? The Poisoning in the Pub ?
Twelve
“Any time I can help out an old mate,” said Dan Poke unctuously, thrusting out his hand to Ted through the back window of the limousine, “you know I’m more than happy to.”
“Help out?” thought Carole, who was standing defensively close behind the landlord in the milling crowd. ‘Stitch up’, more like. She looked around for Jude, but they’d got separated in the mass of sweating bodies.
Ted looked very uncomfortable as he took the proffered hand. “No, it’s been great, Dan. Can’t thank you enough. We’ll meet up again soon for a relaxed beer, eh?”
The comedian detached his hand with a dismissive, “Sure, sure.”
“Hard to get at you through all your panting fans.” The new voice belonged to the tall man who was so infuriatingly familiar to Carole.
Dan Poke grinned. “Saw you in the audience, William, but didn’t get a chance to say anything.” At least she now had a first name for him.
The man called William chuckled. “Having heard what you said about other people, I think I got off lightly.” The line seemed so obviously a reference to Ted that the landlord looked even more wretched.
“Anyway, great show, as ever,” the tall man continued, oozing automatic bonhomie. “I must be on my way, but we’ll be in touch. Eh?” And he melted away towards his pale blue BMW.
“I’d better get moving too.” Dan Poke leaned forward and tapped his driver on the shoulder. “Let’s get out of this shithole. And be careful you don’t run over any screaming fans on the way out. That really would be bad publicity.” He grinned his crooked grin back at Ted. “Almost as bad as everyone getting food poisoning.” And the limousine’s electric window moved upwards as the car glided gently away from the Crown and Anchor.
Ted Crisp couldn’t hold in his feelings any longer. “Bastard!” he whispered on a long breath of pain. “Bastard!”
“I agree,” said Jude, who had caught up with them through the milling throng, “but look on the bright side.” She indicated the huge crowd, who still seemed unwilling to make their way home. None of the motorbikes in the car park had moved. It was as if their owners were biding their time until the moment of maximum annoyance for the residents of Fethering. “At least you’ll have made some money, Ted, from all this lot.”
“Oh yes?” he asked cynically. “I don’t think there’ll be much left when I’ve paid off Dan.”
“But I thought he was doing the show for nothing,” Carole objected.
“Oh yes, the
Jude caught on to the implication of this before Carole did. “You mean, the limousine?”
Ted Crisp nodded savagely and turned towards her. Jude got a blast of Famous Grouse into her face. Oh no, had he tried to anaesthetize his humiliation with whisky? “Yes,” said Ted. “Mind you, the limousine’s only taking him to Brighton, where he’s booked in overnight at the Hotel Du Vin – apparently he’s got some woman set up there – and then the limousine will take him tomorrow morning back up to his pad in London. All that on expenses.”
“But how much is it all going to cost?” asked Carole, appalled.
“Certainly more than I’ll get for all the pints I’ve pulled this evening. And, of course, he’s cleaned up on selling all his books and DVDs and other tat. No, our Mr Poke is a very smooth operator.”
It was not Carole Seddon’s custom to use strong language, but she couldn’t help herself from echoing Ted’s “Bastard!”
They might have got further into the perfidious economics of charity work, but they were interrupted by the sound of a beer bottle smashing. Before they had had time to react, there was another smash and a great welling of feral shouting from the crowd. A fight had started. The bikers were pushing to get as near as possible to the action, and the Fethering residents as far away. They bumped into each other and more drunken blows were thrown. The steamy heaviness of the July day had erupted into full-scale violence.
“God, this is all I bloody need!” said Ted Crisp, before throwing himself into the melee. His intention was to separate the combatants, but the tensions of the day – not to mention the large amounts of Famous Grouse he had ingested – meant that he swung his fists as ferociously as any of them.
“No,” murmured Carole. “If Ted gets himself arrested for being in a fight, he’s finished.”
It was almost impossible to see what was going on. The outside coach lamps of the Crown and Anchor had been smashed as soon as the violence started, and into the strips of light thrown out by the open doors heaving masses of bodies swayed and rushed to and fro, arms, beer bottles and chairlegs flying. Windows had been smashed, window-boxes ripped from their fittings and hurled about. Shouting, grunting filled the air. Shafts of light revealed splashes of blood on summer T-shirts. Knives had been drawn.
Jude looked around, wondering whether the scarred man or Viggo had initiated the violence, but she could see no sign of either of them in the struggling melee. Like all fights, this one was ugly and incompetent, but that didn’t stop people from getting hurt.
Even before the whine of a police siren was heard, Jude had pulled her neighbour by the hand and whispered urgently, “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here!”
“But led…” Carole murmured pitifully. “led…”
Jude dragged her away. By now the police Panda was in the car park, blue lights strobing across the chaos. “Round the back way,” hissed Jude. As they moved, they heard the first roar of a motorbike engine starting. The leather-clad brigade weren’t planning to stay to be interviewed by the police. Other engines roared and throbbed in the night air.
It was a momentary shock to realize that the motorbikes were coming in their direction. Rather than risking being stopped at the entrance to the Crown and Anchor car park, the bikers were going to make good their getaway across the dunes. Carole and Jude shrank against the back of the pub as the cavalcade thundered past. Incongruously, in their midst, also making its off-road escape, was a silver Smart car. Its tiny bubble of a body bounced dangerously on the uneven surface as it surged towards the freedom of the coast road.
From somewhere on the seaward side of the pub came the sound of running footsteps departing across the shingle at the top of the beach.
The door to the kitchen was open, letting out a very white rectangle of light on to the rough dune grass. Approaching, Carole and Jude saw there was someone standing in the doorway. As he turned to rush inside, they saw the anguish on Ed Pollack’s face. And the blood spattered down the front of his white chefs jacket.
Unblocked by his shadow, the shaft of light was stronger still. It illuminated a small body lying on its back.
The T-shirt retained its newly purchased creases, but some of the white letters of ‘Fancy a Poke?’ were now red. From Ray’s still chest protruded the white handle of a kitchen knife.
? The Poisoning in the Pub ?
Thirteen
Carole Seddon was faced with an ethical dilemma which challenged everything she had accepted as gospel when she worked in the Home Office. She and Jude had discovered Ray’s body. They were possibly the first people to discover Ray’s body. And as such, they had a duty to tell the police what they had seen.
On the other hand, part of her – a part encouraged into unethical behaviour by Jude, who didn’t suffer from such niceties of conscience – didn’t want to tell the police anything. This part of her produced the very convincing, but casuistic, argument that the police had got quite enough on their plates with their investigation into Ray’s death. They didn’t need the interference of two middle-aged women. If someone who’d seen them at the Crown and Anchor had suggested the police should interview them, then that would be different. In those circumstances they would of course cooperate. But she and Jude didn’t want to be responsible for adding to the workload of the investigating officers.
Carole felt considerably relieved – and rather virtuous – when she had reached this conclusion.
When she and Jude discussed what they had witnessed that evening, they found that at every turn they faced
