The Poisoning in the Pub (9 page)

As he saw Carole and Jude approaching, Greville Tilbrook favoured them with a thin smile. ‘Good evening, ladies,’ he said. ‘It’s still not too late to change your
minds.’

‘About what?’ asked Jude, deliberately obtuse.

‘About attending the blasphemous performance in the Crown and Anchor tonight.’

‘How do you know it’s blasphemous?’

At that moment a girl walked past them. On the black T-shirt across her ample bosom was printed one of Dan Poke’s catchphrases: FANCY A POKE?

Furious, almost losing control of himself, Greville Tilbrook spluttered and pointed to the slogan. ‘Look, does that answer your question? What could be more blasphemous than wearing that
slogan on the day that is dedicated to the Lord? People who behave in such an offensive way are insulting Almighty God!’

‘It seems to me,’ Jude responded mildly, ‘that you have a very idiosyncratic definition of “blasphemy”. In what way do the words “Fancy a Poke?” have
anything to do with God?’

‘This is the Lord’s day and the Lord should be afforded the respect that is his due! T-shirts of that kind are an abomination and those who wear them should be cast into the outer
darkness! Along with this evil man who calls himself a comedian!’

He was almost manic now in his denunciation. His group of geriatric cheerleaders looked very excited. They clearly loved seeing their idol in passionate mode.

‘Excuse me, Mr Tilbrook,’ said Carole, ‘but have you ever seen Dan Poke perform, either live or on television?’

He seemed shocked by the suggestion. ‘No, of course I haven’t.’

‘Don’t you think your argument might have more validity if you had actually seen the performance you are protesting against?’

Now it was the turn of his female acolytes to look shocked. Also distressed that their crusading hero should be taken to task in this way. One, the youngest of the three, a fluttery woman in her
early sixties dressed in Black Watch tartan, looked positively mortified.

But they needn’t have worried. Greville Tilbrook could be relied on to come up with the argument wielded by opponents of free speech down many centuries. ‘I don’t have to
immerse myself in filth to know that it’s filth!’

‘Possibly not immerse yourself,’ suggested Jude, ‘but maybe just dip a toe in. At least then you would have some knowledge of the subject you’re talking about.’

‘I will not watch a so-called entertainment whose only purpose is to deprave and corrupt!’ The eyelashes of his female acolytes fluttered. They loved it when he talked like that. He
was magnificent. The eyes of the one in Black Watch tartan narrowed in ecstasy.

‘You must be very insecure about the strength of your own personality,’ observed Carole Seddon, ‘if you’re worried that watching a stand-up comedian is going to corrupt
and deprave you.’

And she and Jude moved magisterially towards the door of the Crown and Anchor.

Inside, the pub already seemed almost full to capacity. Some customers were crowded round a table selling Dan Poke merchandise, T-shirts, DVDs, books and so on. But most were gathered at the
bar. The crowd through which Jude elbowed her way was four-deep. Ted, Zosia and three extra girls brought in for the evening were rushed off their feet. Catching Jude’s eye, Zosia quickly
produced two large Chilean Chardonnays and mimed, ‘Pay later.’

‘Oy, come on, darling! Get your Polish ass over here! I want some service!’ The speaker, pressed close against Jude, was a tall man whom she had noticed at the centre of the
bikers’ group. But he wasn’t wearing their leather livery. He had on khaki combat trousers, heavy Caterpillar boots and a camouflage-pattern sleeveless T-shirt. He was surrounded in the
strong, animal scent of a hot day’s sweat. The man’s hair was shaved almost to baldness, one side of his face was heavily scarred, and the hand with which he rapped the counter had two
and a half fingers missing. As Jude moved away from the bar, he turned suddenly towards her. His hazel eyes were already glazed with alcohol, or maybe drugs. ‘Weren’t queue-jumping,
were you,
darling
?’ His tone bleached all warmth out of the word.

‘No, no, just getting a drink.’ The man gave her an evil look for a moment, then turned back to continue shouting at Zosia for service.

Jude found Carole still marooned in the middle of the room, looking round for a place to sit. All of the dining alcoves appeared to be full, at least all of the alcoves that would get a view of
the entertainment. A small black-painted stage had been set up at the far end of the bar. Hired spotlights, currently switched off, but focused on the area, left no one in any doubt that that was
where Dan Poke would be doing his act.

Fortunately, just as they were looking for a seat, a short man appeared from the kitchen, weaving his way through the crowd with a pile of chairs held up in front of him. Only when he put them
down could Jude see his face and recognize Ray. He was wearing a black T-shirt, so new its packing creases were still visible. On its front was printed the inevitable catchphrase: FANCY A POKE?
Clearly, as with Lyra Mackenzie, he liked buying merchandise connected with his idols.

‘Ray, can we grab a couple of those?’ asked Jude, lifting two of the chairs off the pile.

She desperately wanted to talk further to him, but Ray looked busy and harassed. ‘Got to get some more chairs,’ he said, on his way to the kitchen. Then he turned back. ‘Could
you save a seat for me, and all? I want to have a good view of Dan Poke.’ His voice dropped as he confided to Jude, ‘He’s off the telly. I’m going round the back to get his
autograph after.’

Jude appropriated a third chair before they were all snatched up. She and Carole sat down and placed Carole’s handbag firmly on the empty one. Jude grinned. ‘That’s a bit of
luck, getting him sitting next to us.’

‘You going to pick up where you left off with him yesterday?’

‘Do my best. Have to choose my moment, though. I think this could be rather a rowdy occasion for intimate interrogation.’

She was right. The noise level was by now very high. There was a buzz in the Crown and Anchor of something about to happen. The customers from outside were pressing in, squeezing up against each
other. The room was steamy with odours of sweat and beer. Thank God, both women thought, smoking was no longer allowed in pubs.

Thank God, too, that they’d been lucky enough to get seats. It was a real problem hanging on to the one they’d saved for Ray. People kept coming up and asking if it was taken. One
man unceremoniously removed Carole’s handbag and was only just prevented from plonking down his large backside. Eventually Jude just raised her legs and laid them across the chair.

Carole looked around, still surprised to see so many faces in the Crown and Anchor that she didn’t recognize. There were a couple, though, that she had seen before. One was the tall man
she’d recently observed getting into his BMW in the pub car park. Black hair was still swept back from his chubby face, and he had thick-rimmed glasses like the young Michael Caine. Maybe as
a concession to the weekend, he wore no jacket, but he still contrived to look as though he was wearing a suit. He sat at a table with a group of equally well-tailored young men. They were all
drinking Belgian beers from the bottle. The atmosphere amongst them was raucous, but the tall man seemed removed from the action, observing, not missing anything that was going on.

Again, he looked very familiar, but again, frustratingly, Carole couldn’t recall the context in which they had previously met.

The other person Carole recognized was over by the bar. Ted Crisp’s ex-wife Sylvia had taken up position on a tall stool near the stage area. She was dressed in tight jeans and a skimpy
white blouse, showing a deep cleavage and distinct signs of intoxication. The way she draped herself over the tall man on an adjacent stool looked proprietorial, but whether he was a long-term
partner or that evening’s pick-up Carole could not guess. He wore black leather jeans and had a black leather jacket slung over his T-shirted shoulder, so maybe he was one of the bikers.

Ray scuttled out of the kitchen and claimed his seat next to Jude. He was sweating heavily and jittery with excitement. ‘They’re going to start,’ he said, ‘any minute. I
actually saw Dan Poke back in the kitchen there. He’s on the telly. I’m going round to get his autograph later.’

He looked up as a huge figure in black leather elbowed his way through the crowd to stand behind him. Jude recognized Viggo from Copsedown Hall. Though the man moved with a swagger, his pose
didn’t look quite convincing. He lacked the raucous ease of the other bikers. None of them took any notice of him. He was not part of their gang. But his presence could still impress –
or possibly frighten – Ray, who stopped talking and kept looking up towards his housemate, as if searching for approval.

Viggo, like most of the men in the pub, had a pint in his hand. He raised it in a toasting gesture towards the scarred man, who was now in the centre of the group of bikers, but he received no
acknowledgement. Viggo looked momentarily hurt by the lack of reaction.

Carole could see Zosia worming her way through the churning crowd – and a barrage of sexist banter – towards the light controls. Though the spotlights were on a dimmer, the
pub’s ordinary lighting could only be snapped off. But when Zosia pulled the switches, the blackout was far from complete. It was one of those July evenings that never got properly dark. The
crowd, aware of the lighting change, shouted and barracked as they tried to nestle themselves into slightly more comfortable watching positions, craning towards the stage area.

Slowly Zosia faded up the spotlights to reveal Ted Crisp.

The landlord of the Crown and Anchor was sweating heavily, no surprise perhaps in a crammed-full pub on a July evening, but to Carole the sheen on his forehead looked more like
nerves. And when he spoke, it was with nothing like his usual fluency. He seemed inhibited by the presence of his more successful former colleague. Or maybe of his ex-wife and the man she was
nuzzling?

‘Good evening,’ Ted began, ‘and welcome, all of you, to the Crown and Anchor, Fethering, for a very special evening. Yes, tonight is the very first Crown and Anchor Comedy
Night!’

‘It’s not the first! Bloody place has always been a joke!’ shouted a heckler whom Ted couldn’t identify because of the lights in his eyes. His bearded jaw set firm as he
continued, ‘And I’m very lucky to have here, to entertain us this evening, someone I used to work with back in my days as a stand-up comic. Back then they used to say about me that I
was . . .’ He spoke the words as a set-up to a joke, but then seemed to lose his nerve and trickled away into confusion. ‘Er, that is to say . . . anyway, the bloke I’m going to
introduce has come a long way from those early days when . . . he, um, he’s done a lot of television, he’s—’

‘Oh, get on with it, for God’s sake!’ a voice called out from the darkness somewhere behind the bar. ‘We haven’t got all bloody night!’

The audience roared their appreciative recognition of Dan Poke’s distinctive tones. Ted Crisp looked even more wretchedly uncomfortable. Carole felt an uncharacteristic urge to rush across
the room and give him a big hug.

‘Yeah, anyway,’ Ted stuttered on, ‘he’s now a big star on the television, he gets paid for single gigs more than most of us earn in a year, but he’s agreed to be
here tonight, just for the price of his travel expenses.’

‘Don’t forget the merchandising!’ Dan Poke’s voice bellowed again, to the audience’s delight.

‘Ah, no, sorry,’ Ted Crisp floundered. ‘You can buy lots of Dan Poke merchandise, if you want to. Badges, T-shirts, CDs, DVDs . . . so if any of you—’

‘Don’t forget the book!’ came the prompt from its author.

‘Yes, of course. Not forgetting Dan’s book. I don’t know if you call it an autobiography, but it had massive sales a few Christmases back. And the book’s called –
inevitably –
A Poke in the Eye
! So, as I say, you’ll be able to buy all that stuff at the table over there. And in fact, halfway through Dan’s set there’ll be a break
to give you an opportunity to charge up your glasses – and also buy some of the merchandise. So . . .’ Ted Crisp looked off into the murk. ‘Anything else I’ve forgotten,
Dan?’

‘No just introduce me and get off the bloody stage!’

The audience was rendered ecstatic by this charming shaft of wit, and the humiliated landlord continued, ‘Right . . . Ladies and gentlemen, will you give a big hand for one of the original
naughty boys of stand-up comedy – Mr . . . Dan . . . Poke!’

Ted Crisp scuttled back into the darkness like a rabbit relieved to escape the headlights, and Dan Poke slowly moved into the glare. His lip curled into his trademark sneer, and the audience
erupted into screams of ecstatic recognition. At the back of the crowd, caught up in the communal excitement, Zosia had her mobile phone to her eye in photographic mode. She may not have known who
Dan Poke was before that evening, but she wasn’t going to miss getting a shot of him. Round the room other mobiles flashed.

Jude looked at Ray and saw the gleam of fanatical devotion in his eyes. He grinned at her and said in awed tones, ‘Dan Poke. Dan Poke from off the telly.’

The comedian swept his hands slowly apart as if smoothing down a duvet and the crowd was obediently silent. ‘Don’t waste it, don’t waste it. I don’t want you lot to peak
too early. It’s a bad thing, peaking too early . . . as many of my girlfriends have told me. Quite a common bloke’s problem, actually. We think about it so much of the time, that when
we actually get to the point we’re more than ready. Tend to jump the gun. Women complain men don’t do foreplay – it’s only because we’ve already done it in our heads
so many times before we even meet the girl.’ He grinned, so that no one should miss any of the innuendos.

‘Anyway, enough about masculine inadequacy. And, talking of masculine inadequacy, you may have gathered from that crap introduction I was given by Ted Crisp that I am Dan Poke. Poke by
name . . .’ he leered ‘. . . and if any of you fit young chicks’d like to put it to the test by coming round the back afterwards you’ll find out I’m also Poke by
nature. So anyone . . .’ he timed the pause expertly ‘“. . . Fancy a Poke”?’