The Big Over Easy (31 page)

He faltered for a moment, unsure of how to put it. Finally he said, “One goose looks a lot like another, don’t you think?”

Jack smiled. “Yes,” he replied, “I daresay it does. But I know nothing and don’t wish to know anything. If anyone swapped the goose, good luck to them as long as they use that wealth wisely. If they don’t, then I just might wish to get involved.”

Tibbit smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

Jack walked back into the office to continue his speech.

“Where was I? Ah, yes: Long after we are ashes and—”

Luckily for the NCD staff, he was once again interrupted, this time by Mrs. Singh, who swept in like a galleon in full sail.

“There you are!” she said. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Don’t you ever return calls?”

“I’ve been busy bringing down the second-biggest foot-care empire in the world and one of Reading’s most respected figures—and my mobile was blown up.”

“You could have used Mary’s.”

“It was taken by an identical-twin butler.”

“What about that Guild chap’s?”

“Melted in the autoclave.”

“Never mind. I got Humpty’s results back from the SunnyDale Poultry Labs.”

“And?”

“Large quantities of alcohol, traces of marijuana, and about sixty-eight different strains of salmonella, four of which would probably have proved fatal within the next six months, and traces of chorioallantoic membrane.”

Everyone in the room leaned closer.

“Traces of
what
?”

“Chorioallantoic membrane. It’s a highly vascularized extra-embryonic membrane that functions as a site for nutrient transport and waste disposal during embryonic development.”

“Embryonic development?” echoed Jack. “You mean…”

“Right. He didn’t die from the gunshot wound
or
the fall. He
hatched.
”

There was a deathly hush as they took this in.

“Hatched? You mean to tell me Humpty Dumpty was
pregnant
?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” replied Mrs. Singh, “although ‘pregnant’ is perhaps the wrong word. He was an egg, Jack, and eggs, when fertilized, hatch.”

“I know what eggs do, Mrs. Singh. And what was going to come out? A three-hundred-pound chicken?”

“Not at all,” replied Mrs. Singh. “Even my most conservative estimates place the
chick alone
at that sort of weight—the fully grown hen would probably tip the scales at two to three tons.”

“I need to sit down.”

“You are sitting down. Skinner and I couldn’t simulate the extreme breakup of his shell,” continued Mrs. Singh, “no matter what we did. The damage was too severe for anything a bullet might have caused. Something hatching, now, that’s a different matter.”

“So how did the bullet go straight through?”

“Fluke,” replied Mrs. Singh. “It must have passed between the body and the wing or the leg—or something.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Mary, trying to get all the information in context. “Firstly, he’s a guy, right? Even if he is, to all intents and purposes, a very large egg?”

“Indeed,” replied Mrs. Singh, “he had all the necessary equipment.”

“And a series of girlfriends, so he wasn’t shy on exercising it,” added Jack.

“Okay. He’s over sixty-five years of age, so I think we can safely say he was born—laid—whatever—
unfertilized.
Most eggs are, right?”

“Right.”

“So when
was
he fertilized?”

Mrs. Singh thought for a moment. “This is more the field of avian pathologists, but by comparing the volume of his egg and likening that to a scaled-up model of ostrich chick development, we can safely say…about six months ago.”

“How?”

“The hole I found drilled in his shell,” said Mrs. Singh. “A modified IVF procedure would do the trick.”

“But it’s
still
murder,” muttered Jack. “Whatever grew inside him would have been slowly consuming him from within. The question is: Why?”

“I should imagine the poultry industry might be very interested in a three-ton chicken, sir.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mary. You’d never find an oven big enough. Besides, what misbegotten evil genius would be so cruelly insane as to want to carry out such a bizarre and perverted experiment on a living, breathing creature?”

They looked at each other, snapped their fingers in unison and said, “Dr. Quatt!”

“Spot on. She had the opportunity, the skill, the knowledge. But, more important, the total absence of any ethical standards whatsoever. Gretel and Ashley, take a couple of officers and go to St. Cerebellum’s to arrest Dr. Quatt. Baker, call the Ops room and see if anyone has reported seeing a giant chicken loose in Reading—especially near the Grimm’s Road area. I want locations, times, size, everything—so we can plot them on a map.”

They all dashed off to do his bidding. Ashley scampered along the roof to the elevator while Gretel bade Brown-Horrocks a shy “well, see you around, then” sort of farewell.

“Thanks, Mrs. Singh, you’re a marvel. Stay for a drink?”

She politely declined, as she had to babysit two of her grandchildren, then stared in a medically curious way at Brown-Horrocks and departed.

“At last!” announced Jack. “Some
closure.
I don’t know about you, but I’m knackered. I’ve been blown up, decontaminated, rolled along the top of a room, my Allegro’s been written off, and I was almost vaporized by an insane chiropodist. And tomorrow I’ve got to hunt a giant chicken running loose in Reading. Well, cheers.”

“Cheers, sir.”

“Do you think Officer Kandlestyk-Maeker would enjoy the zoo?” asked Brown-Horrocks, who obviously had other things on his mind. “They’ve got a baby giraffe, you know.”

It was a cloud,
clearless night and the stars brinkled twightly in the heavens. As Jack and Mary motored closer to his hother’s mouse, they could see that the mull foon had risen behind the beanstalk and now presented the leaves and pipening rods in sharp silhouette. Attached to the top of the stalk was a steady red light, a safety precaution fitted by the Civil Aviation Authority that afternoon. The crowds had departed from the streets nearby, and litter and soft-drink cans lay scattered about the road. After the busy day, everyone was at home relaxing.

Everyone, that is, except Dr. Quatt, who had not been at St. Cerebellum’s or her home when Ashley and Gretel called. Jack had issued a warrant for her arrest and posted uniformed officers at both places. No one had reported a chicken loose in Reading either—of any size.

“Thanks for dropping me off,” said Jack as they drove slowly up the road towards his mother’s. “Madeleine said she’d be up at Mum’s and I should meet her there. Hello, what’s this?”

Ahead of them two police cars blocked the street, and two officers in vests held automatic weapons.

“Yes, sir?” inquired one of the policemen in a businesslike tone when Jack got out and walked towards them.

“Detective Inspector Spratt, NCD.”

He held up his ID card, and the officer stood to attention respectfully.

“Thank you, sir. And may I say on a personal note how impressed I was by the way you cracked the Humpty case. Once had a verruca myself. Nasty little blighters. Do you always wear blue overalls, sir?”

“It was a decontamination sort of thing. What’s going on?”

The officer leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Jellyman on a personal social call, sir. Private viewing of the beanstalk and an audience with the owner.”

This was surprising and also a great honor—owing to his tight schedule, the Jellyman rarely did “drop-ins” these days.

“She’s my mother, and my family is up there. Can I go in?”

“One moment,” said the officer, and he relayed the request through his walkie-talkie.

“Good evening,” said Jack to the second officer. “Tell me, how long has that white van been there?”

The officer looked at where it was parked less than fifty yards away.

“Don’t know, sir. Why?”

“No reason.”

Mary switched off the BMW’s engine, and the city was suddenly still and quiet. Not a dog barked, not a car horn sounded. Everyone was indoors. Jack looked at his watch. Five past ten. People would be settling down to catch the edited highlights of the visit on the news. He looked about. At the various parts of the street, other armed police stood on duty, and outside his mother’s garden gate was a white Daimler limousine. Mary joined Jack and handed her own ID to the officer. He looked at Jack for his approval, and he nodded.

They waited for a couple of minutes until the walkie-talkie crackled into life.

“Tell them to come on over.”

The officer escorted them towards the garden gate, where Friedland Chymes was waiting to meet them. Since he was heading up Jellyman security, it was understandable.
Unwelcome,
but understandable. He was stony-faced but remained professional.

“Good result, Jack,” he managed to growl, the feeling that he should have been the one to figure it out all too obvious. “Sergeant, you’ll have to wait here. Family only. Baines will take you to the front door.”

Jack was handed over to a man wearing an earpiece and a bulge where a gun would be in a shoulder holster. The man asked to see his card.

“Why has your ID card shrunk?”

“Thirty minutes in an autoclave.”

“I see,” he replied, as though that sort of thing happened every day. “Thank you, Inspector. Follow me.”

Jack accompanied him up the path as the officer named Baines with the gun and the earpiece reeled off instructions parrot fashion.

“Only speak when you are spoken to. Do not attempt to shake hands. Bow your head when you are presented. Do not interrupt when he is talking. Do not touch him. Do not sneeze in his presence. Do not discuss politics, and always refer to him as ‘Your Eminence.’”

He rapped on the front door, and it opened a crack to reveal another officer with a large mustache who looked at Jack and then ushered him in. As soon as he stepped into the front hall, Jack noticed that the grandfather clock had stopped. He glanced across and was puzzled to see that the pendulum had halted midswing. Stranger still, his mother’s hyperactive cats were all sitting quietly in a row by the door, like skittles. He didn’t have time to think about it any further, as he was ushered into the familiar surroundings of his mother’s front room.

His whole family was there. Madeleine was standing at the back holding Stevie, and the rest of the children were either sitting or standing next to their grandmother. Incredibly, Pandora was wearing a dress, and
more
incredibly, Ben had combed his hair. Megan was standing in front of them all, facing the large leather armchair that used to be Jack’s father’s. Sitting in that chair, suffused by a soft glow that seemed to emanate not
from
his white suit but
through
it, was the Jellyman.

The Jellyman’s physical presence was something that could only be felt, never described. He exuded strong feelings of hope, and his calming personality seemed to envelop all who met him. They said of the Jellyman that a smile from him could brighten the darkest moment and a word could still the most passionate rage. Jack, like many, had remained skeptical about the great man’s powers, but in those few seconds he knew that everything they said was true.

The Jellyman was leaning forward in the chair, his fingertips pressed against his chin, and even though he whispered to Megan and the words were indistinct, they seemed to fill the room like chamber music in a hall of mirrors. Megan was nodding eagerly as he spoke to her, and when he finished, he laid his hand on her head and smiled. Megan nearly melted, and Madeleine wiped a tear from her cheek.

The Jellyman’s aide rapped a staff on the floor and said, in a loud, clear, voice, “Your Eminence, may I present Detective Inspector Jack Spratt!”

Jack took a step forwards and tried to remember all he had been told on the short walk up the garden path. He’d forgotten everything except the bit about sneezing, but it didn’t matter. The Jellyman swung round in his seat and stared at Jack with his piercing blue eyes.

“Mr. Spratt,” he said with an enigmatic smile, “you have a most charming family.”

“Th-thank you, Your Eminence.”

He stood up and approached Jack. He was a large man, but perhaps this impression was due to his overwhelming personality rather than his stature. He spoke plainly and without ambiguity. You could never remember the precise
words
he spoke, but the meaning of them stayed with you forever.

“I want to thank you on behalf of the nation for saving us from a plague of verrucas.”

“My duty, sir.”

“Even so, you have our thanks. I knew Humpty well, you know—we were at Oxford together. I heard he had slipped into the darker side of existence, but he was a good egg at heart. Was it Randolph Spongg who murdered him?”

“No, Your Eminence, we suspect a mad doctor named Quatt.”

The Jellyman shook his head sadly. “A perverter of the natural order,” he said disdainfully. “I had her banned from research, but I see I should have taken more extreme measures. Why did she murder him?”

“She didn’t—but death was inevitable once she had decided to use Humpty as a living incubation device. As soon as Humpty Dumpty hatched, it was murder.”

“How fascinating! What came out?”

“A chicken. Quatt must have been—”

Jack stopped as nasty thoughts coalesced in his mind.
Why had he supposed it was a chicken?
Images of Winkie’s tattered body hove into view. A slash so violent it had split his sternum. Winkie must have heard the shot, come out and seen—not the hit man who was already gone, but
Dr. Quatt,
who had been waiting for several days with her white St. Cerebellum’s van. Winkie returned home, read the newspapers, assumed Quatt had killed Humpty and then—poor fool—tried to blackmail her. She had turned up to pay him off with whatever came out of Humpty’s shell—something so terrifying that, urine-soaked with fear, Winkie couldn’t even defend himself. A haddock with a kitten’s head was child’s play: Dr. Quatt had created something unspeakably nasty and then grown it in Humpty’s denucleated yolk. And for what?
To use against the one man who had ruined her!

“Inspector?” asked the Jellyman. “Something perturbs you.”

“You’re in danger. We’re all in danger. Madeleine, Mum, get the children into the cellar
right now
and lock the door. You with the mustache, get the officers outside to check the white van parked down the street—and get the Jellyman to safety!”

He used the sort of voice where no one argued, and as Madeleine swiftly guided the family downstairs to cries of “yes, but
why
?” the guard with the mustache spoke into his radio. The front door opened a crack. It was Chymes.

“What the hell’s going on, Spratt?”

“Quatt has bred some sort of weird Humpty-beast to try to kill the Jellyman. It will be immensely strong and have claws capable of splitting a man open.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

As if in answer, there was a burst of gunfire and a cry. Chymes rapidly opened the door and came in, while the officer with the mustache drew his pistol and spoke on his walkie-talkie. There was a garbled message in return and another five shots, then silence. After a moment there was a knock at the door, and Baines came inside, sweating.

“Did you see it?” asked Chymes.

The officer with the mustache went to the kitchen door as the Jellyman and his aide-de-camp waited patiently.

Chymes opened the front door a crack and looked out. At the garden gate, he could see an armed officer at the rear door of the limo. He beckoned urgently. Chymes shut the door and turned to Baines and Jack.

“His limo is only twenty meters away. If we bunch ourselves around him, we can probably make it.”

“It’s your show, Friedland.”

Chymes opened the door again just in time to see something large and scaly run past the limo and dispatch the armed officer with a swiftness that was impressive, deadly—and gruesome.

“New plan,” said Chymes as he closed the door again. “The Jellyman goes in the cellar.”

“I refuse,” said the Jellyman with finality. “They want
me.
I won’t take danger to the innocents.”

He meant Jack’s children, of course. Since protocol dictated that the Jellyman could
never
be manhandled, there was little they could do but acquiesce.

There was another shot and a cry from outside.

“Now what?” asked Baines.

“
Newer
plan,” said Chymes. “You stay here and defend the Jellyman, and I’ll coordinate the backup response from…somewhere else.”

And without another word, he opened the door and was gone. Jack watched him as he ran across the street and jumped inelegantly through the privet hedge of the house opposite.

“Where’s the backup?” asked Jack as he closed and locked the door.

“On its way.”

“Then we wait.”

There were more shots, this time from the garden, and another cry.

“Whoa!” shouted the officer in the kitchen, “I just saw something dark and scaly go past the windows—and I think it got Simpson.”

“Controlled fire at anything that comes in!” yelled Baines.

“Make every shot count!”

Baines and Jack moved through to the living room and wedged the door to the hall shut with a chair under the handle. Baines then positioned himself between the Jellyman and the kitchen door.

“Officer Baines,” said the Jellyman, “you are excused. I have nothing to fear from death, and they want only me. You, too, Inspector, and you, Mr. Vaughn.”

Jack looked at Baines and Vaughn, the aide-de-camp. Neither of them moved.

“Is he always this pleasant?”

“Always,”
replied Baines, adding over his shoulder, “I’m sorry, Your Eminence, my orders are quite clear on this matter.”

There was a crash as the kitchen door was smashed in and loud reports accompanied by muzzle flashes as the officer in the kitchen slowly emptied his weapon into something out of their line of vision. The gunshots stopped, and they heard a faint metallic
clack
as the empty magazine hit the tiled kitchen floor. The officer with the mustache never got a chance to reload. There was another crash of broken furniture, and the officer’s arm, still with the pistol held tightly in his hand, slid past the open door and hit the fridge. The Jellyman closed his eyes and spoke quietly to himself, doubtless preparing himself for his physical end.

There was a low hiss from the kitchen and the scrape of furniture as the creature made its way to the living room door. A scaly claw with an elongated central digit like a kitchen knife grasped the doorframe. This was followed by the head of something that looked like an illustration from Jerome’s
Bumper Book of Carnivorous Dinosaurs.
It stood upright on powerful rear legs, using a gently lashing tail as a counterbalance, but it was no taller than Jack—just a lot more powerful. The body was covered by a series of bony plates like a pangolin, and it had small dark eyes that darted around until they alighted on the Jellyman. Then it hissed again and trod purposefully into the room, the sharp claws on its feet gouging deep furrows in the highly polished parquet flooring.

Baines fired, but the shot merely ricocheted off the beast’s scaly hide and shattered a vase on the sideboard. Jack did the first thing he thought of—he grabbed the creature’s tail and attempted to pull it off balance. With a cry the beast snapped its muscular tail like a whip, and Jack was flicked backwards at high speed through the kitchen door and into the furniture, which broke under him like matchwood.

Baines stood his ground and fired at regular, controlled intervals. It didn’t help. The beast approached him and with one violent swipe sent him to either side of the room. There was nothing now between the Humpty-beast and the Jellyman, who stared back at it with an expression of detached serenity. Jack looked around desperately for a weapon that would make a dent on the creature’s hide, but without luck: His mum’s kitchen wasn’t generally the sort of place where you’d try to kill bioengineered hell-beasts sprung from the crazed mind of a revenge-fueled fanatic.