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

by Simon Brett

  The noise as she approached the pub answered her question. A lot of customers – and not just the smokers – were drinking outside, and all the windows and doors were open. The crowd seemed much bigger than it would have been for an ordinary Friday night; the atmosphere was positively rowdy. Her destination, the dogs’ water bowl, was just outside the main doors, but the density of the crowd deterred her. Also the nature of the crowd. Despite the evening heat, there were a lot of black leather jackets with gratuitous chains attached. Carole decided Gulliver could wait for his drink till they got back to High Tor.

  As she walked through the car park back to the High Street, she noticed a surprising number of motorbikes. She also saw someone who looked vaguely familiar leaving the pub and approaching a sleek pale blue metallic BMW.

  He was a tall man, probably in his early forties. The immaculate cut of his suit could not completely hide the fact that he was spreading to fat. Though his face was chubby, its features were small, thin lips, slightly beaky nose. He wore glasses with thick black rims. His hair, longish and swept back, was too black to be natural.

  Carole felt sure she had seen him somewhere before, but the context wouldn’t come. She racked her brains as she walked back home, but her memory didn’t oblige. Finally, with a mental shrug, she gave up trying to place the man. He probably just looked like someone she had once met.

  After eleven, as Carole Seddon prepared for bed, she heard the screeching, whining and revving up of motorbikes departing. Rather than following the coast road, where there was little residential property, they had chosen to drive up Fethering High Street. Through the open windows of the bedroom of High Tor, the noise was very loud.

  If that kind of thing continued, Carole Seddon reckoned that Greville Tilbrook might find his petition filling up rather quickly.

  ∨ The Poisoning in the Pub ∧

  Eight

  Jude’s relationship with Carole was easy, but it required effort on Jude’s part to keep it that way. She had to avoid many areas of spikiness in Carole’s personality. Most of these were predictable, but there was always the danger of inadvertently touching on some new, unpredictable one. So Jude anticipated a potential problem in their approach to Ted Crisp’s occasional helper, Ray.

  Basically, she knew it was the kind of interview that would work better if she did it on her own. From all accounts, Ray was a highly strung individual, and Jude’s work as a therapist had given her plentiful experience of dealing with such people. But she knew how sensitive Carole could be about the idea of being excluded from any part of an investigation.

  On this occasion, however, her neighbour seemed to recognize her own limitations. After Jude’s call to Sally Monks, they had agreed that an attempt should be made to see Ray the next day. But when Jude called at High Tor on the Saturday morning, Carole seemed preoccupied. She said she needed to do a big shop, and would Jude mind visiting Ray on her own?

  Jude recognized the excuse for what it was. Carole was very organized about her shopping, paying a monthly visit to Salisbury’s for non-perishable essentials. And always mid-week. She would never willingly expose herself to the bigger crowds of weekend shoppers.

  But the talk of a ‘big shop’ was her graceful way of backing off. Carole too knew in her heart of hearts that Jude would be better with someone like Ray than she would. She just couldn’t bring herself to say that in so many words.

  Jude was grateful for her friend’s uncharacteristic moment of self-knowledge, and immediately set off for the address that Sally Monks had given her.

  Everything in Fethering was within walking distance, but because the village sprawled almost enough to be called a town, some destinations involved a longer walk than others. So it was with Copsedown Hall, the sheltered accommodation where Ray lived, set on the northern fringe furthest from the sea in the less salubrious part of Fethering known as Downside.

  The cars that lined the roads were older and shabbier than those in the smarter parts of the village. Front gardens were ill-maintained, many of them serving as repositories for defunct kitchen equipment. Shreds of plastic bags lay in the gutters. They would have fluttered about had there been any wind, but the hot air lay heavy on the July day.

  Copsedown Hall, however, looked smarter than the old council housing that surrounded it. The small block of flats had probably been built in the thirties, but recently modernized. Paint still gleamed on door and window frames. Except for a disabled ramp overriding the front steps, there was nothing to suggest anything unusual about the residents.

  The double glass doors were locked when Jude pushed against them. On the wall was an intercom. She was beginning to wish she had got more information about the place from Sally Monks. Presumably there would be some kind of warden monitoring the activities of the house. It might have helped if she had a name to ask for. Still, too late. She’d have to trust to her instincts and natural charm.

  She pressed the intercom button. After a longish pause, a crackly young female voice answered, “Yes?”

  “It’s Jude.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  But the voice at the other end didn’t seem to require more. “I’ll come and let you in,” it said. “The buzzer button’s broken.”

  Again there was a pause. Then, through the glass, Jude saw someone coming down the stairs. A short chubby girl with a slight limp moved slowly towards her. Dealing with the latch seemed to require a lot of concentration, but when the door was flung open the girl beamed with satisfaction at her achievement.

  She had the flattened face characteristic of Down’s Syndrome. Her hair was reddish-brown. Through her thick glasses blue eyes were set in distinctive rounded lids. She transferred her beam to the visitor and announced, “I’m Kelly-Marie.” Her speech was a little hesitant and childlike. It was hard to assess her precise age, though Jude, who had encountered other people with the same condition, would have said late twenties.

  “As I say, I’m Jude.”

  There was a comfortable silence as they both beamed at each other. Then the girl said, “Ken’s not here. He’s never here at weekends.”

  Jude assumed she was referring to the social worker who was responsible for keeping an eye on Copsedown Hall. “It’s not Ken I’ve come to see. I’m looking for Ray.”

  “Oh, Ray.” The girl’s smile grew bigger. She certainly recognized the name, but she didn’t volunteer any other information.

  “Is Ray here?” Jude prompted.

  “Yes. He came back.”

  “Could I see him?”

  Kelly-Marie hesitated. “He’s in his flat.”

  “Could you show me where it is?”

  The girl was silent for a moment. Then she said slowly, “Ray doesn’t like…people in his flat.”

  “Ah.” Jude tried another big smile. Kelly-Marie smiled back. But she didn’t move. She was still inside the door, and Jude outside.

  “Do you think Ray might see me in one of the communal rooms?”

  Kelly-Marie considered the proposition. At length she conceded that he might.

  “Well, would you mind asking him if he’d come down to see me?” Jude was assuming that all the flats were up the stairs down which Kelly-Marie had come.

  After further deliberation, the decision was made. “Yes.” She drew back to let Jude into the hall and turned towards the stairs.

  “Where shall I go?”

  This answer again required thought. “Do you want to see Ray on his own?”

  “It would be better, yes.”

  “Well, there’ll be people in the television room.” Kelly-Marie giggled and said in a child’s version of a woman-of-the-world manner, “Men and their sport.” She limped across to open a door. “Be better in the kitchen.”

  As Jude walked past her, the girl giggled again and asked, rather daringly, “Are you Ray’s girlfriend?”

  “Just a friend.” It was a lie, but a fairly white one.

  “I’ll see if he’ll come down.” And Kelly
-Marie crossed slowly towards the stairs.

  The kitchen in which Jude found herself was large. The size of the range, the number of fridges and the extent of the cupboard space suggested that this was where all the cooking in Copsedown Hall was done. The residents did not have their own kitchens in their flats. Whether this was because they could not be trusted to cook unsupervised Jude did not know, but she suspected that it might be the case.

  Stuck on the fridge doors were handwritten names on green fluorescent labels. Four fridges, two names on each, suggesting that Copsedown Hall contained eight residents, presumably each in a different self-contained flat. Kelly-Marie shared her fridge with another girl. Ray shared his with someone called ‘Viggo’.

  Whoever did the cooking, there was clearly a strict tidiness regime enforced. The draining boards were bare, and every surface gleamed. There were two large bins, sternly marked FOR RECYCLING and NOT FOR RECYCLING. The functional, institutional space gave Jude the feeling of an army kitchen. Not that she’d ever seen an army kitchen except on film or television.

  The table at which she sat was surrounded by eight chairs, suggesting that at least sometimes the residents ate communally. She waited nearly five minutes before Ray appeared in the doorway.

  ∨ The Poisoning in the Pub ∧

  Nine

  He was slight and very short, not much more than five foot. He couldn’t have been much use at the Crown and Anchor when it came to heavy lifting, but then Jude had already decided that Ted Crisp’s support for the man was pure – if embarrassed – philanthropy. It was difficult to estimate Ray’s age. There was a boyishness about his reddish hair, but the pale skin of his face was etched with a tracery of deep lines. And his eyes looked older than the rest of his body. Older and slightly disengaged. It was from the eyes that one might deduce that he had mental problems.

  He wore grubby black jeans and a thin green cotton blouson, over a T-shirt for a tour of some female singer Jude didn’t recognize. His expression was cautious, but not unwelcoming.

  “Hello, I’m Jude.”

  “That’s what Kelly-Marie said you was.” He lingered in the doorway, not yet certain about entering the kitchen. “She also said,” he went on, “that you was my girlfriend. But I know that’s not true. Because if I had a girlfriend, I’d have seen her before, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

  He spoke this long speech cautiously, as though he were speaking in a language that was unfamiliar to him.

  “You might have seen me in the street,” Jude suggested. “I do live in Fethering.”

  Ray considered this proposition for a moment, then advanced a little way into the room. “Kelly-Marie didn’t really think you was my girlfriend. She was joking. She makes lots of jokes at me.” But he spoke without rancour. And a broad smile spread across his face, completely transforming his appearance. Smiling seemed to come naturally to him. It was expressing other moods that he found difficult.

  He seemed by now to have made the decision that Jude did not represent a threat, so he moved right into the room and put his hand on the back of the chair next to hers. “Would you like tea or coffee? I can make tea or coffee,” he added with a vestige of pride in his voice. He moved towards the fridge he shared with Viggo.

  “Are you having some?”

  Her question prompted another moment of deliberation before Ray decided that he wasn’t.

  “Then I won’t bother. Do please sit down.”

  He did as he was told, seeming almost relieved that someone was making a decision for him. He sat quietly, not looking at Jude, just straight ahead, the smile still playing around the corners of his lips.

  The silence, the lack of explanation for Jude’s appearance, did not seem to worry him.

  She wondered whether his response would be equally calm when she mentioned the poisoning at the Crown and Anchor. Still, that was why she had come to see him. No point in beating around the bush. “Ray,” she began, “I’m a friend of Ted Crisp’s.”

  “He’s a nice man.” Ray nodded vigorously to emphasize the point. “A nice man.” His smile grew broader.

  “Yes. And I gather you sometimes help him at the pub…”

  Another enthusiastic nod. “He lets me. People think I can’t do things. Ted Crisp thinks I can.”

  “And you were helping at the Crown and Anchor on Monday?”

  Only after he had keenly agreed to this did a slight caution come into his vague eyes. “Yes, on Monday,” he agreed with a little less confidence.

  “But you haven’t been back there since?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to go back?”

  “Well, I don’t know…” Then, unexpectedly, the wide smile returned. “I’ll have to be there on Sunday.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ve got this man from the telly there on Sunday.”

  “Dan Poke.”

  “Yes, I’ll have to see him. I’ve only seen two people from off the telly before. One was Lyra Mackenzie.”

  He spoke the name with such reverence that Jude tried to avoid showing it meant nothing to her. But she must have failed, because Ray felt he had to explain. He pulled back the sides of his blouson to reveal the picture on his T-shirt. Jude still didn’t recognize the singer. “You know, from The X Factor”.

  “Ah. Right.” She knew her pretence at familiarity was pretty unconvincing, but Ray didn’t seem to notice. “She did a concert at the Pavilion Theatre in Worthing. I waited round the back afterwards to get her autograph.”

  “And did you get it?”

  “Yes. She signed my programme.” Enthusiastically he rose from his seat. “It’s up in my room. Would you like to see it?”

  Jude managed to assure him that, impressed though she was by his trophy, she didn’t actually need visual proof of its existence. He sank back into his chair, only momentarily disconsolate. “I must get Dan Poke’s autograph on Sunday. He’ll be the third person I’ve seen off the telly.” The thought reassured him.

  “So who was the second one?” asked Jude. “You know, after Lyra…um…?” She couldn’t remember the surname.

  “He was a footballer.” His voice dropped to a level of suitable awe. “I once saw Gary Lineker at Brighton Station. I didn’t say anything to him. He didn’t see me. But it was him. From off the telly.” He looked at his watch.

  “Are you worried about your football this afternoon?” asked Jude.

  “Yes, I like to see everything from twelve o’clock. Soccer Saturday starts on Sky at twelve o’clock.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ve got plenty of time. I’ll be gone long before then.”

  “Yes.” He seemed reassured, but perhaps a little less relaxed than he had been. The smile was not quite as broad.

  Jude pressed on. “But you haven’t been back to the Crown and Anchor since Monday?” He shook his head. “Why?”

  Ray seemed at a loss to explain this fact, but then a thought came to him. “My mother. I’ve been to see my mum.”

  “How is she?” asked Jude gently.

  “She’s old, very old.” He seemed to find the idea funny. “She can hardly move now. She’s very old.” He smiled again.

  “Do you see her often?”

  Ray shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  “Do you see her when you’re happy or when you’re unhappy?”

  Jude’s voice was now very soft, soft and warm, the voice of a therapist. And it worked, soothing the troubled man into security.

  “I see my mum when I’m unhappy.”

  “And she makes you feel better?”

  The question seemed genuinely to puzzle him. “I don’t know. When I see her there aren’t other people there. Just me and her. Not other people wanting things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Wanting me to say things. Asking me things. Telling me off for things.”

  “Does Ted Crisp ever tell you off for things?”

  “He did on Monday.”

  �
�What did he tell you off ahout?”

  “He was in a bad mood.”

  “Was this in the morning or the afternoon?”

  “In the afternoon.”

  “Ray, you know what happened at lunchtime on Monday, don’t you?”

  “People were sick,” he said quietly. “Yes. And it was after that that Ted was cross with you?” He nodded. “Can you remember what he said?” The nod turned to a shake of the head. “He just shouted.” The memory was painful.

  “Did he shout at you? Or at everyone?”

  “At everyone. But then he shouted at me.”

  “And you really can’t remember what he said?” This time the headshake was very firm. “When people shout at me, often I get confused. I don’t want to hear what they’re saying. I want to shut my ears. I just want them to go away!”

  He was reliving the kind of painful experience he described. His hands had risen involuntarily to cover his ears. Jude knew he was near to panic, the kind of panic which sent him back to his mother’s. She would need all of her therapeutic skill to keep him in the kitchen with her.

  Very gently, she asked, “Has Ted Crisp ever shouted at you before?”

  The headshake was small, but definite. Into Jude’s mind came the thought that perhaps Ted’s action had been deliberate. In the aftermath of Monday’s poisoning, the landlord would undoubtedly have been furious, but given the way he had nurtured and helped Ray, he would have been unlikely to vent his anger on him. So perhaps Ted had shouted because he knew such behaviour would send Ray scurrying off to his mother. And keep him off the scene for any ensuing Health and Safety inspection. Ted Crisp’s uncharacteristic shouting could have been an act of protection. Which, if it were the case, could well mean that he suspected Ray did have some involvement in the sabotage at the Crown and Anchor.

  Now Jude had to be doubly careful. “You know it was the scallops that caused the food poisoning last Monday, don’t you?”

  “Yes. It couldn’t be prevented.”

  This seemed a very odd response to her question. “What exactly do you mean, Ray?”