Inspector Hobbes and the Common People: Comedy Crime Fantasy (Unhuman Book 5)

by Wilkie Martin

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘But, I’m worried. What if Mr Hobbes is one of the cryptids? I don’t want to make things awkward for him.’

  ‘That’s a good point,’ I said. ‘And there are others: Featherlight and Sid and … ’

  Daphne bit her lip. ‘That’s true—I’m now wondering if I was a little hasty in suggesting that I’d accept the work. I was thinking about things like the Loch Ness Monster and dragons, not people we know. I’m just glad I didn’t sign the contract.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you could always leave our friends out of your report.’

  ‘I could, but would it be right or fair to expose the others? Whatever you want to call them.’

  ‘Unhumans,’ I suggested.

  She nodded. ‘Would it be right to expose them? I’m sure Valentine means no harm, but … I’m not sure what to do.’

  ‘Umm … you could give him a bogus report. Something he’d like to read.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be ethical. I’d be taking money under false pretences.’

  ‘You’ll never become a newspaper reporter with ideas like that,’ I said, intending it as a joke, though it contained a massive dollop of truth—I’d met a number of reporters who’d based lucrative careers on pandering to their readers’ prejudices rather than in revealing the truth. I had a nagging fear Ralph was one of them, and though I maintained a naive belief in honest journalism, I had no wish to lose my job. How far would I compromise my ideals to keep it?

  ‘I’m going to think about it,’ said Daphne.

  ‘It’s often best to sleep on a problem.’

  She nodded, but looked sceptical. ‘But am I delaying when I’ve already decided in my heart? Am I just making things more difficult than they are? If you have to swallow a frog, it’s best not to look at it for too long.’

  ‘That reminds me,’ I said. ‘What would you like for supper?’

  ‘Not much—I’m still quite full from lunch. How about you?’

  ‘I am a little peckish. Perhaps I’ll make some beans on toast.’

  ‘That would be okay—just one slice for me. Is your leg up to standing?’

  ‘Probably—I’ve barely given it a thought today. It’s still tender if I poke it, but other than that, I think it’s almost better.’

  ‘Good.’ She smiled. ‘I’d suggest not poking it, and sleeping upstairs tonight.’

  Next morning, I woke in bed—it was so much comfier than the sofa and I’d slept heavily. Daphne was already sitting up. She looked tired.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘I woke early and couldn’t get back to sleep.’

  ‘Are you still worrying about Grubbe’s contract?’

  She nodded. ‘We really could do with the money, but I don’t want to put our friends and others in the spotlight. Mr Hobbes hates publicity, and what if people find out about Sid? Many are scared of difference, and it’s easy to whip up their fears, even though Sid’s harmless.’

  I nodded, though I would never have described Sid Sharples, our bank manager and friend, as harmless. He was, for sure, a charming, kindly man, but unlike Daphne, I’d seen him fight—he also happened to be a vampire.

  ‘If the wrong people find out,’ Daphne continued, ‘there might be trouble—I keep thinking of those old films when the townsfolk take up flaming torches and pitchforks to kill the monster. What would you do?’

  I came close to saying that I wouldn’t have had any dealings with Grubbe in the first place, whether or not we needed the money. However, I figured out just in time that this might not be tactful. ‘Umm … you could talk to Hobbes.’

  ‘But he’s always busy, and he’s helped us so much already.’

  ‘He won’t mind,’ I said. ‘He won’t bite your head off.’

  Daphne nodded and gasped. ‘Look at the time! We’d better get a move on or we’ll be late for work.’

  After a quick shower, a shave and a bite of breakfast, I headed towards the Bugle, my leg giving only the occasional mild twinge. I was approaching the office when a rusty white minibus packed with tough-looking men stopped at the kerbside. The driver, wearing stained jeans and a grubby white t-shirt, leapt out holding a large brown envelope and rushed into the building. I reached the front door and was pressing down on the handle, when he ran back out, apologised for bumping into me, jumped back into the minibus and sped away. I was halfway upstairs before I realised it had been Corbett, the chauffeur. Why was he driving an old minibus? Not that it was any of my business what he did in his spare time.

  ‘Morning, Andy!’ Ralph’s hearty voice boomed round the office as I entered. ‘What time do you call this?’

  I checked the clock—I wasn’t late, but I still felt guilty. ‘Time I was at work,’ I said.

  ‘Quite right.’

  Something looked different. A desk was empty. Not mine, but Duncan Donohue’s. ‘What’s up with Dunc?’ I asked. Our crime correspondent was always punctual.

  ‘I’ve had to let Drunken Duncan go.’ Ralph made a drinking-from-a-bottle gesture. ‘His replacement starts next week. In the meantime, Andy, I’d like five hundred words to reassure our readers that the police are close to an arrest in the Timmy Rigg case and that there is nothing to worry about.’

  Shocked at Duncan’s fate, I nodded, accepting the assignment with the assurance of one who’d once been the Bugle’s temporary deputy stand-in crime-reporter. Back then, I got fired by Rex Witcherley, the editor, because, instead of reporting a case, I’d got myself involved in it. That was when I’d first met Hobbes.

  ‘Now that’s sorted out,’ said Ralph, ‘I have a meeting. I’ll be back in an hour or two. If anyone wants me, tell them … oh, just make up something.’

  Basil Dean was lurking behind his computer screen. As Ralph left, he leaned across, fixed his non-revolving eye on me and whispered. ‘He didn’t fire Dunc. Dunc resigned—he didn’t like what our esteemed editor had done to his piece about shady dealings in Squire’s new development.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  Basil continued. ‘By the time Ralph had finished with it, possible criminal activity sounded like a harmless, schoolboy prank, nothing more than a naughty, but understandable, bending of the rules to cut through the tedious bureaucracy and ensure the smooth running of a project that will benefit the whole of Sorenchester, if not the whole of humankind.’

  ‘I can see why that annoyed Dunc,’ I said.

  ‘Annoyed is not the word! He had a meltdown, called Ralph all the rude names in the dictionary plus several I hadn’t heard before, and resigned on the spot.’

  ‘That’s drastic,’ I said. ‘What’s he going to do?’

  ‘Not a clue, mate,’ said Basil.

  ‘I expect he’ll look for a job elsewhere.’

  Basil nodded. ‘But there aren’t so many these days, and word gets around, if you know what I mean. Dunc will be lucky to get anything in newspapers at his time of life.’

  ‘You have got to admire him, though,’ I said.

  ‘Have I?’ said Basil. ‘Well, I don’t blame him—I might do the same myself if I wasn’t within a year of retirement. I did a piece about the town’s infrastructure not being able to cope with the development, the roads being too small for the increased traffic, the sewers and drains already being near capacity, and the requirement for a whole new supply of water, gas and electricity. Our idiotic editor changed enough to make them seem minor points that are all dealt with in the planning documents. They aren’t, though—I’ve gone through them line by line, and … ’

  ‘Rather you than me,’ I said.

  ‘ … and there’s not a mention of these factors. They’ll cost this town and district millions, and the developers will barely pay a penny.’

  The door burst open and Ralph marched in, flanked by two heavies.

  ‘I heard all that, Mr Dean,’ said Ralph. ‘If you don’t want to work with my methods, I don’t want you on my team. Pack your things, you are out. Now!’

  �
�You’ve been bugging us!’ said Basil.

  ‘No, just listening in.’ Ralph pointed towards the phone on the desk. It was off the hook. He held a mobile in his hand. I desperately tried to think if I’d said anything out of turn.

  Basil, pale of face, his eyes angry, swept his belongings into his backpack. ‘If I were you, Andy, I’d get out of this.’

  All I could do was to risk a sympathetic smile as the two heavies escorted him from the building.

  ‘Sorry you had to witness that,’ said Ralph, ‘but I’d suspected Mr Dean was undermining my authority.’ He smiled. ‘The office will be a much more harmonious place without his disruptive presence.’

  ‘But who’s going to find the stories and write all the articles?’ I asked. ‘Duncan and Basil were our chief reporters.’

  ‘Mr Donahue’s replacement will do most of that when she gets here. In the meantime, Andy, you must fill in for them. I’ll lend a hand when I have a few minutes.’ Ralph smiled.

  My stomach lurched. How could I do three people’s jobs? I barely had the time to do my own.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Ralph, reading my panicked expression. ‘It’ll be easy. All we have to do is work smarter, not harder.’

  He grinned as if the vacuous remark meant something. I grinned back, humouring the maniac.

  15

  It became the busiest day of my newspaper career. No sooner had I bashed out an optimistic and ill-informed draft about the investigation into Timmy’s murder than Ralph demanded it, edited it, and posted it on the Bugle’s web edition, one of Phil Waring’s innovations. Before I’d had time to look at the finished article, Ralph had me writing up my review of Le Sacré Bleu, which I did without mentioning Grubbe or Rosemary Crackers. Next, I wrote five hundred words in praise of Councillor Ranulph Sydney for his sterling work in ensuring the potholes in the town’s roads were fixed. Although I’d not noticed any improvements, Ralph insisted it would make our readers happy. I began to understand his point of view—saying something was better was almost as effective and was far cheaper than doing anything. Lunch was a sandwich and a can of lemonade at my desk, while typing a few words about the ongoing rhea hunt with my free hand.

  Having finished both sandwich and the rhea story, I stood up and reached for my jacket.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ asked Ralph.

  ‘Out, to see if I can find some stories to report.’

  ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ said Ralph, slamming his fist on his desk with every syllable. ‘That’s not working smarter—you’ll waste all your time doing nothing before coming across anything of interest, and there’s still half a paper to fill.’

  ‘Umm … what should I do then?’

  ‘Google other news sites and social media and find something interesting about the area.’

  ‘Alright, and if anything turns up, I can go there—that’s not a bad idea.’

  ‘No!’ Ralph shook his head. ‘Cut and paste the good bits and puff them out a bit with local knowledge and imagination. Add names when you can, and if it’s not opening the paper up to a libel case—people love to read about themselves and their friends. We need to make the Bugle profitable again, and we’ll do that by pleasing our readers and our advertisers.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, too flummoxed to resist.

  ‘Good.’ Ralph nodded and smiled. ‘Start with Twitter.’

  I spent the next four hours browsing, cutting and pasting and making stuff up. It filled the paper, but it was light years away from what I’d always considered reporting—there was no time to reflect or delve. In truth, I hadn’t always lived up to my own standards, but I couldn’t help feeling that there ought to be some meat in a story, seasoned, if possible, with a little unbiased analysis. I didn’t complain, though—Basil’s abrupt firing had unnerved me. He was a solid, experienced reporter, far better than me, and had often helped out in my early days at the paper. Looking back to when I’d been a cub reporter for an embarrassing length of time, I would have lost my job on several occasions had he not quietly come to my rescue. I would miss him. Duncan, too, though he’d been inclined to keep himself to himself.

  The Bugle felt different. Of course, all businesses must adapt, but in the past, new technology and the slow flow through of staff had driven the change. Now, I was astonished and terrified to be the only reporter other than Ralph himself. However, Ralph had already enrolled two new people into our advertising section, since he believed ads brought in far more revenue than actual sales of the paper. He demanded that staff treat companies who’d paid for advertising with respect at all times. Although I’d thought this reasonable when he’d first said it, I’d now glimpsed what it meant in practice and was worried.

  ‘That’s me finished for the day,’ said Ralph at six o’clock. ‘You’ve done well, Andy—I knew you would!’

  I mumbled my gratitude.

  He stepped towards the door. ‘I’m off now. Don’t stay too late.’ He paused. ‘You do have the office keys, don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ I said—I’d never needed them and, I suspected, no one had trusted me with them before.

  ‘You can have Basil’s.’ Ralph reached into his desk drawer and handed me a bunch of keys. ‘There you go. Have a nice evening.’ He was off.

  I finished plagiarising a story about wasps in a log pile, locked up and trudged home.

  Daphne was in before me—a rare event.

  ‘Are you alright?’ she asked as I slumped onto the sofa.

  ‘I suppose so.’ I told her of the day’s events.

  She gave me a sympathetic smile and a hug, brought me a mug of tea, and I revived. ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Quiet.’

  ‘And … umm … did you do anything for Grubbe?’

  ‘Sort of. I searched during my lunchtime and found something that might be interesting, but I’m still worried about sharing it. I took your advice in the end.’

  ‘Good. What advice?’

  ‘I called Mr Hobbes—he’s invited us for supper.’ She glanced at the hideous cuckoo clock on the wall, a wedding gift from my parents. ‘We don’t want to be late.’

  I nodded. ‘We’d better get a move on—he can get rather wild when he’s hungry.’

  She smiled. ‘So, move yourself—and quickly!’

  A brisk walk through town took us to Number 13 Blackdog Street. Daphne rang the bell, and Mrs Goodfellow opened the door a few seconds later. I braced myself against Dregs, but he didn’t show. I missed his enthusiasm. Still, I was more than compensated by the smell of cooking as the old girl led us into the sitting room.

  ‘Come in, dears, and make yourself comfortable.’ She gestured towards the worn but comfortable red velour sofa that must have occupied the spot for decades. It looked even more threadbare than I remembered. The room, neat and tidy as always, smelt of polish, though there was also the faint feral scent I associated with Hobbes.

  ‘The old fellow will be home in a few minutes—he and Dregs are out having a friendly little chat with a fraudster who tricked old Mrs Diogenes out of her week’s pension.’

  From my experience of being an observer of Hobbes’s friendly little chats, the fraudster, if he had any wits left afterwards, would devote the rest of his life to charitable works.

  ‘I’d better check on the supper,’ said Mrs Goodfellow. ‘It won’t be long.’

  ‘Smells good,’ said Daphne.

  ‘Better than good,’ I said. My sad lunchtime sandwiches seemed a century ago.

  The front door opened. There was a woof, and I was engulfed in Dregs who, for reasons only he understood, loved to rough me up. I didn’t mind, unless he knocked me into a puddle, or worse. Daphne, on the other paw, he treated with gentle friendliness.

  ‘Evening all,’ said Hobbes, closing the front door and hanging up his raincoat. ‘Glad you could make it.’

  He pounded upstairs and returned a minute or two later, washed and wearing new slippers—novelty ones that looked like rabbits. I h
oped they were slippers.

  ‘Supper’s ready,’ said Mrs Goodfellow, making me jump, though not very high, since Dregs had draped himself over my legs.

  Trying not to rush, I allowed Daphne and Hobbes to lead me into the kitchen. We sat around the scrubbed wooden table and Mrs G carried over an iron casserole dish that looked as if it weighed as much as Dregs.

  ‘I hope Lancashire Hotpot is alright?’

  ‘Of course,’ Daphne and I said in unison.

  The old girl served us, Hobbes said grace, and we were allowed to eat. Succulent chunks of lamb melted in the mouth, the vegetables were magnificent, and the crisped, browned potatoes on top were perfect. The food at Le Sacré Bleu had been exceptional, but this went way beyond it for taste and comfort. I’d sometimes thought it was just as well she’d never opened a restaurant because all the others would have given up in despair, and I would never have got my job. I still found it strange that she never ate with us—in fact, I couldn’t recall ever seeing her eat at all, unless she’d have a taste to ensure a meal met the mark. It always did.

  We ate as ever in reverential silence.

  Afterwards, she gave us mugs of tea, cleared the table and started washing up.

  It’s often been said that it’s the thought that counts—I thought I might offer to help her, but my mobile vibrated in my pocket.

  Hobbes rose to his slippered feet and said to Daphne. ‘Let’s go through to the sitting room. I believe you have a question for me?’

  She nodded and stood up.

  ‘I’d better just check this,’ I said, taking my mobile out as they walked away. It was rare for me to receive a text, and most of the ones I did get I could have lived without.

  It was from Papa’s Piri-Piri Palace. ‘Thanks for your great review of our restaurant—much appreciated. Glad you enjoyed it. Come back anytime.’

  ‘What the!’

  ‘A problem, dear?’ asked Mrs Goodfellow, scrubbing a plate.

  ‘Umm … not exactly … it’s a mistake, I think. I hope so.’

  With all the haste my clumsy fingers would allow, I clicked onto the Bugle’s website and scrolled through until my review. But, despite having my name on the by-line, it was not mine at all—Ralph had changed it beyond recognition. I’d expected him to tone down my righteous fury, but he’d murdered it! Most of the words were mine, but re-arranged so that the piece now read like fulsome praise. It was appalling! Forgetting where I was, I swore.