“And do you know who that might be?”
“I’m sure there are plenty of candidates.” He sighed and rubbed a bear-like paw across his tired eyes.
“Any names?”
“No,” he replied brusquely.
“Ted, there’s a man I’ve seen a couple of times at the pub…”
“Not recently you haven’t. The bloody place is closed.”
“A man,” Carole persisted patiently, “who drives a pale blue BMW. He was watching Dan Poke’s act – and he spoke to Dan afterwards. I thought I recognized him. Tall, running to fat, thick-rimmed glasses, black hair that has to be dyed and – ”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“But he was in the pub and – ”
“OK, so he’s a guy who was in the pub. People like that are called ‘customers’. They come in, they buy a drink, they drink it, they go out. I don’t bloody know all of them!”
Carole had a feeling that Ted Crisp was hiding something. He knew the man she was referring to, but he wasn’t about to give that information to her. With Ted sarcasm was always the precursor of sheer bloody-mindedness. No point in antagonizing him further. Her tone was more gentle as she said, “You won’t have to sell the Crown and Anchor, you know. Things’ll turn round for you.”
“Oh yes?” He let out the sigh of a man at the end of his tether. “In some ways it’d be a relief just to get shot of the bloody place. The pub business is tough.”
“But you love it.”
“Don’t know. Maybe there was a time when I loved it. I’m not so sure I’ve loved it much during the past few months.”
“Are you saying there’ve been problems before the last couple of weeks?”
“Yes. Financial problems, certainly. The economics of a place like the Crown and Anchor are always going to be pretty dicey – particularly if you borrowed as much to buy the place as I did. You’re always on a knife edge of profit and loss in this business. It doesn’t take much to push you down the wrong way. And there are always sharks out there, ready to snap up a business that’s on the downward slide. A lot of pubs may be closing, but there’s always demand for the ones in prime sites. Like the Crown and Anchor.”
“You mean you have actually had offers?”
“There are always offers. None of them offering anything like what I reckon to be the market value of the place. Like I say, there are plenty of sharks out there. The business is getting tougher every day. No two ways about it, the smoking ban has cut down the number of punters, then you get another hike in interest rates so I’m paying more on the bloody mortgage and…” Listlessly, he concluded, “Yeah, maybe I should just cut my losses and sell up.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“At the moment I bloody do!” He tried to sound rough and dismissive, but he just couldn’t do it. Beneath the beard his mouth trembled and there was even a gleam of moisture in his eye. “I just feel so bloody responsible for Ray. I was meant to be helping him. The Crown and Anchor was one of the few places where he felt vaguely secure and…look what I let happen to him.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Ted.”
“No? At the moment I feel that everything that’s wrong in this bloody world is my bloody fault. Ray never knowingly did any harm to anyone in his life, and then I went and shouted at him, and…”
Carole had been about to move the conversation on to what Jude had told her about Ray’s involvement in the substitution of the dodgy scallops, but Ted’s expression of total defeat gave her pause. And the opportunity passed all too quickly. The next thing she heard was a nasal voice saying, “So this is where you’re hiding out, Ted. With your girlfriend.”
It was Sylvia. Her tall boyfriend had his arm protectively resting on her tight-shorted buttocks. He was again wearing black leather trousers, and his biceps bulged out of a sleeveless T-shirt.
Ted Crisp looked up with the expression of a man who didn’t think his day could get any worse, and had suddenly found out that it could.
Fourteen
In his diminished state Ted Crisp seemed incapable of speech. Carole stood up and said, “Sylvia, I’m Carole Seddon. We met briefly in the Crown and Anchor last week.”
She felt herself being appraised, then Sylvia said, “This is a new thing for you, Ted – going for the older woman.”
Carole was so unused to direct insults on that scale that the words took a moment or two to register. Probably just as well. The delay prevented her from coming back with an equally sharp response. Ted Crisp didn’t need more grief that morning.
“And this is Matt.” Sylvia flicked her head towards the boyfriend. “My fiancé.”
Matt acknowledged them with a curt nod. He didn’t seem to think words were necessary. His physical bulk made enough of a statement, and clearly Sylvia was articulate enough for the two of them.
“We know each other,” said Ted, without enthusiasm.
So, thought Carole, Sylvia must have introduced them on the Sunday evening before Dan Poke’s act.
Just to add to Ted’s embarrassment. Still, although she didn’t warm to either Sylvia or Matt, Carole remembered her manners and indicated two empty chairs. “If you’d like to sit down…”
“Won’t be necessary. We’re not staying,” snapped Sylvia. She was looking very sexy that morning and knew it. Her arms, legs and cleavage – of which there was plenty on view – were a rich honey colour. Matt also had a high tan, though because of the number of tattoos on his arms, his didn’t show so much.
They made an attractive couple (in what Carole couldn’t help thinking of as ‘a rather downmarket style’). Sylvia must have been quite a bit younger than Ted. Ten years, perhaps…though it was difficult to know precisely how old he was. The ragged beard and hair didn’t help, but Carole felt certain Ted was younger than she was. She recalled the subject coming up during their brief affair. He must be approaching the fifty mark. In Sylvia’s and Mart’s body language there was an element of flaunting themselves, rubbing Ted Crisp’s face in the fact of their youth and togetherness. But Carole felt sure that wasn’t the only reason why they’d accosted him.
So it proved. “My solicitor’s been phoning you and phoning you for the last couple of days,” said Sylvia accusingly. “You never rung her back.”
“That’s because I haven’t been in the pub. In case you hadn’t realized, the Crown and Anchor’s still being treated as a crime scene.”
“Yes, that’s not going to do much good for its image, is it?” Sylvia smiled an infuriatingly satisfied smile. “Anyway, she’s left messages on your mobile too. You haven’t answered any of them either.”
“That might be because my mobile’s still in the flat above the pub. The police wouldn’t let me take it.”
“Oh, come on, Ted, you’re not going to make me believe that. The cops must’ve let you pick up some stuff before they took you off the premises.”
Carole had also thought this odd, that the police should not have allowed him even to take his most basic necessities. But Sylvia caught on to the reason quicker than she did. “Oh, I get it, Ted. You’d put their backs up so much they weren’t going to do you any favours. Drunk, were you? Have a bit of a shouting match with the cops when they wanted to question you?”
The way her ex-husband hung his head showed that Sylvia had scored a bull’s eye. The satisfaction in her expression grew. “So you’ve alienated the local police too, have you? Another triumph for your Crown and Anchor public relations campaign.” Her voice became hard and businesslike as she went on, “Anyway, ring my solicitor. Or get your solicitor to ring mine. I’ve had enough of this faffing around. Matt and I want to get married as soon as possible.” She looked up at her fiancé. He grinned like a huge stallion being offered a carrot. “If you need to contact us, well, you’ve got my mobile number. And we’re not far away. Staying at Matt’s place in Worthing. Though we may go away to a hotel next weekend. Yeomansdyke I’ve heard is nice.” She referred to about the most expensive hotel in the area. “For a nice bit of a premarital honeymoon…” Sylvia concluded, delivering another stab of sexual one-upmanship.