The Fethering Mysteries 10; The Poisoning in the Pub tfm-10

by Simon Brett

  She asked the question. “Did you make any food deliveries here that Monday morning?”

  For a moment it looked as though he wouldn’t answer. But then something…the power of the Home Office ID again, perhaps…forced him into a grudging reply. “There was a tray of stuff that had to come.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. It was covered with foil. It was on the docket, so I picked it up from the fridge at the depot.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t know what it was. Surely the contents of the tray were printed out on the docket?”

  “No, it’d been written on in pencil.”

  “On both copies?”

  “Just the top copy, one that went back to the depot.”

  So, thought Carole, no incriminating evidence would be left in the Crown and Anchor kitchen. “And where is the depot?”

  “Worthing. I told you.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “Fleet Lane,” he replied grumpily.

  “And what’s it called? Snug Pubs?”

  “No. They use it, but I don’t think it belongs to them. Depot’s called KWS. Something Warehouse Services, I suppose.”

  “And the K?”

  “No bloody idea. Everyone just talks about ‘KWS’.”

  “Back to this tray of food you delivered here…”

  “Look, is this going to take much longer? I do have deliveries to make.”

  “Just a couple more questions. Who signed for the tray when you delivered it to the kitchen?”

  “That bloke who’s often here. Good few sandwiches short of a picnic.”

  “The one who got killed in the fight last Sunday?”

  Matt nodded. “Poor bugger. Wrong place at the wrong time.” This seemed to be becoming a universal view of Ray’s death.

  “You didn’t get involved in that fight, did you? Because I know you and Sylvia were here that evening.”

  “No way. We’d gone well before the trouble started.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  He looked affronted. “Of course I’m bloody sure.”

  “It’s just that the fight appeared to be started by the bikers outside the pub.”

  “So?”

  “You were wearing black leather that night.”

  “Just because you dress in black leather doesn’t mean you’re a bloody biker!”

  “So why were you wearing black leather?”

  He looked embarrassed for a moment, then mumbled, “Because Sylvia likes it. She says it’s sexy.”

  Having made that admission, there was now a restlessness in his eyes, a look that was verging on suspicion. Carole realized that her interrogation time might be running out. Quickly she asked, “Going back to the pencil-written instructions on your docket…was there anything unusual about them, anything odd you were meant to do?”

  He considered his answer, maybe wondering how much information he dared give her. “I had to pick up another tray from the kitchen and take it back to KWS.”

  “Was that an unusual thing to happen?”

  “No. Sometimes the publicans – or even more often the chefs – had some complaint about their order…or the wrong stuff’d got delivered. So quite often there was stuff to take back.”

  “So what happens to that stuff when it gets back to the warehouse?”

  “There’s a special bay you have to put it in.”

  “And then?”

  “Dunno. Not my responsibility.” Matt gave Carole the firm impression that he wished everything was not his responsibility.

  “Just one last question…Were there any other instructions written in pencil on the docket?”

  He hesitated for a moment, then said, “No. Just deliver the scallops, take the other tray back.”

  Ah. So he had known the contents of the tray he delivered. Carole was about to press him further, but was stopped in her tracks by the appearance of Ted Crisp in the pub doorway. He looked scruffier than ever, as though he’d slept in his clothes. Which he quite possibly had.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he barked.

  “Come for the delivery,” said Matt.

  “Yes, I know why you’ve come.” He turned to Carole. “But what the hell are you doing here?”

  Ted Crisp stared at her. His look was upsetting. It was entirely without affection. He stood beside Matt, the two of them in some way complicit, united against her.

  Awkwardly, making some feeble excuse for her presence, Carole beat a retreat to the Renault. And for the first time she entertained the awful possibility that Ted Crisp himself might have something to do with the series of disasters at the Crown and Anchor.

  ∨ The Poisoning in the Pub ∧

  Twenty-Two

  She didn’t confide that last fear to Jude when she got back to Woodside Cottage, but told her neighbour everything else about her encounter with Matt. Except, of course, for the detail about how she’d used her old Home Office ID.

  “So,” said Jude, her brown eyes sparkling, “we’ve got a nice paper trail.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The docket, invoice, whatever, that had the pencil writing on it. That gave Matt the instructions to get the two trays of scallops swapped round.”

  “Yes, and those instructions were obviously suspect, because the original scallops didn’t come from the KWS depot. They came from Ted’s usual supplier in Brighton.”

  Jude unconsciously tapped at her chin as she tried to marshal her thoughts. “I wonder if the instructions also told Matt to get the beer barrels jammed, so that Ted, Ed and Zosia would have to go down to the cellar to sort them out…thus leaving Ray alone in the kitchen?”

  “Sounds a lot to write down. I wouldn’t be surprised if Matt was given those instructions verbally.”

  “By whom?”

  “If we knew that,” said Carole tartly, “then we’d be well on the way to finding our murderer, wouldn’t we?”

  “Either way,” said Jude, “it still means that Matt is not an innocent party in all of this. What we need to find out is the level of his involvement. Was he just obeying orders? And if so, who gave him those orders?”

  “Having met him,” Carole observed sniffily, “I can’t really imagine him having worked this whole plan out on his own. Even though that’s what the lovely Sylvia seems to think he did. I don’t think Matt was at the front of the queue when the brains were handed out.”

  “No.” Jude rubbed her hands, as if preparing for action. “Anyway, the first thing we do is track down the invoice with the instructions on it.”

  “And how do we set about that?”

  “We ring KWS.” Jude picked up her mobile. “I’ll get the number from directory enquiries.”

  “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to use your landline?” Though she now had a mobile herself, such a frugal thought was a knee-jerk reaction for Carole.

  “Mobile’s not so easy to trace – unless you happen to be the police,” said Jude as she pressed the keys.

  “But even if you do get the number, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get anyone to talk to you.”

  “It depends who they think they’re talking to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “These days a call from Health and Safety has about the same effect as a knock on the door in the small hours from the Gestapo.”

  Carole looked appalled. “You mean you’re planning to impersonate a government official?”

  “Certainly am.”

  Carole’s mouth opened to commence a lecture on morality and civic responsibility, but then swiftly closed, as she remembered the subterfuge she had so recently practised on Matt.

  Jude dialled the number that she had been given. “Oh, hello,” she said, “could you put me through to whoever keeps your records of orders? Yes, my name is Judith Metarius.” It was what she had once described to Carole as ‘one’ of her married names, leaving Carole more confused about her neighbour’s past than ever. “From Health and Safety.�
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  The lie seemed to have worked. Jude grinned at Carole as she was put through. “Oh, good morning. Judith Metarius from Health and Safety,” she said breezily. “Just need to check some information about a delivery that was made Monday before last.” She gave the date. “Delivery to the Crown and Anchor public house in Fethering. Yes, I know you do regular deliveries there. One gone out this morning, is there? Well, well. Yes, if you wouldn’t mind…Who am I speaking to? Raylene? Well, Raylene…Oh, it’s just a complaint we’ve had, probably nothing in it, but we do have to follow up everything. Yes, conkers, I know, and pancake races. Hanging baskets, really?

  I can assure you, Raylene, this is nothing of that kind. Just a little technical query, no one about to be put out of business. So I’d be obliged if you could check the paperwork for me. Yes, that was the date. And the Crown and Anchor, Fethering, yes. Raylene, all I need is for you to find the signed copy of the delivery form, the one that the driver brought back to the depot at the end of the day. I need to check the details of that order. Thank you, yes, I’ll wait.”

  Jude put her hand over the receiver and mouthed at Carole. “Not enough work to do, I’d say. Bit of a chatterbox.” Then she was back into the conversation. “Are you sure? But what about the other paperwork from that day? Oh, is it? Very strange. Well, Raylene, thank you so much for your help. Oh, getting married, are you? I’d love to hear about the dress, but I’m afraid I do have other calls to make. Thank you again. Goodbye.”

  Carole looked eagerly at Jude, as she announced with some satisfaction, “That delivery note has gone missing. It’s not there. Just that one. All the others for the day are in the file. Now isn’t that interesting?”

  ∨ The Poisoning in the Pub ∧

  Twenty-Three

  The Saturday morning was overcast, but no less hot. In fact the low ceiling of grey cloud seemed to press down on Fethering, making the air stale and stuffy. Kelly-Marie was waiting in the hallway of Copse-down Hall and opened the door before Jude had time to press the buzzer. After saying hello, Jude moved instinctively towards the communal kitchen, but Kelly-Marie gestured and limped towards the stairs. “My room’s a nicer place to talk.”

  She was right. The studio flat was high enough for the view from its open windows to miss out the shabby street beneath and go over the roofs of Fethering to the dull silver gleam of the sea. Though the space was small, it had been decorated with intelligence and style. There were bright prints on the wall, mostly of dogs, and on the shelves a collection of canine figurines. Proud photographs in silver frames showed a beaming Kelly-Marie surrounded by what must have been her parents and brothers. One of the shots also featured two large long-haired spaniels. Jude wondered whether Kelly-Marie missed the family dogs now she was living on her own. And there must have been other sacrifices the girl had made to achieve her ambition of independent living.

  Next to a radio⁄CD player on one shelf stood a vase of fresh summer flowers, whose perfume made the air feel less heavy. The sight immediately prompted Jude to ask whether Kelly-Marie had placed the flowers where Ray had died.

  “Yes,” she replied simply. “He was my friend.”

  In the corner of the room stood a small television with integral video recorder. Up here Kelly-Marie could escape the wall-to-wall Sky Sport and masculine backchat of the communal room below and watch the kind of programmes she enjoyed. Jude found herself conjecturing what those programmes might be.

  Kelly-Marie also had her own kettle, which had just boiled in preparation for her visitor’s arrival. Of the options offered, Jude asked for a cup of black coffee.

  The girl held up a jar of instant and announced with a big smile, “Fairtrade.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yes. We have to look after the planet.” Once again she sounded as though she were parroting words she had been told by someone older. “Otherwise there will not be a planet to hand on to our children.”

  Jude found herself wondering whether the girl was ever likely to have children, but the thought did not seem to worry Kelly-Marie. Her movements, as she prepared the coffee and a cup of tea for herself, were very slow and deliberate, as though she were controlling some tic or tremor in her hand.

  Till they’d got their drinks, they kept the conversation bland, continuing to talk about basic ecology and whether the current hot summer was a symptom of global warming. Kelly-Marie appeared to be very keen on Green principles, though her actual knowledge of the subject was limited. She just seemed to know that there was a lot of waste. “People throw things away all the time. Good things. Things that still work. And people throw them away because they want a new one. Viggo’s like that. When he gets new clothes he just throws the others away. I’ve often rescued stuff of his and taken it down to Oxfam. What a waste. People should always check through the rubbish bins to see that nothing that’s still useful has been thrown away.”

  “Do you do that?”

  “I do it here. At home…” She corrected herself. “At Mummy and Daddy’s house Mummy does it.”

  As soon as the drinks were ready and the girl was sitting opposite her, Jude launched into the subject that had brought her to Copsedown Hall. “It was desperately sad about Ray, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Very sad.” But she said it in a matter-of-fact way. There was no sadness in her voice. Maybe she had already done her grieving. Leaving the flowers might have been an act of closure for her. Or perhaps her permanently sunny disposition could process painful events better than more conventional minds.

  “You used to talk to him a lot?”

  “Yes. But I wasn’t his girlfriend.” As it had on their previous encounter, the word made her giggle.

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Everything. I explained things to him. He didn’t understand anything about recycling.” Her tone was maternal. She had known that she was more blessed intellectually than Ray and she had done her bit to protect him from the world. Jude found resonating in her mind the old proverb: “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

  “You know how he was killed, don’t you, Kelly-Marie?”

  “Oh yes. The police came here and told us.”

  “Did they ask you lots of questions?”

  “Yes.” The blue eyes behind the thick glasses rolled exaggeratedly. “They do go on, don’t they?”

  “They certainly do. Did they ask you things like when you’d last seen Ray, whether there were people he was in trouble with, whether he had any enemies?”

  “All that stuff.”

  Jude was slightly tentative with her next question. Kelly-Marie would be quite within her rights to refuse to answer it. “So what did you tell them?”

  She needn’t have worried. The girl had no inhibitions about spilling the beans. “I told them I last saw him on the Sunday. Just before he went to the pub.”

  “How was he?”

  “Very excited. He was going to see Dan Poke, from off the television. Ray got very excited about famous people from off the television. He said he was going round the back afterwards to get Dan Poke’s autograph.”

  Jude felt another pang for Ray’s simple-mindedness. He had thought the Crown and Anchor would become like a theatre, with a stage door. Like the Pavilion in Worthing, where he had gone round to get an autograph from Lyra Mackenzie, his X Factor idol. He hadn’t realized that, though the evening’s star had been in the kitchen prior to making his entrance, Dan Poke was never going to leave the pub by the back way. Ray’s misunderstanding was what had led him to wait by the kitchen door, isolated from the warring crowds in front of the pub, a pitifully easy target for his murderer.

  “Thank you very much, Kelly-Marie. And the police’s next question…was Ray in trouble with anyone, so far as you know?”

  “He wasn’t happy because his boss at the pub shouted at him.”

  “Ted Crisp.”

  “I don’t know what his name was. But Ray was very upset because this man shouted at him,
and he’d never shouted at him before. Ray hated it when people shouted at him.”

  “Yes, so I’d heard.”

  “So he went back to his mother’s for a while.”

  Jude wondered for a moment whether it was worth telling Kelly-Marie that Nell Witchett had died, but couldn’t think of any reason for doing so. If the girl didn’t know already, all the news could do was potentially to upset her.

  “But, apart from Ted Crisp shouting at him,” Jude went on, “was there anything else that was upsetting Ray?”

  Kelly-Marie was silent, processing her answer. Then she said. “I think there was. He said he was worried about something, worried that people were trying to do harm.”

  “Do harm to who?”

  “I don’t know, but he did say it wasn’t anyone here at Copsedown Hall. Maybe it was something to do with his mother.”

  “Or at work, at the Crown and Anchor?”

  Kelly-Marie clearly hadn’t considered this possibility before. “Yes, I suppose it could have been.”

  “But he didn’t say who had told him about this threat, about the people who were trying to do harm?”

  The girl shook her head very slowly. “No, he didn’t tell me that.”

  “Well, had Ray had any unexpected visitors in the weeks before he died?”

  Another slow shake of the head. “I don’t think so. But I’m not here when I’m at work.” The idea seemed to strike her as funny, and another huge infectious beam spread across her broad face. “None of us have many visitors here, except for family people…well, the ones who’ve got family people.”

  Jude gestured to the photographs. “Are those yours?”

  Kelly-Marie nodded eagerly. “Mummy and Daddy and Rob and Daniel. My brothers.” She was clearly proud of them.

  “And the dogs?”