Freed from her restraint, the police car footed and yarded it forward at the hurry-up, but not out into the open road that might have led to freedom. The offside wheel buckled from its axle; the car swerved and plunged across the street towards the gathered crowd and the blazing building.
'We're gonna die!' shouted Jack.
'We're gonna die!' shouted Eddie.
Aaah! And Oooh! And Eeek! went members of the gathered crowd, parting in haste before the on-rushing car.
'Ho ho ho,' went the laughing policemen, parting in haste with them.
'Out of the car,' shouted Eddie. 'Jump, Jack.'
'The doors are locked!'
'Unlock them!'
'Hang on to me, Eddie, I'm opening mine!'
'Waaah!'
Shrieking screaming wheels.
A smiling face against the windscreen.
Fleeing crowds.
Burning building.
On-rushing police car.
Doors now open.
Jack and Eddie jumping.
More on-rushing police car. Woman-or-not-woman clinging to the bonnet.
And into the inferno.
Mash and crash. Explode and grench. And spragger and munge and clab and plark and blander.
Jack and Eddie, bruised but alive.
The Clockwork Car Company showrooms coming down.
And then a terrible silence.
'Am I alive?' Eddie asked.
'You're alive,' said Jack. 'We're both alive. We're safe.' And then a voice.
The voice of Chief Inspector Wellington Bellis. 'You are both under arrest,' said this voice.
16
'The secret of being a successful policeman,' said Chief Inspector Bellis, 'is in doing everything by the book. And before you ask me which book that is, I will tell you. It is the policeman's handbook. It tells you exactly how things are to be done. It covers all the aspects of gathering and cataloguing evidence. It is most precise.'
'Is there a point to this?’ Jack asked.
'There is,' said Chief Inspector Bellis. 'There is.'
He, Jack and Eddie sat in the interview room of the Toy City Police Station. It was hardly a gay venue, as was, say, the Brown Hatter Nite Spot, over on the East Side.
Neither was it a Jolly Jack Tar of a place, like The Peg-legged Pirate's Pool Hall, over on the West Side.
Nor was it even an existential confabulation of spatial ambiguity, such as the currently displayed installation piece at the Toy City Arts Gallery, down on the South Bank Side.
Nor was it anything other than an interview room in any way, shape, form, or indeed, aesthetic medium.
In the way of such rooms, its walls were toned a depressing shade of puce. In shape it was long and low and loathsome. In furnishings, it was basic: chairs, a table and a filing cabinet, lit by a naked light bulb which dangled from the ceiling at the end of a piece of string. There was no aesthetic involved in this lighting. But the string was of medium length.
So it was, as interview rooms go, very much of a muchness.
Eddie quite liked it. It reminded him a bit of Bill Winkie's office.
Jack hated it.
'I've told you everything,' said Jack. 'And it's all the truth.'
Chief Inspector Bellis nodded his perished rubber head. He was accompanied by two laughing policemen. One of these was Officer Chortle. Although he was laughing, he pined for his police car.
'The truth,' said Bellis, staring hard at Jack. 'Now what would you know about the truth?'
'I've told it to you,' said Jack. 'All of it that I know.'
Chief Inspector Bellis shook his head, and sadly at that. 'Would it were so,' he said. 'But you see, criminals are notable for never telling the truth. You rarely if ever get the truth from a criminal. A criminal will profess his innocence to the end. Criminals do not tell the truth.'
'I wouldn't know about that,' said Jack, 'because I am not a criminal.'
'Which brings me back to doing things by the book,' said the Chief Inspector. 'Gathering evidence. Writing it all down. I write everything down. I have really neat handwriting. See this piece of paper here?' Bellis displayed the piece of paper. 'It has all manner of things written down upon it, in really neat handwriting. All manner of things about you. About how you entered Humpty Dumpty's apartment without permission from the authorities. And appeared shortly after the death of Boy Blue, disguised as a wealthy aristocrat. And later returned and broke into the premises, and later still escaped from police custody, and today stole Officer Chortle's brand new police car and drove it into a flaming building. How am I doing so far?'
'I demand to see my solicitor,' said Jack.
'Me too,' said Eddie. 'And even though I had a big breakfast, I'm quite hungry again. I demand to see a chef
'Anything else?' asked Chief Inspector Bellis.
'You could set us free,' said Eddie. 'After we've eaten.'
'Office Chortle, smite this bear,' said the Chief Inspector.
Officer Chortle leaned across the desk and bopped Eddie Bear on the head with his truncheon.
'Ouch!' went Eddie, in ready response. 'Don't hit me.'
'No, don't hit him.’ Jack raised calming hands. 'We have told you the truth. That woman-or-whatever-she-was was the murderer. We're detectives; we were tracking her down. Did you find the body?'
'We found something,' said Chief Inspector Bellis. 'But we're not entirely certain what we've found.'
'Robot,' said Jack. 'From the future.'
'What was that?' Chief Inspector Bellis raised a perished eyebrow. Officer Chortle raised his truncheon once more.
'Nothing,' said Jack. 'Nothing at all.'
'Nothing at all.' The Chief Inspector sighed. 'Well, I have you two bang to rights, as we policemen say. So why not break new ground by simply confessing? It would save so much unnecessary violence being visited upon your persons. Not to mention all the paperwork.'
'We're innocent,' said Eddie. 'We were just pursuing the course of our investigations.'
'Oh yes,' said Chief Inspector Bellis, consulting his paperwork. 'On behalf of this mystery benefactor who paid the handsome advance to your employer, Bill Winkie, who has mysteriously vanished without trace.'
'He'll be back,' said Eddie. 'He'll tell you.'
'Perhaps,' said the perished policeman. 'But for now I have you and I have all my impeccable paperwork, all penned in precise terms, in a very neat hand, and all pointing towards your guilt. Go on, confess, you know you want to.'
'I certainly don't,' said Eddie.
'That's as good as a confession to me,' said Bellis. 'I'll make a note of that.'
'And make sure you spell all the words right,' said Eddie. 'Especially the word "twerp" and the manner in which it should be applied to yourself
Officer Chortle smote Eddie once more.
'Eddie,' said Jack, 'don't make things worse.'
'How can they be worse?' Eddie rubbed at his battered head. 'This fool won't listen to reason. He won't believe the truth. But at least the killer is dead. That's something. We'll have our day in court. He can't prove anything against us. There's no evidence linking us directly to the crimes.'
'And how do you know that?' asked Bellis.
'Because we didn't commit them,' said Eddie.
'I have circumstantial evidence.'
'That's no evidence at all. It won't hold up in court.'
'I don't know where you keep getting the "court" business from,' said Chief Inspector Bellis. 'There won't be any court involved in this.'
'What?' said Eddie.
'I was going to mention that,' said Jack. 'But I didn't have time. This is some kind of "authority from higher up" jobbie; the Chief Inspector has been given the power to simply make us disappear.'
Eddie made growly groaning sounds.
'Killing the cream of Toy City's society is a very big crime,' said the Chief Inspector. 'It calls for extreme measures. Now, you can confess all and I'll see to it that you go off to prison. Or you can continue to profess your innocence, and...' The Chief Inspector drew a perished rubber finger across his perished rubber throat.