Double Fault

by Judith Cutler

  There wasn’t much love lost between the club and the Hogben estate, for which Dougie blamed the man who’d recently bought it and who was apparently determined to wring every last penny from it. The house itself was used for shooting fairs, country fairs, wedding fairs. However, looking around him, Mark wondered briefly if the owner might have made more profit out of funeral fairs.

  Where the income went no one had any idea. Certainly it wasn’t on the roads that curled through the approach to the club, which had potholes so deep that in rainy weather Mark had been known to park up a couple of hundred yards from the club field.

  He was partnering Alex, an ex-teacher whose Mary Quant bob looked as if it hadn’t moved on since she first had it, although her hair was now white. He’d have preferred another partner, one whose game he could predict. All too often Alex couldn’t get the ball over the net; other times she’d reach and return balls that their opponents would have thought certain winners. They were joined on the court nearest the clubhouse by Henry, a square-built American with an income from no one quite knew where, and John, a taciturn retired GP with varicose veins.

  Play!

  He was to serve first, looking into the sun – no fun with the light-induced blurs and squiggles that seemed to linger in his eyes longer with each passing year. Even dark glasses and a baseball cap didn’t seem to help. The effort to get the ball over the net without a humiliating double fault always took all his attention. It was enough to block out all the kiddie-noise. As they changed ends, they all agreed that coming out of a game that required all their concentration was like emerging from an acoustic tunnel. They went back into it as Mark focused on receiving from Henry, who dished up gentle dobblers and lost to love. Then it was Alex’s turn to serve. While she retied her shoe, he had leisure to look around a little. Outside the netting, but still safe in the car park, one or two of the children were trailing from the far courts towards the rear of the clubhouse, as if to the loo.

  By this time Alex’s serve had gone in – a surprisingly long, wide one, making the receiver put the return shot straight on to his racquet for a nice volley down the centre. Her next serve was an ace – she seemed as amazed as anyone. At this point, two kids decided to return to the far courts via those the Oldies were playing on – bad etiquette which was swiftly corrected. The kids moaned but eventually, in the face of implacable opposition from Alex, who’d clearly retained some of her classroom skills, they bowed to the inevitable and headed back via the car park. Calm was restored. On their way they passed Livvie, heading on her own with great assurance for the clubhouse.

  The set was theirs, four-one. As they gathered round to congratulate each other and wait for Dougie to hand out the cards again, Mark glanced at the clubhouse, but there was no sign of Livvie. No doubt she’d toddled back to her father, who was organizing another ear-splitting ball harvest. But he couldn’t see her on those courts, either. Like the others, he obediently took a card and settled to play, partnering John, and playing against George and Dan. A different group now sat out, to be joined by latecomers.

  After a tough game, which he and John lost three-two, he joined Jayne when the next draw was made. By now, half a dozen people were waiting for a game, and two or three had already called it a day.

  They were changing sides after the first game when on impulse he asked Jayne if she’d seen Livvie.

  ‘Livvie? Oh, yes, she decided to remove Roland’s bike chain, and then didn’t like having dirty hands, so she started to wipe them on her skirt. Quite! I ended up scrubbing her hands with Fairy Liquid to try to get the grease off. The skirt too – she was terribly upset about the stains, and was trying to take it off. I had to take the washing-up bowl out to her – she’s too tiny to reach the sink, and in any case she insisted she had to be where Daddy could see her. Fair enough, I thought. I got most of the mess off – enough to calm her down a bit. Then Dougie called me on to court to warm up and I left her on the decking having a drink of juice. Why do you ask?’ she added suspiciously. Lone men weren’t supposed to ask about vulnerable children, were they? He’d have been suspicious himself.

  But Mark wasn’t so much suspicious as anxious by now. ‘Because I can’t see her anywhere.’

  ‘Oh, she’s around somewhere. Come on – your serve.’

  But his heart wasn’t in it, and it was only because Jayne played so well that they won the game. George’s turn to serve. But there was another interruption, as a lad of about ten marched straight off the kids’ courts through theirs towards the clubhouse. George’s instructions were short and to the point. The boy’s response was even shorter – did his mother know he used such vocabulary? George and the boy argued.

  Mark itched to intervene. Ever the policeman. Instead he had another look round. Still no sign of Livvie. Anywhere.

  ‘Jayne, I’m really worried about that kid. I’m just going to check the clubhouse and the loo. Back in a sec, OK?’

  It felt as if it took for ever to break into the discussion on the decking. Dougie was holding forth about something, and two women were arguing with him. When eventually he got a word in they all denied seeing Livvie. Just to satisfy himself, he checked the Portaloo behind the clubhouse: all too clearly, some of the youngsters hadn’t worked it out properly, and the place was awash with pee and worse. Not the place for a child at all. In the clubhouse itself there was nothing but the kids’ detritus: miniature hoodies, plastic lunch-boxes and even the odd teddy. The small sheds next to the loo where the coach stored his equipment were completely empty. Back to the clubhouse. On the decking in front was a soapy, oily puddle, which must be where Jayne had tried to clean Livvie up. George and Dan looked at him with complete disbelief as he ran straight past them, down to the kids’ area. Jayne yelled something about manners, but he kept going towards Zac.

  Already parental monster-mobiles were arriving to clog up the car park – yummy mummies, by and large, who descended from the vehicles to check each other’s weight loss and yack into their phones without ever watching what their child might be up to. In his bones he knew he wouldn’t see what he wanted to see – an oil-stained shocking pink dress. Flinging open the gate between the two sets of courts, he barged his way through the clamouring kids – they all needed Zac’s attention. Now! Not when Zac’d finished speaking to someone else. Now! Now! Now! Out of the corner of his eye Mark could see an irate mother homing in on the poor young man, presumably to rebuke him for ignoring her little lamb.

  ‘Zac,’ Mark yelled, his deeper voice booming under the starling shrieks, ‘where’s Livvie?’

  Zac casually spread his hands, attention still on the kids.

  ‘I can’t see her anywhere, Zac. Anywhere.’

  Zac stared at Mark, taking in all the implications of what he was saying. ‘Livvie?’ He swivelled round, calling out, ‘Livvie! Come here! Livvie!’ He turned back to Mark. ‘Oh my God!’

  Fran would have done something physical – a reassuring hug that somehow wouldn’t have slowed her down. All he could manage was a swift pat on the shoulder. ‘It’ll be all right, Zac, I promise.’ That was more Fran-like. ‘Stay here and keep these kids with you. Just do it. I’ll do the rest.’ For half a second he hesitated. What if he was overreacting? But he knew deep down he wasn’t. The search had to start immediately. The Golden Hour was vital. And, he told himself, as he ran faster than he knew how to his car, even if the child had just been playing hide and seek, there wasn’t a policeman in Kent who wouldn’t prefer a false alarm to a real abduction.

  He fished out his mobile. Yes, he’d still got the direct line number he needed. No signal! He circled round, desperate to find coverage. At bloody last! Missing children were absolute priority these days – local radio and TV broadcasts would be interrupted if the police team in charge thought the threat of abduction serious enough. And not even abduction – a simple wandering off could lead to disaster just as easily.

  The call was answered first ring. Thank God for the years of practice in gi
ving succinct details. His ex-colleagues were as fully briefed as he could manage by the time the call was over.

  Pulses racing but now, he realized, with stress, not with the effort of running, he pulled his car across the car park exit. No one was to leave – or confuse matters by coming in – until Livvie was found. After all, she might well have simply got bored and climbed into what she thought was her father’s car to take a nap. Or she might have wanted to pet that dog of Dan’s. Unsurprisingly, Zac, a model of calm in normal circumstances, had abandoned his charges and was running round frantically, terror less than a heartbeat away, dragging car doors open and yelling Livvie’s name at the top of his voice.

  Being penned in drove the mothers into collective hysterical anger, some bizarrely threatening Mark with all sorts of legal action. But by now he’d been joined by Jayne, who’d swiftly understood what he was doing; she produced her iPhone and offered to take contact details of anyone who genuinely had to leave.

  ‘Otherwise do what Mark says: stay where you are until the police arrive. Heavens, woman,’ she snapped at a virago of a Mercedes 4x4 driver whose language would have shocked a street kid, ‘imagine if it was your child that was lost!’

  Mercedes Woman refused – unbelievably citing the Data Protection Act – to give any personal information and threatened to ram Mark’s car unless he moved it. He raised his hand like an old-fashioned traffic cop. It was amazing how quickly the lingo returned: ‘Just return to your vehicle, madam, and secure your child inside it until further notice.’

  She opened her mouth, ready to continue her rant, but gratifyingly closed it and did as she was told, even though she mouthed off about crazy old men as she walked away.

  Boosted by the trivial victory, he raised his voice over the hubbub with sufficient force – at last – to sound authoritative. ‘I want all you mothers to collect your child and then go to your car and wait for further instructions.’ When a couple hesitated, he snapped, ‘Now!’ But his voice was kinder as he continued, ‘And you kids who are waiting to be collected, get back on the tennis court and stay with Zac’s helpers. OK, guys?’

  The teenagers in charge looked stunned, tearful. But one girl put up a hand as if she was back in the classroom. ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘Resume the drills, anything to keep the little ones together. Don’t let any of them out of your sight. OK? Excellent.’ He cupped his ear – two or three vehicles, by the sound of it, were already on their way. He grabbed Zac by the shoulders and made him listen.

  The dear old blues and twos. Thank God.

  TWO

  Sergeant Tom Arkwright, about to become an inspector over in Tunbridge Wells any moment now, but currently one of the most valued – and certainly the most loved – of the members of her Major Crime Review team, stopped hurtling two at a time down the stairs so that Fran could make her way up them, considerably more slowly. The moment she saw him she snatched her hand away from the rail, but then she grimaced: he knew she needed its support.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said, the affection in her voice taking away any possible rebuke. ‘It’s only this gammy leg that’s kept me on the payroll, I reckon.’

  ‘And got you that commendation,’ Tom said, turning so that he could walk back up with her. When you were in your thirties, a few stairs here or there didn’t matter.

  ‘Commendation, schommendation.’ She was pleased he didn’t think he should offer her his arm. He had made sure, however, that she was on the side with the handrail, which she needed by the time she reached the last three steps. ‘I bet they were within a whisker of making me redundant, but when you’re run over in the course of duty and the media get hold of the story, it doesn’t look good if they put the skids under you.’ They wouldn’t even have dreamed of it in Cosmo Dix’s day. Dear Cosmo, king of Human Resources, but an absolute emperor when it came to PR. But he’d seen, as he sepulchrally said, the writing on the wall and had started to work in what Fran suspected was a voluntary capacity for a mental health charity.

  As if he had all the time in the world, Tom leant against the wall and said, ‘I should think not! You saved that woman’s life—’

  ‘All I did was act on instinct. I wasn’t heroic. I didn’t calculate risks. Hell, if I had, would I have volunteered to break a leg, at my age?’ she added with a grin. ‘With the wedding in the offing, too?’

  ‘All the same, your instincts were better than most folk’s would have been. And after the chewing over the media gave your old man, a bit of kindness from them to you was worth having.’

  ‘Humph. Any kindness was courtesy of young Dilly Pound, that nice girl from TVInvicta News.’ She paused meaningfully: briefly it had been clear that Dilly would have preferred to hook up with Tom rather than the official fiancé she eventually married. Why not? The clean good looks and gym-honed figure would have attracted any young woman, and yet they made women her age disconcertingly maternal. ‘Another three months and another nine days’ wonder featuring someone else, and I shall be out on my ear, believe me. I just hope I can protect the rest of the team. Though I suppose old cases never die …’

  ‘Most people would be glad to go—’

  ‘It’s a good job you didn’t add anything else, young Tom. References to age are my prerogative.’

  He chuckled with her. They were so secure in their friendship he never bothered calling her ma’am except in public, though he rarely called her Fran within possible earshot of the others in the team. ‘Would I dare? But you’ve done your thirty years of service, you’ve got a good team together who are more than capable of reviewing unsolved crimes, and now you’ve finally moved into your new house and you’ve got the wedding to think about – well, take the redundancy or retirement package, whichever is better, and run, that’s what most people would do.’ He was about to say something else but didn’t. He would in his own good time, Tom being Tom.

  She leant against the banister-rail, easing the weight off the injured leg. It was only will power that had made her discard her walking stick, will power and a fear that she could still be pensioned off, this time on the grounds of ill-health. Now it was more than will power that stopped her even limping – her body had reacted with such resentment to her lopsided gait that half the muscles of her lower back had only last weekend gone into such severe spasms that she’d fetched up in bed popping heavy-duty painkillers. Thank goodness for her lovely NHS physio, Anna, who’d stretched everything back into a semblance of normality and issued her with a long list of exercises.

  She managed a smile. ‘I’ll go when I’m good and ready, Tom. Between you and me, I want Mark to establish his routine first so we don’t tread on each other’s toes. He’s started playing tennis, and if I was limping round the place killing time he’d feel too guilty to go without me.’

  He nodded, implying a mixture of understanding and exasperation. ‘So how is he? Completely recovered?’

  ‘Yes, though he still sees the shrink once a month or so. But shedding responsibility has made him a new man. So long as he doesn’t get any more stress …’

  ‘Good. One thing less for you to worry about.’ Checking his watch, he turned to go. Already three steps down, he asked cheekily, ‘But between the two of us, how are things really between you and our esteemed DCI Murray? You’re so polite to him I guess you’re not the best of friends.’

  ‘Me and Sean? Like this.’ She crossed her fingers.

  ‘My auntie says you’re supposed to cross your fingers behind your back, Fran, when you’re fibbing.’ And he scooted before she could think of anything to say.

  She progressed more slowly to her office. It wasn’t so much her leg that protested at her little peregrinations as the muscles that her limp forced into extra work; they stiffened as soon as she stopped. The physio had assured her that this was normal, and had suggested, though possibly not seriously, that she might consider the sort of ice bath that England cricketers plunged into after a day’s play. As it was
, Fran did all the exercises she’d been prescribed as assiduously as if she’d been training for the Olympics.

  Alice, her secretary, produced a cup of tea as soon as she’d parked herself at her desk. ‘Any news?’ she asked, waving a packet of biscuits under Fran’s nose. With her own middle-aged tussle with calories, she might have known better.

  ‘Get thee behind me. However will I get into my wedding dress?’

  ‘Spanx, of course. Double layer if necessary. Any news about Mr Wren?’

  In the very short period during which their careers had intersected, Mark’s chief bugbear had been an acting chief constable dismissed by his many detractors as being as tiny as his name suggested. Most of Fran’s generation of officers had service to others in their DNA; in Wren’s case, it seemed to have been replaced by forelock tugging to politicians who insisted that cuts could be made in policing while improvements in performance were made at the same time – and all this with a twenty per cent cut in their budget. At least one honourable chief constable in another county had resigned, declaring that he and his officers were being asked to do the impossible. Fran had colleagues in other areas who’d been made redundant and then, on the quiet, been invited to reapply for lesser but vital jobs with much worse conditions of service. A chief superintendent back as office junior? Not her. OK, she exaggerated – but not her, anyway.

  Alice was waiting.

  ‘Should there be news?’

  ‘Rumour has it he’s about to flit the coop.’ She flapped little wings.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Fran was genuinely shocked. ‘Why on earth? You’re winding me up!’

  ‘Honestly. Thought you might have heard something – in your position.’

  And what position might that be? ‘I’ve heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. My God, I hope it’s not true.’ Not because she wouldn’t be delighted to see the back of him, but it could be a disaster. ‘Imagine the headlines: More Trouble at the Top Rocks Kent Force! And worse,’ she added dourly. The media would rehash all the stories: the old chief’s major error of judgement resulting in the death of his deputy – drama there in itself. And then the business of Mark and his daughter, now officially a criminal – just what Mark needed now he’d finally achieved relative anonymity.