The Fourth Bear

by Jasper Fforde

  “About unexplained explosions?”

  “No,” replied Bartholomew, somewhat surprised, “it was about cucumbers.”

  “Cucumbers?”

  “Yes. Something big going down in the world of extreme cucumber growing, and that her story would have major consequences.”

  “And she didn’t mention explosions?”

  “Only in relation to that Stanley Cripps fellow’s death. Other than that it was cucumbers, cucumbers, cucumbers. She spoke about record-breaking examples, the international cucumber-fancying fraternity, the fact that a cucumber is a fruit and not a vegetable, a member of the pumpkin family—that sort of thing. Bit boring, really—but it makes a change from parliamentary procedure, and…I just like listening to her talk.” He paused for thought, and his eyes glistened.

  “Did she mention anyone else in connection with this story?”

  “Yes,” said Bartholomew, snapping his fingers. “She was going to have lunch with a contact on Saturday who she said would ‘reveal all.’ McGuffin was his name. Angus McGuffin. She said he was the key to the whole business.”

  “Did she say why?”

  Bartholomew shook his head. Jack and Mary looked at one another. Perhaps Goldilocks had been working on two stories.

  “Can you tell us where you were on Saturday morning?” asked Mary.

  “At my house here in Reading. Doug had taken the kids up to his mum’s for the weekend—I didn’t expect them back until Sunday. I was alone until Agent Danvers picked me up at eleven to take me to the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center for a lunch with the Mayor and the Splotvian Ambassador.”

  “Did you call anyone, or did anyone call you?”

  “Doug called me at about nine-thirty, and I must have fielded a dozen or so calls until Agent Danvers arrived.”

  “So you can’t account for your whereabouts until nine-thirty in the morning?”

  “No.”

  They questioned him further but gained little else that was useful. He knew of no one who would want to hurt Goldilocks except a few disgruntled hunters and bear farmers. He regarded the notion that she might have committed suicide or ignored warning notices to wander over SommeWorld as “laughable” and described her as “fussy” and methodical but quite obsessive and single-minded.

  “You’ve been very helpful,” said Jack finally. “I may ask you some more questions when we know more. I’ll let you get back to your constituents.”

  Bartholomew rolled his eyes skyward. “More complaints about the roads and hospital waiting lists, I shouldn’t wonder. If you ever think you might want a career in politics, Inspector, think again. It’s merely a continuous and mostly vain attempt to keep several groups of people with opposing needs and agendas happy, and knowing in your heart of hearts that you cannot, and being lambasted for your hard work in the bargain.”

  He paused for a moment before continuing.

  “Please keep me informed, Inspector—she meant a great deal to me.”

  Jack drove a circuitous route back to the office. He still wanted to get Dorian Gray to explain to Kreeper the nature of the Allegro’s guarantee. On the way there, Mary said, “Bartholomew genuinely seemed to have cared about Goldilocks.”

  “I agree. It also explains NS-4’s interest. They must realize that his days as an MP are numbered if even a whiff of his straightness gets out, and are trying to protect him.”

  “I’d like to know the story she was working on,” mused Mary.

  “So would I.”

  “Sorry to trouble you,” said a young officer who had just waved them down at another police checkpoint, “but I wonder if you have seen this person anytime recently?” He showed them a picture of the Gingerbreadman.

  “We’re NCD, Officer,” said Mary, holding up her ID.

  “Beg pardon, ma’am,” said the officer, who saluted and waved them on. As they drove off, they could see that the armored car parked next to the road was full of heavily armed troops. Copperfield was clearly trusting in superior firepower to bring the Gingerbreadman down.

  They fell silent until they reached Dorian Gray’s used-car lot, or to be more precise, Dorian Gray’s ex–car lot. He had done a runner. There was a mini-Dumpster full of old brochures and letterhead notepaper, cheap furniture and a few old Leyland posters. The lockup where Gray had kept the Allegro was open—and empty. On the forecourt, where the cars had stood less than two days before, a smattering of oil stains was the only evidence that there had even been a used-car lot there at all. Of the cars, Dorian Gray himself and even the bunting, there was no sign.

  “Blast,” said Jack, “another missing person.”

  20. Taking Stock

  Most (and only) successful alchemical experiment: The experiments undertaken by Rumpelstiltskin in Reading between 1997 and 1998 have been the only successful transmutation in recorded history, where straw was spun into gold using a technique that is still not fully understood. Rumpelstiltskin, who is currently serving ten years in Reading Gaol for his part in the illegal undertaking, has so far refused to divulge how the dried stem of a common form of wheat made chiefly of cellulose could be transmuted to one of the most valuable metals on the planet. For other unlikely gold-related records, see: Midas, King.

  —The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition

  “Ash,” said Jack as he and Mary walked into the NCD offices, “see if you can get an address for a car salesman called Dorian Gray and someone named Angus McGuffin.”

  “Will do,” replied Ashley cheerfully. “I faxed that request off to Bart-Mart, and they said I could go around anytime. They were very keen to assist but had to confess they’d not appreciated how big a problem elephant theft was these days.”

  “You didn’t take the elephants out, did you?”

  “I took some of them out.”

  Jack shook his head and sat down. If they got hold of the security tapes, it didn’t really much matter about elephants anyway. He leaned back on his chair and thought about what they knew, which wasn’t much, and what they didn’t know, which was a lot. Then he remembered about the upset with Madeleine last night and suddenly felt guilty that he hadn’t thought of it all morning. He hastily dialed home but got only the answering machine. He didn’t know what he was going to say to her anyway. He took a deep breath. He was what he was—a PDR—and wasn’t going to feel ashamed of it. He’d have to argue it out with her that evening.

  “Okay,” he said, standing up, “this is what we’ve got so far: Henrietta Hatchett, a.k.a. Goldilocks and a Friend to Bears, was talking to Stanley Cripps the Monday before last about cucumbers. At 10:37 P.M. that night, a fireball rips through Obscurity, killing Cripps but not before he’s called Goldilocks and left a message about something being ‘full of holes.’”

  “Are you suggesting Cripps was killed for his cucumber?” asked Ashley.

  “Vegetable growers are not generally noted for being violent,” observed Mary.

  Jack nodded his agreement and continued. “Goldilocks returns to Obscurity to investigate and calls her brother to say she’s onto something ‘big.’ On Friday she meets up with her lover, Sherman Bartholomew, but doesn’t mention explosions at all and instead tells him that her story involved cucumbers. She names Angus McGuffin as someone with ‘information to impart’ and is last contacted by Bartholomew shortly after midnight.”

  “There was a call to her cell phone at 0604 the following morning,” said Mary, “and the caller blocked his or her number. Sherman said it wasn’t him.”

  “I’m not convinced Bartholomew is our man,” replied Jack slowly. “It’s an easy shot to always assume the worst of politicians. I say we keep an open mind. Okay: She parked up in Andersen’s Wood at around 0730 and wandered into the three bears’ house at approximately 0800, after they had left for their morning walk. There is then the regrettable incident with the chair and the porridge, and she goes to sleep in baby bear’s bed. At 0830 the three bears return, she runs off into the wood after trying to
explain herself, and then—”

  “The test firing at SommeWorld was at 0900,” said Mary. “A hundred percent efficiency for one hour. As Haig told us, ‘I’d not like to think what might happen to someone caught in that.’”

  “Right. And we find her six days later. Mrs. Singh can’t put a clear estimate on her time of death or tell if she was dead when the barrage started or whether it killed her.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “And that’s pretty much all we know. Any questions?”

  “Yes,” said Ashley. “Can you make ‘lightning’ into a verb? I mean, it doesn’t really sound right, does it? ‘It was lightninging.’”

  “I meant about the inquiry.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why not suicide?” suggested Mary. “The fact that she was working for The Toad and not The Owl shows she wasn’t an A-one reporter. She’d been there for a number of years with nothing more remarkable than a few pro-bear articles to show for herself. And every journalist on the planet claims to have a world-beating story in his desk drawer.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “She may not have had any stories at all,” replied Mary, “and just up and legged it rather than have to face the reality of her own failings. She could have been walking along the perimeter fence at SommeWorld, saw the barrage going on, found the gap in the fence and just…wandered in.”

  “It’s possible,” said Jack, “but her bag was destroyed with her. She would have had to take it off her shoulder to get through the gap and then put it back on again to walk in. No, I’d have left the bag at the fence.”

  Mary nodded. Jack’s scenario was the more feasible of the two.

  “I’ve got another question,” said Ashley, raising his hand.

  “A proper one?”

  “Yes. What’s the deal with QuangTech and the Quangle-Wangle? They seem to be popping up a lot in this inquiry, and so far we don’t know anything about them at all.”

  “Good point,” said Jack. “I’ll tell you both what I know, since QuangTech does fall under the NCD’s jurisdiction: It’s the biggest corporation run entirely by PDRs.”

  “I never knew that,” said Mary.

  “It’s not generally known. They don’t spread it around in case it affects the stock values. James Finlay Arnold Quangle-Wangle was the brains behind a group of nine undergraduates who all left Oxford in 1947. Each one contributed to the Quang business empire, and all aside from Horace Bisky-Batt fell out of favor as time went on. They all made a fortune, of course, but nothing approaching the net worth of the Quang himself.”

  “These nine,” said Mary, “anyone we know?”

  “All movers and shakers in the world of high finance and business. Mr. Attery-Squash owns The Owl and several publishing companies. He and the Quangle-Wangle had a bust-up in the early eighties over copyright disagreements. The Quangle-Wangle gave Mr. Attery-Squash Crumpetty Tree Publishing as a payoff.”

  “Who else?”

  “Aside from Horace Bisky-Batt, they all left under a cloud. The Dong with the Luminous Nose looked after their finance division and now lives near Oxford. He’s under a cloud of his own most days—an alcoholic one. Mr. and Mrs. Canary run a chain of hotels in the Far East, the performer and record producer Blue Baboon lives in Los Angeles, and George Fimble-Fowl, who ran the QuangTech weapons division, shot himself. The computing arm of QuangTech and the responsibility for the hugely successful Quang-6000 series of personal computers was Roderick Pobble, who now lives the life of a hermit on his own island off the Hebridean coast. Finally, the textile designer known only as ‘the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute’ died in a car accident three years ago.”

  “Did you ever meet the Quangle-Wangle?” asked Ashley.

  “Several times,” replied Jack. “He used to be very visible in the town. Always somber, always philanthropic. As he grew older, he went out less and less, until he just stopped going out altogether. I’ve heard he lives in the QuangTech facility. Never had any family, just devoted his life to making money—and did pretty well at it, too, which is why I suppose he can afford to spend nearly two hundred million on SommeWorld.”

  “Are you still here?” said a voice from the door. It was Briggs.

  “I was just going over my Scissor-man testimony with DS Mary, sir.”

  “Sure you were,” replied Briggs, clearly not believing a word. “Did you talk to Dr. Kreeper?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Funny—she hasn’t spoken to me about it.”

  Jack breathed a silent sigh of relief. Kreeper was keeping her promise. He still had a few days to prove that the Allegro was self-mending before the metaphorical straitjacket began to tighten.

  “Any news on the Gingerbreadman, sir?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, Copperfield cornered him in the menswear section of Marks & Spencer.”

  “And?”

  Briggs looked at the floor for a moment. “He fought his way out using extreme levels of concentrated violence, then returned ten minutes later because he wanted to exchange the zip-up cardigan he’d stolen for a gray mackintosh with removable liner. He leaped through a plate-glass window to escape and ran into the Oracle Center, where we lost him in the parking lot. I thought the newspapers would tear into us at the press conference, but that Josh Hatchett fellow asked how he and his readers could help. How strange was that?”

  “Very,” replied Jack. Hatchett, also true to his word, was supporting an NCD inquiry. If only it had been one that Jack was on, Jack might have cause to thank him.

  “Right,” said Briggs, “off you toddle, then—I’ve got to speak to the head of the NCD.”

  He said it without malice, but it didn’t sound good, or right. Jack left the office, but he didn’t go far—he just locked himself in the NCD annex next door, the one they used for additional filing and that was too small even for the cleaners. He needed the peace and quiet to make a few inquiries of his own. Stuart Haig of SommeWorld was first on the list. Jack wanted to know why they had chosen that particular sector for the test-firing on Saturday morning. Haig told him it was chosen automatically by the central QuangTech mainframe, based on a simple algorithm to ensure that the park was pulverized equally all over, ostensibly to keep the soil soft for the air mortars to work effectively. Jack thanked him and hung up. Vinnie Craps was next, but his voice mail told Jack he was in Cologne on business. Jack then called QuangTech to make an appointment to see the CEO and was politely informed that no one saw the Quangle-Wangle—not even members of the board. He then asked for an interview with the vice president and was told to “drop in at any time.”

  “So, Acting NCD Head Mary, what have we got?” asked Briggs, who had taken a sudden and unhealthy interest in the Goldilocks inquiry, given the absence of progress on the only other case gaining the public’s attention at the time.

  “Very difficult to say,” replied Mary, not thinking she’d mention the bits about McGuffin, Bartholomew or the explosions—or anything at all, in fact. “We have a positive ID, but with Goldilocks’s body in such a fragmented state, it’s impossible to tell whether she was dead before the barrage or whether it killed her—or even to establish a cause or specific time of death at all.”

  “On reflection it might be a good idea to find out that she was murdered,” said Briggs matter-of-factly, “and for you to then foul it all up. I’ve got a PR disaster over the lack of progress on the Gingerbreadman case, and I was hoping a bit of well-publicized incompetence by the NCD might draw the flak, so to speak.”

  “I’ll see what we can arrange,” said Mary agreeably, trying to act how she thought Jack might.

  “Splendid, splendid.”

  He gathered up his papers and prepared to leave.

  “Goodness gracious me!” he exclaimed as Ashley walked in. “What’s that?”

  “That’s Constable Ashley,” replied Mary. “He’s part of the Alien Equal Opportunities Program.”

  “PC A
shley is a real alien?” echoed Briggs incredulously. “I thought he was just from Splotvia or something. What sort of misguided lunatic puts little blue men in the police force?”

  “The Chief Constable,” replied Mary, hiding a smile.

  “Fine idea,” said Briggs, in a volte-face that was rapid even by his own exacting standards. “Does it talk?”

  “It talks very well, thank you,” said Ashley indignantly, offering his hand for Briggs to shake.

  Before Mary could stop him, Briggs’s hand had been enveloped by Ashley’s warm and sticky digits. Mary had shaken hands with Ashley once before, and his inner thoughts had transferred to her—a slimy embrace in an alien marsh, if memory served.

  “Oh!” said Briggs in a shocked tone as Ashley stared at him and blinked his large eyes twice. “No, I didn’t realize that, I’m sorry.”

  Ashley relaxed his grip and released Briggs, who stood up straight and strode from the room without another word.

  “What did you say to him?” Mary asked.

  “The truth. Do you know what his greatest fear is?”

  “I’ve got a feeling I shouldn’t know. Promotion? His budget?”

  “Neither,” replied Ashley. “He worries…that his wife doesn’t love him.”

  “Agatha?” mused Mary. “I wonder where he gets that idea. Still, I suppose it softens him a bit, don’t you think?”

  Mary gave her first NCD news conference at ten-thirty to a hushed response from Reading’s journalists. There were no questions, just a comment from Hector Sleaze that Mary could expect to receive all help and cooperation from everyone present. There was a chorus of approval to this sentiment, and Mary asked anyone who knew what stories Goldilocks was working on to contact her. No one did. Later on she fielded a call from Jeremy Bearre of the Ursine Chronicle, who wanted some facts for an obituary but at the same time confirmed that yes, Goldilocks had written several pieces for the Chronicle in the past, mostly about issues regarding the iniquity of the quota system, the urgent need to protect wild bears and advocating stricter controls over marmalade availability. Her Friend to Bears status had been conferred upon her over a year ago.