The Fourth Bear

“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 ca

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 gra

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.”