The Sinking Admiral. Simon Brett

an order for steak and chips to send out.’

      Quietly furious, Amy had gone back to the bar. The two women had always riled each other, and sometimes Meriel’s attitude was downright offensive.

      For the rest of the evening she wished she had organised extra staff. Ted, the odd-job man who helped out, was drinking in the corner, but she knew asking him to serve behind the bar was more trouble than it was worth. He was old, not a bad cook, and fine for bringing in logs from the outside store, but managing the electronic till was beyond his capabilities.

      So, ever conscious of costs, she had decided not to draft anyone else in, but battle through on her own. How was she to have known they’d have so many customers? What in heaven’s name was it about the possibility of being caught on camera that attracted people so? The pressure made it difficult for her to keep an eye on Ben and his cameraman. Though the Admiral continued to be at the centre of a jovial crowd, all prompting a continuous string of reminiscences, the television duo now seemed to be concentrating on a series of ‘vox pops’, short interviews with the locals on their opinions of the Admiral Byng.

      She knew an interview with the Admiral himself was scheduled the next day. She stood for a moment watching Ben and his cameraman in action. A sense of anger began to fill her as she realised how the presenter was drawing out his interviewees, all of them well under the influence of alcohol. Whatever they were telling him was likely to reflect badly on themselves as well as the pub. The Admiral Byng was certainly not going to be shown as somewhere viewers were going to flock to for a good night out.

      ‘Ooh, that Ben Milne is a caution,’ said Joan, one of their regulars, plonking her tankard on the bar for a refill of her ‘special’, a small brandy mixed with a large fizzy orange. Her best wig was worn at a slight angle, its glossy black curls tip-tilted over one ear. ‘Makes me feel twenty again. Understand he’s staying here.’ She gave a loud cackle filled with meaning. ‘If I were your age, sweetie, I’d be in there without a second thought.’ The washed-out blue of her eyes twinkled.

      ‘There you go,’ Amy said, resisting any response and drowning the brandy in orange. ‘Any jobs coming up, Joan?’

      ‘Ah, now there’s a thing. Got a call this morning. Did you hear there’s a new version of Far from the Madding Crowd being shot here in Crabwell? They’ll be at the Tithe Barn next week and I’m down for an old lady selling eggs. “Little less of the old,” I told them.’ She gave Amy a broad grin. ‘With those wide hats they put us in, I could pass for forty.’ The tankard was picked up, and Joan looked back at Ben, now affecting close attention as he listened to the local bookseller, who would be sounding off about planning permission difficulties. Without it, Amy knew, the bookshop couldn’t be sold as perfect for conversion to a private dwelling. After all, who wanted to buy a bookshop these days? ‘Looks as though our brown-eyed boyo needs rescuing,’ said Joan. ‘He’d love to hear about my filming.’ Off she sailed, navigating her way through the crowded room with the ease of a small tug.

      Amy smiled for a moment; when she was eighty years old, she hoped she’d have Joan’s verve and optimism. At the moment she lacked any of either. But it was good news about the Far from the Madding Crowd filming. Maybe the crew would need accommodation. Though if they were coming next week and hadn’t made a booking by now, they’d probably found somewhere else to stay.

      Suddenly the Admiral was leaning towards her over the bar. ‘Amy, my dear, that talk we must have. I think tomorrow morning, yes?’

      ‘Of course, Fitz.’ After a moment’s hesitation, she added, ‘Can you give me some idea what it’s about?’

      He ran a hand over his rumpled hair without much effect, and for a moment looked embarrassed. ‘Some unsettling information has come to my ears…’ He seemed about to go further, but then changed his mind. ‘No, I shall say no more. Let us leave it until tomorrow. Tonight has gone well, has it not? My “Last Hurrah”?’

      Then he was gone, leaving Amy tied in a tangle of unpleasant thoughts.

      ‘Some unsettling information has come to my ears.’ The words echoed uneasily in her mind. What could the Admiral have found ‘unsettling’? Somehow it didn’t seem to apply to anything connected with the pub. But surely it must be?

      Unless… For a moment Amy’s spine turned to ice. Surely nobody could have told him? Nobody here knew. And all that was in the past, left behind when she moved here. And she would do anything to make sure that was where it would remain.

      But there had been something in the Admiral’s eyes as he looked at her. A subtle redrawing of their relationship.

      There was a bustle at the door that led up to the bedrooms, and in came a whirl of woman in a mock leopard-skin coat, dirty blonde hair all over the place, and thigh-length leather boots. Amy recognised her immediately and remembered her melodramatic arrival earlier that evening.

      ‘I rang yesterday and booked a room,’ she had barked out in supremely confident tones. ‘Ianthe Berkeley.’

      Who could forget that name?

      ‘Of course,’ Amy had said smoothly. ‘I think we’ve had the pleasure of your company before, Miss Berkeley, or is it Mrs?’ She looked innocently into the woman’s bleary eyes and forced herself not to recoil from the unsettling, easily recognisable odour that clashed with Dior’s Poison. Amy remembered vividly the previous occasion. Claimed to be newly married, though there was nothing uxorious about either of the couple. Spent the time fighting with each other, and with the pub. Complaints about a damp bed, a mattress that should be condemned to the tip, noises in the night, and who knew what else. Nothing was right for them, though as they both spent most of the time drinking, with him watching football on the TV, and her flirting with any half-decent looking man who crossed the threshold, Amy hadn’t taken their complaints too seriously.

      She did, however, on their second meeting recognise a difficult customer when she saw one, and waited behind the bar for the obnoxious woman’s drink order. That turned out to be a pint of the local cider, but of course it wasn’t just alcohol she wanted. She also demanded food. She was a resident, she said, and she had been assured that she’d be able to get something to eat whatever time she arrived.

      Amy didn’t know who had made these assertions – she certainly hadn’t – but the woman was getting embarrassingly loud. Once again the bar manager mentally cursed Meriel for stopping the food service early. But, taking the line of least resistance, she sent Ted into the kitchen to knock up an omelette to appease Ms Berkeley’s demands.

      Glowing from her small triumph over the catering system, Ianthe had then caught sight of the TV presenter. ‘Ben, darling!’ she cried, and flung herself – there was no other way to describe it – at him; arms an octopus would have envied snaking around his neck, her sagging body pressed against his admirably taut figure. Amy had trouble stopping herself from smiling at his horrified reaction. For a moment Amy wondered what had brought the woman down to the Admiral Byng. Some connection with Ben Milne…? Or maybe with Fitz…? Yet another secret in his past…?

      ‘Have we met?’ Ben managed to get out, extricating himself from the octopus embrace.

      ‘Darling, it’s Ianthe! You remember our days at uni?’

      Amy had difficulty in imagining this woman was anywhere near Ben Milne in age. Perhaps she had been a mature student? Calls for more drinks from other customers claimed her attention elsewhere.

      Finally Amy was able to sing out ‘Last orders’. She looked towards where she had last seen the Admiral, hoping he wasn’t going to ask for another round for everyone, but he seemed to have disappeared. No doubt he was back on his Bridge upstairs. He must be tired. All those chats with people during the day, and then the conviviality he had enjoyed in the bar. At least, she thought, pulling a couple of final pints of bitter, he had had something of a triumph this evening. Fancy bringing out that old Treasure Island story again!

      The closing time message seemed to have been received; only a few hard drinkers were left, and they all had charged glasses. She wiped down