The Fourth Bear

was Goldilocks’s car.

“We’ll approach from the left in case this is a crime scene,” said Jack, getting out of the Allegro and walking slowly toward the Austin, which was covered with a smattering of leaves and broken twigs. There was a branch lying on the hood that had dented the panel.

“When was the last windy night?” he called over his shoulder.

“Sunday,” answered Mary. “I feel them more than most on the lake.”

Jack nodded. The fact that a car could sit undiscovered for more than a week demonstrated the solitude of the forest. The interior of the car was dark, and it wasn’t easy to see inside, so with heavily beating heart Jack tried the handle. It was unlocked, and he opened the door, expecting the worst. He breathed a sigh of relief. The car was empty; Goldilocks was nowhere to be seen. Her cell phone, its battery exhausted, was lying on the passenger seat.

“Anything?” called out Mary.

Jack checked the trunk to make quite sure, and aside from a travel rug and a spare bottle of antifreeze, there was nothing.

“She’s not here,” said Jack, and Mary cautiously approached in the same direction Jack had taken.

“What do we do?” she asked. “There’s still no crime, so I can’t see Briggs agreeing to a search of the area. Not for the NCD anyway.”

“Call Baker and Gretel,” he said, rummaging carefully in the glove box, “and see if they can’t make an excuse to get out or something. Look at this.”

He handed her a receipt for fuel, neatly attached to several others in a bulldog clip.

“Theale Services, dated last Saturday and timed at 7:02 A.M.,” murmured Mary. “Theale’s a thirty-minute drive from here, which puts her in the forest around 7:30 at the earliest.”

“And Theale is itself thirty minutes from her house,” added Jack. “It all backs up the cell-phone record. She received a call at 6:04 and took, say, half an hour to get out of her house, half an hour to the services and then on to here. If I’m not mistaken, whoever called her on her mobile arranged to meet her here, in the forest—and as soon as possible.”

They looked around. All about them the forest stood heavy and lush in the summer’s glorious embrace. It was like living in another world, or another age, when England was covered in dense oak forest and humans were few. It would have been a haven for wild boar, elk and bear.

“Somewhere out there,” said Jack, “is Goldilocks.”

“That sounded ominous,” remarked Mary, rummaging for her own cell phone. “I’ll get onto Baker and Gretel.”

“Do that. I’m going to have a look around.”

He walked slowly into the forest, the crisp detritus underfoot sounding inordinately loud in the solitude. As soon as he stepped among the trees, the high canopy of overlapping leaves shut out the daylight almost entirely, leaving just occasional spots of sunlight on the forest’s ferny floor. Jack walked for a couple hundred yards and then stopped. Not a bird stirred, not an animal dared show itself. He could see no sign of Goldilocks, nor any sign of humans at all. There was nothing to be gained by meandering aimlessly in the forest, so he walked back in the direction of the car. After five minutes, and with no sign of the car, Mary or even the road, he realized he was lost. He’d heard the rumors about the forest’s high lostability index but had not believed them until now. He continued walking in what he thought was the right direction and after about ten minutes came across a small thatched cottage in the middle of a clearing.

It was a low building with a neat whitewashed facade and a green door and shutters. The garden path was decorated with scallop shells, and the humble abode had a cottage vegetable garden on either side. The whole was surrounded by a neat picket fence, and a couple of fruit trees stood close by. There were several hives of honey near the back door, the gentle buzz of bees adding a musical accompaniment to the idyllic scene. Neither telephone nor electrical cables led into the house, and on the breeze there hung the unmistakable smell of freshly baked bread.

He opened the garden gate and walked briskly up the path, noticing that there was a hammock swinging gently on the veranda. But that wasn’t all. Inside the hammock and snoring loudly, with a brown derby hat over his eyes, was a bear. A large male bear dressed in purple breeches and a blue waistcoat. Jack paused. He knew that a few bears lived in the wood, but he’d never met them. These must be the traditionalists among them—most bears he knew preferred the comforts of the Bob Southey. Yesterday’s copy of The Owl was lying on the bear’s massive chest, and the remains of a honey sandwich and a huge mug of tea rested on a table nearby.

“Hey!” said Jack, knocking on one of the wooden uprights that supported the roof over the veranda.

The bear didn’t wake. He just yawned and displayed a huge set of sharp white teeth and a tongue the size of Jack’s forearm.

“Hey, wake up!” repeated Jack, this time louder.

When this didn’t elicit an answer, he tapped the sleeping bulk with his foot. There was a grunting and a stirring, and the bear licked his chops, coughed politely with his fist in front of his mouth and said, in a deep, gravelly baritone, “Is it dinner?”

“Police,” said Jack, holding out his ID.

The bear pushed up the brim of his hat with one claw, squinted at the document and then looked up at Jack. He lowered his hat again and clasped his paws together over his stomach. “So, Mr. Policeman, what do you want?”

Jack put his ID away. “The name’s Detective Chief Inspector Spratt. I want to talk to you about a missing woman.”

The bear made no answer, and Jack thought he had gone back to sleep. He was about to repeat the question when the bear said, “You’re a city cop, Inspector. I can smell the exhaust and concrete on your clothes. You had bacon for breakfast, buy your toiletries at the Body Shop and once owned a cat. You work closely with a woman who is not your wife, you did number two less than an hour ago and you’re lost—I can smell several different areas of the forest on you, which tells me you didn’t come here in a straight line.”

“You’re very perceptive.”

The bear twitched his nose. “The mighty sniffer never lies, Officer.”

“What’s your name, bear?” asked Jack.

The bear chuckled and scratched his nose. “Bruin,” he said,

“Edward Bruin.” He looked at Jack again and added, “You can call me Ed.”

“How many of you live here in the wood?”

“It is not a wood,” retorted Ed pedantically, “it’s a forest. It’s always a forest. Wood is something you make cricket bats out of.”

“Sorry. How many of you live here in the forest?”

“My good lady wife, Ursula, and Nigel, our son. The missus is indoors, and Junior’s at school.”

Jack nodded. There were three of them—things were looking better and better. He showed the bear Goldilocks’s photo.

“Have you seen this woman in the forest sometime in the last week?”

Ed donned a pair of spectacles and squinted at the snap, recognizing her immediately and opening his eyes wide. “That’s her!”

“You’ve seen her recently?”

“Seen her?” echoed the bear. “Why, she nearly wrecked the place.”

“When?”

Ed scratched his head and rolled off the hammock onto all fours, stood up to his full height, which was at least seven foot six, stretched, farted and then lumbered off into the house.

“Come inside, Inspector,” he said, beckoning Jack to follow. “I want to show you something.”

The interior of the bear’s house was austerely furnished but neat and tidy. There were only two rooms, one up and one down, and the downstairs comprised kitchen, dining and living area all in one. There were flagstones on the floor, and the walls were finished in a pastel blue color. A pretty pine dresser laden with crockery was against one wall and next to that a small upright piano, the lid up and a book of hymns open on the music rest. In front of