The Big Over Easy

33. What Bessie Brooks Had to Say for Herself

Jack pressed the two “record” buttons simultaneously.

“This is a taped interview. Miss Bessie Brooks is being interviewed, and the time is twelve-twenty P.M. Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is conducting the interview. Also present are DS Mary Mary, Constable Kandlestyk-Maeker and Miss Brooks’s solicitor, Seymour Weevil.”

He looked across at Bessie. She was staring at the table and appeared sullen.

Bessie was in her early twenties and an attractive brunette who stood at least six foot one. She had dark brown eyes that were red with tears, and her expensive outfit was rumpled and dirty. She did not lift her head to look at any of them, and a packet of cigarettes that Jack had placed on the table remained untouched, even though they could see from the faint stain on her fingers that she was a smoker.

Seymour Weevil, a short man with his hair combed carefully back from his forehead, watched the proceedings impassively from within a suit that should have been condemned as an affront to human decency long ago.

“Miss Brooks, you have been brought in for questioning regarding the murder of one Humperdinck Aloysius Dumpty. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”

Bessie Brooks nodded imperceptibly.

“Miss Brooks — ”

But Seymour Weevil interrupted him. “My client is very willing to answer your questions but feels that she has been treated like a criminal. She also objects to having her apartment searched. She wishes it to be known that she loved Mr. Dumpty deeply and has no idea who killed him.”

Jack ignored Weevil and continued. “Can you tell me your whereabouts on the night of the nineteenth and the morning of the twentieth of this month?”

Bessie didn’t answer. Seymour Weevil gave her his handkerchief — a cheap one for her to keep, Jack noted — and said kindly, “It would help the police if you spoke to them, but you have the right to remain silent. Do you wish to exercise that right?”

She lifted her head and stared at Jack and Mary in turn. Her mascara had run badly, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “Do you think he suffered?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“We don’t think so,” replied Mary without any emotion.

Jack placed the picture of her with Humpty on the table. It was in a plastic bag. She paused and then picked it up.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was on Mr. Dumpty’s desk.”

A smile crossed her face momentarily as she realized that he must have liked her enough to have her photo up in his office. She touched Humpty’s features on the print with a fingertip and spoke again, yet this time her voice had found a new confidence.

“Vienna, June last year,” she sighed wistfully. “Hump was on a business trip selling a thousand tons of Wozbekistanian industrial-strength instant soup powder. He asked me if I wanted to come along.”

She cocked her head to one side as she filled herself with fond memories of the trip.

“On the night this photo was taken, we went to see Madame Butterfly. In the first act, the tenor singing Lieutenant Pinkerton’s part was taken ill and the understudy was drunk. The management came out and apologized profusely and explained that they were unable to continue the performance. To my surprise Hump stood up and sang, without music, the first six lines of Pinkerton’s part. He was ushered onto the stage, and ten minutes later the performance continued with Hump as the Lieutenant. I was placed in the royal box with the compliments of the management, and Hump received eight curtain calls. It was a night that I shall never forget.” She smiled and shook her head sadly. “Does my story surprise you?”

“Mr. Dumpty ceased to surprise me long ago, Miss Brooks,” replied Jack. “Why did you leave town?”

The smile dried on her lips, and she looked down at the photo again.

“I loved him, Inspector, more than any woman ever loved an egg.” She paused for a moment. “I should never have become emotionally attached to him, but it was hard not to. Did you ever meet him, Inspector?”

“Only once, a long time ago.”

“He was a remarkable man,” she said slowly, “quite remarkable. His crimes never benefited himself.”

“Did he tell you of his plans?”

“No. He had several schemes in place, but I never knew what they were. On the night of the charity benefit, he told me he had remarried. He asked me if I wanted to carry on our relationship, and I am afraid to say that I was less than polite. We argued. How dare he marry another when we had been together for almost three months!”

“Is that why you killed him, Miss Brooks?”

She collapsed into a choking fit of sobs. Seymour moved farther away, and Jack and Mary exchanged looks. Mary tried to comfort her.

“It’s okay, Miss Brooks, take your time.”

They waited for a couple of minutes for her to compose herself, then sent out for a cup of tea, which arrived speedily.

“I couldn’t live without him, and I couldn’t bear the thought of another woman in his arms, caressing his smooth white shell — ” She closed her eyes and began to cry.

“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.”