The big over easy

“She didn’t kill him, sir.”

“Listen,” said Briggs, “I know the NCD means a lot to you, but we can’t justify the expense. We’ve got to make some hard choices, and I’m sure the budgetary meeting can make a generous settlement for early retirement. You’ve done good work, Jack, but it’s a question of priorities.”

“I thought it was just the department getting canned?” said Jack, rising to his feet.

“You are the department,” replied Briggs, also rising. “Where else were you going to work? CID? Don’t make me insult you by offering you traffic or something. The Humpty case is closed.”

“The budgetary meeting is on Thursday, yes?”

“Yes,” said Briggs sharply, wondering what he was up to, “why?”

“Just let me carry on until then to prove she didn’t do it and if I can’t, I’ll call it a day and the coroner can have a murder/suicide.”

“No.”

“Twenty-four hours, then.”

“Sorry.”

“Until tomorrow morning?”

“No!”

“Twenty years,” said Jack, “twenty years I’ve run the NCD, and while I admit I have made a few slip-ups and killed a giant or two — ”

“Four. It was four, Jack.”

“He was barely six foot eight, sir. Listen, I’ve never asked you for anything before now. Geoffrey, please.”

It was the first time he had ever used Briggs’s first name. He hoped to God he had remembered it correctly. The Superintendent paused for a moment and stared at him, then finally shook his head.

“I can’t do it, Jack. You’ve got nothing. No, I take that back. You’ve got less than nothing. If you could show me one positive piece of evidence, I’d be happy to keep it open, but as it stands, I think all you’ve got is a hunch and a strong suit of delusive hope. And that’s not enough to keep an inquiry open.”

“It’d be enough for Friedland,” said Jack rather feebly.

“You,” said Briggs slowly, “are not Friedland. Not even close.”

“Sir…!” pleaded Jack, numbed by his intransigence.

“Interview’s over, Jack. And I’m sorry.”

“Briggs!”

“You’d better leave, Jack. I can sense you’re going to say or do something that you might regret.”

Jack sighed and headed for the door.

The intercom beeped.

“Yes?”

It was Sergeant Mary, explained Briggs’s secretary. Jack grimaced. She might at least have had the good grace to wait until he was out of Briggs’s office before she requested a transfer.

“Send her in.”

Mary stepped in rather self-consciously, looked at Jack and then walked past him to face Briggs at his desk.

“I was just telling your senior officer, Mary, that by this time next week, the NCD will be disbanded. You are here to ask for an immediate transfer, I take it?”

Mary bit her lip. She could still back out. Chymes or Jack? Two days ago — no, wait, two hours ago it would have been a no-brainer. Now it was different. The NCD? Well, somehow it felt sort of right. That she belonged.

“I don’t think so, sir.”

Briggs raised an eyebrow, and Jack stopped in midstride.

“I found the slug that killed Humpty. It had fallen to earth in a length of guttering two doors down. SOCO are on their way now. The slug is only mildly deformed, but we can tell the caliber. It’s a.44. If Mrs. Dumpty did kill him, then she used another gun from the one we found in her desk.”

She waited a moment for the information to sink in.

“I spoke to Mr. Spatchcock, who is her personal trainer, this morning. He was with her when Humpty was killed. All night. They were lovers.”

Briggs stared up at her coldly. “And this?” he asked, indicating the suicide note. “What are you saying? Someone forced her to write that note?”

“I’ll confess it’s a puzzler,” said Jack, who had returned to Briggs’s desk, “but we’re going to find out.”

“This Thomas Spatchcock fellow is wholly unreliable,” muttered Briggs, clutching at straws. “I don’t think we can believe a word he says.”

“I never said his name was Thomas,” said Mary in a quiet voice.

There was silence. Briggs had dropped himself in it, and he knew it. He rubbed a hand wearily over his face, pushing his glasses onto his forehead.

“Okay,” he said as he took off his spectacles and leaned back in his chair, “you’ve got me. This isn’t my doing. Chymes wields considerable weight with the Chief Constable, and as you know, he wants the Humpty gig. Look, well… I’m hanging out on a limb here, but you’ve got until the end of play Saturday to make some headway. If it’s not sorted by the time the Jellyman has come and gone, I’m putting someone else on the case. And if you aren’t out of my office in ten seconds, I’ll change my mind — and screw the consequences.”

As soon as they were in the corridor, Jack turned to Mary.

“In the nick of time. I thought you hated it here?”

“I thought so, too, sir. But you know when you said the NCD grows on you?”

“Yes?”

“Well, it’s grown on me. And listen, sir, I have to apologize for something.”

“Don’t bother. You’ve more than made up for it, whatever it was.”

“No, I really want to tell you.”

“And I really don’t want to hear it. If you were at the Guild bar the night before last or speaking to Flotsam at Platters Coffeehouse, I really don’t want to know about it — you probably have your reasons. Did they do the old ‘Barnes is retiring, we need a replacement’ routine on you?”

“You knew? Why didn’t you say something?”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. It was your decision. I kind of felt you’d do the right thing, though.”

Mary couldn’t think of anything to say. He had trusted her to do the right thing, and she had almost stabbed him in the back.

“I’ve… I’ve underestimated you, sir — badly.”

“Well, I shouldn’t worry about it. I’ve been underestimated before.”

She felt anger rise inside her. Anger at herself for being such a fool, and anger at Chymes for taking advantage of her.

“Sir,” she said, “Chymes wants the Humpty investigation for the Amazing Crime Summer Special — he knew the night before we did about Humpty’s murder and has known about Spatchcock from about the same time. We can lodge a complaint about serious professional misconduct!”

“Mary,” said Jack quietly, “calm down. Think you’re the first person this has happened to? I told you before: He’s a complete shit. Don’t waste your breath. Gretel’s career is almost finished, and all she did was call him an arsehole. Have you any idea what a formal complaint would do to you? We concentrate on Humpty. Nothing else matters. Okay?”

She took a deep breath.

“Yes, sir. But I think I’ve made a lifelong enemy of Chymes.”

“You and me both. Did I ever tell you why?”

“No.”

“His fiancee left him when he pinched the credit for the Gingerbreadman capture.”

“So?”

“She left him for me. She was my first wife.”