The Corpse on the Court

TWENTY-NINE

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.’

‘What?’ Wally Edgington-Bewley sounded bewildered. ‘Her husband wasn’t in Paris. He was off on one of his foreign postings. Felicity had just settled one of their children into boarding school and she had a few days free. That’s why she was able to come with us.’

After the shock it had just received, Jude’s brain was reeling, realigning its assumptions, recasting The Fair One not as Jonquil Targett, but as Felicity Budgen.

She managed to come up with a formula of words that didn’t make her sound too stupid. ‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry, I get confused with all the relationships. You know, it’s only been a few weeks since I met anyone at Lockleigh House tennis court.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Wally Edgington-Bewley didn’t seem to have any problem accepting her explanation.

‘I was rather amused,’ Jude went on, ‘by the confusion that happened your last night in Paris on that jaunt.’

‘What was that?’ asked Wally. ‘Sorry, a while since I wrote the book and the memory’s not what it was.’

‘Oh, there was that business of you expecting to play a doubles and the other two not turning up and you ending up having a singles.’

‘Oh yes, of course, remember now,’ he said, and there was a new caution in his voice.

‘Did you ever get an explanation for what happened?’

‘Just crossed wires, you know. Cock-up on the communication front.’

‘And did you hear what they actually did that evening?’

‘No,’ said Wally Edgington-Bewley firmly. ‘Listen, Jude, I’ve never married myself, but one thing I’ve learned over a great many years is never to meddle in the marriages of others.’

Obviously he did know something. But equally obviously he was not going to say any more on the subject. Accepting this, Jude just showered him with more much-appreciated compliments on Courts in the Act and their conversation ended.

Then she redialled the number from which the last text message on Reggie Playfair’s phone had been sent. And this time Felicity Budgen answered.

Carole dithered. She made herself a cup of tea. She tried to get her mind engaged in The Times crossword. She even contemplated taking Gulliver out for another walk.

But she knew she was fooling herself. She was going to give in sooner or later. And she did – sooner. Nothing – not wild horses nor her own perverse personality – could have stopped Carole Seddon from dialling that Southampton number.

A young female voice answered.

‘Hello,’ said Carole, thinking on her feet. ‘Is that Marina Gretchenko?’

‘Yes,’ said the girl.