The Poisoning in the Pub (7 page)

‘No, I have not had that pleasure, but I know him by reputation . . . and not everything I’ve heard of that reputation is entirely, as it were, favourable.’ He was now getting
quite aerated, spluttering in his condemnation. ‘While not going quite as far as some residents who feel that Fethering should not have a pub at all, I do think it’s regrettable that
the one we do have should be run by a foul-mouthed, scruffy individual who—’

This finally was too much for Carole. ‘Mr Tilbrook, I’m sorry, but you’re talking about someone who is a friend of ours. And I think you should form your own estimation of
people by meeting them rather than listening to scurrilous gossip.’

Greville Tilbrook was about to repeat her last two words, but he only got as far as ‘scurrilous’ before Carole said, ‘And I think, if you have no other purpose in being here
than to slander our friends, I must ask you to leave.’

‘But I do have another purpose,’ he spluttered.

‘Oh?’

He withdrew some stapled A4 sheets from his leather document case. ‘I came here to ask you whether you would add your, as it were, signatures, to this petition.’

‘And what’s the petition for?’ asked Carole implacably.

‘It is to stop the appearance of the vulgar and blasphemous comedian Dan Poke in the Crown and Anchor public house this coming Lord’s Day.’

‘Right,’ said Carole. ‘Glad we’ve finally got to the point. Well, no, thank you, Mr Tilbrook. I have no wish to add my “as it were, signature” to your
petition.’

‘Nor do I,’ said Jude. ‘We strongly support Ted Crisp’s initiative to use the Crown and Anchor for such purposes, and in fact we have both bought tickets to see Dan
Poke’s appearance on Sunday.’

A discomfited Greville Tilbrook realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere with this particular visit and beat a wordy retreat. When Carole came back from seeing him out of the front door,
she asked Jude, ‘Have you really booked tickets for the show?’

‘No. But I think we should.’

Carole recharged their wine glasses and the two women looked at each other. ‘You can see why Ted’s paranoid, though,’ Jude observed. ‘He seems to be being attacked on all
sides, doesn’t he?’

On the Friday morning Jude rang one of her friends in the social services, a woman called Sally Monks, who owed her a favour. Jude had once used her healing skills to help out
a couple of Sally’s more difficult teenage clients, and so the social worker was more than happy to return the favour. She readily supplied an address for the Ray who sometimes worked at the
Crown and Anchor. ‘But I happen to know that he’s not there today,’ said Sally.

‘Oh?’

‘He tends to go back to his mother’s from time to time. She’s quite old and infirm, so she can’t look after him full-time, but she can manage for a few days.’

‘You don’t know where she lives, do you?’

‘Yes. Worthing. Do you want me to give you her address? I will if it’s something really important, but Ray’s mother’s an old lady and . . .’

Sally Monks sounded reluctant, and Jude was forced to ask herself how important her quest actually was. Yes, she wanted to help Ted Crisp, but not to presume too far on the social worker’s
goodwill. Anyway, Ted himself had tried to cover up Ray’s involvement in what had happened in the Crown and Anchor. He might not welcome her investigating.

As it happened, what Sally Monks said next simplified things. ‘If you really do want to contact Ray, I know he’ll be at the flat tomorrow.’

‘Oh?’

‘Saturday. Football. He loves his football. His mother doesn’t have Sky, but they have it in the communal sitting room at the flats.’

‘Oh, thank you for telling me. Maybe I’ll try and contact him tomorrow.’

‘That’d be better.’ The social worker sounded relieved. ‘I don’t want to put any more pressure on his mother.’

‘More pressure? What do you mean?’

‘Well, it’s just that Ray only goes to see her when he’s upset. She has quite a problem calming him down sometimes.’

‘You’ve no idea why he might be upset at the moment, do you?’ asked Jude, keen to advance her investigation.

‘Jude,’ said Sally patiently, ‘I haven’t seen Ray for months. I’ve no idea what’s upset him this time. It’s could be anything. He gets hurt very easily,
always worries that people are against him. He’s one of those people who seems to have been born with too few layers of skin.’

As she thanked Sally and rang off, Jude realized that any approach she made to Ray would require all of her considerable tact and gentleness.

Because it was so hot that Friday, Carole delayed taking Gulliver for his afternoon walk until the evening. She felt sorry for him. A Labrador’s coat wasn’t
designed for this kind of weather. He was still full of enthusiasm to tackle the invisible monsters of the beach, but he tired quickly and his long tongue lolled from panting mouth.

He looked so hot and pitiful in the fading light that she thought she would find him a drink before they got back to High Tor. There was always a dog bowl of water outside the Crown and Anchor,
so she walked back from the beach that way. The route would also give her a chance to see whether Ted’s trade had picked up at all since his enforced closure.

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.

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 Sainsbury’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.