between them and vanishing through the rear seats with a scattering of velour and kapok stuffing.
The Gingerbreadman cursed again and reloaded as he ran, the Allegro’s overrevving engine howling in protest. As he took aim for the third time, they hit the logging track, and before Jack could even think about braking, they had crossed the road and slammed straight into a large beech tree, the sudden stop knocking the wind out of them both and entirely demolishing the rear of the car. The trunk was pushed into the area where the rear seats had been, and the two swing axles were twisted outward, causing the two rear wheels to bend to an impossible angle. The rear window burst, and a steel ripple rode through the roof, ultimately relieving the stress by popping out the front windshield and deforming the two front fenders. But both the seats held in the reverse impact, and neither of them was hurt.
Jack and Mary were not the only ones to be caught unawares. The Gingerbreadman, unused to running fast during his twenty-year incarceration, had forgotten the rules governing the inertia of moving bodies. He attempted to stop but skittered on the gravel track and ran straight into the car, tripped on the front bumper, bounced off the roof and hit the tree with sufficient impact to knock the heavy game rifle out of his hand and send it tumbling end over end into the undergrowth.
The Gingerbreadman was only slightly stunned. He sat up on the forest floor and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Wow!” he murmured to himself, then chuckled, shook his head and looked around to see what had become of the sporting rifle. At the same time, not more than ten feet away on the other side of the tree, Jack and Mary cautiously pushed open the twisted doors of the Allegro and looked around warily to see what had become of the Gingerbreadman. They all quickly noticed one another.
“Inspector Spratt!” said the Gingerbreadman cordially. “We meet again! And you
He got to his feet and started to look around for the Holland & Holland more seriously, talking as he did so. “I do so wish you were on the hunt for me,” he said with a grin. “I really don’t think that Copperfield chap is up to it.”
Jack rolled out of the car and grabbed a stout branch, swung it above his head and swiped the Gingerbreadman on the back of the head. The blow bounced off his cakey body without effect. The Gingerbreadman turned to him, oblivious to the impact.
“If he thinks a massive display of firepower will bring me down, he’s badly mistaken. This is the second time you’ve found me, Jack. People will think you have a hidden agenda.”
“Why shoot the Bruins?” demanded Jack, giving up on the branch and joining in the hunt for the Holland & Holland. Mary was putting out a call to the station to upgrade her backup to
“I needed a place to hole up, Jack,” replied the Gingerbreadman in a deep, doughlike voice, his cherry eyes flicking this way and that as he searched the undergrowth for the gun. “You may not have noticed, but I’m public enemy number one at the moment.”
“It hadn’t escaped my attention,” replied Jack, “but why here and now? And blaming the attack on hunters. Since when were you
“You ask a lot of questions for a very puny and insignificant human, don’t you?” said the Gingerbreadman as he stopped the search for the gun and stared at Jack with just the kind of look you wouldn’t want from a psychopath.
“It’s my job,” replied Jack, sensing that if he didn’t find the gun and gain the high ground, he might be pushing up daisies quite soon.
“Who needs a gun anyway?” asked the Gingerbreadman, catching Jack by the wrist. He tried to pull away but was held fast in the big cookie’s iron grip. The Gingerbreadman smiled cruelly as he placed his other hand on Jack’s body, meaning to pull his arm off, just as you might twist the leg off a roast chicken on the dinner table.
“I like this bit,” he announced, his cherry eyes flashing cruelly. His grip tightened around Jack’s wrist, and he started to pull. He smiled. He
But the Gingerbreadman didn’t pull his arm off. Abruptly, he relaxed his hold. Jack looked up at him, but the Gingerbreadman was looking past Jack, his licorice eyebrows raised in exclamation.
“Careful,” he said to Mary, who had found the Holland & Holland and was now pointing it at him. “You might hurt someone.”
Mary slid off the safety with a loud
The Gingerbreadman’s licorice mouth drooped at the corners. “Be careful, miss,” he repeated as he let Jack fall into a heap at his feet. “That’s a.600-caliber elephant gun loaded with Nitro Express cartridges. It has a muzzle energy of over eight thousand foot-pounds—the recoil can dislocate a shoulder!”
“I’ll be careful,” replied Mary evenly. “Just step away from Jack and lie facedown on the ground with your arms outstretched.”
They were less than ten feet apart, and Mary couldn’t have missed. The Gingerbreadman took a step back but didn’t lie facedown. He stared at Mary and narrowed his eyes, wondering what course of action to take.
“Have you ever killed anyone, miss?”
“No,” said the Gingerbreadman simply. “I’ve been locked in St. Cerebellum’s for twenty years, and I’m not going back. If you want to stop me, you’re going to have to fire.”
Mary’s finger tightened on the trigger. She was in no doubt that the Gingerbreadman would have killed her after he had dealt with Jack and would kill again, given the chance. There was no decision to make. She
The Gingerbreadman, despite his resigned attitude, was not out of tricks. He turned and jumped to one side, leaped back again and then ran away, zigzagging crazily. He knew, as Mary soon found out, that a heavy elephant gun wasn’t designed to follow a fast-moving object, and by the time Mary had him in her sights, he jinked out again. Mary gave up following him and held the gun still, waited for him to leap back into her sights, and then she squeezed on the trigger.
There was a concussion like a thunderclap, and for a moment Mary thought the gun had exploded. She was pushed violently backward, caught her foot on a tree root and fell over in an untidy pile. When the smoke had cleared, the forest was empty. She had missed; the Gingerbreadman had escaped.
“You all right, sir?”
“Fine,” said Jack, rubbing his shoulder and standing up as the distant wail of sirens brought the outside world once more into the forest. “What about you?”
“Pissed off I didn’t kill him, sir.”
“I can understand that.”
Mary reloaded the rifle from the cartridge belt the Gingerbreadman had discarded and walked slowly up the road to make sure that he wasn’t wounded and lying out of sight. She looked around carefully, satisfied herself that he was long gone and then picked something up from the ground before she returned to Jack.
“I didn’t miss after all,” she announced, showing Jack what she’d found. In her hand was a single gingerbread thumb.
26. Jack’s Explanation
Most coincidence-prone person: Mrs. Knight (nee Day) of Wargrave, Berkshire, holds several world records for the quantity and quality of the coincidences that assail her every waking hour. “It’s really more of a burden,” she replied when interviewed. “Every wrong number I get turns out to be a lost relative or something. I can’t walk in the street for fear of bumping into an endless parade of long-forgotten school friends.” Her powers of coincidence question the very dynamics of time, leading some scientists to theorize that cause and
