They both nodded.
“It’s officially one of the seven wonders of Reading,” said Spongg proudly. “Will you take tea?”
“Thank you.”
“The first Castle Spongg was built in 1892,” he explained as he led the way down a mirrored corridor. “It was a Gothic Revival edifice of humongous proportions. The main hall, corridor and doorways were so large that my grandfather took to driving everywhere in a Model T Ford.”
“Didn’t it damage the place?” asked Mary.
“The odd scuff here and there, but nothing serious. No, the real damage was done by the 1924 Spongg indoor car-racing championships. A three-car pileup in the main hall destroyed all the oak paneling between the library and the smoking room.”
He laughed at the thought of it.
“There was a high-banked corner built next to the staircase. The main hall became the home straight; they tell me the chicane in the orangerie was tricky but that you could really open it up down the picture gallery. My grandfather set a lap record of 86.42 miles per hour in a blown Delage-Talbot S-27. He destroyed the car and his left leg in the attempt.”
He stopped next to a glass case containing a piece of twisted metal.
“This was part of the Delage’s supercharger. We found it embedded in a tree half a mile from here two summers ago. Glory, glory days. This way.”
He took a left turn, opened a riveted steel hatch and led them down a corridor that looked like the interior of a submarine, complete with water dribbling out of the valves and the distant concussion of depth charges.
“It all ended badly, of course. On the eighth lap of the race, Count Igor Debrovnik spun his seven-liter Fiat off the corner of the upstairs landing and out through the stained-glass windows to crash through the roof of the chapel below. A few minutes later, a marshaling mistake in the library caused the Earl of Sudbury to crash his Railton at seventy miles an hour into the antiquarian-book section, causing irreparable damage to some early works by Bacon. By the end of the race, a dozen other mishaps had reduced the inside of the house to a ruin, so in 1926 my grandfather decided to rebuild it with the help of the brilliant yet insane Wolfgang Caligari.”
He pushed open a panel, and they found themselves in a large room full of ancient Khmer stone architecture with large strangler fig trees growing across and through it. It was hot, and tropical plants grew in lush abundance. As they watched, a parrot flew across the room and perched on the mantelpiece.
“We call this the Angkor Wat Room,” said Spongg. “The roof is medieval spider-vaulted, and those windows are a faithful reproduction of the west window at Chartres—but with a few more feet.”
He bade them sit on a sofa that had been incongruously placed on a Persian rug in the center of the room. The tea things were already waiting for them.
“It’s remarkable!” said Mary.
“They didn’t say that when it was built,” replied Spongg, pouring the tea. “It was roundly lambasted, as all great buildings are. From the simple ‘ugly’ through the more forthright ‘wholly lacking in taste or style’ to the plainly overstated ‘work of Mephistopheles.’ It’s all of these and none of these and a lot more besides. Sugar?”
“Thank you.”
“So,” he said as soon as they had their tea, “you still have some questions, Inspector?”
“A few. Have you any idea at all how Humpty might have been planning to raise the value of Spongg shares?”
“I’ve thought about it a great deal since I saw you last,” said Spongg, “but I still can’t figure it out.”
Jack started on a new tack.
“I’ve spoken to Mr. Grundy. He said that Humpty did offer to sell him his share portfolio that night at the Spongg benefit.”
“Did Grundy take up the offer?”
“No.”
“Then why would I want to kill him? If that was Humpty’s plan, then he misjudged his timing badly.”
“Perhaps he wasn’t planning to sell them to Grundy at all. Perhaps he was going to sell them back to…you.”
Spongg frowned and stared at them both. “For what purpose?”
“To allow you to reclaim the factory for the family.”
Spongg laughed. “If that is so, I must have been planning this for twenty years—that’s how long we’ve been in trouble. Besides, Humpty bought those shares, not me. I don’t have that kind of cash.”
“Mr. Dumpty could have been your front. If you had been buying your own shares back, I daresay City analysts would be asking why—and the price would have increased dramatically.”
Spongg laughed again, but anger was rising beneath his genial exterior.
“If I were a criminal, Inspector, I could have plundered my employees’ pension fund. I and my aged relatives are the sole trustees, so it wouldn’t have been difficult. There is over a hundred million in there, more than enough to put this company back on its feet. But it isn’t mine. It belongs to the workers. I’ve been battling Winsum and Loosum’s for years, not out of my responsibility as an employer or to maintain the Spongg name but because we have a moral imperative to maintain the supply of foot-care products.”
He said it very grandly and without any humor intended.
“The supply of foot-care products has a moral imperative?”
“You may laugh, Inspector, but then you don’t understand chiropody as I do. The Spongg empire is built on four major foot treatments. Without them we are nothing. Anyone can make special scissors, insoles and corn plasters—our selling point is our successful foot preparations. Winsum and Loosum aren’t interested in my factory or distribution. They want my patents. With their sales network and my cures for verrucas, corns, athlete’s foot and bunions, they could wipe the world’s feet free of ailments forever—or not.”
“Not?” inquired Mary.
“Precisely. They may retain our patents but decide to withhold them from the world market. Ointments that soothe but don’t cure is where the real money lies. In contrast, Spongg’s has always been committed to a public service in the foot-care market. If I wanted to play it like Winsum’s, I could be a multibillionaire by now.”
Spongg’s voice had been getting higher and higher as he explained all this. He was obviously quite impassioned by the magnitude of the situation.
“Without competition from us, they could charge what they want. Chiropody would become a gold mine, and that greedy bastard Solomon Grundy wants the lot!”
He had gone a bright shade of red but soon calmed himself, took a sip of tea, apologized to Mary for swearing in her presence and then said, “To think the Jellyman will be shaking hands and honoring Solomon on Saturday is obscene to my mind, Inspector. If the Jellyman understood anything about feet at all, he would not be honoring Grundy but enacting legislation against him.”
“Do you know where Mr. Dumpty had been living this past year?”
“I’m afraid not. Aside from at the charity benefit, I’ve not seen him.”
Jack put down his tea and took the picture of Tom Thomm from his pocket.
“Have you ever seen this man?”
Spongg put on his glasses and stared at the picture.
“Yes, I think with Humpty a couple of times—but not for a while.”
“What about him?” asked Jack, passing him a photo of Winkie.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“What about Laura Garibaldi?”
“That was tragic, Inspector. Truly tragic. I introduced them, for my sins. Laura and I were on the Reading clay-pigeon shooting team. She was a fine shot and a good woman. I don’t think Humpty really deserved her.”
“You’ve been very kind,” said Jack, “and I’m sorry that my questioning seemed harsh at times.”
“Please think nothing of it,” said Spongg. “Come, I’ll see you out.”
They rose and walked between the faux-ancient-stone ruins as the parrot took flight and flashed its exotic blue tail feathers.
“That’s quite a bird,” mu
rmured Mary.
“Norwegian blue,” said Spongg admiringly. “Beautiful plumage.”
29. Lola Vavoom
Lola Vavoom had been one of the greatest British actresses of the seventies and eighties. Discovered in 1969 at the cosmetics counter of Littlewoods, she was cast as Deirdre Furlong in the pilot episode of 65, Walrus Street. Leaving after four years, she made her break to the big screen as maverick cop Julie Hathaway in the highly successful The Streets of Wootton Bassett. A string of hits followed: The Adzuki Bean Murders, My Sister Used to Keep Geese and Fancy Free in Ludlow, for which she won a Milton. By the middle of the eighties she was commanding two million dollars a picture. Then disaster. A string of flops culminating in 1989’s The Eyre Affair and unceasing speculation over the contents of her bathroom cupboard caused her to withdraw completely. Her attendance at the 2004 Spongg Charity Benefit was her first public appearance in fourteen years.
—From Valleyhills Movie Guide
“How many?” asked Jack, who had taken five minutes out to eat a sandwich after his return from a brief trip to St. Cerebellum’s.
“Ninety-seven—and rising,” said Baker. “We don’t have time to take statements; Ashley and Tibbit are taking names and addresses and checking to see if they have any ‘pertinent information.’”
“Do they?”
“Not yet. They just want to help.”
News of Humpty’s death had elicited an unpredictable reaction among his ex-girlfriends, paramours, affairs and liaisons. The arrival of floral tributes outside Grimm’s Road had begun as soon as his death was announced, and they had now spilled into the road. There was talk of a candlelight vigil that night; the long trail of ex-lovers who wanted to help with the investigation had begun a few hours ago and now absorbed all available manpower, which was never that great to begin with. The one girlfriend they did want to speak to, however, had yet to turn up.
“Thanks, Baker. Tell Ashley and Tibbit to come straight to me if they hear anything potentially relevant.”
Baker nodded and picked up his mobile.
“So what did you discover?” Jack asked Mary, who had also grabbed a quick bite to eat.
“Not much,” she replied, looking at her notes. “Winkie’s supervisor at Winsum and Loosum’s was a man named Whelan, who said that Winkie was an excellent worker and much liked. The narcolepsy was a problem, but they worked around it—Winsum’s has a good record of employing people with health issues. I couldn’t fault them. There were several occasions when jokes could have been made at a narcoleptic’s expense, but no one made them.”
“Did he seem to them like the sort of man about to try to blackmail a killer?”
“He had been preoccupied and a bit jumpy—about what, no one could say. Are you still thinking Solomon Grundy might be involved?”
“I don’t think so. He laid all his cards on the table for us, and as you say, he’s got enough money to write off a two-million-pound scam without thinking. And as Briggs pointed out, it was fourteen years ago.”
Jack took a swig of tea. His trip over to St. Cerebellum’s had been equally inconclusive. Winkie’s doctor, a helpful chap named Dr. Murphy, told him that Winkie had been treated for narcolespy as an outpatient for nearly eight years, with sessions twice weekly. Winkie had missed the previous day’s session, so it was possible something was on his mind. Jack had also bumped into Dr. Quatt, who asked him how things were going. She had referred to Humpty as “Hump,” so Jack wondered whether perhaps she might not have a floral tribute for him, too.
Jack finished his sandwich, wiped his hands and mouth on a hankie and thought for a moment. All those women.
“By the way,” said Baker, “Giorgio Porgia said he’d see you tomorrow at nine A.M. sharp.”
Jack snapped his fingers as he suddenly thought of something. “Of course. Baker, the apartment that Porgia gave to Humpty in return for the money laundering…?”
“What about it?”
“Do we have an address? I know Humpty lived over at the Cheery Egg with Laura for eighteen years, but he might have kept it on. He would have had to take all those girls somewhere.”
Baker rummaged through paperwork and eventually came up with an address in one of Humpty’s old arrest reports. “Here it is,” he announced: “614, Spongg Villas.”
Humpty Dumpty’s old residence was in a large block of flats that had been built by the Spongg Building Trust in the early part of the century for Reading’s trendiest set. After a period of fashionable existence in the thirties and forties, its popularity had begun to wane. Expensive to maintain, the unprepossessing block had changed hands regularly for ever-decreasing amounts as successive landlords took the rent and never bothered to bring the place up to date or even carry out anything other than essential repairs. It had started out as a good address but was now a shabby wreck, an upmarket version of Grimm’s Road, its paint long since faded and the stucco rounded and softened by the corrosive action of the wind and rain.
Jack, Mary and Baker stepped into the musty hall and were greeted warmly by the ripe odor of decay. Out of two hundred apartments, they understood from the ancient doorman, who wore a stained bellhop’s uniform, barely eight were still occupied. The others had been boarded up and the basins, baths and toilets smashed to discourage squatters. The owner was a wealthy financier who was waiting for the last tenants to leave before he flattened the site and built a deluxe car park in its place. The doorman pointed the way up the stairs. The lift, he explained, had been out of order since 1972.
Humpty’s apartment was on the sixth floor, and as Baker led the way up the creaking circular staircase, Jack looked over the banisters and up at the domed skylight, whose myriad leaks he could see had been crudely repaired with waterproof tape. The banisters were rickety, and the dust of dry rot rose when they touched them. Padlocked doors greeted them on every landing.
“Which was his apartment again?” asked Jack.
“Number 614,” whispered Baker. “This way.”
He led them slowly down the hall, through fire doors that were wedged open and past corroded wall lights glowing with bulbs of minuscule wattage. Dust rose from the aged carpet as they approached Humpty’s front door. Jack pulled out his penlight to examine it more closely. They could see that the dirt and fluff had drifted against it; the doorknob had a small spider living on it, and everything was veiled with a thin coat of dust.
“No one’s been in here for rather a long time,” observed Baker.
A low, husky woman’s voice answered from behind them.
“About a year, actually, dahlings.”
They turned to see a woman of perhaps fifty-five standing dramatically in the shaft of light that shone out of her apartment door and pierced the stygian gloom of the corridor. She watched them all with a well-practiced air of laconic indifference, a half smile on her lips. Her hair was up in rollers, and she was smoking an expensive-looking cigarette. She had hastily covered her mouth with crimson lipstick and wore a lacy blouse that was unbuttoned enough to display a large volume of cleavage. Her shoulders were draped with a light tan cashmere sweater, and she wore a knee-length skirt that hugged her well-proportioned frame tightly. She paused for a moment, leaned on the doorframe and regarded them in a manner that might have been described as “smoldering sexuality” had she been twenty years younger.
“Sorry?” stammered Jack, quite taken aback by the curious vision that had appeared in front of them.
“About a year,” she repeated. “I called them about the shower, but they never came. They’re arseholes, you know, dahling.”
She inhaled on her cigarette and blew the smoke upwards. Jack walked over to her.
“I know who you are. You’re Lola Vavoom. You used to be big in movies.”
“I will treat that feed line with the contempt it deserves, dahling. I’d never tread on Norma’s toes. Who might you be?”
“Detective Inspector Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division. These are Detective Serge
ant Mary and Constable Baker.”
She nodded in Mary’s direction but didn’t look at her. She put a languid hand out towards Baker, just out of his reach so he had to step forward to shake it.
“Detective Baker,” she cooed.
“Constable Baker,” he corrected with a small smile.
Despite her faded grandeur and worn poise, Lola had a certain grace and bearing that still made her extremely attractive.
“That’s a beautiful name. I had a lover named Baker once. He was hung like a hamster.”
“Is that good?” asked Baker, unsure of her meaning.
“It is if you’re another hamster.”
Jack managed to turn a laugh into a cough. Baker blushed, but Jack quickly took charge of the situation.
“Miss Vavoom—what are you doing here?”
“Here, dahling?” she replied with a smile. “Why, I live here!”
“We thought you’d be in Hollywood…or Caversham Heights at the very least,” added Mary, who remembered seeing Lola performing Anthrax! live when she was a little girl.
“Hah!” Lola spat contemptuously. “Being waited on by an army of cosmetic surgeons? No thanks. What you see is what I am. I’ve not had my boobs done or my arse lifted, no nips, no tucks. No ribs removed, nothing. Those little strumpets we see on the silver screen today are mostly bathroom sealant. They buy their breasts over the counter. ‘What would you like, honey, small, medium or large?’ They give us stick insects and tell us it’s beauty. If someone of their size went for an audition in my day, she’d have been shown a square meal and told to come back when she was a stone heavier. What’s wrong with curves? Anyone over a ten these days is regarded not as an average-sized woman but a marketing opportunity. Cream for this, pills for that, superfluous hair, collagen injection, quick-weight-loss diets. Where’s it going to end? We’re pressured to expend so much money and effort to be the ‘perfect’ shape, when that shape is physically attainable by only one woman in a million. It’s the cold face of capitalism, boys and girls, preying on misguided expectations. Besides, I always found perfection an overrated commodity.”
The Big Over Easy Page 22
