The Big Over Easy

  She sighed. “Whatever his second wife told you, they were never that close. He thought that by marrying again, he could retain some of the stability he had enjoyed with Lucinda and perhaps recoup some of his lost fortunes—I understand Laura Garibaldi had quite a bit of cash.”

  “She used to.”

  “Sorry, it was dreadful, wasn’t it? Anyway, it didn’t work. Not more than six months after his second marriage, I noticed him inviting young ladies to his flat next door. I don’t think he wanted to upset Laura—he just loved women. He was a very amusing man, Inspector, witty, charming and erudite.”

  “What would you say if I told you Mr. Dumpty had got remarried?”

  Lola looked shocked. “Humpty? Married again? I would have thought he’d have learnt his lesson from the last one.”

  “You met her?”

  “No, it was what I was saying earlier. He had hoped the marriage would be as happy as the first time. I think he was disappointed.”

  “Isn’t that the thing about multiple marriages?” commented Jack. “How you always hope the next one will be the perfect one.”

  Lola flinched. Jack had obviously touched a raw nerve. She flashed a look at him and then got up and walked over to the piano.

  “When they were giving out tact, Inspector Spratt, I assume you were at the end of the queue. I’ve been married sixteen times. Each time, as you say, we wish for the perfect one. My first husband was a plumber from Wantage. We married when I was still behind the cosmetics counter. He gave me more than the Earl of Sunbury ever did. That mean bastard only ever gave me paste jewelery and a dose of the clap. I could still call myself a lady if I wanted, but I’d have to use the Sunbury name, and who wants to be associated with Sunbury in any way, shape or form? He was my fifth husband. We were married for over seven months, and when we divorced, I swore I would never get married again.”

  Jack, Mary and Brown-Horrocks said nothing, so she carried on.

  “Then I met Luke. What a joy. He was young and carefree, funny and gregarious. He was the perfect man.”

  “What happened?” asked Mary.

  “I married his brother. We were having a double wedding, and there was a mix-up at the church. We divorced as soon as we could.”

  “Couldn’t you just have had it annulled?” asked Mary. “If it wasn’t consummated, it—”

  Lola silenced her with a baleful stare. “The temptation was too great. It might have turned out better, but on balance I think I preferred Luke. Trouble is, by the following morning, he had fallen for his accidental bride. They went to Llandudno and opened a fish shop. Then there was Thomas Pring. When I was being courted by him, he gave me a huge diamond, the fabulous Pring Diamond. They warned me about the curse that went with the Pring Diamond, but I ignored them all and we married.”

  She held up a cocktail shaker. “Gargle?”

  They declined. She shrugged and poured herself a martini.

  “It was then that the Pring curse made itself apparent.”

  “And the curse?”

  “Mr. Pring. He was a pig of a man. He used to cut his toenails in bed and rarely washed. I divorced him citing the 1947 Personal Hygiene Act.”

  She sat down on the chaise longue again.

  “How I prattle so! You must be busy. Is there anything else that I can do for you?”

  “Only if you can think of one particular girlfriend of Humpty’s that he might have liked enough to marry.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’ve no idea.”

  Jack stood up. “Well, I think that’s it for now.”

  “For now?”

  “You don’t mind if I come back should any other questions arise?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. Just one more thing. Would you sign Brown-Horrocks’s clipboard? I know he wants you to.”

  They thanked her and left. As soon as Lola had closed the door, she put a worried hand to her face, strode quickly to the window and raised the blind. She then picked up the telephone.

  “It’s Lola,” she said. “He suspects.”

  39. The Red Ford Zephyr

  RED HERRING USE TO BE CONTROLLED

  Blatant red herrings and overused narrative blind alleys could land a detective in hot water if the Limited Narrative Misdirection bill becomes law later this year. The controversial new law called for by readers’ groups has few friends among the Guild of Detectives, which still maintains that there is “no problem” and that self-regulatory guidelines prepared in 1904 are “more than adequate.” “We’re not asking much,” explained a representative of the twenty-million-member readers’ lobbying group TecWatch. “We just want to see good investigations—not routine rubbish padded out with inconsequential nonsense.” The bill follows the successful passing of the so-called surprise assailant act last year, which outlawed the publication of investigations where the murderer is suddenly revealed two pages from the end without a single mention in the previous one hundred thousand words.

  —Extract from The Owl, October 1, 1979

  Spongg Villas was only a ten-minute walk from Reading Central, and by the time they got back, there had been a development.

  “We’ve just had an anonymous phone call with info on Humpty’s car,” said Gretel, talking to Jack but looking at Brown-Horrocks.

  “Who from?”

  “They didn’t say. Male caller from a phone box in Charvil. Gave the information and then rang off.”

  “Headway at last. Whereabouts?”

  They stepped closer to the Reading and District wall map, which had to be hung sideways as it was the only way it would fit on the tiny wall.

  “They said it could be found…” muttered Gretel, looking at the address on the piece of paper and finally jabbing a finger perilously close to the edge of Andersen’s Wood. “Here.”

  Jack looked at the place Gretel had indicated. There were no houses within a mile in any direction.

  “Right. Mary and I are going out to have a look. Check out the owners of the closest houses and see if you can spot any link.”

  The crossroads where they’d been told they could find the Zephyr was in a rural setting to the west of the city, from where they could easily see Andersen’s Wood on the next hill. A single signpost with peeling paint sat forlornly at the roadside, and there was no evidence of habitation in any direction. After the bustle of the town over the past few days, the peace of the country was a welcome diversion. The roar of the M4 had been soothed into a gentle rumble by the distance, and for once it wasn’t raining.

  They stopped the car and got out. Brown-Horrocks had been in the passenger seat, but the small car had not been designed to fit his lanky frame, and he had sat the whole journey with his knees almost around his ears.

  “When do you get your vintage Rolls-Royce back from the garage?” he asked. “I don’t think much of their loaner.”

  “Next week,” replied Jack as he pulled on a coat against the wind and looked up and down the empty road. “I don’t see a car anywhere.”

  “Hoax?”

  “Could be. But let’s be sure. You take that road, I’ll take this one. Search as you go.”

  They went their separate ways, with Brown-Horrocks walking behind Jack and asking occasional questions.

  “Are you an alcoholic or a reformed alcoholic?”

  “Reformed…but with occasional lapses,” said Jack, hazarding a guess as to what would be most acceptable to the Guild.

  “Good,” said Brown-Horrocks, making another note.

  It was Mary who made the discovery. A rickety-looking Quonset hut in a field that was mostly overgrown by brambles. She called Jack over, opened the gate and walked over to the hut. Its doors had sagged and were fastened with a rusty hasp that was secured by a tent peg. Jack carefully lifted out the peg and let the doors swing open. The hut was dry and the floor made of compacted soil; the brambles that covered the outside had also forced holes in the corrugated iron roof and were now starting to take over the inte
rior as well. Sitting in the middle of the hut and looking as clean and new as when it was built was the Zephyr.

  Mary delicately tried the doors. “Locked.”

  “He had no car keys on him,” said Jack. “Try the tailpipe.”

  Mary walked to the back of the car as Jack cupped his hands around his face and peered in the window.

  The driver’s seat was converted for Humpty’s unusual shape, looking a bit like a padded egg cup with a high back. The pedals were all on extensions for his little legs, and the gearshift had been elongated to compensate for his short arm reach.

  “Bingo,” said Mary, holding up a set of car keys. She inserted one into the door and unlocked it. She grasped the handle and opened the door.

  “RUN, FOR GOD’S SAKE, RUN!” yelled Jack, sprinting out of the makeshift garage at full speed and hoping that Mary and Brown-Horrocks were behind him. He got as far as the middle of the road when the car exploded. He didn’t hear the sound at first, just a shock wave that scooped him up off his feet like an unseen hand and propelled him through the air to the ditch at the other side of the road, where he landed with a thump that knocked the wind out of him. He covered his head with his arms as a shower of debris rained down and a sheet of twisted corrugated iron fell close beside him. His ears were ringing, and in the momentary semideafness that followed, all sounds seemed dead and lacking in detail. He got up, checked he wasn’t damaged and divested himself of his singed overcoat. The remains of the car were fiercely ablaze, and the roadway was covered with wreckage. He appeared, apart from a cut on his face from where he had landed in the ditch, unharmed.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Mary, who had landed a half dozen paces from him.

  “I think so,” she replied as she dusted herself down. It was only when Jack started to think clearly again that he remembered there was someone missing.

  “Brown-Horrocks?” he said, quietly at first, scanning the roadway for any sign of life. “BROWN-HORROCKS!” he said again, this time louder as he ran towards the shattered building with a sinking feeling. Of the Guild examiner there was no sign, and the car looked as if someone had tried to inflate it with an air hose. The roof bulged outwards, and all the doors had blown off.

  “BROWN-HORROCKS!” he yelled once more, now looking around the wreckage for any clue as to what had happened to him, no matter how gruesome.

  “Where is he?” asked Mary, who’d arrived by Jack’s side.

  “I don’t know. Shit. Killing a Guild examiner. And he was a giant. I’ll never live this down at the station.”

  “I’m six foot nine,” came an indignant voice behind them. “I’m not a giant.”

  They turned to find him staggering up from the side of the road. He had been thrown in a quite different direction and been deposited in a muddy ditch.

  “Thank God,” said Jack. “Turn around.”

  He turned around for them, and they checked him over. Apart from some singed hair and a few cuts and bruises, he was fine.

  “I expect you’ll want to call it a day after that?”

  “On the contrary,” said Brown-Horrocks in a resolute tone,

  “I’m curious to see how this turns out.”

  Jack shook his mobile phone, and some bits fell out. “Buggered. Where’s yours, Mary?”

  “Car.”

  They walked back towards the Allegro to find a dent in the hood and a nail that had pierced the door skin like a crossbow bolt.

  “Look what they’ve done to my car!”

  “Did someone just try to kill us?” asked Mary as her mobile hunted for a signal.

  “I think so,” replied Jack as he opened the door and took a seat.

  She got through to the NCD and told Ashley to have uniform close the road and get the fire service down there—and the bomb squad, too. She snapped the mobile shut and sat on the hood. “I owe you, sir. How did you know?”

  Jack ran his fingers through his hair and picked out several bits of debris.

  “The interior light had been pried off and a small piece of wire ran down the inside of the door pillar. It might have been nothing, but I wasn’t going to risk it.”

  “I have to say I’m very glad you didn’t.”

  “So am I,” said Brown-Horrocks, making a note on his muddy and singed clipboard.

  “Probably about two pounds of high explosive,” explained Lee Whriski, a young major in the bomb squad, “attached to a short time-delay fuse. We’ll be able to tell you which explosive it was given a few days, but not much more, I’m afraid. This kind of thing is not hard to do—obtaining the explosives is harder—but when we find out what it was, we might be able to narrow the search. You were lucky.”

  They were standing on the road surrounded by several drab green army vehicles. The road had been closed while the bomb squad made a detailed search of the area.

  Jack thanked him and walked over to where Mary was being checked by a medic.

  “You know you’re near the target when you start to cop flak,” said Mary.

  “Yes,” agreed Jack. “But which target?”

  “Don’t you know?” asked Brown-Horrocks.

  “Of course,” replied Jack hastily. “It was a rhetorical question. I’m just waiting for them…to make a mistake. Then we’ll have them.”

  “I see,” said Brown-Horrocks, clearly not believing Jack in the least. “And how many assassination attempts do you think you can survive before they make a mistake?”

  “It’s all in hand, sir,” replied Jack unconvincingly.

  “I hope so. By the way, how many giants have you killed? I ask only by way of curiosity and self-preservation, you understand.”

  “Technically speaking, only one,” replied Jack with a sigh. “The other three were just tall.”

  “To kill one giant might be regarded as a misfortune,” said Brown-Horrocks slowly. “To kill four looks very much like carelessness.”

  “I was cleared on all counts.”

  “Of course,” said the Guild man, making another note on his clipboard.

  “Sir?” said Mary, who had been going around collecting debris that might have been in Humpty’s car. It was surprising how much had survived—explosions are quixotic beasts. Most of it was worthless. A portion of poultry-feed packaging, a charred couple of pages from last week’s Mole, the remains of the Zephyr’s service manual. But one particular item caught Jack’s attention. It was part of some promotional material advertising the Goring Foot Museum. Jack and Mary exchanged looks, and Mary called the office to ask Baker whether he knew anything about the museum. She listened intently for a while, then hung up.

  “Well?” asked Jack.

  “Know the way to Goring, sir?”

  “Sure. You going to tell me why?”

  “Thomas Thomm was a research assistant there. That was the job that Humpty had got for him.”

  “That’s the lead we’re looking for,” said Jack in the manner that Chymes used.

  Brown-Horrocks raised an eyebrow but was otherwise unmoved.

  “I’ll go in the back,” he said. “I’m meant to be just an observer anyway.”

  And with a sinuous movement of folding arms and limbs, he compacted his large frame sufficiently to fit in the rear seat.

  40. The Goring Foot Museum

  The foot is, of course, a wonderful piece of engineering. It allowed mankind freedom from quadripedal movement and thus to develop the use of his hands. Without the foot we would have no hands.

  —Professor Tarsus, The Foot Lectures

  Jack had been to the Foot Museum only once before, when he was at school. It had been considered the low point of the school year, only marginally less interesting than Swindon’s Museum of the Rivet or Bracknell’s collection of doorstops. The museum was another Spongg bequest and was an impressive structure built in the Greek style, and despite being sandwiched between a supermarket and a fast-food restaurant, had lost little of its imposing grandeur.

  They were met by a white-haired g
entleman of perhaps sixty. He had a bad stoop and walked with uncertain steps. He had to look at them sideways, as his chin was almost resting on his chest.

  “Professor Tarsus? I am Detective Inspector Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division, Reading Police. This is Detective Sergeant Mary Mary.”

  “I’ll never remember all that. I’ll just call you Ronald and Nancy. Who’s he?”

  “This is Mr. Brown-Horrocks from the Most Worshipful Guild of Detectives.”

  “Ah. You can be Ronald as well. Took your time, didn’t you?”

  He had a heavy, gravelly voice that sounded like thimbles on a washboard.

  “Pardon me?” asked Jack, unsure of his meaning.

  “You chaps don’t seem to be interested at all. I had a couple of you johnnies around about three months ago, just after the theft. Ronald and, er…Ronald, I think their names were. They promised to make inquiries, and that was that. Bad show, I call it.”

  “We’re not here about the theft, sir.”

  The Professor appeared not to hear and beckoned them to follow him past the rows of ancient foot-orientated exhibits. The interior was as old and dusty as Jack remembered, the leaded windows caked with grime and the hard flags smoothed from three-quarters of a century of bored, shuffling feet. The Professor led them through a door marked “Private” and into a modern laboratory. Racks of jars lined the walls, most of them containing some sort of chiropodic specimen pickled in formaldehyde.

  “What’s this?” asked Jack, pointing to an acrylic and polypropylene test foot in a worn jogging boot being sprayed with a foul-smelling liquid inside a glass case. The foot and its stainless-steel leg trod a rolling road in a convincing manner.

  “Our test foot. I call him Michael. We can program it for any type of walking gait. We can even,” he continued excitedly, “simulate a dropped arch to investigate what type of shoe offers the best support. We have it sweating a salt-nutrient mixture and then analyze the bacteria that grows in the gaps between the toes. Would you care to take a look?”