absolute busiest…a whole practice of solicitors got sick after their Christmas party.” Potentially entertaining though this image was, neither Carole nor Jude laughed. “They blamed the Coquille St Jacques starter that they’d had, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been that. I always maintained the highest standards of hygiene in my kitchen – I was almost obsessive about it, and the Health and Safety inspectors have never found anything to complain of – so I’ve no idea how it happened. I think those solicitors all got one of those vomiting bugs which seem to be around in the winter so much these days. But that was not the way they saw it. And, needless to say, the incident didn’t do anything to help the image of the Cat and Fiddle.”
“Presumably,” said Carole, “the food poisoning also got coverage in the local paper?”
“Oh yes. Front page of the
Carole and Jude both recalled that on their last encounter with Shona Nuttall she had demonstrated a very different attitude to the media, crowing about her recent appearance on the television news, but neither of them commented on the inconsistency.
“Anyway,” Shona went on, “all this was having a disastrous effect on the business. Lots of firms ringing in to cancel their Christmas parties. Families with small children – who used to be quite a staple of the lunchtime trade – well, they kept away from a place that was getting a reputation for violence. And the pensioners, who’d always come in for their special-rate meals, they stopped coming.
“Within a couple of months, the Cat and Fiddle, from being one of the most popular, must-visit pubs in the area, had virtually emptied. And I was so stressed, I thought I was going to have a breakdown.”
At this recollection an involuntary tear trickled down her wrinkled cheek. She dashed it away, took a large swallow from her drink and busied herself lighting another cigarette.
“And it was because you were so stressed,” Jude suggested gently, “that you agreed to accept Home Hostelries’ offer for the Cat and Fiddle?”
Shona Nuttall nodded, then filled her lungs and blew the cigarette smoke out in a grey line which wavered with the tension in her body. “Yes,” she agreed, “though by then they were offering less than they had been before. Less than I’d previously thought was not enough. But by then I was so…I don’t know…Tired? Battered? All I wanted to do was to get away from the place.”
“And who did you deal with at Home Hostelries?” asked Carole. “Was it always the same person?”
A note of caution came into Shona Nuttall’s eyes. “I didn’t deal with anyone in particular. The sale of the Cat and Fiddle was all done through my solicitors.”
“But you mentioned there had been offers for the pub from Home Hostelries before. Were none of those direct to you?”
She shook her head and reiterated, “All through the solicitors.”
Carole and Jude both had the instinct that she was lying, but they couldn’t see any way of making her reveal information she was determined to withhold. In both their minds the same thought arose: that whoever Shona Nuttall had dealt with at Home Hostelries, he or she had really put the frighteners on her. The ex-landlady wasn’t going to risk further trouble by giving them a name.
But there was one other detail that could be checked. Jude got out her mobile and found the photograph Zosia had taken on the comedy night at the Crown and Anchor. “About these bikers who came…” she held out the picture of Derren Hunt “…was this man with them?”
Shona Nuttall looked at the image with distaste. “Yes, he used to come. Was one of the ringleaders, I think.”
“Did you ever find out his name?”
“Good heavens, no!” The very idea shocked her.
“Or speak to him?”
“I may have served him a drink. I certainly never had a conversation with him.”
Jude clicked on to another photo, the one which featured Viggo, and proffered it to Shona. “Do you recognize him?”
The ex-landlady shrugged. “Looks vaguely familiar. But I couldn’t be sure. That lot in their leather gear…” she shuddered at the recollection “…they all looked alike to me.”
“And what about the small man beside him?”
No, she had never seen Ray Witchett before. She hadn’t seen photos of him on television or in the papers either. Carole and Jude got the impression that not much news filtered through into the velvet fastness of that Southwick bungalow.
There was a silence. Shona puffed away at her cigarette as though her life depended on it. She looked pathetic, broken and alone. Neither Carole nor Jude had warmed to her in her former brassy mode, but it was sad to see any human being so reduced. The Cat and Fiddle had not just been her business; it had been her family, her whole existence.
There was one more question Carole wanted to ask, though. “Did you ever do comedy nights at the pub?”
“No,” came the reply. “Our country and western evenings were very popular. And our quiz nights. But I never liked the idea of comedy nights. Comedians these days are so vulgar, aren’t they? Scattering four-letter words about like nobody’s business. That wasn’t the sort of thing that would have appealed to the kind of clientele I wanted to frequent the Cat and Fiddle.”
“But did anyone ever suggest to you that you might do a comedy night?”
“Well, it’s funny you should ask that, actually. I did have a call…oh, last autumn I suppose it was…from quite a well-known comedian, offering to start a series of comedy nights for me. I said no, because I’d seen him on television and he was rather vulgar there, so what he might have been like in a pub I really didn’t like to imagine. But I was surprised by the call, because he really was quite a big name.”
Carole and Jude both felt pretty sure they knew the answer, but they still had to ask the question.
“His name,” Shona Nuttall replied, “was Dan Poke.”
? The Poisoning in the Pub ?
Thirty-Three
Surprisingly, it was Carole’s idea to Google Home Hostelries. When they got back to Woodside Cottage from Southwick, their tiredness had gone and they were both keen to get on with their investigation.
“I mean, we do now have a direct connection,” said Jude excitedly. “The campaign against Shona Nuttall at the Cat and Fiddle started in exactly the same way as what’s happened to Ted at the Crown and Anchor.”
“But it didn’t lead to murder there.”
“That might just be because Shona Nuttall cracked earlier and accepted the reduced offer.”
“I’d put any money on the fact that Ted’s also had approaches from Home Hostelries. If only he’d talk to us…”
“We need to find out more about the company.”
And it was then that Carole had suggested using Google. Jude was amazed that Carole Seddon, who had at times almost made a religion of her techno-phobia, was actually suggesting using a computer as a resource. What’s more, she appeared familiar with both the language and the use of computers. Jude grinned inwardly. She had known the moment would come; it had only been a matter of time. But she made no comment, as she booted up her laptop and found the Google screen. “Would you like to take over?” she offered.
“Oh, very well,” said Carole, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
She keyed in Home Hostelries and looked at the options thrown up. There were plenty of links to individual pubs, pub guides, restaurant and tourism sites. “What we really need is their home page. See if we can get any relevant names.”
“What, Carole? Are you planning to confront their managing director with accusations of planning a wrecking campaign against Shona Nuttall and Ted Crisp?”
Carole took no notice of the irony in her neighbour’s voice as she replied, “If necessary.”
Their search took quite a while, and they went up many blind alleys into promising websites which all
