The Fourth Bear

assorted scraps of clothing, eighty-seven parts of her laptop and sixty-two pieces of gristly bone, the only recognizable parts of which were her foot, a finger and half a jaw, all of which were sent to the labs.

“Will you be in early tomorrow?” asked Jack as he and Mary prepared to part for the evening.

“At sparrow’s fart,” she replied. “I’ve asked Mrs. Singh to expedite that identification, and I’d like to have the news as soon as possible.”

“Will you tell Josh as soon as you have confirmation?”

“Of course.”

“In charge of your first NCD murder inquiry. How does it feel?”

“We don’t know it was murder, Jack.”

“It’s murder all right,” he replied. “Take my word for it. Grown women don’t wander into well-posted and extremely hazardous theme parks accidentally.”

“Do you think the three bears have told us the truth?”

“Yes. It’s all turned out pretty much as expected. I wasn’t sure if she was the Goldilocks to begin with, but I was in good company: Neither did she. One thing’s for certain, though: The moment she entered the three bears’ house, everything just started to slot into place. She couldn’t have stopped the trail of events even if she’d wanted to. Her visit could only end in one way: with her running out of the bears’ house and into the forest, never to be seen again.”

17. Home Again

Worst newspaper (Berkshire): The Toad appears at first glance to be the worst, but since it can’t be strictly classed as a “newspaper” owing to its obsession with celebrity exposes and shameless tittle-tattle, the mantle of “worst newspaper” falls to the Reading Daily Eyestrain, which uses the “news” stories of road traffic accidents and law court reports merely to give some sort of vague notion of informed credibility to the pages of ads for escort agencies, premium-rate chat lines and dodgy loan shark operations.

The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition

“Hello, sweetheart,” said Madeleine as Jack walked in the door. “What did your psychiatric evaluator have to say?”

“I’m only mad if my car isn’t. If my car is mad, then I’m sane—but I have to prove that my car is insane for me to be seen as sane. Is that clear?”

“As mud.”

“And I think we’ve found Goldilocks—or bits of her anyhow.”

“Murder?”

“Possibly. Have you seem Jerome’s pet whatever-it-is today?”

“There was a gnawing sound from behind the hot-water tank,” she replied, “but I didn’t see anything.”

“And the Punches?”

“They are the neighbors… from hell,” she replied coldly.

Jack looked at the partition wall. All was silent. “They seem pretty quiet to me.”

“They’re taking a breather,” replied Madeleine, consulting the kitchen clock. “Since they got in from work, I’ve noticed they have a strict schedule to their arguments—fifty minutes of violent squabbling, then ten minutes’ rest. Regular as clockwork.”

“Oh, come on!” said Jack. “No one fights to a schedule.”

“Three seconds from now,” said Madeleine, donning a set of earplugs. Megan, who was doing her homework on the kitchen table, did the same. Almost immediately there was a thump and a crash from next door, all the pictures on the wall shook, and tiny trails of dust fell from the ceiling. There was silence for a moment, then a scream of laughter and another crash.

Madeleine looked at her husband and raised an eyebrow.

“See?”

“I wonder how they got rid of them in the last neighborhood.”

“Sorry?” said Madeleine, pulling out one of the earplugs.

“I said, ‘I wonder how they got rid of them in the last neighborhood.’'

Madeleine raised a finger in the air. “Good point. I Googled them and found www.hatepunch.co.uk, which is a Web site dedicated to assisting anyone unlucky enough to live near them.”

“And?”

“The Punches are pretty canny and know how to keep quiet as soon as the law or social services come around, and they can drag noise-pollution proceedings out for months—sometimes years. The only sure way to get rid of them quick is to pay them off with a cash ‘gift’ of twenty grand.”

“That’s extortion and possibly demanding money with menaces,” announced Jack. “I can have them for that.”

“Apparently not,” replied Madeleine. “They never ask for the money and deny they want it if asked—you just push it through their mail slot, and a week later they decide to move on.”

“Hmm,” said Jack with a grudging respect, “good scam.”

“It’s the perfect scam. The residents’ association has already raised half the fee. They want to move fast, before the word gets around that Punch is in the neighborhood.”

“Property prices!” snorted Jack, “Sometimes I wonder if they think of nothing else. But listen: All we’re doing is passing the problem on to somebody else.”

“I think the residents’ association knows that, sweetheart. And what’s more, I don’t think they care.”

“I care,” he replied. “There must be something we can do.”

There was another crash from next door, which set the ceiling light swinging.

“On the other hand,” he added, “they are pretty annoying.”

Jack had to ring the doorbell for a long time, as Punch and Judy were having a fight and couldn’t hear the bell for all the screams, swearing and breaking of furniture. When the door finally opened, it was Judy, who had a cut lip and a nosebleed.

“Yes?” she said, holding a handkerchief to her nose and clearly annoyed at being disturbed during her leisure time.

“If Mr. Punch did that to you, I can have him arrested for assault,” said Jack, wondering whether perhaps Judy wasn’t quite as much of a willing partner as she made out.

“Go to hell,” she said, and slammed the door in his face. There were more sounds of crockery breaking as Jack rang the doorbell again, and after another ten minutes the door opened again. This time it was Mr. Punch, who held an ice pack over his still-damaged eye.

“What?” he asked irritably.

“I just want you to know that I’m onto your little scam and I’ll use every—”

“Get real,” said Punch cruelly, “and then go to hell.”

And he slammed the door.

“How did it go?” asked Madeleine when Jack got back.

“I had an interesting exchange of views with both of them,” he replied, “and I’m sure we can come to some sort of amicable solution to the whole sorry business.”

“They told you to go to hell, didn’t they?” said Madeleine, who knew her husband pretty well.

“Yes. But I’m not out of ideas yet. That’s not to say I have any, but I’m sure I can deal with them without having to buy them off. Besides…”

Jack was thinking about his session with Kreeper and his PDRness. Punch and Judy were not just neighbors,