17. Home Again

“Hello, sweetheart,” said Madeleine as Jack walked in the door. “What did your psychiatric evaluator have to say?”

“I’m only mad if my car isn’t. If my car is mad, then I’m sane—but I have to prove that my car is insane for me to be seen as sane. Is that clear?”

“As mud.”

“And I think we’ve found Goldilocks—or bits of her anyhow.”

“Murder?”

“Possibly. Have you seem Jerome’s pet whatever-it-is today?”

“There was a gnawing sound from behind the hot-water tank,” she replied, “but I didn’t see anything.”

“And the Punches?”

“They are the neighbors… from hell,” she replied coldly.

Jack looked at the partition wall. All was silent. “They seem pretty quiet to me.”

“They’re taking a breather,” replied Madeleine, consulting the kitchen clock. “Since they got in from work, I’ve noticed they have a strict schedule to their arguments—fifty minutes of violent squabbling, then ten minutes’ rest. Regular as clockwork.”

“Oh, come on!” said Jack. “No one fights to a schedule.”

“Three seconds from now,” said Madeleine, donning a set of earplugs. Megan, who was doing her homework on the kitchen table, did the same. Almost immediately there was a thump and a crash from next door, all the pictures on the wall shook, and tiny trails of dust fell from the ceiling. There was silence for a moment, then a scream of laughter and another crash.

Madeleine looked at her husband and raised an eyebrow.

“See?”

“I wonder how they got rid of them in the last neighborhood.”

“Sorry?” said Madeleine, pulling out one of the earplugs.

“I said, ‘I wonder how they got rid of them in the last neighborhood.’"

Madeleine raised a finger in the air. “Good point. I Googled them and found www.hatepunch.co.uk, which is a Web site dedicated to assisting anyone unlucky enough to live near them.”

“And?”

“The Punches are pretty canny and know how to keep quiet as soon as the law or social services come around, and they can drag noise-pollution proceedings out for months—sometimes years. The only sure way to get rid of them quick is to pay them off with a cash ‘gift’ of twenty grand.”

“That’s extortion and possibly demanding money with menaces,” announced Jack. “I can have them for that.”

“Apparently not,” replied Madeleine. “They never ask for the money and deny they want it if asked—you just push it through their mail slot, and a week later they decide to move on.”

“Hmm,” said Jack with a grudging respect, “good scam.”

“It’s the perfect scam. The residents’ association has already raised half the fee. They want to move fast, before the word gets around that Punch is in the neighborhood.”

“Property prices!” snorted Jack, “Sometimes I wonder if they think of nothing else. But listen: All we’re doing is passing the problem on to somebody else.”

“I think the residents’ association knows that, sweetheart. And what’s more, I don’t think they care.”

“I care,” he replied. “There must be something we can do.”

There was another crash from next door, which set the ceiling light swinging.

“On the other hand,” he added, “they are pretty annoying.”

Jack had to ring the doorbell for a long time, as Punch and Judy were having a fight and couldn’t hear the bell for all the screams, swearing and breaking of furniture. When the door finally opened, it was Judy, who had a cut lip and a nosebleed.

“Yes?” she said, holding a handkerchief to her nose and clearly annoyed at being disturbed during her leisure time.

“If Mr. Punch did that to you, I can have him arrested for assault,” said Jack, wondering whether perhaps Judy wasn’t quite as much of a willing partner as she made out.

“Go to hell,” she said, and slammed the door in his face. There were more sounds of crockery breaking as Jack rang the doorbell again, and after another ten minutes the door opened again. This time it was Mr. Punch, who held an ice pack over his still-damaged eye.

“What?” he asked irritably.

“I just want you to know that I’m onto your little scam and I’ll use every—”

“Get real,” said Punch cruelly, “and then go to hell.”

And he slammed the door.

“How did it go?” asked Madeleine when Jack got back.

“I had an interesting exchange of views with both of them,” he replied, “and I’m sure we can come to some sort of amicable solution to the whole sorry business.”

“They told you to go to hell, didn’t they?” said Madeleine, who knew her husband pretty well.

“Yes. But I’m not out of ideas yet. That’s not to say I have any, but I’m sure I can deal with them without having to buy them off. Besides…”

Jack was thinking about his session with Kreeper and his PDRness. Punch and Judy were not just neighbors, they were something closer to family. And besides, this was what they did. For Punch and Judy there was nothing else—just uncontrolled and pointless violence toward each other.

“Besides… what?”

“Nothing.” He took a cookie out of the tin and nibbled it.

“How was your day?”

She shrugged. “It was dandy until the Punches got home.” She thought for a moment and looked confused. “Jack, Punch said something odd.”

“He… did?” asked Jack warily.

“Yes. I asked him why they insisted on beating the crap out of each other, and he said that you’d understand because they’d beat each other up as long as you continued not eating fat.” Jack’s heart missed a beat, and he felt a hot flush rise within him that seemed to burn his cheeks.

“He was just having a joke,” he replied in an unconvincing voice.

“You’re hiding something from me,” she said. “I know when you’re lying, Jack, and you’re doing it now.”

“Because…” began Jack, unsure of how to put it. He had hidden it from her for so long that he wasn’t sure how she would react when he told her.

“Because what?”

“Because I’m Jack Spratt,” he said at last.

“I know that,” she replied, her voice dropping as she saw the pain in his face.

“Yes, but I’m not a Jack Spratt, I’m the Jack Spratt, as in ‘who could eat no fat.’"

She looked at him with a furrowed brow, unsure of what to say. “‘Whose wife could eat no lean’?”

Jack nodded, Madeleine’s eyes widening at the sudden acquisition of this new knowledge.

“Your first wife ate nothing but fat,” she said slowly. “That was what killed her.”

“I know.”

“You mean, You’re a… a…”

“Yes,” said Jack softly, laying a hand on her arm, “I’m actually a character from a nursery rhyme. I’m a PDR, sweetheart, and have been from the moment I was born.”

Madeleine looked at him unsteadily. She felt confused, hurt, uncertain. She pushed his hand off her arm.

“How long have you known?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Ever since I married for the first time and then started work at the NCD. DCI Horner said I was just the man for the job. I felt I belonged. It seemed too much of a coincidence.”

“And the beanstalk and all that giant killing?”