The Poisoning in the Pub

by Simon Brett

  Jude was now even more confused. Nell had the natural instinct of a mother to protect her child, possibly, because of the circumstances, stronger in her than other mothers, and yet she appeared to show no desire to find out how her precious son had died.

  “So,” asked Jude, almost depairing now of getting any useful information out of the old woman, “you can’t think of anyone who would have wanted Ray dead?”

  “No. But he is dead. And I’ve got my memories.” Again there was a note of satisfaction as she looked round the cluttered room, taking in all the photographs of Ray, the insubstantial record of his sad, short life. “He’ll be all right. Now he won’t need looking after no more.”

  And finally Jude understood. At one level Nell Witchett was relieved by her son’s death. She no longer had to hold herself together for him. The problem that she had agonized over for decades, of who would care for Ray after she was gone, no longer existed. And that brought her a kind of peace.

  Seventeen

  Carole and Jude didn’t see each other on the Wednesday. At Woodside Cottage there was a full appointment book for clients requiring healing, and at High Tor there was a bit of a panic about Gulliver. The dog had cut his foot on some rusty metal during his morning walk on Fethering Beach. Fortunately the wound was on his shin rather than the soft pads, but it still bled a lot and Carole rushed to the vet’s, where she had to wait about an hour to get him patched up and given an antibiotic injection. So great had been her hurry that she’d not put a rug on the back seat and so spent a long time in the afternoon scrubbing canine blood out of the usually immaculate upholstery of her Renault.

  Then when she finished that, she had a call from Gaby, who was again talking about her mother-in-law looking after Lily while she and Stephen went away for a weekend. That left Carole both excited and unsettled. All the old doubts about her maternal skills resurfaced.

  One good thing did happen that day, though. Jude got a call from Zosia in the evening to say that the police had finished their investigations of the scene of the crime, and the Crown and Anchor would be opening again on the Thursday. Jude rang Carole and they agreed to meet there for lunch. Apart from the opportunity for a bit of snooping, they had to show their support for Ted.

  ♦

  As it had done a week before, the pub’s reopening coincided with the publication day of the Fethering Observer. And, of course, this time they had an even bigger story to splash over the front page: MAN KILLED IN CROWN AND ANCHOR BRAWL. There followed an overexcited article by the same junior reporter, who had read too much about Watergate. And it ended once again with the news that, due to the police murder investigation, the Crown and Anchor would be closed ‘until further notice’.

  It was inevitable, but it was just the sort of publicity Ted Crisp didn’t need.

  Not that Carole and Jude heard his views on the subject. When they arrived at the pub round twelve-thirty, he wasn’t there. “Had to go to a meeting at the bank,” Zosia explained. Which sounded rather ominous.

  The interior of the Crown and Anchor had been meticulously swept and tidied so that no one would know it had been a scene of violence. But outside the scars were plain to see. Two of the windows were boarded up with MDF, and wires from the broken lights hung from their sockets. Debris of broken chairs, window-boxes and glass had been swept up against the front wall, but there hadn’t been time to take it away yet. The place looked rundown and unwelcoming.

  That was reflected in the lack of customers. Carole and Jude had anticipated that the pub’s new notoriety might have attracted a few local ghouls, but they had misjudged the attitude of village residents to recent events. Greville Tilbrook would now no doubt be able to fill up his petition many times over. Fethering’s word for social groups of whom it disapproved was an ‘element’, and it did not like the idea of having a pub right in its centre which attracted a violent ‘element’.

  Or then again, the lack of customers might be partly due to no one knowing that the pub had reopened for business.

  It was good news for Carole and Jude, however, because it meant they had the undistracted attention of Zosia. As she poured their Chilean Chardonnays, they asked the Polish girl to bring them up to date with events at the pub since they were last there. Unfortunately, she couldn’t be much help, because she hadn’t been there either. But, sensing the seriousness of their enquiries, she told them that Ed Pollack was back in his kitchen.

  “Do you think he’ll mind talking to us?” asked Carole.

  Zosia assured them that he wouldn’t and, since there were still no other customers, led them out through the door at the back of the bar.

  They had forgotten about the chefs injury, so his appearance was quite a shock. His nose looked about twice its normal size and a gauze dressing was held with sticking plaster over the bridge. The bruising had spread to the hollows under his eyes, and he looked like a mournful panda. This image was intensified by a large pair of glasses, less trendy than the ones he’d worn previously, balanced precariously on the tip of his swollen nose.

  Carole winced at the sight. “How is it? Very painful?”

  “Not too bad now. So long as nothing touches it.”

  “Is it actually broken?”

  “No, thank goodness.”

  “Do you know who hit you?”

  “Couldn’t really see in the mêlée out the front. Probably just a swinging elbow. I don’t think I was particularly targeted. Just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  The same words that Sally Monks and Nell Witch-ett had used about Ray. But Jude felt pretty sure that in his case the murder victim had been targeted.

  They heard the ting of a bell from back in the bar. “Another customer,” said Zosia. “Word must be spreading. I’ll go and deal with the rush.” And she left the kitchen.

  “And how are you feeling?” Jude smiled solicitously at Ed. “You must still be in shock.”

  “Not great,” the chef admitted. “It was the first time I’d actually seen someone dead and…well, seeing Ray, you know, what had happened to him.” His upper-class accent made him sound particularly young and vulnerable.

  “Do you mind talking about it?” asked Jude.

  “No, be quite glad to, actually. At home my mother has been so studiously avoiding the subject, you know, treading on eggshells, trying not to get me more upset.”

  “Did the police give you a rough time?” asked Carole. “You know, on Sunday night?”

  Ed shrugged. “They were only doing their job. And if they really thought I’d killed Ray – which at first they seemed to – then there was no reason for them to use kid gloves.” His understatement gave both women the impression that his interrogation had been pretty gruelling.

  “And why did they think you’d done it?”

  “Circumstances were against me, really. I’d got blood all over my front. Ray had been stabbed with one of my kitchen knives. You know, the police come into a situation like that, not knowing anyone, not knowing the background…you can hardly blame them for leaping to the obvious conclusion.” He seemed to be bending over backwards to exonerate them from any criticism.

  “So how long were they questioning you?” asked Carole.

  “They let me go at around four on Monday morning. My mother had been terribly worried about where I was.”

  “And what did the police ask you?”

  “The same question over and over again, really.”

  Ed Pollack couldn’t prevent a slight shudder at the recollection. “How well I knew Ray, what I’d got against him.”

  “Why you’d killed him?” Jude suggested.

  “Not quite in those words, but that was the gist of it, yes.”

  “And what made them finally realize you were innocent?”

  “I’m not sure that they do think that yet. I’ve a nasty feeling I may still be high up their list of suspects.”

  “All right then – what persuaded them to let you go?”

 
; “I think it was probably the blood on my shirt. They’d taken a sample of it as soon as I got to the station. I was introduced to a doctor, he must’ve run some tests on the blood. Anyway, they got the message that the blood was mine, and that it was a different blood group from Ray’s. That’s when they started to realize they hadn’t got anything definite against me.”

  “They must have been disappointed. The police like cases that have quick, obvious solutions.” Jude was slightly surprised to hear this from Carole. Given her Home Office background, it was unusual for her to voice even the slightest criticism of the constabulary.

  “Well, they were only doing their job,” said Ed generously.

  “Do you mind…” Jude began, “do you mind if we actually look at the…” She was uncharacteristically embarrassed “…look at where Ray died?”

  “It’s a free country.” Ed Pollack threw open the back door of the kitchen. “Though I wouldn’t think there was much chance of you finding anything after the police have been over the whole area with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “I wasn’t really expecting to find anything, just get a feeling of the place.”

  This prompted a predictably old-fashioned look from Carole. She was more than sceptical of her neighbour’s New Age beliefs in auras and synchron-icity and healing and similar mumbo-jumbo.

  Except for one detail, the scrubby little area behind the kitchen looked the same as it ever had. It probably had been swept and raked over by police detectives, but the loose sand and rough dune grass had soon blown over to cover any traces of their activity.

  The one thing that was different had not been left by the police. It was a jam-jar of flowers. A white label had been stuck on it, with the single word ‘RAY’ scrawled in a childish hand. The July heat had evaporated much of the water, leaving a greenish scum round the interior of the glass. The flowers, drooped, colourless and limp as cooked spaghetti.

  “Was that there when you arrived this morning?” asked Carole. When Ed nodded, she observed, “Looks as if it’s been there more than a day to get that dried up.”

  “Somebody loved him,” said Jude softly.

  “His mother did. We know that.”

  “Yes, but these weren’t left by his mother, Carole. Having seen the state she’s in, I don’t think she could have made it this far from her flat.”

  “She might have got a taxi.”

  “Yes, maybe.”

  Jude stood very still in front of the flowers, her eyes almost closed, breathing in deeply.

  “Have you got enough of the aura yet?” asked Carole, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  “Just give me a minute more.”

  Carole snorted and hung about with bad grace until suddenly she snapped her fingers. “I’ve just remembered something.”

  “What?”

  “When we were here that evening, when we found Ray’s body, just before that, we heard footsteps of someone running away over the shingle.”

  “That’s right,” said Jude. “I’d completely forgotten.”

  Both women turned towards the chef. “You didn’t hear anything, did you? Or see anyone running away?”

  He shook his head. “There was so much going on. I was still reeling from the blow I’d had in the face, and then seeing Ray’s body…No, I didn’t see anyone.”

  “I wonder who it was.”

  The two women went back into the kitchen. Ed followed them and looked around with slight unease. “I wonder if there’ll be any lunch orders today.”

  “There’ll be at least two,” replied Carole. “From us.”

  “Oh, good.” He seemed relieved to be moving the conversation on. “What would you like?”

  But Carole was not to be deflected from her chosen course. “I’d like, if you don’t mind, for you to go through in detail what you actually saw on Sunday night.”

  “All right.” He didn’t see the point of arguing. “But there’s not much to tell. I’ve just told you I didn’t see anyone running away.”

  “Before that, though. Did you actually see Dan Poke’s act?” asked Jude.

  “Most of it. We weren’t serving food that Sunday evening, but it had been busy at lunchtime and people were still eating till round six or so. Ted had got all the girls helping set up the bar for the show, so I was tidying up everything in the kitchen myself. Took me till after Dan Poke started. Then I managed to get to sit on the ledge of one of the front windows…I don’t know, round eight fifteen probably.”

  “Did you like the act?”

  He grinned, as though surprised that Jude had needed to ask. “Yes, of course. He’s very good. Very sharp.”

  And very cruel, thought Carole. Still, Ed had probably missed most of the rubbishing of Ted Crisp, which had come at the beginning.

  “And did you actually see what started the fight afterwards?”

  “No. There was such a crush, it could have been anything. One of the bikers got jostled maybe, and then swung a fist at someone. That’s how fights usually start.”

  “You didn’t get the feeling the fight was started deliberately?”

  “Hard to tell. It was the sort of crowd that clearly liked a fight – well, the biker lot did, anyway. It’s amazing, there are some people who do actually enjoy fighting. You know, feel that an evening down the pub isn’t complete until you’ve drunk yourself paralytic and had a good punch-up.”

  Carole shuddered. “But not at the Crown and Anchor in Fethering.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Can you tell us,” asked Jude, “exactly what happened to you, you know, where you went, when the fight started?”

  Ed Pollack smiled weakly. “Easy. I’ve had plenty of rehearsal for that answer. One of the things the police kept asking me.”

  “Sorry. But if you don’t mind…”

  “No, no, fine. OK, when the fight started, I should have backed off straight away, not got involved. But I saw Ted wading in, and I followed to try and stop him. Struck me he’d got already enough trouble without getting into a fight. But almost immediately I got this elbow or whatever it was in my face. Very hard, smashed my glasses, which fell off and got lost in the general chaos. And, you know, with pain like that you can hardly see for a few moments, and I sort of backed off, trying to keep out of the way of any more flying elbows or fists or beer bottles. So I retreated back to the kitchen to sort of lick my wounds…well, to try and wash some of the blood away in the sink.”

  “Did you go back to the kitchen through the bar?”

  The chef grinned sardonically. “You’re very good, Carole. Asking exactly the same questions as the police did. And I think I know what your next one will be too.”

  “Oh?”

  “Was the back door to the kitchen closed when I went in there?” he parroted.

  Carole looked a little taken aback. “I was going to ask that, yes.”

  “The answer is: it was. And no, I didn’t notice whether one of my kitchen knives was missing at that time, but I think it must have been. Certainly no one came into the kitchen while I was there, which means that whoever took the knife must have done so earlier.”

  “So when did you open the back door?”

  “When I heard the police siren. Self-protection dictated that I should get off the scene as quickly as possible.”

  “Exactly what we thought,” said Jude. “That’s why we went round the back, thought it would be simpler to get home that way rather than being questioned by the police.”

  Carole couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Not, of course, that we had anything to hide.”

  Jude grinned. “No, of course not. So, Ed, when we saw you, it was just at the moment you’d opened the back door to make your getaway?”

  “Yes. Except that I didn’t realize it was you two. I’m blind as a bat without my glasses, so I could just see the outline of two people.”

  “But you did see what had happened to Ray?”

  “Yes. I saw something lying there when I opened
the door. I had a close look at him – my eyesight’s OK really close.” He swallowed nervously. “It was a bit of a shock.”

  “I’m sure it was. So you could see the knife?”

  “Oh yes. And I recognized it as one of mine, but I didn’t really have time to take in the full implications of that. I was so shocked I wasn’t really thinking straight.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Carole. “And…I think I probably know the answer to this question, but I’m going to ask it, anyway. Did you see anyone else around the back of the kitchen?”

  He shook his head. The action must have banged the bridge of his glasses against his nose. He winced before replying, “No. No one. Well, that is to say, I saw the bikers making their getaway. And that little Smart car.”

  “Yes,” Jude mused, “I wonder who was in that Smart car?”

  “Anyway, I didn’t see anyone else who was on their feet. Till you two appeared. I was only out there less than a minute.”

  “And you’re sure Dan Poke didn’t go into the kitchen?” asked Carole.

  “Not after he’d finished his act, no. He was waiting there before Ted introduced him.”

  “While you were still tidying up?”

  “Yes, Jude.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “Not a word.”

  “A bit standoffish of him.”

  “Well, he was about to do his act. He probably needed a bit of quiet time to, you know, get his concentration together.” Ed Pollack was clearly one of those people who could find excuses for anyone’s behaviour.

  “And…it’s hardly worth asking this either, but did you – ”

  Ed was ahead of Carole. “No, I did not see Dan Poke take one of my knives while he was here.”

  Jude sighed. “So we aren’t really a lot further forward.”

  “Further in what?”

  “Well…” She felt surprisingly embarrassed by the question.

  “Further in our investigation,” said Carole firmly. “Jude and I are determined to find out who killed Ray Witchett. And indeed why.”