The Corpse on the Court (11 page)

‘No. Something you said.'

‘Oh?'

‘When we were driving over to Winnows. You said when you arrived at the tennis court yesterday morning Piers Targett was standing beside his Jaguar . . .'

‘The E-Type, yes.'

‘And where was Reggie Playfair's BMW?'

‘Parked by the wall of the tennis court, a little bit further along.'

‘But Piers didn't refer to it before he went into the court?'

‘No.'

‘You said they were great friends, though, didn't you?' Jude nodded. ‘So Piers would have recognized Reggie's car?'

‘Yes,' Jude agreed unwillingly.

‘Which must mean that Piers knew Reggie was at the court before you found his body.' There was a silence. ‘Mustn't it?'

Jude felt very wretched.

W
hen Carole Seddon got back to High Tor, her Labrador, Gulliver, looked extremely reproachful. She hadn't been out long, but his expression was that of a child whose mother had abandoned him at birth. Though he'd had his normal early-morning walk, Carole couldn't resist the baleful pressure to take him out for another blow on Fethering Beach.

So it was only after she'd done that that she checked her emails on the laptop incarcerated in her spare bedroom. And found one from the Susan Holland she had contacted about the Lady in the Lake case.

Yes, the woman would be happy to meet. She lived in Brighton, had a part-time job and no car, so it would be easier if they could meet there. She worked afternoon and evening shifts at a nursing home, but was free most mornings. There was a coffee shop in Brighton called Bean in Love that would be a good place to meet.

The email gave no impression of the kind of woman Susan Holland was. It was properly spelled and punctuated, but offered no indication of age, social standing or any other details of her life.

Seizing the moment before her mind started to dither and equivocate, Carole sent back an email wondering whether Susan Holland might be free to meet at Bean in Love the following morning at, say, eleven o'clock . . .?

She was gratified to receive a reply within minutes, assenting to the rendezvous. It had been sent from a Blackberry. For a moment Carole considered the possibility that this meant Susan Holland was rich. But only for a moment. Everybody has Blackberries these days.

Having set up the meeting gave her a warm glow. This was an investigation she was doing without Jude. And though she had been included in the request for help from Oenone Playfair, Carole was still feeling a little resentful towards her neighbour. Not only was Jude getting into far too serious a relationship with Piers Targett, she was also bound to be the major player in any investigation into Reggie Playfair's last hours. It was Jude, after all, who had found the body, Jude who had the contacts at Lockleigh House tennis court.

All in all, Carole Seddon was quite glad she had a case of her own to investigate.

It was the following morning, the Friday, that a call came through to Woodside Cottage.

‘Hello, it that Jude?'

‘Yes.'

‘It's Oenone Playfair.'

‘Oh, how good to hear you. How are you bearing up?'

‘I'm fine. The only possible thing to be said in favour of organizing a funeral is that at least it keeps you so busy that you can't think about other things. No time to brood.' She was in a more forceful, less twittery mood that morning, though Jude rather doubted whether she was feeling any better deep down.

‘Also I've had so many letters and cards and what-have-you. I had no idea what a lot of people were fond of the old bugger.'

‘Well, on very brief acquaintance, I can see why everyone would have like Reggie. He seemed very straight, very honest.'

‘Yes.' Was there a slight hesitation in the monosyllable? Had ‘honest' not been the right word to use in the circumstances? Whether it was or not, Oenone did not allow anything to stop her flow for long. ‘Anyway, in the middle of the night I suddenly remembered.'

‘Remembered what?'

‘What we talked about yesterday morning. You know, your friend Carole asked if there were any ghost stories attached to Lockleigh House and I said it did ring a vague bell, but I couldn't remember who I'd heard it from. Well, in the middle of last night I did remember.'

‘Oh, well done.'

‘I knew it was one of the tennis club members and I suddenly recalled a conversation from . . . ooh, way back, and it was Tom who mentioned something about some old rumour.'

‘Tom?'

‘Tom Ruthven.'

‘The one who plays in the Old Boys' Wednesday doubles?'

‘That's the lad. I can't remember any details, but I know it was he who mentioned it. He's got some family connection with the Wardocks . . . you know, the ones who used to own Lockleigh House. Anyway, if you want to follow up, Tom's your man.'

‘Do you have a number for him?'

‘Oh, just a minute, Reggie's membership list is around here somewhere. God, he was so untidy.' Not, thought Jude, from what she had seen of the interior of Winnows. Or indeed his car. But then maybe his wife had always followed round tidying up after him.

‘Ah, here it is,' announced Oenone triumphantly from the other end of the phone. And she gave the number. ‘Tom's retired, so he's around a lot of the time. You shouldn't have any problem making contact. Unless, of course, he's out playing golf.'

‘Well, thank you very much for the information. I'll certainly talk to him.'

‘Oh, and incidentally, Jude . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘Don't feel you have to come to the funeral.'

‘Oh.'

‘I mean, you hardly knew Reggie. Piers obviously will be there, but don't feel you have to tag along.'

‘I won't, unless Piers specifically asks me to do so.'

‘Good wheeze. Where is Piers at the moment?'

‘He's in Paris, got some business there.'

‘Oh yes, of course. Fingers in many pies, as usual, our Piers.'

In different circumstances Jude would have asked for elucidation of that enigmatic remark, but it didn't seem to be the moment, as Oenone went on, ‘It's on Thursday, by the way, the funeral. A week today. I could have arranged it for Wednesday – the vicar would have preferred that – but I didn't want the Old Boys to miss their doubles.'

C
arole Seddon arrived at Bean in Love before Susan Holland. It was one of those laid-back coffee shops with lots of sofas and an air of aggressive informality that always made Carole feel tense. Service seemed to happen from the counter rather than from waitresses. As she approached, she looked up at the infinite variety of coffee types and cup sizes on the chalkboards.

‘Good morning. What can I get you?' asked a girl with a butterfly tattooed on the side of her neck and a badge reading ‘Barista Celine'.

‘Just a black coffee, please?'

‘Would that be an Americano, espresso or filter?'

‘Just ordinary black coffee, thank you.'

‘Filter.'

‘If that's what ordinary black coffee is, yes.'

Carole took the white mug to a table and opened her
Times
to the crossword page. But her eyes kept glancing off the clues, refusing to let her brain engage in unpicking their logic. She was nervous. What was she doing, a middle-aged woman setting herself up as some kind of superannuated private eye, poking her nose into things that didn't concern her?

‘Hello. Are you Carole?' She looked up at the sound of the voice. It hadn't occurred to her that Susan Holland might go and get her own coffee before greeting her, but that's what the woman had done. Her ease in the Bean in Love environment suggested that she was a very regular customer.

Susan Holland was one side or the other of fifty. She was shortish, dressed in black leggings and a grey fleece. Her features were strong and dark, suggesting perhaps some Hispanic blood in her genetic make-up. Shortish hair, coloured to a chestnutty sheen, perhaps to hide the incipient grey.

‘First thing I have to ask,' she said very directly as she took a seat opposite Carole, ‘is what your interest is in the Lady in the Lake?'

‘A perfectly legitimate question. And one to which I feel it is difficult to give a simple answer.'

‘You will understand my caution. A lot of rather dubious people involve themselves in missing-person cases. There are plenty of weirdos out there, people with their own bizarre agendas, some whose interest is distinctly unhelpful.'

‘You don't have to tell me that. I've read a lot of the stuff that's been posted on the Internet.'

‘So you understand, Carole, why my instinct is to be extremely careful.'

‘I understand completely.'

‘Then why've you contacted me?' The woman could not keep the neediness out of her voice any longer. ‘Have you got any new information? Have you got any proof that the Lady in the Lake was Marina?'

Carole felt guilty now. She should have thought, should have realized how desperate the woman would be for news of her daughter. Her email contact had been unwittingly cruel, raising hopes where there were none.

‘I'm sorry. I have nothing like that to offer you.' The younger woman looked predictably crestfallen. ‘It's just that I live in Fethering, so obviously I heard about the discovery of the Lady in the Lake up at Fedborough and I just . . . thought maybe it might be worth doing some investigation into it.'

Stated like that, her intention did sound painfully woolly.

‘I'm presuming you're nothing to do with the police?' said Susan Holland.

For a brief moment Carole considered mentioning her former career in the Home Office, but she knew it was irrelevant, so she replied, somewhat shamefacedly, ‘No.'

The reaction that prompted was better than she feared. ‘Thank goodness. They're a useless bunch of tossers. When I asked them to make enquiries into Marina's disappearance, they treated me like I was an idiot, just another menopausal mother who'd had a spat with her teenage daughter.'

‘On thing does strike me,' said Carole. ‘Surely it would be very simple for the police to find out whether the Lady in the Lake was Marina or not. They'd find a DNA match with you.'

‘That wouldn't have worked.'

‘Oh?'

‘Marina was adopted. I don't know anything about her birth parents.'

‘But that information must be available somewhere? Through the adoption agency?'

‘You'd have thought so, but Marina had a rather unusual early life.'

‘In what way?'

‘She was found drifting in a rubber dinghy in the sea off Brighton. Only about two at the time, so very little language to give a clue to where she came from. The view was that the dinghy had belonged to a larger boat that had been smuggling in illegal immigrants. Whether that's true or not is impossible to know. As is whether the larger boat sank, taking down her parents with it. Some people reckoned from her looks – pale blue eyes, high cheekbones – that she came from somewhere that used to be part of the Soviet bloc. No idea if that was true. All conjecture.

‘The facts, on the other hand, are that Marina was taken into care. Her name, incidentally, was given to her because the dinghy was found floating near Brighton Marina. The press at the time came up with the nickname, and it stuck.

‘Anyway, I was married back then, and it was becoming clear that we weren't going to be able to have children, and I was keen to get on with adopting before the authorities thought we were too old. So Marina became our daughter.'

‘And your husband? Is he still on the scene?'

Susan Holland let out a derisive ‘Huh', then added, ‘He went the way of all men. Or at least all the ones I get involved with.'

‘So how old was Marina when you adopted her?'

‘Five. And those years in care hadn't done her much good, which, added to God knows what traumas she'd suffered before that, meant . . . Well, Marina was never the easiest child. Her father walking out didn't help either.'

‘But going back to the DNA, surely there must have been things of hers in the house that the police could have got a match from? A toothbrush or . . .?'

‘I'm sure there were. Still are. But persuading the police that they should be channelling valuable resources into doing those kinds of tests was never going to happen. As I said, they'd written me off as the hysterical mother of a grumpy teenager.'

‘Susan, what makes you think that the remains found in Fedborough Lake might be those of Marina?'

‘Timing as much as anything. That dry summer was the year after Marina disappeared.'

The two women looked at each other. Both knew how flimsy Susan Holland's reasoning was. And both knew the level of neediness that made her clutch at so fragile a straw.

But Carole Seddon didn't comment. Instead she asked, ‘Could you tell me the circumstances of Marina's disappearance?'

Apparently relieved at the direction of the questioning, Susan Holland was more than ready to reply. ‘All right. We're talking seven years ago, more than that now, nearly eight. Marina was sixteen going on twenty-six. A seething vat of hormones and confusion. Every teenager reaches a point where they question their own identity. They don't know where they're going, they want someone to define them. They're full of questions about who they are, what their place in life is. Well, given her complex background, Marina had more of those questions than most kids of the same age.

‘Iain – that's my ex-husband – had walked out about a year before and, though she'd never admit it, Marina had been very hurt by that.'

‘Were they close?'

Susan Holland screwed her face up as she tried to find the right words. ‘They were, in a way. Iain had been very fond of her when she was small. She was a pretty little thing and I think he saw her as a kind of accessory. He'd show her off, at the same time demonstrating to everyone what a great dad he was. But as she grew older, the relationship changed.'