The Big Over Easy

by Jasper Fforde

  “Nothing unless pushed, sir. Call it an insurance policy.”

  “You are the first person to ask, and while understanding of the reason for the subterfuge, I am unable to lie to you: There is no one of that name resident at this prison, nor has there ever been. Use the information wisely. Good-bye, Inspector. You will excuse me if I don’t get up.”

  He looked fondly at Mary.

  “Mary, bid me farewell.”

  “’Tis more than you deserve,” replied Mary; “but since you teach me how to flatter you, imagine that I have said farewell already.”

  Giorgio smiled and mouthed a silent “Adieu!”

  Jack drove away from the prison deep in thought. If someone wanted to make it look as though Winkie had been killed with a Porgia MO, then it stood to reason that it was to throw them off the scent. And if that was the case, then they were clearly looking in the right direction.

  Mary was thinking of other things. “Are you going to tell me where Max Zotkin might be if he’s not in prison?”

  “No,” replied Jack thoughtfully, “and with a bit of luck, I intend to keep it that way.”

  Mary’s phone rang, and she flipped it open, listened to something Baker had to say and then closed it again.

  “News?”

  “You could say that. It’s Bessie Brooks. She was nabbed trying to run away from a hotel in Swindon without paying. They’re going to transfer her to Reading Central at midday.”

  33. What Bessie Brooks Had to Say for Herself

  BEAR TO SHIT IN WOODS—OFFICIAL

  Following yesterday’s passing of the Ursine Suitable Accommodation Bill, bears will no longer have to live in urban housing allocated to them by the authorities. The new deal was greeted with open paws among Reading’s bear population. “Really, we’re delighted,” declared married father of one Mr. Gus Bruin. “No more city for us—we’re off to the forest!” Parcels of land will be made available in Andersen’s Wood, where humanlike bear family units will be able to live in small cottages, take long walks and eat porridge.

  —Article in The Gadfly, September 8, 1989

  Jack pressed the two “record” buttons simultaneously.

  “This is a taped interview. Miss Bessie Brooks is being interviewed, and the time is twelve-twenty P.M. Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is conducting the interview. Also present are DS Mary Mary, Constable Kandlestyk-Maeker and Miss Brooks’s solicitor, Seymour Weevil.”

  He looked across at Bessie. She was staring at the table and appeared sullen.

  Bessie was in her early twenties and an attractive brunette who stood at least six foot one. She had dark brown eyes that were red with tears, and her expensive outfit was rumpled and dirty. She did not lift her head to look at any of them, and a packet of cigarettes that Jack had placed on the table remained untouched, even though they could see from the faint stain on her fingers that she was a smoker.

  Seymour Weevil, a short man with his hair combed carefully back from his forehead, watched the proceedings impassively from within a suit that should have been condemned as an affront to human decency long ago.

  “Miss Brooks, you have been brought in for questioning regarding the murder of one Humperdinck Aloysius Dumpty. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”

  Bessie Brooks nodded imperceptibly.

  “Miss Brooks—”

  But Seymour Weevil interrupted him. “My client is very willing to answer your questions but feels that she has been treated like a criminal. She also objects to having her apartment searched. She wishes it to be known that she loved Mr. Dumpty deeply and has no idea who killed him.”

  Jack ignored Weevil and continued. “Can you tell me your whereabouts on the night of the nineteenth and the morning of the twentieth of this month?”

  Bessie didn’t answer. Seymour Weevil gave her his handkerchief—a cheap one for her to keep, Jack noted—and said kindly, “It would help the police if you spoke to them, but you have the right to remain silent. Do you wish to exercise that right?”

  She lifted her head and stared at Jack and Mary in turn. Her mascara had run badly, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “Do you think he suffered?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  “We don’t think so,” replied Mary without any emotion.

  Jack placed the picture of her with Humpty on the table. It was in a plastic bag. She paused and then picked it up.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “It was on Mr. Dumpty’s desk.”

  A smile crossed her face momentarily as she realized that he must have liked her enough to have her photo up in his office. She touched Humpty’s features on the print with a fingertip and spoke again, yet this time her voice had found a new confidence.

  “Vienna, June last year,” she sighed wistfully. “Hump was on a business trip selling a thousand tons of Wozbekistanian industrial-strength instant soup powder. He asked me if I wanted to come along.”

  She cocked her head to one side as she filled herself with fond memories of the trip.

  “On the night this photo was taken, we went to see Madame Butterfly. In the first act, the tenor singing Lieutenant Pinkerton’s part was taken ill and the understudy was drunk. The management came out and apologized profusely and explained that they were unable to continue the performance. To my surprise Hump stood up and sang, without music, the first six lines of Pinkerton’s part. He was ushered onto the stage, and ten minutes later the performance continued with Hump as the Lieutenant. I was placed in the royal box with the compliments of the management, and Hump received eight curtain calls. It was a night that I shall never forget.” She smiled and shook her head sadly. “Does my story surprise you?”

  “Mr. Dumpty ceased to surprise me long ago, Miss Brooks,” replied Jack. “Why did you leave town?”

  The smile dried on her lips, and she looked down at the photo again.

  “I loved him, Inspector, more than any woman ever loved an egg.” She paused for a moment. “I should never have become emotionally attached to him, but it was hard not to. Did you ever meet him, Inspector?”

  “Only once, a long time ago.”

  “He was a remarkable man,” she said slowly, “quite remarkable. His crimes never benefited himself.”

  “Did he tell you of his plans?”

  “No. He had several schemes in place, but I never knew what they were. On the night of the charity benefit, he told me he had remarried. He asked me if I wanted to carry on our relationship, and I am afraid to say that I was less than polite. We argued. How dare he marry another when we had been together for almost three months!”

  “Is that why you killed him, Miss Brooks?”

  She collapsed into a choking fit of sobs. Seymour moved farther away, and Jack and Mary exchanged looks. Mary tried to comfort her.

  “It’s okay, Miss Brooks, take your time.”

  They waited for a couple of minutes for her to compose herself, then sent out for a cup of tea, which arrived speedily.

  “I couldn’t live without him, and I couldn’t bear the thought of another woman in his arms, caressing his smooth white shell—” She closed her eyes and began to cry.

  “Let’s just go over the details together,” said Jack. “Where did you get the gun?”

  “Gun?” she echoed with a puzzled expression.

  “Yes, where did you get it?”

  She looked at Seymour, who raised his eyebrows and said almost mechanically, “You don’t have to answer any questions, Miss Brooks.”

  “I didn’t use a gun.”

  “No?” asked Jack, beginning to have a nasty feeling. “Then what did you use?”

  “Three tablets of Dizuppradol. I’m a veterinarian’s assistant.”

  “His coffee?” asked Mary.

  Miss Brooks nodded her head sadly.

  “Damn!” said Jack as they walke
d along the corridor back to the NCD office.

  “Is that attempted murder?” asked Mary, unsure of whether a crime had been committed. “I mean, he didn’t even touch his coffee.”

  “Technically it is, but I can’t see the prosecutors bothering, if past NCD experience is anything to go by.”

  Miss Brooks had perked up when they told her she hadn’t killed Humpty after all, although surprisingly she knew as little about him as anyone else. When he stayed over, it was always at her flat, which had already been searched and revealed precisely nothing.

  It was an anticlimactic ending to what Jack had hoped would be a good line of inquiry. But there was one point that Bessie had told them that was of interest: Humpty had remarried. There hadn’t been time for the records to get into the system at the national registry, so Ashley and Gretel were ringing around locally to try to find out whom he had married, and where.

  “Reject one mystery woman from the inquiry and another pops up in her place,” announced Jack. “Humpty has quite a following. How many of his ex-lovers have come forward to offer us their help?”

  “One hundred and ninety-two,” replied Baker. “It’s going to take us weeks to sift through them all!”

  “We don’t have weeks.”

  Shenstone put his head around the door. “Hello, Jack!” he said cheerfully. “Want to hear the results of the vacuumings I took from the carpet at Grimm’s Road?”

  “Sure.”

  “In a word, it’s shit.”

  “The case? I don’t need you to tell me that.”

  “No, the vacuumings. It’s bird shit.”

  “Bird shit?”

  “Shit of birds, sir.”

  “I know what bird shit is, Bob, but what’s it doing at Grimm’s Road?”

  “I don’t know. It had been trodden into the carpet.”

  “Recent?”

  “Some recent, some old. The recent stuff, very recent—exited the back end of a bird less than a week ago.”

  “That recent, huh?”

  Jack took the report and read it aloud carefully. “‘Noted on the carpet were traces of an animal excrement that closely resembled that from aquatic birds such as coots, ducks, geese, etc….’”

  He thanked Shenstone, who crept out silently. Jack wrote “Bird shit?” on the board and underlined it. He then added “Gold” and “Spongg shares” and “Willie Winkie.” He sat in his chair and stared at the whiteboard. The case was still intractable. What in hell’s name had Humpty been up to?

  “Detective Inspector Spratt?” came an unfamiliar voice from the door. They all turned to find Briggs with a small and weaselly-looking officer.

  “You know I am.”

  “My name is DCI Bestbeloved—IPCC. We need to talk.”

  The Independent Police Complaints Commission was the police who policed the police. They were the ones who descended from a great height on any officer even suspected of wrongdoing.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” said Jack, thinking perhaps that he would have to give evidence against another officer or something. “How can I help?”

  “By cooperating with the IPCC,” put in Briggs with a sigh.

  “About what? You said I had until Saturday to finger Humpty’s killer!”

  “It’s nothing to do with Mr. Dumpty,” said DCI Bestbeloved in a coldly businesslike manner. “It’s about the three pigs. They are pursuing a case for harassment, mental cruelty and malicious prosecution.”

  34. Investigated

  PIGGY IN ROAST BEEF SHOCK

  A piggy was caught eating roast beef yesterday, in direct contravention of rules governing the use of animal-based products’ being included in animal feed. The piggy, one of a litter of five, was in isolation yesterday as officers from DEFRA tried to trace the other members of his family. A spokesman for the agency had this to say: “Fortunately for us, one of the little piggies stayed at home, and another, when offered the roast beef, refused. A fourth went “wee wee wee” all the way home and is now also in quarantine. We are still trying to trace the first little piggy, who, it seems, went to market. Until he is caught, we have instructed the withdrawal of all pork-related foodstuffs from shops and have decided to cull everything in sight, whether porcine or not, just to be sure.

  —Extract from The Gadfly, March 9, 2001

  “Chymes put you up to this, didn’t he?” demanded Jack as he sat on a hard plastic chair in one of the interview rooms.

  “No one puts us up to anything,” replied Bestbeloved stonily. “We will be conducting a full inquiry in due course. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defense—”

  “I know the score,” interrupted Jack. “Can we get on with it? I have an investigation to get back to.”

  “I think it would be best if you were just to answer the questions,” said Bestbeloved, “and don’t think you’ll be getting back to work for a while.”

  “Sir?” said Jack, appealing to Briggs, who was standing at the door.

  Briggs shrugged. It was out of his hands.

  “If you would like legal representation or someone from the Police Federation present,” went on Bestbeloved, “then we are very happy for that to be arranged—but would insist that you remain suspended on full pay until such time as that can be finalized.”

  “I waive all rights to representation,” replied Jack steadily.

  “Will you state your name for the benefit of the record?”

  “Detective Inspector John Reginald Spratt, Nursery Crime Division, Oxford and Berkshire Constabulary, Officer Number 8216.”

  “And you were the investigating officer in charge of Case 722/B, Possible unlawful killing of Theophilus Bartholomew Wolff aka ‘Big Bad’?”

  “I was.”

  Bestbeloved laid several sheets of paper on the table in front of him. They were custody and arrest records. “Is this your signature?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then perhaps you will tell me why Little Pigs A, B and C were kept in cells that were scrupulously clean and tidy and were offered tea, coffee and biscuits instead of kitchen scraps and puddle water, as was their right?”

  “Sorry?”

  Bestbeloved laid another sheet of paper on the table. It was a letter from Nigel Grubbit, the pigs’ lawyer, and it bullet-pointed the complaints against Jack.

  “They never indicated to me they had special needs,” replied Jack, looking down the list of grievances with a growing sense of unease. If he had won the case, no one would have cared less, but the pigs were eager for revenge—and cash, of course.

  “It’s not their responsibility to ask for it,” said Bestbeloved.

  “They also maintain that you interviewed them while eating a bacon sandwich. Why would you do something like that?”

  Jack shrugged. “Probably because the canteen was out of rolls.”

  Bestbeloved glared at him. “Do you find this whole interview funny, Spratt?” He tapped the pigs’ list of grievances. “Any three out of these six points would be enough to finish you, Spratt—and cost the Reading Police Department dear. Look at this: ‘DI Spratt and his assistant, PC Ashley, made comments about crackling and applesauce that were intentionally made to be overheard by Little Pig C.’ If this is true, Spratt, it constitutes a real physical threat to the well-being of the prisoners under your responsibility and might in fact constitute torture. Grubbit is quoting the Animal (anthropomorphic) Equality Bill of 1996 to us, and we think they have a good case.”

  Jack sighed. He might be cleared by a tribunal in six months’ time, but that was six months too late. He needed to be free to continue the investigation this afternoon. The thing was, Jack knew that the pigs could have been sent packing if the IPCC had so wished, but this wasn’t about justice for three murderous porkers. It wasn’t just about getting Jack suspended and Chymes onto the Humpty case. No, this was about what happens to people who defy Chymes and the Guild. Jack’s demise would serve as a warning to anyone else daft or stubborn enough to make a stand.


  He turned and looked at the one-way mirror in the interview room. Chymes would be behind it, watching, gloating.

  “What do you want, Bestbeloved?” demanded Jack.

  “I want all officers to uphold the letter of the law when interrogating prisoners,” he replied. “An officer who has gone astray is a stain upon the force and every honest officer in it.”

  “Uphold the letter of the law?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the highest levels of probity when conducting investigations?”

  “Of course.”

  “All officers?”

  Jack asked the question so pointedly that Briggs glanced sideways towards the one-way mirror. Jack was right. Chymes was in there.

  “Then I’ve got something to say, and I think it would be better for everyone if this tape recorder were off.”

  He directed the comment towards the mirror. There was no reaction, so he simply said, “It’s about a murder in Andersen’s Wood. It’s about Max Zotkin.”

  It worked. Within a few seconds, the door had opened and Chymes strode in with a look of thunder on his face.

  DCI Bestbeloved, seeing that things were suddenly becoming a great deal more complicated, hastily announced the suspension of the interview and switched off the tape recorder. He had been led to believe that Jack would be a “lamb to the slaughter” and bow to the inevitable—the idea of Chymes’s intervening was not part of the plan. Still, spared the burden of initiative by the appearance of such an eminent officer, he sat back to see how things would turn out.

  “Do you see how easily I can bury you?” yelled Chymes. “If it’s not this way, it’s another. I’m through pussyfooting around—relinquish your case to me now and you may get to keep your pension.”

  There was a pause as they stared at each other. Chymes was a powerful man, and a bully. Jack had been cowed by him many times, but he’d had enough.

  “You couldn’t get this case by trying to turn my own sergeant against me,” he began in a low voice, choosing his words carefully. “You couldn’t get it by withholding pertinent evidence. You couldn’t get it by turning the press against me. And you won’t get it by invoking the IPCC.”