Inspector Hobbes and the Curse - a fast-paced comedy crime fantasy (unhuman)

by Martin, Wilkie

  ‘Why would anyone watch you? And why can’t you catch the cat? It can’t really vanish.’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a mystery.’

  I scratched my head for Hobbes rarely admitted ignorance, and asked another question that had been bugging me. ‘What are the tunnels for? Who made them?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I can,’ said Hobbes, ‘but I’m no expert on tunnelling. I discovered them by chance many years ago while searching for a lost farthing. They are, I believe, ancient and, I suspect, may pre-date human settlement in this area. However, there are extensive crypts under the church that may have been part of the tunnels once upon a time.’

  ‘Any idea who did make them?’

  ‘Not for sure, but something still lives down there. I’ve picked up their scent now and again but I can’t categorise it. I just think of them as troglodytes and if I use their tunnels I make sure to leave a gift of meat in payment. It always goes, and goes quickly.’

  ‘Troglodytes? Do you think they’re dangerous?’

  ‘Probably, though they’ve never bothered me and, since they do not, to my knowledge, commit any crimes and, since they evidently don’t wish to meet me, I leave them be. They are not the only dangers, though. You were right on the edge of a shaft when I found you. Two more steps and you’d have dropped right in.’

  I shivered and, the phone warbling suddenly, spilled tea down my shirt. Fortunately it had cooled.

  Hobbes shook his head. ‘You’ll need another clean shirt and it’s still only two o’clock.’ Chuckling, he reached for the phone.

  ‘Inspector Hobbes,’ he said, ‘how can I help you? … Yes, he is here. Would you like to talk to him? Right you are.’ He winked at me. ‘It’s for you.’

  10

  Since no one ever rang me, I took the phone from Hobbes feeling confused.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Andy, it’s me.’

  ‘Violet?’ My heart dancing ecstatically, I broke into a sweat. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Who were you expecting?’

  She sounded a little hurt.

  ‘No one. I just thought after … well … after last time you’d probably want to forget all about me.’

  ‘It was hardly your fault, was it?’

  ‘No … but I just thought …’

  ‘I called round this morning, but Mrs Goodfellow said you were out. Didn’t she say?’

  ‘Well … yes, she did. Umm … I’m glad you’ve called.’

  ‘Thank you. Did you go anywhere nice?’

  ‘No, I got lost.’

  ‘Where?’

  Hobbes shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know … I just found myself lost, if that makes any sense. I’m found now.’

  ‘Good,’ she said with a gentle laugh, ‘because I was wondering if we might … er … meet again. If that’s alright with you?’

  ‘Umm … OK,’ I said. ‘If you’d like.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to if you don’t want.’

  It dawned on me that my response might have suggested a lack of enthusiasm. The only excuse I could make was that I’d still been reeling from Hobbes’s revelations when the surprise of hearing her voice had knocked me off balance; it was a good thing I still had the wits to realise in time. ‘Sorry, that didn’t come out quite the way it should have. What I mean is, I’d really like to see you again.’

  ‘That’s good, because I’d love to see you, too.’

  My heart leapt. ‘That’s great … fantastic. Umm … when?’

  ‘How about tomorrow afternoon? I finish at four on Fridays so I could come round straight after.’

  I paused, as if checking through my varied appointments. ‘Umm … yeah, that sounds fine. What would you like to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, hesitantly. ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘I don’t know either … umm,’ I replied, my mind completely out of ideas.

  ‘How about,’ said Hobbes in what he evidently meant as a whisper, ‘going to the pictures or for a picnic?’

  ‘Good ideas,’ said Violet. ‘Are you alright? Your voice sounded hoarse.’

  ‘I’m great. It wasn’t my voice, but it was a good idea.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Both, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll just check the forecast,’ said Violet, clicking computer keys. ‘It says the rain’s going to pass, so a picnic could be good fun.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘so long as we steer clear of Loop Woods, with things being what they are.’

  ‘I’ll second that. Where would you suggest?’

  She had me there. I caught myself ‘umming’, a bad habit I was occasionally guilty of. I just couldn’t think of anywhere suitable.

  ‘How about the arboretum?’ said Hobbes.

  ‘Umm … how about the arboretum?’ I said.

  ‘Why not? Where is it?’

  ‘Umm …’ I glanced at Hobbes for inspiration.

  ‘The other side of Hedbury. About a ten-minute drive.’

  I relayed the message, including an appropriate adjustment for normal driving. ‘It’s the other side of Hedbury. That’s probably twenty minutes by car.’

  ‘It sounds ideal. I’ll come round just after four.’

  ‘Sounds great … umm … but what about food?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, laughing again, ‘I’d forgotten that. I suppose we could just pop into a supermarket and pick up a few things. Anyway, I’ve really got to go now; I’ve got emails to send. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.’

  ‘Great,’ I said, ‘I’m looking forward to it. Bye.’

  Putting the phone down, amazed, I turned towards Hobbes. ‘She’s going to pick me up tomorrow at four.’

  ‘Who is, dear?’ asked Mrs G, coming in from the kitchen, sagging beneath the weight of the sledgehammer on her shoulder.

  ‘Violet is,’ I said. ‘We’re going for a picnic at the arboretum.’

  ‘Good for you, dear. I can make up a hamper if you’d like.’

  ‘There’s no need. We can get something from the shops.’

  ‘You could,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘but I could make up something special.’

  ‘I don’t want to inconvenience you,’ I said, thinking I ought to put on a little show of reluctance before accepting, for there was no doubt a spread she would rustle up would put any shop-bought stuff to shame.

  ‘It won’t be a problem, dear.’

  ‘OK, then,’ I said, as if doing her a favour, ‘I’d be delighted.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, smiling, stumping upstairs, dragging the sledgehammer.

  I have no idea what she did with it for I heard nothing after her door shut. I sat back next to Hobbes, expecting to continue our little talk when the phone warbled again.

  ‘Inspector Hobbes,’ he answered, ‘how can I help you? What? … I see … How many? Right, just the one? Are you sure? Yes, I suppose one is enough … I’ll be right over.’ Slapping down the receiver, he turned to me and grinned.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not so much up as out.’

  ‘Out? What’s out, then?’ I asked, puzzled by his gleeful expression.

  ‘An elephant.’ He rubbed his hands together, sounding like someone trying to grate a coconut shell, and pulled out his car keys.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘I know but I meant “why?” or “where?” I mean why is there an elephant out? Where is it? What’s it doing?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in the car,’ said Hobbes, ‘if you’d like to come along … Dregs!’

  Rain pattering against the window, I grabbed my mac as the dog bounded past.

  ‘Come along, and quickly,’ Hobbes urged, opening the front door, leaping down the steps, looking like an excited child, if you could ignore his bulk and his hairiness and his large, lumpy head, which I couldn’t.

  Dregs and I followed, running through the puddles, flinging ourselves into t
he car as he drove away. Somewhere, a horn blared but he gave it no mind, unlike Dregs who barked at the challenge. As I strapped myself in, hanging onto the seat, I wondered again about the folly that kept me following Hobbes. Time and time again I’d argued with myself that I didn’t have to but, whenever the call came, I responded before my brain had a chance to stop me. Still, going anywhere with him usually lead to excitement and, much to my surprise, part of me that had never before manifested itself found it irresistible.

  ‘Right,’ he said, twisting the wheel as we screeched into Pound Street, ‘about the elephant.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘Apparently, it was being transported from one zoo to another. When the driver stopped for a cup of tea at the Greasy Pole it escaped and is now running amuck in the car park.’

  ‘How could it escape?’

  ‘You have as much idea as I do.’ The car swerved and speeded up.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know, yet.’

  ‘Will there be backup?’

  ‘Oh yes, Derek Poll is on the scene and, of course, I’ll have you.’

  ‘Oh, great.’

  In a matter of minutes we were screeching to a halt by the Greasy Pole café where thirty or more gawping people had gathered. PC Poll’s long arms were holding them back. An athletic-looking young man in a dark suit, towards the front of the crowd, appeared vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t place him. Besides, I was more interested in the rogue elephant, which, though I couldn’t see it, I could deduce, using the detective skills I’d picked up from Hobbes, had recently been in the vicinity. It had clearly been on the café’s patio – all over it in fact – and by the time I was out of the car, Dregs was sniffing at the steaming dung as if at a rare perfume. I suspected, however, that the pile of pooh had not yet registered with Eric Wyszynski, the café’s owner, who, dressed in his habitual stained white jacket, his scrawny, tattooed hands clasped to his greasy hair, was staring at what remained of his café, a pile of rubble having appeared where there’d once been a wall. He wasn’t taking his misfortune well to judge from the river of obscenities spewing from beneath his nicotine-stained moustache.

  The elephant had presumably escaped from the box-trailer in the car park, a trailer that was, in my opinion, far too small to hold one in comfort for any time and, to judge from the state of it, it had been inside for a considerable time. Though I took the scene in within a few seconds, the star of the show was missing.

  ‘Where is it then?’ I asked.

  In response, Hobbes, wrapping an arm around me, leaped backwards, completely over the car, landing on the grass verge behind. The shock, knocking the wind out of me, I was still struggling for breath as he set me back on my feet. Then, with a trumpeting and the pounding of heavy feet, the elephant lumbered over the spot where I’d been standing, heading directly towards the onlookers who scattered like dry leaves in the wind. Only one elderly man, standing beneath a black umbrella, didn’t move a muscle. It was Augustus Godley, the oldest human in Sorenchester, who was still hale and well, despite the slowness of age.

  As the elephant pounded towards him, I thought he’d had it, for I couldn’t see how even Hobbes could rescue him in time. Yet, he didn’t need to, for the beast, swerving, ran across the road, causing a big blue car to brake sharply and a small white one to run into the back of it. Neither driver got out as the elephant trundled into a meadow by the side of the river Soren.

  ‘Are you alright?’ I asked, running towards the old man, who was wearing a strange smile.

  ‘Aye, lad,’ he said, ‘I’m grand. This takes me back to the time I was in India, when I had to shoot an elephant in my pyjamas.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘How it got into my pyjamas, I’ll never know.’ A thin laugh wheezed between his lips.

  ‘C’mon, Andy,’ Hobbes shouted. ‘And quickly, this is no time for listening to Mr Godley’s jokes. There’s an elephant to catch.’

  ‘How? Won’t you need a tranquilliser gun?’

  ‘Let’s hope not.’

  ‘Oh, great.’

  He loped across the road and into the meadow. The elephant, standing in the river, drinking, watched, flapping his great ears.

  ‘Now then, my lad,’ said Hobbes, approaching the beast, ‘let’s be having you. By rights you should be in your trailer.’

  The elephant, shaking his massive tusks, lobbed a trunk-full of mud.

  Hobbes sidestepped it and continued. ‘That’s enough of your nonsense.’

  ‘Be careful, sir,’ said PC Poll.

  Hobbes looked back with a grin. ‘Of course, but I’m sure Jumbo will come quietly.’ As he reached for the elephant it shook its broad, grey head, seized him around the waist, lifted him high in the air and shook him like a terrier shakes a rat.

  ‘An awkward customer, eh?’ said Hobbes, dangling upside down over the river. With a grunt, he took the trunk in his hands, squeezing until, the elephant releasing him, he fell backwards into the river with a great splash and a yell. Jumping up in one fluid movement, grabbing a flapping ear, he half vaulted, half hauled himself onto the elephant’s back. Dregs ran towards them, barking.

  The great beast, taking fright, bolted along the river bed away from me, sending up curtains of foaming cappuccino-coloured water. Hobbes, somehow clinging to its back, despite the violent bouncing and scything attacks from its trunk, looked surprisingly small and vulnerable.

  ‘Why doesn’t he get down?’ I muttered.

  ‘He can’t get down from an elephant,’ said Augustus who, having shuffled to my side, was watching proceedings with a smile.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘Because, down comes from ducks.’ He chuckled.

  I groaned, staring at him. Hobbes might be killed any moment and all Augustus, an old friend of his, could do was make stupid, schoolboy jokes.

  ‘I’d move, if I were you, sir,’ cried PC Poll.

  Dregs, tail between his legs, was rushing towards us, the elephant close behind, with Hobbes still clinging on, the grin on his face making him look like a child enjoying a free ride on the rollercoaster. PC Poll’s advice seemed reasonable, so turning away, I fled. I’d only gone ten steps or so when, remembering Augustus, I hesitated, slowed, stopped and turned back. The elephant was again heading straight towards him, and I had no chance of reaching him in time. Since I could no longer see Hobbes, I assumed he’d fallen off. The elephant bellowed and wondering if, perhaps, he wasn’t running quite so fast, reckoning I might just have a chance, I sprinted towards Augustus, who was watching calmly, unconcerned by the mountain of muscle bearing down on him. I reached him a moment before the elephant, still bellowing, came to a standstill, almost within touching distance.

  Hobbes’s voice rang out. ‘Are you two alright?’

  I still couldn’t see him. ‘We’re fine,’ I shouted. ‘How about you?’

  ‘A little wet.’

  ‘Where are you?’ I asked, peering along the river’s sodden banks.

  ‘Here.’ His hand waved from behind the elephant, which was standing still, as if in deep thought.

  In a slow and stately manner, it turned, stomping up the bank into the meadow, while Dregs bristled and growled from a safe distance. Hobbes, gripping its tail in one hand, seeming to have its undivided attention, guided it towards the trailer. I expected him to force it back inside. Instead, he shouted, ‘Who’s in charge of this poor animal?’

  A stout, little man wearing greasy overalls and a faded denim cap, looking around, as if expecting to see someone, finally raised his hand. ‘It looks like I am, guvnor. But I’m only the driver.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Hobbes, ‘before he goes back, he needs feeding and I want the trailer cleaned out properly and a good supply of clean water and fodder put in. How long was he in there?’

  ‘I don’t know, guvnor, but I only picked him up a couple of hours ago.’

  ‘Who was in charge before that?’

/>   ‘I don’t know. A bloke in a suit paid me five hundred quid to take the rig to Brighton Zoo. I only met him this morning.’

  ‘Where did you pick it up?’

  ‘At a service station, the other side of Birmingham. It took us the best part of two hours to get here. The bloke reckoned that, as it would take us another couple of hours to reach Brighton, it’d be a good idea to stop here and get a bite to eat. He said it was pretty good.’

  I shuddered. In the past, having eaten at the Greasy Pole, I knew it wasn’t good. Furthermore, Hobbes had hinted that he knew something about the place, something too horrible for my delicate ears. The only element in its favour was that it wasn’t expensive.

  ‘Where is the gentleman now?’ asked Hobbes.

  The little man shook his head. ‘I wish I knew, guvnor. He hasn’t paid me yet. All I know is that I was just sitting down with my burger and my mug of coffee when he says he has to step out, ’cause he’s gotta make sure the elephant’s alright. A couple of minutes later, all hell breaks loose, the wall comes down, the ceiling caves in, and we has to run for it.’

  ‘I see,’ said Hobbes. ‘Do you know the gentleman’s name?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Hobbes sighed. ‘Fair enough. Just get the trailer cleaned up and feed Jumbo.’

  ‘Me? It’s not my trailer. I’m just moving it.’

  Hobbes growling, the little man ran up the ramp into the trailer, grabbed a bucket and shovel and set to work.

  ‘I’ve got my hands full, Derek,’ said Hobbes, turning to face Constable Poll, ‘so would you ensure no one’s been injured and then take statements from anyone who’s got anything useful to say?’ He beckoned me. ‘Andy, find some food for this beast and plenty of it.’

  ‘Umm … right. What do they eat?’

  ‘Cabbage, bread, apples, bananas, carrots – that sort of thing. Try the kitchen. It looks like some of it’s still standing.’

  Eric appeared, wiping his eyes as if he’d been crying. ‘He can’t just go taking what he wants from my café.’