The Big Over Easy

8. The Armony

The armory and ballistics division was run by George Skinner. He was a large man with a bad stoop, graying hair and a permanent hangdog expression. He wore pebble specs and a shabby herring-bone suit that seemed as though he had inherited it from his father. Looks can be deceptive and were definitely so in Skinner’s case. Not only was he an inspired ballistics and weapons expert, able to comment expertly and concisely on everything from a derringer to a bazooka, he was also highly watchable in the documentaries that often followed one of Chymes’s investigations. But despite his somewhat sober appearance, he was also a lively fixture of Reading’s nightlife. He could outdrink almost anyone, and if there was a report of someone dancing naked on the tables down at the Blue Parrot, you could bet safe money it was Skinner.

Jack knocked on the open door. “Hello, George.”

“Come in, Jack,” said Skinner without turning around.

Jack walked over and watched him for a moment. Like Mrs. Singh, Skinner was one of the few officers who didn’t treat the NCD with the derision that seemed to hallmark Jack’s association with the rest of the station. Friedland swore by Skinner, and Friedland expected the best — it galled him something rotten that Skinner was so chummy with Jack. Jack waited patiently while Skinner finished what he was doing, and then he produced the sawed-off shotgun.

“What do you make of this?” he asked.

“Ah!” said Skinner thoughtfully, signing the evidence label before removing the gun and carefully checking to make sure it was empty. “I make this a Marchetti twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. Illegal, as all pumps are, and shortened like this, it’s a nasty piece of work.”

Skinner replaced his glasses, making his eyes appear twice as big as they were. He peered at Jack for a moment and then pulled a file off a shelf. He looked up the make against reported stolen or missing guns.

“Oh,” he said in a tone that made Jack nervous.

“What?”

He looked at the frame number again.

“Bingo. Jack, meet the weapon that was stolen from Mr. Christian. It could be the murder weapon in the Andersen’s Wood murders. That was one of Friedland’s, wasn’t it?”

“One of the many,” replied Jack with a sigh.

The wood murders had all the characteristics of the sort of drama that Chymes liked to unravel. Mr. Christian had been murdered along with his wife eighteen months earlier in Andersen’s Wood, a large forest to the west of Reading. The only possible motive was connected to the substantial amount of cash that had been found at their humble dwelling on the edge of the forest. Mr. Christian was a poor woodcutter, yet close to seven thousand pounds was found in their house, and no clue as to how they came by it. Friedland, in a typical display of bravado, had uncovered a sinuous trail of money laundering that led from East Malvonia and involved several hitherto unheard-of and only marginally plausible secret societies and ended up implicating the Vatican. During a daring raid on an address in Cleethorpes, the two prime suspects were killed and a large quantity of arms and cash recovered. The investigation was so complex that it had to be published as an annotated two-parter in Amazing Crime Stories. The only survivor of the raid confessed a few weeks later and was currently doing time in Reading Gaol.

“This gun was used to kill the Christians?”

“No, this gun belonged to the woodcutter. I can tell you if it was the one used to kill them by comparing the two spent cartridges they found at the scene. Who had it?”

“Humpty Dumpty.”

“As in ‘sat on a wall’?”

“No, as in ‘had a great fall.’ He was found dead this morning.”

“Ah,” replied Skinner knowingly. “I thought murdered woodcutters were NCD jurisdiction?”

“Friedland insisted they were real woodcutters, and Briggs agreed with him. As it turned out, he was right. Thanks, Skinner, you’ve been a lot of help.”

Jack walked back into the station, stepped into the lift and pressed the button to go down to the basement. The lift, however, was already programmed to go up, so he went on an excursion to the seventh floor. The shotgun puzzled him. Humpty was undeniably shady, but he’d never been violent.

The lift stopped at the sixth floor, where Jack’s least favorite person at Reading Central walked in: Friedland Chymes. They had once been partners together at the NCD until Friedland thought it was beneath him and jumped into the fast lane of the Guild of Detectives on the back of two cases that were more to do with Spratt. It had been Jack and Wilmot Snaarb who caught the Gingerbreadman that night, not Friedland, as he liked to claim. So it was no surprise that they didn’t even look at each other. Friedland pressed the first-floor button and then stared at the indicator lights above the door. After a twenty-year enmity, the best either of them could manage was a single-word greeting.

“Jack.”

“Friedland.”

But, Friedland being Friedland, he couldn’t resist a small dig.

“I knew the pigs would walk, old sport,” he said loftily. “I didn’t think the premeditation argument solid enough.”

“It was solid,” retorted Jack. “The defense had the jury loaded with other pigs. I wanted a wolf in the box, but you know how busy they are.”

“You can’t play the speciesist card every time you lose a case, Jack.”

They were silent for a moment as the lift passed the fourth floor.

“I understand you’ve applied to join the Guild,” remarked Chymes with a small and patronizing chuckle.

“Any officer can apply, Friedland.”

“No need to get defensive, old boy.”

“I’m not getting defensive.”

“What will be your figurehead case? Finding sheep for Bo-peep? A failed conviction of three pigs?”

“I’ll think of something.”

“Of course you will. I hear Humpty took a nosedive. Suicide?”

“It’s early days,” replied Jack quickly, not wanting to relinquish any details, no matter how trivial.

“Humpty… wall… suicide… murder,” muttered Chymes thoughtfully. “Sounds like it could be a corker. Want me to take over?”

“No.”

“I’ll swap it for a strangling over in Arborfield.”

“I said no, Friedland.”

“Okay, the strangling in Arborfield plus a botulism poisoning by a vicar — with potential sexual intrigue thrown in. Proper stuff, Jack. None of your dozy nurseries.”

“The answer’s still no. You couldn’t wait to get out of the NCD. Where were the offers of help when Mr. Punch was beating his wife? What about Bluebeard? I could have done with some assistance then.”

“Listen,” said Chymes as the friendly horse-trading banter vanished abruptly, “let’s cut the crap. I want this investigation — and I will have it.”

“Which part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

“Is that your final word?”

“You don’t want to hear my final word.”

“Well,” said Chymes with a condescending smile, “I hope you won’t regret your decision.”

The lift stopped at the first floor. Friedland walked out, turned to Jack and said, “Just a spot of advice from an old soldier — don’t build the case up. Word in the station says they should have left some room in Mr. Wolff’s coffin for the NCD.”

He started to walk away, but Jack wasn’t done.

“I found the woodcutter’s shotgun,” he said in a low voice. “I want to check to see if it was the murder weapon in the woodcutter case.”

Friedland halted abruptly, pressed the “door-hold” button and stared at Jack.

“I don’t think that’s very likely. Haven’t you read the write-up in Amazing Crime? It was the Kiev mafia trying to muscle in on the Reading drug trade via Cleethorpes with the help of several all-powerful and unfeasibly ancient secret societies. It’s a done deal, Jack — Max Zotkin is doing time as we speak.”

Jack was unfazed. “Even so, I’d like to check. Do you have the cartridges from the murder scene? Skinner can check them against the gun we found.”

Chymes stared at him for a moment, then appeared to soften. “I’ll have them sent down. Good-bye, Jack.”

The doors slid shut. Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly, he remembered why he had never really wanted to be in the Guild.