The Poisoning in the Pub

by Simon Brett

  Ed Pollack nodded, rather more cautiously this time. “Good for you,” he said. “If I remember anything else relevant, I’ll let you know. But I think it’s unlikely. The police covered all of the ground with me, and you now know as much as I told them.”

  “Did you know,” said Jude suddenly, “that Ray admitted to me that he’d changed round the tray of scallops in the fridge on that Monday?”

  The chef looked really amazed by the news. “But why?”

  “Someone told him the ones in the fridge were poisoned. The exact opposite of the truth. Ray thought he was saving the Crown and Anchor from an attack of food poisoning.”

  “But who the hell told him that?”

  Jude chewed her lip with frustration. “That’s the one thing that I don’t know. We were interrupted when Ray was about to tell me.”

  “And,” said Carole tartly, “to stop him telling anyone is quite possibly the reason why he was murdered.”

  The door from the bar clattered open and Zosia entered with a small pad from which she tore off a couple of sheets. “Food orders, Ed. We have actually got a few customers out there.”

  “Oh, right, I’d better get on,” he said, taking the orders. Zosia returned to the bar. “By the way,” Ed asked Carole and Jude, “what are you two having?”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Actually,” he replied hesitantly, “I do have some very nice scallops. Doing them with crispy bacon and leeks today.”

  Jude, on the principle that lightning never struck twice, did go for the scallops. Carole, for whom the very idea revived her terror of being sick, opted for the shepherd’s pie. The chef started to busy himself at the stove.

  “Ed,” said Jude, “just going back to the Monday morning when the scallops were switched…”

  “Right,” he murmured, preoccupied with pouring olive oil into a pan.

  “As I recall, you said you and Ted and Zosia were all out of here shifting some beer barrels in the cellar…”

  “Yes, they’d got jammed down the chute when they were taken off the delivery van.”

  “And did the delivery man help you down in the cellar?”

  Ed Pollack let out a sardonic laugh. “No way. The day he does anything helpful, pigs’ll fly.”

  “Oh, so he’s a regular delivery man, is he?”

  “Yes. What’s more, you two have probably met him.”

  Both women looked bemused. “Have we? Who is he?”

  “His name’s Matt. He’s the one who’s knocking around with Ted’s ex-wife.”

  Carole made eye contact with Jude. “Is he now?” she said.

  Eighteen

  Carole and Jude wanted to talk to Ted Crisp, but he wasn’t back from his visit to the bank by the time they’d finished their food. A few other customers had arrived in the pub, but they were mostly French or Dutch tourists, who presumably did not know the Crown and Anchor’s sensational recent history.

  Because business was slack, Carole and Jude managed to talk again to Zosia, but she couldn’t add much to their stock of information. Yes, she knew Matt sometimes drove the van that made deliveries from the brewery, but she didn’t know much else about him. And she hadn’t noticed him doing anything unusual the morning of the food-poisoning debacle.

  So the two women left the Crown and Anchor in a state of some frustration. The discovery about Matt might be a breakthrough, but they couldn’t quite see how. And they really needed to find out more about Ray, who his contacts had been, how he used to spend his time. Jude wondered whether another visit to Nell Witchett might glean some more information, but she wasn’t over-optimistic.

  Almost every other potential line of enquiry involved talking to Ted Crisp, and even when they finally found him they weren’t sure how cooperative with them he would be.

  Mind you, Jude’s scallops had been delicious.

  ♦

  When she got back to Woodside Cottage, the light on her answering machine was flashing. There was a brief message from Sally Monks.

  That morning Nell Witchett had been found dead in her bed.

  Nineteen

  Carole also had a phone message when she returned to High Tor. It was from Sylvia. She just said ‘Sylvia’ on the phone. Carole hadn’t really considered before what the woman’s surname might be, but she supposed it was probably still ‘Crisp’. Sylvia Crisp. What on earth could she want? Dutifully Carole returned the call.

  “Hello,” said the distinctive nasal voice.

  “How did you get my phone number?” asked Carole.

  “I am capable of using a phone book.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, is Ted with you?”

  “Is Ted with me? Why on earth should he be?”

  “I can’t raise him at the pub, he’s not answering his mobile. I thought he might be hiding out with you.”

  “Why would he want to hide out with me?”

  “Well, you two are an item, aren’t you?”

  Carole’s instinct was to deny the allegation hotly, but then she stopped to think. Sylvia might be more forthcoming if she believed she was talking to her ex-husband’s girlfriend. No harm in letting the deception run for a little while, to see if it did lead to any revelations. So all she said was, “He’s not here.”

  “Where do you live?” asked Sylvia brusquely.

  “If you’re so capable with phone books,” Carole responded frostily, “I’d have thought you would notice that they contain addresses as well as numbers.”

  “Yes, all right, I know your address, but I don’t know where it is. I’m not a Fethering resident. Are you near the Crown and Anchor?”

  “About a five-minute walk. The High Street leads away from the sea, you know, it’s where the parade of shops is.”

  “I know it. I think it would save time, Carole, if you and I had a little talk.”

  “By all means.”

  “I’m in Worthing. I’ll be with you in as long as it takes.” And the phone was put down.

  Carole Seddon was affronted by the woman’s rudeness, but also intrigued. Just when most avenues of investigation seemed to be closing, here was a potential new one opening up. She dialled 1471 and took a note of Sylvia’s mobile number. Then she committed it to her memory – she had a photographic memory for phone numbers. You never knew when something like that would come in handy.

  ♦

  They sat in the garden. Even there the air moved very little. Gulliver panted pathetically in the inadequate shade of the green table, and tried unsuccessfully to chew off the bandaging round his leg.

  Sylvia was wearing clothes which, though perfectly acceptable for the beach, looked out of place in the austere environment of High Tor. Another pair of microshorts – pale blue this time – and plastic flip-flops. Above the waist nothing but a red bikini top, which did nothing to disguise the ampleness of her charms. Carole was already disposed against Ted Crisp’s ex-wife, and the way the woman dressed for her visit did nothing to dilute the strength of that disapproval. Yes, the weather was hot, but standards still had to be maintained. A scarf over the bare shoulders might seem to be a minimum requirement. Carole thought her own ensemble of grey linen trousers and a short-sleeved white blouse went quite as far as casual needed to go.

  But clearly, not upsetting her hostess was low among Sylvia Crisp’s priorities. As soon as, having turned down offers of tea and coffee, she had been furnished with a glass of mineral water, she launched straight into the purpose of her visit. “Come on, I want to know where Ted is.”

  “So far as I know, he’s at the pub. It has reopened. I was there at lunchtime.”

  “Did Ted mention I’d been trying to contact him?”

  “He wasn’t there. He had a meeting at the bank.”

  “But you’ll be seeing him soon?”

  “Possibly.” Then Carole remembered she was trying to maintain the illusion that she and Ted were ‘an item’. “Certainly.”

  “Well, when you do see him, will you
tell him to answer my bloody phone calls. Not to mention the phone calls from my solicitor.”

  “I’ll ask him,” said Carole, “but I can’t guarantee that he’ll do it. As you must know, when Ted doesn’t want to do something, he can be very bloody-minded about not doing it.”

  “Look, this is a legal matter. It’s not down to what Ted wants or doesn’t want to do. I need a divorce, and to get that my solicitor and I have to talk to him.”

  “Maybe your solicitor could talk to his solicitor?” suggested Carole.

  “Yes, fine. That’d be a start. Except Ted won’t give me a name for his solicitor.”

  “I will try and find that out for you.”

  But her magnanimity didn’t get any gratitude from Sylvia. “Do that. Then I can get things bloody moving.”

  “You’re so keen to get a divorce because you want to marry Matt?”

  “Not want to. I am going to marry Matt.”

  “Congratulations,” said Carole drily.

  There was an unpleasant light of mischief in Sylvia’s eyes as she went on, “And of course once the divorce has happened, there’ll be nothing to stop you and Ted getting married.”

  “Thank you. But I don’t think that’s a very likely scenario.”

  “No, I wouldn’t have thought so.” The woman looked Carole up and down in a disparaging manner.

  “Why should he bother with a piece of paper when he can get what he wants for free?”

  It was with great difficulty that her hostess bit back a response to this. Carole had suffered from more in-your-face insults since she’d met Sylvia than she had in all the rest of her nice middle-class life.

  She channelled her anger into a polite but direct question. “Sylvia, do you want Ted to sell the Crown and Anchor?”

  “Yes,” she replied, “unless he’s got some other loot stashed away that I don’t know about.”

  “You want the proceeds of the Crown and Anchor to fund your divorce settlement?”

  “Of course. It’s quite common when a divorce happens, the assets of the couple are divided up. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  “But when you and Ted split up, he had no assets.”

  “He does now. There’s got to be a hell of a lot of money tied up in that pub.”

  “It’s a business he built up on his own, though. You had nothing to do with it. You didn’t even meet during all the years he was getting the Crown and Anchor going. You don’t have any rights to the money he’s made there.”

  Sylvia smiled smugly. “My solicitor says I do.”

  “Well, your solicitor is wrong.”

  “I would think that my solicitor knows rather more about divorce law than you do, Carole.”

  “That’s quite possibly true. But Ted’s solicitor will no doubt be at least as well informed as yours is.”

  Even as she said the words, Carole wished she believed them. Ted’s casual mention of the man who had ‘dealt with the purchase of the Crown and Anchor’ did not inspire confidence in the arrival of a new Perry Mason on to his team.

  “Maybe, but if led won’t tell me or my solicitor who his solicitor is, the whole situation becomes rather complicated. My solicitor says that there are legal sanctions that can be brought to bear on people who don’t respond to solicitors’ letters.” Sylvia was clearly parroting the words of her adviser as she voiced this threat. “And I’m sure Ted wouldn’t want to be in any more trouble with the law than he is already.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t.” Carole took a sip of mineral water before moving into more investigative mode. “With regard to his being in trouble with the law…”

  “Hm?” Sylvia didn’t look very interested in pursuing the conversation.

  “…he does seem to have had a sequence of bad luck, doesn’t he?”

  Sylvia shrugged her tanned shoulders. “Bad luck or inefficiency.”

  “Where would you say he’s been inefficient?”

  “Well, that food-poisoning outbreak…got to be down to slack standards in the kitchen, hasn’t it?”

  Carole restrained herself from a detailed defence of Ted and Ed Pollack’s standards of hygiene, instead suggesting, “Or down to sabotage?”

  Sylvia’s puzzled reaction suggested that this was an idea which had genuinely not occurred to her before. And Carole didn’t think she was a good enough actress to make such a pretence. Her reactive question also implied she had just been given a new thought. “But who’d want to sabotage the Crown and Anchor?”

  “Someone who wanted to make life tough for Ted. Someone who wanted him to have to sell up.” Carole decided to be bold. “Someone like you.”

  The response to this too showed real bewilderment. “Me?”

  “You want Ted to sell up, don’t you?”

  “I want a proper divorce settlement. If he’s got other money stashed away with which he can fund that, well and good. If he hasn’t, then my solicitor says he’ll have to sell the pub to pay me off…” Every mention of her solicitor seemed to give the woman more confidence.

  But Carole’s confidence was building too. In authoritative tones she announced, “The food poisoning was definitely caused by sabotage. Before he died, Ray Witchett admitted that he had changed round a tray of fresh scallops in the kitchen of the Crown and Anchor for some dodgy ones that he had been given.”

  “Really?” This was all news to Sylvia.

  “What is more, there is a strong suspicion that the dodgy scallops were delivered to the kitchen by your fiancé, Matt.”

  “Matt?” came the amazed echo.

  “Yes. How long have you known Matt, by the way?”

  “Only a few weeks. We met in a pub in Worthing. I’d been staying in a B & B over there since I’d been trying to get some action out of Ted. You know what he’s like. He won’t answer phone calls or letters. If you want to get something out of him, you have to turn up in person.”

  “Are you still in Worthing?”

  “Yes.” She grinned with feline satisfaction. “But in Matt’s place now.”

  “Right. Well, look, you know he works as a delivery driver for the brewery that supplies the Crown and Anchor…”

  “Of course I do.”

  “On the morning of the Monday when the food-poisoning outbreak occurred, Matt delivered some beer barrels in such a way that Ted and his staff had to go down to the cellar to unjam them. During that time it seems very likely that Matt went round to the kitchen and gave Ray the scallops that caused the sickness.”

  “Really?” A change had come over Sylvia. From being bewildered, she now looked almost excited by the news she was getting. “You think Matt did that?”

  “Yes. Did he tell you that was what he was planning to do?”

  “No. He didn’t tell me anything about it.” She seemed more excited, even ecstatic.

  “Are you sure you didn’t set him up to do it?”

  “No. Why on earth would I?”

  “Because,” Carole explained patiently, “the outbreak of food poisoning caused the pub to be closed down, which put more pressure on Ted, was a threat to his business, and made it more likely that he would be forced to sell the Crown and Anchor and pay you the settlement your solicitor is demanding.”

  “Yes,” Sylvia said, as though she were spelling out to herself some wonderful news. “Yes, now you mention it, I can see that.”

  “But are you saying you didn’t set Matt up to do it?”

  “No. No, he must have worked it all out for himself. Oh, I’ve underestimated him,” she added fondly.

  “What on earth do you mean by that?” It was Carole’s turn to be bewildered.

  “I mean that I’ve always been slightly worried with Matt…you know, whether he really loves me as much as I love him. I mean, he hasn’t got a demonstrative nature. He doesn’t really show his feelings much…you know, except in bed.” There was no way she was going to miss that out. “But this shows how much he cares. He knew how upset I was about trying to get the divorce fro
m Ted. He knew how much difference it would make if Ted had to sell the Crown and Anchor…and Matt, all on his own, out of his own head, worked out this clever plan to sabotage the scallops.” She hugged herself with glee. “Ooh, he’s such a lovely man.”

  God, thought Carole, how stupid can someone be? But she was convinced that, before it was mentioned that afternoon, Sylvia Crisp had known nothing about the sabotage in the Crown and Anchor kitchen.

  Twenty

  Jude spoke to Sally Monks on the phone that evening, and caught up with the news that had been travelling along the social workers’ grapevine. The police had checked out Nell Witchett’s flat, but had not stayed there long. There would be a postmortem, because she had died so soon after her son, but there seemed to be a general view that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the old woman’s death.

  Sally wasn’t surprised by the theory Jude put forward about Nell Witchett being at one level relieved by her son’s murder. “It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened, the caring parent feeling that a great burden’s been lifted. It’s a while since I’ve had direct contact with Nell, probably seven or eight years back, but even then she was worrying about what would happen to Ray after she’d gone. So, though she may have regretted the circumstances…”

  “Even the circumstances were perhaps not that bad,” suggested Jude. “Terrible to have your child murdered, but at least for Ray it must have been very quick. So far as Carole and I could see, there was no sign of a struggle. Whoever stabbed him must have been able to get very close. Which made us think that perhaps it was someone he knew.”

  “Could be that,” Sally agreed, “but then again Ray was so trusting, he’d have let anyone come up close to him, even if they were brandishing a kitchen knife.”

  There was a silence, as both women contemplated the sadness of an innocent’s death. Then Jude said, “Sally, I’m determined to find out who killed Ray.”

  “Yes, I rather got the impression you were. I also got the impression that your interest was…let’s say, more than idle curiosity.”

  There was a momentary temptation to confess the real extent of Jude and Carole’s investigative activities, but she resisted it. “I want to know for Ray’s sake really. It just seems so unfair for something like that to happen to someone like that. And also it’s a bit for Ted Crisp’s sake, as well.” Which wasn’t untrue, though it was a partial truth. “I wonder if there’s some link between Ray’s murder and all the other things that have been going wrong at the pub. I want to find out who it is who’s got it in for Ted in such a big way.”