Jasper Fforde: The Fourth Bear

Dr. Alan Mandibleled the group of suited consultants along the peeling corridors of St. Cerebellum’s, Reading’s premier secure hospital for the criminally insane. While perhaps not the newest, cleanest or driest, it did contain the most interesting patients. There are not many secure hospitals that can boast someone who thought he was Napoleon, but St. Cerebellum’s could field three—not to mention a handful of serial killers whose names inexplicably yet conveniently rhymed with their crimes. Notorious cannibal “Peter the Eater” was incarcerated here, as were “Sasha the Slasher” and “Mr. Browner the Serial Drowner.” But the undisputed king of rhyme-inspired serial murder was Isle of Man resident Maximilian Marx, who went under the uniquely tongue-twisting epithet “Mad Max Marx, the Masked Manxman Axman.” Deirdre Blott tried to top Max’s clear superiority by changing her name so as to become “Nutty Nora Newsome, the Knife-Wielding Weird Widow from Waddersdon,” but no one was impressed, and she was ostracized by the other patients for being such a terrible show-off.

“We have funding to demolish the old nuthouse, Dr. Maxilla,” explained Dr. Mandible earnestly, catching sight of the Japanese delegate’s obvious distaste at the moldering fabric of the building, and adding quickly, “I’m sorry, when I said ‘nuthouse,’ I actually meant ‘secure hospital.’"

“It’s an easy mistake to make,” replied Dr. Maxilla cheerfully.

“I often refer to my patients as ‘the loons.’"

Dr. Mandible smiled. They understood each other perfectly.

There were five delegates following Dr. Mandible’s brisk pace down the corridors, each hailing from a different nation. They were visiting St. Cerebellum’s as part of an international exchange of ideas concerning the treatment of the dangerously criminally insane; Dr. Mandible himself had attended Professor Frank Strait’s specialist hospital in Ohio and would visit Dr. Maxilla’s clinic in Kobe at the end of the year.

“I understand that one of your consultants was caught conducting unethical experiments,” said the French delegate, Dr. Vômer. “Such as grafting a kitten’s head onto a haddock.”

“Dr. Quatt? I barely knew her,” replied Mandible hurriedly,

“and her experiments were conducted without the knowledge or approval of the hospital governors or even of QuangTech, who own the hospital.”

“Oh!” said Vômer, who had once himself dabbled in the ethically gray area of grafting things onto other things for no apparent purpose. “Her work was much admired in Toulouse, where such experiments are permitted for gastronomic research.”

Mandible sighed. “I wish our own medical council were as broad-minded. She was one of St. Cerebellum’s most celebrated perverters of the natural order. But, alas, she died earlier this year.”

“A great loss,” said Vômer sadly. “I was hoping to speak to her—was it unexpected?”

“She was hit on the head with a shovel and then crushed by a falling beanstalk while being carried to safety by a bizarre genetic experiment gone horribly wrong,” replied Mandible thoughtfully,

“so I think it’s safe to say it was unexpected—but what she would have wanted nonetheless.”

“And her experiments?”

“Disposed of.”

“Even the monkey’s brain kept alive in a jar?” queried Dr. Maxilla, his voice tinged with disappointment.

“I’m afraid so. I mean, mercifully so. Ah! Security.”

He was glad to be able to change the subject. They had reached a steel gate with a guard behind it, who was reading a copy of The Toad and looking bored.

“I’m afraid you must leave all sharp objects and personal possessions behind,” intoned Dr. Mandible. “To take notes I will supply you with presoftened crayons and notepads of damp tissue paper bound with moldy wool.”

There was a sudden hush. The delegates looked at one another nervously.

Dr. Maxilla gave voice to their collective thoughts. “Doctor, are you proposing that we are to wander amid your inmates… unprotected?”

The other doctors nodded in agreement and started to mutter among themselves. Dr. Mandible held up his hands in a conciliatory manner and smiled benignly.

“Here at St. Cerebellum’s we are trying to help the repeatedly violent offender by increasing hospital security to a maximum but reducing individual security to a minimum. The patients are allowed to wander relatively freely within the confines of the hospital’s outdoor compound.”

“You mean, that is to say, we are likely to face—I mean, without bars— HIM? ”

Mandible smiled again. “It is a radical treatment, I grant you, but we are more than happy with the results, and I assure you that you will come to no harm. The patient to whom you refer is one of our greatest successes, and although he is transported from place to place within the hospital using the methods recommended by law—in his case with straitjacket and bite mask—it is unnecessary, for he has renounced violence and freely accepted his loss of liberty as a just punishment for his crimes.”

Even though no name had been spoken, they all knew whom he was talking about. The patient in question was the star attraction of the hospital and the only reason any of them had bothered to visit Dr. Mandible and his otherwise dull hospital in the first place. Even though St. Cerebellum’s secure wing was home to nine serial killers, three poisoners, one cannibal and an arsonist or two, only one of them had continued to command front-page status since his capture twenty years before. His name alone would cause a shiver to run down the spine of anyone who had even the slightest association with him.

Dr. Mandible smiled at them, but they did not smile back. Even the most committed of them had never had merely fresh air between them and their most dangerous patients.

“Did he really pull men’s arms from their sockets?” asked Dr. Maxilla, a slight tremor in his voice.

“Not at all,” replied Mandible. “He pulled anyone’s arms from their sockets. He was never gender-exclusive and always the most egalitarian of psychotics—anything with a pulse was fair game for slaughter. He once saved the life of someone simply so he could kill him in a more imaginative fashion.”

“So the story about the guinea pigs and the kebab skewer is true?”

“ All the stories are true,” replied Mandible, gesturing for them to follow, “except the one where he showed mercy to a little old lady. It wasn’t mercy at all—he had a dentist’s appointment and was in a hurry.”

He led them through the steel gate, on the other side of which three burly orderlies were waiting to escort them. They walked down a short corridor and blinked as they stepped into a large outdoor area surrounded by a high wall. The compound was laid out as a spacious garden, and they could see patients tending small areas of their own. Dr. Mandible led them down a concrete path to a beefy, neckless bull of a man who was weeding a vegetable patch.

“Hello, Martin,” said Dr. Mandible calmly.

“Hello, Doc,” said the man cheerily. “Carrots will be good this year.”

“Splendid!” replied Dr. Mandible, patting the patient amiably on the shoulder and passing on.

“Martin Gooch,” whispered Mandible. “Frustrated film director. Went mad and slaughtered a producer with an ax, then killed anyone who reminded him of the producer, and after that anyone at all. Spent the first three years of his treatment in solitary because of his violent disposition. After six years of origami therapy we reclassified him from Category B, ‘dangerously insane,’ to Category D, ‘functionally bonkers.’"