Free Hole in One by Catherine Aird

in someone else.
    â€˜Apparently,’ said Ursula, ‘this Matt Steele’s a bit of a go-getter and if Hilary’s got a major holding it’s going to be difficult for the family to keep the man out of Trumper and Trumper (Berebury) Ltd., whether they want to or not.’
    â€˜Tim Trumper isn’t going to like having to share the firm with an outsider,’ observed someone else.
    â€˜Nor are his father and uncle,’ forecast Ursula Millward. ‘They’re still very active, you know.’ She looked round to make sure she still had the attention of her audience before
she went on ‘I gather they’re pretty interested in doing the proposed development here.’
    â€˜You mean the new driving range?’ asked one of them. ‘That’s pretty small potatoes for a firm of their size, surely?’
    â€˜It’s not that bit of work that matters,’ said Ursula. ‘It’s the development value of the land the Club would have to sell to finance it that matters. You see grass,’ she explained simply. ‘They see houses.’
    â€˜So that’s why the men are so excited about their driving range,’ murmured the Club’s dim blonde. ‘I wondered.’
    â€˜Only half of them,’ sighed the Lady Captain who had had to sit through the deliberations of the Men’s Committee. ‘The other half are excited about having the driving range at all.’
    â€˜So why is Granny putting her oar in like that?’ persisted Anna. ‘Doesn’t she like their wives or something?’
    â€˜Tim Trumper’s chick is an airhead into retail therapy,’ explained Ursula, ‘and the old lady’s afraid the girl’ll ruin him.’
    â€˜And by extension the firm, I suppose,’ said Christine, nodding. ‘What do her parents say? Not,’ she added realistically, ‘that that seems to make much difference these days.’
    Ursula Millward said judiciously ‘If you ask me it’s more a case of “No, my darling daughter” than of “O, my beloved father”.’
    The ladies nodded as one. This they understood.
    â€˜They do say,’ said Ursula cautiously, ‘that Matt Steele is quite clever.’
    The newish member, a little unsure still of the views prevailing at the Ladies Section, said timidly ‘It is possible for a man to be too clever, isn’t it?’
    Nobody in the Ladies Section of the Berebury Golf Club had anything to say to that.

Chapter Eight
    Lost Ball
    Some facts, decided Sloan, were already beginning to emerge.
    Literally.
    â€˜Careful now,’ he warned as one of their Scenes of Crime Officers stepped very near the upper edge of the bunker. ‘Fall over there and you’ll be destroying evidence.’
    Since there was no greater crime in their book than this, the SOCO leapt back from the brink with alacrity. Three other men, gloved and white-suited, were slowly and carefully brushing sand away from the buried head and stowing it away in numbered, labelled bags. Watching them like a hawk was Dr Dabbe, the Consultant Pathologist.
    â€˜Decomposition beginning to get under way, Inspector,’ he called up to Sloan as more of the body appeared, ‘but not very advanced.’
    â€˜Which means?’ Sloan stepped back involuntarily as a whiff of putrefaction struck his nostrils.
    â€˜That we have a reasonably narrow spectrum within which to estimate the time of death,’ translated the pathologist.
    â€˜A time-frame would be a great help to us at this stage,’ said Sloan.
    â€˜Mind you, Sloan,’ said the pathologist, straight-faced, ‘my field doesn’t cover everything.’
    â€˜Really, doctor?’ Since arrogance has always been the most common complaint against the medical profession, Sloan tried not to sound too surprised at this admission.
    â€˜And I don’t know anything about the similium family