The Poisoning in the Pub by Simon Brett

Author:Simon Brett [Simon Brett]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780230739956
Publisher: Pan Books

Chapter Twenty-One

Carole Seddon wasn’t quite so confident the following morning at about a quarter to ten as she brought her Renault to a halt in the empty car park of the Crown and Anchor. She felt exposed, and her main anxiety was that Ted Crisp might issue forth from his fortress to ask what the hell she thought she was doing there.

But he didn’t appear. There were no signs of life from inside the pub, and from the look of the boarded-up frontage it might have been out of business for some months. Carole settled down to wait. She had brought her customary Times crossword, but was too tense even to look at it. She let the paper stay in the capacious handbag, into which, after much indecision before she left High Tor, she had put another item.

Say one thing for Matt, he was good on timing. More or less on the dot of ten his vehicle appeared at the end of the lane that led down to the Crown and Anchor. Carole got out of her car. She hadn’t made detailed plans for the forthcoming encounter, but she had decided that the best time to catch Matt would be before he rang or knocked on the pub door. Ted’s current unpredictable responses might not make him an ideal witness to the conversation she hoped for.

She was surprised by the vehicle Matt was driving. She had expected one of those long flat-back lorries whose whole back was filled with beer barrels, but instead he was in a white van. A large white van, certainly, but nothing that could be dignified with the title of a ‘lorry’. Delivering from that somehow made the inclusion of a tray of scallops in the load look more likely.

Fortunately the driver didn’t seem in any hurry to get out of his cab. As Carole approached, she could see him hunched over the steering wheel, checking through some paperwork on a clipboard. Though his van window was open, he didn’t see her coming and looked up in surprise as she coughed to gain his attention.

It took him a moment to register where he had seen her before. Politely, she extended her hand and said, ‘Carole Seddon. We met at the Seaview Café.’

He did not take her hand. Instead, he sneered and said, ‘I remember. You’re Ted Crisp’s current bit of stuff, aren’t you?’

Though deeply offended by the description, Carole decided that this was another occasion where the impression that they were ‘an item’ might assist the cause of investigation, so she made no objection. All she said was, rather pompously, ‘It is not in that capacity that I have come to see you this morning.’

‘Oh.’

‘I met your fiancée Sylvia yesterday.’

‘Really? She didn’t say nothing about that.’

‘Well, that’s her business. The reason I’m here is that I wanted to talk about the delivery you made to the Crown and Anchor the Monday before last.’

‘Well, you may want to talk about it – I bloody don’t!’ He slammed his clipboard down on the passenger seat and got out of the van.

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