The big over easy

“Will you state your name for the benefit of the record?”

“Detective Inspector John Reginald Spratt, Nursery Crime Division, Oxford and Berkshire Constabulary, Officer Number 8216.”

“And you were the investigating officer in charge of Case 722/B, Possible unlawful killing of Theophilus Bartholomew Wolff aka ‘Big Bad’?”

“I was.”

Bestbeloved laid several sheets of paper on the table in front of him. They were custody and arrest records. “Is this your signature?”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps you will tell me why Little Pigs A, B and C were kept in cells that were scrupulously clean and tidy and were offered tea, coffee and biscuits instead of kitchen scraps and puddle water, as was their right?”

“Sorry?”

Bestbeloved laid another sheet of paper on the table. It was a letter from Nigel Grubbit, the pigs’ lawyer, and it bullet-pointed the complaints against Jack.

“They never indicated to me they had special needs,” replied Jack, looking down the list of grievances with a growing sense of unease. If he had won the case, no one would have cared less, but the pigs were eager for revenge — and cash, of course.

“It’s not their responsibility to ask for it,” said Bestbeloved.

“They also maintain that you interviewed them while eating a bacon sandwich. Why would you do something like that?”

Jack shrugged. “Probably because the canteen was out of rolls.”

Bestbeloved glared at him. “Do you find this whole interview funny, Spratt?” He tapped the pigs’ list of grievances. “Any three out of these six points would be enough to finish you, Spratt — and cost the Reading Police Department dear. Look at this: ‘DI Spratt and his assistant, PC Ashley, made comments about crackling and applesauce that were intentionally made to be overheard by Little Pig C.’ If this is true, Spratt, it constitutes a real physical threat to the well-being of the prisoners under your responsibility and might in fact constitute torture. Grubbit is quoting the Animal (anthropomorphic) Equality Bill of 1996 to us, and we think they have a good case.”

Jack sighed. He might be cleared by a tribunal in six months’ time, but that was six months too late. He needed to be free to continue the investigation this afternoon. The thing was, Jack knew that the pigs could have been sent packing if the IPCC had so wished, but this wasn’t about justice for three murderous porkers. It wasn’t just about getting Jack suspended and Chymes onto the Humpty case. No, this was about what happens to people who defy Chymes and the Guild. Jack’s demise would serve as a warning to anyone else daft or stubborn enough to make a stand.

He turned and looked at the one-way mirror in the interview room. Chymes would be behind it, watching, gloating.

“What do you want, Bestbeloved?” demanded Jack.

“I want all officers to uphold the letter of the law when interrogating prisoners,” he replied. “An officer who has gone astray is a stain upon the force and every honest officer in it.”

“Uphold the letter of the law?”

“Yes.”

“And the highest levels of probity when conducting investigations?”

“Of course.”

“All officers?”

Jack asked the question so pointedly that Briggs glanced sideways towards the one-way mirror. Jack was right. Chymes was in there.

“Then I’ve got something to say, and I think it would be better for everyone if this tape recorder were off.”

He directed the comment towards the mirror. There was no reaction, so he simply said, “It’s about a murder in Andersen’s Wood. It’s about Max Zotkin.”

It worked. Within a few seconds, the door had opened and Chymes strode in with a look of thunder on his face.

DCI Bestbeloved, seeing that things were suddenly becoming a great deal more complicated, hastily announced the suspension of the interview and switched off the tape recorder. He had been led to believe that Jack would be a “lamb to the slaughter” and bow to the inevitable — the idea of Chymes’s intervening was not part of the plan. Still, spared the burden of initiative by the appearance of such an eminent officer, he sat back to see how things would turn out.

“Do you see how easily I can bury you?” yelled Chymes. “If it’s not this way, it’s another. I’m through pussyfooting around — relinquish your case to me now and you may get to keep your pension.”

There was a pause as they stared at each other. Chymes was a powerful man, and a bully. Jack had been cowed by him many times, but he’d had enough.

“You couldn’t get this case by trying to turn my own sergeant against me,” he began in a low voice, choosing his words carefully. “You couldn’t get it by withholding pertinent evidence. You couldn’t get it by turning the press against me. And you won’t get it by invoking the IPCC.”

“It’s too late for deals,” sneered Chymes. “You’re finished.”

“I don’t think so,” replied Jack, trying to keep the dread in the pit of his stomach under control. He had once had to stand up to the school bully, and this felt exactly the same. He opened the buff envelope that Skinner had given Mary and placed the pictures on the table.

Chymes went silent.

“These are the crime scene photographs of the Andersen’s Wood murders,” explained Jack for the benefit of Bestbeloved and Briggs. “They clearly show that the cartridges used were Eley.”

He produced the evidence bag that contained the spent cartridges from his briefcase. “These are the ones Chymes sent down to me.”

It was clear to everyone in the room they were Xpress.

“Why would Chymes want to prove that the Marchetti shotgun I found at Humpty’s wasn’t the same one used on the woodcutter and his wife? Because I might have shown up a big hole in his investigation? That it wasn’t the Russian mafia at all? That Chymes concocted every single aspect of the investigation because he needed a filler for the 2003 Christmas bumper edition of Amazing Crime Stories?”

There was a deathly hush. This was heresy of the highest order. The veins in Chymes’s temples throbbed, and Briggs and Bestbeloved looked nervously at each other. If Jack could prove it, this was explosive stuff and heads would roll. A lot of them.

Chymes broke the tension by laughing.

“A ludicrous suggestion, Spratt. This is the sort of stuff that conspiracy theories are made of. There has clearly been an error in the continuity of evidence procedure. It is unfortunate but not irredeemable. I will hunt down the culprit and make sure he is suitably admonished.”

“You can do all that if you want,” said Jack, growing more confident by the second, “but it would be easier just to interview Max Zotkin, the surviving member of the Russian mafia who so eloquently gave evidence at his own trial supporting your every point. Only once he was sent down for ten years, he vanished from view. Who was he? An actor?”

There was silence.

“I don’t want to bring you down or tarnish the public’s perception of the Guild,” said Jack slowly. “I just want to find Humpty’s murderer without let or hindrance.”

Chymes thought hard for a moment and then said, “That’s it. He was part of a repatriation deal whereby UK convicts in Russian jails are swapped — ”

“You can’t keep on making it all up,” interrupted Jack, “but if you insist, I’ll go head-to-head with you and ask embarrassing questions. How many other investigations did you ‘embellish’ in order to boost your Amazing Crime circulation figures?”

There was a pause while Chymes thought about this. Briggs exchanged nervous glances with Bestbeloved.