The Big Over Easy

30. Another Press Conference

“…but what was actually said at that fateful tea party, it was impossible to ascertain,” continued Chymes while the pressroom stared at him, hanging on his every word, “until I devised a forensic technique which I call ‘cake-crumb scatter-pattern identification.’ This works on the principle that if someone eats cake while talking, the crumbs are ejected from the mouth at different rates according to the syllables of the words spoken. By analyzing the pattern of crumbs on the tablecloth, I was able to deduce that the conversation was not about the weather, as Mrs. Pitkins claimed, but the subject of the misdiagnosis of botulism poisoning, a line of questioning that we were able to bring to our suspect, who soon confessed everything in a tearful scene that made a fitting end to the whole painful inquiry.”

Friedland was greeted by the usual standing ovation, which he modestly dismissed with a wave of the hand. There were a few technical questions about his new technique, regarding varying weights of the component parts of the cake and how far you might project a chocolate sprinkle when pronouncing “psoriasis,” something Chymes deftly answered with complicated diagrams on an overhead projector as DS Flotsam gave out printed copies of all the details.

Jack, Briggs and Mary were watching from the door of the anteroom.

“What am I doing here?” asked Jack. “I’ve got nothing really substantial to add — I don’t really know if Winkie’s death was even connected.”

“It’s from the seventh floor, Jack.” Briggs said it without enthusiasm. Someone was leaning on him.

“What’s going on, sir?”

Briggs looked down and rubbed his forehead. “The Guild is very powerful, Jack. I’m sorry.”

Before Jack could even begin to think what he might mean, Chymes strode past them as he walked out of the pressroom. He went back on to take a curtain call but then came off again, glared at Jack with a confident smile and said, “You want the heat, Jack? Try the fire.”

And he joined Flotsam and Barnes on the other side of the anteroom, where they attended to him as a manager looks after a boxer who has just come out of the ring.

Usually Jack waited for the journalists to file out, as they generally made a lot of noise, and if Archibald or anyone else was polite enough to stay, he would at least be heard. But today was different. Today no one filed out. There was silence. For a moment Jack thought Chymes was about to go back on, but he had already started to discuss the possibility of solving the Slough Thuggee cult murders in time for the early-evening news the following day.

“Sir,” said Mary as she leaned around the door to peer at their expectant faces, “I think they’re waiting for you.”

“That’s not possible,” replied Jack, his heart missing a beat. He looked at Briggs, who wouldn’t catch his eye. He’d clearly been set up.

“Shit.”

“What?” asked Mary.

“I’m going to be boned out there.”

“You can refuse to go on.”

“If it’s not now, it will be later. No, let’s get it over with.”

He walked on to the symphonic clatter of camera motor drives.

“Good afternoon,” he began, feeling what he imagined was something akin to bowel-moving stage fright. “My name is Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, and I am head of the Nursery Crime Division here at Reading Central. On Monday morning at approximately one A.M., Humperdinck Jehoshaphat Aloysius Stuyvesant van Dumpty was murdered by a person or persons unknown as he sat upon a wall at his place of work. He died instantly. At present we are unable to state a motive.”

Josh Hatchett asked, “How was he killed?”

“He was shot.”

A murmur went through the collected newsmen. So far this wasn’t going too badly.

“Do you have any suspects?”

“We have a woman named Elizabeth ‘Bessie’ Brooks. We will be issuing a photograph after the press conference. In a separate development, Mr. William Winkie, Humpty Dumpty’s next-door neighbor, was found murdered in Palmer Park this morning. We are not ruling out the possibility of a connection.”

“Is Mrs. Garibaldi-Dumpty’s suicide connected to Mr. Dumpty’s death?”

“It is a direct consequence of it, yes.”

Hector Sleaze had been staring at what looked like a hastily photocopied list of press cuttings.

“Detective, I wonder if you could confirm for me that you recently attempted to convict the three pigs of Mr. Wolff’s murder?”

Jack shuffled uneasily. Here it comes, he thought. “That is true, yes.”

A ripple of laughter went through the room, and Jack felt himself grow hot.

“And that this failed conviction cost the taxpayers a quarter of a million pounds?”

“I’m not aware of the precise figure.”

“Okay,” said Hector after a pause, “can you also confirm that you have the lowest conviction/investigation ratio of any department in Reading?”

“Without looking at the records, it would be difficult to say.”

“Then let me help you,” Sleaze muttered, looking through his list. “Sheep rustling from Miss Bo-peep. Two arrests, no charges. Failure to properly take care of livestock by ‘Boy’ Blue. One arrest, no charges. Cruelly putting a cat in a well. Johnny Flynn arrested, no charges brought. Kidnapping of Hansel and Gretel with intent to commit cannibalism. One arrest, no charges. Criminal spreading panic of sky falling. One arrest, no charges. Bluebeard. Died awaiting trial. ‘Goosey’ Gander, freed on appeal. Mr. Punch, arrested for wife battery, throwing a baby downstairs and illegal possession of a crocodile. All charges dropped.”

Hector put down the list. “I could go on. Not a very good record, is it, Inspector?”

Jack stared at him. If the Prosecution Service had proceeded, he could have brought convictions on a lot more occasions. If there had been a will to have them convicted.

“The NCD is a department fraught with — ”

“In fact,” continued Hector, “I can only find sixteen successful convictions in the twenty years you have been heading the Nursery Crime Division. One every fifteen months. Friedland Chymes convicts that many every five weeks.”

It was an unfair comparison, and Jack clenched his jaw. Friedland had been busy.

“The NCD, Mr. Sleaze, is a unique area of policing where an understanding of the problems of the characters involved often allows me to stop things before they get out of — ”

“Inspector Spratt, are you competent to run Mr. Dumpty’s murder investigation or are you really trying to work beyond your capabilities?”

“There is no doubt,” said Jack slowly, “that this case falls strictly within the NCD’s jurisdiction.”

“Do you think Chymes might have been able to secure a conviction of the three pigs?”

He would, of course. Juries considered it an honor to work with Chymes. But Jack had paused in his answer, and it gave him away.

“I take that as a yes, Inspector. Do you think it would be prudent to hand over the investigation to Chymes so we might see some headway?”

“I am completely in control of the investigation,” replied Jack hurriedly, answering for answering’s sake and wanting to be out of that room as soon as possible. But they weren’t done. They had been well primed. The newspaper headlines were already written, Chymes had made sure of it — and it would sell papers. Lots of them. Jack glanced over to where Briggs was staring at him from the side door. Beyond him Jack could see Friedland Chymes wearing a look of ill-disguised delight. The last detective who had tried to usurp Chymes’s dominance of Reading Central and refused to relinquish a case had been a bright spark named Drood. He had been transferred to the unrelenting tedium of the Missing Persons Bureau.

“DI Spratt,” resumed Hector, “I understand you have killed several giants in the past, and I would like to ask what you have against people of large stature?”

Jack resisted the temptation to tell Mr. Sleaze to poke his accusations up his nose, took a deep breath and said instead, “I was exonerated of all blame, Mr. Sleaze. The report is a matter of public record. Besides, only one of them was technically a giant. The others were just tall. Are there any more questions?”

“Yes,” said Sleaze. “Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for you to invite a senior officer to assist with the investigation? Someone with talent and an impeccable clear-up rate? Someone like DCI Chymes, for instance?”

It went on in this vein for another twenty minutes until, hot and sweaty and almost shaking, Jack managed to escape.

Briggs and Friedland were talking to each other in the corner of the anteroom but broke off as soon as he entered.

“If you want to relinquish control of the Humpty investigation right now,” said Chymes in a very businesslike manner, “I’m sure a way can be found to stop the undeniably harmful headlines from being published tomorrow morning.”

“For the good of Reading Central, I would have thought you might do that anyway,” retorted Jack.

“Oh, no,” said Chymes airily. “My control over the press is extremely limited.” He turned to Briggs. “Sir, I think you should take Spratt off the Humpty investigation.”

Briggs bit his lip.

“Sir?” said Chymes again. “I think you should order — ”

“I heard what you said. If there is no headway by Saturday night, you can have it.”

“But I want it now!” yelled Chymes like a petulant schoolboy.

“It’s mine, and I want it!”

Briggs rankled visibly. Jack had often seen Briggs start to get pissed off at him, but never at Chymes.

“I gave my word, Friedland.”

“Even so — ”

“Even so nothing,” said Briggs sternly. “I am your supervisory officer, and I give you orders, not the other way around. Do you understand?”

“Of course, sir,” said Chymes, surprised and taken aback by Briggs’s actually daring to stand up to him. “Did I read somewhere that you play the trombone? An Urdu-speaking, trombone-playing superintendent strikes me as just the sort of character the readers of Amazing Crime Stories might be — ”

“Friedland?” interrupted Briggs.

“Sir?”

“Get out of my sight.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard me.”

Chymes went scarlet, turned tail and strode angrily from the room, his minions at his heels.

“Thank you, sir,” said Jack as soon as they had left.

“What the hell,” said Briggs, deflated. “I hate the trombone, and I’ve put in my thirty years. You’ve got until Saturday.”

And he was gone, leaving Mary and Jack in the empty anteroom. Next door they could hear the journalist from the Reading Daily Eyestrain snoring.

“Things are going to get hot, Mary. Sure you don’t want that transfer?”

“Not for anything, sir. You, I and the NCD are disbanded together.”

He smiled as they walked towards the elevators.

“I appreciate it. You can drop me at home and take the Allegro. Pick me up at eight-thirty tomorrow morning, and we’ll go and meet Giorgio Porgia.”

“The Allegro? For the whole evening?” asked Mary in a tone of mock delight.

“Yes. Look after it — and no drag racing.”