Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason

"Hello," he said brusquely. "What have you got there?" - nodding at the gift.

Hardly able to speak with love and happiness, I handed him the box.

"I don't know what it is. I think it might be a biro."

He took the little biro out of the box, turned it round, put it back like, well, a shot, and said, "Bridget, this isn't a promotional biro, it's a fucking bullet."

Later still. OhmyChristalive. Was no time to discuss Thailand, Rebecca, love, anything.

Mark grabbed a napkin, took hold of the lid of the box and replaced it.

'I you can keep your head when all about you. ..' I whispered to myself.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Stay here. Don't touch it. It's a live bullet," said Mark.

He slipped out into the street, and glanced up and down in manner of TV detective. Interesting how everything in real-life police drama reminds one of TV, rather in same way picturesque holiday scenes remind one of postcards or ...

He was back. "Bridget? Have you paid up? What are you doing? Come on."

"Where?"

"The police station."

In the car started to gabble, thanking him for everything he'd done and saying how much the Poem had helped me in jail.

"Poem? What poem?" he said, swinging into Kensington Park Road.

"The 'If ' poem - you know - force your heart and nerve and ... oh God I'm really sorry you had to go all the way to Dubai, I'm so grateful, I. . ."

He stopped at the lights and turned to me.

"That's absolutely fine," he said gently. "Now stop autowittering gibberish. You've had a big shock. You need to calm down."

Humph. Whole idea was he was supposed to notice how calm and centred I am, not be telling me to calm down. Tried to calm down, but was very difficult when all could think was: someone wants to kill me.

When we got to the police station it was slightly less like a TV drama because everything was tatty and dirty and nobody seemed the slightest bit interested in us. The police officer on the desk tried to make us wait in the waiting room but Mark insisted we were taken upstairs. We ended up sitting in a great big dingy office with nobody in it.

Mark made me tell him everything that had happened in Thailand, asking me if Jed had mentioned anyone he knew in the UK, if the packet had come with the normal post, if I'd noticed anyone strange hanging around since I got back.

Felt a bit stupid telling him about how trusting we'd been with Jed, thinking he was going to tell me off, but he was really sweet.

"The worst you and Shaz could be accused of was breathtaking stupidity," he said. "You did very well in jail, I heard."

Although he was being sweet, he wasn't being ... well it all seemed on a very businesslike footing, not like he wanted to get back together or talk about anything emotional.

"Do you think you'd better call work?" he said, looking at his watch.

My hand shot to my mouth. Tried to tell self it would not matter whether I still had a job or not if I was dead but it was twenty past ten!

"Don't look like you've just accidentally eaten a child," said Mark laughing. "For once you've got a decent excuse for your pathological lateness."

I picked up the phone and dialled Richard Finch's direct line. He answered straight away.

"Oooh, it's Bridget, is it? Little Miss Celibacy? Two days back and she's playing truant. Where are you, then? Shopping, are we?"

If you can trust Yourself when all men doubt you, I thought. If you can ...

"Playing with a candle, are we? Candles out, girls!" He made a loud popping noise.

Stared at phone in horror. Could not work out whether Richard Finch has always been like this and I was different, or whether he was getting into some terrible drug-induced downward spiral.

"Give it to me," said Mark.

"No!" I said, grabbing the phone back and hissing, "I'm a person in my own right."

"Of course you are, darling, just not in your own right mind," murmured Mark.

Darling! He called me darling!

"Bridget? Fallen asleep again, have we? Where are you?" chortled Richard Finch.

"I'm in the police station."

"Ooh, back on the rokeekoke cokee? Jolly good. Got some for me?" he chuckled.

"I've had a death threat."

"Oooh! That's a good one. You'll get a death threat from me in a minute. Hahahaha. Police station, eh? That's what I like to see. Nice stable drug-free respectable employees on my team."

That was it. That was just about enough. I took a big breath.

Richard," I said grandly. "That, I'm afraid, is like the kettle calling the frying pan dirty bottom. Except that I haven't got a dirty bottom because I don't take drugs. Not like you. Anyway, I'm not coming back. Bye." And I put the phone down. Hah! Hahahaha! I thought briefly before remembering the overdraft, And the magic mushrooms. Except not strictly drugs, as natural mushrooms.

Just then, a policeman appeared, rushing by and completely ignoring us. "Look!" said Mark banging his fist down on the desk. "We've got a girl with a live bullet with her name on here. Can we see some action?"

The policeman stopped and looked. "It's the funeral tomorrow" he said huffily. "And we've got a knifing in Kensal Rise. I mean there are other people who have already been murdered." He tossed his head and flounced out.

Ten minutes later the detective who was supposed to be dealing with us came in with a computer printout. "Hello. I'm DI Kirby," he said, without looking at us.

He stared at the printout for a while, then up at me, raising his eyebrows.

"This is the Thailand file, I take it?" said Mark, looking over his shoulder, "Oh I see ... that incident in ..."

"Well, yes," said the detective.

"No, no, that was just a piece of fillet steak," said Mark. The policeman was looking at Mark oddly.

"It was left in a shopping bag by my mother," I explained, "and was starting to decay."

"You see? There? And this is the Thai report," Mark said, leaning over the form.

The detective put his arm around the form protectively, as if Mark were trying to copy his homework. Just then the phone rang. DI Kirby picked it up.

"Yes. I want to be in a squad car on Kensington High Street, Well, somewhere near the Albert Hall! When the cortege sets off. I want to pay my last respects," he said in an exasperated voice. "What's DI fucking Rogers doing there? OK, well, Buckingham Palace, then. What?"

"What did the report say about Jed?" I whispered. "'Jed' he said his name was, did he?" scoffed Mark. "Roger Dwight, actually."

"OK then, Hyde Park Corner. But I want it at the front of the crowd. Sorry about that," said DI Kirby, putting the phone down, and assuming the sort of overcompen satory efficient air I identified totally with from when I am late for work. "Roger Dwight," the detective said. "It's kind of pointing that way, isn't it?"

"I'd be very surprised if he's managed to organize anything himself," said Mark. "Not from Arabian custody." "Well, there are ways and means."

Was absolutely infuriating the way Mark was talking to the policeman over my head. Almost as if I were some kind of bimbo or half-wit.

"Excuse me," I said bristling. "Could I possibly participate in this conversation?"

"Of course," said Mark, "as long as you don't bring up any bottoms or frying pans."

Saw the detective looking from one to the other of us with a puzzled air. "He could, I guess, have organized someone else to send it," said Mark, turning to the detective, "but it seems somewhat unlikely, foolhardy even, given ..."

"Well, yes, in cases of this kind. Excuse me." DI Kirby picked up the phone. "Right. Well, tell Harrow Road they've already got two cars on the route!" he said petulantly. "No. I want to see the coffin before the service. Yes. Well, tell DI Rimmington to eff off. Sorry, sir." He put the phone down again and smiled masterfully.