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.
Piers looked back at the corpse, then ruefully at Jude. ‘Poor old bugger. Mind you, after the number of heart scares he’s had, he’s been on borrowed time for the last two or three years. And Reggie really loved his real tennis, so dying on the court is probably the way he’d want to go.’ He let out a wry chuckle. ‘When the news of this gets out, I know the first question a lot of the members here will ask . . .’
‘“What was he doing here at this time of the morning?”’
‘What? Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, Jude, one or two people might ask that, but I can guarantee that if I were to say to the average member here, “Reggie Playfair dropped dead on the court”, the next thing they’d say would be, “Oh? What chase?”’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, I explained to you that the chases are the painted lines on the floor of the court, representing the distances from the back to—’
‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with Reggie’s death?’
‘It’s a kind of joke. You know, somebody drops dead on court and obviously the first question you ask is: “What chase?”, and in Reggie’s case it’d be “Hazard better than second” and—’
‘I really don’t think it’s something you should joke about.’
This was a very uncharacteristic thing for Jude to say and the tone of voice she used was out of character too. Certainly in their brief acquaintance Piers Targett had never heard her speak like that before and he was instantly all contrition.
‘Listen, Jude. I’m not saying this because I don’t care about Reggie. We go back thirty years at least. I’m deeply shocked by the fact that he’s pegged it, but I can’t pretend it was unexpected. And the members of this club who’ll ask which chase he died on, they care about him too. It’s just the old thing of a joke making the totally unpalatable just a little bit more palatable. Surely you’ve come across that syndrome before, Jude?’
‘Of course I have.’ She was apologetic now, aware of how unusual it was for her to snap at anyone. ‘More interesting to me, though,’ she went on, ‘is the other question I asked. Aside from the fact that he died there, why on earth was Reggie Playfair on the court in the first place?’
‘Well, I’m sure there are many reasons why . . .’ Hearing the door of the pros’ office open, Piers Targett left the sentence there and looked questioningly towards George Hazlitt.
‘Don’ll be here in about half an hour. In fact he was at some dinner in London and stayed up there last night. He’s on the train back now, but Felicity’s managed to get a message to him, so he’ll drive straight here when he gets to Fedborough Station.’ The pro looked at his watch. ‘I should be in time to put off the ladies’ doubles at ten fifteen.’
‘Aren’t you going to close the court for the whole day?’ asked Piers, perhaps trying to demonstrate to Jude that he really did have some respect for his dead friend.
‘I’ll see what Don says.’ And George Hazlitt went back to the office to make the next phone call.
There was more hanging around, waiting for the club chairman. Jude got the impression that George Hazlitt would have preferred her not to be there, but he didn’t raise the issue. She was Piers Targett’s guest and the pro seemed to show deference to the older man.
As Jude had been told on the Sunday, Sir Donald Budgen was a retired British ambassador, and as such presumably used to dealing with more serious incidents than the discovery of a corpse on a real tennis court.
He took one look at Reggie Playfair’s body and said, ‘Poor old bugger.’ (This was clearly the default response to death amongst the members of the Lockleigh House Tennis Club.)
Sir Donald Budgen was reintroduced to Jude. He greeted her with the automatic professional charm of a diplomat. ‘Of course. We met briefly on Sunday. I’m sorry that you’ve come into a situation like this. If you’d prefer to go home, I’m sure we—’
‘I’m fine.’
This was not the response that Sir Donald Budgen had been hoping for, but he was far too well trained to show that. Instead he went straight into organizational mode. ‘The main thing we need to do, George, is to ensure that the news of Reggie’s death gets out to the members in the proper way. We don’t want any rumours spreading around. We need everyone to get the information at the same time in the correct form.’ Jude got the impression that the words ‘proper’ and ‘correct’ made frequent appearances in Sir Donald Budgen’s conversation. ‘I’ll draft an email for you to send out to all the members, George.’
‘Thanks, Don.’
‘But obviously it’s important that the message doesn’t go out before Oenone’s been informed of what’s happened.’ The ex-ambassador glanced at his watch. ‘You say you’ve put off the ten fifteen booking?’
‘Yes. I used the same excuse about a leak on the court. I’ll explain it to the ladies later. I’m sure in the circumstances they won’t mind my little white lie.’