“Whatever happened to him?” asked Madeleine.
“Friedland Chymes? No idea.”
“No, silly. The Gingerbreadman.”
“Last I heard, he was still in St. Cerebellum’s Secure Wing for the Incurably Unhinged. Four-hundred-year sentence. It should have been five hundred, but we never proved his one hundred and fourth victim.”
“He couldn’t escape, could he?” asked Madeleine. “After all, he did promise to do unspeakable things to you and Friedland.”
“If he did, I’d be the first to know.” He sighed. “No, I guess I’d be the second.”
Jack’s mobile vibrated across the worktop and fell into the compost bin with a plop.
He picked it up, wiped off the spaghetti hoops and frowned at the text message.
“‘Gngbdmn out 2 get U,’” he murmured. “Now, that’s a coincidence.”
Madeleine dropped a spoon, and Jack chuckled.
“Just kidding. It actually says, ‘Big egg down—Wyatt.’ What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” replied Madeleine, “but if the husband with the dopey line in practical jokes wants to still be breathing in ten minutes, he better be out of the house.”
Wyatt was Briggs’s deputy and not the most polite of men.
“Are you coming in today?” he asked as soon as Jack called.
Jack glanced at his watch. It was barely nine.
“Of course. What’s the problem?”
“Wall fall over at Grimm’s Road. Looks like one of yours. Briggs is on his way and wants to see you there pronto.”
Jack replied that he’d be over as soon as possible, scribbled down the address and hung up.
“What was it?”
“One for the NCD, apparently.”
“Another Bluebeard copycat?”
“I hope not. Are you interviewing any more potential lodgers today?”
“Two.”
“Good. No one weird, remember. I’ll call you.”
He kissed her, then looked over Stevie to find the area of least sticky. He eventually found a small patch on the top of his head and kissed that and was out of the door.
Jack’s car was an Austin Allegro estate Mark 3 painted in a gruesome shade of lime green that had been designated as “Applejack” by an unnamed marketing executive with an odd sense of humor. Detectives driving vintage or classic cars was a Guild-inspired affectation that Jack thought ludicrous. Friedland Chymes’s 1932 Delage D8 was a not-untypical choice. As a small, pointless and totally unnoticed act of rebellion, Jack drove the dullest car he could find. His father had bought it new in 1982 and looked after it assiduously. When it passed to Jack, he continued to care for it. It was just coming up to its twenty-second birthday and had covered almost 350,000 miles, wearing out two engines and four clutches on the way.
He didn’t drive straight to Grimm’s Road. He had an errand to run first—for his mother.
She opened the door within two seconds of his pressing the doorbell, letting out a stream of cats that ran around with such rapidity and randomness of motion that they assumed a liquid state of furry purringness. The exact quantity could have been as low as three or as high as one hundred eight; no one could ever tell, as they were all so dangerously hyperactive. The years had been charitable to Mrs. Spratt, and despite her age she was as bright as a button and had certainly not lost any of her youthful zest. Jack put it down to quantity of children. It had either made her tough in old age or worn her out—if the latter, then without Jack and his nine elder siblings, she might have lived to one hundred ninety-six. She painted people’s pets in oils because “someone has to,” collected small pottery animals, Blue Baboon LPs and Jellyman commemorative plates. She had been widowed seventeen years.
“Hello, baby!” she enthused merrily. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Mother—and I’m not a baby anymore. I’m forty-four.”
“You’ll always be my baby. Did the pigs dangle?”
Jack shook his head. “We did our best. The jury just wasn’t convinced we had a case.”
“It’s hardly surprising,” she snorted, “considering the jury was completely biased.”
“The defendants might be pigs, Mother, but they do have the right to be tried by their peers. In this instance twelve other pigs. It’s a Magna Carta 1215 thing—nothing to do with me or the Prosecution Service.”
She shrugged and then looked furtively around. “Best come inside. I think the aliens are trying to control my thoughts using the mobile network.”
Jack sighed. “Mother, if you met an alien, you’d quickly change your mind; they’re really just like you and me—only blue.”
She ushered him in and shut the door. The house smelled of lavender water, acrylic paint and fresh baking, and it echoed with the stately tock of the grandfather clock in the hall. A quantum of cats shot out of the living room and tore upstairs.
“It’s the diet I have them on, I think,” she murmured, passing Jack a canvas wrapped in brown paper. She didn’t really want to sell her Stubbs painting of a cow, but since she had discovered all the must-have goodies on eBay, there was really no choice.
“Remember,” she said firmly, “take it to Mr. Foozle and get him to value it. I’ll make a decision after he’s done that.”
“Right.”
She thought for a moment.
“By the way, when are you going to remove those three bags of wool from the potting shed so I can have it demolished?”
“Soon, Mother, I promise.”
The rain had eased up after the previous night’s deluge, and puddles the size of small inland seas gathered on the roads where the beleaguered storm drains had failed to carry it all away. Grimm’s Road was in an area that had yet to fully benefit from the town’s prosperity. There were terraced houses on either side of the potholed road, and two large gas holders dominated the far end of the street, casting a shadow over the houses every month of the year except July. The houses had been built in the latter part of the nineteenth century and were typical of the period: two up, two down with kitchen behind, an outdoor loo, a yard at the rear and a coal house beyond this. A door at the back of the yard led out into an alley, a cobbled track scattered with rubbish and abandoned cars, a favorite playing ground for kids.
The traffic had slowed Jack down badly in the latter part of the journey, and it was about twenty minutes later when he drove slowly down Grimm’s Road trying to read the door numbers. He had received two other calls asking where he was, and it was fairly obvious that Briggs would not be in a sympathetic mood. Jack parked the car and pulled on an overcoat, keeping a wary eye on the darkening sky.
“Nice car, mister,” said a cheeky lad with a grubby face, trying to bounce a football that had a puncture. His friend, whose face his mother had cruelly forgotten to smear with grime that morning, joined in.
“Zowie!” he exclaimed excitedly. “An Austin Allegro estate Mark 3 deluxe 1.3-liter 1982 model. Applejack with factory-fitted optional head restraints, dog cage and Motorola single-band radio.” He paused for breath. “You don’t see many of those around these days. It’s not surprising,” he added, “they’re total shit.”
“Listen,” said the first one in a very businesslike tone, “give us fifty quid and we’ll set it on fire so you can cop the insurance.”
“Better make it a tenner,” said the second lad with a grin. “Fifty is all he’d get.”
“Police,” said Jack. “Now, piss off.”
The boys were unrepentant. “Plod pay double. If you want us to torch your motor, it’s going to cost you twenty.”
They both sniggered and ran off to break something.
Jack walked up to the house in question and looked at the shabby exterior. The guttering was adrift, the brickwork sprouted moss, and the rotten window frames held several sheets of cardboard that had been stuck there to replace broken panes. In the window the landlady had already put up a sign saying “Room to Let. Strictly no pets, accordion players, statisticians, smokers, sarcastics, spongers or aliens.”