The Fourth Bear nc-2 Read online

  The Fourth Bear

  ( Nursery Crime - 2 )

  Jasper Fforde

  The Gingerbreadman: Psychopath, sadist, genius, convicted murderer and biscuit is loose in the streets of Reading. It isn't Jack Spratt's case. He and Mary Mary have been reassigned due to falling levels of nursery crime, and the NCD is once more in jeopardy. That is, until a chance encounter during the Armitage Shanks literary awards at the oddly familiar Deja-Vu Club lead Jack and Mary on the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta 'Goldilocks' Hatchett, star reporter for the Daily Mole. She had been about to break a story involving unexplained explosions in Herefordshire, Pasadena and the Nullabor Plain; The last witness to see her alive were The Three Bears, comfortably living out a life of rural solitude in Andersen's wood.

  But all is not what it seems. How could the bear's porridge be at such disparate temperature when they were poured at the same time? Was Goldy's death in the nearby 1st World War Themepark of SommeWorld a freak accident? And is it merely chance that the Gingerbreadman pops up at awkward moments?

  But there's more. What does a missing scientist with a terrifying discovery in subatomic physics, a secret weapon of devastating power, a reclusive industrialist known only as the Quangle-Wangle and Colonel Danvers of the National Security all have in common?

  Jasper Fforde

  THE FOURTH BEAR

  “DCI Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division,” announced Jack, holding up his ID. “Put down the scissors and step away from the thumb.”

  For my mother

  Because the Forest will always be there… and anybody who is Friendly with Bears can find it.

  A. A. MILNE

  1. A Death in Obscurity

  Last known regional post-code allocation: Obscurity, Berkshire, Pop.: 35. Spotted by an eagle-eyed official and allocated in April 1987, the post-code allocation (RD73 93ZZ) was a matter of such import among the residents of this small village that a modest ceremony and street party were arranged. A bronze plaque was inscribed and affixed below another plaque that commemorated the only other event of note in living memory—the momentous occasion when Douglas Fairbanks Sr. became hopelessly lost in 1928 and had to stop at the village shop to ask for directions.

  The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition

  The little village of Obscurity is remarkable only for its unremarkableness. Passed over for inclusion into almost every publication from The Domesday Book to Thirty Places Not Worth Visiting in Berkshire, the hamlet is also a cartographic omission, an honor it shares with the neighboring villages of Hiding and Cognito. Indeed, the status of Obscurity was once thought so tenuous that some of the more philosophically inclined residents considered the possibility that since the village didn’t exist, they might not exist either, and hurriedly placed “existential question of being” on the parish council agenda, where it still resides, after much unresolved discussion, between “church roof fund” and “any other business.”

  It was late summer. A period of good weather had followed on from rain, and the countryside was now enjoying a reinvigoration of color and scent. The fields and trees were a vibrant green and the spinneys rich with the sweet bouquet of honeysuckle and dog rose, the hedgerows creamy with cow parsley and alive with cyclamen. In the isolated splendor of Obscurity, the residents enjoyed the season more as they had fewer people to share it with. Few people came this way, and if they did, they were invariably lost.

  The Austin Somerset that pulled up outside a pretty brick-and-thatch cottage on the edge of the village was not lost. A dapper septuagenarian bounded from the front garden to greet the only occupant, an attractive woman of slender build in her late twenties.

  “Welcome to Obscurity, Miss Hatchett,” he intoned politely.

  “Were you lost for long?”

  “Barely an hour,” she replied, shaking his outstretched hand.

  “It’s very good of you to talk to me, Mr. Cripps.”

  “The gravity of the situation is too serious to remain unremarked forever,” he replied somberly.

  She nodded, and the sprightly pensioner invited her into the garden and guided her to a shady spot under an apple tree. She settled herself on the bench and tied up her long, blond, curly tresses. These were her most identifiable feature, one that in the past had made her the subject of a certain amount of teasing. But these days she didn’t much care.

  “Call me Goldilocks,” she said with a smile, as she caught Stanley Cripps staring at her remarkably luxuriant hair. “Everyone else does.”

  Cripps returned her smile and offered her a glass of lemonade.

  “Then you must call me Stanley—I say, you’re not the Goldilocks, are you? We have so few celebrities down this way.”

  “I’m afraid not,” she replied good-naturedly, having been asked this question many times before. “I think that Goldilocks was a lot younger.”

  “Of course,” said Stanley, who was still staring at her hair, which seemed to glisten like gold when the dappled light caught it.

  Goldilocks smiled again and opened her notepad.

  “Firstly,” she said, taking a sip of lemonade, “I must remind you that I am an investigative reporter for The Toad, and anything you say may well be reported in the newspapers, and you must be aware of that.”

  “Yes,” replied Stanley, staring at the ground for a moment, “I fully appreciate what you are saying. But this is serious stuff. Despite continued pleas to the police and evidence of numerous thefts, attempted murder and acts of wanton vandalism, we are just dismissed as lunatics on the fringes of society.”

  “I agree it’s wrong,” murmured Goldilocks, “but until recently I never thought that… cucumber growing might be considered a dangerous pastime.”

  “Few indeed think so,” replied Cripps soberly, “but cucumbering at the international level is seriously competitive and requires a huge commitment in cash and time. It’s a tough and highly rarefied activity in the horticultural community, and not for the fainthearted. The judges are merciless. Two years ago I thought I was in with a chance, but once again my archrival Hardy Fuchsia pipped me to the post with a graceful giant that tipped the scales at forty-six kilos—a full two hundred grams under my best offering. But, you know, in top-class cucumbering size isn’t everything. Fuchsia’s specimen won because of its curve. A delicately curved parabola of mathematical perfection that brought forth tears of admiration from even the harshest judge.”

  “Tell me all about your cucumbers, but from the very beginning,” prompted Goldilocks enthusiastically.

  “Really?” replied Cripps, whose favorite subject generally brought forth large yawns from even the most polite and committed listener.

  “Yes,” replied Goldilocks without hesitation, “in as much detail as you can.”

  Cripps spoke for almost two hours and only twice strayed from his favorite topic. He showed Goldilocks his alarmed and climate-controlled greenhouse and pointed out the contenders for this year’s prize.

  “They’re remarkable,” said Goldilocks, and so they were. A deep shade of bottle green with a smooth, blemish-free skin and a gentle curve without any kinks. If cucumbers had gods, these would be they. One cucumber in particular was so magnificent, so flawless, so perfect in every detail that Stanley confided to Goldilocks he was finally in with a chance to snatch the crown from the indisputable emperor of cucumber extreme, Mr. Hardy Fuchsia. Unabashed rivals, they would doubtless lock antlers in the field of cucumbering at Vexpo2004, this year to be held in Düsseldorf.

  “A shade under fifty kilos,” remarked Cripps, pointing at one specimen.

  “Impressive,” replied Goldilocks, scribbling another note.

  They spoke for an hour more, and she left just after eight, wi
th a notepad full of observations that confirmed what she already suspected. But of one thing she was certain: Mr. Cripps was almost certainly unaware of the more sinister aspects of his hobby.

  By ten-thirty that night, Stanley Cripps was tucked up in bed, musing upon the good fortune that would undoubtedly see his champion cucumber take all the prizes at everything he entered it for. He could almost hear the roar of the crowd, smell the trophy and visualize the cover story in Cucumber Monthly that would surely be his. As he sat in bed chuckling to himself with a cup of hot chocolate and a Garibaldi, the silent alarm was triggered and a cucumber-shaped light blinked at him from the control panel near his bed. There had been a couple of false alarms over the past few days, but his longtime experience of thieves told him to always be vigilant, as wily cucumber pilferers often set alarms off deliberately so you would ignore them when they struck with real intention. He pulled on his dressing gown, donned his slippers and, after thinking for a moment, dialed Goldilocks’s number on the cordless phone while he padded noiselessly down the stairs to the back door.

  Even before he reached the greenhouse, he could see that this was no false alarm—its door had been forced, and the lights were on. Goldilocks’s phone rang and rang at the other end, and he was just about to give up when her answering machine clicked in.

  “Hi!” she said in a bright and breezy voice. “This is Henny Hatchett of The Toad. If you’ve got a good story…”

  Stanley was by now only semilistening. He mumbled a greeting and his name at the beep, then ventured forth into his inner cucumber-cultivating sanctum, stick in hand and apprehensive of heart. He stopped short and looked around with growing incredulity.

  “Good heavens!” he said in breathless astonishment. “It’s… full of holes!”

  An instant later Stanley’s property exploded in a flaming ball of white-hot heat that turned the moonless night into day. The shock wave rolled out at the speed of sound in every direction and carried in front of it the shattered remains of Stanley’s house and gardens, while the fireball arced and flamed up into the night sky. The property next door collapsed like a house of cards, and the old oak had its side facing the blast reduced to a foot of charcoal. Windows were broken up to five miles away, and the blast was heard as a dull rumble in Reading, some forty miles distant. As for Stanley, he and almost everything he possessed were atomized in a fraction of a second. His false teeth were found embedded in a beech tree a quarter of a mile away, and his final comment in this life recorded on Goldilocks’s answering machine. She would hear it with a sense of rising foreboding upon her return—and in just over a week she, too, would be dead.

  2. A Cautionary Tale

  Most underfunded police division: For the twentieth year running, the Nursery Crime Division in the Reading Police Department. Formed in 1958 by DCI Jack Horner, who felt the regular force was ill-equipped to deal with the often unique problems thrown up by a nursery-related inquiry. After a particularly bizarre investigation that involved a tinderbox, a soldier and a series of talking cats with varying degrees of ocular deformity, he managed to prove to his confused superiors that he should oversee all inquiries involving “any nursery characters or plots from poems and/or stories.” His legacy of fairness, probity and impartiality remains unaltered to this day, as do the budget, the size of the offices, the wallpaper and the carpets.

  The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition

  The neighborhood in West Reading that centers on Compton Avenue is similar to much of Reading’s prewar urban housing. Bay windows, red brick, attached garage, sunrise doors. The people who live here are predominantly white collar: managers, stock controllers, IT consultants. They work, raise children, watch TV, fret over promotions, socialize. Commonplace for Reading or anywhere else, one would think, aside from one fact. For two decades this small neighborhood has harbored a worrying and unnatural secret: Their children, quite against the norms of acceptable levels of conduct… behave themselves and respect their parents. Meals are always finished, shoes neatly double-bowed and cries of please and thank you ring clearly and frequently throughout the households. Boys’ hair is always combed and cut above the collar, bedrooms are scrupulously clean, baths are taken at first request, and household chores are enthusiastically performed. Shocking, weird, unnatural—even creepy. But by far the most strenuously obeyed rule was this: Thumbs are never, repeat never, sucked.

  “We used to call this neighborhood ‘Cautionary Valley’ in the old days,” said Detective Chief Inspector Jack Spratt to Constable Ashley. “Where vague threats of physical retribution for childhood misdemeanors came to violent fruition. Get out of bed, play with matches, refuse your soup or suck your thumb, and there was something under the bed to grab your ankles, spontaneous human combustion, accelerated starving or a double thumbectomy.” He sighed. “Of course, that was all a long time ago.”

  It had been twenty-five years ago, to be exact. Jack had been only a mere subordinate in the Nursery Crime Division, which he now ran. Technically speaking, cautionary crime was “juvenilia” rather than “nursery,” but jurisdictional boundaries had blurred since the NCD’s inception in 1958 and their remit now included anything vaguely unexplainable. Sometimes Jack thought the NCD was just a mop that sponged up weird.

  “Did you get any prosecutions back then?” asked Ashley, whose faint blue luminosity cast an eerie glow inside the parked car.

  “We nicked a couple of ankle grabbers and took a chimney troll in for questioning, but the ringleader was always one giant stride ahead of us.”

  “The Great Long Red-Legg’d Scissor-man?”

  “Right. We could never prove he snipped off the thumbs of errant suck-a-thumbs, but every lead we had pointed toward him. We never got to even interview him—the attacks suddenly stopped, and he just vanished into the night.”

  “Moved on?”

  “I wish. Ever met a Cautionary Valley child?”

  “No.”

  Jack shook his head sadly. “Sickeningly polite. A credit to their parents. Well mannered, helpful, courteous. We wanted to battle the Scissor-man and his cronies with everything the NCD could muster but were overruled by the local residents’ committee. They decided not to battle the cautionaries lurking in the woodwork but instead use them. They pursued a policy of ‘cautionary acquiescence’ by promulgating the stories and thus ensured that their children never had cause to accidentally invoke the cautionaries.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Of course. Believe me, once the hands really do grab your ankles when you get out of bed or the troll up the chimney does try to get you for not eating your greens, you make damn sure to do everything your parents tell you. But they’re still here,” added Jack as he looked around, “waiting in the fabric of the neighborhood. In the stone, earth and wood. Under beds and in closets. They’ll reappear when someone is leaning back on their chair, being slovenly, not eating their soup or—worst of all—sucking their thumb.”

  They fell into silence and looked around, but all was normal. The summer’s night was cool and clear and the streets empty and quiet. They had been parked on Compton Avenue for twenty-five minutes, and nothing had appeared remotely out of the ordinary.

  Things at the Nursery Crime Division were looking better than they had for many years, Jack admitted to himself. The success of the Humpty Dumpty inquiry four months earlier had placed himself and the NCD firmly in people’s consciousness. While not perhaps up there among cutting-edge police detection such as murder, serious robbery or the ever-popular “cold cases,” they were certainly more important than traffic or the motorcycle-display team. There were plans to increase the funding from its ridiculously low level and add a permanent staff beyond himself, DS Mary Mary and Constable Ashley.

  “What’s the time?”

  Ashley glanced at his watch.

  “10010 past 1011.”

  Jack did a quick calculation. Eighteen minutes past eleven. It was binary, of course, Ashley’s mother tong
ue. He generously spoke it as ones and zeros for Jack’s benefit—full-speed binary sounds like torn linen and is totally unintelligible. Ashley had no problem with English or any of the other twenty-three principal languages on the planet; it was the decimal numbering system he couldn’t get his head around. He was a Rambosian, an alien visitor from a small planet eighteen light-years away who had arrived quite unexpectedly along with 127 others four years previously. Every single one of the 70 billion or so inhabitants of Rambosia were huge fans of Earth’s prodigious output of television drama and comedy, and Ashley had been part of a mission to discover why there had never been a third series of Fawlty Towers and to interview John Cleese. But when the mission got to see just how much filing and bureaucratic data management there was on the planet, all 128 elected to stay.

  Ashley had been in uniform for two years as part of the Alien Equal Opportunities Program and had found himself, after much reshuffling, at the Nursery Crime Division, where he could do no serious harm. His real name was 1001111001000100111011100100, but that was tricky to remember and even harder to pronounce. Get the emphasis wrong on the seventh digit and it could mean “My prawns have asthma.” He was about five feet tall with slender arms and legs that bent both ways at the elbows and knees. His head was twice the width of his shoulders, with big eyes, a small mouth and no nose. The UFO fraternity had got an alien’s appearance pretty much right, which surprised them all no end. His police uniform had been especially tailored to fit his unique physique, with a special elasticized girth, as Rambosians had a tendency to swell and contract depending on atmospheric pressure.

  “So,” continued Jack, “ten minutes to go. What stories do Rambosians use to terrify their children into behaving themselves, Ash?”