Murder on the Short List

by Peter Lovesey

  At the end of the month we “stood” for a club tournament at Queen’s. It went well, I thought, until the Brigadier debriefed us. Debriefed? He tore strips off us for over an hour. We’d learnt nothing, he said. The Championships would be a disaster if we got within a mile of them. We were slow, we fumbled, stumbled and forgot to show before the throw. Worse, he saw a couple of us (Eddie and me, to be honest) exchange some words as we crouched either side of the net.

  “If any ball boy under my direction so much as moves his lips ever again in the course of a match, I will come onto the court and seal his revolting mouth with packing tape.”

  We believed him.

  And we persevered. Miraculously the months went by and June arrived, and with it the Championships.

  The Brigadier addressed us on the eve of the first day’s play and to my amazement, he didn’t put the fear of God into me. By his standards, it was a vote of confidence. “You boys and girls have given me problems enough this year, but you’re as ready as you ever will be, and I want you to know I have total confidence in you. When this great tournament is over and the best of you line up on the Centre Court to be presented to Her Royal Highness before she meets the Champion, my pulses will beat faster and my heart will swell with pride, as will each of yours. And one of you, of course, will get a special award as best ball boy – or girl. That’s the Championship that counts, you know. Never mind Mr Borg and Miss Navratilova. The real winner will be one of you. The decision will be mine, and you all start tomorrow as equals. In the second week I will draw up a short list. The pick of you, my elite squad, will stand in the finals. I will nominate the winner only when the tournament is over.”

  I suppose it had been the severity of the build-up; to me those words were as thrilling and inspiring as King Henry’s before the Battle of Agincourt. I wanted to be on Centre Court on that final day. I wanted to be best ball boy. I could see that all the others felt like me, and had the same gleam in their eyes.

  I’ve never felt so nervous as I did at noon that first day, approaching the tall, creeper-covered walls of the All England Club, and passing inside and finding it was already busy with people on the terraces and promenades chatting loudly in accents that would have got you past any security guard in the world. Wimbledon twenty years ago was part of the social season, a blazer and tie occasion, entirely alien to a kid like me from a working class family.

  My first match was on an outside court, thanks be to the Brigadier. Men’s singles, between a tall Californian and a wiry Frenchman. I marched on court with the other five ball boys and mysteriously my nerves ended the moment the umpire called “Play.” We were so well-drilled that the training took over. My concentration was absolute. I knew precisely what I had to do. I was a small, invisible part of a well-oiled, perfectly tuned machine, the Rolls Royce of tennis tournaments. Six-three, six-three, six-three to the Californian, and we lined up and marched off again.

  I stood in two more matches that first day, and they were equally straightforward in spite of some racquet abuse by one unhappy player whose service wouldn’t go in. A ball boy is above all that. At home, exhausted, I slept better than I had for a week.

  Day Two was Ladies’ Day, when most of the women’s first round matches were played. At the end of my second match I lined up for an ice-cream and heard a familiar voice, “Got overheated in that last one, Richards?”

  I turned to face the Brigadier, expecting a rollicking. I wasn’t sure if ball boys in uniform were allowed to consume ice cream.

  But the scar twitched into a grin. “I watched you at work. You’re doing a decent job, lad. Not invisible yet, but getting there. Keep it up and you might make Centre Court.”

  I can tell you exactly what happened in the Stanski-Voronin match because I was one of the ball boys and my buddy Eddie Pringle was another, and has recently reminded me of it. Neither player was seeded. Stanski had won a five-setter in the first round against a little-known Englishman, and Voronin had been lucky enough to get a bye.

  Court Eleven is hardly one of the show courts, and these two weren’t well known players, but we still had plenty of swivelling heads following the action.

  I’m sure some of the crowd understood that the players were at opposite extremes politically, but I doubt if anyone foresaw the terrible outcome of this clash. They may have noticed the coolness between the players, but that’s one of the conventions of sport, particularly in a Grand Slam tournament. You shake hands at the end, but you psych yourself up to beat hell out of your rival first. Back to the tennis. The first set went narrowly to Voronin, seven-five. I was so absorbed in my ball boy duties that the score almost passed me by. I retrieved the balls and passed them to the players when they needed them. Between games, I helped them to drinks and waited on them, just as we were programmed to do. I rather liked Stanski. His English wasn’t up to much, but he made up for it with the occasional nod and even a hint of a smile.

  Stanski won the next two sets, six-four, six-three.

  Half the time I was at Voronin’s end. Being strictly neutral, I treated him with the same courtesy I gave his opponent, but I can’t say he was as appreciative. You can tell a lot about players from the way they grab the towel from you or discard a ball they don’t fancy serving. The Russian was a hard man, with vicious thoughts in his head.

  He secured the next set in a tie-break and took the match to a fifth. The crowd was growing. People from other courts had heard something special was happening. Several long, exciting rallies drew gasps and shrieks.

  Voronin had extraordinary eyes like wet pebbles, the irises as black as the pupils. I was drilled to look at him each time I offered him a ball, and his expression never changed. Once or twice when Stanski had some luck with a ball that bounced on the net, Voronin eyeballed him. Terrifying.

  The final set exceeded everyone’s expectations. Voronin broke Stanski’s service in the first game with some amazing passing shots and then held his own in game two. In the third, Stanski served three double faults and missed a simple volley.

  “Game to Voronin. Voronin leads by three games to love. Final set.”

  When I offered Stanski the water he poured it over his head and covered his face with the towel.

  Voronin started game four with an ace. Stanski blocked the next serve and it nicked the cord and just dropped over. He was treated to another eyeballing for that piece of impertinence. Voronin walked slowly back to the line, turned, glared and fired a big serve that was called out. The second was softer and Stanski risked a blinder, a mighty forehand, and succeeded – the first winner he’d made in the set. Fifteen-thirty. Voronin nodded towards my friend Eddie for balls, scowled at one and chucked it aside. Eddie gave him another. He served long. Then foot-faulted. This time the line judge received the eyeballing. Fifteen-forty.

  Stanski jigged on his toes. He would never have a better opportunity of breaking back.

  The serve from Voronin was cautious. The spin deceived Stanski and the ball flew high. Voronin stood under, waiting to pick it out of the sun and kill it. He connected, but heroically Stanski got the racquet in place at the far end and almost fell into the crowd doing it. The return looked a sitter for the Russian and he steered it cross-court with nonchalance. Somehow Stanski dashed to the right place again. The crowd roared its appreciation.

  Voronin chipped the return with a dinky shot that barely cleared the net and brought Stanski sprinting from the back to launch himself into a dive. The ball had bounced and risen through another arc and was inches from the turf when Stanski’s racquet slid under it. Miraculously he found enough lift to sneak it over at a near-impossible angle. Voronin netted. Game to Stanski.

  Now there was an anxious moment. Stanski’s dive had taken him sliding out of court and heavily into the net-post, just a yard from where I was crouching in my set position. He was rubbing his right forearm, green from the skid across the grass, and everyone feared he’d broken a bone. After a delay of a few seconds the umpire asked if
he needed medical attention. He shook his head.

  Play resumed at three games to one, and it felt as if they’d played a full set already. The fascination of the game of tennis is that a single shot can turn a match. That diving winner of Stanski’s was a prime example. He won the next game to love, serving brilliantly, though clearly anxious about his sore arm, which he massaged at every opportunity. Between games the umpire again asked if he needed assistance, but he shook his head.

  Voronin was still a break up, and when play resumed after the change of ends he was first on court. He beckoned to me aggressively with his right hand, white with resin. I let him see he wouldn’t intimidate me. I was a credit to the Brigadier, showing and throwing with the single bounce, straight to the player.

  Stanski marched to the receiving end, twirling his racquet. Voronin hit the first serve too deep. The second spun in, shaved the line and was allowed. Fifteen-love. Stanski took the next two points with fine, looping returns. Then Voronin met a return of serve with a volley that failed to clear the net. Fifteen-forty. The mind-game was being won by Stanski. A feeble serve from the Russian allowed him to close the game.

  Three all.

  The critical moment was past. Stanski’s confidence was high. He wiped his forehead with his wristband, tossed the ball up and served an ace that Bjorn Borg himself would have been incapable of reaching. From that moment, Voronin was doomed. Stanski was nerveless, accurate, domineering. He took the game to love. He dropped only one point in winning the next two. It was over. The crowd was in ecstasy. Voronin walked to the side without shaking hands, slung his racquets into his bag and left the court without waiting for his opponent – which is always regarded as bad form at Wimbledon. Some of the crowd booed him.

  Stanski seemed to be taking longer than usual in packing up. He lingered by the net-post looking down, repeatedly dragging his foot across the worn patch of turf and raising dust. Then he bent and picked something up that to me looked liked like one of the needles my mother used on her sewing-machine. After staring at it for some time he showed it to the umpire, who had descended from his chair. At the same time he pointed to a scratch on his forearm. The umpire nodded indulgently and I heard him promise to speak to the groundsman.

  I learned next day that Stanski was ill and had withdrawn from the tournament. It was a disappointment to everyone, because he had seemed to be on a roll and might have put out one of the seeds in a later round.

  Two days after, the world of tennis was shocked to learn that Jozsef Stanski had died. He’d been admitted to St Thomas’s complaining of weakness, vomiting and a high temperature. His pulse-rate was abnormally high and his lymph glands were swollen. There was an area of hardening under the scratch on his right forearm. In the night, his pulse rose to almost two hundred a minute and his temperature fell sharply. He was taken into intensive care and treated for septicaemia. Tests showed an exceptionally high count of white blood cells. Blood was appearing in his vomit and he was having difficulty in passing water, suggesting damage to the kidneys.

  The next day an electrocardiogram indicated further critical problems, this time with the heart. Attempts were made to fit a pacemaker, but he died whilst under the anaesthetic. It was announced that a post mortem would be held the following day.

  I’m bound to admit that these medical details only came to my attention years later, through my interest in the case. At the time it happened, I was wholly taken up with my duties at Wimbledon, programmed by the Brigadier to let nothing distract me. We were soon into the second week and the crowds grew steadily, with most interest on the show courts.

  Eddie and I were picked for the men’s semi-finals and I had my first experience of the Centre Court in the greatest match ever played at Wimbledon, between Bjorn Borg, the champion for the previous five years, and Jimmy Connors. Borg came back from two sets down, love-six and four-six, to win with a display of skill and guts that finally wore down the seemingly unstoppable Connors. I will go to my grave proud that I had a minor role in that epic.

  I’m proud, also, that I was one of the ball boys in the final, though the match lacked passion and didn’t quite live up to its promise. John McEnroe deserved his Championship, but we all felt Borg had fired his best shots in the semi.

  Like Borg, I was forced to choke back some disappointment that afternoon. I’d secretly hoped to be named best ball boy, but a kid from another school was picked by the Brigadier. My pal Eddie (who wasn’t on court for the final) put an arm around my shoulder when it was over. We told each other that the kid had to be a brown-noser and the Brigadier’s nephew as well.

  I may have heard something later on radio or television about the post mortem on poor Jozsef Stanski. They concluded he died from blood-poisoning. Samples were sent for further analysis, but the lab couldn’t trace the source. At the inquest, a pathologist mentioned the scratch on the arm and said some sharp point had dug quite deep into the flesh. The match umpire gave evidence and spoke of the needle Stanski had picked up. He described the small eye close to the point. Unfortunately the needle had not been seen since the day of the match. In summing up, the coroner said it would not be helpful to speculate about the needle. The match had been played in full view of a large crowd and there was no evidence of anyone attempting to cause Stanski’s death.

  Huge controversy surrounded the verdict. The international press made a lot of the incident, pointing out that as recently as 1978 a Bulgarian writer, Georgi Markov, a rebel against his Communist government, had been executed in a London street by a tiny poison pellet forced into his thigh, apparently by the tip of an umbrella. The poison used was ricin, a protein derived from the castor oil seed, deadly and in those days almost undetectable in the human bloodstream. He took four days to die, protesting that he was the victim of political assassination. Nobody except his wife took him seriously until after he died. The presence of the poison was only discovered because the pellet was still embedded in a piece of Markov’s flesh sent for analysis. If ricin could be injected in a public street using an umbrella, was it so fanciful to suggest Jozsef Stansky was targeted by the KGB and poisoned at Wimbledon two years later?

  In Poland, the first months of 1981 had been extremely tense. A new Prime Minister, General Jaruzelski, had taken over and a permanent committee was set up to liaise with Solidarity. Moscow was incensed by this outbreak of liberalism and summoned Jaruzelski and his team to the Kremlin. The Politburo made its anger known. Repression followed. Many trade union activists were beaten up.

  The papers noted that Stanski’s opponent Voronin had quit Britain by an Aeroflot plane the same evening he had lost. He was unavailable for comment, in spite of strenuous efforts by reporters. The Soviet crackdown on Solidarity was mentioned. It was widely suspected that the KGB had been monitoring Stanski for over a year. He was believed to be acting as a conduit to the free world for Walesa and his organisation. At the end of the year, martial law was imposed in Poland and the leaders of Solidarity were detained and union activity suspended.

  Although nothing was announced officially, the press claimed Scotland Yard investigated the assassination theory and kept the file open.

  Since the Cold War ended and the Soviet bloc disintegrated, it is hard to think oneself back into the oppression of those days, harder still to believe orders may have been given for one tennis player to execute another at the world’s top tournament.

  In the years since, I kept an open mind about the incident, troubled to think murder may have happened so close to me. In my mind’s eye I can still see Stanski rubbing his arm and reaching for the water I poured.

  Then, last April, I had a phone call from Eddie Pringle. I hadn’t seen him in almost twenty years. He was coming my way on a trip and wondered if we might meet for a drink.

  To be truthful, I wasn’t all that keen. I couldn’t imagine we had much in common these days. Eddie seemed to sense my reluctance, because he went on to say, “I wouldn’t take up your time if it wasn’t important –
well, important to me, if not to you. I’m not on the cadge, by the way. I’m asking no favours except for one half-hour of your time.”

  How could I refuse?

  We arranged to meet in the bar of a local hotel. I told him I have a beard these days and what I would wear, just in case we didn’t recognise each other.

  I certainly wouldn’t have known Eddie if he hadn’t come up to me and spoken my name. He was gaunt, hairless and on two sticks.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Chemo. Didn’t like to tell you on the phone in case I put you off.”

  “I’m the one who should be sorry,” I said. “Is the treatment doing any good?”

  “Not really. I’ll be lucky to see the year out. But I’m allowed to drink in moderation. What’s yours?”

  We found a table. He asked what line of work I’d gone into and I told him I was a journalist.

  “Sport?”

  “No. Showbiz. I know why you asked,” I said. “That stint we did as ball boys would have been a useful grounding. No one ever believes I was on court with McEnroe and Borg, so I rarely mention it.”

  “I made a big effort to forget,” Eddie said. “The treatment we got from that Brigadier fellow was shameful.”

  “No worse than any military training.”

  “Yes, but we were young kids barely into our teens. At that age it amounted to brain-washing.”

  “That’s a bit strong, Eddie.”

  “Think about it,” he said. “He had us totally under his control. Destroyed any individuality we had. We thought about nothing else but chasing after tennis balls and handing them over in the approved style. It was the peak of everyone’s ambition to be the best ball boy. You were as fixated as I was. Don’t deny it.”

  “True. It became my main ambition.”

  “Obsession.”