Which was rather ironic, because, to Carole and Jude’s minds, she had created an environment that had made the Cat and Fiddle look exactly like a cloned pub owned by a big chain. But of course neither of them said anything as she went on, “I had a lot of the big boys look at the place over the years. I mean, it was never going to go to a Wetherspoon’s or an All Bar One, they always concentrate on urban locations, but there are quite a lot of chains that deal with country pubs and, as I say, the offers were there. The most persistent came from a set-up called Home Hostelries…you heard of them?”
Carole and Jude nodded. The name was all too familiar to them.
“Well, they started off small and then got bigger by taking over other smaller chains. Took over Snug Pubsa few years back.”
“I’ve heard of them,” said Carole, immediately making the connection with the KWS warehouse in Worthing that had handled their deliveries. And with Sylvia’s fiancé, Matt.
And quite recently Home Hostelries swallowed up the Foaming Flagon Group. They are becoming very big players indeed. And they kept making offers to me, but I always thought the offers were too low. I was hanging on for more, and I was sure I could get it, though as time went by all the other interests seemed to fall away, and it was only Home Hostelries who wanted to buy.
“Then, what, about nine months ago…running up to Christmas it was, I started to get trouble at the pub.”
“What do you mean by trouble?” asked Carole.
“Rowdiness. Youngsters drinking too much. Fights. Had to call the police more than once. And it was a bad time of year for that to happen. Got lots of tables booked for staff Christmas dos, that kind of stuff and yes, they’re all drinking more than they should, but it wasn’t the business clientele who was starting the fights. Though some of them did get involved.”
“So who was starting the fights?” asked Jude.
“A whole new crowd started coming into the pub. Bikers.” Carole and Jude exchanged looks and almost imperceptible nods. And once that kind of thing starts, it’s difficult to stop. You know, the whole point of a pub is that it’s open to anyone, and, yes, you can bar individuals, but it’s difficult to shut out a whole group. And you might end up just antagonizing them, which would only make things worse. So I was trying to keep control of the place, but there were a lot of scuffles breaking out in the car park at closing time. And, somehow, every one of them, however minor, ended up getting reported in the Fedborough Gazette!
Again Carole and Jude exchanged brief eye contact. A pattern was starting to emerge.
“You didn’t have any incidences of food poisoning at the pub during this period, did you?”
“Funny you should mention that, because yes, a couple of weeks before Christmas, like when we’re at our absolute busiest…a whole practice of solicitors got sick after their Christmas party.” Potentially entertaining though this image was, neither Carole nor Jude laughed. “They blamed the Coquille St Jacques starter that they’d had, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been that. I always maintained the highest standards of hygiene in my kitchen – I was almost obsessive about it, and the Health and Safety inspectors have never found anything to complain of – so I’ve no idea how it happened. I think those solicitors all got one of those vomiting bugs which seem to be around in the winter so much these days. But that was not the way they saw it. And, needless to say, the incident didn’t do anything to help the image of the Cat and Fiddle.”
“Presumably,” said Carole, “the food poisoning also got coverage in the local paper?”
“Oh yes. Front page of the Gazette. I was even asked to be interviewed for the local television news. But of course I said no. I’m a very private person.”
Carole and Jude both recalled that on their last encounter with Shona Nuttall she had demonstrated a very different attitude to the media, crowing about her recent appearance on the television news, but neither of them commented on the inconsistency.
“Anyway,” Shona went on, “all this was having a disastrous effect on the business. Lots of firms ringing in to cancel their Christmas parties. Families with small children – who used to be quite a staple of the lunchtime trade – well, they kept away from a place that was getting a reputation for violence. And the pensioners, who’d always come in for their special-rate meals, they stopped coming.
“Within a couple of months, the Cat and Fiddle, from being one of the most popular, must-visit pubs in the area, had virtually emptied. And I was so stressed, I thought I was going to have a breakdown.”
At this recollection an involuntary tear trickled down her wrinkled cheek. She dashed it away, took a large swallow from her drink and busied herself lighting another cigarette.
“And it was because you were so stressed,” Jude suggested gently, “that you agreed to accept Home Hostelries’ offer for the Cat and Fiddle?”
Shona Nuttall nodded, then filled her lungs and blew the cigarette smoke out in a grey line which wavered with the tension in her body. “Yes,” she agreed, “though by then they were offering less than they had been before. Less than I’d previously thought was not enough. But by then I was so…I don’t know…Tired? Battered? All I wanted to do was to get away from the place.”
“And who did you deal with at Home Hostelries?” asked Carole. “Was it always the same person?”
A note of caution came into Shona Nuttall’s eyes. “I didn’t deal with anyone in particular. The sale of the Cat and Fiddle was all done through my solicitors.”
“But you mentioned there had been offers for the pub from Home Hostelries before. Were none of those direct to you?”
She shook her head and reiterated, “All through the solicitors.”
Carole and Jude both had the instinct that she was lying, but they couldn’t see any way of making her reveal information she was determined to withhold. In both their minds the same thought arose: that whoever Shona Nuttall had dealt with at Home Hostelries, he or she had really put the frighteners on her. The ex-landlady wasn’t going to risk further trouble by giving them a name.
But there was one other detail that could be checked. Jude got out her mobile and found the photograph Zosia had taken on the comedy night at the Crown and Anchor. “About these bikers who came…” she held out the picture of Derren Hunt “…was this man with them?”
Shona Nuttall looked at the image with distaste. “Yes, he used to come. Was one of the ringleaders, I think.”
“Did you ever find out his name?”
“Good heavens, no!” The very idea shocked her.
“Or speak to him?”
“I may have served him a drink. I certainly never had a conversation with him.”
Jude clicked on to another photo, the one which featured Viggo, and proffered it to Shona. “Do you recognize him?”
The ex-landlady shrugged. “Looks vaguely familiar. But I couldn’t be sure. That lot in their leather gear…” she shuddered at the recollection “…they all looked alike to me.”
“And what about the small man beside him?”
No, she had never seen Ray Witchett before. She hadn’t seen photos of him on television or in the papers either. Carole and Jude got the impression that not much news filtered through into the velvet fastness of that Southwick bungalow.
There was a silence. Shona puffed away at her cigarette as though her life depended on it. She looked pathetic, broken and alone. Neither Carole nor Jude had warmed to her in her former brassy mode, but it was sad to see any human being so reduced. The Cat and Fiddle had not just been her business; it had been her family, her whole existence.