The Fourth Bear

First (and only) bear relocation: Mr. and Mrs. Edward Bruin, 1977. With the passing of the 1962 Animal (anthropomorphic) Equality Bill, all talking animals won the right not to be exploited or hunted and instead live in the designated safe haven of Berkshire, England. Bears were fully expected to take up residence in small cottages in the middle of woods and eat porridge in a state of blissful quasi-human solitude, but they didn’t. Most bears instead preferred to remain urbane city dwellers and shunned the notion of foraging in the countryside. Ursine elders deplore the situation but secretly admit that Reading’s proliferating coffee shops, theaters and shopping opportunities are not without their attractions.

—The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records

, 2004 edition

Jack was being driven through Reading by Mary and was studying that morning’s copy of The Mole with a frown etched deeply on his brow. Despite the success of the Scissor-man capture six weeks earlier, and the Humpty triumph four months before that, a few well-publicized failings had set them back to the pre-Scissor/Humpty days of thankless obscurity but, annoyingly, without the obscurity.

“How’s it looking?” asked Mary.

“Not exactly favorable,” replied Jack, showing her a newspaper that sported the banner headline DOUBLE DEVOURING SHOCKS READING.

“I thought that was one of the better ones,” commented Mary, holding up a copy of the Reading Daily Trumpet which had NCD OVERSIGHT: WOLF EATS TWO emblazoned in large type across the front page. The Reading Daily Eyestrain had been no better, with RED-CLOAKED TOT IN SWALLOWING DRAMA. But The Toad had been the most scathing, under a headline that read JACK SPRATT: INCOMPETENT BONEHEAD? and went on to list several well-argued reasons as to why he was.

“The Toad?” asked Mary. “Must be our old friend Josh Hatchett.”

“Who else?”

Josh Hatchett was one of the Nursery Crime Division’s more outspoken critics. He called himself “the loyal opposition” whenever they met, but to Jack and Mary he was more simply “that troublemaker.” It was he alone who had raised several questions over the ethical use of children as bait during the Scissor-man capture. The fallout from that hadn’t been comfortable, and Jack had received an official reprimand.

Jack shook his head sadly as he read. The Riding-Hood investigation had admittedly gone a little off the rails, and okay, a few people had been eaten. The critical spotlight of the press had been swung brightly in Jack’s direction, and the hard-won prestige of the Humpty affair and everything else negated in less time than it takes to say “What big eyes you have.” Jack sighed. The press had lauded him to the skies and now looked set to condemn him with equal enthusiasm. Mary shifted down a gear as Jack threw the newspaper onto the backseat.

“Our friend Hatchett isn’t being very helpful, is he?” commented Mary.

“That’s putting it mildly. What does he expect? The NCD isn’t governed by the same rules as conventional police work—if it were, there’d be no need for us.”

“It’s all about readership and power, Jack,” observed Mary.

“They want the readers to know that they can break heroes just as easily as they can make them.”

“It’s not as though it’s even current news,” grumbled Jack.

“How long’s it been since the wolf gig? A month?”

“A week.”

“Right—a quarter of a month, then.” He thought for a moment.

“Speaking of which—heard anything about Red Riding-Hood and her grandmother?”

“Still catatonic. Fixed features, glazed eyes, no visible signs of mental activity. Post-traumatic stress, the doctors say—not surprising, being swallowed whole like that.”

“It wasn’t a pretty sight,” agreed Jack, shuddering at the thought.

“What about you?” asked Mary. “What did the quacks say when you saw them?”

“A completely clean bill of health.”

“You didn’t go, did you?”

“No. Listen, I’m fine.”

“I thought Superintendent Briggs said—”

“Never mind what Briggs said. I’m NCD. I can handle this kind of surreal weirdness. Okay, so we screwed up a bit and a few people got swallowed. I mean, it’s not as though they’re dead, right?”

“‘We screwed up a bit’?”