The big over easy

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.”

Waiting for Jack was a young constable who looked barely out of puberty, let alone probation, which was pretty near the truth on both counts. He had made full constable and was sent to the NCD for three months to ease him into policing. But someone had mislaid the paperwork, and he was still there six months later, which suited him just fine.

“Good morning, Tibbit.”

“Good morning, sir,” replied the eager young man, his blue serge pressed into a fine crease — by his mother, Jack guessed.

“Where’s the Super?”

Tibbit nodded in the direction of the house. “Backyard, sir. Watch the landlady. She’s a dragon. Jabbed me with an umbrella for not wiping my feet.”

Jack thanked him, wiped his feet with great care on the faded and clearly ironic “Welcome” doormat and stepped inside. The house smelled musty and had large areas of damp on the walls. He walked past the peeling wallpaper and exposed lath and plaster to the grimy kitchen, then opened the door and stepped out into the backyard.

The yard was shaped as an oblong, fifteen feet wide and about thirty feet long, surrounded by a high brick wall with crumbling mortar. Most of the yard was filled with junk — broken bicycles, old furniture, a mattress or two. But at one end, where the dustbins were spilling their rubbish onto the ground, large pieces of eggshell told of a recent and violent death. Jack knew who the victim was immediately and had suspected for a number of years that something like this might happen. Humpty Dumpty. The fall guy. If this wasn’t under the jurisdiction of the Nursery Crime Division, Jack didn’t know what was. Mrs. Singh, the pathologist, was kneeling next to the shattered remains dictating notes into a tape recorder. She waved a greeting at him as he walked in but did not stop what she was doing. She indicated to a photographer areas of particular interest to her, the flash going off occasionally and looking inordinately bright in the dull closeness of the yard.

Briggs had been sitting on a low wall talking to a plainclothes policewoman, but as Jack entered, he rose and waved a hand in the direction of the corpse.

“It looks like he died from injuries sustained falling from a wall,” Briggs said. “Could be accident, suicide, who knows? He was discovered dead at 0722 this morning.”

Jack looked up at the wall. It was a good eight feet high. A sturdy ladder stood propped up against it.

“Our ladder?”

“His.”

“Anything else I need to know?”

“A couple of points. Firstly, you’re not exactly ‘Mr. Popular’ with the seventh floor at present. There are people up there who think that spending a quarter of a million pounds on a failed murder conviction for three pigs is not value for money — especially when there is zero chance of getting it into Amazing Crime Stories.”

“I didn’t think justice was meant to have a price tag, sir.”

“Clearly. But it’s a public-perception thing, Spratt. Piglets are cute; wolves aren’t. You might as well try and charge the farmer’s wife with cruelty when she cut off the mice’s tails with a carving knife.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“Insufficient evidence.”

“A good thing I never heard of it. So what you’re going to do here is clean up Humpty’s tumble with the minimum of fuss and bother. I want it neat, quick and cheap — and without hassling any more anthropomorphized animals.”

“Including pigs?”

“Especially pigs. You so much as look at a bacon roll and I’ll have you suspended.”

“Is there a third point?”

“The annual budgetary review is next week, and because of that pig fiasco, the NCD’s future is on the agenda. Stir up any more trouble and you could find yourself managing traffic volume on the M4.”

“I preferred it when there were only two points.”

“Listen, Jack,” went on Briggs, “you’re a good officer, if a little overenthusiastic at times, and the Nursery Crime Division is necessary, despite everyone’s apparent indifference. The bottom line is that I want this ex-egg mopped up neat and clean and a report on my desk Wednesday morning. The Sacred Gonga’s new visitors’ center is being dedicated by the Jellyman on Saturday, and I need all the hands I can get for security — and that includes your little mob hiding down there at the NCD.”

“You want me to head up Jellyman security, sir?” asked Jack with a gleam in his eye. He liked the idea of being near the great man; guaranteeing his safety was even better.