The Poisoning in the Pub

Nine

He was slight and very short, not much more than five foot. He couldn’t have been much use at the Crown and Anchor when it came to heavy lifting, but then Jude had already decided that Ted Crisp’s support for the man was pure – if embarrassed – philanthropy. It was difficult to estimate Ray’s age. There was a boyishness about his reddish hair, but the pale skin of his face was etched with a tracery of deep lines. And his eyes looked older than the rest of his body. Older and slightly disengaged. It was from the eyes that one might deduce that he had mental problems.

He wore grubby black jeans and a thin green cotton blouson, over a T-shirt for a tour of some female singer Jude didn’t recognize. His expression was cautious, but not unwelcoming.

“Hello, I’m Jude.”

“That’s what Kelly-Marie said you was.” He lingered in the doorway, not yet certain about entering the kitchen. “She also said,” he went on, “that you was my girlfriend. But I know that’s not true. Because if I had a girlfriend, I’d have seen her before, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

He spoke this long speech cautiously, as though he were speaking in a language that was unfamiliar to him.

“You might have seen me in the street,” Jude suggested. “I do live in Fethering.”

Ray considered this proposition for a moment, then advanced a little way into the room. “Kelly-Marie didn’t really think you was my girlfriend. She was joking. She makes lots of jokes at me.” But he spoke without rancour. And a broad smile spread across his face, completely transforming his appearance. Smiling seemed to come naturally to him. It was expressing other moods that he found difficult.

He seemed by now to have made the decision that Jude did not represent a threat, so he moved right into the room and put his hand on the back of the chair next to hers. “Would you like tea or coffee? I can make tea or coffee,” he added with a vestige of pride in his voice. He moved towards the fridge he shared with Viggo.

“Are you having some?”

Her question prompted another moment of deliberation before Ray decided that he wasn’t.

“Then I won’t bother. Do please sit down.”

He did as he was told, seeming almost relieved that someone was making a decision for him. He sat quietly, not looking at Jude, just straight ahead, the smile still playing around the corners of his lips.

The silence, the lack of explanation for Jude’s appearance, did not seem to worry him.

She wondered whether his response would be equally calm when she mentioned the poisoning at the Crown and Anchor. Still, that was why she had come to see him. No point in beating around the bush. “Ray,” she began, “I’m a friend of Ted Crisp’s.”

“He’s a nice man.” Ray nodded vigorously to emphasize the point. “A nice man.” His smile grew broader.

“Yes. And I gather you sometimes help him at the pub…”

Another enthusiastic nod. “He lets me. People think I can’t do things. Ted Crisp thinks I can.”

“And you were helping at the Crown and Anchor on Monday?”

Only after he had keenly agreed to this did a slight caution come into his vague eyes. “Yes, on Monday,” he agreed with a little less confidence.

“But you haven’t been back there since?”

“No.”

“Are you going to go back?”

“Well, I don’t know…” Then, unexpectedly, the wide smile returned. “I’ll have to be there on Sunday.”

“Why?”

“They’ve got this man from the telly there on Sunday.”

“Dan Poke.”

“Yes, I’ll have to see him. I’ve only seen two people from off the telly before. One was Lyra Mackenzie.”

He spoke the name with such reverence that Jude tried to avoid showing it meant nothing to her. But she must have failed, because Ray felt he had to explain. He pulled back the sides of his blouson to reveal the picture on his T-shirt. Jude still didn’t recognize the singer. “You know, from The X Factor”.

“Ah. Right.” She knew her pretence at familiarity was pretty unconvincing, but Ray didn’t seem to notice. “She did a concert at the Pavilion Theatre in Worthing. I waited round the back afterwards to get her autograph.”

“And did you get it?”

“Yes. She signed my programme.” Enthusiastically he rose from his seat. “It’s up in my room. Would you like to see it?”

Jude managed to assure him that, impressed though she was by his trophy, she didn’t actually need visual proof of its existence. He sank back into his chair, only momentarily disconsolate. “I must get Dan Poke’s autograph on Sunday. He’ll be the third person I’ve seen off the telly.” The thought reassured him.

“So who was the second one?” asked Jude. “You know, after Lyra…um…?” She couldn’t remember the surname.

“He was a footballer.” His voice dropped to a level of suitable awe. “I once saw Gary Lineker at Brighton Station. I didn’t say anything to him. He didn’t see me. But it was him. From off the telly.” He looked at his watch.

“Are you worried about your football this afternoon?” asked Jude.

“Yes, I like to see everything from twelve o’clock. Soccer Saturday starts on Sky at twelve o’clock.”

“Don’t worry. You’ve got plenty of time. I’ll be gone long before then.”

“Yes.” He seemed reassured, but perhaps a little less relaxed than he had been. The smile was not quite as broad.

Jude pressed on. “But you haven’t been back to the Crown and Anchor since Monday?” He shook his head. “Why?”

Ray seemed at a loss to explain this fact, but then a thought came to him. “My mother. I’ve been to see my mum.”

“How is she?” asked Jude gently.

“She’s old, very old.” He seemed to find the idea funny. “She can hardly move now. She’s very old.” He smiled again.

“Do you see her often?”

Ray shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Do you see her when you’re happy or when you’re unhappy?”

Jude’s voice was now very soft, soft and warm, the voice of a therapist. And it worked, soothing the troubled man into security.

“I see my mum when I’m unhappy.”

“And she makes you feel better?”

The question seemed genuinely to puzzle him. “I don’t know. When I see her there aren’t other people there. Just me and her. Not other people wanting things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Wanting me to say things. Asking me things. Telling me off for things.”

“Does Ted Crisp ever tell you off for things?”

“He did on Monday.”

“What did he tell you off ahout?”

“He was in a bad mood.”

“Was this in the morning or the afternoon?”

“In the afternoon.”

“Ray, you know what happened at lunchtime on Monday, don’t you?”

“People were sick,” he said quietly. “Yes. And it was after that that Ted was cross with you?” He nodded. “Can you remember what he said?” The nod turned to a shake of the head. “He just shouted.” The memory was painful.

“Did he shout at you? Or at everyone?”

“At everyone. But then he shouted at me.”

“And you really can’t remember what he said?” This time the headshake was very firm. “When people shout at me, often I get confused. I don’t want to hear what they’re saying. I want to shut my ears. I just want them to go away!”

He was reliving the kind of painful experience he described. His hands had risen involuntarily to cover his ears. Jude knew he was near to panic, the kind of panic which sent him back to his mother’s. She would need all of her therapeutic skill to keep him in the kitchen with her.

Very gently, she asked, “Has Ted Crisp ever shouted at you before?”

The headshake was small, but definite. Into Jude’s mind came the thought that perhaps Ted’s action had been deliberate. In the aftermath of Monday’s poisoning, the landlord would undoubtedly have been furious, but given the way he had nurtured and helped Ray, he would have been unlikely to vent his anger on him. So perhaps Ted had shouted because he knew such behaviour would send Ray scurrying off to his mother. And keep him off the scene for any ensuing Health and Safety inspection. Ted Crisp’s uncharacteristic shouting could have been an act of protection. Which, if it were the case, could well mean that he suspected Ray did have some involvement in the sabotage at the Crown and Anchor.

Now Jude had to be doubly careful. “You know it was the scallops that caused the food poisoning last Monday, don’t you?”

“Yes. It couldn’t be prevented.”

This seemed a very odd response to her question. “What exactly do you mean, Ray?”

“Well, scallops are seafood…”

“Yes.”

“…and seafood shouldn’t be left out in the hot weather.” He sounded as though he were parroting something he had been told.

“No, I agree. It can go off very quickly.”

“Which the scallops must have done. They must have gone off. Got poisoned by flies landing on them or…” he ran out of steam “…something like that.”

“Except,” Jude reasoned, “that the scallops last Monday had only been delivered that morning. Ed Pollack took the delivery and signed for them.”

“But they were the bad ones.”

“They can’t have been. They’d come directly from the supplier. In a refrigerated delivery van.”

“They were the bad ones,” Ray insisted.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

For the first time in their conversation Ray became furtive. He looked uneasily through the kitchen door towards the hall, as though he expected someone might be eavesdropping. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “Someone was trying to poison the people in the Crown and Anchor.”

“Yes, that’s rather what I was thinking.”

“But I should have stopped that happening.”

“You should have stopped that happening?”

“Yes. By taking away the bad scallops and putting the good ones in the fridge.”

Jude didn’t let the excitement she was feeling show in her voice, as she asked, “Are you saying that you took out the tray of scallops that Ed had put in the fridge and replaced them with another tray?”

“Yes.” The bewilderment grew in Ray’s face, as he mumbled, “It shouldn’t have happened. What I did should have stopped the poisoning. But it didn’t.” He looked almost tearful. “And Ted shouted at me.”

“Ray…” said Jude very softly, “who told you to change the trays of scallops around?”

Alarmed, he looked directly into her eyes for the first time. “It wasn’t Ted!” His voice was suddenly loud.

“I never thought it was Ted.”

“No. Ted didn’t know about the people going to be poisoned.”

“But someone else did?”

He nodded. “And they told me I could stop it happening by changing the trays round. I could save Ted from getting into trouble.”

“Who told you that, Ray?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but was distracted by the sound of another door opening in the hall. He turned, and Jude looked up to see the kitchen doorway filled by the frame of a large man in jeans and a Black Sabbath T-shirt. In spite of the heat he also wore a black leather jacket, rubbed grey at the seams. He had a dark beard and hair combed greasily back; in his nose there was a silver stud. His eyes were as black as two olives.

“Football’s on, Ray,” he announced. The words sounded too big for his mouth.

Ray had risen to his feet the moment he saw the man. His expression showed respect with a strong undercurrent of fear.

“But the football doesn’t start till twelve,” said Jude desperately.

“There’s other stuff on earlier.”

The man made no pretence to be addressing her, and Ray responded to his cue. “Yes, Viggo.” And without a word or a look back to Jude, he scuttled across the hall to the open door of the television room.

Viggo didn’t say anything more. Ignoring Jude’s questions and entreaties, he watched her rise from the table and cross to the front door. Immediately she had passed through, he slammed it shut behind her, and followed his friend to watch the football build-up.

Jude’s excitement at getting so close to the truth was replaced by total frustration. And also, from her short encounter with Viggo, a sense of menace.