“Bobby a cheese maker?” said Spooncurdle suddenly. “How extraordinary. I must go and speak to him. You will excuse me?”
“Of course.”
Spooncurdle left Jack standing on his own near the bar. He ordered a drink but was not alone for long.
“Hello, Jack.”
A small man in his late forties and dressed in a black collarless shirt had appeared next to him. He was accompanied by a thin, gawky woman dressed in flamboyant mix-and-match clothes, a necklace of large orange beads and a huge pair of spectacles with matching frames.
“Hello, Neville,” said Jack coldly. He never felt easy speaking to Madeleine’s first husband. He was, after all, supporting this man’s children and loved them as he did his own, and Neville’s continuing efforts to ingratiate himself with Madeleine and the children would have been acceptable—if he didn’t try to do it at Jack’s expense.
“This is Virginia Kreeper,” said Neville, introducing the thin woman to Jack. She nodded and stared at Jack with ill-disguised malevolence, as though Neville had said some disparaging things about him prior to their meeting.
“Hello, Virginia,” Jack replied pleasantly, and made a point of starting a conversation with her rather than Neville. “What do you do?”
“I’m a counselor,” she replied in a thin, nasal voice.
“Really?” returned Jack. “Reading council?”
“No, counselor. I offer help to people who are suffering stress.”
“What sort of stress?” asked Jack suspiciously.
She stared him straight in the eye. “Anything from police harassment to… being swallowed alive by a wolf.”
Jack felt himself stiffen defensively. “You’ve been busy recently, then.”
“No thanks to you,” she replied sarcastically. “Every time the NCD breaks a case, I end up picking up the pieces. First the three pigs that you shamelessly pursued with the slenderest evidence imaginable, now the Riding-Hood disaster—it could take years of counseling before she and her grandmother can even speak, let alone dress themselves or have any sort of useful life skills.”
Neville was looking at Jack with obvious delight. He despised Jack with the lingering hatred of an idle underachiever who had lost everything by his own stupidity and was now looking for someone to blame. Virginia was not a girlfriend; he had simply brought her along to try to humiliate Jack, something he seemed to treat a bit like a hobby. Jack sighed. He hadn’t expected he’d have to defend his actions to anyone, least of all to some dopey friend of Neville’s, but he wasn’t going to take this sitting down.
“Ever been face-to-face with a serial wife killer?” he asked her.
“No.”
“How about being chased by a deranged genetic experiment with murder on its mind?”
Kreeper sighed. “No.”
“Staked out a grandmother’s cottage for three weeks solid because you had a gut instinct something might happen?”
“No.”
“Walked unarmed into an illegal porridge buy?”
“No!”
“You run a relatively risk-free life, in fact. I don’t. I put my ass on the line every time I go out there. Don’t think that ‘Nursery’ in the title of my division makes it cozy kittens, fluffy toys and shades of pink—it’s a violent and dangerous world, full of murder, theft and cannibalism. When did you last make a life-or-death decision?”
Kreeper was unrepentant. “That doesn’t condone harassment of the three pigs or the reckless disregard with which you failed to protect Riding-Hood and her grandmother.”
Jack stared at her coldly. “You don’t get it, do you?” he said after a pause, his voice rising. “In the world of nursery crime, some things just happen, despite my best endeavors. Humpty takes a nose dive, the pigs boil the wolf—and Riding-Hood and her gran get eaten. In my world, the world of the vaguely predestined, you have to work five times as hard to involve yourself in the unfolding of the case and ten times harder still to change the outcome. I couldn’t stop the wolf eating them—but I did my best.”
“Your best?” said Kreeper with a contemptuous laugh. “How can you have the cold arrogance to stand there and tell me you did everything in your power to stop them from being eaten?”
“Because,” said Jack slowly, “the wolf ate me, too.”
Virginia’s mouth dropped open. She didn’t know about this; not many people did. Being swallowed whole wasn’t something he’d like to repeat, as it had ruined a perfectly good suit, but once past the esophagus it hadn’t been so bad. Strangely, it wasn’t as dark as he had suspected—but certainly cramped, with Red and her granny in there, too. But Briggs had been right: Without the woodsman’s timely intervention, they’d all be wolf shit by now, and Kreeper would be talking to a column of air.
Fed up, Jack pounced. “They didn’t tell you that? Didn’t tell you I went in alone and unarmed to face a murderous wolf as soon as I realized it wasn’t Gran in bed?”
She shook her head.
“Did they tell you I grabbed Riding-Hood’s ankles as she disappeared down his gullet? That I had my feet pressed against the wolf’s jaws to stop her from going down? That I couldn’t save her and was gobbled up, too?”
His voice rose. He’d been vilified in the press about this, and he’d had enough. “But get this,” he continued, “I could have just legged it and called the regulars. But I didn’t. I faced down the wolf and was devoured for my trouble. The first time, in fact, that a serving police officer in the British Isles has been eaten alive in the line of duty. Did Josh Hatchett write any of that?”
Jack stopped talking and looked around. Every occupant of the Déjà Vu ballroom was staring at him, hanging on his every word. Neville had a look like thunder. He had hoped Virginia would decimate his ex-wife’s husband, but he had underestimated Jack. Again.
“What was it like?” asked a nearby guest, breaking the silence that had descended on the ballroom.
“The gastric juices burn your nose hairs, if you must know,” replied Jack, adding by way of explanation and giving a shrug,
“It’s an NCD thing.”
Neville and Virginia took the opportunity to slip away. Partly because they felt defeated and deflated, and partly because Neville could see Madeleine approaching, and he was something of a coward in the presence of his ex-wife.
“Really,” said Madeleine, leading Jack to another part of the room as the conversation started up again, “I leave you alone for five minutes and you start banging on about being eaten. Honestly, what did I tell you?”
“Sorry.”
Madeleine sighed and stared at him. She understood him, but the NCD thing could be confusing for anyone not used to it. Jack shrugged and took another drink from a passing waiter. He felt bored and tired. It had been a long day.
“I didn’t come to an awards ceremony to have my professional actions judged,” he grumbled.
Madeleine gave him a hug. “Never mind, sweetheart. Let’s find our table.”
“Inspector?”
Jack turned to see the last person on earth he wanted to meet face-to-face. Someone who had made his life something very close to unpleasant for a long time. Someone who, if Jack hadn’t been a policeman, would have deserved—and probably received—a punch on the nose. It was Josh Hatchett of The Toad.
“What do you want?” asked Jack, politeness not foremost in his mind.
“I heard you say you were swallowed alive,” said Josh, unable to contain his curiosity any longer. “What was it like?”
“Ask an oyster. Good evening, Mr. Hatchett.”
Jack turned to go, but Josh stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Jack stared at the hand, and Josh quickly released him. The journalist sighed, leaned forward and lowered his voice.
“I’m not here to talk about the Red Riding-Hood… problem.”
“Magnanimity personified.”
“I’ll come straight to the point.”
“It’s what you seem to do best.”
>
“It’s my sister. She’s vanished.”
“Who is she? A magician’s assistant?”
“I’m serious.”
“Try Missing Persons.”
“I told them yesterday. They instructed me to wait a month before filing her missing.” Josh rubbed his face. He looked tired and haggard—even for a journalist. “I need help, Inspector.”
But Jack wasn’t in the giving vein.
“So did I—and I didn’t get it. You might have given me the benefit of the doubt. I’m Jack Spratt the ‘incompetent bonehead’ of the NCD who is now, almost wholly thanks to you, sidelined in his own department. Give me one good reason I should even listen to you.”
“Her name’s Henrietta,” said Josh, “but she has long blond hair.”
“So?”
“She’s always been known as… Goldilocks.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying this might have an NCD angle?”
“It’s possible.”
“Had she been in contact with any bears recently?”
Josh thought for a moment. “She’s a journalist. She wrote a long piece about whether bears should be allowed to carry weapons for self-defense.”
“The ‘right to arm bears’ controversy?”
“Yes. I guess she must have quizzed a few bears about it.”
“A few? Or three?”
“Is it important?”
“It might be crucial.”
Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. All I do know is that she’s my sister and she’s missing. Do you have a sister, Jack?”
“I have six. I could lose one without too much of a problem.”
Jack regarded the worried journalist in front of him and thought for a moment. On the one hand, this man had caused him a great deal of trouble. Disrespectful headlines, awkward questions, press-conference grillings. But on the other hand, with Josh’s support the NCD might not get such a severe drubbing, and it might possibly even sway the Gingerbreadman case into his court. It smacked of sleeping with the enemy, but all of a sudden doing Josh Hatchett a favor seemed to make the vaguest semblance of sense.
“Tell me,” said Jack, having a sudden idea, “was she very particular about things? Not too hot, not too cold, not too hard, not too soft—that kind of thing?”
“How did you know that?” asked Josh, genuinely amazed.
He smiled. “Call it a hunch.”
Jack looked at Madeleine, who stared at him in disbelief. If she’d been in a similar situation, she would have just told Josh to go screw himself.
“I’ll see you at the table, darling,” she said, glared hard at Hatchett and then departed. Jack and Josh walked over to the ornate marble fireplace, where they could talk more easily.
“Your sister, eh?”
Josh sighed with relief, smiled and handed over a photo of an attractive woman in her late twenties with long, curly blond hair. She had a large head and big eyes, which made her look quite young and a bit cutsey-ditzy—kind of like a character from a manga comic.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Josh, “but don’t be fooled by the bimbo looks. She’s as hard as nails and just as sharp.”
“When did you last hear from her?”
“Did you hear about the events up at Obscurity?”
“Of course.”
“I spoke to her Tuesday morning, the day after the blast. She said she’d interviewed Stanley Cripps six hours before he died and was going back up there as soon as the authorities reopened the site. She told me she thought she was onto something really big and that I’d be proud of her. I next spoke to her on Thursday afternoon, when she said she was sure it was something big, and… well, I haven’t heard from her since.”
“Was Stanley Cripps a bear?” asked Jack, ever hopeful.
“No. On Monday morning I went to her apartment to look for her. Her flat was empty and nothing seemed amiss. I found this in her desk drawer in the newsroom.”
He handed Jack a manila folder with “Important” written in felt pen on the cover.
“Hmm,” murmured Jack, “this could be important.” He opened the file and idly flicked through the contents. “What’s it all about?” he asked, unwilling to study it at length right now.
“Unexplained explosions—I think Goldy included the Obscurity blast somewhere in the list.”
“The Home Office’s report has the explosion as an undiscovered wartime bomb set off by Cripps himself with a rototiller or something.”
“It’s not likely that he’d be using the rototiller at night, Inspector.”
“You never know,” mused Jack. “They’re all a bit funny in that area of Berkshire. Do you have any suspicion as to what’s become of her?”
“Jack,” Josh sighed, “I don’t know anything. It could be the Easter Bunny for all I know.”
“It’s not likely to be her,” replied Jack after a moment’s thought. “Kidnapping was never her MO. Did your sister have a car?”
“A green 1950s Austin Somerset,” replied Hatchett. “It’s not outside her flat or at The Toad’s offices. I don’t know the number. This is her address, and these are her spare keys.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Josh, but don’t expect miracles. There’s just one thing I’d like from you.”
“Anything.”
“Lay off the NCD, hey?”
“I’ll give DI Copperfield my full support.”
That wasn’t precisely what Jack had in mind, but to say so would have sounded disloyal, so he gave Josh a half smile, passed him his empty glass and went to find Madeleine. He caught her eye across the crowded room, and she beckoned him to her.
“I want you to meet Mr. Attery-Squash, my publisher. He’s on our side, so play nice, sweetheart.”
She steered him toward a large, friendly-looking man who seemed to be trying to avoid the many unpublished writers who milled around him like bees to a honeypot, hoping to be discovered. Attery-Squash was a sprightly octogenarian with a center part in his white hair and a matching beard decorated with a single red ribbon. He wore a suit in large checks of decidedly dubious taste and had a jolly red face that reminded Jack of Santa Claus. He had run Crumpetty Tree Publishing since he bought it from QuangTech in the sixties, and was reputed to be one of the few people who knew the Quangle-Wangle personally.
“Hello, Mr. Spratt,” said Attery-Squash kindly, “good to finally meet you. We were just discussing Reading by Night. Do you like it?”
“I love all Madeleine’s work, but no one seems to want to buy photographic books these days.”
Mr. Attery-Squash took a sip from his champagne.
“Publishing photography is a tricky game, Mr. Spratt. Much as I love Madeleine’s work, I’d be a whole lot happier if she’d start concentrating on the bread and butter of the photography world—celebrities misbehaving themselves and kittens in beer mugs.”
“Kittens in beer mugs?” echoed Jack.
“Yes,” continued Attery-Squash, eager to get Jack on board and somehow sway Madeleine away from her doubtlessly artistic but wholly unprofitable images, “babies with spaghetti on their heads, ducklings snuggling up to kittens. That’s where the real money is—that and puppies, lambs and calves shot with a wide-angle lens to give them big noses and make them look cuter, and chimpanzees dressed up as humans sitting on the toilet.”
“Babies with spaghetti on their heads?” said Jack, thinking of a typical mealtime with Stevie. “Sounds like you might have something there.”
He nudged Madeleine, who said, “Yes, I’ve often considered spreading my creative wings. I thought swans during sunset might be a good idea, too.”
“Mr. Ottery-Squish?” inquired a young man dressed in a faded sports jacket and a necktie that looked as though it would have been better tied by his mother.
Attery-Squash smiled politely, despite the interruption.
“Yes?”
“My name’s Klopotnik. Wendell Klopotnik. I have a novel that I’ve just written, and
I’ve chosen you to publish it for me.”
“That’s very kind of you,” replied Attery-Squash, winking at Madeleine.
“I have a résumé somewhere,” Klopotnik muttered, rummaging through his pockets. “It’s called Proving a Point—a psychological thriller set in an all-night bakery.”
Jack and Madeleine excused themselves and walked off to find their table.
“What did Hatchett want?” whispered Madeleine as they threaded their way through the crowded ballroom.
“Help. His sister’s gone AWOL.”
“I hope you told him to get lost.”
“On the contrary. Politically it could be a good move. I’ll make a few inquiries and see what I can dig up—metaphorically speaking, of course.”
She shook her head and smiled at him. Jack rarely bore a grudge. It was one of his better features.
They sat down at their table, and Jack introduced himself to his neighbor, a shabby-looking individual named Nigel Huxtable. He was, it transpired, another Armitage Shanks finalist, and he jumped when Jack spoke, as he had been trying to hide two bread rolls in his jacket pocket.
“So what’s your book about?” asked Jack brightly.
“It’s called Regrets Out of Oswestry,” he said, fixing Jack with an intelligent gaze that was marred only by a slight squint. “It traces one woman’s odyssey as she returns to the place of her childhood in order to reappraise the relationship with her father and perhaps reconcile herself with him before he dies of cancer.”
Jack frowned. “Didn’t you submit that book to the competition last year?”
Huxtable looked hurt. “No.”
“Oh. It just sounded familiar, that’s all.”
Madeleine hid a smile.
“I know what you’re saying,” said Huxtable in an aggrieved tone, “but I tell you, more copies of my book have been stolen from bookshops than all the other Armitage Shanks finalists’ put together.”
“Do stolen books count on the bestseller lists?”
“I should certainly hope so,” replied Huxtable, thinking that it had been a colossal risk and a waste of his time if they didn’t, “but in any event it’s a modern benchmark of success, you know.”
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