“Jack!” said Agatha in delighted surprise. “I haven’t seen you for a while—have you been avoiding me?”
“Why ever would I do that?” asked Jack as he walked past and pressed the elevator call button repeatedly.
“Because,” she said, with something that might once have passed for a coquettish smile, “you have feelings, too—but you’re in denial.”
“I could only be living in de Nile if I was in de Egypt.”
“Eh?”
“Never mind.”
“Listen,” said Mary as she hid a smile, “if you guys want to talk, I can take the stairs—”
“NO! I mean no, I need to discuss something with you.”
“Well, listen,” said Agatha, moving closer to Jack, who backed away until he was pressed against the elevator doors, “you know you can always rely on me if you get bored.”
“The answer’s NO, Agatha,” said Jack. “It was NO twenty years ago, it was NO yesterday, it’s NO now, and it’ll be NO tomorrow and for the rest of recorded history. Get it?”
She laughed and tweaked his chin. “You’re such a tease!” she cooed. “Anytime. I’ll be waiting. Whenever.”
The doors opened, and Jack almost fell inside. Agatha was still waving at him as the elevator doors closed.
“I’d get a restraining order on her if she weren’t married to Briggs,” said Jack, rubbing his neck.
“Now you know how difficult it is with Arnold.”
“Perhaps we should introduce them to each other.”
“She’d have him for breakfast,” said Mary with a laugh, “and spit out the bones.”
The elevator ascended in silence for a few moments, stopped, and the doors opened.
“Good morning, Inspector,” said a shapely, doelike vision of uniformed loveliness who was waiting to get into the elevator.
“Good morning, Sergeant.”
“Hello, Pippa,” replied Jack with a smile. “How are you settling in?”
“Everyone’s being so nice to me,” she said, giving out a radiant smile to both of them. “The control room here is a simply wonderful place to work.”
And she got into the elevator and the doors closed.
“People that good-looking shouldn’t be officers,” said Jack as they walked down the corridor. “It makes the rest of us look like gorgons. Isn’t Baker making a play for her?”
“I think it would be safe to say he’s in the queue—and it’s a long line. Constable Pepper took her out for a drink, I understand, but I don’t know how serious it was.”
They walked along the corridor in silence for a moment.
“You said earlier there was some good news?” asked Mary.
“You’ve been promoted. You’re acting head of the NCD while I’m on sick leave awaiting a mental-health appraisal.”
“Does this mean I get to sit in your chair?”
“Incorrect response, Mary. I was hoping for something more along the lines of ‘They can’t do this to you, sir!’"
“Only joking. They can’t do this to you, sir.”
“They just have. Briggs thinks I’m too disturbed to head up the NCD.”
“He should be worried about you not being disturbed enough.”
“Thanks for that—I think,” replied Jack doubtfully.
“Tell me,” said Mary slowly, “despite your sick-leaveness, will I be able to consult you freely on matters regarding nursery crime at any time of the day or night and invite you along to inquiries in the capacity of observer or expert witness?”
Jack smiled as they stopped outside the office. “I’m counting on it.”
When Mary first arrived at the Nursery Crime Division, she was astonished at just how small the offices were. Barely room enough for a desk, let alone three chairs, among the filing cabinets and stacks of papers. The walls were adorned by framed newspaper cuttings, a map of Reading and several corkboards but without the needless extravagance of a window. The filing cabinets were so full the metal bulged, and any available space that couldn’t be more usefully employed for other purposes—such as standing or sitting—was stacked high with reports, notes and files. Case histories were still on index cards, something that excited Ashley’s innate filing instincts no end but was generally a source of embarrassment to everyone else. There was another room next door, which the cleaners had rejected on the grounds of “too small, even for us” and this was also full of unfiled papers, a chair, a small desk and a coffee machine. They had computers and access to e-mail and the national crime database, but the NCD database seemed to have been forgotten in the rush to centralize all police records. It didn’t really matter, as Berkshire was the only county with a Nursery Crime Division—travel beyond the county boundaries placed all PDRs outside the protection of the law, so few troubled to do so.
It was no surprise to anyone that with Gretel and Baker on an inquiry, the division spilled out into the corridor, even with Ashley working from his usual position, stuck to the ceiling. Mary had got used to the size and chaotic nature of the office as soon as she figured out Jack’s “freestyle” approach to filing, and Jack had been right about another thing: After a few months, she could barely detect the smell of boiled cabbage that wafted in from the canteen next door.
Luckily, Gretel and Baker were engaged on other duties, and Ashley was the only incumbent, which made it feel positively roomy—sort of.
“Good morning, Ash,” said Jack.
“It is indeed,” replied the small alien with a joyous ripple of blue from within his semitransparent body. “I’ve got some good news for you both.”
“Briggs just called to change his mind about the Gingerbread inquiry?”
“No—much better. I’ve finally managed to complete my beer-mat collection. I’ve got them all. Every single one.”
“That’s… wonderful news,” said Jack in an absent sort of way. Ashley was best humored, and since he didn’t really get sarcasm, he never took offense. “Any messages?”
“Of course. You’ve got one from the Force Medical Officer requesting that you attend a hearing with an independent psychiatric evaluator tomorrow, then another, also from the FMO, informing you that you shouldn’t be at work to receive these messages and suggesting you go home and watch a few reruns of Kojak.”
“Anything else?”
“No,” replied Ashley, “but I think the FMO is wrong.”
“That’s very good of you to say so, Ash.”
“Not at all. Kojak is entirely the wrong show to be watching for relaxation. We watched your TV a lot back home on Rambosia, and Kojak was never our thing.”
“No?” replied Jack without humor.
“No. All that lollipop and ‘Who loves ya, baby?’ stuff—and the singing career? What was that all about? No, we always preferred Jim Rockford—especially Noah Beery, who played his father. I suggest you watch The Rockford Files.”
“You and Briggs should have a chat,” said Jack, glaring at the small alien. “He thought I should be watching Columbo.”
“That’s good, too,” mused Ashley. “A bit unusual for a whodunit, since we always knew in the first five minutes who had done it. Perhaps it should be called a ‘howcolumbofindsoutwhodunit’—”