The Fourth Bear полностью

“We got lucky,” said Mary. “In the three days Goldy’s phone was doing nothing but firing off the occasional ident, it switched to another cell and back again six times.”

“It was moved?”

“I don’t think so.”

She showed Jack a local map that had been faxed from Goldilocks’s phone company with two intersecting polygons sketched upon it.

“Goldy’s phone was at the boundary of a cell, and the ident was bounced back and forth between two masts; by looking at where the cells potentially share coverage, we can get a vague idea of where her phone is.”

She showed him the approximate overlap of the two irregular cells and pointed to an area less than eight hundred yards wide and about three hundred deep that fell in a sector on the western side of the wood.

“Let’s just hope,” said Jack, “she’s still got her phone with her.”

Jack started the car and drove slowly into the arboreal charm of the wood. He had often come here for picnics when a child, and its ancient splendor was one of Berkshire’s three jewels, along with the Sacred Gonga and Castle Spongg.

They drove slowly down the main road and then took a graveled logging track, with Mary navigating—or trying to. She got them lost at least twice before they turned a corner and Jack abruptly stopped the car.

“Bingo,” he breathed.

“Gotta love those cell-phone records,” replied Mary.

Sitting by the side of the road and dappled with the sunlight filtering through the trees was an immaculate Austin Somerset in all its 1950s curvy, pressed-steel glory. The color was green and the registration 226 DPX. It was Goldilocks’s car.

“We’ll approach from the left in case this is a crime scene,” said Jack, getting out of the Allegro and walking slowly toward the Austin, which was covered with a smattering of leaves and broken twigs. There was a branch lying on the hood that had dented the panel.

“When was the last windy night?” he called over his shoulder.

“Sunday,” answered Mary. “I feel them more than most on the lake.”

Jack nodded. The fact that a car could sit undiscovered for more than a week demonstrated the solitude of the forest. The interior of the car was dark, and it wasn’t easy to see inside, so with heavily beating heart Jack tried the handle. It was unlocked, and he opened the door, expecting the worst. He breathed a sigh of relief. The car was empty; Goldilocks was nowhere to be seen. Her cell phone, its battery exhausted, was lying on the passenger seat.

“Anything?” called out Mary.

Jack checked the trunk to make quite sure, and aside from a travel rug and a spare bottle of antifreeze, there was nothing.

“She’s not here,” said Jack, and Mary cautiously approached in the same direction Jack had taken.

“What do we do?” she asked. “There’s still no crime, so I can’t see Briggs agreeing to a search of the area. Not for the NCD anyway.”

“Call Baker and Gretel,” he said, rummaging carefully in the glove box, “and see if they can’t make an excuse to get out or something. Look at this.”

He handed her a receipt for fuel, neatly attached to several others in a bulldog clip.

“Theale Services, dated last Saturday and timed at 7:02 A.M.,” murmured Mary. “Theale’s a thirty-minute drive from here, which puts her in the forest around 7:30 at the earliest.”

“And Theale is itself thirty minutes from her house,” added Jack. “It all backs up the cell-phone record. She received a call at 6:04 and took, say, half an hour to get out of her house, half an hour to the services and then on to here. If I’m not mistaken, whoever called her on her mobile arranged to meet her here, in the forest—and as soon as possible.”

They looked around. All about them the forest stood heavy and lush in the summer’s glorious embrace. It was like living in another world, or another age, when England was covered in dense oak forest and humans were few. It would have been a haven for wild boar, elk and bear.

“Somewhere out there,” said Jack, “is Goldilocks.”

“That sounded ominous,” remarked Mary, rummaging for her own cell phone. “I’ll get onto Baker and Gretel.”

“Do that. I’m going to have a look around.”

He walked slowly into the forest, the crisp detritus underfoot sounding inordinately loud in the solitude. As soon as he stepped among the trees, the high canopy of overlapping leaves shut out the daylight almost entirely, leaving just occasional spots of sunlight on the forest’s ferny floor. Jack walked for a couple hundred yards and then stopped. Not a bird stirred, not an animal dared show itself. He could see no sign of Goldilocks, nor any sign of humans at all. There was nothing to be gained by meandering aimlessly in the forest, so he walked back in the direction of the car. After five minutes, and with no sign of the car, Mary or even the road, he realized he was lost. He’d heard the rumors about the forest’s high lostability index but had not believed them until now. He continued walking in what he thought was the right direction and after about ten minutes came across a small thatched cottage in the middle of a clearing.