The Poisoning in the Pub (26 page)

‘We’ll get it out of him eventually,’ said Jude.

Zosia grinned, without much optimism.

‘Has Ted heard about the latest death?’ asked Carole. ‘Up at Copsedown Hall.’

‘Oh yes. News of tragedy travels fast in a place like Fethering, that I have learned since I have been here. There is more gossip, I think, even than in a Polish country
village.’

‘Did Ted say anything when he heard the news?’

‘I don’t know. I was not here when he was told. But he certainly does know.’

Just as they were about to find a table, Jude noticed a book propped up behind the bar.
A Poke in the Eye,
by Dan Poke. When she pointed it out, Zosia said, ‘This was left the
evening he did his act here. It was for sale, I think, but nobody wanted to buy it because the cover was torn or something.’

‘Could I have a look at it?’

Jude took the book over to the empty alcove Carole had found for them. When she opened it, she realized that not only the torn dust jacket made it unsaleable. The spine had broken in more than
one place, leaving the contents like an unevenly sliced loaf of yellowing pages.

‘Must’ve been published quite a time ago,’ Jude observed. She checked on the copyright page. Yes, the book was nearly ten years old. ‘So that was when Dan Poke was
presumably at his peak of popularity.’ Carole looked at her quizzically. ‘Publishers tend only to go for showbiz autobiographies from the really hot names. People who’re currently
big on telly. I suppose you don’t know how well his television career’s going at the moment, do you?’

Jude had supposed correctly. Carole left her in no doubt that the sort of programmes people like Dan Poke might be involved in were not her favoured viewing.

‘No, but you can’t miss them, when someone’s really hot. You see them on trailers between other programmes. Television celebrities are all over the newspapers.’

‘Yes, even
The Times
,’ said Carole with an aggrieved sniff, ‘quite often has colour photographs of showbiz nonentities on the front page. It’s sometimes terrifying
how downmarket that paper’s gone, you know.’

Jude wasn’t really listening; she was following a train of thought of her own. ‘No, I don’t think I have seen much about Dan Poke recently . . .’

‘So in what way is that relevant?’

‘Just thinking. I mean, OK, he’s been on telly, so he’s still a big name in a little place like Fethering, but I think it’s a while since he was really in the big time .
. .’

‘I repeat my question: in what way is that relevant?’

‘I don’t know. He just seems to indulge in all the behaviour of a big star, when probably he isn’t that big a star.’

‘Isn’t that how
show business
works?’ asked Carole acidly.

‘Yes, maybe . . .’ Jude’s eyes strayed back to the book’s copyright page. ‘Huh, and he didn’t even write it himself, anyway.’

‘What?’

Jude pointed out to her friend the words: ‘Copyright © 2001 Richard Farrelly’.

‘So? Lots of show-business autobiographies have ghost writers.’

‘Not so often for comedians. Particularly the stand-ups. They pride themselves on producing their own material.’

Carole couldn’t see that that was particularly relevant either, and their conversation moved on to other topics. But later, when Ted Crisp himself delivered their salads, Jude asked him,
‘Who’s Richard Farrelly?’

His face was still set in an expression which said he wasn’t going to engage in conversation with them, but he couldn’t see the harm in responding to that.

‘Why do you ask?’

Jude indicated
A Poke in the Eye
on the table. ‘Because Dan Poke got him to ghost his autobiography.’

Something that was almost a grin appeared through the thatch of Ted Crisp’s beard. ‘Richard Farrelly didn’t ghost it.’

‘What?’

‘Richard Farrelly is Dan Poke. Oh, come on, what are the chances of a comedian’s parents christening him with a gift of a name like “Dan Poke”?’

‘You mean “Dan Poke” is a pseudonym? Dan Poke is really Richard Farrelly?’

‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

‘Oh, Ted, while you’re here, could we just have a word about—?’

But Carole was cut short. ‘Sorry, a lot to get on with.’ And the landlord vanished back into the kitchen.

Jude sighed and looked across at her friend with sympathy. She’d detected that Carole was taking Ted’s brusqueness more personally than she was. But then Carole Seddon took
everything personally. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll soon all be friends again.’

‘I’m not worried,’ Carole lied. ‘If he wants to play games, well, it doesn’t bother me. What I’m much more concerned about is where we go next in our
investigation, having drawn a blank at the Cat and Fiddle.’

‘Yes.’ Jude took a mouthful of her excellent salmon salad and looked thoughtful. Then she said, ‘I wonder if we have drawn a complete blank at the Cat and Fiddle . .
.’

‘Hm?’

‘OK, the pub appears to be under new ownership, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the old owner’s vanished off the face of the earth.’

‘Shona Nuttall,’ said Carole.

‘Exactly. I mean, she may have sold up the pub and taken off to spend the proceeds in well-heeled retirement in Tenerife or somewhere.’ The recollection of the woman with her deep
perma-tan encouraged this image. ‘On the other hand, she might still be living locally.’

‘Who’d know that? Ted?’

‘Possibly. Though in his current mood he wouldn’t tell us.’ The skin around Jude’s brown eyes crinkled as she tried to nail down an elusive memory. Suddenly it came to
her. ‘Zosia might have a contact number for Shona Nuttall. They certainly met when she was trying to find out what had happened to her brother.’

Given the slackness of custom in the Crown and Anchor, it wasn’t difficult to attract the bar manager’s attention. And yes, she did still have a home number for Shona Nuttall stored
in her mobile. Though whether the ex-landlady was still living there, Zosia couldn’t say.

Jude rang the number straight away. It was answered by Shona Nuttall. When told that her caller wanted to know the circumstances of her selling the Cat and Fiddle, she said yes, she was more
than happy for them to come and talk to her about it.

‘What’s your recollection of Shona Nuttall?’ asked Jude, as the Renault purred sedately towards Southwick.

‘Pushy. Full of herself.’

‘You didn’t take to her?’

‘Certainly not. She’s far from being my kind of person.’

Jude smiled inwardly. What Carole was saying was that she didn’t normally mix with pub landladies. And this from a woman who’d had a brief affair with a pub landlord. But Jude knew
better than to make any comment on the anomaly.

‘Anyway, you didn’t take to her either, Jude.’

‘No, I agree.’

‘Well, since we both feel the same on the subject, why did you raise it?’ asked Carole, almost petulantly. The effects of the lunchtime Chardonnay had dissipated. Their lack of sleep
the night before was catching up with both of them.

‘It was just, talking to her on the phone . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘. . . she sounded different.’

The address Jude had been given was probably not far from the sea, but you wouldn’t have known it. Southwick was another of the interlocking sprawl of villages which make
the area between Brighton and Worthing a virtually continuous suburb. And the house which Shona Nuttall owned was, like so many in that part of the world, a bungalow. Its dimensions were adequate
for one person, but not lavish.

Carole and Jude were both shocked by the appearance of the woman who opened the door to them. She was undoubtedly Shona Nuttall, but totally transformed from the Shona Nuttall they had met not
so long ago as the queen of the Cat and Fiddle. She was still of ample proportions, but whereas her body had previously been restricted by corsetry, everything had now been allowed to hang loose,
and gravity had exacted its revenge.

Her large cleavage was still on display, but, without the engineering which had formerly thrust it upwards, had the texture of muslin and slumped like an old ridge tent. Her style of dress had
changed too. Carole and Jude remembered her in a spangly top and tight trousers. Now she shuffled around in a sweatshirt and jogging bottoms. And she was wearing none of her bulky gold
jewellery.

But it was in her face and hair that the change was greatest. Without any make-up, the skin was sallow and sagging. The flash of a gold tooth in her unlipsticked mouth looked somehow grotesque.
And, unmonitored by regular visits to the salon, the colouring had grown out of her hair. Some had been carelessly swept back into a scrunchie, the rest hung, lank and grey, around her face.

When Carole and Jude introduced themselves, Shona Nuttall claimed to remember their previous encounter, but seemed to have little detailed recollection of the occasion. Still, that was perhaps
to be expected, given the number of customers who pass through a pub, particularly a well-situated one like the Cat and Fiddle.

She ushered them through into her sitting room and seemed relieved when they refused her halfhearted offer of tea or coffee. On a small table beside her seat on the sofa was a large glass of
colourless fluid. The way Shona Nuttall subsequently drank from it suggested the contents were stronger than water. Probably vodka, the almost odourless favourite of alcoholics everywhere.

The impression that Carole and Jude received from the room was of universal velvet. The heavy bottle-green curtains were velvet. The pinkish chairs they sat in, though actually covered in
Dralon, had the feeling of velvet. Even the olive-coloured carpet looked like velvet. And on various surfaces stood photographs in frames of burgundy velvet. All of them featured Shona hugging
glazed-eyed customers at the Cat and Fiddle. There seemed to be no family photographs.

The room was not exactly untidy, but it gave off a feeling of dusty disuse. Despite the July heat, all of the windows were shut, and it took Carole and Jude a little while to realize that there
was air conditioning – an unusual feature in a bungalow on the South Coast. But the air conditioning couldn’t completely flush out the smell of old cigarette smoke.

Once various inconsequential pleasantries had been exchanged, Carole announced, ‘What we are really interested in, Mrs Nuttall—’

‘It’s Shona, please, love. Everyone calls me Shona. And, actually, I never was “Mrs”. Only “Miss”. Ploughed my own furrow,’ she added, with an attempt
at her old heartiness.

‘Very well, Shona, Jude and I were interested in why you sold the Cat and Fiddle. When we were last there, it all seemed very well set up and thriving.’ This was a slight
exaggeration. On the winter evening when they had visited business had been slack. But the pub was well known for doing a brisk trade in the summer. That was ensured, if by nothing else, by its
location, perched on the river outside Fed-borough. In one direction was a view of the rolling South Downs; in the other the tidal waters of the Fether swelled down towards the English Channel.

‘Yes, yes, I was doing very well,’ Shona agreed. ‘And I’d always planned to sell up and retire at some point. The Cat and Fiddle was my nest egg, going to fund my
retirement. It was just . . . well, I hadn’t planned to do it quite so early.’

‘So why did you—?’

But the ex-landlady wasn’t ready to answer that kind of question so soon. ‘I mean,’ she went on, ‘without false modesty, I think I made a bloody good publican. I brought
a bit of atmosphere to that place, everyone said so. And I also think publicans can do some good. You know, people come in weighed down with their problems . . . trouble at home, trouble at work,
all their little worries about health and that . . . and after a drink or two they realize that life’s not all bad.’ She took a breath. Carole tried to get in, but wasn’t quick
enough. ‘You know, the job of running a pub involves a lot of different skills, but I think one of the most important is acting as a kind of therapist. God, the stuff you have to listen to
behind the jump . . .’

‘“Behind the jump”?’ Carole echoed curiously.

‘Means “behind the bar”. Expression publicans use.’

‘Where does it come from?’

‘No idea. Anyway, as I was saying, I reckon we publicans take a lot of burden off the NHS, you know, and the social services. The amount of listening we do, it’s got to help people,
hasn’t it?’

‘Yes, I’m sure lots of people have cause to be very grateful to you,’ said Jude.

‘But you still haven’t told us why you sold the pub earlier than you intended,’ insisted Carole.

‘Had a good offer.’ Shona Nuttall shrugged. ‘Recession supposed to be coming. Smoking ban had hit business a bit. Pubs closing down all over the country. So I got out at the
right time, as it turned out.’

Despite the positive nature of her words, there was a wistfulness in the woman’s delivery which made Carole press harder. ‘Was that all there was to it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think Carole’s asking whether you found yourself under any pressure to sell.’

The blowsy ex-landlady looked at both of her interrogators in turn, as though assessing how much she should tell them. Then she conceded, ‘Yes, there was a bit of pressure, yes.’

‘What kind of pressure?’

She sighed, took a sip of her drink and reached forward to a packet on the table in front of her. ‘Sorry, I need a cigarette. Better have it quickly before the bloody government bans
people from smoking in their own homes.’

She lit up, took a long drag, sighed again and began. ‘Look, pub business is a funny old world. You can be taking it in hand over fist one day, next nobody wants to know. It’s all to
do with reputation and goodwill. Keep the image of your premises right and you can be sitting on a goldmine. And I think I done well with the Cat and Fiddle over the years. ’Course I started
off with a lot going for me. For a start, I came into some family money, so I didn’t have to mortgage myself up to the hilt. And then again the location’s hard to beat, this is an area
where there’s always going to be a lot of tourists. Anyone who managed to lose money at the Cat and Fiddle during the summer must be an idiot.