The Fourth Bear

27. What Mary Did That Night

Ashley was waiting for them at the NCD offices when they walked in. His uniform had been freshly pressed and his transparent skin buffed up to a high shine. He looked expectantly at Mary, who smiled uneasily in return. It was the evening of their date, and Mary had yet to think up a believable excuse.

“What’s that smell?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s Windex,” explained Ashley cheerily. “It shines up my outer skin quite nicely.”

“What did you do?” asked Jack. “Bathe in it?”

“If only,” replied Ashley wistfully, adding, “Bartholomew’s still not been found, and Briggs wants you to meet the press first thing tomorrow to discuss Bartholomew and the Goldilocks case.”

Jack picked up the phone and asked to be put through to the Super. “Hello, sir, it’s Jack…. No, I’m not doing the press. I’m taking sick leave as requested…. Yes, I know I’m already on sick leave, but now I’m really on sick leave. I’ll be gone for three months—perhaps longer. Maybe I’ll retire…. Yes, really…. The head of the NCD can take the press conference tomorrow.”

He looked up at Mary and raised an eyebrow. Mary shook her head.

“No, she’s not here…. Yes, I agree the situation is not at all favorable…. Good night, sir, and if you’re thinking about getting me a gold watch, I’d rather you didn’t.”

Jack put the phone down and looked up at Ashley and Mary, who were staring at him incredulously.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not retiring—that was for Briggs’s benefit. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“About what?”

“About finding Goldilocks’s killer.”

“I thought you said Bartholomew murdered her?”

“If you believed all that crap I was spouting up at Andersen’s Wood,” said Jack unhappily, “you’ll believe anything.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“I had to say something. NS-4 is in this up to their armpits, and I needed them to think we’re as stupid as they believe.”

Mary thought for a while, trying to figure out what she’d missed—Jack’s explanation of Goldilocks’s death and Bartholomew’s porridge pushing seemed plausible.

“But we’re not, are we?” she said, a mite confused.

“Not at all,” he said, trying to force a smile. “I know that Bartholomew didn’t have a hand in it, but I’m really not sure who did. I need to sleep on it. Better than that, I need to sleep.”

“Wait!” said Mary. “If Bartholomew is innocent, why have you got half the force out looking for him?”

“To give me some breathing space—and quite probably save his life.”

“Jack,” said Mary, “are you sure you’re all right? You seem to be acting a bit… weird.”

“I’m fine, Mary. But listen: If it all goes pear-shaped, I’ll accept full responsibility. Have a pleasant evening.”

He took a deep breath, managed a tired smile and walked out the door, leaving Mary and Ashley staring at each other.

“Mary?” murmured Ash, whose taut and usually expressionless face seemed to be in the vaguest semblance of a frown. “I’m completely and totally confused.”

“Join the club,” she retorted. “Either he’s fantastically brilliant or he’s gone completely off the rails. I hope it’s the former—I really don’t think I can handle the NCD on my own.”

Ashley looked at her and blinked.

“Sorry, I really don’t think we can handle the NCD on our own.”

“If we have to, I suppose we just will,” he replied with commendable optimism.

“It must be a double or triple bluff or something,” mused Mary, “a plot device the reason for which we probably won’t figure out until tomorrow morning.”

“A what?”

“Never mind. The thing is—business as normal.”

“What’s all this about a self-healing Allegro?” asked Ashley, who thought it sounded like a lot of fun.

“Exactly,” said Mary, trying to stall the inevitable date with Ashley. “I think Jack’s in danger. Get on to vehicle licensing and bring up the details of every single car that has ever been registered to Dorian Gray or had him as previously recorded keeper. I know that might take a while, but if it means we have to cancel our date, then so be it. Duty first, Ash.”

“Duty first,” he agreed, and scuttled off to tap in to the computer while Mary put her feet up on the desk. Dorian would doubtless have sold thousands of cars, and the two of them could be wading through the list for hours. Ashley was right about running the NCD. It would be tricky, but they’d get the hang of it eventually. She leaned forward and logged in her username on Jack’s computer in order to start a report for Briggs on—

“Done it!” interrupted Ashley. “How about dinner?”

“You can’t have,” said Mary with a sinking feeling. “How many were there?”

“Five.”

“Five?”

“Yes. I don’t think he was that good at selling cars.” He showed her the list, and Mary scanned the details carefully.

“One every three years, regular as clockwork,” she murmured.

“And,” said Ashley, who was more adept at spotting patterns,

“every single one was scrapped between two to nine weeks after purchase. How does all this fit into the Goldilocks inquiry?”

“It doesn’t. I’ve just had a hunch.” She tapped the most recent name on the list. “We can interview this Mr. Aldiss fellow right now. No time to lose.”

“No time to lose,” repeated Ashley, reading the address.

“Good—it’s on the way to my parents’ place.”

“Oh, rats,” said Mary with a sigh, finally resigning herself to the inevitable. “Okay, okay, you’re on—listen, you don’t eat bugs or anything, do you?”

“Bugs? Why ever would we do that?”

“Well, I thought your antennae made you kind of… I don’t know… insectoid.”

Ashley gave out a high-pitched squeak of a laugh and said, “Insectoid? The very idea!” He squinted up at his stubby antennae before continuing. “These don’t do anything at all, really—as much use and purpose as your eyebrows. No, of all the many strange and barely related phyla you have on your planet, you know which body type most closely resembles ours?”

“I don’t know.” Mary shrugged as she looked at Ashley’s curious semitransparent, liquid-filled appearance. “A cross between an amoeba and a crème brûlée?”

“Not even close. I’ll tell you: None of them. The closest thing to our physiology is seven live jellyfish stuffed inside a balloon designed to fit only two.”

He pinged his cheek with a digit, and the shock waves in his elastic skin rippled out around his head and back again before he added, “Intelligent jellyfish, mind you. We’ll take my car. Shall we go?”

“These old things are a rarity these days,” explained Ashley, driving through the darkened streets at exactly twenty-two miles per hour in his meticulously restored 1975 Datsun 120A Coupe. “My brother rebuilt it for me.”

“You have a brother?”

“And a sister, although the concept of gender is a tricky one to understand, even for us. That reproduction stuff of yours sounds pretty messy. Does the man really—”

“Yes, yes, he does,” said Mary quickly. “It’s all true.”

“And is that really a satisfactory method? I’ve got a couple of ideas for improvements, if you want to hear them.”

“No, no, please keep them to yourself. It seems to have worked very well for quite a few years now.”

They drove slowly on in silence for a few minutes, while drivers behind them attempted to pass where they could and honked their horns in annoyance. Mary consulted the list of ex—Dorian Gray car owners and guided Ashley to a very ordinary-looking street in Tidmarsh.

“Do you want me to come in with you?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Mary, fully aware that some people still couldn’t get their heads around the fact that there really were aliens and on occasion would start screaming uncontrollably—sometimes for hours.

“Righto,” said Ashley, who generally didn’t like people screaming, especially at him. “I’ll sit here and listen to the Delfonics on my eight-track.”

Mary climbed out of the car and walked up the garden path of number sixty-two. Even though Dorian’s car had been consigned to the wrecker’s yard almost exactly three years previously, the owners, she reasoned, might still be living in the same house. They were. Or at least, Mrs. Aldiss was.

“Oh!” she said when Mary explained the reason for her visit.

“I’m sorry, but I thought I’d answered all the questions back then—do I have to go over the whole thing again?”

“What questions were those?” asked Mary. “After all, it was only about a car your husband once owned.”

“It was more than that, Officer,” she replied softly. “It was the one he… died in.”

Mary apologized, and Mrs. Aldiss invited her in for a cup of tea. Her husband had been something of a seventies-car nut, too, and the pristine 1976 Austin Maxi had been too good to resist.

“He was initially very happy with it,” said Mrs. Aldiss, staring at the carpet, “but after a few weeks I think he began to grow suspicious of it.”

“In what way?”

“It’s difficult to say precisely. I used to see him stand outside the house staring at it. He tried to take it back, but Dorian Gray had vanished.”

Mary felt herself shiver.

“He used the car as normal after that, and then one night they found it crushed on the eastbound lane of the A329. It had been hit by a truck, apparently, although the other vehicle was never traced. Brian died instantly.” She fell silent and wiped a tear from her eyelash.

“I’m sorry to ask you these things,” said Mary. “Did you ever drive it yourself?”

“Once. I didn’t like it.”

“I know the feeling. I have a colleague with an Allegro I have to drive.”

“It wasn’t that. There was something else. Something malevolent about the car.”

Mary knew what she meant. “The odometer went backward, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Aldiss quietly, “yes, it did.”

“What news?” asked Ashley, turning down the volume on “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time).”

Mary sat in the passenger seat and opened her phone. “The driver was killed and the car destroyed in an accident on the A329 three years ago. The odometer went backward on that car, too.”

She texted Jack: CAUTION ALLEGRO MILEAGE APPROACHES ZERO MARY, then snapped her cell phone shut.

“What does it mean?”

“I’ve no idea. Have a look at the other owners first thing tomorrow,” said Mary. “I’d like to know how many of them are still with us.”

“I’ll get onto it. So… back to my parents’ place?” he asked, positively — and literally — swelling with expectation.

“Yes,” said Mary a bit absently, “drive on.”

They drove the short distance to Pangbourne and pulled into a very ordinary-looking estate, the proliferation of seventies Japanese sedans giving it a very time-warped appearance.

“Is the whole neighborhood alien?” asked Mary.

“Pretty much,” he replied. “Very few people want to live next to us, although I’ve no idea why—we make good neighbors.”

Ashley got out, ran across the roof and opened the door for Mary before she could do it herself.

“Thank you,” she said graciously.

“My pleasure,” said Ashley, “and please don’t make fun of my parents’ attempts to be human.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”