The big over easy

alcohol-induced lovelorn unconsciousness. “Yes indeed, shit happens.”

Jack went to bed at midnight and was awoken in the small hours by Madeleine, who came to bed smelling of champagne, canapes and hard work.

“Guess what!” she whispered, not at all quietly in his ear.

“The house is on fire?”

“No. I snapped Lola Vavoom slugging a journalist. It’ll be on the front page of The Mole and The Toad tomorrow. She packs quite a punch — they had to wire his jaw!”

Despite the feisty and provocative talk earlier about the red dress’s having to be torn from her body, they both fell fast asleep doing nothing about it. Besides, it was rented.

3. The Fall Guy

PROMOTION FIRST FOR NURSERY CRIME DIVISION

History was made yesterday when DCI Friedland Chymes was promoted out of the Nursery Crime Division, the first occasion of this happening in the department’s twenty-six-year history. It has traditionally been a depository for loners, losers, burnouts, misfits, oddballs and those out of favor with higher authority, but Chymes’s elevation has finally shown that the NCD can hold its own in the production of Guild-quality officers to protect, serve and entertain the nation.

From The Gadfly, August 10, 1984

“The Japanese film crew is waiting to interview you again,” said Madeleine, interspersing stuffing spoonfuls of mashed banana into Stevie with taking surreptitious glances outside. “What do they want anyway?”

“To talk to me about Friedland Chymes and the Gingerbreadman,” replied Jack, sorting through his post and finding a notice from the Allegro Owners’ Club about checking wheel-bearing torque settings.

“Why don’t you speak to them?”

“Darling, they don’t want the truth. They want me to back up Chymes’s version of events where he ‘saved the day’ and single-handedly caught the deranged psychopath.”

Jack finished his toast and looked at Madeleine’s picture on the cover of The Toad, which had the headline WASHED-UP HAS-BEEN WITH WEIGHT PROBLEM VICIOUSLY ATTACKS JOURNALIST. The Mole, whose journalist didn’t get a broken jaw that night led with SOCK IT TO HIM, LOLA!

“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,