The Corpse on the Court

‘Oh?’

‘He never really got over the grief of losing their baby. Reggie wasn’t the sort to share emotional pressures — I don’t think he and Oenone ever talked about what happened — but somehow he seemed able to discuss it with me. Donald and I also lost a baby — a late miscarriage before we had Harry — so maybe Reggie found me empathetic about his suffering.

‘Also he had this strange fantasy about seeing the ghost of his dead daughter. And I had experienced similar hallucinations about the child Donald and I lost. So Reggie and I talked about that too.’

‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ asked Jude gently.

‘I don’t see why they shouldn’t exist. Everything else in life is so untidy and unfinished. It doesn’t seem to me totally beyond the realms of possibility that some part of a dead person lingers in the world they are meant to have left behind.’

‘So you knew the story about Agnes Wardock’s ghost?’

‘Of course. Cecil Wardock told me.’ She spoke of him without any reference to — or perhaps memory of — the fact that she had only recently been trying to brain him with a blunt instrument.

There was a silence. Then Carole asked, ‘So how many times did you and Reggie meet here?’

‘Oh, maybe a dozen over the years.’

‘And there wasn’t any sexual element in your relationship?’

‘On my side, certainly not. I’d known Reggie for years. Very fond of him, but I’d never felt about him in that way. Besides, I do have standards. Oenone’s a friend. I would never do that to a friend.’

Jude couldn’t help saying, ‘It didn’t stop you with Piers.’

‘The situation was entirely different. Jonquil had effectively walked out of that marriage. And she continually put Piers through the kind of purgatory that. . Well, let’s just say, I didn’t feel any guilt about Jonquil.’

‘Do you think,’ asked Jude, ‘that Jonquil ever had an affair with Reggie?’

‘No,’ Felicity Budgen replied firmly. ‘He wouldn’t have done that. I think even with me, though it was a sexual thing he felt for me, he wouldn’t have. . I mean, if I’d been more accommodating, if I’d offered him any encouragement. . No, he was devoted to Oenone.’

Carole picked up the interrogation. ‘You said there was no sexual element on your side between you and Reggie. But for him you’ve just said it was “a sexual thing”.’

Felicity Budgen grimaced. ‘Yes, sexual at some level, but. . not real. I think in some strange way he did live in hope of my changing my mind about him at some point. But no, he was just infatuated with me.’ She spoke as if infatuation was a tiresome inconvenience that she had had to go through more than once during her life. Maybe it was an occupational hazard for women who went through life being as beautiful as Felicity Budgen, thought Carole.

‘And that infatuation continued right through to his death,’ she suggested.

‘Maybe. It wasn’t something I encouraged.’

‘I think you knew it was still there, though’ Carole persisted. ‘You knew he would immediately respond when you texted him to join you here “like we used to”.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘So,’ said Jude, ‘could we go back to what Reggie said after he’d had that fall at the Sec’s Cup?’

‘Very well.’

‘You thought he was threatening to spill the beans?’

‘Exactly. And it was at that moment that I knew I had to kill him.’

‘But why,’ asked Carole, ‘did you set up that elaborate way of doing it?’

‘Well, would you believe that in my previous life I have very rarely been faced with the challenge of how to kill someone.’ A half-smile played around Felicity Budgen’s lips as she said this. ‘I have many competences — most of which have been necessary to my life as the wife of an ambassador — but murder is not one of them.

‘Also I was looking for a method that could look like an accident, and I knew from Oenone about Reggie’s history of heart trouble. As I say, he’d talked to me about his interest in ghosts. . we’d even discussed the story of Agnes Wardock. And then when I mentioned the idea of dressing up as a ghost to Jonquil, she absolutely leapt on the idea.’

‘Oh, it was you who mentioned it to Jonquil?’ said Jude, relieved that at least one thing Piers had told her hadn’t been a lie.

‘Yes.’

‘But you didn’t tell her the aim of the exercise was to kill Reggie?’ asked Carole.

‘Good heavens, no. I just said it was a bit of fun. You know, Reggie Playfair had been going on about the supposed ghost of Lockleigh House tennis court. . wouldn’t it be jolly to set up a special viewing for him? Jonquil thought it was a hysterically funny idea.’

Felicity Budgen smoothed a delicate hand across her fine brow. ‘I think I’ve been in a rather strange state recently. There are things I’ve done that I can’t really believe. I mean, what I’ve just said I did to Reggie. . was that really me? Did I do that?’

‘I don’t think there’s much doubt about it,’ said Carole firmly. ‘Within the last hour you were also about to brain Cecil Wardock — and you threatened to kill Tonya Grace.’

‘Yes. Yes.’ She nodded as if reminding herself. ‘It all seemed terribly important then. It doesn’t seem so important now. I must have had a lot bottled up inside me. I think the reason that murder appealed was that I was so sick of being nice to people!’ The venom with which these last words were spat out seemed to surprise the speaker as much as anyone. ‘Yes,’ she repeated more calmly, ‘I have been in a very strange state.’

‘You’re not well,’ said Jude. ‘You need help, psychiatric help.’

‘What, a one-way ticket to the funny farm? Donald wouldn’t like that. Donald doesn’t believe in mental illness. He thinks all problems can be sorted out by a strong drink or a game of golf.’

‘Then Donald needs to change his ideas,’ said Jude. ‘Felicity, you definitely need help.’

‘Yes,’ she said, almost gratefully. ‘I think I do.’

Sir Donald Budgen was extremely put out when Carole Seddon rang and said he should come and collect his wife from Lockleigh House tennis court.

‘She’s got her car there,’ he protested. ‘And I’ve got a dodgy back.’

‘She’s in no state to drive.’

‘Then she can organize a bloody taxi.’

‘You should come and collect her,’ insisted Carole.

With bad grace he gave in.

Carole, Jude and Lady Budgen didn’t talk a lot more. They just sat together in the club room, in a silence that seemed perversely companionable. When the doubles players came off the court at eight fifteen, Felicity joshed with them about their game and agreed it was a pity that nobody had taken the last booking of the day. Given the small number of real tennis courts in the country, it was a shame that any time-slot should go unfilled.

The doubles players had changed and gone by the time Sir Donald Budgen arrived. ‘What is this nonsense, Felicity?’ he demanded. ‘You “in a state” — what on earth does that mean?’

‘She’s had a shock,’ said Jude gently. ‘She’s not well.’

The ex-ambassador looked at his wife and something he saw in her face seemed to unnerve him. ‘What’s all this about, darling?’ he asked in a milder tone. ‘You can’t be ill, can you, old sausage?’

And the idea that she might be really frightened him.

THIRTY-SIX

Carole and Jude might have known that Cecil Wardock would have been very neat in his record keeping. He had always been an efficient man in his professional life and he brought that efficiency to the log he kept of nocturnal comings and goings at Lockleigh House.

They had gone straight back to the nursing home after the Budgens had left. In the interim since they had last been there the residents had had their evening meal. The woman on reception was of the view that it was