“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 fiance, 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 from 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.
? The Poisoning in the Pub ?
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.”
“Hm. Well, anything I can do to help…We social workers do have quite a lot of insight into what goes on around here.”
“Thanks, Sally. I’ll be glad to take you up on that. And, actually, now I remember, there was something I wanted to ask you about.”
“Fire away.”
“That girl Kelly-Marie…”
“Up at Copsedown Hall?”
“Yes. Nell Witchett said that she and Ray used to talk a lot together.”
“I can believe it. They’re a pair of the gentlest people I’ve ever met. Would have had a lot in common.”
“I was going to go up to Copsedown Hall and talk to Kelly-Marie.”
“Good idea.”
“I just wondered if there was anything I ought to be aware of. You implied you knew her.”
“Yes. She was my responsibility for a time. Very well organized.”
“That’s what Nell said.”
“Knows her limitations. Very aware of the things she can’t do. But she doesn’t let it get to her. A perpetually sunny disposition. God, I wish more of my charges were like her.”
“Has she got parents still alive?”
“Yes, nice middle-class couple up in Fedborough. And a couple of brothers, I think, who have no disabilities. It was Kelly-Marie herself who announced she wanted to live somewhere like Copsedown Hall, to prove she could be that independent. Which she certainly has proved.”
“How do you think she’ll have taken Ray’s death?”
“I think she’ll be upset, but not totally devastated. Kelly-Marie does understand about death. She does know that her parents won’t be there forever.”
“And you don’t think my talking to her about Ray would upset her?”
“No. Anyway, Jude, she’ll tell you if she thinks it will. She’s very direct.”
“No idea what she’s doing at the moment, whether she works…?”
“I’m pretty sure she has got a job.”
“I was just wondering when might be the best time to call at Copsedown Hall, you know, when she’s likely to be in…”
“Oh, don’t just go up on the off chance. She’s got a mobile. Ring her.”
“And do you, by any chance, have her number?”
Sally Monks did.
