anything else?”
Jack and Mary looked at each other. This wasn’t going at all well.
“Your Advanced Weapons Division,” said Jack, frantically clutching at straws. “Is it possible that you were developing some sort of thermal heat bomb?”
“As I think I told you,” replied Bisky-Batt with infinite patience, “the QuangTech weapons division has been disbanded for over a decade.” He smiled. “It sounds as though you have been talking to someone on the fringes of science over at that Obscurity blast. No matter what we say, there will always be others who promote a conspiracy. I suggest that these people have a yeti-shaped hole in their lives that needs to be filled in some manner, whether sensible or not. We at QuangTech are concerned more with tangible realities.”
“Like Project Supremely Optimistic Belief?”
“Canceled, as I told you. The Quangle-Wangle saw the light after McGuffin’s unhappy tenure.”
“What about the Gingerbreadman?”
“What about him?”
“He’s popping up with a regularity that I find disturbing,” said Jack. “I wonder if he had ever contacted you or the Quangle-Wangle?”
“Absolutely not,” replied Bisky-Batt emphatically. “If he had, I would have been straight on the phone to the police. Really, Inspector, I have to say that your line of questioning seems very haphazard. Can I assist with anything else?”
“GM experiments on cucumbers,” said Jack, getting desperate. “Unable to do your own experiments, you had McGuffin clandestinely conduct them on cucumber growers here in the UK.”
“This is ridiculous,” snapped Bisky-Batt, his patience suddenly wearing out. “If we wanted to conduct GM experiments, we most certainly would, in one of the many nations where it is legal. McGuffin, quite aside from being dead, was an expert in
“That’s all the wild accusations we have for
“The answer is still no, Inspector. Good day to you.”
Jack and Mary mumbled something about “ongoing inquiries” and were seen firmly to the door.
“He knows,” said Jack as soon as they were outside the QuangTech Building.
“Knows what?”
“Knows that we’ve been suspended. But he’s doing nothing about it. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack looked back at the huge industrial complex. Somewhere within, safe from prying eyes, was the Quangle-Wangle.
Mary’s cell phone rang.
“Yes, sir,” she said, flicking a glance at Jack. “I’ll be sure to find him and tell him.”
“Developments?” he asked as she snapped the phone shut.
“You could say that. Briggs wants us both at the Bob Southey
34. Return to the Bob Southey
Most secret arm of Britain’s Secret Service: It is said that NS-4 is the least transparent or accountable of all Britain’s secret services, but this isn’t known, as there are no figures to back it up. The director-general is possibly someone high up, who may or may not run the disputed department from “somewhere in the country.” The organization’s function (if it has one) is unknown, and success on past missions is open to dispute. Funding is likely to come from government, but this is not known for sure, and the scope of its work involves several things that remain conjecture at this time.
It took them almost half an hour to get to the Bob Southey, and by then the building was surrounded by police officers, cars, vans and marksmen. At the head of all this razzmatazz and next to the mobile control post was Briggs. He glared at Jack and Mary as they approached.
“You’re here because they asked for you. Don’t ask me why, but they did—you, too, Mary.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“We don’t know. Tip-off from someone inside the Bob Southey. They said they would surrender Bartholomew at seven o’clock, and they wanted NCD personnel to be on hand. But the Bob Southey residents’ committee denied they had called us and are asking for forty kilos of porridge and a dozen jars of honey as a goodwill gesture.”
Jack looked at his watch. It was a quarter to seven. “I have experience with bears,” he said. “Do you want me to speak to them?”
“Not yet,” growled Briggs, who was clearly not too happy about Agatha’s behavior the previous night, “but hang around—out of my sight. Mr. Demetrios of NS-4 turned up, and he’s threatening to take the whole shebang out of our hands.”
“Is he here?” asked Jack, looking around.
“No, he and Danvers had to speak to someone at QuangTech on another matter.”
“Hmm,” said Jack, “I’d expect them to be here.”
“I’m very glad they’re not,” said Briggs grumpily, and he went back into the mobile control room. Jack sighed and walked past the police cars, army personnel and onlookers toward Mary. As he did so, his phone rang. It was Vinnie Craps.
“What’s happening, Spratt?” he asked.
“You tell me, Vinnie. Where are you?”
“Look up.”
Jack did as he was bid, and high up on the building, looking out of a window, was a well-dressed figure in a tweed suit. He waved a paw.
“There was a fourth bear in the house the morning of Goldilocks’s death,” Jack told him. “Any ideas?”
“Nope,” came the reply after a short pause. “There’s not a single bear in Reading that would knowingly harm a hair on her head. All that work she did on the right to arm bears and the illegal bile tappers. Goldilocks was a bear icon.”
“I see. Have you got Bartholomew with you?”
“Yes.”
“Put him on.”
“What’s going on, Jack?” asked Sherman in a worried tone.
“You said twelve hours and you’d have found out who killed Goldy—I trusted you about my life being in danger, and now I’ve made things ten times worse for myself!”
“It’s taking longer than I thought,” replied Jack. “Trust me. What’s the deal over this surrender?”
Jack heard an audible sigh at the other end of the phone.
“I don’t know anything about it. If there was an offer of surrender it didn’t come from anyone in here. Bears are trustworthy and honest, and I have Friend to Bears status. They’d all fight to the death to protect me. But that won’t happen. I’ll give myself up before a single bear is harmed.”
“Keep that to yourself for the moment, sir. Are you sure there’s no one there who would give you up?”
“Positive.”
“You could be mistaken. There was a
He put the phone back in his pocket and threaded his way toward where Mary was waiting for him. She had
