to fill its fourteen bedrooms, or more likely the space was designed to accommodate all the guests who attended long country weekends. The house looked to Jude like the perfect setting for a game of Cluedo.
The high, wrought-iron main gates of Lockleigh House were locked (though members of the tennis club arriving by car had electronic cards to open them), but Jude had been instructed to enter the premises through a small door to one side of the gates.
Once inside, she looked up at the high rectangular bulk of the real tennis court, standing at some distance from the house. Before the Sunday she wouldn’t have had a clue what the building might be used for; now she couldn’t imagine it being anything else.
Piers was already there, leaning against the side of his E-Type, basking in the thin October sun. There was one other car parked outside the court, a substantial silver BMW.
His smile of welcome was warm, but somehow strange. After the intimacy of their weeks together, the two days of separation had made Jude feel almost awkward at re-meeting him.
But his kiss was reassuringly familiar. He did have exceptionally full, soft lips for a man.
As they drew apart, he said, ‘It’s been too long,’ in a voice of mock heroics. ‘I will never again let you escape my web of enchantment. And soon you will be bound to me closer than ever.’
‘Oh yes? How’s that?’
‘Soon you will have fallen under the spell of real tennis, and then our shared obsession will allow you no escape route.’
‘Really?’ said Jude drily. ‘Suppose I don’t like the game?’
‘Impossible,’ he said as he moved towards the court building. ‘I couldn’t possibly be in love with someone who didn’t like real tennis. Come on, don’t let’s waste a minute of our booking.’
The door had a keypad entrance system. ‘We only have to use this when the pros aren’t here,’ said Piers Targett. Then he tapped in a code, the door gave and he ushered Jude inside.
After the raucous jollity of the Sec’s Cup, the lobby in which they found themselves seemed almost unnaturally silent. The door to the court itself was closed. ‘Better get you a racket,’ said Piers, and led Jude into a small room just inside the entrance. ‘This is where the pros hang out,’ he said.
A closed door with a glass panel showed into an office with the usual assemblage of laptops, printers and telephones. In a glass-fronted case in the outer area was displayed a selection of white kit, each item bearing the Lockleigh House logo of crossed rackets with a fish above them. Purple and green stripes also featured. Supported on pegs on one wall was a row of rackets. Piers took one down and felt its heft in his hand. ‘A bit heavy for you, I think.’ He replaced it and tried another. ‘This is a better weight, but it’ll probably be easier for you if you have a bigger grip.’ He found a racket that met all his criteria and solemnly handed it across to her. ‘Take it in your hand and feel the first tricklings of your lifelong obsession.’
Jude grinned. ‘We’ll see.’
‘Just do the lights.’ He reached into a cupboard to flick a switch.
‘Are they on all day?’
‘Pretty much. Switched on by the first person to get to the court in the morning, switched off by the last one to leave in the evening. But they’ve got sensors to turn them off if there’s no activity on court. Keeps the electricity bills down. Lockleigh House tennis court doing its bit for the environment, eh?’
Piers opened the door and led the way along the passageway at the side of the court, down towards the club room and changing rooms. As he did so, he glanced to his left on to the court and stopped stock still.
‘Oh, my God!’ he breathed.
Lying on the court, more or less in the position where he’d fallen on Sunday, lay Reggie Playfair. He was not wearing tennis whites, but a smart business suit with some kind of club tie.
And the glazed expression on his congested face left no room for doubt about the fact that he was dead.
SEVEN
In her online Lady in the Lake researches Carole Seddon had by now weeded out the eccentric, ghoulish and frankly demented references and had found only two leads which, while they might not provide a solution to the problem, did at least offer sanity. The first was a posting from a man called Dmitri Gascoigne, who was convinced that the bones found in Fedborough Lake belonged to his wife Karen. He had set up a rather primitive website called
The other — and to Carole’s mind more promising — lead was to a woman called Susan Holland. Her blog made clear her conviction that the Lady in the Lake was her daughter, Marina, last seen in Brighton over eight years previously. From the way she wrote, Susan Holland came across to Carole as a very level-headed woman, not a hysterical over-reactor. If she suspected the dead body to be that of her daughter, then she had good reasons for those suspicions. Carole was also attracted to the woman by the reference to Brighton and the surname Holland, which was quite common in the Fethering area. Both of these clues suggested that Susan Holland might be a local.
Anyway, having decided that she would contact Susan Holland, once again Carol felt grateful to her laptop. Email was such a satisfactorily anonymous form of communication — and geographically unspecific. In the event that the woman being contacting proved to be dangerous or troublesome, the only address she’d have would be a virtual one.
That knowledge gave Carole Seddon a sense of security as she set out carefully to draft an email about the Lady in the Lake.
Jude had instantly tried resuscitation, but it soon became clear that nothing could bring Reggie Playfair back to life.
Then Piers had taken charge. He felt in his pocket for his iPhone. ‘Damn, I’ve left it in the E-Type.’ He handed across the keys. ‘Would you mind getting it, Jude love? In the glove compartment.’ Responding to the puzzlement in her eyes, he said, ‘Sorry, it’s just I’ve known Reggie so long, I wouldn’t mind having a moment alone with the old bugger.’
‘Of course.’
Jude gave him a full five minutes of silent communion with the deceased, then went back into the court and handed across his phone. ‘Are you going to ring for an ambulance?’
Piers Targett shook his head. ‘Arriving at hospital five minutes later or earlier is not going to make much difference to poor old Reggie, I’m afraid. I’m going to ring George first.’
‘George?’
‘George Hazlitt. He’s in charge of the court. He should be informed about what’s happened.’
The pro lived at some distance from Lockleigh House, so it was a quarter to nine before he arrived. Fortunately he was just in time to stop at the door the two young men who had the nine o’clock court booking. Not wishing the news of Reggie Playfair’s death to spread too quickly, George Hazlitt fobbed the two players off with some excuse about there being a water leak which made the court unplayable (fortunately it had rained during the night, so his story was just about feasible). The young men, who had been relishing their singles encounter, left considerably disgruntled.
As soon as they’d gone, the pro took a closer look at Reggie Playfair’s body and started keying a number into his mobile.
‘Are you ringing for an ambulance?’ asked Jude.
‘No, I’ve got to check things out with Don Budgen first.’
Jude looked interrogatively at Piers who said, ‘Club chairman. Remember, it was his wife, Felicity, who presented the trophy on Sunday.’
‘Of course.’
‘Morning, Felicity. Sorry about the hour. Could I speak to Don?’ asked George Hazlitt, getting through on the phone. He then moved into the pros’ office to continue his call in private.
