Simon Brett - The Corpse on the Court

‘However, the next day all did not go according to plan as it should have done, due to crossed wires or some kind of communication snafu. After a good lunchtime menu gastronomique at a brasserie The Fair One knew, she, as ladies will, said that she needed to do a bit of shopping. After all, if you’re a lady you don’t come to the home of haute couture without checking out the wares on offer, do you? And since we were all gentleman one of our number suggested he should accompany her as a bodyguard to protect her from any surviving element of sans-culottism on the rues de Paris . Well, this where the wires got crossed, as we discovered the next morning. While I was sure we’d agreed to another seven o’clock doubles that evening, somehow The Fair One and her escort got the idea that they were meant to be dining a deux , so we ended up playing a singles that evening (at level), which I won 6–5/4-6/6-2 (and got three in the winning gallery!).

‘All confusions cleared up in the morning when we set off back in the Road-Eater to Blighty, stopping only for a menu gastronomique in an excellent restaurant in Beauvais. The pig’s trotters were especially good and an excellent 1955 Chateau Palmer was imbibed.

‘So, another jolly jaunt jaunted. Spouses reunited, God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world! Merci beaucoup , gay Paree.’

Jude flicked through the rest of Courts in the Act , but there appeared to be no further references to Reggie Playfair. Was it conceivable that he and The Fair One had not played their evening doubles all that time ago because they were starting an affair, possibly even in bed together at the time of the court booking? Oenone Playfair, she remembered, suspected that her husband’s illicit relationship had started in Paris.

So who, then, was The Fair One? Well, there weren’t many candidates. It had to be Jonquil Targett. Piers had said she had been blonde before she was blonded. Also that she used to play a lot of real tennis. And he’d suspected that she and Reggie might have had a relationship. What was more, from what he’d said of her character, she was the kind of woman who’d glory in starting an affair with another man under her husband’s nose.

Jude felt she had to contact Jonquil, but she didn’t know how to go about it. On the one occasion the woman had contacted she had done so using Piers’ iPhone. So her number wouldn’t be on Jude’s mobile. And Piers was so protective — or afraid — of his estranged wife that he wasn’t likely to give his current lover a contact for her.

Then Jude had a brainwave. Of course, the last message on Reggie Playfair’s phone had been from Jonquil setting up their encounter in Lockleigh House tennis court. And before Piers had interrupted her in the small hours of the Wednesday night, Jude had written down the number from which the fatal text had been sent.

Jude rootled about in the untidy pile of papers on her sitting-room floor, and triumphantly produced the Allinstore receipt on the back of which she had scribbled.

No procrastination now. Jude knew that her restlessness had two causes. One, frustration at not being able to find out the exact circumstances of Reggie Playfair’s death. And two, uncertainty about Piers Targett’s honesty. Ringing Jonquil promised to bring a resolution in both cases.

She keyed in the number and got a recorded voice. The speaker did not identify herself, but asked the caller to leave a message.

Jude didn’t leave one. She was too shocked to work out what might be the right thing to say. Because, though she recognized the recorded voice, it wasn’t Jonquil Targett’s.

Carole Seddon did not allow herself to feel overwhelmed by the nature of her task. She was so excited by the progress she was making in her search for Marina Holland that she would not allow in any negative thoughts. She was trying to track down a young man called Vladimir Gretchenko, who had possibly lived in Brighton eight years previously. He could now be anywhere in the entire world. He might not even still be alive. And the idea that he was still in touch with Marina Holland — if indeed he ever had been in touch with Marina Holland — might well be fanciful.

Carole sat in front of her laptop in its permanent position in her spare room. She started by googling ‘Vladimir Gretchenko’. To her surprise, a couple of entries came up, but they didn’t seem very helpful. For one thing, the details were in Russian. And then again the means of contact was through Facebook.

Was Carole Seddon about to abandon the principles of a lifetime and register with a social network?

Not quite yet. She found that, without actually signing up to anything, she could access a page that offered to ‘Find people with your last name on Facebook.’

The Vladimir Gretchenko whose photo appeared there was bespectacled and grey-haired. Far too old to have been a boy in a Brighton Russian Club eight years before.

So Carole Seddon concluded with some relief — though possibly not accuracy — that Facebook and Twitter would not be of any use to her investigation.

On the other hand, there was always good old directory enquiries, now of course a completely online service. She accessed 192.com.

The free people search came up with nothing in Brighton for ‘Vladimir Gretchenko’. Now too caught up in her quest to exercise her usual parsimony, Carole paid for an advanced search. But that again produced no results.

Since she had bought six credits she next searched for Vladimir Gretchenko in East Sussex. Nothing. West Sussex — the same result.

She tried Hampshire, by now so hyper that she was prepared to go through every county in the British Isles. And maybe then she’d embark on the ones in Russia (assuming, that is, Russia had counties).

But Hampshire proved fruitful. There was a Vladimir Gretchenko listed in Southampton.

Rather than claret-soaked, Jude now thought of Wally Edgington-Bewley’s voice as marinated in 1955 Chateau Palmer as he expressed his delight at hearing from her.

‘I was just ringing to say how much I enjoyed Courts in the Act .’

He was obviously chuffed to bits by her reaction, but his British instinct for self-depreciation came to the fore. ‘Oh, it’s a load of tosh, really. A poor thing, but mine own. I am quite pleased with the title, though, I must confess — a little bit clever, don’t you think?’

‘Very,’ Jude lied.

‘I just thought it’d be rather jolly to have a record of all that stuff, you know. It has been a kind of lifelong obsession for me. I mean, I’ve really no pretensions to being a writer.’

Jude was far too gracious to agree with this last statement. ‘I really enjoyed it,’ she said. ‘I was particularly interested in your visit to Paris.’

‘Ah, la belle Rue Lauriston, mais oui . Well, of course you would be interested in that, because your Piers was on the jaunt with us.’

‘“The Thin One”?’

‘Exactly. Bit rotten of me to call the other young reprobate “The Fat One”, but Reggie took it in good part. Always did have a bit of a pot, though. Still, he never minded a joke against himself, Reggie. . poor old bugger.’

‘And then of course there was “The Fair One”. .’

‘Yes, always nice to have a filly on board for one of those jaunts. Raises the tone, don’t you know — not to mention the level of the conversation. The chatter of chaps on their own always has a tendency to sink to the lowest common denominator, eh? Doesn’t take long to get back to prep school smut.’

Jude knew she would have to be circumspect in any enquiries she made about Jonquil Targett’s role in the ‘jaunt’, so she started, ‘It must have been nice for her to have her husband there too.’