Tourquai (10 page)

3.3

T
he weather was just after lunch when Field Mouse Pedersen arrived at the police station with Goat Croix-Valmer in tow. The choice had been between questioning the receptionist at Nova Park or going down and ordering a pizza with pineapple and honey. The interview took priority.

Bloodhound had never thought that Emanuelle Cobra did it. Instinct, experience, gut feeling, call it what you will: whether she was involved or not he left unsaid—she might be—but she was not the one who cut off the vulture’s head. Which Tapir had established this morning.

Earwig remained, and because Bloodhound had not met the inventor in question the superintendent had no perception other than that he hoped it was Earwig who was guilty. Because if it wasn’t Earwig . . . this investigation would drag on. While waiting for Anna and Falcon, whom he had sent off to check the inventor’s alibi, Bloodhound had no desire to start anything new. So he sent Pedersen out after Croix-Valmer. The investigation called for an additional interview with the little goat, and if Bloodhound did it over lunch he would avoid stuffing himself with more unhealthy things.

“This is my lunchtime!”
Goat Croix-Valmer protested as Pedersen pushed him down onto the empty chair beside Bloodhound’s desk.

He was dressed in a pair of bright yellow slacks that took attention away from his shoes and shirt.

“Shut up,” Bloodhound growled. “And think of all the calories I’m saving you.”

“Calories?” Goat repeated. “That’s not my problem. If you feel fat you shouldn’t think that—”

“Fat!” roared Bloodhound. “Listen up, you cross-stitched little mama’s boy, now you shut up and think. I’m a cop. I can lock you up in King’s Cross for the rest of your life. I’m the one you want to stay friends with.”

Croix-Valmer glared angrily at the superintendent but said nothing. Pedersen cleared his throat.

“Perhaps you’d like me to record the interview, Superintendent?” he asked.

“Thanks, Pedersen, but I think it’s better if you leave us. If I have to rough up this poor goat I’d prefer not to have any witnesses.”

Goat did not see Field Mouse Pedersen’s sly smile before he left Bloodhound’s office, and thus the comment had the desired effect. Croix-Valmer decided to cooperate.

“Well, we might as well start at the beginning,” said Bloodhound, taking out his writing implements. “And see if this degenerates or whether you can manage a little common courtesy. When did you start at Nova Park?”

“Almost two years ago,” Croix-Valmer replied. “It will be two years in July.”

“And before that?”

“I was a receptionist at Incubator. And before that I worked at Banque Mollisan. But only a little while, right after school.”

Croix-Valmer answered rapidly and honestly. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

“And how do you get along at Nova Park?” Bloodhound asked, picking his nose with one of his long, black claws. “Compared with your previous experiences?”

“It’s the best,” the goat replied with emphasis. “Like, ten animals total, good pay, no one gets upset if you arrive a little late or leave a little early . . .”

“And the reason why you quit your previous job . . . at Incubator?”

“They fired me,” the goat said in a lower voice. “I don’t know any more than that. You’ll have to ask them.”

Bloodhound made a notation. Pedersen would have to make that call.

“I want to ask you about Monday morning,” Bloodhound growled.

“Super-hectic!” Croix-Valmer exclaimed, throwing out his hooves. “They were going to repair the server in Anastasia’s office and kept running back and forth several times. And then the police officers who came . . .”

“I was the police officer who came,” Bloodhound commented. “Repair the server?”

“An electrician,” Croix-Valmer confirmed, nodding. “I made him show his identification every time he went past. Two times. Or three times. I don’t know . . .”

“And otherwise?”

“Otherwise I guess it was as usual, more or less. Quiet.”

“Any visitors?”

“No visitors. Not many calls. A few deliveries.”

“Deliveries? Were there deliveries to reception Monday morning?”

“No. No, there weren’t any deliveries on Monday. I meant that normally there are deliveries. Sometimes.”

“There weren’t any visitors?” Bloodhound asked. “None at all?”

“Well . . .” Croix-Valmer hesitated. “Well, there must have been a few.”

“Who?”

“Well, now I’m not sure. Were there any? Not many, anyway.”

For someone who worked at a reception desk, the goat was inconceivably vague. Pedersen probably didn’t need to make that call; it seemed obvious why Goat had been fired from Incubator.

“Oleg Earwig?” asked Bloodhound.

“That’s right!” Goat exclaimed, relieved. “Exactly. I’m sure that unpleasant earwig came and went.”

“Was he carrying anything when he left?”

“Like, a suitcase, or something?”

“Did he have a suitcase?”

“No. Nothing. I think. But there were so many arms and legs sticking out, it’s hard to say. I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“When did he leave?”

“Don’t know exactly. A few minutes before Emanuelle.”

“Emanuelle Cobra?”

“Are there any other Emanuelles?”

“Did Cobra leave the office during the morning?”

“She went out for a smoke. It was right after the earwig left. Smoking is prohibited at Nova Park. The smokers are forced to go all the way down to the street. Emanuelle’s trying to quit. Personally . . . I’ve never started.”

“Did Cobra leave the office several times during the morning?” Bloodhound asked, trying to sound neutral.

“No,” the goat answered firmly. “Once in the morning and once in the afternoon. No more. No more than that.”

“So she left right after Earwig,” Bloodhound repeated in order to give the goat a chance to change his mind. “And then she came back?”

“She was out for ten minutes, maybe fifteen. Then the police arrived, but that was a while later . . .”

“And when Cobra was down on the street, smoking,” Bloodhound asked, speaking very slowly, “did anyone else go past reception then?”

“Like I said, I don’t know,” Croix-Valmer replied unhappily. “I don’t know. The electrician, I think. Maybe.”

“Think about it,” Bloodhound growled.

“I don’t know. The electrician? I don’t know.”

“You lousy little woolen mitten,” the superintendent clarified, “this is important. I get it that thinking isn’t your best subject. But surprise me. Did anyone go past your reception counter while Cobra was down on the street, smoking?”

Goat Croix-Valmer nodded, looking Bloodhound in the eyes, as if he could thereby produce an answer. But not a word passed his lips, and finally the superintendent realized that the only thing to do was give up. For this fool of a receptionist, the pressure was paralyzing.

“Think it over,” the superintendent said. “I’m going to repeat the question another time and it would be excellent if you had an answer.”

Goat Croix-Valmer nodded again, but Bloodhound doubted that there was capacity for reflection in the goat’s confused brain.

3.4

A
nna Lynx’s pulse was pounding so hard she couldn’t hear what she was thinking. She was lying stretched out behind three heaps of worn tires, holding her service pistol in her right paw.

“Excuse me, Anna, but what do we do now?” Falcon Ècu shouted.

He had landed a little farther away, in the driver’s seat of a worn-out tractor. Anna could see him fumbling with the buttons on his holster, but before he got his weapon out Balder Toad had fired off the next swarm of buckshot.

The police officers crouched; Falcon dove under the steering wheel of the tractor.

The sound of ricochets cut through the air, after which silence spread over the junkyard.

Anna peered out from behind the tires. She saw the barrel of a shotgun sticking out through the only window in the decrepit shed. She called, “We’ve only come to—”

She didn’t get further than that.

“Go away!” Toad screamed, firing a third salvo.

This time it was in earnest. The windows of the tractor’s cab rained down over Falcon in small, sharp pieces. There was no room for negotiations.

Anna Lynx released the safety on her weapon and called, “On three.”

She hoped Ècu was experienced enough to understand what she meant, and then she counted down.

“Three,” she shouted, “two, one!”

Without waiting for her colleague, she threw herself out to the side of the heap of tires and fired six shots in quick succession into the shed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Falcon standing with legs wide apart in the approved shooting position a few yards away, firing his gun at the same time. She managed to see that the door to the shed was torn apart by the bullets, then she threw herself back behind the tires.

“Help!” was heard from the shed. “Help! Don’t shoot! Stop!”

“Come out with your arms above your head!” Falcon shouted.

A good deal of rattling was heard. Anna peeped up over the edge of her rubber barricade. Toad had come out and positioned himself—on quivering legs—in front of the damaged door, with his arms in the air. He was a thin, green stuffed animal with a white belly and slender, long limbs.

Falcon ran toward him.

“Assaulting an officer,” the inspector shouted.

He held his gun aimed at the toad.

“Attacking police officers on duty, this is going to cost you dearly!”

“Police?” Toad answered, looking confused. “Didn’t you say Earwig sent you?”

Falcon stopped a few yards away.

“We said that . . .” said Falcon, slowing his speed. “We said that . . . true, we did say that Earwig had—but we identified ourselves. We said we were police officers.”

“Police officers,” Toad repeated in confusion. “Police officers. Lord Magnus. I didn’t know . . . I thought you came from Earwig . . .”

He stood quietly with his arms above his head. Falcon lowered his weapon, Anna was right behind, and together the police officers led the contrite toad into the shed, the door to which they had just shredded with gunfire.

They sat down at
a small kitchen table where there were freshly picked wood anemones in an eggcup. The sink was full of filthy plates, but Anna Lynx found a somewhat clean glass. She poured cold water and set the glass in front of the toad. He was so nervous he could hardly swallow.

Balder Toad tried to explain himself. He had seen two strangers and heard them shout Oleg Earwig’s name. Toad had never used the gun before. He bought it a few years ago, to keep for self-defense. At that time unpleasant characters were wandering around the junkyard at night. The name Earwig now caused him to bring out the gun and fire it.

He begged pardon once again.

He realized, said Balder Toad, that they were going to arrest him.

“We’ll just have to see. It depends on how well you cooperate,” Falcon replied. “Tell us about Earwig. Why should he send animals here who . . . who want to harm you, Toad?”

Balder Toad took another gulp of water, stared right into Falcon’s hard little eyes, and answered slowly: “I hate him.”

Falcon Ècu did not reply.

“A month ago,” Toad continued, “I’d never met Earwig. I didn’t know he existed. I don’t have any . . . vacuum-cleaning walls . . .”

“Tell your story, Toad,” Anna coaxed.

It had been a
day like any other when Oleg Earwig showed up a month ago at Balder Toad’s junkyard. As far as he could recall, Balder had been struggling with a warped car hood when the black stuffed animal arrived on foot. He had introduced himself as one of the “greatest geniuses of our time” and excitedly gestured toward the car cemetery with his many arms and legs.

“This,” he had said, “may soon be history. History!”

Toad had, in his hospitable manner—because he was basically a hospitable animal, even if he realized that the police thought differently—invited Earwig in for coffee.

“We sat here,” said Balder Toad to Anna, pointing at the table. “Right at this table.”

Earwig told about himself. Toad realized that the earwig was boasting, knowing that anyone who considered himself to be the greatest genius of the present day could not possibly be the greatest genius of the present day. But after a while, Earwig nonetheless succeeded in convincing Toad that there was something to what he was saying.

“And I checked him out later. He really did make that wall, didn’t he?”

Anna nodded.

Earwig had described a new invention he was working on. It was sensational, it would make everything he’d done up until then pale in comparison.

He had asked for paper and pen and then shown formulas and processes that were behind what he was calling his Matter Processor. He pointed, calculated, and explained. The energy that went into these pedagogical attempts was almost inspiring. Toad put on a good face, even though he didn’t understand a thing. Earwig seemed more and more content as time went by.

“I still have all the formulas,” said Toad. “I saved them, everything he wrote. I thought they might be valuable someday.”

“I have chosen you, Toad!” Earwig said finally. “Of all the stuffed animals in Mollisan Town, of all the animals that could have helped, I have chosen you. You.”

It had to do with the cars at the junkyard.

“I’m a humble animal,” Toad explained to Falcon and Anna. “I knew it wasn’t on my account that Earwig had come.”

According to the inventor, the car was the object best suited to getting the city’s stuffed animals to understand in one stroke what the Matter Processor was capable of. A car was not simply a means of transportation and a status object; for the hoi polloi, cars represented the mystery and perfection of technology.

“I need your help, Toad,” Oleg Earwig had said that morning a month before. “I need your help. And as thanks, as payment, you’ll get a Matter Processor. You’ll get it so cheap that I’m almost ashamed. I’m almost ashamed. With a Matter Processor here at the junkyard, your work will be transformed forever. Now and forever. It’s going to be so much simpler. So much more efficient. So much cheaper. You’re going to be a rich toad, Toad. Thanks to the Matter Processor.”

First Earwig described in detail how the Matter Processor looked. Toad was imagining a sort of advanced cannon, some sort of artillery piece. The rays that came out of the weapon were invisible, but had the ability to reduce or enlarge the matter that was “shot at.”

In other words, Earwig explained, as if the toad were a little cub, with a Matter Processor at the junkyard, Toad could shrink all newly arrived wrecked cars. He could sort them on shelves or compartments instead of in these enormous heaps of metal. When he needed a particular spare part, it was only a matter of enlarging it.

“But is that possible?” Toad had exclaimed.

Whereupon Earwig picked up the paper and pen and, with even greater energy, fury, and zeal, drew and pointed and calculated in order to convince Balder Toad of the project’s feasibility.

“Together,” Earwig had said, “we will shake up Mollisan Town completely. Nothing will be the way it was. Nothing! Ever!”

Balder Toad did not reply. Earwig frightened him.

The idea was to summon a press conference, a real demonstration, at the Marktplatz in Lanceheim. During the night Oleg Earwig would assemble the first full-scale Matter Processor in the city’s history on a large, newly constructed stage. The apparatus would be concealed under a golden cloth. Toad would contribute a couple of the largest vehicles he had at the junkyard. Tractors or trucks. The assembled press would arrive, along with curious onlookers, and Earwig would let the covering fall.

“The murmur,” the inventor imagined at the toad’s kitchen table, “will be ear-splitting.”

Then Earwig would turn on the Matter Processor and shrink Toad’s trucks into little toys.

No more difficult than that.

“It’s inconceivable,” Toad said to Anna Lynx. “In hindsight like this it’s inconceivable, but he managed to convince me. I thought I would be part of something historic. And because I believed in him, I made the mistake not only of inviting my friends, I asked Mom and Dad to get over to Marktplatz. And when Dad refused—he never took time off without a reason—I told him everything. First he thought I was joking. Then he laughed. I was offended, of course. I cajoled and argued and staked my honor on it. Finally he promised to come.”

Balder Toad appeared to be on the verge of tears at the memory of the conversation with his father, and Anna Lynx put a consoling paw on his shoulder.

The day arrived.

Toad’s friends were there, the press was there, and animals had gathered at Marktplatz by the hundreds. Earwig pulled the cloth off his machine, and a murmur actually passed through the audience. It looked impressive. Toad had contributed a truck that had come into the junkyard a week before; it was almost in the middle of the square, and Toad himself was standing on the large stage alongside Earwig. His gaze was searching for his father in the sea of stuffed animals below.

The demonstration could begin.

Earwig shouted that now it was time to turn on the Matter Processor, and he warned the animals about standing in the way of the radiation. Then, with dignified steps, he went up to the apparatus and flipped the switch.

At about the same time Toad saw his father. He was smiling.

A bluish ray shot through the air, straight toward the truck, and . . . nothing happened.

Fiasco.

Toad’s dad’s smile got wider.

Oleg Earwig panicked up on the stage. He threw himself toward the machine and started fiddling and pounding on it. But the animals on the square started to laugh. They laughed at Earwig, and they laughed at Toad, and—his dad was laughing the loudest of them all.

“How could he fool me?” Toad asked. “How could I subject myself to such ridicule?”

Falcon and Anna both sat silently.

“Oleg Earwig says you
can give him an alibi . . .” Falcon Ècu said when Balder Toad’s silence had lasted long enough. “He says that—”

“An alibi?” Toad said. “That I’ll give him an alibi? Is he crazy? The only thing I want to give him is a punch in the jaw. That’s all he’s ever going to get from me.”