The Fourth Bear

12. Gingery Aftertaste

Jack and Mary were driven to the emergency room, where Jack had three stitches in his head. Copperfield and Briggs were waiting to question them when they got back to the station, the military and tactical firearms squads now very much in evidence.

The first thing Briggs said was, “I thought you were at home watching reruns of Columbo, Jack.”

“Mary was driving me to my counseling session and stopped off on the way—an NCD matter.”

Briggs turned to Mary. “Is this true?”

“Yes, sir. A possible ursine residential license infringement.”

“The Gingerbreadman is not an NCD investigation, Sergeant. You know that.”

“It was a coincidence, sir,” she responded confidently.

“Do you think I would be crazy enough to tackle him on my own?”

“Perhaps not you,” said Briggs, glancing at Jack. Briggs thought for a moment and narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t plot device number twenty-seven, is it?” he asked suspiciously.

“The one where my partner gets killed in a drug bust gone wrong and I throw in my badge and go rogue?” replied Jack innocently. “I don’t think so, sir.”

“No, not that one,” countered Briggs in a state of some confusion. “The one where you try and find the Gingerbreadman on the sly and make Copperfield and me look like idiots.”

“That would be a twenty-nine, wouldn’t it?” put in Mary, who wasn’t going to miss out on the fun.

“No, no,” said Jack, “Briggs means a twenty-six. A twenty-nine is where the bad guy turns out quite inexplicably to be the immediate superior.”

“A twenty-six,” said Briggs, “yes, that’s the one.”

“What about it?”

“You’re not doing one, are you?”

“No, sir,” replied Jack. “I’m suspended awaiting a psychological appraisal, and I don’t know what plot device that is.”

“Got to be well over a hundred,” suggested Mary helpfully.

Briggs looked at them both for a moment. He shrugged, seemingly satisfied. “Okay. Copperfield has some questions.”

He left them to the Inspector, who took infinitely detailed statements. The Gingerbreadman had been at liberty for less than twenty-four hours and had already killed once.

“Do you have any idea where he is now?” asked Jack, who wanted to keep abreast of what was going on.

“We’re searching the local area,” replied Copperfield in a businesslike tone. “He won’t get far.”

“He’s long gone,” said Jack with a sigh. “He’ll run and run and you won’t catch him. No one will ever catch him. He has to make a mistake—or be tricked.”

“How would you know that?” asked Copperfield.

“I’m NCD. I know these things. It will take more than a platoon of highly trained killing machines to bring him down.”

Copperfield leaned closer. “What then?”

“Get inside his head. Think what he thinks. Figure out what you might do if you were a gingerbreadman.”

Copperfield stared at Jack, then burst out laughing. “You’re kidding, right? Thanks for nothing. You can go.”

Ashley was waiting for them when they got back to the NCD office, and when he saw them, he went even bluer that he usually was.

“I’m glad to see you’re not mutilated in any way,” he said. “A missing arm might ruin your symmetry. Personal asymmetry where I come from is a big taboo and brings great shame on the family and sometimes even the whole village.”

“Do you then have to kill yourself over it or something?”

“Goodness me, no! The family and village just have to learn to be ashamed—and nuts to them for being so oversensitive.”

“I see. Well, thanks for relaying the messages.”

Jack sat down and looked at the eighty or so pointless e-mails that were in his in-box while Ashley scuttled up to Mary.

“And you are well, too, Mary?”

“I’m fine, Ash. A bit bruised, but I’ll live. Um… were you serious about that date?”

He blinked again. “Yes—weren’t you?”

“Of course,” replied Mary, her nerve failing her.

Jack deleted the e-mails en masse and said, “Ash, did you find out anything about Goldilocks’s friend Mr. Curry?”

The alien produced a sheet of paper covered with ones and zeros. Of course, he could write in English and readily agreed it was more efficient and helpful to do so, but he found binary more relaxing, despite the fact that it can take over two sides of closely written ones and zeros to ask for two extra pints from the milkman—and a single zero in the wrong place made it unintelligible, even to Ashley.

“1000100 Mr. Currys,” read Ash, “100000 of which were either under 1000 or over 111100. 10 were in prison, which leaves 100010. I copied those addresses down in English—here.”

Jack examined the thirty-four names closely. Sadly, none of them were bears—which would have been a long shot, but worth a look nonetheless. He dialed Josh Hatchett’s number, but it was busy.

“I called the Bart-Mart superstore about the security tapes,” said Ashley, “and they told me they’d be happy to release them as long as we sent them a letter of request—it’s for the QuangTech lawyers, apparently.”

“QuangTech? What have they got to do with Bart-Mart?”

“They own them,” remarked Ashley. “Everyone knows that.”

“It’s not common knowledge, Ash.”

“I think it is. Mary?”

“Yes?”

“Who owns Bart-Mart?”

“QuangTech,” she replied without thinking. “Everyone knows that.”

“They do not,” replied Jack, reflecting upon the Quangle-Wangle’s heavy financial cloak that seemed to have fallen over most of Berkshire. “It was a fluke, you both knowing.”

Ashley handed him a sheet of paper.

“This was the request I was going to send. As you can see, not one pirate. What do you think?”

Jack quickly read it. “Fine,” he said handing it back, “just leave out the bit about the elephants. And I need some info on Goldilocks’s car. An Austin Somerset, registration 226 DPX. And we should consider tracing her cell phone—and look through these explosions and see if you can find a link.”

Jack tossed the file marked “Important” across the desk to him. Ashley picked it up and said:

“Somerset… cell phone… link explosions… lose the elephants. Got it.”

He took the draft letter and walked up the wall to the ceiling, where he sat cross-legged and upside down at his workstation. It was an efficient use of space in the small office, and by the ingenious use of Post-its and Velcro and a telephone screwed to the ceiling, usually quite safe.

Jack tried to dial Josh Hatchett again, but his phone was still busy. He looked at his watch. He could still make his appointment at the shrink’s, show them he wasn’t a wild-eyed loon and be back on active duty by teatime. But something else was bothering him.

“Mary, can I show you something?”

They walked down to the garage beneath the station where Jack’s Allegro was parked. As they approached the car, they could see someone on his hands and knees peering intently at the pristine front fender of the car.

“What are you doing, Marco?”

Ferranti jumped up guiltily. He was a pale man with thin lips and very little hair covered by a bad wig. He was not in the force but worked for it—as a claims assessor who looked into any damage inflicted by the police in the course of their duties. He strove to have any claims dealt with quickly and efficiently, sometimes irrespective of fault—lawsuits were in nobody’s interest. He wasn’t generally liked, for obvious reasons.

“My phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning, Spratt. I’ve had fourteen claims for damages. One car wrecked, three with fender damage and another eight with broken side mirrors. I’ve got a demolished wall and a smashed garage door. It could come to over eight thousand pounds. Eight thousand more than Reading can afford, Inspector.”

“The garage door I can explain. I was thrown through it.”

Ferranti grunted and conceded that perhaps that one wasn’t entirely Jack’s fault. He looked at Jack’s spotless car suspiciously.

“Several witnesses attest to your damaging a lot of property with this car, Inspector. It seems they were mistaken.”

“Obviously.”

“I’m not convinced. How many other people chase gingerbreadmen in silver Allegro Equipes?”

“Probably dozens, Ferranti. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Who owns Bart-Mart?”

“QuangTech,” he said. “Everyone knows that. Do you have another Allegro, identical to this one but covered in dents and scratches?”

“No.”

The assessor grunted, made a few disparaging remarks under his breath and then departed.

“What did you want to show me?” asked Mary.

“This car. I completely wrecked it, and now… well… it’s better again.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, not having seen Dorian Gray demonstrate the power of his unique warranty the day before.

“Yes. All that damage Ferranti claimed—it was me. I wrote the car off, but then, as soon as my back was turned, it was all perfect again.”

Mary raised an eyebrow. “That sounds kind of crazy, Jack.”

“Sounds, yes. But—”

“A car that can repair itself?” said a voice behind them. “You should sell that idea to Ford.”

They turned to find Virginia Kreeper, who had been watching them from the shadows.

“Miss Kreeper,” said Jack without much enthusiasm, “what a delightful surprise. Here to help some poor victim formulate a really good complaint against the service?”

“Not today, Inspector.”

“Having a break from trouble stirring?” he asked sarcastically. He hadn’t liked her the evening before at the Déjà Vu, and he didn’t like her now.

“No,” she replied, staring back at him coldly, “I’m here to do an independent psychiatric evaluation.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Jack with a laugh. “And what poor cluck are you going to slap your snake-oil, leech-sucking, voodoo magic on today?”

“Someone the doctors think might be suffering some form of delusional psychosis.”

“Such as?”

“Such as… cars that mend themselves.”

There was a pause.

“Bollocks,” said Jack in a quiet voice. “It’s me, isn’t it?”