The Sinking Admiral

by The Detection Club

  ‘Ah, now, that’s a pity,’ the cook had said. There was no hint of regret in her smile, indeed it could only be described as smug. ‘Business has been so good, food’s run out. I’ll have to be on the phone first thing tomorrow morning to restock. Now, if you’ll forgive me,’ she said with heavy emphasis, ‘I’ve an order for steak and chips to send out.’

  Quietly furious, Amy had gone back to the bar. The two women had always riled each other, and sometimes Meriel’s attitude was downright offensive.

  For the rest of the evening she wished she had organised extra staff. Ted, the odd-job man who helped out, was drinking in the corner, but she knew asking him to serve behind the bar was more trouble than it was worth. He was old, not a bad cook, and fine for bringing in logs from the outside store, but managing the electronic till was beyond his capabilities.

  So, ever conscious of costs, she had decided not to draft anyone else in, but battle through on her own. How was she to have known they’d have so many customers? What in heaven’s name was it about the possibility of being caught on camera that attracted people so? The pressure made it difficult for her to keep an eye on Ben and his cameraman. Though the Admiral continued to be at the centre of a jovial crowd, all prompting a continuous string of reminiscences, the television duo now seemed to be concentrating on a series of ‘vox pops’, short interviews with the locals on their opinions of the Admiral Byng.

  She knew an interview with the Admiral himself was scheduled the next day. She stood for a moment watching Ben and his cameraman in action. A sense of anger began to fill her as she realised how the presenter was drawing out his interviewees, all of them well under the influence of alcohol. Whatever they were telling him was likely to reflect badly on themselves as well as the pub. The Admiral Byng was certainly not going to be shown as somewhere viewers were going to flock to for a good night out.

  ‘Ooh, that Ben Milne is a caution,’ said Joan, one of their regulars, plonking her tankard on the bar for a refill of her ‘special’, a small brandy mixed with a large fizzy orange. Her best wig was worn at a slight angle, its glossy black curls tip-tilted over one ear. ‘Makes me feel twenty again. Understand he’s staying here.’ She gave a loud cackle filled with meaning. ‘If I were your age, sweetie, I’d be in there without a second thought.’ The washed-out blue of her eyes twinkled.

  ‘There you go,’ Amy said, resisting any response and drowning the brandy in orange. ‘Any jobs coming up, Joan?’

  ‘Ah, now there’s a thing. Got a call this morning. Did you hear there’s a new version of Far from the Madding Crowd being shot here in Crabwell? They’ll be at the Tithe Barn next week and I’m down for an old lady selling eggs. “Little less of the old,” I told them.’ She gave Amy a broad grin. ‘With those wide hats they put us in, I could pass for forty.’ The tankard was picked up, and Joan looked back at Ben, now affecting close attention as he listened to the local bookseller, who would be sounding off about planning permission difficulties. Without it, Amy knew, the bookshop couldn’t be sold as perfect for conversion to a private dwelling. After all, who wanted to buy a bookshop these days? ‘Looks as though our brown-eyed boyo needs rescuing,’ said Joan. ‘He’d love to hear about my filming.’ Off she sailed, navigating her way through the crowded room with the ease of a small tug.

  Amy smiled for a moment; when she was eighty years old, she hoped she’d have Joan’s verve and optimism. At the moment she lacked any of either. But it was good news about the Far from the Madding Crowd filming. Maybe the crew would need accommodation. Though if they were coming next week and hadn’t made a booking by now, they’d probably found somewhere else to stay.

  Suddenly the Admiral was leaning towards her over the bar. ‘Amy, my dear, that talk we must have. I think tomorrow morning, yes?’

  ‘Of course, Fitz.’ After a moment’s hesitation, she added, ‘Can you give me some idea what it’s about?’

  He ran a hand over his rumpled hair without much effect, and for a moment looked embarrassed. ‘Some unsettling information has come to my ears…’ He seemed about to go further, but then changed his mind. ‘No, I shall say no more. Let us leave it until tomorrow. Tonight has gone well, has it not? My “Last Hurrah”?’

  Then he was gone, leaving Amy tied in a tangle of unpleasant thoughts.

  ‘Some unsettling information has come to my ears.’ The words echoed uneasily in her mind. What could the Admiral have found ‘unsettling’? Somehow it didn’t seem to apply to anything connected with the pub. But surely it must be?

  Unless… For a moment Amy’s spine turned to ice. Surely nobody could have told him? Nobody here knew. And all that was in the past, left behind when she moved here. And she would do anything to make sure that was where it would remain.

  But there had been something in the Admiral’s eyes as he looked at her. A subtle redrawing of their relationship.

  There was a bustle at the door that led up to the bedrooms, and in came a whirl of woman in a mock leopard-skin coat, dirty blonde hair all over the place, and thigh-length leather boots. Amy recognised her immediately and remembered her melodramatic arrival earlier that evening.

  ‘I rang yesterday and booked a room,’ she had barked out in supremely confident tones. ‘Ianthe Berkeley.’

  Who could forget that name?

  ‘Of course,’ Amy had said smoothly. ‘I think we’ve had the pleasure of your company before, Miss Berkeley, or is it Mrs?’ She looked innocently into the woman’s bleary eyes and forced herself not to recoil from the unsettling, easily recognisable odour that clashed with Dior’s Poison. Amy remembered vividly the previous occasion. Claimed to be newly married, though there was nothing uxorious about either of the couple. Spent the time fighting with each other, and with the pub. Complaints about a damp bed, a mattress that should be condemned to the tip, noises in the night, and who knew what else. Nothing was right for them, though as they both spent most of the time drinking, with him watching football on the TV, and her flirting with any half-decent looking man who crossed the threshold, Amy hadn’t taken their complaints too seriously.

  She did, however, on their second meeting recognise a difficult customer when she saw one, and waited behind the bar for the obnoxious woman’s drink order. That turned out to be a pint of the local cider, but of course it wasn’t just alcohol she wanted. She also demanded food. She was a resident, she said, and she had been assured that she’d be able to get something to eat whatever time she arrived.

  Amy didn’t know who had made these assertions – she certainly hadn’t – but the woman was getting embarrassingly loud. Once again the bar manager mentally cursed Meriel for stopping the food service early. But, taking the line of least resistance, she sent Ted into the kitchen to knock up an omelette to appease Ms Berkeley’s demands.

  Glowing from her small triumph over the catering system, Ianthe had then caught sight of the TV presenter. ‘Ben, darling!’ she cried, and flung herself – there was no other way to describe it – at him; arms an octopus would have envied snaking around his neck, her sagging body pressed against his admirably taut figure. Amy had trouble stopping herself from smiling at his horrified reaction. For a moment Amy wondered what had brought the woman down to the Admiral Byng. Some connection with Ben Milne…? Or maybe with Fitz…? Yet another secret in his past…?

  ‘Have we met?’ Ben managed to get out, extricating himself from the octopus embrace.

  ‘Darling, it’s Ianthe! You remember our days at uni?’

  Amy had difficulty in imagining this woman was anywhere near Ben Milne in age. Perhaps she had been a mature student? Calls for more drinks from other customers claimed her attention elsewhere.

  Finally Amy was able to sing out ‘Last orders’. She looked towards where she had last seen the Admiral, hoping he wasn’t going to ask for another round for everyone, but he seemed to have disappeared. No doubt he was back on his Bridge upstairs. He must be tired. All those chats with people during the day, and then the conviviality
he had enjoyed in the bar. At least, she thought, pulling a couple of final pints of bitter, he had had something of a triumph this evening. Fancy bringing out that old Treasure Island story again!

  The closing time message seemed to have been received; only a few hard drinkers were left, and they all had charged glasses. She wiped down the bar with well-practised efficiency, and picked up a tray.

  ‘How about we film you clearing up?’ Ben appeared at her side. ‘After all, it’s a vital part of pub life.’

  Amy could just imagine what the editing room would make of the shots of her clearing tables, her hair lank with sweat, her top sticking to her body, the ribald remarks that would follow her progress around the room. ‘I’ll get Meriel, and you can film her,’ she said. Meriel should have cleaned her kitchen by now, and their usual practice was for the cook to help clear the bar. And, boy, would she enjoy being filmed!

  Only Meriel wasn’t in the kitchen, nor were any of the long streaks of pimply-faced teenagers who helped her at the busiest times and were supposed to clean the cooking utensils and keep the washing-up machine charged.

  ‘We’ll settle for you,’ Ben said, looking at the fat-stained stove, encrusted stainless-steel bowls for prepped ingredients, and the sink piled with dirty saucepans.

  Amy forced him back to the bar. ‘You’ve got quite enough material to feed your nasty sub-text. Now tell your cameraman to get back to his B & B. I’m sure his union won’t allow him to film any more today.’ But when she looked around for Stan there was no sign of him; he seemed to have given up for the evening.

  ‘“Nasty sub-text”, what are you talking about, Miss Walpole?’ said Ben, seemingly untroubled by his colleague’s departure. ‘All we are doing is shining a light on the problems that pub-owners face in these troubled times.’

  ‘Don’t give me that injured puppy-dog look.’ Amy announced loudly that the bar was closing, that it was time customers left, and started to load more dirty glasses on her tray. ‘I know exactly what you are up to, and it’s disgraceful.’

  ‘Disgraceful? What talk is that? We’re shooting actuality here, making a documentary. There’s nothing disgraceful about our activities.’ She seemed to have shaken him out of his usual complacency.

  ‘The way your programme makers lull your victims into thinking they will get a fair hearing in front of the nation! Instead they are made to look like fools. Your programme won’t save the Admiral Byng. By the time you’ve finished with us, it’s more likely to close our doors for good.’ This last was hissed in an undertone; Amy had no intention of spreading the word before the TV programme did it for her.

  She wouldn’t have been surprised if Ben had turned his back on her and gone up to his room. Instead he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans (they had ‘Gucci’ stamped all over them), leaned back against the bar, and fixed her with an injured look.

  ‘The camera cannot lie.’

  ‘Don’t try and get sanctimonious with me.’ Amy was now so angry she could hardly speak. But she seemed to have punctured his smug carapace, and something approaching a human being who had genuine emotions was emerging. ‘You know perfectly well that the camera lies and lies and lies. You seem to think it’s the duty of TV to pander to all the worst impulses of your audience. That they need to feed on the weaknesses of their fellow men and women to feel comfortable with themselves.’

  ‘You seem to have a higher opinion of your “fellow men and women”…’ he repeated her words with a sarcastic twist, ‘… than I do. But perhaps you lack my experience of the common man.’ His eyes narrowed, his self-importance was back. ‘Though how you can keep pulling pints for the sort of customer you get in here without wanting to hit them over the head for the petty-mindedness, bigotry, and basic ignorance they display every time they open their mouths, I find it hard to understand. I seem to have been giving you credit for more intelligence than you obviously have.’

  ‘I’ll hit you over the head if you aren’t careful.’ Amy picked up an empty tray and shoved it at him. ‘Now pick up the remaining dirty glasses. It’s all due to you and Stan that there are so many. Or is doing something useful beneath your dignity?’

  He actually flushed, and after a moment started to move around the now almost deserted bar collecting empties.

  ‘Just as well Stan has gone,’ he said ruefully. ‘He’d give a day’s wages – and they’re no mean sum – to capture me doing this.’

  ‘You know,’ said Amy, clearing tables behind him, ‘that’s what your programme needs, a touch of realism.’

  Ben worked in silence for a couple of minutes. Then, ‘What’s he really like, your boss? He doesn’t seem your usual sort of landlord.’

  ‘And what does that mean? How much experience of pub landlords do you have?’

  ‘Well…’ he made a vague gesture with a pint tankard. ‘They’re either sharp-eyed management types, keen to build up the business so they can sell on at a massive profit, or chaps with dreams in their eyes who’ve always yearned to run a pub, but without a clue what it entails. Your Admiral I’d put in the second category… except he’s had the nous to get someone like you to keep the ship from sinking.’

  Despite her doubts about Ben Milne’s sincerity, Amy couldn’t help warming towards him ever so slightly.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  She had to think for a moment. ‘Just over three years.’

  ‘So you must have got to know the Admiral pretty well.’

  ‘He’s a very nice old boy.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  She put the full tray on the bar, picked up a cloth and started wiping down tables.

  ‘What about family?’

  ‘His? There isn’t any.’

  ‘None at all? Did he fall out with them?’

  ‘We don’t all come provided with a full set of parents, brothers and sisters, cousins and aunts.’

  Ben had given up collecting empties, instead he’d taken up position on one of the bar stools and was fiddling with a smartphone. Amy was certain, though, that his attention was on the answers to his seemingly idle questions.

  He looked up. ‘Which are you missing from that cast list?’

  She continued wiping down tables.

  ‘Parents still alive?’

  ‘Ben, shouldn’t you be renewing your relationship with Ianthe?’

  ‘Ianthe who?’

  ‘The over-the-top blonde who draped herself all over you earlier this evening.’

  ‘Oh, her! I was hoping you could tell me who she was.’

  ‘You mean, you weren’t at uni with her?’

  ‘Amy, Amy, how could you! Do I look her age?’ Ben suddenly paused and his expression changed. ‘She could, I suppose, have been a mature student? There is something familiar about her…’ He rubbed his chin in the manner of one who has had to change his mind about something, and Amy thought he looked guilty enough to have remembered being in bed with her. Surely not! Still, she paused for a moment in her task of putting chairs upside down on the tables so she could sweep the floor. No edge-to-edge carpeting at the Admiral Byng. Her head on one side, she considered Mr Ben Milne. ‘In a way you look, well, sort of ageless.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ He obviously did not consider this a compliment. ‘Have I got bags under the eyes, frown lines, lips that have disappeared?’

  ‘Mr Milne, you can’t be as self-obsessed as that comment makes you sound!’

  ‘If we were in a novel, at this point I’d give a rueful laugh. Consider it laughed. You’re right, of course. I am your average simple male who hates the fact that the years are slipping by and he can’t kick a football as far as he used to.’

  She gave him a closer look. If you reckoned that Ianthe had aged beyond her years, and that he had managed to off-load his excesses on a portrait in the attic, maybe, just maybe, they had been at uni together.

  ‘You, on the other hand, have been on the go all the evening, and look as though you are good for a maratho
n.’

  ‘So what is it you want? Bar’s closed.’

  ‘Come on, have a heart.’ He looked quickly around the saloon. ‘The place is empty. We could have a quick snifter together and no one would know. Unless you think the old boy is likely to descend?’

  Amy shook her head. ‘I think he’s retired for the night. I haven’t seen anyone go up to the Bridge for some time.’

  ‘So?’

  She ran hot water into the bar sink and started washing glasses.

  ‘Sweet, pretty Amy, please?’ He put his elbows on the bar and gazed into her face.

  She couldn’t help laughing. ‘You could sell snow to an Eskimo.’

  ‘Tut, tut,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget your political correctness. We call them Inuits today.’

  ‘So we do. I had this lovely book as a child; all about a little girl helping to build an igloo and fishing through a hole in the ice, so the name Eskimo stuck with me. I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska.’ She wiped her hands and turned to the bottles lined up behind her. ‘OK, what’ll it be? As you’re a resident, it’s legal and can go on your tab.’

  He grinned. ‘My work tab.’ He scanned the shelves. ‘I had a Chilean Merlot earlier. That wasn’t bad.’

  Most of the time Amy made it a rule not to drink at work. She had seen too many in the hotel and catering trade end up full-blown alcoholics. Once in a while, though, couldn’t harm. And she knew the Chilean Merlot was good.

  She gave one of the filled glasses to Ben and raised hers. ‘What shall we drink to?’

  ‘“The Last Hurrah”, surely!’ He drank, then said, ‘Just what did he mean by that?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Come on, you must have some clue.’

  Was he trying to get her drunk so she’d let her tongue run away with her?

  ‘After all, it couldn’t be a big surprise if he wanted to sell this place, surely?’ Ben gave an expansive gesture that took in the shabby nature of their surroundings. ‘And you, your title might be bar manager, but you seem to be in charge of everything. You must know exactly how things stand with the Admiral Byng, financially speaking.’