There was something about ladybirds his mother had once told him that he was trying to recall. Some superstition about them bringing luck, or money, not that he was into superstition – no more than anyone else, at any rate. Conscious of his three partners waiting to drive off after him, and that the players behind them were already on the green, he knelt, picked the orange and black creature up gently with his gloved hand and tossed it to safety. Then he resumed his stance and his focus, ignored his shadow falling directly in front of him, ignored the bumblebee that was still hovering around somewhere and took his practice swing. Thwackkkk. ‘Yup!’ he exclaimed to himself.
Despite the fact that he had arrived at the clubhouse dog-tired this morning, he had been playing a blinder. Three under par on the first eight holes and neither his partner, nor his two opponents, could quite believe their eyes. OK, he was a reasonable-standard club player, with a handicap that had remained resolutely at eighteen for many years, but it seemed to them this morning he had swallowed some kind of a happy pill that had transformed both his normally intensely serious mood, and his golf. Instead of walking around with them moody and silent, immersed in his own inner world, he had cracked a couple of jokes and even slapped them on the back. It was as if some private demon that he normally carried in his soul had been banished. For this morning, at least.
All he needed to do was to stay out of trouble on this hole, to finish the first nine in great shape. There was a long cluster of trees over to the right, filled with dense undergrowth capable of swallowing a ball without trace. Plenty of open terrain to the left. Always safest to aim a little left on this hole. But today he felt so confident he was just going to shoot dead straight for the green. He stepped up to the ball, swung his Big Bertha and did it again. With the sweetest possible snick, the ball soared forward, dead straight, arcing through the cloudless, cobalt sky, and finally rolled to a halt just yards short of the green.
His close friend Glenn Mishon, whose mane of long brown hair made him look more like an ageing rock star than Brighton’s most successful estate agent, grinned at him, shaking his head. ‘Whatever you’re on, matey, I want some!’ he said.
Brian stepped aside, slotting his club back into his bag, and watched his partner line up for his shot. One of their opponents, a diminutive Irish dentist wearing plus fours and a tam-o’-shanter, was taking a swig from a leather hip flask – which he kept offering round, even though it was only ten fifty in the morning. The other, Ian Steel, a good player whom he had known for some years, wore expensive-looking Bermuda shorts and a Hilton Head Island embossed polo shirt.
None of their drives was a patch on his own.
Grabbing his trolley, he strode ahead, keeping his distance from the others, determined to maintain his concentration and not be distracted by small talk. If he could finish the first nine with just a chip and a single putt he would be an incredible four under. He could do it! He was that damn close to the green!
A tad over six foot tall, Bishop was a fit forty-one-year-old, with a lean, coldly handsome face beneath neat, slicked-back brown hair. People often remarked on his resemblance to the actor Clive Owen, which was fine by him. He rather liked that; it fed his not inconsiderable ego. Always correctly – if flashily – dressed for every occasion, this morning he was attired in a blue, open-throat Armani polo shirt, tartan trousers, impeccably polished two-tone golfing shoes and wrap-around Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses.
Ordinarily he would not have been able to spare the time to play golf on a weekday, but since recently being elected to the committee of this prestigious club – and with ambitions to become captain – it had been important for him to be seen participating in all the club’s events. The captaincy itself did not really mean a lot to him. It was the perceived kudos of the title he was after. The North Brighton was a good place for making local contacts and several of the investors in his business were members here. Equally – or perhaps even more importantly – it was about keeping Katie happy, by helping to further her local social ambitions – something she pushed for relentlessly.
It was as if Katie kept lists inside her head that she had obtained from some kind of social mountaineering handbook. Items that needed ticking off one after another. Join golf club, tick, get on committee, tick, join Rotary, tick, become president of Rotary branch, tick, get on NSPCC committee, tick, Rocking Horse Appeal, tick. And recently she had started a new list, planning a good decade ahead, telling him they should be cultivating the people who could one day get him elected High Sheriff or Lord Lieutenant of East or West Sussex.
He stopped a courteous distance behind the first of the four balls on the fairway, noticing with some smugness just how far in front of the others his own ball was. Now that he was closer he could see just how good his drive had been. It was lagged up less than ten feet from the green.
‘Great shot,’ said the Irishman, proffering the flask.
He waved it away. ‘Thanks, Matt. Too early for me.’
‘You know what Frank Sinatra said?’ the Irishman responded.
Distracted suddenly by the sight of the club secretary, a dapper former army officer, standing outside the clubhouse with two men, and pointing in their direction, Bishop said, ‘No – what?’
‘He said, “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink, because when they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as their day’s going to get.”’
‘Never been a Sinatra fan,’ Bishop commented, keeping a weather eye on the three men who were very definitely striding over towards them. ‘Frivolous schmaltz.’
‘You don’t have to be a Sinatra fan to enjoy drinking!’
Ignoring the hip flask, which the Irishman now offered him for the second time, he concentrated on the big decision of which club to take. The elegant way to go was his pitching wedge, then, hopefully, just a short putt. But years of hard experience at this game had taught him that when you were up, you should play the percentages. And on this arid August surface, a well-judged putt, even though he was off the green, would be a much safer bet. The immaculate green looked as if it had been shaved by a barber with a cutthroat razor rather than mown. It was like the baize of a billiards table. And all the greens were lethally fast this morning.
He watched the club secretary, in a blue blazer and grey flannels, stop on the far side of the green and point towards him. The two men flanking him, one a tall, bald black man in a sharp brown suit, the other an equally tall but very thin white man in an ill-fitting blue suit, nodded. They stood motionless, watching. He wondered who they were.
The Irishman bunkered with a loud curse. Ian Steel went next, hitting a perfectly judged nine iron, his ball rolling to a halt inches from the pin. Bishop’s partner, Glenn Mishon, struck his ball too high and it dropped a good twenty feet short of the green.
Bishop toyed with his putter, then decided he should put on a classier performance for the secretary, dropped it back in his bag and took out his pitching wedge.