Detective Lovely, Chapter 2

          Iggy screeched to a halt outside Pinky Pawridge’s cave - well, it wasn’t a screech because Iggy didn’t make such nasty, erm, screechy noises, even when he slammed on the brakes. It was more of a sweet delicate ‘eek’ like a piglet being tickled. Det. Lovely patted Iggy’s dashboard affectionately, then made her way to the hulking pink door at the front of the bear-cave with her special policewoman’s walk, which combined authority and approachability, as well - in Det.Lovely‘s case - adorability (ineffable ingredient that creates a town's sweetheart). Knock-knock! After waiting a minute on the doormat which read ‘Home is where the honey is‘, Det.Lovely heard the door being unbolted and unlocked from the other side, then watched it open with a drawn-out creak.
    ‘Good morning, Pinky, I’m here investigating a suspected robbery at Mr.Smicks’s clock-shop. I was wondering if you had been anywhere in that vicinity earlier today? Who knows, you might have seen something which could help with our inquiries...’ Det.Lovely said with a firm but disinterested air to put Pinky at ease.
           Pinky looked timidly at Det.Lovely as, like all bears, he was wary of humans, even the loveliest of us.  ‘ Well, er, why yuh…yuh…yes, Duh…duh…detective,’ answered Pinky nervously and as he spoke, pink tufts started  anxiously moulting from his candyfloss-hued furry back. ‘I…I went to murmur Mister Smicks’s to get my cluh…cluh…clock fixed, but it was cluh…closed.’
            ‘Can I come in, Pinky?’ Det.Lovely asked gently. ’ I make it my job to know about the citizens of King Lindsey and I’m aware of your nervous condition. I don’t think you had anything to do with the incident at Mr.Smicks‘s, but we have to follow up all leads.’
           With these reassuring words, his flamingo fuzz stopped liberating itself from Pinky’s back and the bear opened the pink door more widely to beckon Det.Lovely in. Once they were both inside Pinky’s cave, the bear then volunteered some information to Det.Lovely, his stammer only slightly less pronounced since Det.Lovely had so tactfully put him at ease . 
           ’I’m, uh, actually relieved to see you, Duh…duh…detective, and was going to call the station once I’d plucked up the cuh…cuh…courage. Y’see, I’ve suffered a bruh…bruh...break-in too!’ 
           ’Oh, that’s terrible, Pinky. Please tell me the details,’ said Det. Lovely with curiosity and concern as she took her police note-pad out of a pocket in her pristine, figure-hugging trousersuit. 
      ‘Well, er…as you know, we bears  huh…huh…hibernate in the winter, which murmur...means bear-clocks only last six months, then the hand falls off. As you might imagine, this makes waking up on time very diff…diffy…hit 'n' miss. I woke up two weeks luh…luh…late this year, so took my clock to murmur...Mister Smicks to get it fixed as soon as I wuh…wuh...woke. When I got back, I fuh…fuh…fell asleep for another week, then went back to Mr.Smicks’s shop this morning to fetch my cluh...clock, but it was shut even tho’ it was whuh…well puh…puh…past nine,’ stuttered Pinky.
         Cripes O'Nora, Pinky, spit it out! Det.Lovely may have thought this to herself , but she was too courteous and too professional (and dare I say it, too lovely) to let this ever so slightly impatient sentiment  betray itself, especially to a vulnerable bear like Pinky. She also remembered that Mr.Smicks had overslept because the missing hands of the grandfather goblin clock had meant it hadn’t bonged to wake him, hence his closed shop. 
         Pinky continued: ‘When I cuh…came home, I wanted my breakfast after my huh…hibernation, so I went to my larder. And this was when I suh…suh…saw that my pink pots of bumblebeegee honey had all been snuh…snuh...snuh...snaffled, grr…grr…gruzzled all up by some stuh...stickyfingered  huh...honey robber!’
          Det. Lovely nodded; she had heard of the bumblebeegees and their scrummy pink honey. The bumblebeegees were bees that buzzed in an infectiously musical manner, with bumblebeegee-keepers nearly as famous for their dancing as George the weight-watching Eskimo from the Arctic, but that's another story. 
          ‘Uh-huh, my cousin, Boris Horace Morris travels to Altonwood Hills where the bumblebeegee-keepers tend  their hives and stuh…stuh…stocks up for both of us before the hi...hibuh...hibernating season.’
    Then Pinky burst into tears, which poured down his cheeks and onto his bear-belly, darkening and matting the pink fur there. 
    ‘And the wuh….wuh…worst thing is that the honey thief stole the suh...suh...singing spoon that Buh...Buh..Boris Huh..Huh...Huh...erm, Boris gave me for my birthday - it was my favourite spoon ever!’
         ’There there, Pinky!’ comforted Det. Lovely, who was not only trained in victim support, but was such a beacon of humanity even to bears that the training only complimented her lovely good cop core essence. 
          After giving Pinky a hug in the spirit of a policewoman‘s discretion, Det.Lovely commenced her search of the premises whilst Pinky sat in his bear-chair regaining his composure, well, as much composure as had ever been possessed by this ursine worrywart, whose coat was as pink as Germolene ointment (not Germolene cream which is white - your Nimple Sarrator’s expertise stems from a recent bout of nogger‘s jipple, sorry, jogger's nipple).
            Serrated sweat aside, after about, say, fifteen minutes, Det.Lovely rejoined Pinky in the front of the cave which aptly enough served as Pinky’s front-room. Many portraits and framed photos of Pinky and his relatives hung there, including one of the bumblebeegee-honey importer, Boris Horace Morris, with a bumblebeegee-sting swelling his snout. A silver drawing-pin also eye-catchingly attached a (cold) snapshot of Winston Whitenuzz, Pinky’s  uncle from the Arctic, a bullish-looking polar bear, who Det.Lovely vaguely recollected to be a chilly chum of Eel, the wriggliest seal who had ever lived. 
          ‘Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news, Pinky,’ declared King Lindsey’s most pulchritudinous and personable policewoman. 
          ‘Best you tell me the buh…buh…bad news first, Officer,’ whimpered Pinky, meekly resigned to a catastrophe round every corner.
    ‘No, let’s start with the good - you have to learn to be a honeypot half-full kind of bear. Look what I found under a great big comicbook-flesh-pink gloopule at the bottom of a half-guzzled pot of beegee honey!’  
    From behind her back, Det. Lovely playfully produced Pinky’s beloved singing spoon, his gift from Boris H.M. Bear. ‘Ta-da! The thief must have left this behind,’ she pointed out before this good cop moved onto the bad news. ‘Unfortunately they didn’t leave any clues. The only footprints in the spilled honey are your own pawprints, Pinky, from your disappointing foray to the larder this morning. I’m afraid this will not be an open-and-shut case.’
    ‘Well, I’m just so pleased they didn’t snaffle my spoon into the buh…buh…bargain‘ - don‘t you mean the ‘beargain‘ Det.Lovely witticised to herself -’ O thank you, thank you, detective! Fuh…fuh…Oh my!’
    Pinky looked at the obstensibly rather plain piece of cutlery and flicked a glazed pink sliver of skanky dried honeycrust from the handlemost part of the spoon's bowl.
    'That's why she was so quiet! My spoon, Singcheetara, had a huh...huh...hard blur..blob of honey gluh...gluing her lips pursed! Guh...good job spoons don't need uh...uh...oxygen!' 
    Pinky then stroked Singcheetara's handle like Aladdin rubbing the lamp. A dainty shimmering pair of lips materialised on the spoon's face as if softly coming into focus, then opened to emit a clicky, squeaky sort of otherwordly warble like a Chinese washerwoman and a baby orca overdubbing one another. But even over Singcheetara's weird trill, a gastric grumble reached Det.Lovely's cute shelllikes.     
    ‘Ahem, Pinky, I can hear your bear-belly rumbling for you haven’t had your breakfast after your winterlong slumber. I'll tell you what, I’ll drop off a piece of my homebaked pie after my shift.’
             ‘Oh Detective Lovely, you’re so…luh…luh….’
              'Lovely?’ Det. Lovely finished the sentence for the flustered bear.
              ‘Every cloud has a suh…suh…silver lining and that pie sounds like a lovely slice of silver luh-luh-luh…’
    ‘Lining?’ Det.Lovely completed Pinky’s sentence a second time then paused, for the proverb just quoted by Pinky had prompted an undercurrent  of déjà vu.    
            After she bid Pinky farewell, she exited his cave and gracefully plonked her lovely uniformed bottom onto Iggy's upholstery, that jammy sable motorcar!
    ‘Iggy, can you check the database and make sure Winnie-the-Pooh is still on the straight-and-narrow after we extradited him to Hundred Acre Wood Hoosegow to complete his stretch for honey theft?’
    ‘Of course, Det. Lovely, downloading files…bleep-bleep-crackle-zhirr…files downloaded. Yes ma’am, Winnie’s record has been clean for ages now and he hasn’t been to King Lindsey in years.’ 
          Hmmm-de-hmmm, mused Det. Lovely, and put on her thinking-cap face. Suddenly the police radio disturbed her deductive reflections with an all points bulletin: ’ Calling all cars, we need a detective round Mr K. O’Gram’s treehouse pronto, I repeat, pronto!’
           ’Lovely here, I’m on my way!’ first-responded the loveliest detective to inhabit the planet known as Greater King Lindesy. And off she whizzed in Iggy, Iggy’s siren wailing ‘Woo-oo, woo-oo!’ and his horn beeping ’Honk-honk!’ all the way.