The Big Over Easy

by Jasper Fforde

Two hours earlier it would have been the single greatest compliment she’d ever received from anyone who wasn’t her mother. But he hadn’t answered her question. And Mary always liked to have an answer.

  “When did you know that Humpty had been shot, sir?”

  “Long before you,” he said. “Mrs. Singh is highly diligent—too much so, to my taste. She wanted to be a hundred percent sure of what she had before she called you. Myself, I’ll go with a seventy percent probability any day.”

  “You knew,” said Mary softly. “You knew the evening before about the shooting and about Spatchcock. You withheld crucial evidence from our investigation.”

  “No I didn’t. And it would be very wrong and detrimental to your career if you were to mention it again. Tell me what you know, Mary.”

  She paused for a moment, bit her lip and looked down—the full gamut of someone unable to come to a decision, and Friedland pounced.

  “I think you should tell me,” he said a little more forcefully.

  “You should know that I generally get what I want and that people who help me are rewarded. Conversely and contrariwise, people who withhold information from me rarely last the course. I’ll ask you once more, and I expect an answer: What have you found?”

  She felt herself grow hot as he stared her down.

  “Do you really have space for me on the team?”

  “We always need new blood,” came Flotsam’s voice from behind her. “I think it’s in your best interest to tell the Guv’nor what he needs to know. He’ll find out anyway, and then you will have thrown away the last chance of what might have been a very worthwhile friendship.”

  “I found the slug,” she stammered at last. “It’s a .44. With Spatchcock’s evidence it’s enough to keep the case open.”

  Chymes and Flotsam exchanged looks.

  “We concur. Bravo, Mary. We have underestimated you. A good DS is worth her weight in gold, whoever she works for. Now, the question you have to ask yourself is what exactly are you going to do next? Think carefully. Your career depends upon it.”

  She swallowed hard and held up her head. “Well, I kind of thought I’d call…um, SOCO and…I don’t know—DI Spratt?”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “That’s a very disappointing choice, Mary. You’re new to all this, so I’m going to cut you some slack. These sorts of potentially high-profile crimes are good for the justice system. For the most part, the public can’t be bothered to understand what we do, so there is nothing like a couple of easy-to-understand, solved celebrity murders to keep them in the picture and supportive of our efforts—especially during the summer season. Police approval always leaps up after the successful conclusion of one of my cases.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t call my DI?”

  “Look at it this way,” said Chymes as he glanced at his watch. “It’s ten to ten. Jack will be speaking to Briggs on the hour. If you had found that slug a half hour later, we wouldn’t even need to have this conversation. I think it would be better for all concerned that Jack doesn’t hear about the slug or Spatchcock’s statement until he has officially closed the case. There is nothing quite like one detective closing a case only for another to awaken it with a dramatic flourish, don’t you agree?”

  “Is it really necessary to make Spratt look such an idiot?”

  “Spratt is an idiot, Mary—haven’t you figured that out yet? Listen, the public needs its heroes. And I want you on my team. We’ve got the best facilities and the best cases—the cream of not just the Oxford & Berkshire force but most of the others, too. We often do international consultancies, and His Eminence the Jellyman frequently asks for advice. Do you to want to meet the Jellyman, Mary?”

  He put out his hand.

  “Here is my hand. Shake it and stand by my side. I won’t offer it again.”

  Mary Mary working for Friedland Chymes. She had dreamed of this since she was nine. She stared at Chymes with his winning smile and perfect teeth. It was the easiest decision she ever made.

  24. Briggs v. Spratt

  MAN RECOGNIZES SUSPECT IN RECONSTRUCTION

  Mr. James Tuffnel was in custody yesterday, having been recognized when he appeared in a reconstruction during Network Toad’s popular PerpCatch UK program. He was spotted by eagle-eyed, public-spirited father of three Desmond Miller. “There was no doubt in my mind,” said Mr. Miller at his home in Morecambe Bay today, “but the man in the armed-robbery reconstruction was definitely an actor that I had seen once before in a custard commercial.” Out-of-work actor Mr. Tuffnel remained unrepentant and told us, “Okay, I admit that I did it. I’m not proud of myself, but I need the money. I haven’t worked for eight weeks. Do you want to hear me do the ‘What is a man?’ speech?”

  —From the Morecambe Trumpet, July 2, 2003

  Briggs beckoned Jack into his office and had him wait while he spoke on the phone to the workman redecorating his house. After an inordinately long ten minutes discussing the choice of wallpaper for the front room, he hung up and stared at Jack.

  “You’ve got a confession note?” he asked.

  Jack slid it across the table. It was in a clear plastic cover, and Briggs put on his glasses.

  “Verified by the handwriting people?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s definitely Mrs. Dumpty’s.”

  “Well,” said Briggs removing his spectacles, “I think that’s fairly straightforward, don’t you?”

  “But for the smaller-than-expected caliber pistol and the four missing cartridges, and—”

  “And what?”

  “I just don’t think she killed him. We interviewed her at ten-thirty the morning of her ex-husband’s death. Less than ten hours. She loved him, sir, even after the split—most people dump their ex’s stuff as soon as the papers come through, but everything that was his was still in her house. I’m not convinced that a crime of passion would leave her so calm.”

  Briggs held up the suicide note. “And this? What do you make of this? I quote: ‘…I prayed for God to forgive me as I pulled the trigger.’ She had the motive, opportunity—but, best of all, she wrote a confession. This one’s over, Jack.”

  “She didn’t kill him, sir.”

  “Listen,” said Briggs, “I know the NCD means a lot to you, but we can’t justify the expense. We’ve got to make some hard choices, and I’m sure the budgetary meeting can make a generous settlement for early retirement. You’ve done good work, Jack, but it’s a question of priorities.”

  “I thought it was just the department getting canned?” said Jack, rising to his feet.

  “You are the department,” replied Briggs, also rising. “Where else were you going to work? CID? Don’t make me insult you by offering you traffic or something. The Humpty case is closed.”

  “The budgetary meeting is on Thursday, yes?”

  “Yes,” said Briggs sharply, wondering what he was up to, “why?”

  “Just let me carry on until then to prove she didn’t do it and if I can’t, I’ll call it a day and the coroner can have a murder/suicide.”

  “No.”

  “Twenty-four hours, then.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Until tomorrow morning?”

  “No!”

  “Twenty years,” said Jack, “twenty years I’ve run the NCD, and while I admit I have made a few slip-ups and killed a giant or two—”

  “Four. It was four, Jack.”

  “He was barely six foot eight, sir. Listen, I’ve never asked you for anything before now. Geoffrey, please.”

  It was the first time he had ever used Briggs’s first name. He hoped to God he had remembered it correctly. The Superintendent paused for a moment and stared at him, then finally shook his head.

  “I can’t do it, Jack. You’ve got nothing. No, I take that back. You’ve got less than nothing. If you could show me one positive piece of evidence, I’d be happy to keep it open, but as it stands, I think all you’ve got is a hunch and a strong suit of delusive h
ope. And that’s not enough to keep an inquiry open.”

  “It’d be enough for Friedland,” said Jack rather feebly.

  “You,” said Briggs slowly, “are not Friedland. Not even close.”

  “Sir…!” pleaded Jack, numbed by his intransigence.

  “Interview’s over, Jack. And I’m sorry.”

  “Briggs!”

  “You’d better leave, Jack. I can sense you’re going to say or do something that you might regret.”

  Jack sighed and headed for the door.

  The intercom beeped.

  “Yes?”

  It was Sergeant Mary, explained Briggs’s secretary. Jack grimaced. She might at least have had the good grace to wait until he was out of Briggs’s office before she requested a transfer.

  “Send her in.”

  Mary stepped in rather self-consciously, looked at Jack and then walked past him to face Briggs at his desk.

  “I was just telling your senior officer, Mary, that by this time next week, the NCD will be disbanded. You are here to ask for an immediate transfer, I take it?”

  Mary bit her lip. She could still back out. Chymes or Jack? Two days ago—no, wait, two hours ago it would have been a no-brainer. Now it was different. The NCD? Well, somehow it felt sort of right. That she belonged.

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  Briggs raised an eyebrow, and Jack stopped in midstride.

  “I found the slug that killed Humpty. It had fallen to earth in a length of guttering two doors down. SOCO are on their way now. The slug is only mildly deformed, but we can tell the caliber. It’s a.44. If Mrs. Dumpty did kill him, then she used another gun from the one we found in her desk.”

  She waited a moment for the information to sink in.

  “I spoke to Mr. Spatchcock, who is her personal trainer, this morning. He was with her when Humpty was killed. All night. They were lovers.”

  Briggs stared up at her coldly. “And this?” he asked, indicating the suicide note. “What are you saying? Someone forced her to write that note?”

  “I’ll confess it’s a puzzler,” said Jack, who had returned to Briggs’s desk, “but we’re going to find out.”

  “This Thomas Spatchcock fellow is wholly unreliable,” muttered Briggs, clutching at straws. “I don’t think we can believe a word he says.”

  “I never said his name was Thomas,” said Mary in a quiet voice.

  There was silence. Briggs had dropped himself in it, and he knew it. He rubbed a hand wearily over his face, pushing his glasses onto his forehead.

  “Okay,” he said as he took off his spectacles and leaned back in his chair, “you’ve got me. This isn’t my doing. Chymes wields considerable weight with the Chief Constable, and as you know, he wants the Humpty gig. Look, well…I’m hanging out on a limb here, but you’ve got until the end of play Saturday to make some headway. If it’s not sorted by the time the Jellyman has come and gone, I’m putting someone else on the case. And if you aren’t out of my office in ten seconds, I’ll change my mind—and screw the consequences.”

  As soon as they were in the corridor, Jack turned to Mary.

  “In the nick of time. I thought you hated it here?”

  “I thought so, too, sir. But you know when you said the NCD grows on you?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, it’s grown on me. And listen, sir, I have to apologize for something.”

  “Don’t bother. You’ve more than made up for it, whatever it was.”

  “No, I really want to tell you.”

  “And I really don’t want to hear it. If you were at the Guild bar the night before last or speaking to Flotsam at Platters Coffeehouse, I really don’t want to know about it—you probably have your reasons. Did they do the old ‘Barnes is retiring, we need a replacement’ routine on you?”

  “You knew? Why didn’t you say something?”

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. It was your decision. I kind of felt you’d do the right thing, though.”

  Mary couldn’t think of anything to say. He had trusted her to do the right thing, and she had almost stabbed him in the back.

  “I’ve…I’ve underestimated you, sir—badly.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t worry about it. I’ve been underestimated before.”

  She felt anger rise inside her. Anger at herself for being such a fool, and anger at Chymes for taking advantage of her.

  “Sir,” she said, “Chymes wants the Humpty investigation for the Amazing Crime Summer Special—he knew the night before we did about Humpty’s murder and has known about Spatchcock from about the same time. We can lodge a complaint about serious professional misconduct!”

  “Mary,” said Jack quietly, “calm down. Think you’re the first person this has happened to? I told you before: He’s a complete shit. Don’t waste your breath. Gretel’s career is almost finished, and all she did was call him an arsehole. Have you any idea what a formal complaint would do to you? We concentrate on Humpty. Nothing else matters. Okay?”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Yes, sir. But I think I’ve made a lifelong enemy of Chymes.”

  “You and me both. Did I ever tell you why?”

  “No.”

  “His fiancée left him when he pinched the credit for the Gingerbreadman capture.”

  “So?”

  “She left him for me. She was my first wife.”

  “The one who passed away?”

  “Right. Ben and Pandora’s mother.”

  “Chymes got the Guild, and you got the girl.”

  Jack smiled. “In one. I got the better part of the bargain, and he knew it.”

  Mary looked up at Jack, but this time in a different light.

  “Why have you stayed at the NCD so long, sir?”

  He shrugged. “It needs me. And I need it. Can’t explain. Just the way it is. Make any sense?”

  “Kind of. Oh, I almost forgot.” She pulled the buff envelope from out of her jacket. “I was asked to give you these by someone who doesn’t want to be identified.”

  “Skinner?’

  “Yes.”

  “Usually him. Let’s have a look.”

  He opened the envelope and flicked through the pictures, rubbed his forehead and put them back.

  “Don’t show these to anyone, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. What is it?”

  “Something bigger than any of us. Just forget about them.”

  “Sir!” said Baker as they approached the NCD offices. “Just got a message from Ops. It’s Willie Winkie.”

  “Asleep again?”

  “Permanently. Over in Palmer Park. Mrs. Singh is already in attendance. Is the Humpty investigation finished?”

  “Far from it!” yelled Jack over his shoulder as they hurriedly retraced their steps down the corridor. “It’s back on with a vengeance. As you were. I want some answers by the time I get back. TIBBIT!”

  25. Good Night, Wee Willie Winkie

  PRINCE SOUGHT AFTER SLAYING

  Police were called to Elsinore Castle yesterday to investigate the unnatural death of one of the King’s closest advisers. Married, a father of two, Mr. Polonius was discovered stabbed and his body hidden under the stairs to the lobby, although fibers recovered from his wound match a wall hanging in the Queen’s bedroom. DI Dogberry, fresh from his successful solving of the Desdemona murder, told us, “We are eager to integrate a Prince who was absurd in the area shortly after.” Sources close to the King tell us that Prince Hamlet has been acting erratically ever since the unexpected yet entirely natural and unsuspicious death of his father eight weeks before.

  —Extract from the Elsinore Tatler, June 16, 1408

  It was raining hard when Jack, Mary and Tibbit pulled up at the perimeter of Palmer Park, a sports field and public amenity site to the east of town. A uniformed officer in a raincoat pointed them towards a white scene-of-crime tent set up behind the grandstand. The rain had discouraged all onlookers, and the only member of the pub
lic visible was a lone runner who plodded around the track, seemingly oblivious to the downpour.

  “Tibbit, start on some house-to-house, will you? I want to know if anybody saw anything.”

  Tibbit took out his notepad and walked over to the row of houses that faced the field.

  “How far are we from Grimm’s Road?” asked Mary as they trudged across the wet grass.

  “A couple of hundred yards. The other side of that road.”

  The immediate area around the crime scene had been taped off. Shenstone was the Scene of Crime Officer, and he had conveniently rigged a narrow “exit and entrance” walkway delineated by white tape so they could all come and go without destroying any potential footprints. Mary started to talk to the officer first on the scene, who was relieved that it was an NCD case; it meant a lot less paperwork.

  “Hello, Shenstone,” said Jack. “What have you got?”

  Shenstone stood up from where he had been examining the ground.

  “Good morning, sir. I thought this one might be under your jurisdiction.” He pointed at the ground. “Some healthy footprints, but nothing exciting—a size-ten Barbour wellie by the look of it. But what seems odd is that the person in the wellies has tried to obliterate some of the evidence. You can see where they’ve made an effort to scour the ground.” He pointed again. “Just there…and again, over there.”

  “So two people, one of whom might have had distinctive shoes?”

  “Something like that.”

  Jack thanked him and stepped into the white tent. Winkie’s body was lying facedown in the mud. His nightgown and nightcap were soaking wet and clung to his pale white flesh. The grass and mud around him were darkly stained with blood, and a candlestick was on the ground next to him. His hands had already been bagged, and Mrs. Singh and her assistants were just about to turn him over.

  Jack crouched down next to the pathologist, glad for the protection the tent could offer from the rain.

  “Hello, Jack,” said Mrs. Singh cheerfully. “You certainly know how to show a girl a good time. Know him?” She leaned back so he could get a good look at the body.