“It’s all right for you,” said Jack after a pause. “At least you’ve got a long, performance-based traditional backing to your existence.”

“More of a curse than a blessing,” replied Punch with a sigh.

“We’d love to retire back home to Italy, but they keep on updating the act and dragging us out again. We bought a house in Tuscany a few years ago, when we thought political correctness would end the show, but it didn’t. The Punchinistas think they’re doing us a favor, restoring the tradition, but they’re not.”

“Tuscany,” mused Jack, who had never been out of Berkshire in his life, “that could be nice.”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Punch dreamily. “Judy and I were going to spend our twilight years beating each other senseless under the the warm Mediterranean sun. We’d sip Chianti through broken teeth and grapple at one another’s throats as the orange orb of the sun set on another perfect day. Then, after a truly excellent spaghetti alle vongole, I would jam my thumb in her eye and she would kick me hard in the gonads—and we would go to bed, tired, but happy.”

They all fell wistfully silent for a while until Jack said, “Yes, but that doesn’t help me right now.”

“Perhaps not,” replied Punch, “but we can probably do something. Who was this woman you slept with?”

“I didn’t,” insisted Jack. “Briggs’s wife has had her eye on me since a fling about twenty-five years ago.”

“Agatha Diesel?” asked Punch.

“You know her?”

He didn’t answer and instead knocked on the back door. It was opened by Prometheus.

“Hello, Punchy,” said the Titan cheerfully. “How’s it cooking?”

“Madeleine needs to come out and speak to Jack.”

Prometheus looked at Jack and then back to Punch. “I don’t think she really wants to.”

“Please? It’s important.”

The door closed, and Punch winked at Jack while dialing a number on his cell phone.

“Who’s your phone provider?” he asked Jack. “I get a hundred free min—Agatha? It’s Punch…. I know your next appointment isn’t until Tuesday, but I’ve just heard about the regrettable incident with Mr. Spratt.”

There was a pause as Punch listened to a tearful babble of Agatha’s woes.

“I disagree,” he said as soon as he could get a word in. “The whole situation is a long way from irredeemable. You’re to tell your husband everything when he gets home, but for now I need you to talk to Mrs. Spratt and tell her precisely what happened—or didn’t happen—between you and Jack.”

There was another pause.

“It’s the right thing to do, Agatha. You’ll feel a lot better for it…. Here she is.”

Madeleine had appeared at the door and glared at Jack. She reluctantly took the proffered phone and went back inside.

“Now what?” asked Jack.

“Agatha will sort it out—unless you really did screw her, in which case you’re in such deep shit even I can’t help you.”

“I didn’t. How do you know Agatha?”

Judy and I run a marriage-guidance center. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs have been seeing us for several years now. It’s bad. Separate-beds bad.”

The door reopened a few minutes later, and Madeleine came out, wiped a tear from her eye, handed the phone back to Punch and hugged her husband.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He held her tightly. “And I’m sorry I never told you I wasn’t real. People don’t change just because you know more about them. I’m still the same Jack Spratt that you knew yesterday, and I’ll be the same Jack Spratt tomorrow and the day after. You can hold this against me if you want, but it doesn’t alter anything that I’ve ever said to you or taken any of the happiness out of the times we’ve spent together. I’m just an ordinary guy trying to support his family in the only way he can. I may not ever make superintendent, but I’ll always be standing beside you.”

She kissed him and said, “That was a really crap speech, sweetheart, but thank you. Did the rolling pin hurt?”

“It’s only painful when I think.”

“If you hadn’t made me love you so much, I wouldn’t have hit you so hard.”

“I had a feeling it might be my fault.”

She laughed, and they rested their heads on each other’s shoulders and rocked gently from side to side.

“That’s the way to do it,” said Punch with the air of job well done.

“Hey, shitface!” said Judy, popping her head over the garden fence and punctuating the romance of the moment in a most disagreeable fashion. “Are you going to jabber all night or give me a good ******** like you promised?”

“Hold your tongue, viper!” yelled Punch.

“You’re dead meat, you stinking heap of trash!” she screamed back. “I’ll—”

But then she suddenly noticed Jack and Madeleine embracing under the yellow glow of the outdoor light.

“What’s going on?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“A misunderstanding, sweetness—but it’s all right now.”

“Ahhhhh!” she murmured, watching them both and holding out her hand toward Mr. Punch, who took it and caressed it gently.

“I like an argument with a happy ending. Actually, I just like an argument.” Then she looked at her husband with a coquettish smile and said, “It’s still early. Why don’t you and I get all togged up and have a meal, an excellent bottle of wine and then a stand-up row and a punch-up down at the Green Parrot?”

He reached over and kissed her affectionately. “That sounds like a beautiful idea, Pookums. Can it be a really serious punch-up? Like we used to have in the good old days?”

“You’re just a sweet romantic at heart, aren’t you?” she replied tenderly. “I’ll ring up the Green Parrot for a reservation, book a couple of beds at the hospital and alert the finest emergency trauma team in Berkshire—and it’s my treat.”

Jack and Madeleine went back inside and upstairs to bed, shooing Caliban out the door when he tried to follow them. They were both fast asleep a half hour later, the best and deepest sleep for them both in many weeks. And as they slept, Mr. and Mrs. Punch donned their evening dress and knuckle-dusters, Agatha had a heart-to-heart with her husband, and below on the street outside, a single rust bubble popped up on the paintwork of the otherwise pristine Allegro.

31. The Truth Is Out There

Jack woke with a start at 5:30 A.M. He and Madeleine were still entwined, and he carefully unraveled her sleeping form from his before donning a dressing gown and walking into the bathroom. He examined the bruise on his chin where Briggs had thumped him and the one on his head from the rolling pin. He swallowed a couple of Tylenol, relieved himself and went downstairs.

Jack sighed deeply. He had told Briggs he was on a three-month rest, although in reality he was anything but. There were at least two murderers loose in Reading, a mother of all conspiracies was unfolding unseen in front of him, and if what he thought was true, the geopolitical future of the world was very much in the balance. Perhaps. He made some coffee and tapped in to toad-news.com to see if the Gingerbreadman had been caught or shot. He hadn’t.