“I don’t think there’s any harm in that.”
“Good.” He looked at his watch. “Well, I think I’m about to go back to mine. Are you coming or not?”
“No.”
“Right. Well, thank you, Jude, for a totally fucking wasted evening.”
He rose to leave, but her next words changed his mind. “I want to talk about the involvement of Home Hostelries in the murder of Ray Witchett.”
Dan Poke froze, then sank back into his chair and said in what was little more than a whisper, “What?”
“It’s my belief,” said Jude evenly, “that Home Hostelries had been trying for some time to add the Crown and Anchor in Fethering to their chain of pubs.”
“So?”
“In spite of the fact that Ted Crisp had no desire to sell. I think he became the victim of a campaign of harassment which was organized by Home Hostelries.”
“Come off it, Jude. You’re talking about a pukka company here. Home Hostelries doesn’t need to organize campaigns of harassment. There are pubs closing every week all over the country. If we want to buy places, we’re spoiled for choice.”
“Except that you are very picky in your choice of where you buy. You only want places with the best possible locations. Like the Crown and Anchor. Like the Cat and Fiddle on the Fedborough road out of Littlehampton.”
Dan Poke looked puzzled.
“You’re not denying that the Cat and Fiddle has been bought by Home Hostelries?”
“Certainly not. It’s undergoing major refurbishment. Reopening as a Home Hostelries pub in October, if my memory serves me right.”
“It does. And before she gave in and agreed to sell to Home Hostelries, the landlady had suffered almost exactly the same kind of harassment as Ted Crisp’s been getting at the Crown and Anchor.”
“Where’ve you got this from?”
“Shona Nuttall herself,” Jude replied implacably. “The ex-landlady of the Cat and Fiddle.”
“Have you worked all this out off your own bat?”
“I have been working on it with a friend.”
“Male friend?”
“Female friend.”
“Nobody else involved?”
Jude thought quickly before answering that. If she was sitting opposite a man capable of murder, then she and Carole might well be at risk. Time perhaps for a tactical lie. “We have kept the police up to date with our investigations.”
Dan Poke laughed and Jude realized it had been a silly thing to say. He didn’t believe her, and as a consequence any threat she might have represented to him had been diluted. “Oh yes, I’m sure the police have been really grateful for the input of two old biddies from Fethering.”
Ten minutes before Dan Poke had been keen to get her into bed; now suddenly she was an old biddy from Fethering.
“Tell you what,” he went on, “even though you’re talking rubbish, it’s potentially dangerous rubbish.”
“Dangerous to whom?”
“To the reputation of Home Hostelries. Who’ve you talked about this to – apart from your friend?”
“And the police,” Jude offered feebly.
“Oh yes, of course.
“What? Who?”
“You, your friend, me…”
“Down some dark alley?”
“Don’t be fucking stupid! I’m talking in the Home Hostelries boardroom. You have to realize just how serious the allegations you’re making are. I’ve got your number. I’ll give you a call.”
And with that Dan Poke left the bar. And left Jude with the feeling that she hadn’t managed the encounter very well.
She asked Garcia to lend one of his bouncers to see her to Notting Hill tube station, which he did without demur. But on the short walk there, she didn’t see any homicidal stand-up comedians lurking in the bushes. And all the way back on the tube and train to Fethering, Jude felt rather stupid.
? The Poisoning in the Pub ?
Thirty-Six
The summons came in a phone call the following morning at nine-thirty sharp. Dan Poke, sounding very businesslike and making no mention of their encounter the previous evening, invited Jude and her friend to a meeting at the Home Hostelries headquarters in Horsham. He said he would like to make the meeting as soon as possible, “because of the nature of the situation’. They agreed to meet that very morning at eleven- thirty.
Carole had told her the previous evening what she had discovered about Will Maples’s role in the Home Hostelries company, and on the way up to Horsham in the Renault they discussed the likelihood of his also being at the meeting.
Dan Poke had given very precise instructions and also told Jude that parking would be reserved for them. This was a considerable relief to Carole, who knew of old that Horsham was one of those towns in which it was impossible to find a parking space. The slot allocated for them was right next to Will Maples’s distinctive pale-blue BMW.
The Home Hostelries building breathed success from every shiny glass storey. The air-conditioned atrium where they approached Reception was high and daunting, a temple to corporate achievement. They were expected and, moments after their arrival, a girl in a mulberry business suit with feather grey trim escorted them to the lift, in which they were whisked up to boardroom level.
Their question in the car was answered immediately. Will Maples was there, as well as Dan Poke, who looked incongruous in a dark suit and tie. He had shaved since the night before. The little square of beard on his chin looked like some form of scouring pad.
The third member of the greeting party Carole and Jude had not met before. A woman in her thirties with square-cut blonde hair and a pinstriped trouser suit was introduced to them as ‘Melissa Keats, a member of the company legal team’.
They sat at one end of a long boardroom table, Carole and Jude on one side, the other three opposite them. The atmosphere was that of a rather daunting job interview, and the two women felt certain that that was the intention. They were being subjected to a course of corporate intimidation. The girl who’d brought them up in the lift poured coffee for those who required it, and then left the room, closing the door behind her.
His colleagues seemed to expect Will Maples to take charge, which he duly did. Dan Poke was uncharacteristically quiet in this business environment; he seemed to be waiting for his colleague to give him permission to speak.
Carole and Jude had seen plenty of Will Maples’s smarmy smiles in his days at the Hare and Hounds, but there was none on his face that morning. “We’ve called this meeting because you two ladies have been spreading rumours about the business activities of Home Hostelries which we believe to have no basis in truth. So it seemed sensible to meet to find out where you got these ideas from and maybe to clear the air. Now I believe, Mrs Seddon and, er…” he looked down at some notes in front of him “…Jude, that the allegations you have made concern recent events at the Crown and Anchor pub in Fethering…?”
“Which Home Hostelries wishes to buy,” said Carole.
“I don’t deny that we have expressed an interest in the property,” Will Maples purred smoothly. “It is the sort of public house that would fit well into our portfolio. But we have no immediate plans to buy it, because the owner does not wish to sell.”
“Ah, but this is the point,” said Jude.
