by Simon Brett
‘Merton College,’ Tom Ruthven supplied.
‘Ah, knew I could rely on you to have all the facts at your fingertips. Anyway, Agnes’ brother invited his chum down here to have a game, the two young people met and that was it. For Agnes it was undoubtedly love with a capital L. Young man was equally keen. Her parents had hoped for someone with a title perhaps, but they recognized a good thing when they saw it and didn’t make any objections.
‘So the engagement was official, wedding date set for the following May, notice in The Times, all that stuff. But then for that particular young couple, as for so many people round that time who felt confident that the Edwardian summer idyll would last forever, things changed.
‘Small matter of some Austrian archduke being assassinated in Sarajevo . . . I don’t need to spell it all out, do I? Well, caught up in jingoistic fervour, Agnes’ fiancé joined up at the first opportunity. Never any doubt he would, being an honourable young man –’ Cecil Wardock winked at Tom Ruthven – ‘not to mention a real tennis player. And since everyone knew that the war would be over by Christmas, no need to change the wedding plans. The fiancé would go off and sort out the Boche, return to England probably decorated for conspicuous gallantry and everything’d be tickety-boo for him to walk Agnes up the aisle in May.
‘Except of course that wasn’t what happened. On the fifth of September, 1914 began the Battle of the Marne . . . Actually an author of mine wrote a splendid novel on the subject . . . rather better than more recent, over-praised works of fiction covering the same period . . .’ His eyes strayed towards the bookshelves, before he returned with slight reluctance to his narrative. ‘Battle went on for a week and was actually an Allied victory. Not that that was much comfort for the seventeen hundred-odd British casualties . . . amongst whose number was included . . . yes, you guessed it, Agnes Wardock’s fiancé.’
The old man was silent for a moment. Though he was enjoying having an audience for his story, the effort of telling it was taking it out of him.
‘There were a lot of young women who were bereaved in that way,’ prompted Carole, with surprising gentleness.
‘Oh yes. And a lot of them stiffened their upper lips and got on with life, channelling the love they had lost into good works or whatever. But that didn’t happen with Agnes Wardock. She fell to pieces in a very un-British way. Her parents, her friends tried to comfort her, but nothing could break through her carapace of grief.
‘Within a week of hearing the news of her fiancé’s death Agnes Wardock hanged herself. And because it was on the Lockleigh House real tennis court that she had first met the young man, that was where she did the deed. Wearing the wedding dress which she had already had made for the following May.’
After a long silence Tom Ruthven asked, ‘Where did she do it?’ For a moment Jude feared that he was going to ask which chase the girl had died on, but fortunately he was not so crass, and continued, ‘Was it from one of the high walkways up by the windows?’
Cecil Wardock nodded.
‘So,’ asked Jude, ‘it is Agnes Wardock’s ghost who is said to haunt Lockleigh House?’
‘Yes. Or more specifically, she is said to haunt the tennis court adjacent to Lockleigh House.’
‘Presumably there have been sightings of her over the years?’
‘Presumably. Though, as ever with ghost stories it’s hard to get proper evidence. The imaginations of people who regard themselves as psychic are extremely fertile. A rumour very quickly takes on the mantle of fact. One of my authors –’ he gestured again to the bookshelves – ‘did an excellent study of the ghosts of West Sussex, but although I pointed him in the direction of Agnes Wardock, he didn’t include her.’
‘Why not?’
‘Lack of evidence. He made a rule that for inclusion in the book a ghost had to have had at least two sightings, authenticated either by the individual who had seen the apparition or by some written record. He couldn’t find even one for Agnes Wardock.’
‘But within the family . . .’ said Carole. ‘You said it was a cousin of yours who mentioned the idea of the ghost. Had he seen it?’
‘He claimed to have talked to one of the housemaids who’d seen a female figure in a long white dress on the tennis court.’
‘What would a housemaid have been doing on the court?’ asked Tom Ruthven.
‘According to my cousin, she was there after dark to meet one of the boot boys. For an assignation of a carnal nature, I fear.’
Carole and Jude exchanged looks. It seemed the court might have a long history of the kind of rendezvous that Oenone Playfair had worried about her husband arranging.
‘I think it’s quite possible, though,’ Cecil Wardock went on, ‘that the housemaid invented the story of the ghost to divert suspicion from what she was really up to.’
‘And that’s the only sighting you know of?’ asked Carole.
‘Yes. Maybe members of the Wardock family who actually lived here might be able to provide more detail . . . if there were any of them around to ask.’
‘And are there?’
‘Sadly, no. I’m afraid the line dies with me. My marriage was blessed in every way possible, except in the matter of children. So no, when I go . . . which cannot by the law of averages be too far into the future . . . that will be the final pruning of the Wardock family tree.’ Though the thought might be a melancholy one, it was spoken with great cheerfulness. ‘Getting old isn’t as bad as some people say, you know. It has its consolations. In fact, I published a slim volume written by a philosopher friend of mine on that very subject.’ Another gesture towards the bookshelves. ‘Very thoughtful piece of work. It brings me renewed comfort each time I get round to reading it again.’
‘Cecil, we can’t thank you enough for telling us all this,’ said Jude.
‘No hardship for me at all, my dear young lady. I love telling stories. That’s why I went into publishing. And it’s nice for me to have such an attentive audience. I’m afraid back in the days when I used to lord it in the coffee room at the Garrick Club . . .’ He gestured to his salmon and cucumber bow. ‘Recognize the tie, do you? Anyway, back then most of the members had heard all my stories before, so it’s a pleasure for me this afternoon to know that I haven’t repeated myself.’
‘There is one thing I’d like to ask,’ said Carole.
‘Ask away. I’m not about to go anywhere.’
‘Tom said you mentioned the story of Agnes Wardock’s ghost to him some years ago . . .’
‘Yes. I hope you’re not going to ask me how many. When it comes to time these days I always have to double the number I first thought of.’
‘No, that wasn’t going to be my question. I just wondered whether you’d told the ghost story to anyone else more recently?’
‘Funny you should ask that, because there was a chap came to see me within the last month who seemed extremely interested in Agnes Wardock’s ghost. You probably know him, Tom. He’s a member of the real tennis club.’
‘Oh? What’s his name?’
‘Reggie Playfair,’ said Cecil Wardock.
It had started to rain while they had been talking, so the other two waited under the porch of Lockleigh House while Carole went to fetch the Renault from the car park.
‘Cecil didn’t seem to know about Reggie Playfair’s death, did he?’ Jude observed.
‘No. Otherwise he’d have been bound to mention it when the poor old bugger’s name came up.’
‘There didn’t seem to be any point in saying anything.’
‘Absolutely not. He’d only met Reggie the once.’
There was a silence. The rain looked set in for the afternoon.
‘Pity you haven’t started playing tennis yet,’ said Tom Ruthven.
‘You still looking for a fourth for your Wednesday doubles?’
‘That’s it. I suppose Jonty’s gout might be better – he’s such a hypochondriac with his ailments, and not above using them for a bit of gamesmanship too – but I
’d like to have a back-up.’
Jude had a good idea. Her lover was due back from Paris the following day. She didn’t know his plans for the next week, but he always seemed ready to drop everything for a game of real tennis. ‘Why not ask Piers?’
‘Oh, I asked him. He couldn’t do it. Some business meeting, he said.’
‘In Paris?’
‘He didn’t mention Paris.’
Jude felt a disturbing trickle of anxiety. ‘Did you speak to him on his mobile?’
‘No, his home number.’
‘In Bayswater?’
‘No, no. Down here. In his house at Goffham.’
‘When was this?’
‘Yesterday evening.’
But Piers Targett was supposed to be in Paris till Sunday. Jude’s manner gave no sign of the turmoil in her mind as she said lightly, ‘Thank goodness you mentioned that, Tom.’
‘Oh? Why?’
‘Well,’ she lied glibly, ‘I’d made an arrangement to meet Piers at the house this afternoon. Make sense if I went straight there now. Trouble is, I’d made a note of the address, but I left it at home. You don’t know it, by any chance, do you, Tom?’
Tom did.
FIFTEEN
Jude didn’t give any hint of her feelings as Carole drove them back through the rain to Fethering. They talked about what they had just heard from Cecil, and the possibility that Reggie Playfair’s fascination with the ghost of Agnes Wardock might have been the reason for his final visit to Lockleigh House tennis court. It didn’t seem likely, but then none of their other lines of enquiry were leading anywhere so the notion was worth exploring. Carole was unaware of her neighbour’s preoccupation and didn’t notice that she was doing most of the talking.
When the Renault dropped her outside Woodside Cottage, Jude said she just had to dash out to get some shopping at Allinstore, Fethering’s uniquely inefficient supermarket. Carole went into High Tor to face the baleful looks of a disgruntled Gulliver, a process of blackmail that would almost inevitably lead to his being taken for another walk on Fethering Beach.
Jude didn’t go to Allinstore. Instead she cut across the village to the railway station, beside which was a Portakabin displaying the legend ‘Fethering Cars’. A minicab was procured and she gave the Goffham address that Tom Ruthven had passed on her. Fortunately the driver had no desire to engage in conversation because, atypically, Jude didn’t feel like talking that afternoon.
In the spare bedroom at High Tor, Carole found on her laptop an email from Susan Holland. She wrote that she had enjoyed their meeting at Bean in Love and, if Carole was genuinely interested in helping find out what had happened to her daughter, she gave a phone number for one of Marina’s best friends from school, Donna Grodsky. Susan had talked to the girl endlessly in the immediate aftermath of the disappearance. Donna hadn’t been able to provide much information then, but maybe her lack of cooperation had been due to simple teenage bolshiness. Perhaps, now a few years had passed, and if the girl was approached by someone different, she might be more forthcoming.
Carole Seddon checked her watch. It was five forty-five. Not a respectable time on a Saturday to ring someone you hadn’t met before. Particularly someone young. Young people – young women, certainly – would be busy preparing for the evening ahead. Choosing the most revealing minidress, the most vertiginous heels, and loading up with cheap supermarket vodka to set them up for a night of excess. Though Carole took The Times, many of her preconceptions were more likely to have come from a Daily Mail reader.
She would definitely ring Donna Grodsky, she decided. Just not then.
The cottage outside which Jude’s minicab drew up was on the edge of the village of Goffham. There was an air of neglect about it. The paint on the window frames was peeling and the rough grass in the front garden had not been mown all summer.
But it had been an attractive house and, with a little care and attention, could be again.
On the weed-ridden gravel in front of the house stood Piers Targett’s E-Type. In the manner of the Royal Standard flying over Buckingham Palace, it was a bright red announcement that the owner was in residence.
Jude paid off the driver, still with mercifully minimal dialogue and, as the car eased away, walked towards the house.
One of the hinges had sheared off the garden gate and she had to lift the upright out of a rut to open it. The unwillingness with which the gate gave suggested that not many people had been through recently.
Jude walked boldly along the weed-fringed brick path to the front door. She was hardly thinking, certainly not planning how she was going to conduct the conversation that lay ahead. She seemed to be on automatic pilot, but she knew that she couldn’t take any other course than the one she was taking.
She lifted the discoloured brass knocker on a front door whose green paint had blistered and flaked, and let it fall. There was a silence, then she heard the sound of someone approaching from inside.
The door opened. And when Jude said, ‘Good afternoon,’ the expression of Piers Targett’s face was one which she had not previously seen during what she now realized had been a very brief relationship.
Piers was extremely fluent in his explanations. No surprise there, he’d always been good with words.
No, he hadn’t lied to her about going to Paris. He had caught the Eurostar from Ebbsfleet as planned on the Thursday morning. But the business he was due to do in France hadn’t taken as long as anticipated, so he’d returned to England on the Friday afternoon.
They were sitting in the kitchen. Jude had refused his offer of ‘tea, coffee or maybe something stronger . . .?’ She was struck again by how shabby the place looked. The interior matched the exterior – not squalid but with an air of neglect. Though it was starting to get dark outside, she could still see the dust and cobwebs on the windows. The mess of the house was in such sharp contrast to the antiseptic neatness of his Bayswater flat that Jude couldn’t help feeling that the difference must express something in Piers Targett’s personality. Another secret perhaps, something else that would require explanation.
In spite of the circumstances, she hadn’t stopped finding Piers attractive. There was something impossibly engaging, almost vulnerable, about the way his white hair flopped down over his ears. The temptation had been strong when she first arrived to throw herself into his arms, listen to whatever he said, believe whatever he said. But she had confined their contact to a chaste kiss on the lips. She forced herself not to succumb to his charms until she had heard what he had to say for himself.
‘So this business you were conducting in Paris?’ she asked. ‘Am I allowed to know what it was?’
‘Oh, just . . . stuff.’ He shrugged airily. ‘To do with money. Boring but necessary.’
‘Oenone Playfair said you had “fingers in many pies”.’
‘Did she? Well, as ever, Oenone was spot on. And, given the current economic situation, it looks like I’m going to have to find a lot more pies to dig my grubby little fingers into.’
‘Hm,’ was all that Jude said. There were so many questions that she wanted to ask, she didn’t know where to start. And the tone of too many of them would sound like the peevish huffiness of a woman scorned. Which was not an image that Jude had ever wanted to present.
Fortunately Piers took the initiative, divining the thought that was uppermost in her mind. ‘What you want to know, I dare say, Jude, is why I didn’t tell you I was going to come back earlier.’
‘The thought had crossed my mind.’ Keep it light, keep it at the level of banter.
‘The fact is –’ he looked awkward – ‘there were one of two things I needed to sort out down here, so I wanted to get those sorted and then pick up where I left off with you . . . sort of, with a clear mind.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mean a clear conscience?’
‘Absolutely bloody sure! Look, Jude, if you think I’m trying to keep something from you, if you’re even suggesting that I might have somethi
ng going on with another woman, well, you’re totally barking up the wrong tree.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. But you must see why, if I were the kind of woman who’s prone to paranoia, a few anxieties might be kicking in.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, come on, Piers. Don’t pretend to be more naive than you really are. Everything you do is shrouded in such secrecy.’
‘I thought we’d talked about this, Jude, about not wanting to live in each other’s pockets. If I could quote your own words back to you, I seem to remember your saying, “I don’t want to be part of one of those couples where each of them knows exactly what the other’s doing every minute of the day.”’
She couldn’t deny it. She had said that. ‘All right, all right, take your point. And I don’t want to be like that. But I still can’t help finding it odd that you didn’t tell me that you were going to come back from Paris two days earlier than you’d intended.’
‘I told you. I had stuff to do here.’
‘What kind of stuff?’ Jude hated herself for asking the question.
‘Just stuff. Nothing that would interest you.’
‘If it wouldn’t interest me, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t tell me about it.’
‘One thing I’ve never wanted to do in our relationship, Jude, is to bore you.’
‘Oh, very slick.’ Jude grinned. ‘The old silver tongue working overtime again.’ Her expression changed. ‘What was this “stuff” that was so important you couldn’t ring me or text me to say that you’d come back from Paris early?’
Piers Targett looked at her ruefully, then sighed. ‘All right.’ He gestured round the kitchen. ‘It’s this place. I want to put it on the market. Which means contacting estate agents, sorting out a cleaner to do a basic tidy-up, a gardener to make the outside look vaguely presentable. That’s what I’ve been doing this morning . . . well, most of the day, actually. All that stuff . . . which, as I say, is not very interesting.’
