The Corpse on the Court

by Simon Brett

  The third ball she actually hit. Well, that is to say it made contact with her racket and went spinning off into the wall.

  By the time George Hazlitt had sent down the entire basketful – between forty and fifty balls – she had managed to return two over the net. The rest lay scattered on the floor of the hazard end.

  ‘Not bad at all,’ said the pro, as he returned the basket to its hole and used his racket to shovel balls back into it.

  ‘Not bad in the sense of really dreadful?’ suggested Jude.

  ‘No, I’ve seen many people do worse on their first hit. And I can see you’ve played lawn tennis. There it’s all about following through with the racket. In real tennis you want to stop once you’ve hit the ball. Think of it as a chopping movement, like you’re bringing an axe down on the side of the ball as it makes impact. And the lower the ball is in its trajectory when you hit it, the better. Don’t worry, it takes a while to get used to the basics.’

  ‘Ten years is the figure that’s been quoted to me.’

  George Hazlitt grinned. ‘It needn’t be that long.’

  So they progressed and Jude began to realize that the pro was really a very good teacher. He showed her the required body positions, standing sideways rather than facing front to take the ball. He taught her a couple of basic serves. And he got her nearer than Piers ever had to understanding what a chase was. He gave her just enough encouragement, not undiluted praise but words that made her feel she was achieving something.

  They ended the session by playing a couple of games, something Jude would not have believed possible a mere hour before. She knew full well that George Hazlitt was holding back for her, missing a couple of her returns that he could easily have reached. But he managed to do it without making her feel patronized.

  The lesson only lasted an hour of the hour-and-a-quarter booking period, but by the end of it Jude was glowing and she knew her face was red and sweaty. Though, in spite of its bulk, her body was supple from the yoga, this was a different kind of physical activity and had used muscles unexercised for a long time. She had enjoyed the experience, though, and even begun to taste the obsessive attraction of real tennis.

  George Hazlitt came to shake her hand over the low part of the net, as if they’d played a genuine game rather than him just popping dolly shots to her. Jude was effusive in her thanks but even at that moment couldn’t curb her investigative instincts. ‘A rather happier experience than last time I came to the court,’ she observed.

  The pro looked puzzled for a moment before what she said fell into place. ‘Yes, poor old bugger. I’m sorry that was your introduction to the game.’

  ‘Well, I’d also been here on the Sunday, for the Sec’s Cup.’

  ‘Of course. I’d forgotten. There are so many people around for an event like that.’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t expecting you to remember. And of course I saw Reggie fall on the court then, too.’

  ‘That’s right. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if that had been caused by a minor heart attack too. He was in a pretty bad way.’

  ‘Presumably you have to have some kind of first aid training to do this job?’

  ‘You bet. With regular update sessions to see we’re not getting out of touch. Oh yes, I’m a little devil with the defibrillator.’

  ‘I’m sure you are. Will you be at the funeral tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course. Reggie Playfair had been a member for years.’

  ‘Piers Targett has asked me to come along.’

  ‘Good, I’ll see you then. And if you want to book another lesson or fix up a game for yourself . . .’

  ‘I’m not ready to play a game.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. Some of those returns you were doing towards the end were pretty damned good.’

  ‘Well, thank you.’

  ‘There are plenty of beginners in the club, I’m glad to say. And a lot of young players, which is also good news. I’ve been working hard to lower the average age of the members here.’

  ‘Yes, one does get the impression that to play here you have to be in your sixties, from the right public school and preferably with a hyphenated surname.’

  George Hazlitt shook his head with something close to annoyance. ‘That’s the image of the game. Hampton Court, toffs . . . It’s really not like that any more. We’ve got our fair share of Old Etonians and Harrovians here at Lockleigh, but we’ve also got builders, decorators, farmers. The membership’s not all out of the top drawer by any means. Not all rich either. We’ve got a guitarist, we’ve even got a writer, so neither of them have got two pennies to rub together.’

  ‘And how do you get the younger ones in?’

  ‘I’ve got relationships with a couple of the local schools, do regular coaching sessions with them. Then I’ve been round the local state schools with Lady Budgen – we’ve got a good little double act going there, you know, talking about the game. We’ve had a bit of interest from that area. Have you met Tonya Grace?’

  ‘Not exactly met, but I saw her when Piers was partnering her in the Sec’s Cup.’

  ‘Of course he was, yes. Well, she’s a very promising young player, and just from a comprehensive in Brighton. Felicity’s sort of taken Tonya under her wing and been encouraging her. I think she and Don may even be helping her financially, subscription, court fees, travel expenses, that kind of stuff . . . But please don’t mention to anyone that I told you that. So the game really is moving away from its elitist image.’

  Jude grinned. ‘It certainly will be if I start playing.’

  ‘Well, we must see to it that you do. Give me a call. There are lots of people round your standard you could have a really good knock with. You have to remember, Jude, real tennis has this extremely cunning handicap system, which means you can have a competitive game, whatever your standard.’

  ‘Yes.’ While she still had George Hazlitt on his own, Jude wondered how she could possibly get the conversation round to the identity of the real-tennis-playing woman with whom Oenone Playfair suspected her husband had had an affair. But before she could embark on that rather tricky manoeuvre, a voice from the walkway called out, ‘Morning, George. Morning, Jude.’

  It was Jonty Westmacott. Of course, thought Jude, the Old Boys’ regular Wednesday eleven thirty doubles. A fixture on the calendar so important that Oenone Playfair had even postponed her husband’s funeral to accommodate it.

  When Jonty had passed through into the club room, Jude said, ‘His gout must’ve got better.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I saw Tom Ruthven over the weekend. He was trying to get a fourth for today because Jonty was a doubtful starter.’

  George Hazlitt grinned knowingly. ‘Gout this time, was it?’

  Jude was puzzled. ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m afraid Jonty is one of those players who’s not above a bit of gamesmanship. If he plays badly, there’s always a reason other than his own incompetence.’

  ‘Actually, last week he was complaining of a tweaked tendon in his knee.’

  ‘Yes, there’s always something with Jonty. Injury, or of course something wrong with the equipment. I’ve strung his racket too tight or . . . the balls.’ George Hazlitt raised his eyes to heaven. ‘I probably get more complaints about the balls than anything else in this club. They’re not completely spherical, the bounce isn’t true, they’re too soft . . . I’ve heard them all. And because Ned and I make the balls by hand – a new set of sixty every fortnight – well, the members know who to complain to, don’t they?’

  The pro looked at his watch. ‘I must go, got some calls to make. But I’ll guarantee you one thing . . .’

  ‘What?’ asked Jude.

  ‘That sometime during the next hour and a quarter Jonty Westmacott will summon me out of the pro’s office because there’s something wrong with the court.’

  ‘And will there be something wrong with the court?’

  George Hazlitt shook his head wryly. ‘Will there hell? But I will have to take
the complaint seriously because I’m afraid that’s part of what the job of being a pro is about. And also . . . I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for old Jonty. I mean, he was a really good player. Handicap down in the twenties in his prime. Even then he wasn’t above a bit of gamesmanship. But now . . . it’s frustration because he can’t play like he used to, that’s what makes him do all this stuff. Age, the dreaded age. Heigh-ho, it’ll come to us all.’ He moved towards the walkway. ‘Anyway, I’ll see you, Jude.’

  ‘Yes. Just one thing, George . . .’

  But Wally Edgington-Bewley, Tom Ruthven and Rod Farrar had just arrived. The window during which Jude might have pursued her enquiry had closed.

  She was glowing with health after she had showered and changed, but she also knew that the following day she would feel all the bending and stretching she had done. Particularly in her knees and the back of her calves. She hoped, though, that this wouldn’t be her last time on a real tennis court. The bug had begun to bite.

  Remembering the etiquette of the game, she waited in the dedans until such time as the players had to change ends. She watched Rod Farrar serve to Jonty Westmacott, who hit his return into the net. ‘Thirty-love,’ said Tom Ruthven.

  Rod Farrar served again, with exactly the same result. ‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ spluttered Jonty Westmacott.

  ‘What’s the trouble this time?’ asked his partner, a very patient Wally Edgington-Bewley.

  ‘Well, it’s the height of the net, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t normally put that many into the top of it.’

  ‘The rest of us seem to be getting the balls over all right,’ observed Tom Ruthven.

  ‘Yes, but you’ve always tended to sky them rather,’ said Jonty. ‘My game’s always depended on my returns going very low over the net.’

  ‘So what do you want to do about it?’ Wally looked resigned. This ritual – or something very similar to it – had been carried out every Wednesday morning for eleven years.

  ‘I’ll have to have a word with George,’ replied Jonty Westmacott and bustled off the court towards the pros’ office. The three men left on court sighed and raised their eyes to the heavens.

  Because there was a break in play Jude could have left straight away, but she lingered to see how this little scene would play itself out. George Hazlitt, looking suitably serious, came out of his office, carrying a marked stick. Jonty Westmacott followed.

  The pro solemnly set the stick upright against the lowest point of the net’s sag. Even from the dedans Jude could see that the height was perfectly correct. Three foot. But rather than pointing that out, George Hazlitt went to the side of the court, reached into one of the galleries nearest the net and pulled out a metal bar. It was about a foot long with a square hole in one end. He fitted this over a metal nub sticking out of the pillar supporting the net and cranked it up a couple of notches. ‘Oh, I’ve done it a bit too far,’ he announced, and then cranked back the other way exactly the same number of turns.

  Ceremoniously, he went back to the centre of the net and checked its height against his measuring stick. ‘There, I think you’ll find that better, Jonty.’

  ‘Thank you so much, George. Sorry to be a bother, but that kind of thing can make quite a big difference to my kind of game.’

  ‘Of course. No problem.’

  George Hazlitt turned on his way back to the office just as Jude was passing along the walkway. Catching her eye, he winked. And she realized that being a real tennis pro was as much about public relations as it was about sport.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Carole Seddon had an email back from Iain Holland around five on the Wednesday afternoon, with text at the bottom reading: ‘Sent from my iPad.’

  The message read: ‘I don’t know who you are and since my daughter disappeared I’ve been contacted by a lot of cranks. But if you genuinely do have information about Marina’s whereabouts, then we should meet and talk about it.’ There was a mobile phone number.

  Carole was shocked by the speed of the response. Not expecting it, she hadn’t prepared her next step in the investigation. She felt a little frightened, too. Iain Holland had interpreted her message to mean that she actually had information about his daughter. How would he react when he discovered she knew nothing?

  For a moment she was tempted to put the whole thing on hold. It had been a stupid idea to become involved in the Lady in the Lake mystery, and she was getting out of her depth. Better to pull the plug on the whole operation.

  On the other hand . . . Jude was getting ever more deeply entangled with Piers Targett and the affairs of Lockleigh House tennis court, and though she’d done her best to get Carole participating in that enquiry, it was Jude who had the contacts. She was the one who would be going the following day to Reggie Playfair’s funeral; there was no justifiable reason why Carole should attend. And funerals are traditionally fruitful hunting grounds for both police and amateur investigators. Overheard conversations, family rows, revelatory body language from suspects . . . how many times had those been used as stepping stones towards the solution of a case?

  So no, Carole Seddon couldn’t deny that her nose was a little out of joint. She’d started the Lady in the Lake investigation intentionally as something she was doing on her own. Without Jude. She’d just been offered an open door to the next stage. She couldn’t give up now.

  Carole decided that she’d make the call from a public phone box. There seemed now to be infinite numbers of ways to track people down through their phone numbers and she didn’t want Iain Holland to know where she lived.

  A few years before there had been a row of red telephone boxes on the parade at Fethering. Now, with the growth of mobile-phone usage, there was just one. And that wasn’t in a proper box. Only in a three-sided screen which, in the event of bad weather, depending on which way the wind was blowing, might protect someone from the waist upwards. Soon, Carole reckoned, that booth too would disappear.

  It was with considerable trepidation that she dialled the number from the email. It was answered immediately. ‘Hello. Iain Holland.’

  There was a brashness in his tone, but also a wariness. It was a confident voice, with no taint of public school, the proper voice for a man of the people.

  ‘Hello. I’ve just received your email.’

  ‘In what connection is this?’

  ‘About Marina’s whereabouts.’

  That had its effect. Carole heard him raise his voice and call, ‘Sorry, got to take this in the other room.’ Presumably that was addressed to his new squeaky-clean wife and his new squeaky-clean children.

  There was a silence, the sound of a door closing, and his voice was more urgent when he came back on the line. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  She had thought about her answer to this. She had no intention of giving her second name, but nor was she going to go down complicated routes of inventing a pseudonym or answering with something like ‘a well-wisher’. ‘My name’s Carole,’ she replied.

  ‘And you know something about Marina?’

  ‘I know that she disappeared eight years ago.’

  ‘Everyone knows that. It was all over the media. You implied that you had some new information.’

  ‘Did I?’ Carole was advancing cagily, trying to assess how Iain Holland had read her message.

  ‘Listen, I haven’t got time to play games. There’s quite a lot at stake here, probably more than you realize. So if you’ve got some information, tell me about it. If not, let me get back to my evening with my family.’

  ‘I do have some information,’ Carole boldly lied, ‘but I think I should tell you about it face to face.’

  She couldn’t quite explain why those words had emerged from her lips, and she fully expected them to be greeted by a blast of scepticism. Instead, Iain Holland said, ‘When do you want to meet?’

  ‘Soon as you like.’

  ‘I could do a half hour this evening.’

  ‘All right,’ said Carole. Her voice sounded co
ol, but that was no reflection of her thoughts. Everything was moving so quickly. She was normally a very cautious person, agonizing over even the smallest decision. And here she was being swept along manically into who knew what embarrassment or danger.

  Iain Holland said there was a pub in Brighton called The Two Ducks. It had a private room that he quite often used for meetings with residents in his ward. He could be there at eight o’clock. Carole said that she could too. She told him she had grey hair, rimless glasses and would be wearing a Burberry raincoat.

  When she put the phone down, Carole Seddon was left with two questions. One, why had she totally lost her marbles? And two, why had Iain Holland agreed so readily to a meeting?

  The Two Ducks was in Kemptown, another part of Brighton that Carole didn’t know well. Though she had no reason to spend time there, she had been put off the place by reading somewhere that it was the gay centre of the town. Carole wasn’t exactly homophobic, she just didn’t feel at ease in cultural environments different from her own. Finding herself in a gay pub would prompt the same anxieties as being at a Catholic church service, not sure when to stand up and sit down. Carole Seddon’s primary fear was always of drawing attention to herself by doing something wrong.

  Whether or not the Two Ducks was a gay pub was hard to tell. Certainly there were men in there, but there were also women. And there was nothing particularly camp about the barman to whom Carole gave her order. Fizzy mineral water. She needed all her wits about her for the forthcoming encounter.

  She sat at a small round table and sipped her drink. Nobody seemed to take much notice of her. In characteristic Carole Seddon style she had got to the Two Ducks at a quarter to eight.

  On the dot of five to, Iain Holland entered the pub. It was clearly somewhere where he was known. He addressed the barman by name as he ordered: ‘A J2O – the orange and passion fruit one.’

  Carole recognized him from his website. He was a good-looking man, fiftyish like his ex-wife. His neatly-cut hair carried a dusting of grey and his face still had a residual tan, perhaps from a summer holiday. He was dressed in smart leisurewear – green polo shirt under a brown leather blouson, Levi jeans, moccasins.