The Fourth Bear

7. Nursery Crime Division

Jack found Mary, and they drove back into Reading. He was silent for most of the journey, trying to think which was worst: being consistently trashed by the press, having a superior who didn’t trust his judgment, having a prime NCD case allocated away from him or enduring the ignominy of having a psychiatrist ask him pointless questions and then going “Aha” in a quasi-meaningful manner.

He explained the news to Mary, who said, “How about if we do a plot device number twenty-six and pretend not to look for him?”

“So you’re suggesting we look for him against orders, catch him, cover ourselves with glory, and the by-the-book officers look like idiots?”

Mary nodded enthusiastically. “Pretty much.”

“No, we’re going to follow plot device number thirty-eight.”

Mary narrowed her eyes. “Which one is that again?”

“We wait until they beg for our assistance, then save the day. For now we follow orders. After all, do you think we’d get the support Copperfield is getting if it was an NCD inquiry?”

Mary thought about the forty or so officers milling around the Gingerbreadman crime scene. The SOCO crew, the incident vehicles, the tracker dogs, the armed-response group, the catering facilities. Somehow she doubted it. The largest quantity of officers on an NCD inquiry could be counted on the fingers of Ashley’s hands, and he was a tridactyl—if you didn’t count his four thumbs.

They arrived at the Reading police station, parked the car in the underground lot and walked toward the elevators. As they approached, the doors opened and Agatha Diesel walked out. Jack groaned inwardly. Not because Agatha was Reading’s most aggressive and efficient parking attendant, and not because she happened to be married to Briggs. No, it was because Agatha and Jack had once, many years ago, had something of a fling together, and Agatha seemed intent that years, grayness, gravity or current marital status should not be a barrier to conjoining themselves in a tight knot of adulterous passion.

“Jack!” said Agatha in delighted surprise. “I haven’t seen you for a while—have you been avoiding me?”

“Why ever would I do that?” asked Jack as he walked past and pressed the elevator call button repeatedly.

“Because,” she said, with something that might once have passed for a coquettish smile, “you have feelings, too—but you’re in denial.”

“I could only be living in de Nile if I was in de Egypt.”

“Eh?”

“Never mind.”

“Listen,” said Mary as she hid a smile, “if you guys want to talk, I can take the stairs—”

“NO! I mean no, I need to discuss something with you.”

“Well, listen,” said Agatha, moving closer to Jack, who backed away until he was pressed against the elevator doors, “you know you can always rely on me if you get bored.”

“The answer’s NO, Agatha,” said Jack. “It was NO twenty years ago, it was NO yesterday, it’s NO now, and it’ll be NO tomorrow and for the rest of recorded history. Get it?”

She laughed and tweaked his chin. “You’re such a tease!” she cooed. “Anytime. I’ll be waiting. Whenever.”

The doors opened, and Jack almost fell inside. Agatha was still waving at him as the elevator doors closed.

“I’d get a restraining order on her if she weren’t married to Briggs,” said Jack, rubbing his neck.

“Now you know how difficult it is with Arnold.”

“Perhaps we should introduce them to each other.”

“She’d have him for breakfast,” said Mary with a laugh, “and spit out the bones.”

The elevator ascended in silence for a few moments, stopped, and the doors opened.

“Good morning, Inspector,” said a shapely, doelike vision of uniformed loveliness who was waiting to get into the elevator.

“Good morning, Sergeant.”

“Hello, Pippa,” replied Jack with a smile. “How are you settling in?”

“Everyone’s being so nice to me,” she said, giving out a radiant smile to both of them. “The control room here is a simply wonderful place to work.”

And she got into the elevator and the doors closed.

“People that good-looking shouldn’t be officers,” said Jack as they walked down the corridor. “It makes the rest of us look like gorgons. Isn’t Baker making a play for her?”

“I think it would be safe to say he’s in the queue—and it’s a long line. Constable Pepper took her out for a drink, I understand, but I don’t know how serious it was.”

They walked along the corridor in silence for a moment.

“You said earlier there was some good news?” asked Mary.

“You’ve been promoted. You’re acting head of the NCD while I’m on sick leave awaiting a mental-health appraisal.”

“Does this mean I get to sit in your chair?”

“Incorrect response, Mary. I was hoping for something more along the lines of ‘They can’t do this to you, sir!’"

“Only joking. They can’t do this to you, sir.”

“They just have. Briggs thinks I’m too disturbed to head up the NCD.”

“He should be worried about you not being disturbed enough.”

“Thanks for that—I think,” replied Jack doubtfully.

“Tell me,” said Mary slowly, “despite your sick-leaveness, will I be able to consult you freely on matters regarding nursery crime at any time of the day or night and invite you along to inquiries in the capacity of observer or expert witness?”

Jack smiled as they stopped outside the office. “I’m counting on it.”

When Mary first arrived at the Nursery Crime Division, she was astonished at just how small the offices were. Barely room enough for a desk, let alone three chairs, among the filing cabinets and stacks of papers. The walls were adorned by framed newspaper cuttings, a map of Reading and several corkboards but without the needless extravagance of a window. The filing cabinets were so full the metal bulged, and any available space that couldn’t be more usefully employed for other purposes—such as standing or sitting—was stacked high with reports, notes and files. Case histories were still on index cards, something that excited Ashley’s innate filing instincts no end but was generally a source of embarrassment to everyone else. There was another room next door, which the cleaners had rejected on the grounds of “too small, even for us” and this was also full of unfiled papers, a chair, a small desk and a coffee machine. They had computers and access to e-mail and the national crime database, but the NCD database seemed to have been forgotten in the rush to centralize all police records. It didn’t really matter, as Berkshire was the only county with a Nursery Crime Division—travel beyond the county boundaries placed all PDRs outside the protection of the law, so few troubled to do so.

It was no surprise to anyone that with Gretel and Baker on an inquiry, the division spilled out into the corridor, even with Ashley working from his usual position, stuck to the ceiling. Mary had got used to the size and chaotic nature of the office as soon as she figured out Jack’s “freestyle” approach to filing, and Jack had been right about another thing: After a few months, she could barely detect the smell of boiled cabbage that wafted in from the canteen next door.

Luckily, Gretel and Baker were engaged on other duties, and Ashley was the only incumbent, which made it feel positively roomy—sort of.

“Good morning, Ash,” said Jack.

“It is indeed,” replied the small alien with a joyous ripple of blue from within his semitransparent body. “I’ve got some good news for you both.”

“Briggs just called to change his mind about the Gingerbread inquiry?”

“No—much better. I’ve finally managed to complete my beer-mat collection. I’ve got them all. Every single one.”

“That’s… wonderful news,” said Jack in an absent sort of way. Ashley was best humored, and since he didn’t really get sarcasm, he never took offense. “Any messages?”

“Of course. You’ve got one from the Force Medical Officer requesting that you attend a hearing with an independent psychiatric evaluator tomorrow, then another, also from the FMO, informing you that you shouldn’t be at work to receive these messages and suggesting you go home and watch a few reruns of Kojak.”

“Anything else?”

“No,” replied Ashley, “but I think the FMO is wrong.”

“That’s very good of you to say so, Ash.”

“Not at all. Kojak is entirely the wrong show to be watching for relaxation. We watched your TV a lot back home on Rambosia, and Kojak was never our thing.”

“No?” replied Jack without humor.

“No. All that lollipop and ‘Who loves ya, baby?’ stuff—and the singing career? What was that all about? No, we always preferred Jim Rockford—especially Noah Beery, who played his father. I suggest you watch The Rockford Files.”

“You and Briggs should have a chat,” said Jack, glaring at the small alien. “He thought I should be watching Columbo.”

“That’s good, too,” mused Ashley. “A bit unusual for a whodunit, since we always knew in the first five minutes who had done it. Perhaps it should be called a ‘howcolumbofindsoutwhodunit’—”

“What about my other messages?” interrupted Jack before Ashley gave him a rundown of every single U.S. cop drama of the seventies, a subject on which he was something of an expert.

“Nothing else. These are all for Mary.” He passed a large stack of yellow message slips to her and added, “They’re from Arnold.”

“Blast,” murmured Mary. She had been trying to dump Arnold for several years now, but without success, despite trying almost everything from feigned death to pretending she had the bubonic plague, for which she was grateful to Baker for being able to furnish a complete list of symptoms. “I thought I had it once,” Baker had said, mildly disappointed.

“Do you want me to speak to him again?” asked Jack.

“No thanks,” replied Mary, recalling the mess he had made of it the last time.

“Are we on the Gingerbreadman hunt?” asked Ashley.

“No.”

“Are we going to do a plot device number 11010?”

“No.”

“Would you like to see my beer-mat collection?” asked Ashley, in a state of some excitement. “It might cheer you up.”

“You wouldn’t get them all in here, would you?” asked Jack, looking around at the diminutive offices.

“On the contrary,” replied Ashley, blinking laterally and producing a shoe box from under the table. “They’re in here.”

“How many do you have?” asked Jack, suddenly suspicious.

“100100001.”

“One hundred and forty-five?”

“Yes. Every single one different—except an Arkley’s Bitter 2003 Drunk-Driving Warning Special, of which I have two.”

“You tell him, Mary,” said Jack wearily. The phone rang, and he picked it up. “Spratt, NCD.”

He listened for a moment and then sat back and twiddled absently with his tie.

“Yes, there is some good news, Mrs. Dish. Your daughter has turned up in Gretna Green…. Gretna, yes, as in Green. Are you sitting down?… Good. Well, she’s married to Wallace Spoon.” Jack winced and held the receiver a little farther from his ear before continuing. “No, there are no grounds for criminal proceedings unless you can prove to us that she was forced into marriage, which she personally told me she wasn’t…. No, Mrs. Dish, I’m afraid not. The police have stopped ‘teaching people a lesson’ for quite some time now…. This isn’t a police matter, Mrs. Dish…. Yes, I’m sure the cow will be over the moon. Good day, Mrs. Dish.”

He put the phone down and shook his head sadly.

“How many different ones?” asked Ashley in a shocked tone.

“Perhaps more,” explained Mary apologetically, “probably tens of thousands.”

Ashley opened his eyes so wide you could see the greens.

“But that could take years!”

Jack passed Mary the address that Tarquin had scribbled out for him. “Check this out. See if it’s for real and who might be leasing the unit if it is.”

The phone rang again.

“Spratt, NCD.”

“It’s for you, Mary.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “I think it’s Arnold.”

“Do you want me to speak to him?” asked Ashley.

“Would you? Tell him anything.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

Ash took the phone from Jack and said, “Hello, Arnold, PC Ashley here. Mary can’t have a date with you because she’s going out with me. Yes, with me. No, we’re going dancing that evening. She didn’t want to tell you because she thought it might hurt your feelings. Yes, I am the weird alien chappie and no, this isn’t some kind of sick joke—she’ll confirm it herself. Mary?”

He held the receiver up, and Mary yelled, “Yes, it’s true!”

“Sorry about that, Arnold,” continued Ashley. “No, that’s not true at all. It must have been someone else doing the abductions. And while we’re on the subject, a saucer is entirely the wrong shape for interstellar travel—they were probably hubcaps or something. Good day.”

And he put the phone down.

“How was that?”

“Very… straightforward.”

“Best like that. I was kidding about the dancing, by the way—I dance very badly, on account of my liquid-filled physiology. Shake me up and I tend to hallucinate. Driving over a cattle grid at speed has the same effect. But dinner would be pleasant. We’ll arrange something, right?”

“R-r-r-ight,” replied Mary, unsure of whether he was kidding or not, but she had never really known Ash to make a joke, so she suspected not.

The phone rang again. It was Briggs, wanting to know what Jack was doing answering the phones at the NCD when he was on sick leave. Jack replied that he’d popped in to collect his things and promised to be out of the station in ten minutes.

“Knowing Briggs, he might come down here to check,” observed Mary.

“Right,” said Jack reluctantly, fidgeting and hunting for some papers to shuffle or something.

“Ash and I can look after the office. If Copperfield calls with any questions over the psychocake, I’ll get him to call your cell phone.”

“O-o-okay,” said Jack. “We’ll check out Tarquin’s porridge contact first thing tomorrow morning—and just so there’s no confusion, the Gingerbreadman’s a cookie.”

“Cake.”

“Cookie.”

“A cake goes hard when it goes stale,” explained Jack as he got up, “and a cookie goes soft. That’s the difference. He’s pliable, so he’s a cookie—and I don’t want to hear anything more about it.”

There was a pause as Ashley and Mary considered the feasibility of Jack’s cake/cookie definition.

“But it’s not all bad,” Jack added from the door. “At least the Gingerbreadman gives the papers something to write about other than the Riding-Hood debacle. Good bye.”

And he left the two of them staring at each other. Mary was thinking about how she’d never even considered going on a date with Ashley, and Ashley was thinking about how he’d been trying to pluck up enough courage for weeks.