The Liar in the Library

SEVENTEEN

Carole reckoned she’d done everything she could to get in touch with Nessa Perks. Without any personal contact, she could only make an approach through the University of Clincham website. She went to the Creative Writing degree course section and discovered that her quarry was listed as ‘Professor Vanessa Perks’. This confirmed a trend Carole had spotted. Every professor interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme nowadays seemed to be female and American.

No direct email addresses for any of the teaching staff were listed, so Carole sent a message to the English and Creative Writing Department, marked ‘FAO Professor Vanessa Perks’. Whether it would reach its destination, and how long it would take to reach that destination, she had no means of knowing.

It was frustrating not to be able to move her investigation on more proactively, but she reconciled herself to the fact that there would probably be no reaction from the University of Clincham at a weekend. So, the highlight of Carole’s Sunday would have to be a Skype conversation with her granddaughter Lily in Fulham. (Initially wary of all new technology, but manically enthusiastic once she had embraced it, Carole had now become a devotee of Skype.) And though she wished she saw more of Lily and her younger sister Chloe in the flesh, she did relish engaging on the screen with her older granddaughter’s increasing articulacy.

Zosia arrived at exactly ten thirty. When she took off her fur-lined parka, she revealed her work uniform of white shirt and black trousers. Her make-up and pigtails were perfect and Jude was struck by how pretty she was. She can’t have lacked for interest from the young men of Fethering but, so far as Jude knew, she hadn’t had a boyfriend since she’d been working at the Crown & Anchor. Maybe the hours of a bar manager weren’t conducive to an active social life, but Jude reckoned the girl’s single state was more a result of the long mourning process she was going through for her murdered brother.

Once they were both supplied with coffee, Jude asked directly, ‘What’s the problem?’

‘It is my uncle Pawel. My mother’s brother.’

Jude didn’t know that Zosia had an uncle, but made no comment. She could recognize when someone needed to talk, and let the girl run on.

‘He has come to England only six months ago. He had much unhappiness in Poland. He lost his job. My mother thought he might have more chance of getting another job here in England, but it is not easy. Uncle Pawel is maybe sixty-five years old; it is as hard for him to get a job in England as it was in Poland.’

‘What’s his profession?’

‘I don’t think you would call it a profession; it is a job. In Poland he was a builder. Not a builder who runs projects, just a building labourer. So now he is old, although he would never admit it, he does not have the strength for the heavy work any more. That is why he lost his job in Poland. And it is the same here. Even if he were English, he would not get a labouring job here.’

‘“Even if he were English”?’ Jude echoed.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘You mean that there is prejudice in this country against the Polish?’

‘Of course. If you work in a pub, you hear a lot of it.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought you were quite settled here.’

‘I am, yes. And I have good friends, and I know many people who do not care what country I come from. But in the pub, you know, there are many Polish jokes.’

‘Jokes about the Poles being stupid?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Zosia dismissed the subject. ‘It doesn’t worry me now. Maybe it would worry me, if I thought I was stupid.’

‘You are far from stupid.’

‘I know this. So for me it is sometimes an irritation, but not a problem. For Uncle Pawel, whose English is not so good, the problem is bigger.’

‘Where does he live?’

The girl grimaced. ‘Since he has been in England, he has lived with me. He sleeps on a sofa bed in my sitting room.’

‘That doesn’t sound ideal.’

‘No, it is not, Jude, but it is how it has to be, at the moment. He is family. He is my mother’s brother.’ The way she spoke suggested that she had never questioned the obligation such a relationship placed on her.

‘Of course. So, is that what the problem is: finding somewhere else for him to live?’

Zosia sighed. ‘That is part of the problem. Only a small part.’ She took a deep breath, preparing herself for the next section of her narrative. ‘The fact is, Jude, that Uncle Pawel has always had a problem with alcohol. In Poland too, yes, the vodka. But when he was working, it was fine. Yes, he drank a lot, but the physical work kept him fit. He never turned up late, he never failed to do his work. It was not a problem for his boss, it was a problem for his family.’

‘Is he married?’

‘Was married,’ Zosia replied glumly. ‘Finally, his wife could not put up with the drinking, so she left. Now they are divorced. He had become violent, you see, which is not in his nature. Uncle Pawel is a gentle, simple man, until he gets the vodka inside him. Then he changes, you know, like Jekyll and Hyde.’

Jude was impressed by the girl’s command of British literature, as she went on, ‘I have tried to stop him drinking, but it is no good. He does not want to stop. At first he thought that, because he has a niece who works in a pub, that will be a source of free drinks for him. I pretty soon stopped him thinking on those lines. Now he is banned from the pub. But there are plenty of other places you can get alcohol.’

‘Legally?’

That prompted another grimace. ‘I worry about that. With Uncle Pawel, the dependency is so strong, he is quite capable of stealing from an off-licence, or stealing money to buy alcohol. And so, to stop him from doing this, I give him money, though I know exactly what he will spend it on.’

‘I see your problem.’

‘And the terrible thing is, Uncle Pawel is bad for the Polish community here on the South Coast. We are mostly hard-working people, and we have managed to put up with the prejudice and live alongside the locals in a friendly way. Then someone like Uncle Pawel comes along, and all the lines about “bone-idle immigrants, taking advantage of our welfare system” – well, they become true. And Uncle Pawel is not alone. There are a few – very few, I am glad to say – like him. And they gravitate together. He finds other Polish layabouts to drink with. They hang about in the shelters on the seafront, drinking together. People see them, hear they are speaking a foreign language. It is not good for the image of the Poles.

‘And then some of the men Uncle Pawel drinks with are into drugs, too. It is easy to get drugs round here – Littlehampton, Bognor; you don’t even have to go to Brighton.’

‘And does your uncle use drugs?’

‘I do not know for sure, but I think it is likely,’ came the bleak response.

‘Hm. Zosia, you spoke of “taking advantage of our welfare system”. Does that mean you’ve consulted health professionals, alcohol recovery programmes, about your uncle’s problems?’ If not, Jude could certainly help. She had a comprehensive list of such services at her fingertips. It was surprising how many of her clients, even in nice, middle-class Fethering, had dependency issues.

Zosia blushed. ‘No, it is … I do not want to ask for outside help. Uncle Pawel is family. My mother would not like me to make his shame public.’

Jude was beginning to realize the extent of the girl’s troubles. It was more than someone of her age should have to cope with. Then suddenly she had another thought, a memory of her walk earlier that week to Fethering Library.

‘Zosia, you said your uncle and his drinking mates often got together in seafront shelters?’

‘Yes?’

‘You wouldn’t remember whether he was out drinking last Tuesday evening?’

The girl’s brow wrinkled. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘It was the evening that ended up with the writer’s body being found in the library car park … well, no, it was actually the following morning that the body was found, but—’

‘I know what you are talking about. It’s been the main topic of conversation in the pub all week.’

‘I bet it has. Anyway, as I was walking along the front last Tuesday, on my way to the library, about half-past six I suppose it would have been, I heard some people carousing in one of the shelters on—’

‘No, that would not have been Uncle Pawel,’ said Zosia firmly. ‘Tuesday is my day off at the pub. So that Tuesday evening I cook for him. Good Polish food. Kopytka he likes very much, like my mother cooks, like their mother cooked for them when they were children. That night he does not drink. And he is the Uncle Pawel I have always known and loved.’

‘And then on Wednesday he’s back to his drinking ways.’

‘Usually, yes.’

‘But not this week?’

‘I do not know. That is why I am so worried, so upset. Uncle Pawel has disappeared.’