The Winsum & Loosum headquarters was slick and elegant in a modernistic style, with a bright and airy lobby that rose six stories within the building. Jack and Mary announced themselves at the desk and were asked by the razor-thin receptionist to take a seat. They sat by the fountain and watched the glass lifts move up and down inside the lobby, disgorging hordes of expensively dressed executives who seemed to scurry purposefully in all directions but have very little to do.

  Mary’s phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket, looked at it and groaned audibly.

  “Same guy?” asked Jack. “What was his name? Arnold?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Give the phone to me,” said Jack. “I’ll pretend to be your father.”

  “I really don’t think — ”

  “Has he ever met your father?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then hand it over.”

  She reluctantly handed Jack the phone. He cleared his throat and pressed the “answer” button.

  “Arnold?” he said, using his stern, talking-to-children voice, “This is Brian, Mary’s father. I must say that I am a little disappointed that — ”

  He stopped, listened for a moment, smiled and then said, “Well, that’s very kind of you to say so, Arnold, but I must make this point abundantly clear — ”

  There was another pause. Jack made a few “uh-huh” and “yuh” noises before laughing and looking at Mary.

  “Did she, now? How about that. What’s your line of work, Arnold?”

  Mary stared at him, aghast. She made throat-cutting signals, shaking her head and mouthing no… no… no.

  “Really?” carried on Jack. “Well, of course we are immensely proud of her now that she’s joined the NCD…. Of course…. DI Jack Spratt…. No, with two t’s…. That’s the one…. No, as I understand it, only one was a giant — the rest were just tall…. She didn’t?”

  The conversation went on like this for quite a few minutes, with Mary sinking lower and lower in her seat.

  “Well,” continued Jack, “you must come around for tea sometime. Myself and Mrs. Mary would be very pleased to meet you.” He paused again, put his hand over the phone and said to Mary, “Where do we live?”

  She glared at him, crossed her arms and said, “Basingstoke,” through gritted teeth.

  “Basingstoke,” repeated Jack into the mobile. He laughed again. “No, we’re not at all ashamed. Call us anytime. Mary has the number. Same to you. Bye.”

  He pressed the “end-call” button, shaking his head and smiling. He passed the mobile back and caught Mary’s eye as she gazed daggers at him.

  “What? He sounds like a great guy. I think you should cut him a little slack.”

  Mary wasn’t amused. “I thought you were going to get rid of him for me.”

  Jack thought for a moment, trying to figure out a plausible excuse.

  “No,” he said finally, “what I said was that I’d pretend to be your father. How did I do?”

  Mary sighed. “Spookily accurate, sir.”

  “DI Spratt?” said a pencil-thin woman who looked as if she’d escaped from the cover of a fashion magazine.

  “Yes?” said Jack as they both stood.

  “I am Miss Daley, the secretary to Mr. Grundy’s personal secretary’s assistant’s assistant.”

  She shook both their hands.

  “Welcome to Winsum and Loosum’s. Mr. Grundy is a busy man but understands the importance of police work. He has delayed a meeting in order to be able to grant you an audience.”

  “How fantastically generous of him.”

  “Mr. Grundy is always eager to assist the police in any way he can,” said the humorless assistant, who had somehow lost something on the road towards highly cultivated efficiency. She led them across the atrium and into one of the lifts, which then shot them upwards like an express train. It deposited them in a noiseless corridor that led to an oak-paneled boardroom with a large oval table in it. Two well-groomed executives were just leaving as they entered, one of whom Jack thought he recognized. They were efficiently introduced to Mr. Grundy by the assistant, who then seemed to melt away.

  Solomon Grundy was everything Spongg was not. He had a limp handshake, a false smile and pallid features that surrounded a pair of eyes that were of the brightest blue but projected no emotion. His suit was hand-tailored from Savile Row but looked out of place on his large, bullnecked frame — he reminded Jack of a gangster desperate to be respectable. He wore a well-fitting toupée, and his hands were liberally covered with heavy gold jewelery.

  Grundy had got to his feet as he welcomed Jack and Mary and offered them a seat on intentionally low chairs. He opened a silver cigar box and said, “Cigar? They’re Cuban.”

  Jack declined his offer, but Grundy put one in Jack’s top pocket anyway and winked at him, then gave one to Mary and said, “For the boyfriend.” He then sat down in his own huge, corporate comfy chair and spun completely around, lighting his cigar as he did so. He stopped facing straight ahead as he clicked off his lighter, then placed his hands on the table and blew out some cigar smoke. It seemed like a well-rehearsed routine.

  “This interview, is, I assume, to do with Mr. Dumpty’s death?”

  “Just an informal chat, Mr. Grundy.”

  “Why should it be formal? Unless, of course, Mr. Dumpty’s death was suspicious. Is this the case, Inspector?”

  You don’t get to be the ninth-wealthiest man in Britain without being astute, thought Jack — or perhaps he already knew?

  “We believe there are suspicious aspects to his death, yes, sir. Who was that leaving as we came in?”

  “Two of my junior board members. I expect you recognized Friedland’s brother?”

  “How long has he been working here?”

  “Does this relate to Humpty’s death?”

  “No.”

  “I’m a busy man, Mr. Spratt.”

  Jack grew hot. It was not a very subtle put-down, but effective. Grundy had been leading the conversation since he’d walked in. Jack decided he’d have to get the upper hand again and invoked his secret plan: talk to other people as Friedland talked to him.

  “So am I, Mr. Grundy,” replied Jack, staring at him coldly. “A man — well, an egg, actually — has died, and I think irrespective of who or what he was, he deserves that I investigate his death to the best of my ability. So tell me, how do you describe your relationship with Spongg’s?”

  Grundy smiled. A smile of respect, thought Jack. To people like Grundy, straight talking was the answer. He still wasn’t going to make it easy, though, and his dispassionate eyes bored into Jack like augers.

  “Rivals. That’s no secret. We tried to buy them out six months ago but were thwarted by a new shareholder.”

  “Humpty Dumpty?”

  “Indeed. I wager old Randolph is kicking himself. With Mr. Dumpty dead, his shares are wrapped up in probate. They’ll go bust, and we’ll take all we want from the receivers.”

  He smiled an ugly smile, and Jack shifted his weight uneasily. He didn’t like Grundy one bit.

  “Sounds as though his death has benefited you, Mr. Grundy.”

  “It has benefited the company, Mr. Spratt. The same as if he had fallen off a bike or died in his sleep. Corporate business is a dangerous place; I do not own this company any more than you own the Reading police force. The shareholders will view Mr. Dumpty’s demise without grief. We thought perhaps Humpty had a refinancing package for Spongg’s, but his death will have put a stop to that. In under a year, we will have added their product lines to ours. I hope I am candid, Mr. Spratt.”

  “Very,” replied Jack. “What did you and Mr. Dumpty talk about at the Spongg Charity Benefit?”

  Grundy laughed. “Your information is good, Inspector. He offered me his thirty-eight percent share of Spongg’s for ten million. I told him the time for deals had long passed, and he told me I wouldn’t be laughing this time next year. We’ll take what we want from the receivers. I heard his private life was fairly colorful. Why don’t you speak to some of his girlfriends? Jealousy is a powerful emotion, Mr. Spratt.”

  “So is revenge, Mr. Grundy.”

  Grundy guessed Jack’s inference. “You have Splotvia on your mind, Mr. Spratt?”

  Jack nodded. “I understand you lost a great deal of money?”

  Grundy contemplated the end of his cigar for a few moments.

  “It was that damnable mineral-rights scam of his. I should never have become involved, but then again, it was business.”

  “So you weren’t bitter?”

  “Of course not. I was furious. You’d better know the facts. He raised that share capital and spent it, not on securing mineral rights but on arming the rebels against the military dictatorship that ran the country. I tried to have him charged with fraud, but he covered his tracks well. They even” — he laughed — “made him a colonel in the Splotvian Imperial Guard.”

  “Sounds like a good motive to me, Mr. Grundy.”

  “I disagree,” replied Grundy evenly. “My loss to Humpty was only two-tenths of one percent of my fortune. Consider this: Even if I generously estimated your personal net worth at four hundred thousand pounds, the comparative loss to you would be only eight hundred pounds. Two million may be more money than you’ll see in a lifetime, but I could lose that sum every week for a decade before I might consider myself ruined. Do I make myself clear?”

  Jack gritted his teeth. He’d enjoy bringing this one down.

  “Abundantly, Mr. Grundy. I wonder if you could tell me your movements following the Spongg Charity Benefit on Monday?”

  “I returned home,” he replied, indignant that he should have to account for his actions to anyone, “with my wife. You can ask her, if you so wish, with my blessing.”

  Jack stared at Grundy, who looked back at him without sentiment. Jack wanted to make him sweat, so he tried a threat.

  “I’d like to interview the board of directors and read the company minutes for the past two years.”

  Grundy rolled his eyes and tapped some ash into a crystal ashtray the size of a hand basin. “It’ll require a court order.”

  Jack stared at him. “I thought you would be happy to assist, Mr. Grundy.”

  The bluff failed.

  “Of course. What you ask will require considerable expenditure of time and resources. A court order gives me peace of mind that you really need what you ask for. I won’t be given the runaround on a non-Guild NCD officer’s whim. And I’ll tell you now I don’t frighten easily. I have been investigated by the FBI, the CBI, the CID, the MCC and the FO. I have weathered four stock-market crashes and suffered monetary losses that exceed the GNP of East and West Woppistania combined. I survived all that, and I’ll certainly survive you.”

  His voice had kept the same modulation, although red blotches had been breaking out on his pale face. Jack feared for any junior board member who had this to contend with. Grundy paused for a minute as his face returned to its normal pallid complexion, then spoke again: “Is there anything else?”

  “Not for the moment,” said Jack as sternly as he could. He needn’t have bothered. It came out sounding weak and ineffectual, and Grundy knew it. He gave a smile and bade them good day.

  The elegant assistant appeared from nowhere and escorted them back to the elevator, in which they were plunged at freefall speed back to the lobby, thanked and shown the door in under a minute.

  “I’ve never been so efficiently expelled from a building before,” murmured Mary in awe as they walked back to the Allegro.

  “I imagine that being fired is probably a similar experience,” said Jack, “but without the courtesy of the elevator.”

  20. Press Conference

  POPULAR CRIME MAG OUTLAWS TWINS

  The bestselling true-crime magazine Amazing Crime Stories announced that it would be banning the “identical twins” plot device as part of tough new measures to stave off what it described as “stagnation” within the world of professional detecting. Other plot devices facing the ax are the much-loved “left-handed perpetrator” and anything to do with anagrams. The Guild of Detectives reacted angrily to the ban, complaining that they had “not been fully consulted” and would “vigorously defend the right of detectives to use whatever plot contrivances come to hand in the course of their investigations.” The ban will come into effect in August.

  From The Mole, March 30, 2004

  As soon as they walked into the station, they realized that something was going on. A certain buzz travels around as everyone discusses a prominent case. Friedland might have felt it all the time, as his exploits were routinely grapevined, but Jack had never experienced it before. Ashley and Gretel were waiting for them in the NCD offices.

  “What’s going on, Gretel?”

  “Humpty’s murder, sir. Seems like everyone has an opinion about how the investigation should be run. The Superintendent has been calling every twenty minutes wanting to know where you were.”

  “Ah,” said Jack, “no surprises there. Have you found any irregularities in Humpty’s finances yet?”

  “It’s very complex and very confusing,” said Gretel, “like being lost in a large forest. But I’m making headway. I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything solid.”

  She turned back to her desk and dialed another number on the telephone.

  “Ashley, any luck with that auburn hair?”

  “Not yet, sir. I’m running through the telephone directory; there are a lot of hairdressers in Reading.”

  “Keep at it. Did Tibbit get a name for the lad in the photograph?”

  “No,” said Ashley, “but we did get a cross-reference match with a silver VW Polo and the Christian name of ‘Bessie.’ Her name’s Bessie Brooks, veterinarian’s assistant, age 11001. Hasn’t been seen at work since the morning Humpty was killed. The address is on your desk.”

  “Excellent. Call Ops and get some uniform around there to bring her in for questioning. If she doesn’t want to come, then arrest her as a possible suspect. Mary?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I don’t buy that ‘two million means nothing to me’ crap from Grundy. This is a request for a search warrant for Winsum’s headquarters. I want you to — ”

  “Murder, Jack?”

  Briggs was at the door. He didn’t look quite as angry as Jack had supposed he might be.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I could have sworn you told me yesterday it was suicide.”

  “I made a mistake. I’d spoken to you before Mrs. Singh’s initial report. There’s a copy on my desk — ”

  “I’ve read it, Jack. So he was shot — by whom?”

  Jack outlined what had happened in the investigation so far, which wasn’t very much. Briggs didn’t seem bowled over with enthusiasm, but then Briggs never was. The three pigs he had never been keen on, and the emperor’s-new-clothes fraud inquiry had similarly been looked upon with tepidity. Even so, his answer surprised Jack.

  “Well,” he said as soon as Jack had finished, “seems like you’re doing fine. Keep me informed of any developments, and if there’s anything you want, anything at all, just call me.” He paused and then added, “As long as it’s not extra manpower, overtime, funds or… anything else I don’t agree with. I’ll have my secretary prepare a list. I meant what I said earlier about fast results. The budgetary meeting is next week, and an early arrest would do a lot towards continued funding. And listen: This doesn’t mean you’re excused from the Sacred Gonga security duties. I’m short-staffed as it is, and we’ve overspent this year already.”

  He thought for a moment.

  “One other thing: I’ve just spoken to the Chief. He’s had a call from Solomon Grundy himself, who lambasted him for half an hour about your threats. Do you seriously expect me to believe that Grundy is behind all this?”

  “It’s possible, sir. Winsum and Loosum are set on owning all Spongg’s foot-care remedies. Dumpty blocked a takeover bid and then seemed set on some kind of a plan to save Spongg’s.”

  “What sort of plan?”

  “I don’t know, but with Dumpty out of the picture, there is no barrier to Winsum and Loosum’s eventual takeover of Spongg’s. They have the best motive I can see, and what’s more, Solomon himself lost two million in Humpty’s Splotvian mineral-rights scam.”

  “The one in 1990? Fourteen years ago?”

  “Yes,” said Jack, “that one.”

  “And the proof?”

  Jack stared at Briggs.

  “That’s what the search warrant is for, sir.”

  “What search warrant?”

  “This one,” said Jack, holding the request up a bit weakly.

  Briggs glared at him, took the application and tore it in half.

  “Sorry, Jack. You’re going to have to do better than this. Words burnt into the wall. Voices from burning bushes, three witches around a cauldron. Anything. No hearsay, no suspicions and definitely no hunches. You don’t pester Mr. Grundy or Winsum and Loosum until I see that proof and sanction it.”

  “But — ”

  “But nothing, Jack. The answer is no. We’ve got the Jellyman coming to town, and that’s a big deal. Grundy’s forty million to keep the Sacred Gonga in Reading is going to be a big tourism pull for the city — why would anyone want to visit Reading without the Sacred Gonga?”

  “The river? SommeWorld? The Friedland Museum? Castle Spongg? Shopping?”

  “It’s no joking matter. Think of the big picture. Think of Reading.” He lightened and laid a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, but it’s politics. Seventh floor. Don’t forget, if you get any proof, come to me first.”

  He looked at his watch. “Are you going to attend the press briefing, Spratt?”

  “I didn’t think I’d bother, sir.”

  “I think perhaps you should.”

  “Because they might be interested this time around?”

  “Not at all. It just allows Friedland to shine with greater luster.”

  “Then how could I refuse?”