Hole in One by Catherine Aird

well, some of them. Especially Dickie Castle. He beat me hollow in our last Ladies versus Caddies match. He’s deadly round the green.’ She shivered suddenly, her mouth drooping, ‘I shouldn’t have said that, should I? Not now.’
    The comforting phrase ‘I know what you mean, though,’ fell automatically from Sergeant Perkins’ lips. The things that people felt that they should not have said but did say were meat and drink to the police. And very nearly as useful as those things which they should have said and didn’t.
    The Lady Captain did not so much change the subject as deflect it. Her skill in this respect was one of the reasons why she was Lady Captain. ‘I expect,’ she said, ‘that Matthew will take the game up in a big way when he gets back. Most of the younger caddies do. It’s a very good start to learning the game, caddying.’
    â€˜Gets back?’ queried the detective sergeant, a woman with an eye for essentials.
    â€˜I’m told he’s gone off to Lasserta as part of his degree
course.
    â€˜When?’ asked Polly Perkins rather more sharply than she had meant to.
    The Lady Captain said vaguely ‘Some time last week, I think I heard someone say. Is it important?’
    In different surroundings Sergeant Perkins might have said sternly, ‘The police ask the questions around here’ but in the Ladies Clubroom she said ‘Oh, no sugar, thank you. Has he gone for long?’
    â€˜That’s something I don’t know,’ said the Lady Captain. ‘You’ll have to ask Ursula Millward over there. She knows the Trumpers better than I do and she might have heard.’ She cocked her head to one side and said ‘You could try asking Hilary herself, of course. She’s sure to know.’ The Lady Captain gave an indulgent smile. ‘I’m sure they’ll be in touch on their mobile phones. Every one seems to be these days.’
    â€˜Aren’t they just?’ agreed Polly Perkins politely, suppressing all mention of the trouble that stealing them had become to the police, let alone of how their use had facilitated the assembling of unlawful protest marches.
    â€˜Mobile phones are the second great divide in the Club,’ said the Lady Captain wryly. ‘After the new development and the driving range, that is.’
    â€˜Whether they should be allowed on the course, you mean?’ The policewoman, a veteran of many, many hours spent at the Accident and Emergency Department of the Berebury Hospital, where they had to be switched off, nodded understandingly. ‘Of course, these days you’ll have members with pace-makers still playing.’
    â€˜It’s not that,’ the Lady Captain shook her head. ‘It’s if your opponent’s phone rings while you’re driving or putting that so upsets the members.’
    Detective Sergeant Perkins said that she could see that it very well might and asked about the proposed driving range.

    â€˜Oh, the Ladies are keeping well clear of that one,’ said the Lady Captain immediately. ‘You know what men are like about that sort of thing. They get very worked up when there’s money involved.’
    â€˜Don’t they just,’ agreed Detective Sergeant Polly Perkins, who in her time had witnessed wives who had been beaten up for spending a man’s money on food for the man’s children.
    â€˜I think male pride comes into it, you know,’ murmured the Lady Captain, a woman clearly in no need of the odd penny. Detective Sergeant Polly Perkins, a woman still paying off her own mortgage, agreed warmly with her. Policewoman to the core, though, she made a few mental notes before setting down her cup and saucer, and taking her departure.
    And seeking out Detective Inspector Sloan.
    Â 
    The Men’s Committee of the Berebury Golf Club could have posed for a painting by Rembrandt van Rijn. The players looked as if they