The Stars' Tennis Balls

by Stephen Fry

  On and on came the questions, one after another. Ned had been talking for over an hour now, and still they hadn’t come to the last night on board the Orphana. Oliver had wanted to know not just every detail of every previous trip abroad, but of every term-time meeting of the Sailing Club too.

  ‘You’re doing well, Ned, very well. Not too far to go now. Where were we? Ah, yes. Ireland. The Giant’s Causeway. Two hours he was away while you boys played on the beach and gasped with pleasure at the rock formations. Two hours exactly?’

  ‘One and half hours perhaps, two at the most.’

  ‘And when he came back, he was on his own?’

  ‘I definitely didn’t see anyone with him.’

  ‘And then you set off for Oban again, sailing through the night? What time was that?’

  ‘Eight thirty-five. I helped with the log. I told you.’

  ‘Just making sure, just making sure. Now, describe the conditions to me. There’s a new moon rising just now isn’t there? You can see it through the window. So two nights ago it must have been pretty dark. There you were, out to sea, hugging a barren coast. Pitch black, I should think, but only for an hour or so at the most, this time of year. Am I right?’

  And on and on came the questions. Oliver was naturally thorough because he was trained to be, but he was covering the ground with especial care now because he had no wish to have to haul Ned back at some later date to go over any questions that he might have missed. There would be enough work in the coming weeks, interviewing the boy’s headmaster, other members of the school bloody sailing club as well as witnesses in Oban and Tobermorey and Holland and a dozen other places besides.

  ‘. . . I could tell at once he was very seriously ill . . . sent Cade off to find a bottle of whisky . . . no, Jameson’s . . . seemed to find it funny . . . made me swear . . . whatever was most holy to me . . .’

  Oliver drained his wine glass.

  ‘Excellent, excellent. And the envelope came from where?’

  ‘Well, a shop I suppose. A stationer’s. He never said.’

  ‘No, no. He produced it from where? His pocket? A safe? What?’

  ‘Oh I see. From a small bag. It was on the chart table.’

  ‘Colour?’

  ‘Red. It was red nylon.’

  ‘Any maker’s name? Adidas, Fila, that sort of thing?’

  ‘N-no . . . pretty sure not.’

  ‘Good, good. Your chum Rufus Cade still out of earshot, was he?’

  ‘Oh yes, definitely.’

  ‘You’re sure of that? You could see the hatchway from where you were?’

  ‘No, but Paddy could and he would have seen if Rufus had come back.’

  ‘Fair point. On we go.’

  ‘Well, that’s when he told me to deliver the letter.’

  ‘There’s nothing on the envelope. Not written in invisible ink is it?’

  ‘No.’ Ned grinned at the idea. ‘He made me memorise the name and address.’

  ‘Which were . . . ?’

  ‘I was to deliver it to Philip R. Blackrow, 13 Heron Square, London SW1.’

  It was as if a bolt of electricity had shot through Oliver Delft’s body. Every nerve end tingled, his heart gave a great leap and for a second blackness crowded in on his vision.

  Ned looked at him with concern. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘It’s cramp. Cramp that’s all. Nothing to worry about.’

  Oliver stood up, turned off the tape-recorder and walked away from the table, pushing hard down on the toes of his right foot, as if trying to stretch out a muscle spasm. It was absolutely essential that he remain calm now, completely calm and completely in control.

  ‘Um listen,’ he said. ‘I won’t be a moment. Wait here, would you? Make some toast or something. There’s more of that milk in the fridge. I need to do a few things. Put in a call. Find you some clothes, that kind of thing. You’ll be all right?’

  Ned nodded happily.

  Mr Gaine was still wrestling with the crossword.

  ‘Everything all right, Mr Delft, sir?’

  ‘He’s a plausible little bastard,’ Oliver said. ‘We’re going to need to do a D16 on him. I’ll go up and clear it. Thank Christ we’re only half an hour away.’

  Mr Gaine’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A D16? Are you sure, sir?’

  ‘Of course I’m bloody sure. This is ultra, Gaine. Absolutely ultra. Whistle up a couple of your own, the tougher and dumber the better. You can use their car when they get here. I’ll be needing yours straight away. I’ll meet you at D16 tomorrow morning with the paperwork. Go on, go and call them up. Use the clean phone. Go now, now! What the fuck are you waiting for?’

  Gaine headed for the door, alarmed at his first sight in four years of his master looking anything less than in total control.

  Oliver stood in the middle of the room thinking furiously.

  It was unbelievable, unbelievable! The name and address, spoken clearly out loud into a live microphone – well, that tape was going to have to be wiped, for a start. No, not wiped. London would need something. The flash from West End Central had been logged, there was Maureen, there was that Detective Sergeant.

  Christ, the boy was a cabinet minister’s son. There’d be hell to pay if he played this wrong.

  Oliver forced himself to take a mental step back and focus his thoughts. The Detective Sergeant and the arresting officers could be dealt with easily. They’d be signing the Official Secrets Act and swearing eternal silence by midnight, he would see to that personally. Besides, they didn’t even know Ned Maddstone’s name. Oliver had come into the interview room just as Floyd was asking Ned to reveal it.

  The long weekend was shot to pieces now, no doubt about it. Oliver wasn’t even going to have a short one. And there was the problem of the tape. He needed a tape with a name and address spoken on it, that was certain, but not the name of Philip R. Blackrow and not that address.

  It had been a horrible shock to hear that name, but when you came down to it, thought Oliver, it could be looked upon as a kind of gift from God. If the flash had come through just five minutes later, it would have been Stapleton here now, not Oliver. And if Stapleton had been given the name Blackrow . . .

  No – all in all, God had been abundantly good. The boy had been picked up on the street. No one knew. No one knew. That simple fact gave him almost limitless power over the matter. From now on it was merely a question of finesse.

  Oliver’s first instinct, almost before the name and address were out of Ned’s mouth, had been to undertake immediate terminal action, but he discarded any such thoughts now. In his world, whatever the contrary assumptions of newspapers and writers of fiction, death was always a very final resort – so final indeed, as to be almost beyond consideration. This was less a question of scruples than of options. An enemy might one day be turned into a friend and a friend into an enemy, a lie might be made true and a truth rendered false, but the dead could never, not ever, be transformed into the living. Flexibility was everything.

  Besides, death had a way of loosening tongues. Dead men may not talk, but living men do and Oliver had great need of living men if he was to survive this crisis. He was confident, of course, that Gaine was as trustworthy as they made them, but the long view had to be taken. There were many bleak scenarios that Oliver could project, and many more, he knew, that he could never even guess at, life being life. There was always the threat of the development of a conscience in Gaine, or of a sudden religious conversion that might bring with it a flood of remorse and confession. Old-fashioned guilt-sodden liberalism was a dangerous prospect too, come to that. There was a descent into the bottle to consider, bringing with it threats of indiscretion or blackmail. Oliver had seen Gaine drunk – pissed as an eft, as it were – and while he knew that the man’s head was as strong as the rest of him, he could not possibly be sure how he would be in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time. Given the impermanence and uncertainty of everything, the permanence and certainty of death could prov
e the most disastrous choice of all. It was paradoxical but true.

  Oliver was the kind of man who had never understood the status accorded to Hamlet. For him, thought and action were one and the same thing. Even as he went upstairs to search the bedroom cupboards for clothes, the beautiful idea was forming itself in his mind to the last detail.

  Gordon had arrived back in time to witness Portia’s blazing row with her parents.

  ‘He is not like all men!’ she yelled at Hillary. ‘Don’t you dare say that!’

  ‘Probably saw some of his friends going to Harrods and forgot all about you,’ Peter offered. ‘His type are like that. No sense of loyalty. Look at how they behaved in Palestine. Look at Ireland. Well rid of the chinless ass if you ask me.’

  ‘Palestine? Ireland? What has Palestine got to do with anything?’

  ‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Gordon cooed as Portia flung herself onto his chest. ‘Cool it, Pete. Can’t you see that she’s upset? What’s up, Porsh? You and Ned have a fight?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she sobbed. ‘Oh, Gordon, he’s disappeared!’

  ‘Disappeared? How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean disappeared. Vanished. I . . . I went for that job interview. He was supposed to be down in the street waiting for me when I came out, but he wasn’t. And he wasn’t at his father’s house in Catherine Street either. I hung around outside for hours but there was no sign of him. And then I thought perhaps he might have phoned here, so I came home as fast as I could, but there was no message, nothing. And anyway,’ she said, rounding on Peter. ‘What do you mean chinless? Ned’s got a wonderful chin. What’s more, he doesn’t have to hide it under a scraggy moth-eaten beard like some people.’

  ‘Well we won’t know that for sure,’ said Peter, folding open the Morning Star with a flourish, ‘until he’s old enough to grow a beard, will we, pet?’

  ‘An appalling way to treat someone,’ sniffed Hillary. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s a kind of emotional rape. It is. It’s rape pure and simple. Rape.’

  Portia turned towards her mother and snarled.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Gordon, laying a placating hand on Portia’s shoulder and pulling her round to face him. ‘Let’s stay with it. Did you call yet?’

  ‘Call? Call where?’

  ‘Ned’s house. His father’s house. In . . . Catherine Street, was it?’

  ‘Of course I called. I rang the moment I got back here.’

  ‘Nobody home?’

  ‘It just rang and rang,’ said Portia going over to the telephone, ‘I’ll try again now.’

  ‘Seems kinda strange.’

  ‘I know it does. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell these two, but they won’t listen.’

  ‘What about his dad?’

  ‘I don’t have his number. He’s down at his constituency.’

  ‘Yes, chasing after innocent foxes, no doubt.’

  ‘It’s July, Peter!’ Portia shouted. ‘They don’t hunt in July!’

  ‘Well, please excuse me, your highness. I’m sorry I’m so shockingly unfamiliar with the delicate nuances of the social calendar. I’m afraid my time these days is taken up with trivial things like history and social justice. There just never seems to be enough left over to devote to the really important issues, like how the upper classes organise their year. I really must get round to it one day.’

  Much of this fine speech was wasted on Portia, as she had stuck a finger in one ear while the other was pressed hard against the telephone receiver.

  ‘No answer,’ she said, ‘he’s not there.’

  ‘Or not picking up . . .’ said Hillary.

  Gordon was itching to turn on the TV to see if there was anything yet on the news, but he knew that for the moment he would have to concentrate on behaving in his most tender, brotherly and concerned manner. This crisis for Portia, and the public scandal that was certain to break, would draw her closer and closer to him. He needed to play it slow, not rush things.

  ‘Would it help if I maybe went over?’ he asked. ‘To Catherine Street? You could stay by the phone in case he calls.’

  ‘Oh, Gordon, would you?’

  ‘Sure, no problem.’

  ‘But suppose he phones after you’ve gone?’ Portia wanted to know. ‘How can I get in touch with you?’

  ‘I’ll find a call-box somewhere and check in every hour,’ said Gordon.

  ‘Be back by midnight,’ Hillary called after him. ‘If he hasn’t turned up then you’ll have to decide what to do in the morning. I’m not having you hanging around the street all night.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Gordon. ‘No problem.’

  He wheeled his bicycle from the garage and set off towards Highgate, and Rufus Cade’s parents’ house, a pleasant evening of smoking grass and giggling at the news ahead of him.

  Ned was tired, but strangely elated. There is no pain in talking to someone who is fascinated by every word you say. Once he had made the decision to tell Oliver everything, he had actually enjoyed the experience of examining his memory so minutely. He was rather proud of the accuracy and the detail of his recall.

  And what a story! He couldn’t wait to tell Portia all about it, if he was allowed to. He would tell his father for certain. And Rufus perhaps, who had been right there that very night. Oliver would probably have to question Rufus anyway, and the whole of the Sailing Club too. What a scandal for the school!

  The cannabis in his pocket however, that remained a total mystery. Ned wondered if perhaps those Spanish students he had spoken to outside the college had seen the policemen coming up behind him and dropped the package into his pocket as a way of saving their own skins.

  Oliver came back into the room holding a supermarket carrier bag. ‘Details, details,’ he said. ‘My department, it grieves me to say, is an absolute bugger for details. Here you go, you can put these on in a second. I’m afraid yours got oil all over them in the boot of the car.’

  Ned took the bag and looked inside. He could see a pair of Dunlop tennis shoes, grey trousers, a pullover and a tweed jacket.

  ‘Brilliant!’ he said. ‘Thanks so much.’

  Oliver had set the tape-recorder running again.

  ‘Think nothing of it. Now then, you have a girlfriend I think you said?’

  ‘Yes. Portia. She doesn’t know anything about this. In fact, I’ve been wanting to ring her.’

  ‘All in good time. What does her father do, I wonder?’

  ‘Well, he’s a history lecturer at the North East London Polytechnic.’

  Oliver could have hugged himself with delight. It was almost too much. A history lecturer! At the NELP, if you please . . .

  ‘I see,’ he said, ‘and just for the record, I wonder if you could give me his full name and address?’

  ‘Um, Peter Fendeman, 14, no 41 sorry, 41 Plough Lane, Hampstead, London NW3. But why . . . ?’

  ‘Say that again for me, would you? Just the name and address.’

  ‘Peter Fendeman, 41 Plough Lane, Hampstead, London NW3.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Jewish too, by the sound of it. Oh frabjous day. When things fall into place like this, Oliver told himself, it doesn’t do to become arrogant. It is God’s work.

  ‘Ned you’ve been fantastic! I can’t tell you how sorry I am that we had to hoik you out here and put you through this nonsense. Look, I’ve got to hare up the motorway in the other direction from you, check out a few things in Scotland, so I’ll say goodbye. Mr Gaine can look after you from now on.’

  Ned took the outstretched hand and shook it warmly. ‘Thank you, Mr Delft. Thank you so much.’

  ‘It’s Oliver. And thank you, Ned. It’ll make a real difference you know. You should be very proud of yourself.’

  ‘But what about the drugs?’

  ‘Drugs, what drugs?’ said Oliver, lifting the spools of tape from the recorder. ‘The whole incident is forgotten, Ned. No, better than forgotten – it never happened. The police never picked you up, in fact they’ve never heard of y
ou. They don’t know your name, they don’t even know what you look like. I promise you this, by tomorrow morning every record of your arrest will have disappeared for ever.’

  And oh, if only you knew how true that was, Oliver said to himself. How wonderfully, wonderfully true.

  ‘Phew!’ Ned smiled as relief flooded through him. ‘If the press had heard about it, my father would have been . . . well, devastated.’

  Oliver checked his watch.

  ‘I’m afraid it may be a little while before you can leave. I’m taking the only car. We’ve sent for another though, and it shouldn’t be too long before it gets here. I’d get into those clothes now if I were you. Have a safe journey home and if you need anything, just ask Mr Gaine.’

  *

  The pullover fitted. There was that to be said. It smelled of rotten onions, but at least it fitted him perfectly. The jacket and tennis shoes were too tight by miles and the trousers seem to have been made for a five foot man with a forty-eight inch waist. Oliver hadn’t thought to include a belt, so Ned hunted around the kitchen looking for string. He found some in a drawer and drew it five times around his middle. He was picking up a knife to cut the string when he heard the door open.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mr Gaine,’ he said, turning with relief. ‘I was hoping you might . . .’

  Gaine stepped forward. Before Ned knew what was happening his right arm had been twisted behind his back so high that the bone was wrenched from its socket. Ned screamed as much from the sound of the crack and pop as from the pain. He screamed again when Gaine’s enormous fist slammed into the side of his head, dropping him to his knees. But when Gaine followed up with a blow of incredible force to the back of his neck, Ned was already incapable of screaming any more.

  Mr Delft had been right as usual, thought Gaine, returning the knife to the drawer. Nasty piece of work. Weak though, he said to himself, looking down at Ned’s unconscious body. Very weak. Like wrenching a wing from a chicken. Where’s the challenge in that? He heard the sound of a van in the driveway and, pausing only to deliver a heavy and pleasingly crunchy kick to Ned’s ribs, Mr Gaine made his way out into the hallway.