Blast! he said to himself. He had forgotten to do anything about the bean refund. He picked up the phone and rang the Paint Box and was informed by a very helpful assistant that Mr. Foozle had departed unexpectedly and at very short notice to London, where he was to attend a Stubbs auction; he wouldn’t be back until Friday. She knew nothing about the beans and had no idea why Foozle would be going to a Stubbs auction, at short notice or otherwise. Jack put the receiver down and stared at his computer terminal blankly. Something about the whole Humpty affair felt wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Sadly, “hunches” and “feelings” didn’t really sit well with Briggs—unless you were Guild, in which case you could base a thousand-man-hour investigation on one.
“1000 010011 1010010 10010,” said Ashley in hushed tones on Gretel’s phone in the next room. “10010 11010 00100111 1011.”
“Are you talking to your mother on the office phone?” bellowed Jack.
“Sorry,” said a sheepish voice, and all was quiet. Jack stared at his “four-and-twenty blackbirds” screensaver in a desultory manner until he left to go to the Jellyman security briefing.
While Jack was attending the briefing along with all the other officers of inspector rank and above, Mary was sitting in the Platters Coffeehouse, feeling a bit nervous—and annoyed. From the way things looked, her chances of working with Chymes had been seriously scuppered, and she might have risked her reputation for being trustworthy for nothing if Chymes decided to drop her. If it got out that she had acted behind the back of her senior officer, she’d probably have to transfer to the sheep-theft unit in Lerwick or something. Chymes must have been wrong about the Humpty case, but it didn’t matter. She had fulfilled her part of the bargain—she hoped he would fulfill his. She took a sip of coffee and flicked through her notes. She had even photocopied Mrs. Dumpty’s confession.
“Mary?” said Flotsam, who was approaching with a coffee of his own. “You don’t mind me calling you Mary? You can call me Eddie if you want.”
She smiled and invited him to join her.
“How’s it going?” asked Flotsam.
“Haven’t you heard? The ex-wife killed him. Motive, opportunity and, best of all, a note.”
Flotsam didn’t seem overly concerned. “Knowing the Guv’nor, tricky—but not insurmountable. He’s resurrected more dropped investigations than I’ve had hot dinners. All that ‘cold case’ stuff is really popular these days. Just the sort of thing for the Amazing Crime Summer Special—now, what have you got for us?”
“This is a copy of the confession note, and these are copies of her handwriting. I’ve made a few notes and will talk you through it, if you want.”
“Well done,” he enthused. “The Guv’nor will be pleased—you’re definitely backing the right horse here.”
So for the next half hour she talked about the investigation and all the pertinent points that she felt had been raised. All the while Flotsam nodded and took voluminous notes and mentioned every now and then how the Guv’nor would like that or the Guv’nor would do something with this, and when she had told him everything she knew, he thanked her, told her they would be in touch and left, leaving his coffee undrunk.
She waited a few minutes to gather her thoughts, then walked back to the NCD offices just as Jack was returning from the Jellyman briefing.
“Ah, Mary. I’ve told Briggs it’s a murder/suicide, and I’ll be seeing him tomorrow at ten to wrap up the Humpty case. I’ll need everyone together tomorrow morning for a heads-up on this Sacred Gonga protection-duty operation, so better make it sometime after that. Yes?”
“Very well, sir.”
“Good. I’m going home.”
And he left her alone to her thoughts in the tiny offices. Annoyingly for her, they weren’t good thoughts. She was about to start a career with Chymes, something she had always wanted—but it somehow just didn’t seem right. The price tag had been high—and might become even higher.
22. Titans and Beanstalks
BUTLER DID DO IT SHOCK
In a shocking result that has put the world of professional detecting into a flat spin, the butler of the deceased Lord Pilchard was discovered to have actually committed the murder. “You could have knocked me down with a feather,” said the Guild-ranked Inspector Dogleash. “I’ve been investigating for thirty years, and I’ve never heard of such a thing.” The overfamiliar premise of “the butler did it” has ensured that any butler on the scene could be instantly eliminated from inquiries. No longer. Miss Maple, who deduced the butler’s guilt, was unrepentant. “Goodness me, what a fuss I seem to have caused!” she commented, before returning to her knitting.
As Jack stepped into the house, he noticed that even though it was nearly the children’s bedtime, things were unusually quiet.
“Hello…?”
Amazingly, the telly was off. The children usually watched it in shifts, and since it was the only one, fights were not uncommon.
Madeleine was in the kitchen. He kissed her and slumped in his big chair at the head of the table.
“The Dumpty case just folded.”
“Solved?”
“Through no skill on my behalf. His ex-wife killed him. She just topped herself over at the Yummy-Time factory. I’d avoid chocolate digestives for a while if I were you.”
Jack unclipped his tie and removed one of Stevie’s toys from the small of his back.
“What does that mean for the NCD?”
Jack shrugged. “Disbanded, I should imagine. I’ll be entitled to a full pension in four years. I’ll only be forty-eight. Perhaps it’s time to think about a new career.”
“What would you do?”
“Lots of things.”
“Name one.”
Jack thought about this for a while but couldn’t really come up with anything. Police work was his life. There was nothing he’d rather do. This was too depressing. He decided to change the subject.
“How are things with you?”
“Good. Prometheus said he’d never seen a photographer at work, so he came and helped me do a portrait of Lady Elena Bumpkin-Tumpkinson. He was telling us all about his life before his banishment to the Caucasus. The kids love him; why he can’t get British citizenship, I have no idea. The Home Office must be bonkers.”
“Not bonkers—just scared. It’s not a good idea to get on the wrong side of Zeus, what with all those thunderbolt things he likes to chuck around. Where is Prometheus at the moment?”
“Have a look for yourself.”
She pointed to the connecting door to the living room. Jack opened it a crack and looked in. Prometheus was standing in front of the TV, supplanting and outranking it for the evening. He was miming all the actions as he told the children a story, and Megan, Jerome and Stevie were sitting in an attentive semicircle in front of him. Ben sat on a chair close by and pretended to read a copy of Scientific American but was actually as enthralled as they were. No one moved or uttered a sound.
“—when Zeus, Poseidon and Hades had deposed Cronus, their father, they drew lots out of Poseidon’s helmet, the helmet of darkness, you remember, that had been given to him by Cyclops. Anyway, they drew lots to decide who would gain the lordship of the sky, the sea and the dark underworld.”
“What about the earth?” asked Jerome.
“That, young man, they decreed they would leave common to all. Hades won the underworld, Poseidon the sea and Zeus the sky. Poseidon set about building his underwater palace in the sea off Euboea, constructing magnificent stables to keep his chariot horses in, horses that were brilliant white and had brazen hooves and golden manes. When they pulled Poseidon in his golden chariot, storms would cease and sea monsters appear and play about them like young dolphins….”