The Poisoning in the Pub (21 page)

Jude’s call found the Polish girl in her flat, between shifts at the Crown and Anchor. She was using her few hours of Saturday-afternoon freedom to work on her journalism course. Jude was
constantly impressed by Zosia’s unobtrusive industry. She was really making something of herself.

Jude’s first question was about the Crown and Anchor. Had there been any more trouble?

‘No. Not much business, but no trouble.’

‘Were the bikers back yesterday evening?’

‘Thank goodness, no. I think because the police got involved on Sunday that must have frightened them off.’

Then Jude moved on to the main purpose of her call. Zosia confirmed that she had indeed taken some photos at Dan Poke’s gig. And that fortunately they were still in her phone.

‘That’s brilliant,’ said Jude. ‘Could I come round and have a look at them straight away?’

‘Well, you could, but it might be simpler if I just sent them to your mobile.’

‘Ah. Yes.’ Jude felt slightly ashamed of her ignorance of the possibilities offered by new technology. ‘Is it easy to do that?’

‘Very easy,’ replied Zosia, with that amused tolerance which the young reserve for their dealings with the old. ‘I’ll just check on my phone to see how many I took. It
wasn’t many, just I think when Dan Poke was beginning his act. For most of it I was back behind the bar, serving drinks.’ There was a brief silence. ‘Just four. Four photos is all
I took. I will send them to you as picture messages.’

‘Do you have my mobile number?’

‘Of course I have,’ said Zosia patiently.

The pictures arrived with a speed that made Jude again feel guilty for not having explored her mobile’s potential before. And though the screen on which they appeared was tiny, their
quality and clarity was remarkable.

The first one showed Ted Crisp introducing his so-called friend Dan Poke. The landlord’s expression of pained bafflement brought back to Jude the sympathy she had felt at the time for his
humiliation. More interesting, though, than Ted were the other people who were in shot. Sylvia, near the ‘stage’ area, her arms draped round Matt.

The second picture was Dan Poke beginning his act.

Jude looked at the third photograph. This time Zosia had focused on the audience rather than the star. Amongst the busy crowd Jude saw herself and Carole, both caught at those mouth-opening,
eyelid-drooping moments which are such a feature of most amateur photography. Standing just behind them, with his pre-makeover leather jacket, long hair and beard look, was Viggo. Nearest to the
camera, poignantly, sat Ray, his eyes alight at the prospect of seeing ‘someone from off the television’. Little more than an hour later his difficult bewildered life would have
ended.

The fourth photograph was of the bikers. Jude didn’t know why Zosia had taken it. Maybe for identification, a rogue’s gallery, in case of further rowdiness at the Crown and Anchor.
This idea immediately made her think of the police. Given Ted Crisp’s resistance to the idea of having CCTV at the Crown and Anchor, surely the official investigation must have sought out any
photographs taken on mobiles that Sunday night? She’d have to check that with Zosia.

In the crowd of bikers a figure stood out. Though clearly one of them – and in fact from his body language he looked to be one of their leaders – he wasn’t in their livery of
leather. He was the man with whom Jude had nearly had an altercation at the bar, the man with a scarred face and two and a half missing fingers. She remembered the rank body odour that came off
him.

The photograph also provided the missing connection that had been troubling her all day. The man was wearing combat trousers and a sleeveless T-shirt with a camouflage design. As if to reinforce
the point, on the edge of the frame Viggo was visible, looking at the scarred man with an expression that verged on the idolatrous.

Jude rang Zosia back straight away. First she asked if the police had seen the photographs.

‘No. They didn’t ask me for them. And, anyway, until you asked just now, I had completely forgotten about them. The police do not talk to me for very long. They just ask me what I am
doing in the pub till the fight starts. I tell them that I am serving behind the bar all the time. I had forgotten I went to do the lights and took the photographs. Do you think I should ring the
police and tell them?’

Jude was faced by a dilemma that had occurred more than once during her amateur investigations. The correct answer to Zosia’s question was yes. If not necessarily a crime, it was certainly
unethical to withhold evidence from the police. On the other hand, Jude desperately wanted to follow up the new information herself.

Without too much of a pang in her conscience, she replied airily, ‘Oh, I don’t think you have to, Zosia. I’m sure the police are busy with their investigation and have got lots
of leads to follow up. I mean, if they get back to you and actually ask whether you took any photographs, then obviously you must tell the truth. Otherwise, if I were you, I wouldn’t bother
them.’

Zosia seemed quite content to accept this advice. ‘Was there anything else, Jude? Because this project I’m working on has to be delivered by the end of next week
and—’

‘Yes, there is something else, actually. I know I sound like a complete Luddite, but could you explain to me how I can send the photographs you sent me on to someone else?’

With great forbearance – and not a little amusement – Zosia spelled out the procedure, which was second nature to her generation.

Jude followed the instructions to the letter and sent all four photographs to Kelly-Marie’s mobile. The accompanying text read: ‘DID ANY OF THESE PEOPLE COME TO SEE RAY IN THE LAST
FEW WEEKS?’ Jude was glad there was no one watching as she composed the message. She didn’t do much texting, and it was a laborious process for her.

Then, because she was rather impressed by her new skill, she also sent the photographs to Carole’s mobile.

Only ten minutes later Kelly-Marie rang back. ‘I’m sorry. I’m clumsy with text.’

Join the club, thought Jude. ‘But do you recognize any of the people? Have you see any of them at Copsedown Hall?’

‘Yes, I have seen one,’ Kelly-Marie replied carefully.

‘Which one?’

‘The one with the bad face.’

‘You mean the scarred face?’

‘Yes.’

‘And are you saying he came to Copsedown Hall to see Ray?’

‘No,’ said Kelly-Marie. ‘He came here to see Viggo.’

When she went round to coffee at High Tor on the Sunday morning, Jude could see that her neighbour’s time with her granddaughter had gone well. There exuded from Carole
an air of satisfaction, the feeling of a job well done. And when asked about her babysitting, she couldn’t restrain herself from enthusing about Lily’s charms. ‘She really
responds to me, you know – she definitely knows who I am.’

Jude was always pleased to witness another step in what she had come to regard as the ‘thawing’ of Carole Seddon. But the proud grandmother’s anecdotage would have to wait for
another occasion; there were more urgent things for them to talk about. Quickly Jude brought Carole up to date with the progress she had made the previous day.

‘Yes, I got the photographs you sent to my mobile.’

‘Lucky Zosia had taken those, wasn’t it, Carole?’

‘A very useful record. And you think Viggo’s modelled himself on that man with the scarred face, that that’s his latest incarnation?’

‘Yes. It fits with everything that Sally Monks said about his personality.’

‘Does that mean you think he killed Ray?’

‘I’m not sure. But I am sure that Viggo and the scarred man have information that’ll help us get closer to a solution.’

Carole nodded. ‘Now I come to think of it, I didn’t see either of them that night at the Crown and Anchor after the fight had started.’ Jude looked at her curiously. ‘I
remember looking out for them.’

‘So either of them could be in the frame for stabbing Ray?’

‘Perhaps. Mind you, in all that chaos it was fairly difficult to see anyone.’ Carole shook her head in frustration, then said, ‘So all we have to do is to find out who the man
with the scarred face is.’

‘Yes, that’s all we have to do. And I’ve a feeling it may not be easy.’

‘Well, come on, what do we know about him?’

‘Beyond his physical description – the scarred face, the missing fingers – not a lot.’

‘We also know that he’s one of the bikers – or at least he knows the bikers. In fact, from the way he was behaving he seemed like the ringleader of the bikers.’

‘Yes, OK, I’ll go along with that. But where did he arrive from? Come to that, where did the rest of the bikers arrive from? Just suddenly they were in Fethering, at the Crown and
Anchor, in something that almost felt like an orchestrated plan of sabotage, whose sole purpose was to destroy Ted Crisp’s business. Where did they come from?’

Carole smiled triumphantly as she announced, ‘Portsmouth.’

‘What? How do you know that?’

‘You were there at the same time. You should be able to work it out too.’

‘Oh, stop being infuriating, Carole. Tell me what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about Dan Poke’s performance . . . routine . . . show . . . whatever the right word is.’

‘“Act.”’

‘Act, all right. Dan Poke’s act. Don’t you remember, he went into a whole sequence about Portsmouth?’

‘Yes, it’s coming back to me.’

‘And he started by saying he knew there were some people in from Portsmouth, and when he said that there was a big roar from the bikers.’

Jude’s brown eyes sparkled as she caught up with her friend’s train of thought. ‘Yes, and he talked about some pub, didn’t he? Some rough pub – what was it
called?’

Carole’s brow wrinkled. ‘I can’t remember. Don’t worry, it’ll come to me. Try to remember what else he said in the act about Portsmouth.’

‘He said he lost his virginity there, and he said something about the hookers, and . . . ooh, he did the old “arsehole of the world” joke.’

‘Oh yes.’ Carole lips pursed into an expression of prim disapproval.

‘But you’re right,’ said Jude excitedly. ‘They did respond when Dan mentioned Portsmouth. So that narrows it down. The man with the scarred face comes from
Portsmouth.’

Carole smiled beatifically as the memory came back to her. ‘And he drinks in a pub called the “Middy”.’

‘Yes, that was it!’

‘And a “Middy”, of course,’ Carole went on with authority, ‘in a town with naval connections like Portsmouth is almost definitely an abbreviation for
“Midshipman”.’

‘So all we have to do is find the address of the Midshipman pub in Portsmouth.’

‘What’s the best way to do that? Directory Enquiries?’ asked Carole.

‘Be quicker to do it on the Internet.’

‘Oh,’ said Carole, infusing the monosyllable with the instinctive note of disapproval that came to her whenever computers were mentioned. Then she remembered how much of the previous
evening she’d spent on her inherited laptop.

But she didn’t mention her new acquisition to Jude. When Carole Seddon changed – which was something she strongly resisted throughout her life – she did so very gradually. She
was embarrassed by revealing the workings of her mind to outsiders. Until she felt absolutely confident and competent in her computer skills, she was determined to maintain her stance of contempt
for all such technology.

So the two women went next door to Woodside Cottage, where Jude switched on the laptop she had inherited from a former lover called Laurence Hawker. Carole peered over her shoulder with a
mixture of censure and fascination as her friend connected to the Internet and Googled: ‘Midshipman Portsmouth’. In seconds they had an address: Midshipman Inn, Hood Lane, Fratton,
Portsmouth.

‘See?’ said Jude. ‘Quick, isn’t it?’

Grudgingly Carole agreed that it was indeed quick. Jude grinned. She was way ahead. Though she didn’t know about the laptop already sitting in High Tor, she reckoned it would be a
relatively short time before her friend finally succumbed to the magic of the computer. And, once Carole started, there’d be no stopping her.

‘Well, Jude, what do we do now?’

‘I would say we get to the Midshipman Inn as soon as possible.’

‘When?’

‘Right this minute.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got to go and visit a healer friend this evening, so if we don’t do it now we’ll have to wait till tomorrow.’

Carole looked sceptical. ‘So what do you propose we do? We drive to Portsmouth, we arrive in the pub on a Sunday afternoon, on the off chance that this scarred man is drinking there. We
walk through the crowd of aggressive bikers surrounding him and – then what? Are we accusing him of something? What? Starting last Sunday’s riot at the Crown and Anchor? Having a hand
in the killing of Ray Witchett? Being a role model for Viggo? I think we need a more definite agenda than that, you know, Jude.’

Her friend looked disappointed. ‘It’s the only lead we’ve got. There has to be some connection between him and Viggo.’

‘Then maybe a better approach might be through Viggo. You’ve at least met him.’

‘That’s true. Maybe we’d do better to—’ Jude was interrupted by her mobile ringing. ‘Oh, hello. How nice to hear you. It was good to see you yesterday. Oh, is
he? Well, thank you for the warning. Enjoy your Sunday lunch with your parents. Hope to see you soon. Bye.’

In response to Carole’s interrogative eyebrows, Jude explained, ‘Kelly-Marie. She rang to tell me that Viggo is coming to see me.’

‘Why on earth would he do that?’

Jude grinned, knowing how much her answer would annoy Carole. ‘Synchronicity.’

Viggo looked very big amidst the clutter of the Woodside Cottage sitting room. The loss of his beard and long hair did not seem to have diminished his bulk. His new uniform of
camouflage T-shirt and combat trousers made Jude even more aware of his similarity to the scarred man whose photograph she had been looking at so recently. He held his new mobile phone like a badge
of office.