Nurser Crime 1 - The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

Author:Jasper Fforde
Language: eng
Format: epub

“If that is how you like to phrase it, yes. You may not approve of what I do, but no one is hurt by it, and I fulfill an important role. Laura was a lot better than most; I think we even had an affection of sorts for each other. Anyway, I have a friend in the pathology lab who told me they thought Humpty had been murdered, so naturally I thought Laura would be in the frame. Of course, I knew she hadn’t killed him—and that’s why I called you straightaway.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Which part?”

“The ‘hadn’t killed him’ part.”

“Well, Sergeant,” he said in a quieter voice, “I was with her the night of the Spongg Charity Benefit. I have no proof, of course, but that’s why I contacted you.”

“Wait,” said Mary, “I haven’t spoken to you at all since we met at the Cheery Egg on Tuesday morning.”

“I know that. You weren’t there, so I spoke to the other officer.”

“DI Spratt?”

“No, the one who is always on TV with that annoying chirpy cockney sidekick.”

“Friedland Chymes?”

“That’s the one. I told him all about it. Did he not tell you?”

“No,” replied Mary, suddenly feeling confused. She thanked him and walked outside to her car. If Flotsam had known about Spatchcock when she spoke to him at the coffeehouse the previous evening, why didn’t he tell her? Wasn’t she part of their team? Chymes, she knew, conducted his investigations in a strange way—perhaps this was part of some bigger plan—and Flotsam followed orders, just like her. But what if there was another reason for it? What if Chymes was waiting until Jack had closed the investigation before he reopened it? That would fit into his dramatic way of doing things. She pulled out her mobile and started to dial Jack, then snapped it shut again. She needed more information. She started the car and drove rapidly across to Grimm’s Road.

She parked in the alleyway and, after consulting the diagram Skinner had sketched for her, attempted to find out where the spent slug had returned to earth. It seemed simple enough. Lining up Humpty’s entrance and exit wounds gave Mary a zone of probability the shape of a wedge with a twenty-degree spread up to a hundred feet from where Humpty was sitting when he was killed. She worked from the sharp edge of the wedge back, scouring the earth, rubbish and junk in the back alleyway that the simple plan had indicated. She searched for forty minutes in an increasing state of agitation until a sudden thought had her standing on an upturned dustbin to check in the guttering—and there it was, looking small, gray and innocuous. It had been only slightly deformed—an almost perfect specimen for Skinner to work with. Better than that, it was a .44 caliber. Even if Spatchcock had lied—and there didn’t seem any reason for him to do so—then Mrs. Dumpty had killed her ex-husband with another gun. Not out of the question, but out of the ordinary. The two facts together would be enough to keep the investigation open.

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