The Big Over Easy

42. Return to Castle Spongg

The Allegro’s tires complained bitterly as Mary turned hard into Castle Spongg’s drive and tore across the rumble strips, the “Jerusalem” on the car tires playing this time at molto prestissimo. As they passed the rhododendron grove, the car gave an odd shudder and a lurch, and one of the rear wheels sheared off, wobbled for a moment and then, overtaking its erstwhile master, leaped across the lawn like a stone skipping on the surface of a lake, eventually disappearing into the greenhouse with a crash of glass and a tearing of foliage.

“Whoops,” said Jack.

The car dropped to the road and slewed sideways, rudely interrupting “Jerusalem” with a metallic scraping noise and cutting a neat groove through the road and into the grass. It came to a stop facing the opposite direction. Mary carefully turned off the engine.

“Wheel-bearing torque settings,” explained Jack uselessly in the silence that followed their abrupt halt, “they’re quite critical on these cars.”

Brown-Horrocks glared at Jack and clambered out. “You don’t actually own a vintage Rolls-Royce at all, do you?”

Jack felt stupid all of a sudden. “No, I don’t.”

“This is your car, isn’t it?”

Jack looked at the remains of the Allegro. It had served him well, but a large ripple up the rear body work and across the roof guaranteed that their partnership was at an end.

“Yes, it is.”

“You don’t have a drinking problem either, do you?”

“No.”

“Anything else you might have ‘embellished’ in your Guild application?”

“I have a wonderful wife and five terrific kids.”

“And you — you’re quite ordinary, aren’t you?”

He was asking Mary, who jumped as though stuck with a cattle prod.

“I have a lot of ex-boyfriends,” she said helpfully.

“My superintendent speaks Urdu,” added Jack, trying to recoup lost ground, “and he could, if pushed, change his name to Föngotskilérnie. And he plays the trombone.”

“Badly,” added Brown-Horrocks. “He insisted on playing for me when I went to get your case notes.”

He sighed and tucked the clipboard under his arm. “Do you really want to be in the Guild, Inspector?”

“I’d like to be,” Jack replied, “but I guess it’s just that I’ve spent over twenty years sorting out problems with the nurseries and never getting anywhere. At least if I were Guild, the Prosecution Service might take notice of me — and get some justice for the victims. Give the NCD some balls, if you like.”

Brown-Horrocks nodded soberly but gave nothing away. They left the car looking forlorn on the grass and hurried towards the main entrance.

“Why Spongg and not Grundy?” asked Brown-Horrocks as they passed the foot-shaped lake. “Spongg has a philanthropic reputation that is hard to beat.”

“Because he lied. He said he’d only seen Humpty once in the past year: at the Spongg Charity Benefit. Yet they were both at Dr. Carbuncle’s retirement party. Moreover, we saw crates of foot preparations at the Spongg factory. They weren’t unsold — they were stockpiles. What better way to save his failing empire than engineer a mass outbreak of verrucas?”

“Not bad,” said Brown-Horrocks approvingly. “Then who did Humpty marry?”

“Now, that,” puffed Jack as they came within site of Castle Spongg, “is something I’m still not sure about.”

They found Gretel waiting for them in front of the house behind a large pink marble toe. It was over fifteen feet across and rested on a black marble plinth. A gift from His Royal Highness Suleiman bin Daoud, it was a token of gratitude to the first Lord Spongg for curing his kingdom of a particularly virulent form of athlete’s foot in 1878.

Jack glanced around. “Where’s Baker?”

Gretel looked uneasy. “He went in. I tried to stop him, but he said armed response wouldn’t be here for weeks, and there might be staff in the house that needed to be evacuated. He said it didn’t matter because he has a brain tumor and won’t last the week anyway.”

“Is that true?” asked Brown-Horrocks.

“No,” said Jack, “he’s a hypochondriac. He’s had a self-proclaimed two months to live ever since he started working at the division six years ago. He — ”

A muffled shot interrupted Jack’s sentence. They peered around the statue at the front door, which was ajar. Nothing stirred from within.

“Call Ops and get the paramedics down here, but don’t let them in until I say so — and bring a vest back with you.”

Gretel scurried over to Baker’s car and relayed Jack’s request into the police radio. Jack was all for waiting, but then he heard it. It was the unmistakable sound of Baker. He was hurt, and he was moaning. Gretel returned with the vest. It was designed to stop a knife, but it could just about stop a bullet — as long as it was large-caliber, low-velocity or long-range — ideally, all three.

“You’re not going in alone, sir?” asked Mary.

“With all armed-response teams tied up with the Jellyman, it doesn’t look like I have a great deal of choice, does it?”

“It’s against regulations, sir.”

“True, but Baker’s hurt, and I don’t leave a man down. I’ll call when I can.” He took Mary’s mobile, switched it off and put it in his top pocket.

“Take care, sir.”

Jack looked at Mary’s anxious face. “Thanks.”

Jack approached the bizarre house warily. He knew that his decision went against every police procedural recommendation that had ever been made, but while an officer lay wounded inside, he felt he had to do something. He ducked behind one of the giant bronze anteaters and heard Baker cry out again. He ran forwards and stepped carefully inside the house. The lights were off, the interior dingy, and someone, somewhere, was playing the violin. While he paused to let his eyes get used to the gloom, a polite cough made him jump. He wheeled around and came face-to-face with… Ffinkworth.

“Good morning, Inspector,” said the butler solemnly. “I trust you are quite well?”

“I think you’d better leave, Mr. Ffinkworth. Lord Spongg is armed and dangerous. I don’t want any civilians hurt.”

Ffinkworth seemed miffed to be referred to as a “civilian.” He stared at Jack with his sharp green eyes for a moment.

“Indeed, sir. I hardly think I am in any danger from his lordship. The Ffinkworths have served the Sponggs faithfully for over a hundred years, and I sincerely doubt that his lordship would find it in his heart to end such a favorable alliance. If I get caught in what is referred to as a ‘crossfire,’ I am quite confident that my Kevlar vest will protect me, sir.”

He tapped his chest, and Jack could see that the butler was indeed wearing body armor. He hid a smile. Ffinkworth looked impassively ahead.

“Even so,” returned Jack, “I think you’d better leave.”

“In good time, sir. Can I offer you a small glass of Madeira? The house, it is generally agreed, looks easier after a small tot of firewater.”

“No thanks. Did you see another officer come in here?”

“Certainly, sir. Constable Baker has, I understand, been shot in the leg. He is in some considerable pain but not yet in danger of expiration. Will that be all, sir?”

“Where are they?”

“His lordship is in the west library. Mr. Baker is with him. He is held, sir, in what I believe is referred to as a ‘hostage situation,’ sir.”

Jack looked at the several corridors that led out of the entrance hall. “Which way is the library?”

“I am sorry sir,” replied Ffinkworth loftily, “but I have been instructed not to offer you any help. If you require anything else, please do not hesitate to ring.”

He bowed stiffly from the waist and disappeared down through a trapdoor like someone in a conjuring trick.

Jack looked around and then walked slowly up the ornately carved wooden staircase. All the steps were of different heights and depths, and it was difficult not to stumble on the polished wood. As he was watching his feet, his head struck the roof of the entrance hall. The staircase went nowhere, the upstairs hall merely a trompe l’oeil that had been painted on the ceiling. Jack retraced his steps back to the front door. He walked off to the right, leaving the entrance hall, and opened a door at random into what seemed to be a drawing room. It was well furnished and lit by electric light, as the shutters were closed. At the far end of the room was another door, so Jack closed the one behind him and made his way cautiously across. The first sign of anything wrong came when he suddenly felt disoriented and fell over. Mary’s mobile dropped out of his pocket, and he was about to pick it up when it started to move, quite on its own, back in the direction he had just come. It gathered speed, shot under the table and hit the door he had entered with a sharp thud. Before he could think what had happened, he felt himself being pulled by some powerful force in the same direction. He tried to get up but fell over again and then followed the Nokia back to the door, hitting his chin on a chair leg on the way down. He was now back where he had started, but instead of lying on the floor, he found himself actually in a heap on the door, seemingly pulled by some invisible force. He retrieved the mobile and got shakily to his feet. He found, to his astonishment, that he could now stand upright on the wall. The floor had become the wall, the wall the floor. His heart beat faster as his mind tried to make some kind of order of the situation. There was another lurch, and he fell over again, sliding up the wall to the molded ceiling, past two plaster cherubs that grinned at him. He felt panic rise within him, but then a piece of wax fruit from the fruit bowl on the table dislodged itself and fell up to the ceiling, slowly rolling down to where he was sprawled on the cornice. In a flash Jack realized what was happening. The room was slowly revolving, with him in it. Once he had figured what was going on, he managed to stand up straight and within a few minutes had walked across the ceiling moldings, past the chandelier and down the opposite wall. Five minutes later the room had turned full circle, and he opened the far door and stepped out into the house again. He sighed a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall.

Jack noticed that the music had become louder, so he slowly followed its source and, rounding a corner, found Ffinkworth playing the violin.

“Hello, sir,” the butler said genially, “have you found his lordship yet?”

“N-no!” stammered Jack, running a shaking hand through his hair, noticing the silver salver with his undrunk Madeira upon a small table close by. “How did you manage that?”

“Sir?”

“The violin. I heard it when I spoke to you in the hall!”

“Ah,” said Ffinkworth, standing up and untensioning his bow. “As sir has probably found out, Castle Spongg is rarely what it seems. The usual physical laws of time and motion appear to have forsaken its twisting corridors. Caligari was indeed a genius, you know, sir.”

He picked up the salver with the Madeira on it and offered it to Jack. “If sir has changed his mind?”

“No thanks, I — ”

“If you will excuse me, sir, I have work to do. If you want to know where his lordship is, I should try the dining room. It is down the corridor on your left.”

Jack looked down the corridor. It seemed to go on forever. When he looked back, Ffinkworth was gone, whisked away through some secret passage that the infernal place seemed to be honeycombed with. A sound made him turn, and farther down the corridor, just opposite a billiard table screwed to the wall with a game apparently in the middle of play, were two large double doors. One of them creaked, and Jack stiffened. He walked slowly up and put his head round the door. There was no one inside, so he entered.

It seemed to be a dining room of some sort. The ceiling was elaborately decorated with plaster figures of cherubs at a feast, and the walls were covered with a deep red patterned silk. The room was dominated by a large oak table around which sat twelve matching chairs. On one wall, the wall above the door behind him, there was a painting depicting the Relief of Mafeking. On the other side was a large mirror that perfectly reflected the room, painting, table and everything else. Jack was moving slowly across the room when he noticed something that made his heart turn cold. The mirror reflected the room perfectly — but for one thing. Jack had no reflection. As he stood staring into the mirror and trying to make some kind of logical sense of it, he saw the door open behind him in the reflection. He turned to see Ffinkworth walking in with some silver candelabras that had just been polished. Jack turned back to the mirror. Ffinkworth was clearly reflected holding the candelabras, yet Jack was not. He felt a cold hand grasp his heart, and his throat went dry.

“Can I be of any assistance, sir?”

“My reflection, Ffinkworth — where is it?” he gasped, fear tightening his chest.

“I believe, sir, that it may be found in the mirror.”

Ffinkworth stood next to Jack and lifted his arm. His reflection did the same — but was alone in that huge mirror image of the room.

“Can you not see yourself, sir?” asked Ffinkworth with annoying calm.

“No, damn it,” replied Jack, his temper rising. “What’s going on?”

“I regret, sir, that I have no idea. To my mind the mirror seems to be functioning perfectly.”

Jack took a step closer, his voice dropping to a low snarl. “Listen — ”

“I have been instructed to ask for your mobile telephone, sir.”

“What?”

“By his lordship. He has asked me to inform you that he will answer all your questions — and also release Constable Baker — if you will relinquish said instrument.”

Ffinkworth stared passively ahead, and Jack reluctantly handed him Mary’s phone.

“Thank you, Ffinkworth. That will be all.”

Randolph Spongg’s voice was unmistakable, and Jack could see him in the mirror. Spongg was behind him, leaning on the door-frame below the painting of the Relief of Mafeking. Jack turned to where he thought Spongg would be, but Randolph was not in the room with him. Spongg, like Jack, was only on one side of the reflection — the other side. Jack turned back to the mirror as Randolph laughed at his frustration and walked to where Jack’s reflection should have been, giving Jack the unnerving experience of gazing into a reflection that wasn’t his own.

“Hello, Jack,” Spongg said brightly. “Things aren’t going too well for me, are they?”

“What’s going on?”

Spongg laughed. “Things are rarely what they seem at Castle Spongg.” He looked around admiringly. “Caligari was a genius, you know.”

“Where’s Baker?”

“He’s fine. Not in any real danger.”

“Randolph Spongg, you are under arrest for the murder of Humpty Dumpty, William Winkie and Dr. Carbuncle. You do not have to say anything. But it may — ”

Spongg laughed again. “You are tenacious, aren’t you, Jack? I had a terrier like you once. A Jack, too, a Jack Russell. It used to grab hold of something and wouldn’t let go. I admire that. You and I could have been good friends.” He picked an apple out of his pocket and bit into it.

Jack said, “The CCDC have declared both the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center and Andersen’s Farm category-A biohazard hot zones. Even without murder charges, you’re still looking at life imprisonment for the intentional spreading of a communicable disease. Why not make it easy for yourself?”

Spongg smiled. “I can hardly give myself up, Inspector. I don’t think prison would be terribly pleasant for me. I wouldn’t be allowed to take Ffinkworth, and the idea of twenty-five years in the clink without the benefit of pâté or grouse or champagne or any of the hundred and one luxuries that make our dreadful lives bearable seems positively depressing. Prison is for small people, Jack. I have no intention of going.”

“Why did you do it, Spongg?”

“Well,” began Randolph with a curious smile on his lips, “it all began when Tom Thomm appropriated the goose. He brought the goose to Humpty — Thomm worshipped him — and Humpty devised the scam with Dr. Carbuncle and myself. Without the cash to buy the shares, it would never have worked, but the potential profits were so large that Humpty just couldn’t resist it. He was never happy about the murders in Andersen’s Wood, but he was desperate to rebuild St. Cerebellum’s. No surprise: The old place had kept him sane for almost forty years. I don’t suppose any of us realize what it’s like to be a very large egg. Frightful, I imagine.”

He thought about this for a moment, smiled and continued. “Humpty got cold feet when he found out how potent Hercules had become. He was essentially a good man, and his heart wasn’t in it. I’d been planning to get rid of him for over a month.”

“And Dr. Carbuncle?”

“He supported Spongg’s and hated Winsum and Loosum, but murder wasn’t in his game plan. As soon as you started to investigate, he made a few assumptions and wanted to blow the whistle. Very regrettable. He was a brilliant research chiropodist.”

“And you, Spongg? Everything good that Spongg’s stood for. Why risk all that?”

Spongg’s eyes flashed angrily as he thumped his fist on the table.

“Don’t you understand? I did this to protect all that was great about Spongg’s. My factory, my workers, Castle Spongg, the Foot Museum, the two hundred charities I give money to every year. Winsum and Loosum would have taken all that and sold everything piece by piece. They had plans to turn this house into a theme park. A theme park! I did all this to stop the encroachment of damaging and selfish twenty-first-century business practices. Tell me honestly, Jack, which company did you prefer?”

“Yours.”

“Said without hesitation,” said Randolph triumphantly. “So you agree.”

“Not if murder is involved.”

Randolph threw his hands up in the air. “Murder?” he said in exasperation. “If I have to murder a few people, then that’s the price we have to pay. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, Mr. Spratt. You work in criminal law; you know the full meaning of that. To run the criminal-justice system, innocent people must, however regrettably, be occasionally sent to prison. It’s unfair, but it’s for the good of the many. To be efficient, the system can’t be fair; to be fair, it can’t be efficient. Business is the same. To make profits and benefit the community, then some people, however regrettably, will have to die. My Spongg charity homes look after thousands of retired people and offer better lives than they might enjoy under the government. How many lives do you think I’ve saved? Ten? One hundred? One thousand? When Spongg folds and the people I look after are cast out, a lot more people will die. You should look at the big picture.”

He swept his arms around, indicating the house, the grounds, everything. “All this, Mr. Spratt. How could I afford to let it go?” Spongg stared at him with a manic expression.

“That doesn’t explain how you’d get hold of Dumpty’s shares.”

As if on cue, the door opened behind Spongg. Lola Vavoom entered dressed in a sixties style catsuit. Jack looked around him, but he was still alone in the room; Randolph and Lola existed only in the reflection.

“Hello, Inspector dahling,” she cooed, threading an arm round Spongg’s waist. “I never liked the idea of a comeback, but for you I’d be willing to make an exception.”

She laughed as Jack looked at her in disbelief.

“You two…?”

“Yes, Inspector,” replied Lola. “Humpty and I were married; it wasn’t hard to persuade him — he adored me. I was to own thirty-eight percent of Spongg’s following my husband’s untimely death in the Zephyr, everyone catches verrucas with help from the Sacred Gonga, and before you can say Hallux valgus, Spongg’s is back on top!”

“Just through verrucas?”

“At first,” said Spongg. “Dr. Carbuncle was working on a corn serum to contaminate Britain’s water supply. Athlete’s-foot spore was to be introduced into the initial stages of sock manufacture. In under a year, Mr. Spratt, I could have bought out those sniveling dogs at Winsum and Loosum. Sold their company piecemeal as they were going to do to us and then fired all the executives after promising to take them on at increased salary — and then Lola and I could be married again!”

“Again?”

“Indeed,” Lola replied slowly, “it will be for the fifth time. Randolph was my third, seventh, tenth, fifteenth and soon my eighteenth husband. It’s an on-off sort of romance.”

They kissed aggressively on the lips.

“What about Willie Winkie? He saw you at Grimm’s Road?”

“I think we’ve talked enough,” said Randolph. “So it’s time for you and me to bid each other good-bye.”

“Why don’t we just call it au revoir?”

Randolph thought for a moment.

“No, let’s call it good-bye. My grandfather built a pneumatic railway that leads off beyond the perimeter of the grounds. There I have a Hornet Moth aircraft that will take Lola and myself to Europe. I have friends in Switzerland, and we will be in Geneva in time to hear of my own — and yours, of course — demise on the ten o’clock news. You, the house, that officer upstairs and unfortunately the Ffinkworths will be consumed by the detonation of this device.”

He opened a Tupperware container that had been lying on the table and took out a small triangular sandwich on a cardboard plate. It had a piece of foil on its two furthermost corners. Spongg connected each one by way of a crocodile clip to a battery and then in turn to a detonator stuck into six sticks of dynamite bundled together. He then laid a hair dryer on the table, pointed it towards the sandwich and set it to “hot.” The sandwich immediately started to curl, and Jack could understand the fiendish simplicity of the device. In a few minutes, the sandwich would curl up completely, the two corners would touch, set off the dynamite and — He shuddered.

“It’s a London and North East Railway garlic and lettuce special. They curl more than any others. We were approached in the sixties by the railways to find an anticurling agent. We developed one from our trench-foot remedies. It affected the taste, but that was not a primary consideration. This sandwich, Mr. Spratt, has not been treated. If you think this amount of dynamite won’t be enough, I have another ton of the stuff under the table. All that will be left of Castle Spongg will be a smoking hole in the ground.”

Spongg opened the door on his side of the reflection.

“Adieu!” he said with a cheery wave. “If it’s any consolation, I seriously underestimated you. I wouldn’t have dared try this with Friedland as head of the NCD. I thought you were just another plod. Oh, well, pip-pip!”

He and Lola walked out and closed the door quietly behind them.

“I’ve been underestimated before,” growled Jack under his breath.

He ran to the door and tried the handle, but it was no use — it had been firmly locked. He checked the chimney, but that was too small. Then he walked back to the mirror and stared as the reflection of sandwich curled some more. At the rate it was going, he had possibly five minutes — maybe less. He thought of yelling, but that might bring Mary and the others into the house, and that would be disastrous. He sighed, drew out a chair and sat down. He pulled off the vest, which had grown uncomfortable and was now redundant, and let it fall to the floor. He thought about Madeleine and the kids and regretted that he hadn’t been able to say good-bye. He’d miss Stevie’s birthday. All of them. He was just thinking of some way to leave a message for them that wouldn’t be destroyed when his eye fell upon a servant’s call button next to the marble fire-place. It was worth a try. After all, Ffinkworth was a gentleman’s gentleman, and he did say to call him if he needed anything. Jack ran to the wall and pressed it. Deep in the bowels of the house, a bell sounded, and less than thirty seconds later, Ffinkworth appeared through a trapdoor in the floor, which would not have seemed out of place on a stage. His reflection, Jack noted, did the same.

Ffinkworth brushed himself down and straightened his jacket. “Can I be of any assistance, sir?”

“I need to get out of this room.”

“Quite impossible, sir. The door is firmly locked — I made sure of it myself.”

“What about your trapdoor?”

“I’m afraid to say, sir, the mechanism for its operation is down below.”

Jack looked over at the sandwich. It was now almost completely curled up, only half an inch separating the two corners. He pointed at the mirror.

“Do you see that, Ffinkworth? On the table. It’s a bomb. If you don’t help me, we’ll all be blown to kingdom come. NOW, HOW DO I GET OUT OF THIS ROOM?”

Ffinkworth maintained perfect calm. “Prison is a depressing place, I am told, and certainly not the place for a man such as his lordship. He explained it to us both. We think that this is for the best.”

Jack was amazed at the man’s coolness. He was just about to die, yet he was being loyal to his master to the end.

“Ffinkworth, I — ”

Jack stopped and stared at the gaunt butler, who looked ahead of him dispassionately.

“‘Us both’?” said Jack, the light beginning to dawn. “Who’s ‘us both’?”

Ffinkworth looked unnerved for the first time, and his eyes flicked across to his reflection. In that instant Jack knew.

“Tell your brother to duck,” said Jack, picking up a large marble ashtray and hurling it for all his might at the mirror. Ffinkworth’s brother dived for cover, while the Ffinkworth next to Jack raised a hand to his worried face.

Jack ran up to where the glass had been and jumped through into the identical room behind what he had thought had been a mirror. The illusion had been perfectly realized. Even the painting of the Relief of Mafeking had been copied in reverse to create the perfect waking hallucination. Jack didn’t stop, his feet crunching and squeaking on the shards of broken glass as he ran up to the table and placed his Allegro Owners’ Club card carefully in between the jaws of the sandwich as they clicked shut. He breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the detonator from the dynamite. The second Ffinkworth picked himself up and gingerly brushed himself down. He had been slightly cut by flying glass but was otherwise unhurt. The first Ffinkworth peered through from the room Jack had just come from.

“Will that be all, sir?” the identical Ffinkworth twins asked in unison.

“Yes,” replied Jack as he breathed a deep sigh of relief, “except that you’re both under arrest.”

The Ffinkworths bowed again and also looked relieved.

“As you wish, sir.”

Jack brought Baker out of Castle Spongg, and Gretel and Mary and two paramedics ran up to help him.

“If I don’t pull through,” said Baker in a whisper, “tell Susie that I love her.”

“Baker,” said Mary, “it’s barely a scratch. Don’t be such a fusspot.”

“You mean I’m not going to die?” he asked the paramedics.

“Not today,” remarked the first medic, looking at Baker’s inconsequential wound.

“Did you see or hear a light aircraft recently?” asked Jack.

“Circled the building and then headed south about five minutes ago,” said Mary. “Was that Spongg?”

“And Lola, on their way to Geneva.”

“Lola?”

“It’s complicated. I need to speak to Briggs. Anyone got a phone?”

“Well,” said Brown-Horrocks a few minutes later, after Jack had reported Spongg’s escape and explained everything to him and Mary, “I suppose that wraps up the investigation. Spongg murders Humpty, Carbuncle and then the witness Winkie, attempts to raise the share price of his failing foot-care company by infecting everyone with verrucas. It’s not exactly standard Amazing Crime material, but I daresay it might be a welcome change for the readership. We may have to play down the identical-twin aspect, but it’s not all bad.”

“Yes,” said Jack thoughtfully, “I suppose you’re right.”

He got up and walked towards Gretel’s car as the two Ffinkworths gave themselves up. They had even changed out of their frock coats and packed two identical suitcases. Brown-Horrocks looked at them disapprovingly as Jack checked his watch. It was almost midday.

“What happened at the visitors’ center?”

“Cordoned off to a two-hundred-yard radius,” said Mary. “You wouldn’t believe the complexity of a biohazard response — everyone turned up, from DEFRA to the Met Office to the Environment Agency. Briggs gave a press conference on your behalf explaining the reason. There isn’t going to be a riot or anything; everyone’s just hoping there won’t be any lasting damage to the Sacred Gonga.”

“But the Jellyman will still dedicate it?”

“They’ve switched locations to the Civic Center.”

Jack suddenly felt tired and wanted to speak to Madeleine and the kids more than anything else. He called home, but they were out — probably to go see the Jellyman.

At that moment a van screeched to a halt in front of them. It belonged to the Reading Biohazard Fast Response Team, and two officials dressed in yellow rubberized suits jumped out.

“Who’s Jack Spratt?” asked the one with the clipboard.

Jack identified himself.

“Move away from those people and stand on your own, please, sir. Mary Mary?”

“Yes?”

“You’re to join him. Mr. Brown-Horrocks, too. Has anyone else come into contact with any of these three people?”

Baker, Gretel and the two paramedics all meekly put up their hands.

“What’s going on?” demanded Jack.

“You’ve been declared a category-A contamination risk. You’re going to have to be showered, scrubbed, examined and inoculated. All your clothes will have to burned, and any personal effects auto-claved for thirty minutes at one hundred and twenty-one degrees centigrade.”

“Even my clipboard?” asked Brown-Horrocks in dismay.

“Everything,” said the biohazard agent, with the buoyant tone of someone who has just been given a lot of power and is keen to try it out. “By rights you should never have left the Andersen’s Farm hot zone — you might have spread verrucas all over Berkshire. Haven’t you read the seven-hundred-and-twenty-page procedure manual for communicable-disease outbreaks?”

“Have you?” asked Jack sarcastically.

“Most of it,” replied the biohazard agent with surprising honesty.

They all grumbled but sat obediently in a small group on the grass while the decontamination unit cordoned them off and fetched some supplies from the ambulance for Baker, who seemed to be improving.

The fire brigade, ambulance and medical teams arrived within an hour, and the whole process began in earnest. It was a miserable end to an otherwise good day. As Jack waited his turn to be scrubbed down in the portable showers, he suddenly had a disturbing thought about something Lola had said. By the time he was dry, issued a set of blue overalls and finally allowed to go, the disturbing thought had transformed into doubt. A doubt that said everything was still not quite as it seemed.