Wordlessly, the girl did as she was told. An instinctive arm went round her shoulders. ‘What is it? Still Uncle Pawel?’
‘Yes. And also, what you think of me, Jude.’
‘What I think of you?’
‘Now you know I am a liar.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I tell you I do not work on Tuesday. That is true, but only partly true. Tuesday I am not here during the day. The evening I work.’
‘I see.’ The girl looked away as Jude joined the logic together. ‘Which means that a week ago you were here. You weren’t cooking kopytka for Uncle Pawel in your flat?’
‘No.’
‘Which means he has no alibi for that evening?’
‘No.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Lunchtime last Tuesday. I cooked for him then.’
‘Kopytka?’ Zosia nodded. ‘And you haven’t seen him since?’
She shook her head. ‘But I was hoping, Jude, perhaps you get a clue to where he is. Perhaps you hear something from your friend …?’
Jude was sorry to see the light of hope die in the girl’s eyes as she told her the results of Karla’s researches.
‘So, this Lennie has no idea where Uncle Pawel is?’
‘No. Just that he is in possession of an expensive silver hipflask. A hipflask in which, as it happens, the police are likely to be very interested.’
‘Why are the police involved?’
‘I’m sorry, Zosia, to have to tell you this …’ And Jude quickly outlined how Uncle Pawel’s possession of the hipflask could tie him to the scene of Burton St Clair’s murder.
‘But he would not kill someone he did not know. He would not kill anyone! My uncle may sometimes drink too much, but he is not a murderer!’
‘I’m sure he isn’t. He might, however, have information that could be very relevant to the police’s enquiries. Incidentally, Zosia …’
‘Yes?’ The girl was now very near to tears.
‘If your Uncle Pawel did want to sell something of value, where would he be likely to turn?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Lennie said he’d mentioned the name of someone Polish.’
‘Oh?’
‘I don’t think he could get the name right, but he thought it sounded like “Milo”.’
All of the colour left the girl’s face. ‘It wasn’t “Milosz”, was it?’
‘Could have been. “Milo” was as near as Lennie got. Why, what’s the matter? If it was “Milosz” …?’
‘Milosz Gadzinski is a major crook, operating along the South Coast. He is the kind of man who gives the Polish a bad name. He makes most of his money by exploiting people of his own nationality, particularly those who have just arrived in this country. Drugs, housing scams, people-trafficking. If Uncle Pawel has got involved with Milosz Gadzinski, it is very bad news for him.’
‘It may not be the same person,’ said Jude, in an attempt at reassurance. ‘All we’ve got to go on is a name that sounds like “Milo”. There are all kinds of other possibilities for—’
She was interrupted by the ringing of her mobile phone.
‘Yes.’
‘Jude, this is Karla. I’ve just had contact from Lennie. A friend of his reckons he knows where Pawel can be found.’
Karla parked outside the Crown & Anchor within twenty minutes. Through the front window, Jude saw the Micra arrive and was instantly up and ready. Zosia had made her excuses to Ted Crisp. There was no way she wasn’t going with them.
The route which Karla drove seemed ominously familiar. From the pub, along the seafront to the West. But she stopped before she reached Fethering Library. Stopped near the shelter Jude had walked past almost exactly a week before.
It was bitterly cold and the cloud cover was too thick for the moon to penetrate. Karla parked the car facing the sea, so that the headlights outlined the broken-glassed metal framework.
The three women did not speak; the only sound was their footsteps on the shingle.
Zosia got there first. As she rounded the corner of the shelter, she let out a cry of almost animal pain.
Karla and Jude were not far behind. They heard her sobbing as she rushed forward to cradle the emaciated figure on the ground.
The Micra’s headlights caught gleams from the fresh blood.
Uncle Pawel was not moving.
TWENTY-FOUR
As the ambulance bore the old man and his niece off to hospital, Jude and Karla watched its lights dwindling along the seafront.
The paramedics had confirmed that Uncle Pawel was still alive, but their manner suggested they did not believe that state of affairs would last for long.
Fortunately, the police who’d been summoned were just an on-duty patrol in a Panda car. They had nothing to do with Detective Inspector Rollins’s investigation and, so far, no connection had been made between the death of Burton St Clair and the attack on Uncle Pawel. Jude doubted whether that situation would continue, but was grateful that all the police asked for from her and Karla were contact details.
‘Do you think Pawel’ll make it?’ asked Jude, as they walked towards the Micra.
The other woman’s expression was dourly sceptical. ‘It doesn’t look likely. I’ve seen a lot of head injuries and his are pretty bad. Might be a case of hoping he doesn’t make it, anyway. I can’t think he’ll have much quality of life after that lot.’
It was a grim assessment, but Karla had seen too much of the real world to speak anything but the truth. And maybe she was right. Uncle Pawel seemed to have been doing his best to destroy his life. Prolonging it might just be a form of cruelty. If he couldn’t cope while in possession of his faculties, was he likely to do any better when suffering from brain damage?
When they got back to Woodside Cottage, Jude thanked her for the lift and offered a cup of coffee, but Karla refused. She had to get to Littlehampton for an alcohol self-help group meeting.
Jude expressed further gratitude for the help she’d been given in finding Uncle Pawel, but could tell it wasn’t being taken in. For Karla, the evening represented another failure. The old man was someone she should have helped, and she hadn’t got there in time to do so.
As the Micra drew away, Jude started up her garden path, then changed her mind and went to knock on the door of High Tor.
Any frostiness Carole might have demonstrated that morning quickly melted in the warmth of her curiosity. She couldn’t wait to hear what her neighbour had found out from Di, Nemone and Zosia.
‘So where does that leave us?’ she asked, as Jude concluded her narrative. ‘Does it mean that Pawel committed the murder?’
‘Not the way I see it.’
‘But if he had Burton St Clair’s hipflask …’
‘We don’t actually know that it was Burton St Clair’s hipflask he had.’
‘Oh, come on, Jude.’
‘Yes, I agree, it’s very likely, but the hipflask hasn’t been found.’
Carole snorted. ‘Going back to my question: do you think that Pawel killed Burton St Clair?’
‘I really don’t. That murder required a degree of planning that I don’t think the old boy would have been capable of. Anyway, I’m sure he had no connection with Burton. Which means he couldn’t possibly have known about the walnut allergy or any of that stuff.
‘No, I think the most likely scenario is that Uncle Pawel, who we know had been in the shelter that Tuesday evening, wandered up to the library, after Burton was dead, and saw the hipflask in the unlocked car. He recognized it might be valuable; maybe he even hoped it still had some booze in it, so he took it. The question is, where the hipflask is now.’