“Let’s just go over the details together,” said Jack. “Where did you get the gun?”
“Gun?” she echoed with a puzzled expression.
“Yes, where did you get it?”
She looked at Seymour, who raised his eyebrows and said almost mechanically, “You don’t have to answer any questions, Miss Brooks.”
“I didn’t use a gun.”
“No?” asked Jack, beginning to have a nasty feeling. “Then what did you use?”
“Three tablets of Dizuppradol. I’m a veterinarian’s assistant.”
“His coffee?” asked Mary.
Miss Brooks nodded her head sadly.
“Damn!” said Jack as they walked along the corridor back to the NCD office.
“Is that attempted murder?” asked Mary, unsure of whether a crime had been committed. “I mean, he didn’t even touch his coffee.”
“Technically it is, but I can’t see the prosecutors bothering, if past NCD experience is anything to go by.”
Miss Brooks had perked up when they told her she hadn’t killed Humpty after all, although surprisingly she knew as little about him as anyone else. When he stayed over, it was always at her flat, which had already been searched and revealed precisely nothing.
It was an anticlimactic ending to what Jack had hoped would be a good line of inquiry. But there was one point that Bessie had told them that was of interest: Humpty had remarried. There hadn’t been time for the records to get into the system at the national registry, so Ashley and Gretel were ringing around locally to try to find out whom he had married, and where.
“Reject one mystery woman from the inquiry and another pops up in her place,” announced Jack. “Humpty has quite a following. How many of his ex-lovers have come forward to offer us their help?”
“One hundred and ninety-two,” replied Baker. “It’s going to take us weeks to sift through them all!”
“We don’t have weeks.”
Shenstone put his head around the door. “Hello, Jack!” he said cheerfully. “Want to hear the results of the vacuumings I took from the carpet at Grimm’s Road?”
“Sure.”
“In a word, it’s shit.”
“The case? I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“No, the vacuumings. It’s bird shit.”
“Bird shit?”
“Shit of birds, sir.”
“I know what bird shit is, Bob, but what’s it doing at Grimm’s Road?”
“I don’t know. It had been trodden into the carpet.”
“Recent?”
“Some recent, some old. The recent stuff, very recent—exited the back end of a bird less than a week ago.”
“That recent, huh?”
Jack took the report and read it aloud carefully. “‘Noted on the carpet were traces of an animal excrement that closely resembled that from aquatic birds such as coots, ducks, geese, etc….’”
He thanked Shenstone, who crept out silently. Jack wrote “Bird shit?” on the board and underlined it. He then added “Gold” and “Spongg shares” and “Willie Winkie.” He sat in his chair and stared at the whiteboard. The case was still intractable. What in hell’s name had Humpty been up to?
“Detective Inspector Spratt?” came an unfamiliar voice from the door. They all turned to find Briggs with a small and weaselly-looking officer.
“You know I am.”
“My name is DCI Bestbeloved—IPCC. We need to talk.”
The Independent Police Complaints Commission was the police who policed the police. They were the ones who descended from a great height on any officer even suspected of wrongdoing.
“Good afternoon, sir,” said Jack, thinking perhaps that he would have to give evidence against another officer or something. “How can I help?”
“By cooperating with the IPCC,” put in Briggs with a sigh.
“About what? You said I had until Saturday to finger Humpty’s killer!”
“It’s nothing to do with Mr. Dumpty,” said DCI Bestbeloved in a coldly businesslike manner. “It’s about the three pigs. They are pursuing a case for harassment, mental cruelty and malicious prosecution.”
34. Investigated
PIGGY IN ROAST BEEF SHOCK
A piggy was caught eating roast beef yesterday, in direct contravention of rules governing the use of animal-based products’ being included in animal feed. The piggy, one of a litter of five, was in isolation yesterday as officers from DEFRA tried to trace the other members of his family. A spokesman for the agency had this to say: “Fortunately for us, one of the little piggies stayed at home, and another, when offered the roast beef, refused. A fourth went “wee wee wee” all the way home and is now also in quarantine. We are still trying to trace the first little piggy, who, it seems, went to market. Until he is caught, we have instructed the withdrawal of all pork-related foodstuffs from shops and have decided to cull everything in sight, whether porcine or not, just to be sure.
—Extract from The Gadfly, March 9, 2001
“Chymes put you up to this, didn’t he?” demanded Jack as he sat on a hard plastic chair in one of the interview rooms.
“No one puts us up to anything,” replied Bestbeloved stonily. “We will be conducting a full inquiry in due course. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defense—”
“I know the score,” interrupted Jack. “Can we get on with it? I have an investigation to get back to.”
“I think it would be best if you were just to answer the questions,” said Bestbeloved, “and don’t think you’ll be getting back to work for a while.”
“Sir?” said Jack, appealing to Briggs, who was standing at the door.
Briggs shrugged. It was out of his hands.
“If you would like legal representation or someone from the Police Federation present,” went on Bestbeloved, “then we are very happy for that to be arranged—but would insist that you remain suspended on full pay until such time as that can be finalized.”
“I waive all rights to representation,” replied Jack steadily.
“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?”