Poisoning in the Pub, The. Simon Brett

committee, and the chair of that was Greville Tilbrook.

      Like Carole Seddon, he was a retired civil servant, though she knew from contacts within the organization that he’d never reached even as high up the system as she had. But he was one of those men whose entire life seemed to have been waiting for the blossoming that would attend retirement. For some years while still employed he had been a Methodist lay preacher, but when he gave up the day job he was soon climbing other local hierarchies. He was a leading light of the Conservative Association, on the committees of Fethering Yacht Club, the Fethering Historical Society and the local Probus Club (for retired professional and business people).

      He was a living warning, an embodiment of the truth that a colleague had told Carole before she moved permanently to Fethering: ‘If you live in the country, never volunteer for anything, or you’ll end up doing everything.’ It was advice she had stuck by, and it had served her well.

      But of course Greville Tilbrook’s personality was very different from hers. He positively loved civic responsibility. In retirement he was having the time of his life.

      He was dressed that evening in his uniform of pale-grey … well, they could only really be called ‘slacks’ … and soft brown loafers. As a gesture to informality and the July weather, he had removed his blue-striped seersucker jacket and swung it roguishly over his shoulder in distant recollection of some photograph he’d seen of Frank Sinatra. This revealed a short-sleeved pale-blue shirt, round whose neck was a neatly knotted tie bearing the insignia of one of the many organizations he belonged to. Under his jacket-carrying arm he nursed a leather document case.

      Though coming from very different backgrounds and values, Carole and Jude had both, before meeting Greville Tilbrook, thought he would turn out to be a right pain. And so it proved.

      In all his various committees, Greville Tilbrook dealt with a lot of mature women, whom he treated with a gallantry that bordered on the flirtatious. Though there was a Mrs Tilbrook somewhere locked away in a secure marriage and pension, her husband did see himself as a bit of a non-practising ladies’ man. And he set out to exercise his self-defined fatal charm on the two women in the garden of High Tor. (The two women in question, it should be mentioned, found themselves strangely impervious to that charm.)

      ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you ladies,’ he said after he had been introduced to Jude and refused the offer of a glass of wine, ‘on an evening of such exceptional beauty – not to mention two ladies of such exceptional beauty – but I’m sure you, like me, as residents of this delightful village of Fethering are as committed as I am – well, possibly less committed than I myself am, due to the nature of the official positions which, for my sins, I represent within this community – but still committed to the maintenance of the loveliness of the region – to call it “God’s own acre” might be by some thought to be excessively poetic, and yet why not be poetic when one has the good fortune to live within the environs of such a delightful area …’

      God, both women thought as he droned on, does he actually know how to finish a sentence?

      And then suddenly they were both aware of silence. Greville Tilbrook was looking at them quizzically. He must finally have got to the end of his sentence and asked a question.

      ‘I’m sorry? What did you say?’ asked Carole and Jude together.

      ‘I said: “Is that what you want to happen to Fethering?”’

      After a unison ‘Umm …’ Carole had the presence of mind to ask, ‘But do you think it’s likely to?’

      ‘I think it could be the beginning of the, as it were, thin end of a very slippery slope, and I feel it’s my civic responsibility, with my Fethering-Village-Committee hat on, to alert my fellow residents to this menace.’

      Short of admitting they hadn’t been listening, neither woman could think of an appropriate supplementary question, but fortunately Greville Tilbrook was not the kind of man who needed prompting to continue his monologue. ‘And I’m not speaking now with my Methodist-lay-preacher hat on – though I could be – but I’m sure there are some residents of this delightful village who would have objections on religious grounds, because the Sabbath, even in these benighted times, is, I am glad to say, still respected by some as a special day – and do we really want that special day to be tarnished by blasphemy and filthy language?’

      Carole and Jude, still clueless as to what he was talking about, agreed that they didn’t want the Sabbath tarnished by blasphemy and filthy language. But Greville Tilbrook’s next words did make the purpose of his visit absolutely clear. ‘It’s not the first time that there has been cause to complain about goings on at the Crown and Anchor, because although I am in no way a killjoy – I enjoy the benefits of fellowship just as much as a pub-goer does, though my personal preference is to conduct such conversations over a cup of tea or coffee rather than anything stronger, the fact remains that the unbridled consumption of alcohol can lead to a certain amount of rowdiness – I’m sure you’ve read in the papers about the modern curse of “binge-drinking”, particularly amongst the young, and that kind of thing can easily spread in the, as it were, environs of a public house … and there have been complaints from residents about the noise at closing time, drunken shouting, the slamming of car doors and so on …’

      He was incautious enough at that point to take a breath, which gave Jude the opportunity to object, ‘But the Crown and Anchor isn’t near to any houses.’

      ‘Maybe not,’ said Greville Tilbrook smugly, ‘but that is just a measure of how loud the departing customers must be in their cups … and anyway if it were just the drinking that’s a problem with the Crown and Anchor, perhaps that might be regretted but tolerated. However, there are other complaints against the place, of which the most recent is of course the attack of food poisoning caused by the appalling standards of hygiene obtaining in the kitchen of the Crown and Anchor and—’

      Jude wasn’t going to stand for that. ‘Ted Crisp has very high standards. He had the Health and Safety people in there yesterday, they checked everything and couldn’t find a single breach of hygiene regulations.’

      ‘Ted Crisp, eh?’ Greville Tilbrook repeated the name sourly. ‘I didn’t realize that he was a friend of yours, because, to be quite honest and not to beat about the bush, I hadn’t put you two ladies down as “pub people”.’

      It cost Carole a lot not to break in there and assure him that she had never been a ‘pub person’, but she managed to curb her tongue.

      ‘Well, even if you are friends of Mr Crisp, you must—’

      ‘Have you ever met him, Mr Tilbrook?’ asked Jude.

      ‘No, I have not had that pleasure, but I know him by reputation … and not everything I’ve heard of that reputation is entirely, as it were, favourable.’ He was now getting quite aerated, spluttering in his condemnation. ‘While not going quite as far as some residents who feel that Fethering should not have a pub at all, I do think it’s regrettable that the one we do have should be run by a foul-mouthed, scruffy individual who—’

      This finally was too much for Carole. ‘Mr Tilbrook, I’m sorry, but you’re talking about someone who is a friend of ours. And I think you should form your own estimation of people by meeting them rather than listening to scurrilous gossip.’

      Greville Tilbrook was about to repeat her last two words, but he only got as far as ‘scurrilous’ before Carole said, ‘And I think, if you have no other purpose in being here than to slander our friends, I must ask you to leave.’

      ‘But I do have another purpose,’ he spluttered.

      ‘Oh?’

      He withdrew some stapled A4 sheets from his leather document case. ‘I came here to ask you whether you would add your, as it were, signatures, to this petition.’

      ‘And what’s the petition for?’ asked Carole implacably.

      ‘It is to stop the appearance of the vulgar and blasphemous comedian Dan Poke in the Crown