Free The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

saying…good-bye.”
    “Did he seem depressed or anything recently?”
    The Titan thought for a moment. “Less talkative. Preoccupied, perhaps.”
    “When did you see him again?”
    “I didn’t. I heard him go into his room about ten-thirty, and the next thing I knew, Mrs. Hubbard was banging on my door and asking if I wanted Humpty’s room for an extra fifty quid a week.”
    There didn’t seem to be anything more Jack could learn, at present.
    “Thanks for your help. I can usually find you here?”
    Prometheus sighed. “Humpty was paying half of my rent. I can’t afford this dive any longer. You could always leave me a message at Zorba’s—I wait tables there three times a week.”
    Jack had an idea.
    “We need a lodger. Come around to this address and meet my wife tonight at about seven.”
    Prometheus took the proffered scrap of paper.
    “Thank you,” he said. “I think I might just do that.”
     
    Mary had been speaking to the neighbors. They were suspicious at first but soon became keen to help when they found out it was Humpty who had died. He had, it seemed, been very generous in the neighborhood.
    “What have you got?”
    “Couple of people thought they heard dustbins, though no one can put a time on it. I got a statement from Mr. Winkie. I think he’s narcoleptic or something; he fell asleep as I was talking to him. SOCO didn’t come up with much. No prints on the shotgun, but some unusual traces on the carpet—and a single human hair.”
    “Brunette? Like the woman in the Vienna photograph?”
    “No, red—and twenty-eight feet long.”
    She passed him an evidence bag with a long piece of auburn hair wrapped carefully around itself like a fishing line.
    “Now, that is unusual. Rings a bell, too. What about Mrs. Dumpty?”
    “Not really the grieving widow. In fact, technically speaking, not a widow at all—they divorced over a year ago. She said to drop in at any time.”
    “Then we’ll do just that. We really need to find the woman in the Viennese picture. She and Humpty had a row last night.”
    “What about?”
    “We’ll ask her when we find her. Her name’s Bessie.”
    “I’ll get the office onto it,” said Mary. “Was that Prometheus upstairs?”
    “Yes. Creator of mankind to Mrs. Hubbard’s lodger. Make’s Humpty’s fall look like a stumble, doesn’t it?”
    Jack unlocked the car and pushed some papers off the passenger seat so that Mary could get in. She looked at the baby seat in the back.
    “You have children, sir?”
    “Lots of people do. I have five.”
    “Five?”
    “Yup. Strictly speaking, only two are mine. Two more belong to my second wife, and we share the other. You married?”
    “Me? No. I collect ex-boyfriends—and more than five, at the last count.”
    Jack laughed, started the engine and selected first gear. There was an ominous growling from deep within the gearbox, and they pulled out into the road to head off to the Caversham Heights district and Mrs. Dumpty.
    “So what do you reckon?” asked Mary, still not having come to terms with her new job. She thought she wouldn’t tell her friends back at Basingstoke about this quite yet—if at all.
    Jack thought for a moment. “How about this: ‘Big egg gets a shellful, throws himself off wall in fit of drunken depression.’ Or this: ‘Humpty goes to party, gets completely smashed, comes home and…gets completely smashed.’”
    Mary’s mobile rang. She looked at the Caller ID before answering. Arnold again.
    “I can’t speak right now,” she said before Arnold had a chance to say anything. “I’m at work. I’ll call you back tonight. Promise. Bye.”
    She pressed the “end-call” button angrily, and Jack raised an eyebrow.
    “I have a mother like that,” he observed.
    “It wasn’t my mother,” replied Mary sullenly. “It was an ex-friend who doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘I never want to see you again.’”
    There was a pause as they negotiated a roundabout, and