suppose, he told me that he’d seen Flora’s ghost.’
‘Flora?’ prompted Jude.
‘Our daughter’s name. She didn’t live long enough to be christened or anything, but to us she was Flora.’
‘And where did he see the ghost?’ asked Carole.
‘Everywhere. He said he kept seeing her. Not as the baby that we saw for such a short time, but as a grown woman. I told him that it was just imagination, that I’d experienced something similar. It’s inevitable. You see a girl whose hair’s the same colour as yours and you think, maybe that’s what my daughter would look like if she were still alive. She’d be over fifty now if she’d lived, but I still see women who make me think of Flora.
‘Anyway, I put that to Reggie, but he said no. He pointed out that I kept telling him he had no imagination, so his mind wasn’t going to invent things like that. What he was seeing must be Flora. Or rather Flora’s ghost. To cut a long story short, that got him into reading books about ghosts and. . he sort of became obsessed by the idea.’
‘Well, the obvious question to ask,’ said Carole, ‘is: are there any ghosts connected with the Lockleigh House tennis court? Might ghost-hunting explain your husband’s appearance there the night before last?’
‘That’s a thought.’ Oenone was clearly taken with the idea. Perhaps simply because it was more palatable than her other imaginings. ‘Somewhere in the back of my mind that does ring a bell. A story going back a long way. . to when the Wardock family owned Lockleigh House. Now when did I hear that?’ She tapped at her chin in frustration. ‘Oh, when was it? It’ll come to me. I must have heard it from one of the members of the tennis club. Who was it?’ She waved her hands hopelessly. ‘I’ll wake up at three a.m. and remember it.’
Oenone Playfair smiled, obscurely comforted. ‘It would make sense, though. Much more likely that Reggie had gone to the court on a ghost-hunting search than that he had fixed to meet someone there.’
Neither Carole nor Jude was about to point out the inaccuracy of this assessment. If he was interested in its connections with ghosts Reggie Playfair could have inspected the Lockleigh House tennis court on many occasions. His presence there two nights before was much more likely due to an arrangement to meet someone.
And both Carole and Jude knew that the words she had just articulated would only give Oenone a brief respite. Her worries about her husband betraying her would soon return.
Which gave an extra urgency to their mission to find out precisely what had drawn Reggie Playfair to the tennis court that night.
It was Carole who had asked permission to check out the BMW. Oenone admitted that she hadn’t had the strength to look inside it. ‘So much Reggie’s car — it’ll still smell of him, like he’s popped out and is just about to come back in. But you two do look in it by all means.’
She had also explained to them how the car had got back to Winnows. ‘George Hazlitt — you know, the pro — he drove it over. With his junior, Ned, following in another car to take them back.’
She gave them the keys, saying, ‘Obviously if you find anything of interest, let me know. Otherwise, just drop the keys back through the letterbox. I think I might go and put my feet up for a while.’
And they both realized how desperately exhausted Oenone Playfair was. In spite of her overt stoicism, the events of the past days had taken a heavy toll on her. And the long conversation with Carole and Jude couldn’t have made her any less tired.
She saw them to the door and added, ‘Oh, and by the way, do let me know if you find Reggie’s mobile phone in the car. I couldn’t find it in the clothes that came back from the hospital. . not that I really looked that hard. I was. .’ The strain was beginning to show more forcibly now. ‘As I say, I’m just going to put my feet up for a while. Then I’ll have to address myself to the subject of funeral arrangements.’
They could both tell that she was now just desperate to be on her own, so they said their hasty goodbyes. And as soon as Oenone had closed the front door, they started their inspection of the BMW.
‘Be very handy,’ said Carole, ‘if we did find his mobile phone, with a text on it from someone arranging to meet him at the tennis court.’
‘Well, don’t hold your breath,’ said Jude. ‘The business of investigation, as we have found out, is seldom quite as simple as that.’
And so it proved. The BMW did not contain a revelatory mobile phone. Nor a note setting up an assignation with an old flame. Nor indeed anything else that one wouldn’t have expected to find in the car of a wealthy married man in his seventies.
As she sedately drove her sedate Renault back to Fethering, Carole Seddon observed, ‘There’s one thing that’s struck me as particularly odd in everything I’ve heard today.’
‘Something Oenone said?’
‘No. Something you said.’
‘Oh?’
‘When we were driving over to Winnows. You said when you arrived at the tennis court yesterday morning Piers Targett was standing beside his Jaguar. .’
‘The E-Type, yes.’
‘And where was Reggie Playfair’s BMW?’
‘Parked by the wall of the tennis court, a little bit further along.’
‘But Piers didn’t refer to it before he went into the court?’
‘No.’
‘You said they were great friends, though, didn’t you?’ Jude nodded. ‘So Piers would have recognized Reggie’s car?’
‘Yes,’ Jude agreed unwillingly.
‘Which must mean that Piers knew Reggie was at the court before you found his body.’ There was a silence. ‘Mustn’t it?’
Jude felt very wretched.
ELEVEN
When Carole Seddon got back to High Tor, her Labrador, Gulliver, looked extremely reproachful. She hadn’t been out long, but his expression was that of a child whose mother had abandoned him at birth. Though he’d had his normal early-morning walk, Carole couldn’t resist the baleful pressure to take him out for another blow on Fethering Beach.
So it was only after she’d done that that she checked her emails on the laptop incarcerated in her spare bedroom. And found one from the Susan Holland she had contacted about the Lady in the Lake case.
Yes, the woman would be happy to meet. She lived in Brighton, had a part-time job and no car, so it would be easier if they could meet there. She worked afternoon and evening shifts at a nursing home, but was free most mornings. There was a coffee shop in Brighton called Bean in Love that would be a good place to meet.
The email gave no impression of the kind of woman Susan Holland was. It was properly spelled and punctuated, but offered no indication of age, social standing or any other details of her life.
Seizing the moment before her mind started to dither and equivocate, Carole sent back an email wondering whether Susan Holland might be free to meet at Bean in Love the following morning at, say, eleven o’clock. .?
She was gratified to receive a reply within minutes, assenting to the rendezvous. It had been sent from a Blackberry. For a moment Carole considered the possibility that this meant Susan Holland was rich. But only for a moment. Everybody has Blackberries these days.
Having set up the meeting gave her a warm glow. This was an investigation she was doing without Jude. And though she had been included in the request for help from Oenone Playfair, Carole was still feeling a little resentful towards her neighbour. Not only was Jude getting into far too serious a relationship with Piers Targett, she was also bound to be the major player in any investigation into Reggie Playfair’s last hours. It was Jude, after all, who had found the body, Jude who had the contacts at Lockleigh House tennis court.
All in all, Carole Seddon was quite glad she had a case of her own to investigate.
It was the following morning, the Friday, that a call came through to Woodside Cottage.
‘Hello, it that Jude?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Oenone Playfair.’
