The Poisoning in the Pub

Twenty

Jude spoke to Sally Monks on the phone that evening, and caught up with the news that had been travelling along the social workers’ grapevine. The police had checked out Nell Witchett’s flat, but had not stayed there long. There would be a postmortem, because she had died so soon after her son, but there seemed to be a general view that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the old woman’s death.

Sally wasn’t surprised by the theory Jude put forward about Nell Witchett being at one level relieved by her son’s murder. “It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened, the caring parent feeling that a great burden’s been lifted. It’s a while since I’ve had direct contact with Nell, probably seven or eight years back, but even then she was worrying about what would happen to Ray after she’d gone. So, though she may have regretted the circumstances…”

“Even the circumstances were perhaps not that bad,” suggested Jude. “Terrible to have your child murdered, but at least for Ray it must have been very quick. So far as Carole and I could see, there was no sign of a struggle. Whoever stabbed him must have been able to get very close. Which made us think that perhaps it was someone he knew.”

“Could be that,” Sally agreed, “but then again Ray was so trusting, he’d have let anyone come up close to him, even if they were brandishing a kitchen knife.”

There was a silence, as both women contemplated the sadness of an innocent’s death. Then Jude said, “Sally, I’m determined to find out who killed Ray.”

“Yes, I rather got the impression you were. I also got the impression that your interest was…let’s say, more than idle curiosity.”

There was a momentary temptation to confess the real extent of Jude and Carole’s investigative activities, but she resisted it. “I want to know for Ray’s sake really. It just seems so unfair for something like that to happen to someone like that. And also it’s a bit for Ted Crisp’s sake, as well.” Which wasn’t untrue, though it was a partial truth. “I wonder if there’s some link between Ray’s murder and all the other things that have been going wrong at the pub. I want to find out who it is who’s got it in for Ted in such a big way.”

“Hm. Well, anything I can do to help…We social workers do have quite a lot of insight into what goes on around here.”

“Thanks, Sally. I’ll be glad to take you up on that. And, actually, now I remember, there was something I wanted to ask you about.”

“Fire away.”

“That girl Kelly-Marie…”

“Up at Copsedown Hall?”

“Yes. Nell Witchett said that she and Ray used to talk a lot together.”

“I can believe it. They’re a pair of the gentlest people I’ve ever met. Would have had a lot in common.”

“I was going to go up to Copsedown Hall and talk to Kelly-Marie.”

“Good idea.”

“I just wondered if there was anything I ought to be aware of. You implied you knew her.”

“Yes. She was my responsibility for a time. Very well organized.”

“That’s what Nell said.”

“Knows her limitations. Very aware of the things she can’t do. But she doesn’t let it get to her. A perpetually sunny disposition. God, I wish more of my charges were like her.”

“Has she got parents still alive?”

“Yes, nice middle-class couple up in Fedborough. And a couple of brothers, I think, who have no disabilities. It was Kelly-Marie herself who announced she wanted to live somewhere like Copsedown Hall, to prove she could be that independent. Which she certainly has proved.”

“How do you think she’ll have taken Ray’s death?”

“I think she’ll be upset, but not totally devastated. Kelly-Marie does understand about death. She does know that her parents won’t be there forever.”

“And you don’t think my talking to her about Ray would upset her?”

“No. Anyway, Jude, she’ll tell you if she thinks it will. She’s very direct.”

“No idea what she’s doing at the moment, whether she works…?”

“I’m pretty sure she has got a job.”

“I was just wondering when might be the best time to call at Copsedown Hall, you know, when she’s likely to be in…”

“Oh, don’t just go up on the off chance. She’s got a mobile. Ring her.”

“And do you, by any chance, have her number?”

Sally Monks did.

The two neighbours met up later for a glass of wine in the garden of Woodside Cottage, which, like its owner, looked lush and abundant. Carole didn’t know how Jude did it. There was never any sign of her actually working in the garden, very little evident watering, minimal mowing of the lawn. And there were certainly none of the geometric paths and borders that distinguished the garden of High Tor. But, in spite of this, at the back of Woodside Cottage everything flourished, even in as dry a summer as the one they were currently experiencing. Carole had never liked to ask how this horticultural miracle had been achieved. She was afraid she’d get some more of Jude’s New Age mumbo-jumbo. If her neighbour went out and talked to the plants at midnight – which she was quite capable of doing – well, Carole Seddon didn’t want to know about it.

Jude quickly brought her up to date with what she’d heard from Sally Monks. “I’d be very surprised if there turns out to be anything suspicious about Nell Witchett’s death.”

“Except that it came so soon after her son’s murder.”

“I’m not saying the two are unconnected. I think that Nell had just been holding herself together because she was worried about who would look after Ray when she’d gone. Once he was dead, she relaxed and the death that had been on hold for months, possibly years, caught up with her.”

Carole sniffed. Her logical instincts went against the idea of people choosing the time of their own death, but she couldn’t deny that Jude’s argument was persuasive.

“Anyway, putting that on one side, you said you were going to speak to Kelly-Marie…”

“Yes. I phoned her. Very happy to talk to me, but she can’t do anything till Saturday. She’s got a job in one of the Fethering retirement homes – just cleaning I think basically – and she’s got an eight-hour shift tomorrow.”

“Ah,” said Carole. “I won’t be around on Saturday.”

Though neither said anything, both women were relieved by this news. They both knew Jude would be better on her own with Kelly-Marie.

“Where will you be?”

Carole looked rather embarrassed. “Fulham. I’m having lunch with Stephen and Gaby. Then they want to go off and buy a new laptop for Gaby…”

“And leave you looking after Lily?”

“Yes. It won’t be for long, and she does still have a sleep in the afternoon, but…” Carole looked nervous. “I hope she’ll be all right with me.”

“Of course she will,” said Jude in a way that ruled out any negative thinking. “Anyway, tell me what happened earlier this evening. The lovely Sylvia came to see you?”

“Yes, and what a poisonous woman she is. Deeply stupid too, I reckon. But I think I have got a link between Matt and the dodgy scallops.” Briefly Carole recapped her conversation with Sylvia.

Jude sat back and took a thoughtful sip of her wine. “That’s good. And of course Matt dresses in black leather, doesn’t he? Just like the bikers do. Maybe he was behind the sudden influx of bikers into the Crown and Anchor.”

Carole was attracted by the idea. Her pale blue eyes sparkled as a chain of logic began to join up in her mind.

“So it looks,” said Jude, “like we need to make contact with the monosyllabic Matt.”

“Yes, I thought I’d do that,” said Carole boldly. “For a start, he knows who I am. Then again, if he and Sylvia are really under the illusion that Ted and I are an item…”. She didn’t manage to suppress all of her distaste for the expression “…then it might not seem odd if I were to approach him.”

“Makes sense.”

“The question is: where am I going to find him? We don’t know his surname, so the basic phone-book approach is out of the question.”

“Ted must have a number for where Sylvia’s staying. She keeps on and on about wanting him to ring her back.”

“Yes, but Ted’s in such an uncooperative mood at the moment. I tried ringing him at the Crown and Anchor earlier. Zosia said he wasn’t there, but there was a kind of hesitancy in her voice that made me think he probably was there, just not taking calls.”

“We could go back down to the pub and confront him.”

Carole looked at her watch. “Nearly closing time. We’d be lucky to make it before they locked up. Anyway, as I said, I don’t think Ted’s very likely to give us much cooperation.”

“Well, he’s got to start cooperating. Keeping things to himself isn’t doing any good. If he’d told the police about Ray being in the kitchen alone that Monday morning when the rest of them were all down in the beer cellar…”

Jude didn’t need to finish the sentence. Another silence ensued. Finally the day was beginning to cool. The slightest of breezes animated the herbal smells of Jude’s garden.

A sudden idea came to Carole. “I know! The one place I can guarantee to find Matt is when he makes the next beer delivery to the Crown and Anchor.”

“Good idea.”

“Mind you, whether Ted will even vouchsafe us that information…”

“Zosia will.” As she spoke, Jude picked up her mobile from the table and summoned a number from the memory.

The Polish girl answered. There was a very small amount of subdued mumbling in the background. It didn’t sound as though the Crown and Anchor had yet got its evening trade back. Still, it had only reopened that day.

When Jude identified herself, Zosia sounded disproportionately pleased to hear her – another indication perhaps that she’d had a long boring evening without much to do.

Jude thought it worth checking whether she could talk to Ted, but Zosia said awkwardly, “No, I’m sorry, he’s a bit…tied up at the moment.” Jude had a perfect mental image of the landlord slouched over a large Famous Grouse miming that he didn’t want to take the call.

“Oh well, you could tell me, Zosia. You remember the Monday of the food poisoning?”

“Hardly likely to forget it, am I?”

“No. But I remember you saying that the beer delivery van came that morning. I just wonder, are the deliveries always made on a Monday?”

“That’s the regular pattern, yes.” Jude nodded this information to Carole, who looked a little downcast. She’d geared herself up to a confrontation with Matt, and now it looked like she’d have to wait till Monday.

Would she still have the confidence then that she had now with a few glasses of Chardonnay inside her?

“But,” Zosia went on, “everything’s all over the place at the moment. We had our first closure, which put the beer takings down, but then we had the Dan Poke evening when we sold infinitely more than we would normally. Then they couldn’t deliver Monday, because we were closed down again…for reasons which I don’t need to spell out to you. So they’re making the delivery tomorrow morning.”

“What sort of time?”

“Usually around ten. So we can get everything sorted before we open at eleven.”

Right, ten o’clock tomorrow morning it is, thought Carole when the information had been relayed to her. My confrontation with Matt. And she still had enough Chardonnay inside her to relish the prospect.