by Simon Brett
Courts in the Act had been a labour of love, which was never going to trouble the best-sellers’ charts. Wally’s style was dilatory and full of non-sequiturs. He was obsessed by recording the scores of every game he played, and on very few of the courts he played on did he think the quality of the balls were up to scratch.
Flicking through, Jude was surprised to see the unlikely places where there were real tennis courts. Hampton Court she knew about, and she would have expected them to exist at Lord’s, Queen’s Club, Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Paris and Bordeaux were perhaps predictable, but she would not have anticipated finding them in Philadelphia or Boston. And she would never in a million years have guessed there was one in Hobart, Tasmania.
It was Wally Edgington-Bewley’s estimate that there were forty-five active real tennis courts in the world, and of those twenty-seven were in the British Isles.
As Jude idly turned the pages, she found Courts in the Act had a certain charm. The author was clearly obsessed, but it was a harmless obsession. She wondered whether Wally Edgington-Bewley had ever married. She couldn’t see any mention of a wife, and she rather doubted whether the woman existed who could match his passion for real tennis. Or maybe his love of the game had left no room for other passions in his life.
Her eye was arrested by yet another photograph of men in whites holding tennis rackets. The younger Wally was clearly recognizable, but it took Jude a moment to identify the younger Reggie Playfair and the younger Piers Targett. With the passage of the years Piers had changed less. His body shape in the photograph was much the same as it was now. And though his hair was black back then, he still wore it long, flopping down from a centre parting.
Time had been less kind to the Reggie Playfair of the photograph. His younger version already had a substantial paunch, but his arms and legs were well muscled and he looked fit. The three of them would have had a very vigorous game.
But with whom? Who was the fourth who made up their doubles?
There was a partial explanation in the photo’s caption. It read: ‘Paris Court, Rue Lauriston – The Old One, The Thin One and The Fat One (The Fair One had gone off to slip into something elegant)’.
A woman, it had to be a woman. ‘The Fair One’. Was that a literal description of her colouring or just Wally’s old-fashioned gallantry?
Jude read the accompanying text with interest.
‘Paris was to be our next jaunt. The Road-Eater was hungry for the road and I was fortunate that my good chums, The Thin One, The Fat One and The Fair One had managed to persuade their better halves that nothing could be more helpful to the future of their marriages than accompanying The Old One on another jaunt, this time to Paris.
‘Now for lovers of real tennis, which they call jeu de paume, France is in many ways a bit of a disappointment. The frogs used to love the game, it was a favourite sport of many of their kings as evidenced in William Shakespeare’s great play Henry V, but then of course they had a bit of a hoo-ha known as the French Revolution. And suddenly being a toff was not so popular. In fact, if I might venture a pleasantry, it was a case of “Toff with his head!” And the same thing happened to the popularity of toffs’ games. And of course tennis (which is believed to come from the French word “tenez”) was one of those. And lots of the courts in Paris and the surrounding countryside were either demolished or used for other purposes, industrial or farming. It almost makes one weep to think of it.
‘But thank the Lord, there are a few courts still in use, and the Paris court in Rue Lauriston is one of them, very near the Arc de Triomphe. Also very handily just opposite the court is the Cimarosa Hotel, into which I and my three chums booked, planning to have two days of tennis without missing out on the Parisian gastronomic delights and fine wines for which Paris is so famous. Is there anything better on the earth after a game of tennis than to sit down with a bottle of Bordeaux Premier Cru?
‘We caught an early ferry to Dieppe, stopped for a menu gastronomique in Rouen and were ensconced in the Hotel Cimarosa in good time for our seven o’clock doubles. A close affair (on handicap) with The Old One and The Fat One finally overcoming The Thin One and The Fair One 6-4/5-6/6-3. And still time for an excellent dinner at a little bistro The Fair One knew from a time when she had been a Paris resident. No problem sleeping like tops that night!
‘However, the next day all did not go according to plan as it should have done, due to crossed wires or some kind of communication snafu. After a good lunchtime menu gastronomique at a brasserie The Fair One knew, she, as ladies will, said that she needed to do a bit of shopping. After all, if you’re a lady you don’t come to the home of haute couture without checking out the wares on offer, do you? And since we were all gentleman one of our number suggested he should accompany her as a bodyguard to protect her from any surviving element of sans-culottism on the rues de Paris. Well, this where the wires got crossed, as we discovered the next morning. While I was sure we’d agreed to another seven o’clock doubles that evening, somehow The Fair One and her escort got the idea that they were meant to be dining à deux, so we ended up playing a singles that evening (at level), which I won 6-5/4-6/6-2 (and got three in the winning gallery!).
‘All confusions cleared up in the morning when we set off back in the Road-Eater to Blighty, stopping only for a menu gastronomique in an excellent restaurant in Beauvais. The pig’s trotters were especially good and an excellent 1955 Chateau Palmer was imbibed.
‘So, another jolly jaunt jaunted. Spouses reunited, God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world! Merci beaucoup, gay Paree.’
Jude flicked through the rest of Courts in the Act, but there appeared to be no further references to Reggie Playfair. Was it conceivable that he and The Fair One had not played their evening doubles all that time ago because they were starting an affair, possibly even in bed together at the time of the court booking? Oenone Playfair, she remembered, suspected that her husband’s illicit relationship had started in Paris.
So who, then, was The Fair One? Well, there weren’t many candidates. It had to be Jonquil Targett. Piers had said she had been blonde before she was blonded. Also that she used to play a lot of real tennis. And he’d suspected that she and Reggie might have had a relationship. What was more, from what he’d said of her character, she was the kind of woman who’d glory in starting an affair with another man under her husband’s nose.
Jude felt she had to contact Jonquil, but she didn’t know how to go about it. On the one occasion the woman had contacted she had done so using Piers’ iPhone. So her number wouldn’t be on Jude’s mobile. And Piers was so protective – or afraid – of his estranged wife that he wasn’t likely to give his current lover a contact for her.
Then Jude had a brainwave. Of course, the last message on Reggie Playfair’s phone had been from Jonquil setting up their encounter in Lockleigh House tennis court. And before Piers had interrupted her in the small hours of the Wednesday night, Jude had written down the number from which the fatal text had been sent.
Jude rootled about in the untidy pile of papers on her sitting-room floor, and triumphantly produced the Allinstore receipt on the back of which she had scribbled.
No procrastination now. Jude knew that her restlessness had two causes. One, frustration at not being able to find out the exact circumstances of Reggie Playfair’s death. And two, uncertainty about Piers Targett’s honesty. Ringing Jonquil promised to bring a resolution in both cases.
She keyed in the number and got a recorded voice. The speaker did not identify herself, but asked the caller to leave a message.
Jude didn’t leave one. She was too shocked to work out what might be the right thing to say. Because, though she recognized the recorded voice, it wasn’t Jonquil Targett’s.
TWENTY-NINE
Carole Seddon did not allow herself to feel overwhelmed by the nature of her task. She was so excited by the progress she was making in her search for Marina Holland that she would not allow in any negativ
e thoughts. She was trying to track down a young man called Vladimir Gretchenko, who had possibly lived in Brighton eight years previously. He could now be anywhere in the entire world. He might not even still be alive. And the idea that he was still in touch with Marina Holland – if indeed he ever had been in touch with Marina Holland – might well be fanciful.
Carole sat in front of her laptop in its permanent position in her spare room. She started by googling ‘Vladimir Gretchenko’. To her surprise, a couple of entries came up, but they didn’t seem very helpful. For one thing, the details were in Russian. And then again the means of contact was through Facebook.
Was Carole Seddon about to abandon the principles of a lifetime and register with a social network?
Not quite yet. She found that, without actually signing up to anything, she could access a page that offered to ‘Find people with your last name on Facebook.’
The Vladimir Gretchenko whose photo appeared there was bespectacled and grey-haired. Far too old to have been a boy in a Brighton Russian Club eight years before.
So Carole Seddon concluded with some relief – though possibly not accuracy – that Facebook and Twitter would not be of any use to her investigation.
On the other hand, there was always good old directory enquiries, now of course a completely online service. She accessed 192.com.
The free people search came up with nothing in Brighton for ‘Vladimir Gretchenko’. Now too caught up in her quest to exercise her usual parsimony, Carole paid for an advanced search. But that again produced no results.
Since she had bought six credits she next searched for Vladimir Gretchenko in East Sussex. Nothing. West Sussex – the same result.
She tried Hampshire, by now so hyper that she was prepared to go through every county in the British Isles. And maybe then she’d embark on the ones in Russia (assuming, that is, Russia had counties).
But Hampshire proved fruitful. There was a Vladimir Gretchenko listed in Southampton.
Rather than claret-soaked, Jude now thought of Wally Edgington-Bewley’s voice as marinated in 1955 Chateau Palmer as he expressed his delight at hearing from her.
‘I was just ringing to say how much I enjoyed Courts in the Act.’
He was obviously chuffed to bits by her reaction, but his British instinct for self-depreciation came to the fore. ‘Oh, it’s a load of tosh, really. A poor thing, but mine own. I am quite pleased with the title, though, I must confess – a little bit clever, don’t you think?’
‘Very,’ Jude lied.
‘I just thought it’d be rather jolly to have a record of all that stuff, you know. It has been a kind of lifelong obsession for me. I mean, I’ve really no pretensions to being a writer.’
Jude was far too gracious to agree with this last statement. ‘I really enjoyed it,’ she said. ‘I was particularly interested in your visit to Paris.’
‘Ah, la belle Rue Lauriston, mais oui. Well, of course you would be interested in that, because your Piers was on the jaunt with us.’
‘“The Thin One”?’
‘Exactly. Bit rotten of me to call the other young reprobate “The Fat One”, but Reggie took it in good part. Always did have a bit of a pot, though. Still, he never minded a joke against himself, Reggie . . . poor old bugger.’
‘And then of course there was “The Fair One” . . .’
‘Yes, always nice to have a filly on board for one of those jaunts. Raises the tone, don’t you know – not to mention the level of the conversation. The chatter of chaps on their own always has a tendency to sink to the lowest common denominator, eh? Doesn’t take long to get back to prep school smut.’
Jude knew she would have to be circumspect in any enquiries she made about Jonquil Targett’s role in the ‘jaunt’, so she started, ‘It must have been nice for her to have her husband there too.’
‘What?’ Wally Edgington-Bewley sounded bewildered. ‘Her husband wasn’t in Paris. He was off on one of his foreign postings. Felicity had just settled one of their children into boarding school and she had a few days free. That’s why she was able to come with us.’
After the shock it had just received, Jude’s brain was reeling, realigning its assumptions, recasting The Fair One not as Jonquil Targett, but as Felicity Budgen.
She managed to come up with a formula of words that didn’t make her sound too stupid. ‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry, I get confused with all the relationships. You know, it’s only been a few weeks since I met anyone at Lockleigh House tennis court.’
‘Of course, of course.’ Wally Edgington-Bewley didn’t seem to have any problem accepting her explanation.
‘I was rather amused,’ Jude went on, ‘by the confusion that happened your last night in Paris on that jaunt.’
‘What was that?’ asked Wally. ‘Sorry, a while since I wrote the book and the memory’s not what it was.’
‘Oh, there was that business of you expecting to play a doubles and the other two not turning up and you ending up having a singles.’
‘Oh yes, of course, remember now,’ he said, and there was a new caution in his voice.
‘Did you ever get an explanation for what happened?’
‘Just crossed wires, you know. Cock-up on the communication front.’
‘And did you hear what they actually did that evening?’
‘No,’ said Wally Edgington-Bewley firmly. ‘Listen, Jude, I’ve never married myself, but one thing I’ve learned over a great many years is never to meddle in the marriages of others.’
Obviously he did know something. But equally obviously he was not going to say any more on the subject. Accepting this, Jude just showered him with more much-appreciated compliments on Courts in the Act and their conversation ended.
Then she redialled the number from which the last text message on Reggie Playfair’s phone had been sent. And this time Felicity Budgen answered.
Carole dithered. She made herself a cup of tea. She tried to get her mind engaged in The Times crossword. She even contemplated taking Gulliver out for another walk.
But she knew she was fooling herself. She was going to give in sooner or later. And she did – sooner. Nothing – not wild horses nor her own perverse personality – could have stopped Carole Seddon from dialling that Southampton number.
A young female voice answered.
‘Hello,’ said Carole, thinking on her feet. ‘Is that Marina Gretchenko?’
‘Yes,’ said the girl.
THIRTY
The Budgens’ house, called The Old Manor and situated just North of Fedborough, was even more luxuriously appointed than the Playfairs’. Felicity told Jude that they had bought it before her husband’s final ambassadorial posting with a view to spending their retirement there. Its splendour suggested there must have been family money around as well as a Foreign Office income and pension.
When Jude had got through on the phone and said what she wanted to discuss, Felicity Budgen had not hesitated about asking her over. ‘Don’s out playing golf. By the time he’s had a couple at the nineteenth hole, he won’t be back till eight at the earliest.’
This was yet another part of the investigation in which Jude could not involve Carole. She felt bad about it, but there was no way she could introduce a stranger into the kind of conversation she was shortly to have.
Though she had expected Lady Budgen to be at best glacially polite, the woman’s manner came across as warmer than that. But presumably that, too, was part of her diplomatic training. If you spend your entire life expressing interest in things that are not intrinsically interesting, you must get very good at faking quite a range of emotions.
Jude was ushered into a sitting room twice the size of the one at Winnows, which had received the same level of attention from interior designers. She accepted the offer of coffee. Felicity said she would get it herself. ‘I’ve given Inez the afternoon off.’
While her hostess was in the kitchen, Jude took in the room. On the mantelpiece stood an array of photo
graphs of Sir Donald in the company of Her Majesty the Queen, as well as a lot of other recognizable foreign dignitaries. The display on the piano featured pictures of three unfeasibly good-looking children at various stages of development, usually on yachts or ponies.
Jude didn’t exactly feel nervous, but she felt tense. There had been a strange quality in Felicity Budgen’s manner both on the phone and now at the Old Manor House. A kind of resignation, as if she had been long expecting an encounter of this kind. As soon as Jude had mentioned ‘what happened in Paris’, Felicity seemed to recognize that the moment had come.
She brought the coffee on a lace-covered silver tray and poured it. There was not the slightest tremor in her hand as she did so. Then when they had both taken elegant sips, she said, ‘Who told you about Paris?’
‘I read about it in Wally Edgington-Bewley’s book.’
‘Ah.’ Lady Budgen let out a light laugh. ‘I had completely forgotten the mention of it in there. I remembered when he first published the book, we were a bit worried. But gradually, as nobody said anything, we realized that we couldn’t be safer.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, although almost everyone at the club bought a copy from Wally, none of them did more than look at the photographs. I’m sure there’s not a person in the world who’s actually read Courts in the Act.’
‘Well, I read enough to be intrigued . . . particularly in the light of Reggie Playfair’s death.’
‘Yes.’ Felicity Budgen looked elegantly thoughtful. ‘Reggie Playfair’s death has been a game-changer in many ways.’
‘Was it in Paris that the relationship started?’
‘Mm. The attraction had always been there, we admitted that to ourselves afterwards. But we never saw each other alone. Always a spouse on the scene. And of course we were preoccupied with our own lives, and in my case with the children. Anyway, I was abroad most of the time, supporting Donald as he climbed the greasy pole of the Foreign Office.’
