about his doing so. And, needless to say, given the amount of media coverage, people have been talking a lot about him. I think if anyone had had an approach from someone called Tadeusz Jankowski, they’d have said so. It’s not the kind of name you’d forget, is it?”
Jude joined in. “So you can’t think of any connection he might have had with Clincham College?”
“No.”
“Do you know if he’d ever even been on the premises?”
“Not to my knowledge,” replied Andy Constant, and then he gave Jude another of his lazy, but undeniably sexy smiles. “Still, if I hear from anyone that he has been seen here, I’ll let you know.” He smiled again. “Maybe you’d like to give me your number, Jude…?”
As she was scribbling it out on a scrap of paper, a girl came into the canteen. She was dark and pretty in a Hispanic way, dressed in the typical student uniform of jeans and layers of sweatshirts. Long black hair curtained her face. “Andy,” she said as she approached their table. Her voice sounded slightly Spanish.