‘No, I’m sure they’ll be fine. Who’s on at eleven thirty?’
‘The Old Boys’ doubles. Every Wednesday morning, regular as clockwork. Shall I call Wally to head them off at the pass?’
Sir Donald Budgen gave another look at his watch. ‘Hold fire for the moment, George. Wally’s only just down the road – he won’t need much notice if you have to cancel. Next thing we should do is call an ambulance to take the body away. If that’s sorted by eleven, then I can see no reason why the Old Boys shouldn’t have their doubles. So, George, you call for an ambulance.’
For a moment the pro looked perplexed. ‘What number should I—?’
‘It’s just a straightforward nine-nine-nine call. Do you want me to do it?’ There was a note of sharpness in the ex-ambassador’s tone, perhaps an echo of some previous disagreement between the two of them about their respective duties. Jude had noticed that the chairman’s manner to the pro was very much that of master and servant . . . though she reckoned that was quite possibly how he treated everyone.
The power struggle was very short. With a ‘No, that’s fine,’ George Hazlitt went through to the office to make the call.
Jude couldn’t prevent herself from asking, ‘Don’t you think the police should be called?’
‘The police?’ Sir Donald Budgen echoed. ‘What on earth has any of this to do with the police?’
‘Well, I’d have thought that any suspicious death—’
‘There is nothing suspicious about this death,’ he pronounced in the voice which he had used to face down argumentative foreigners during his long government service. ‘Poor old Reggie had a long history of heart trouble. It finally caught up with him. That’s all.’
‘But surely the question of why he was here in the court must be—’
‘I said: “That’s all.”’ Sir Donald Budgen was not used to being argued with. He cast a slightly reproachful look towards Piers Targett, as if to say, you really ought to choose your girlfriends more carefully.
And Jude did feel a moment of, not guilt, but regret for having been so premature. The investigation of crimes in the past had made her rather prone to make instant categorization of any suspicious death as murder.
‘Then, of course,’ Sir Donald Budgen went on, ‘there’s the small matter of breaking the news to Oenone. As chairman, it’s my duty to do that. I’ll give her a call and then go to the house.’
‘Of course you’re welcome to do it, Don,’ said Piers diffidently, ‘but I think possibly it might come better from me. I’ve been a friend of the family for over thirty years.’
The ex-ambassador accepted the offer with alacrity. Though in his professional life he had had to take on any number of unpalatable encounters, it wasn’t an experience he’d ever enjoyed and he was very happy to be let off the hook for once.
Piers Targett read something in Jude’s face that she hadn’t realized was there. ‘I think this is a job I should do on my own,’ he announced firmly.
And Jude, intrigued though she was at finding out more about the Playfairs, couldn’t deny that he was right.
As it turned out, the Old Boys didn’t have their doubles cancelled. The ambulance arrived soon after half past ten and all traces of Reggie Playfair had been removed before eleven. George Hazlitt had checked to see if he’d left anything in the club room or changing room, but he hadn’t. Using the keys from the dead man’s pocket, Piers and the pro had also checked out his BMW, but found nothing unexpected. Then Piers set off on his difficult visit to Oenone Playfair.
He told Jude that she could either call a cab and go home or stay and he’d join her for lunch in the Lockleigh Arms. Just down the lane from the court. And to kill time, she could watch the Old Boys’ doubles. That way she might get more idea of the rules of real tennis.
EIGHT
The Lockleigh Arms was the only pub in the village . . . though to call Lockleigh a village was perhaps straining the definition. Apart from the big house with its real tennis court, there were fewer than a dozen other dwellings. The only sizeable one of these was a farmhouse that had given up its original function in the 1970s when its extensive acres had been turned into a golf course, the club house for which was on the main road, some mile or so away from Lockleigh. The village’s other habitations had been built for farm workers, though now they had been modernized and interior-designed to within an inch of their lives to provide weekend retreats for wealthy city-dwellers.
Isolated as it was, the Lockleigh Arms might easily have joined the gloomy and increasing statistics of pub closures, were it not for shrewd management. Building on its natural advantages of a beautiful rural location, the (relatively new) owners had invested shrewdly in refurbishing the place. But they had employed the skills of the restorer rather than the modernizer, so the result was a pub that looked as it might have done fifty years earlier. No muzak was ever heard, there were no television screens or gaming machines. The only places where the modern had been allowed to intrude were out of sight, in the superior-spec toilet facilities and the state-of-the-art kitchen, from which their award-winning chef conjured up wonderful meals.
Just as Ted Crisp had found at the Crown and Anchor, it was the food that brought the punters in. Even in recessionary times, there was still a lot of money in West Sussex, and plenty of well-pensioned couples who enjoyed nothing more than going out for a pub lunch or dinner. The Lockleigh Arms’ menu was cleverly traditional. It featured none of the challenging taste combinations and presentational fussiness beloved of television chefs. The menu offered pub favourites – steaks, liver and bacon, sausage and mash, steak and ale pie, fish and chips – but all superbly cooked from the finest locally sourced ingredients. The Lockleigh Arms was not the cheapest pub in the area, but most visitors reckoned that the quality of the food justified the higher prices.
Geographical proximity alone dictated that it was used a lot by members of the Lockleigh House tennis court. And it was there that Jude was joined by Piers at the end of what felt like a very long morning since they had discovered the corpse on the court.
‘“Resigned” is the word I’d use,’ said Piers Targett wearily. ‘Oenone is resigned to Reggie’s death.’
‘Did she cry when you told her?’
‘No, she’s made of sterner stuff than that. Oenone may be weeping her little heart out now she’s on her own, but she’d never let anyone else see how much she was suffering.’
They were sitting in the bar of the Lockleigh Arms. Jude had been going to order a glass of Chilean Chardonnay, but Piers, being a red wine man, had persuaded her to share a bottle of Argentinian Malbec with him. As ever, he had chosen well. Drinking the fine wine in front of the Lockleigh Arms’ blazing fire was warming both physically and spiritually. They were both feeling rather battered by the events of the morning.
And hungry. Jude’s fruit and yogurt before the taxi collected her was a long time ago and Piers said he hadn’t had any breakfast. From the Lockleigh Arms’ limited but carefully chosen menu they had both ordered the day’s special, venison casserole. That promised to continue the physical and spiritual thawing process.
‘How did you first meet the Playfairs?’ asked Jude.
‘Can’t remember exactly. It was through tennis. You know, Reggie and I had a few friendly games, played in the odd tournament . . . went out for the odd drink . . . We were friends. Then started meeting up with Oenone as well and . . . you know how it is.’
Jude picked up the nuance. ‘You mean that you used to meet up as two couples . . . while you were still married?’
‘You’re very sharp, Jude. Yes, that’s what I meant.’