The Fourth Bear nc-2

by Jasper Fforde

  They all slowly turned to look at the newcomer. He was a fully grown brown bear dressed in a well-tailored three-piece tweed suit. He was wearing a trilby hat, had a shiny gold watch chain dangling from his waistcoat, and white spats covered the top of his shoeless feet. And he was holding a gun.

  “Police,” said Jack. “DCI Spratt of the NCD.”

  “ID?”

  Jack very carefully retrieved it from his pocket and passed it across.

  The bear looked at the card, raised an eyebrow and lowered his gun. His small brown eyes flicked among them. “Then you must be Officers Mary and Ashley. Which one of you is the alien?”

  “That would be me,” replied Ashley, putting up his hand.

  “Right,” said the bear, returning the weapon to an elegantly tooled shoulder holster.

  “Who are you?” asked Jack.

  “Sorry about the weaponry,” said the bear without answering or even appearing to hear him, “but I don’t know who to trust these days. Since the bile tappers got active in the area, we members of the phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Carnivora, family Ursidae are not going to take any chances.” He walked over to the Dumpster and looked in. “Hmm,” he said.

  “It’s a bathtub,” remarked Ashley. “They’re used for washing in.”

  The bear looked at Jack. “Is he for real?”

  “I’m afraid so. Again: Who are you?”

  The bear took a calling card from a large wallet and handed it to Jack. “The name’s Craps, Vincent Craps. Folks call me Vinnie.”

  Jack read the card and pocketed it. “And the gun?”

  “Licensed by NS-4,” replied Vinnie. “I’m an investigator for the League of Ursidae. We take attacks on bears and ursine substance abuse very seriously.”

  Jack wasn’t convinced. “I’m NCD, Mr. Craps, and I’ve never heard of any League of Ursidae.”

  “Then the NCD don’t know shit, do they?”

  He walked up close to Jack and towered over him in a very obvious display of dominance. He had a just-washed-dog smell about him, laced with aftershave and just the vaguest hint of tomcat.

  “Listen,” said Vinnie, tempering his overwhelming physical presence with a kindly fireside voice, “I’d be happier if you left porridge problems to those who really understand them. Your well-intended but undeniably clumsy attempt to contain the problem yesterday does no one any favors at all. Do you understand my meaning?”

  Jack thought for a moment. Then the penny dropped. “Tarquin is one of yours?”

  “We have operatives on the ground looking after things, Inspector. Bullying Tarq into selling the flake cheap to a bear named Algy was a classy move. But if you’d tried to shake him down, I’d have… Well, put it this way, the League of Ursidae doesn’t generally consider the courts either efficient or fair in matters regarding bears.”

  “I’ll take that as a threat.”

  “Come, come!” said Vinnie with a smile, taking a few paces back to make himself appear less threatening. “The NCD does an excellent job, but bears are better policed by bears. Take it as a request to let us keep our own house in order without outside interference.”

  “I’ll leave you alone if you keep me in the loop, Craps. What’s going on here?”

  Vinnie thought for a moment and looked around the empty factory unit.

  “This little setup is nothing too special. Bears like porridge in the same way that humans like alcohol. Unhappily, the law regards porridge not as a harmless recreational pursuit but as a potentially dangerous habit and regulates it with ration books.”

  “I know how the system works, Vinnie.”

  “Bears tend to blow their quotas in the first few days of each month. What you see here is a porridge ‘taster’ undertaken by a couple of humans who see themselves as friendly to bears. They take forty kilos or so and dump it on the bear market midmonth through Tarquin. It’s well-meaning and pretty harmless, but we like to keep an eye on this stuff rather than shut it down, just in case.”

  “Who’s doing it?”

  “We cooperate closely with National Security and don’t wish to jeopardize a good working relationship. I can’t tell you.”

  “Then why Bart-Mart and not, say, Waitrose or Somerfields?”

  “I think we’re about done here,” said Vinnie after a pause. “I hope I can rely on your good sense to leave this up to us?”

  “I won’t ignore any lawbreaking, Craps.”

  “No one’s asking you to, Inspector. It’s a question of priorities. I’m just asking you to put porridge on a… low priority. Be seeing you.”

  And without another word, he walked briskly out of the factory unit and straddled a Norton motorcycle that was parked outside.

  “Wait!” said Jack. “What about—”

  But he might as well have been talking to himself. Vinnie kicked the bike into life, revved the engine, clonked it into first and tore off up the road with a screech of tire.

  “You know what this means?” said Jack as Vinnie Craps vanished from view around a bend in the road.

  “That the singular ‘screech of tire’ looks and sounds wrong even if it’s quite correct?”

  “No. It means there’s a higher authority in ursine-related Nursery Crime than us.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind, but I’d like to have known about them.”

  “So we cool off on the porridge thing?”

  “Do we hell,” replied Jack. “Ash?”

  “Yes?” replied Ashley, who was still staring wistfully at the bathtub in the Dumpster.

  “I want you to get back to the office and call the biggest Bart-Mart in Reading and ask to view the security tapes covering the checkouts for the past five days. If the manager wants to know why, don’t mention porridge or bears. And if you have to make up a story, make it a little less outlandish this time.”

  “How much less outlandish?” asked the alien, whose understanding of the average human’s perception of reality was patchy at best.

  “One that doesn’t involve pirates and treasure,” said Jack.

  “Just tell them we’re looking for some thieves active in the area.”

  “Right,” said the alien, and scampered off, only to return a few moments later.

  “What am I looking for in the security pictures?”

  “Anyone with a cart full of rolled oats.”

  “Okay,” said Ash, “and no pirates.”

  He dashed off again, and Jack and Mary returned to the car.

  “Where now?” asked Mary.

  “It’s time we found out a little bit more about… Goldilocks.”

  11. Goldilocks (Absent)

  Most-defeated British parliamentary bill: Few bills before Parliament were ever so soundly rejected as the Ursine Self-Defense Bill of 2003, defeated by a record 608 to 1. Proposed to allow bears to protect themselves against illegal hunting and bile tappers, the bill would have permitted adult bears to legally carry a concealed sidearm within the designated safe haven of Berkshire, UK. The defeat of this particular private member’s bill brought to an end the previous record, set in 1821 when Sir Clifford Nincompoop’s proposal to allow marriage to one’s horse was defeated by 521 to 5.

  The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition

  Twenty minutes later Jack’s Allegro pulled up outside a large Georgian house that had once been a single residence but was now carved up into a number of uninspiring flats. Jack and Mary walked down the alley at the side of the house and, using the key that Josh had supplied, opened the door to Goldilocks’s basement flat. The door opened against four days’ mail and a lonesome cat. It entwined itself around Mary’s legs and purred so loudly it almost choked.

  “Josh asked us to feed it. It’s not like a cat owner to go away and leave it unattended.”

  “Poor puss,” muttered Mary as she tickled it behind the ears.

  “Let’s see if we can’t find you some dinner.”

  At the mention of dinner, the cat darted off, and Mary followe
d it into the kitchen. There was a rancid smell of rotting food, and Mary cautiously opened the fridge. Her nose wrinkled as the smell grew stronger. She rummaged among the contents and picked out the stuff that was going off—mostly milk that had turned to yogurt. She washed the remains down the sink, then fed the cat, who was rubbing itself against the cupboard where its food was kept.

  “Check her bedroom, see if there’s anything out of the ordinary,” called Jack as he picked up the mail from off the floor.

  “Y’know, girls’ things—anything to point to a prolonged absence.”

  Mary disappeared into the bedroom as Jack went through Goldy’s mail. There were letters from a disgruntled consumer wanting her to do an exposé on dishwashers, another from her bank complaining about her overdraft and several not-to-be-missed direct-mail offers that seemed almost nostalgically warming compared to the barrage of spam e-mails that Jack received every day.

  He dumped the mail on the living room table and looked around. The entire flat was meticulously tidy and—if Goldilocks was the Goldilocks—exactly as Jack supposed it might appear. From the cushions on the sofa to the tins in the kitchen cupboard and the pictures on the wall to the books on the bookshelf, everything was arranged in threes and, where possible, in descending order of size.

  A workstation was to one side of the open-plan living room. There was space for a laptop, and a power cable lay loose on the desk with a printer cable. Her laptop, Jack decided, must be either with her or at The Toad’s newsroom. There were several snaps of Goldy and companions stuck on a bulletin board along with some Post-its. The top one grabbed his attention, and he pulled it from the board. It was from someone named Mr. Curry and was an invitation for dinner the previous Friday, the day after Josh had last heard from her. The drawers of the desk yielded nothing of interest, just personal matters regarding financial concerns and her membership in the Austin owners’ club. Jack noted the number of Goldy’s Somerset: 226 DPX.

  “She’s not away on a trip, Jack,” said Mary on her return from the bedroom. “All of her suitcases and toiletries are still here. It’s a single woman’s flat, but she has a boyfriend who stays on a casual basis. There’s a second toothbrush and a pair of boxer shorts in the laundry.”

  Jack showed her Goldy’s passport.

  “Not out of the country, then.”

  “Well, well,” came a crackly unfiltered-Camels voice from the doorway. “Detective Inspector Spratt.”

  They both turned to see a middle-aged woman in a black suit. Her features were pinched and pale to the point of cadaverous, and her clothes hung loosely on her bony body. She stared at them with the ease of someone who was used to giving orders and used to having them taken. She wasn’t alone. Her companion was a man who was twice as big and eight times the volume. He was dressed in an identical black suit that seemed too small for his bulk. He had a shaved head, a badly broken nose and shoulders that sloped at forty-five degrees from just below his earlobes. Jack could see a curly earpiece barely visible running up from his collar. They looked like bouncers with poor fashion sense on a day trip.

  “Detective Chief Inspector,” corrected Jack.

  “Congratulations, Spratt—have you met Agent Lunk?”

  Jack nodded a greeting in his direction.

  “Mnn,” said Lunk.

  “Mary, I want you to meet Agent Danvers,” explained Jack,

  “NS-4’s finest. Remember the goose we gave to National Security after the Humpty inquiry? Well, it went through Agent Danvers here.”

  “Oh,” said Mary, “did you discover exactly how the goose laid all those golden eggs?”

  Danvers’s face fell. “If I ever find out that you swapped the goose,” she growled at the pair of them, “you’ll both be finished.”

  “Mnn,” said Lunk.

  “We were just chatting with Vinnie Craps,” said Jack. “He told us he’d been in contact with NS-4. Is that the reason you’re here?”

  “Never heard of him. NS-4 is a big department. We bully and intimidate a lot of people, so it’s hard to keep track of names. What’s your interest in Miss Hatchett?”

  “It’s a potential missing-persons inquiry.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “No, that’s what the ‘missing’ in ‘missing persons’ means.”

  Danvers bridled slightly, but Jack didn’t care. He’d had dealings with Danvers and National Security before, and he’d always come off worse. Most people did.

  Jack asked, “Why do you want to know where she is?”

  Danvers beckoned to Agent Lunk, who moved into the flat and started to look through the drawers and bookshelves in a half-assed display of searching.

  “What was the story she was working on?” asked Danvers.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Inspector,” she replied, removing her dark glasses to reveal two red-rimmed, unblinking eyes. “I’m the good side of NS-4. If you prefer, I can ask Mr. Demetrios to speak to your commanding officer. Do you want me to make you tell us?”

  “If you want me to repeat myself with Briggs present, be my guest. Now: What’s your interest in Miss Hatchett?”

  “NS-4 is a one-way conduit of information, Inspector. I’ve told you too much already.”

  “Too much? You haven’t told me anything!”

  “I’ve told you I don’t know who Vinnie Craps was,” said Danvers. “Consider yourself fortunate to get even that.”

  “Really?” replied Jack sarcastically. “Thanks for nothing—and you guys should get a better tailor.”

  Danvers said nothing, Lunk reappeared empty-handed, and they both left without another word.

  “Spooks,” murmured Mary as soon as the door had shut behind them. “I hate spooks. Who was the Mr. Demetrios she was talking about?”

  “The grand fromage at NS-4. Not a pleasant chap, apparently. The story goes he’s got so much dirt on everyone that no one dares fire him.”

  “I see. It’s a shame we didn’t get anything out of them.”

  “We did. Lunk was only searching for our benefit. They’ve already been through the flat.”

  “So what’s National Security’s interest in Goldilocks?”

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know, but they seem anxious to learn about the story she was working on. Intriguing, isn’t it?”

  They returned to the task at hand. It was possible that Goldilocks was on a road trip somewhere, but no cat owner ever leaves a moggy with no one to feed it. Something was wrong, and Jack and Mary were by profession inclined to think the worst. Jack was nosing through the kitchen when he came across two unopened packets of Bart-Mart value-pack porridge oats as Mary walked back in. He held up the packages.

  “Gifts for visiting bears, do you think? What have you got?”

  “I found these,” said Mary, holding out several items. The first was a curt letter from the Department of Environment and Heritage in Australia denying that any sort of weapons tests—nuclear or otherwise—had been conducted on the Nullarbor Plain since 1963. The second item was more intriguing: a padded envelope that contained a small piece of what looked like a very rough-fired mass of pottery with a thick layer of fused glass on one side. It smelled of freshly fired terra-cotta. Jack frowned and put the glassy mass back into the envelope.

  “From the explosion?” asked Mary.

  “Could be. Anything else?”

  “This,” replied Mary, holding up a Dictaphone. She rewound the tape a couple of seconds and then pressed “play.” There was a beep and a message from Goldilocks’s garage about her car being ready.

  “Her answering machine,” said Mary. “But listen to this.”

  The next message was that of a breathless and elderly man, who sounded as though he were hurrying somewhere.

  “Hello?” said the voice. “This is Stan Cripps and—Wait a moment.” There were more sounds of shuffling, the creak of a door opening, then a crackle on the tape, a pause, then the voice again, this time in br
eathless wonder: “Good heavens. It’s… full of holes!” There was then a sudden blast of static and a constant tone.

  Jack looked at Mary. “Hardly famous last words, but last words nonetheless. Find out who is conducting the Cripps inquest and give it to him after making a copy. Where did you find all this?”

  “Down the back of the sofa and wrapped in a handkerchief.”

  “She wouldn’t hide anything in her own flat unless she thought someone might break in and steal them. Best hang on to them.”

  Mary carefully wrapped the items in the handkerchief. “Do I enter this as evidence?”

  “We’re not sure there’s been a crime,” replied Jack, “but Danvers makes me suspicious. Have a word with anyone living in the other flats—and check for any bears in residence close by. Most bears live in the Bob Southey, but you never know. I’m going to call Ash and see if he can’t get a lead on Goldy’s friend Mr. Curry—he had a date with her the night she vanished.”

  Mary walked around to the front door and read the names below the doorbells. One was marked “Rupert” and the other “Winston.” Not necessarily bears’ names, but all the same…. She rang the doorbell marked Rupert, but there was no answer, so she peered in through the mail slot. The shared hall was deserted. She paused for a moment and then rang the doorbell marked “Winston.” Again there was no answer, but she took a few steps back and saw the lace curtains on the upstairs window fall. She returned to the door and pressed both buttons simultaneously and continuously for about five seconds, then released them. After a moment’s pause and without a sound from the intercom, the lock buzzed. She pushed the heavy door open and entered. The communal hall led to the ground-floor and first-floor flats, the latter reached by climbing the open stairwell, at the top of which was another closed door. It stayed closed. No one came out, and not a sound reached her. She sniffed the air. Was that the faintest smell of honey, or was she imagining it? The bears involved in NCD investigations were wholly anthropomorphized and not generally violent, but even so, a five-hundred-pound bear with a bad attitude—quasi-human or not—could be quite a handful. She thought of fetching the tranquilizer gun but instead moved quietly to the bottom of the stairs and said in a loud voice, “Hello?”