'Who can fathom the workings of the criminal mind?' said Eddie.

'Detectives,' said Jack. 'That's what they do.'

'Not in this case, Jack. She's dead, we'll never know.'

'And soon we'll be dead. Disappeared. And that will be that for us. It's all been a bit pointless, really, hasn't it?'

'Don't talk like that, Jack. We did our best.'

'We were useless, Eddie. We were rubbish at being detectives. Everything we did was wrong. Bill Winkie would be ashamed of us.'

'Don't say that. All right, we made a few mistakes...'

'A few mistakes? We made nothing but mistakes.'

'We did our best.'

'And where has it got us? We're lucky to still be alive. And we won't be alive for much longer, I'm thinking. I'm going to write my confession and hope I can escape from prison.'

'Don't be so pessimistic, Jack. There has to be a way out of this mess.'

'Eddie,' said Jack, 'there is. I could pick the lock. You've got a new growler, haven't you?'

'Now hold on.' Eddie covered himself as best he could. 'That would really hurt. It really hurt the last time.'

'Yes, but we could escape. I'll just rip your stomach open.'

'No.' Eddie dropped from his chair and backed away.

'Only joking,' said Jack.

'Good,' said Eddie, still backing away.

'We'll just wait here until the policemen come back and beat you up some more and then disappear the both of us.'

'Out with my growler,' said Eddie Bear.

'No, there has to be another way.'

'I wish I knew one,' said Eddie.

'You know what,' said Jack, 'you were right. When you said that we were going about things in all the wrong way. About the hunters being hunted, and how we should do things the way Bill Winkie would have done them.'

Eddie nodded in a hopeless kind of way.

'I've read all the books,' said Jack. 'He wouldn't have ended up here.'

'That doesn't help,' said Eddie.

'No, sorry, it doesn't. But if he had ended up here, there would have been a twist to it.'

'There's always a twist in detective books,' said Eddie. 'That's what makes them special.'

'So there should be a twist here.'

'This isn't a Bill Winkie thriller.'

'Let's assume it is,' said Jack. 'Or an Eddie Bear thriller. Let's look at it all from a different perspective.'

'Big words,' said Eddie. 'So what's the twist?'

Jack shrugged. 'I wish I knew,' he said.

'Thanks very much,' said Eddie. 'That's all been very helpful.'

'Give it a chance, Eddie.'

'What, we simply sit here and wait for this twist to just happen?'

'That's exactly what we do. That's what would happen in the books. And when it happens here to us, it will change everything and we will go out and do the job properly. The way it should be.done. The way it's done in detective thrillers.'

'I don't get it,' said Eddie.

'You will,' said Jack. 'Just trust me.'

And so they waited.

It was tense, but then, important waiting is always tense. It's filled with tension, every waiting moment of it.

The tense waiting was done at the exact moment when it ceased.

And it ceased at the sound of a key being turned in a lock and the sight of the interview room door swinging open.

Chief Inspector Bellis entered the interview room. •

'Have you completed your written confessions?' he asked.

Eddie flinched.

'Not as such,' said Jack.

'So you've decided to go for the violent beating and disappearance option.'

'No,' cried Eddie. 'Have mercy.'

'Mercy?' The Chief Inspector's eyebrows were raised once again. 'You are asking me for mercy?'

'We are,’ Jack agreed.

'Oh well, fair enough then, you can go.'

'What?' went Jack.

And 'What?' went Eddie too.

'You can both go free,' said Bellis. 'I'm dropping the charge.'

Jack's mouth hung open. Now this was a twist.

Eddie said 'What?' once again.

'You heard me, I'm dropping the charge.'

'Charge?' said Eddie. 'You're dropping the charge? Only the one? I don't understand.'

'Taking and driving away a police vehicle,' said Chief Inspector Bellis. 'That's the only charge against you and I'm dropping that charge.'

'Ah, excuse me, sir,' said Jack, 'but why?'

'Somethings have come up.'

'What kind of somethings are these?'

'Two somethings,' said the Chief Inspector. 'The body in the morgue. Or what's left of it. Isn't a body.'

'Then what is it?' Jack asked.

'I'm not authorised to tell you that.'

'Oh,' said Jack. 'And the other something?'

'There's been another murder,' said Chief Inspector Bellis. 'And, as you've both been here in custody, I know that you are not responsible. But it's the same killer as before; I'd stake my reputation on it.'

'Another murder?' Eddie said. 'But the body or whatever it is is in the morgue...'

'Is obviously not the killer. I'm letting you go. Get out. Leave the building.'

'Thanks,' said Eddie. 'Come on, Jack.'

'I'm coming,' said Jack. 'But who died? Who was murdered?'

‘Jack Spratt,' said Chief Inspector Bellis. ‘Jack Spratt is dead.'

17

Apart from those that do, of course, celebrity marriages never last.

For although celebrities are very good at being celebrities (they would not be celebrities if they were not), most of them are absolute no-marks when it conies to being a caring partner in a shared relationship. They just can't do it. It isn't in them to do it.

Not that we ordinary folk blame them for being this way. We don't. After all, it is we ordinary folk who have made these people celebrities.

Which possibly makes us to blame.

Or possibly not.

No, not: it's not our fault. We have given these people celebrity. They owe us.

And as we have huddled in rain-soaked hordes to cheer them at their celebrity marriages, it is only fitting that they give us something in return: the entertainment of their celebrity divorces. Let's be honest here, who amongst us can genuinely claim that we do not thoroughly enjoy a really messy celebrity divorce? We love 'em. We do.

We love to read in the gutter press all about the mud-slinging, accusations and counter-accusations. And if there's a bit of the old domestic violence in the millionaire mansion, we revel in that too. We even love the petty squabbling about who gets custody of the penguin. And as to the sordid and startling disclosures of what the private investigator actually saw when he peeped in through the hotel bedroom window, those get our juices flowing fair to the onset of dehydration.

And while we're being absolutely honest here, let us admit that when it comes to reading about the celebrity divorce, women love it more than men.

They do, you know. They really do.

It's a woman thing.

If you ask a man, he'll probably tell you that yes, he does enjoy a celebrity divorce, but given the choice, he'd far rather watch a building burning down.

But that's men for you.

Jack Spratt was a man, of course: a rich celebrity of a man, and his divorce from his wife Nadine brought colour to the front pages of the Toy City gutter press for several weeks. It was a very entertaining divorce.

The grounds were 'irreconcilable culinary differences' but, as it turned out, there was a whole lot more to it than that.

They were a mismatched couple from the start. Jack, a man naturally destined for fame by nature of having a big face and a small body, married Nadine, a woman with a very small face and a very large body (physical characteristics which would normally have doomed anyone to oblivion). They married when Nadine was fifteen.