“Who’s doing it?”

“We cooperate closely with National Security and don’t wish to jeopardize a good working relationship. I can’t tell you.”

“Then why Bart-Mart and not, say, Waitrose or Somerfields?”

“I think we’re about done here,” said Vinnie after a pause. “I hope I can rely on your good sense to leave this up to us?”

“I won’t ignore any lawbreaking, Craps.”

“No one’s asking you to, Inspector. It’s a question of priorities. I’m just asking you to put porridge on a… low priority. Be seeing you.”

And without another word, he walked briskly out of the factory unit and straddled a Norton motorcycle that was parked outside.

“Wait!” said Jack. “What about—”

But he might as well have been talking to himself. Vinnie kicked the bike into life, revved the engine, clonked it into first and tore off up the road with a screech of tire.

“You know what this means?” said Jack as Vinnie Craps vanished from view around a bend in the road.

“That the singular ‘screech of tire’ looks and sounds wrong even if it’s quite correct?”

“No. It means there’s a higher authority in ursine-related Nursery Crime than us.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind, but I’d like to have known about them.”

“So we cool off on the porridge thing?”

“Do we hell,” replied Jack. “Ash?”

“Yes?” replied Ashley, who was still staring wistfully at the bathtub in the Dumpster.

“I want you to get back to the office and call the biggest Bart-Mart in Reading and ask to view the security tapes covering the checkouts for the past five days. If the manager wants to know why, don’t mention porridge or bears. And if you have to make up a story, make it a little less outlandish this time.”

“How much less outlandish?” asked the alien, whose understanding of the average human’s perception of reality was patchy at best.

“One that doesn’t involve pirates and treasure,” said Jack.

“Just tell them we’re looking for some thieves active in the area.”

“Right,” said the alien, and scampered off, only to return a few moments later.

“What am I looking for in the security pictures?”

“Anyone with a cart full of rolled oats.”

“Okay,” said Ash, “and no pirates.”

He dashed off again, and Jack and Mary returned to the car.

“Where now?” asked Mary.

“It’s time we found out a little bit more about… Goldilocks.”

Twenty minutes later Jack’s Allegro pulled up outside a large Georgian house that had once been a single residence but was now carved up into a number of uninspiring flats. Jack and Mary walked down the alley at the side of the house and, using the key that Josh had supplied, opened the door to Goldilocks’s basement flat. The door opened against four days’ mail and a lonesome cat. It entwined itself around Mary’s legs and purred so loudly it almost choked.

“Josh asked us to feed it. It’s not like a cat owner to go away and leave it unattended.”

“Poor puss,” muttered Mary as she tickled it behind the ears.

“Let’s see if we can’t find you some dinner.”

At the mention of dinner, the cat darted off, and Mary followed it into the kitchen. There was a rancid smell of rotting food, and Mary cautiously opened the fridge. Her nose wrinkled as the smell grew stronger. She rummaged among the contents and picked out the stuff that was going off—mostly milk that had turned to yogurt. She washed the remains down the sink, then fed the cat, who was rubbing itself against the cupboard where its food was kept.

“Check her bedroom, see if there’s anything out of the ordinary,” called Jack as he picked up the mail from off the floor.

“Y’know, girls’ things—anything to point to a prolonged absence.”

Mary disappeared into the bedroom as Jack went through Goldy’s mail. There were letters from a disgruntled consumer wanting her to do an exposé on dishwashers, another from her bank complaining about her overdraft and several not-to-be-missed direct-mail offers that seemed almost nostalgically warming compared to the barrage of spam e-mails that Jack received every day.

He dumped the mail on the living room table and looked around. The entire flat was meticulously tidy and—if Goldilocks was the Goldilocks—exactly as Jack supposed it might appear. From the cushions on the sofa to the tins in the kitchen cupboard and the pictures on the wall to the books on the bookshelf, everything was arranged in threes and, where possible, in descending order of size.

A workstation was to one side of the open-plan living room. There was space for a laptop, and a power cable lay loose on the desk with a printer cable. Her laptop, Jack decided, must be either with her or at The Toad’s newsroom. There were several snaps of Goldy and companions stuck on a bulletin board along with some Post-its. The top one grabbed his attention, and he pulled it from the board. It was from someone named Mr. Curry and was an invitation for dinner the previous Friday, the day after Josh had last heard from her. The drawers of the desk yielded nothing of interest, just personal matters regarding financial concerns and her membership in the Austin owners’ club. Jack noted the number of Goldy’s Somerset: 226 DPX.

“She’s not away on a trip, Jack,” said Mary on her return from the bedroom. “All of her suitcases and toiletries are still here. It’s a single woman’s flat, but she has a boyfriend who stays on a casual basis. There’s a second toothbrush and a pair of boxer shorts in the laundry.”

Jack showed her Goldy’s passport.

“Not out of the country, then.”

“Well, well,” came a crackly unfiltered-Camels voice from the doorway. “Detective Inspector Spratt.”

They both turned to see a middle-aged woman in a black suit. Her features were pinched and pale to the point of cadaverous, and her clothes hung loosely on her bony body. She stared at them with the ease of someone who was used to giving orders and used to having them taken. She wasn’t alone. Her companion was a man who was twice as big and eight times the volume. He was dressed in an identical black suit that seemed too small for his bulk. He had a shaved head, a badly broken nose and shoulders that sloped at forty-five degrees from just below his earlobes. Jack could see a curly earpiece barely visible running up from his collar. They looked like bouncers with poor fashion sense on a day trip.

“Detective Chief Inspector,” corrected Jack.

“Congratulations, Spratt—have you met Agent Lunk?”

Jack nodded a greeting in his direction.

“Mnn,” said Lunk.

“Mary, I want you to meet Agent Danvers,” explained Jack,

“NS-4’s finest. Remember the goose we gave to National Security after the Humpty inquiry? Well, it went through Agent Danvers here.”

“Oh,” said Mary, “did you discover exactly how the goose laid all those golden eggs?”

Danvers’s face fell. “If I ever find out that you swapped the goose,” she growled at the pair of them, “you’ll both be finished.”

“Mnn,” said Lunk.

“We were just chatting with Vinnie Craps,” said Jack. “He told us he’d been in contact with NS-4. Is that the reason you’re here?”