“A
“Mary?”
“Yes?” came Mary’s voice from outside the tent.
“Call the Reading Dog Shelter and tell them to set aside any anonymous offerings of scraps they might receive.”
Mary didn’t quite understand what was going on but flipped open her mobile and called Ops to get the number.
“Porgia?” repeated Jack with incredulity. “Is there anything else?”
“I’ll know more when I get him back to the lab,” said Mrs. Singh, “but while you’re here, I’m having a few problems with the dynamics of Humpty’s shell breakup.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know me — I’m never happy until I have all the answers. Skinner and I have been running a few tests using ostrich eggs. He set them up on the range and fired a.22 bullet through them and then used the data to try to build a usable model for egg disintegration. It’s as much for our own interest as for anything else, but we’re having trouble equating Humpty’s destruction with what we’re seeing on the range. It’s possible that one shot and a fall might not have been enough to destroy him. I’m looking for other evidence of postfall damage, but with one hundred twenty-six pieces, it’s tricky to tell. Mind you, ostrich eggs are like cannonballs, so it might not be a good test. I’ll know more in a day or two.”
“What about the analysis of his albumen?”
“Inconclusive — but then the Ox and Berks forensic labs are not really geared up for eggs. I’ve sent swabs from the inside of his shell to the SunnyDale Poultry Farm for an in-depth oological analysis. Couple of days, I imagine.”
Jack thanked her and stepped out of the tent. It had stopped raining, but the sky was dark and portended more to come.
“What news, Mary?”
“His wife has been informed,” she explained, still looking a little pale. “One of her relatives is going to go around and look after her.”
“Who found Winkie?”
“A man walking his dog. He’d seen the body earlier but thought it was just a bundle of rags. He alerted us at ten-thirteen.”
“Find out what time Winkie came off shift and have a word with his workmates. See if he was boasting of a windfall or something.”
“Connected to Dumpty’s murder?” asked Mary.
“Possibly. Here’s a workable scenario: Mr. Winkie
“Why the bit about the tongue? Unnecessarily gruesome, isn’t it?”
“A lot of Nursery Crime work is gruesome, Mary — it comes with the turf. Tongue splitting was a Porgia crime family method of dealing with anyone they suspected of speaking to the authorities. ‘Telling tales,’ they called it. They used to cut it up so that all the dogs in the town could have a little bit.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“It’s classic NCD stuff. The thing is, Chymes and I jailed them all twenty years ago. But they were very powerful — perhaps they still are. Call Reading Gaol and get us an interview. I think we’ll have a word with Giorgio Porgia himself. What news, Tibbit?”
“Not much, sir. Nobody seemed to see anything. There was talk of a white van, though.”
“Box van?”
“They couldn’t tell.”
Jack and Mary left Tibbit to do more house-to-house and walked back to the Allegro in silence. Jack leaned on the car roof, deep in thought.
“Did you find anything on Solomon Grundy?”
“Clean as a whistle. Never been investigated for anything, no criminal record — not so much as a speeding fine. A trawl through the
“Blast. Winkie worked at Winsum and Loosum’s, and Solomon Grundy had a two-million-pound motive to have Humpty killed.”
“It’s small beer to him, sir,” said Mary. “Ninth-wealthiest man in the country. He said he could lose two mil a week for ten years before it would worry him. It’s true — I’ve checked. He’s worth over a billion.”
“He could have been lying. He might actually be a very vindictive man indeed. Trouble is, Briggs says I can’t speak to him until this Jellyman Sacred Gonga thing has come and gone.”
“Then why don’t we speak to his wife? She might let something slip.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t think of a better way to piss off Grundy and Briggs.”
“Not really,” replied Mary. “Grundy told us we could ask his wife about his whereabouts the night Humpty died — and with his blessing.”
Jack smiled. This idea he liked.
“Good thought. I think we’ll do precisely that.”
As they drove away, Mary noticed that the passenger window had let rainwater leak onto her seat.
“Yes,” said Jack when she pointed it out, “it usually does that.”
26. Meet the Grundys
“UGLY” SISTERS TO SUE FOR DEFAMATION
The stepsisters of Princess Ella are understood to be demanding undisclosed sums from numerous publications over defamation of character, libel and slander. A spokesman for the sisters explained, “My clients are fed up being constantly portrayed as physically repellant obnoxious harpies, and have decided to take action against the 984 publishers that have repeated the allegations without bothering to check their veracity.” A spokesman for the Binkum Press, publishers of
The Grundy residence was an exquisitely restored Jacobean mansion set above the river Thames, with scrupulously maintained oak parkland that stretched to the water’s edge. South facing and away from any built-up areas, it ranked alongside Castle Spongg and Basildon House as one of the finest examples of period architecture in the Reading area. As Jack and Mary motored down the long graveled drive, they could see that Maison Grundy had been erected on the site of something much older. The church behind the house was considerably older than the mansion itself, and the barns, outbuildings and stables older still. When they arrived in the courtyard at the rear, stable lads were busily grooming some fine-looking Thoroughbreds whose dark coats shone, even in the gray overcast.
They parked the car and got out to see a woman on a large bay horse come thundering across the parkland towards them, throwing up divots of sod behind her. She slowed her mount to cross the roadway, and as she drew closer, they could see she was dressed in a long skirt that seemed faintly Victorian with a high-collared blouse buttoned up to her throat; on top of this she wore a blue velvet riding jacket.
“Hullo!” she said, dismounting expertly from the sidesaddle and handing the reins to a stable boy. “Are you here about the deathwatch beetle?”
