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

by Martin, Wilkie

  ‘Where’s Mr Hobbes?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s gone to look for your family.’

  He nodded. ‘He’s a good man. There’s something about him though …’

  ‘You’re right there.’

  ‘He reminds me, well, of us. In a way.’

  ‘What d’you mean by us?’ I asked, suddenly wary.

  ‘I mean he’s not the same as other policemen, or other people. He’s not like you.’

  ‘That’s true. But why did you say us? What are you trying to say?’ My nerves were jangling.

  ‘Les,’ said Mr Bullimore, with a strange smile, ‘isn’t the only werewolf in the family. I’m part werewolf myself, on my mother’s side. Maybe that’s why I’m such a son of a bitch.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ I said, trying to ignore the urge to back away.

  ‘Yes, though I can’t change like Les can. About all I can do is to grow hair where I don’t want it and fetch sticks. Not much use really.’

  ‘But what about your daughter?’

  ‘Just the sticks, but the young ’uns take after their dad; they’re as fine a pack of werepups as you’ll ever see. I hope Mr Hobbes finds them.’

  He sniffed, looking at me with such a hangdog expression that it made me say something silly. ‘Umm … I suppose we could go and help him.’

  ‘He told me to stay here, but you’re right, I can’t just sit around when they might be in danger. Let’s go.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘if you’re quite sure. Or perhaps it would be better to wait? In case they come back. What d’you think?’

  ‘Let’s go.’ He stood up, looking resolute and strong, putting on a battered tweed jacket, and striding towards the front door. Opening it, he glanced back. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said, already regretting my careless talk, hoping it wouldn’t cost lives, particularly my own life, ‘though I think we’d better stick together.’

  As he stepped into the night, he nodded, which was some comfort as we marched along the lane, following in Hobbes’s footprints – if he’d left any.

  ‘Any ideas where to look?’ I asked when Mr Bullimore halted by the gate.

  ‘It depends if they’re free or if King has kidnapped them.’

  ‘Isn’t the word dognapped?’ I said unthinkingly, cringing as soon as the words were out.

  Mr Bullimore stared hard as I apologised, before drawing a deep breath. ‘We’ll try the woods. Werewolves feel secure in woods.’

  He stepped into the fields, walking quickly, not like Hobbes when he was in the mood, but fast enough to get me panting as I struggled to keep up. Ahead of us, deep within the shadow, loomed Loop Woods, and who knew what lurked within? A twig cracked and, at the same moment, catching my foot on something and stumbling, I thought I saw a movement on the edge of the wood. By the time I regained my balance, I’d lost sight of it.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘What was what?’ asked Mr Bullimore, walking on regardless.

  ‘I … umm … think I saw something. Perhaps we should go back to the house and get torches?’

  Turning back, he pushed an object into my hand. ‘Take this. I always carry a couple in my pocket, just in case.’

  For all its diminutive size, the torch had a powerful, if narrow, beam. Though it provided some reassurance, I’d much rather have returned to the farmhouse, despite it not feeling nearly so safe once Hobbes had left. However, it had thick, stone walls, a stout door and, most importantly, electric lights.

  ‘Hurry up,’ called Mr Bullimore.

  All of a sudden his voice was too far away. Running towards it, I found I was on the edge of Loop Woods, becoming aware of a strange sort of stillness, as if someone was hiding, holding their breath, waiting to leap out with a yell and scare me half to death.

  I glanced back over my shoulder seeing that the fires appeared to have been extinguished and that hundreds of torches were flashing, looking as far away as the stars. The headlights of a fire engine were reflecting on a stone wall, illuminating the still-smoking remains of a tent, as a bulky, dark-suited man appeared in the beam, brandishing a baseball bat at the frail, skinny figure advancing on him. It was Mrs Goodfellow, wagging her finger, as if telling him off. I felt sick and entirely helpless as he raised his club, yet, before he could bring it down, she, darting forward, appeared to tap him on the chin. As he toppled over backwards and Arnold sat on him, I felt enormously proud of the old girl.

  ‘Did you see that?’ I asked Mr Bullimore.

  There was no reply, just a flicker of his torch beam between the black trunks. Hastening towards it, I realised I was entering a quite different part of the woods to where Hobbes had taken me, for, where there’d been wide spaces between massive trees, soft leaf litter beneath my feet and the odd thorn bush to break up the pattern, this place was crammed with massive, old conifers with few paths. Though I struggled to catch up, I was always being forced out of my way, my torch beam seemingly feeble beneath the dark ceiling, as if the thick, resinous carpet was absorbing all light. My feet sinking into the litter, sharp needles found their way into my shoes, forcing me to stop, take them off and shake them out. When I’d finished, having no idea where Mr Bullimore had got to, I gave up following him, concentrating instead on not getting lost, reasoning that I couldn’t go far wrong so long as I didn’t lose sight of the glimmer of light seeping in from the edge of the wood behind me.

  Something rustled.

  ‘Mr Bullimore?’

  There was no reply.

  I was trying to convince myself it had only been a rabbit or something, when I received a tremendous blow between the shoulder blades. Falling forward, my torch flew from my hand like a rocket, clattering into a tree, the light going out.

  I came to, sprawled on my front, wondering if I’d gone blind. My head was throbbing, my back sore, and I could taste blood. Noticing a familiar, unwelcome smell, I groaned.

  ‘Welcome back,’ said a cold voice.

  ‘Felix?’

  His laugh made me shiver.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Over here.’

  Though I couldn’t see him, as I pushed myself into a sitting position, it sounded like he was in front of me. I didn’t feel too scared, being oddly reassured that I wasn’t alone, not really believing he’d do anything too serious. I hoped Mrs G had already taken care of his henchmen.

  ‘I think something hit me,’ I said.

  ‘Like this?’ he said, from behind, as something thumped into my back, knocking me face first into the pine needles. I sat up rubbing my neck.

  ‘Pain in the neck?’ said Felix, which sounded more like an accusation than a question.

  ‘That hurt.’

  ‘It was meant to.’

  ‘Why did you hit me?’

  ‘Why do you think I did it?’ His voice now came from my left side.

  ‘Because there’s only you here with me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, now on my right.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Here.’

  A blow to my chest sending me crashing onto my back, I gasped with the shock and moaned.

  ‘Shut your mouth! You’re pathetic, and the fun’s hardly started.’

  As I rolled over and got to my knees, a stunning blow to the back of my neck sent me sprawling, a galaxy of spinning stars filling my head. Hot blood pumped from my nose, pooling in my mouth, and my only consolation was that I couldn’t see it, as I attempted to staunch the flow.

  I couldn’t even try to fight if I couldn’t see him. Screaming for help was an option but, before I could give it a go, a clout to my ear knocked me against the rough bark of a tree, leaving me dazed. By then I was filled with cold, hard fear.

  ‘I thought I told you to shut your mouth? Did I tell you to shut your mouth?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, spitting blood.

  ‘So shut it before you make me angry.’

  Something growled behind me. My heart was thumping, my breathin
g was too rapid, I felt sick and everything seemed distant. A cuff across the back of my head made pretty lights dance to the throbbing pulse of pain and all I could do was curl up into a ball like a hedgehog, wishing I had a hedgehog’s sharp spines.

  As I lay there stunned, my mind fogged with fear, a memory resurfaced of a holiday long ago. I was barefoot, playing in a sunlit garden, blotched with the long, dark shadows of enormous trees, a big, old house in front of me, with a patio on which my father, sitting on a stripy deckchair, was reading a newspaper. I must have been about six or seven, because my sister was there in her pushchair. A shiny blue and red ball lay in the long grass at the edge of the lawn and, as I ran to kick it, my sister’s unexpected scream distracting me, I missed and felt a sudden pain. I fell down crying, blood oozing from several little holes in my foot, my father hurrying to see what was wrong. He picked me up, laughing, and pointed out the small, spiny creature curled up next to my ball.

  ‘You know something, Andy?’ Felix hissed, ‘I don’t like you.’

  I’d already guessed as much.

  ‘You won’t do as you’re told. I say, leave Violet alone and what do you do? You get her into a car crash, wait until she’s recovered and try it on again. I might have respected you a little if you’d had the balls to stand up to me, or even if you’d visited her in hospital, but you haven’t.’

  ‘I would have visited if I could.’

  ‘Shut up. What’s more, you hang around with that freak Hobbes, which is not right. You should not associate with his sort. Even worse, you keep company with the vermin from the farmhouse down there and it makes me sick to the stomach to think someone like you has been with my sister, has touched her and shaken my hand.’

  ‘I haven’t “been with” her, whatever that means. I just want to be friends,’ I said, sitting up, trying to get to my feet against the tree. Despite my fear, my anger was rising, until a thump to my solar plexus folded me up like a penknife.

  ‘Did I give you permission to speak? No, I don’t believe I did.

  ‘What sort of person are you? Do you actually enjoy mixing with vermin? It’s disgusting and shows you’re no better than they are. If anything, you’re worse, because that mongrel scum has no choice; they were born like it and they’ll die like it, and the sooner the better.’

  Spitting out another mouthful of blood, I tried to catch my breath, hoping my head would clear, groping for a stick, or anything to try defending myself, though, unless I could see, I doubted it would be of any use. His ranting, seeming entirely unhinged to me, was even more terrifying than the actual violence.

  Although I thought I couldn’t see a thing, I noticed there were two small, greenish glints, apparently hovering close together in mid-air just about where I guessed Felix might be. I stared at them, fascinated, while he continued his insane, though precise and articulate, diatribe against Bashem, Bullimore and Hobbes, until, when they blinked, I realised they were eyes, though human eyes wouldn’t glint in the dark like that. Knowing Felix had a panther with him reduced me to a quivering jelly of a man, for even a beating had to be better than being mauled. I concentrated on being as still as I could, on keeping quiet and on controlling my breathing.

  Felix stopped talking as distant shouts were followed by cheers. I guessed he was listening.

  I tried to see things from his point of view: his not liking me was, perhaps, understandable, his protectiveness towards Violet was admirable, in a way, and I could see why anyone might regard Hobbes as a freak, since he often appeared pretty freakish to me. However, I could see no reason for hating the Bashems so much for, although they were undoubtedly werewolves, the mere fact making me nervous, despite all Hobbes’s assurances, they’d done nothing, so far as I knew, to deserve the loathing Felix had heaped on them. Yet, since he was no longer spouting his nonsense, I hoped he might have calmed down, and risked opening my mouth.

  ‘Why do you hate the Bashem family so much?’ I asked, my voice sounding thin and shrill.

  ‘Because,’ he said, apparently in the mood to talk, ‘those half-breed werewolves are nothing more than vermin that pollute the good earth.’

  ‘But they don’t … umm … cause any harm, do they?’

  ‘They exist. What more harm can they do? Werewolves are an abomination and their mongrel spawn are even worse. It was one of them that frightened Violet and caused the crash. She might have been killed. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Yes … but she didn’t have to drive like that.’

  ‘She had to get away from the filth. She was disgusted and knew you’d be no defence. You’re not on their side, are you?’

  ‘No … of course not. I didn’t even know they were werewolves until Mr Bullimore told me tonight.’

  ‘Yet you still stayed with him? Did it not disgust you?’

  ‘I wasn’t … umm … disgusted – not really. I don’t know much about them but Hobbes says werewolves are shy and pretty harmless.’

  ‘And you always believe what that hulking freak says?’

  ‘Well, not necessarily,’ I answered truthfully, still finding the whole werewolf concept deeply and fundamentally alarming. Yet it was the way Felix talked about Hobbes that disturbed me most. I wasn’t sure why at first, since I’d thought much the same often enough, though not in the same words. Anyone might regard him as a freak – any police inspector who wasn’t human was certainly abnormal. At length, I realised: most people just accepted him at face value, as a police inspector. He might make them uncomfortable or scare them, but hardly anyone recognised he wasn’t human, at least not until they knew him well, and few knew him as well as I did.

  I risked another question. ‘Umm … why do you think Hobbes is a freak?’

  ‘Because he is.’ Felix laughed, though without any humour. ‘He’s degenerate, he stinks like a bear, he sniffs like a dog and he looks more than half like an ape. I don’t know what he is but he’s not human, though he seems to have you fooled.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ I shook my head. ‘I worked that out long ago.’

  ‘Well, then, since you’re so clever, perhaps you’d explain what he is?’

  ‘Umm … I don’t really know. I just know he’s … umm … unhuman.’

  ‘And yet, you continue to share a house with him and that crazy old woman. How do you stand it? It makes me ill to think of it.’ The noise he made, indicative of disgust, almost sounded like a growl.

  ‘I’ve got used to it. He’s not so bad when you get to know him … umm … most of the time he isn’t. Anyway, he’s nowhere near as strange as some of the other people round here.’

  ‘There’s truth in that,’ said Felix. ‘When I came to this backwater it was purely for business reasons; there was money to be made in developing this place. Parts of the town look like they haven’t changed for centuries. It needs modernising and I’m the one going to do it.’

  ‘By fair means or foul?’

  That produced a genuine laugh. ‘You’re right there, Andy. I might occasionally break the rules, or someone’s legs, but you’ve got to be ruthless to get on in my profession. I can’t afford to let niceties get in the way of progress.’

  ‘You got an elephant to demolish the Greasy Pole.’

  Another laugh. ‘Sometimes a flamboyant gesture pays dividends. Eric and I have since come to an arrangement that is mutually beneficial. I get his filthy café, for which I should get a medal, and he gets to keep his looks, such as they are.’

  ‘And what about Featherlight?’

  ‘That fat, filthy bar keeper,’ said Felix, allowing a tone of grudging respect into his voice, ‘is proving more difficult. He’s a stubborn man and as tough as his steaks, though he’s got no brains; that runt who works for him does the thinking.’

  ‘Billy?’

  ‘Yes, but that drunken dwarf won’t be a problem much longer.’

  ‘Why? What are you going to do to him?’

  ‘Me? I’m not going to do anything but the poor little chap rea
lly should check his brakes more often.’

  ‘That’s despicable.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  A thought occurred. ‘Umm … was it you killed Henry Bishop? And why?’

  ‘I’m afraid the dear departed Henry got greedy and thought it might be a good idea to blackmail me, since I’d employed his skills on a couple of little schemes. He had to go.’

  ‘So you set a panther on him?’

  ‘If you like. I regret the incident spoiled Violet’s evening. It was sheer bad luck you picked that place.’

  ‘It was Hobbes’s idea. He told me it was a good restaurant.’

  ‘Hobbes, eh? He’s behind all the problems round here.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, that’s not true. Whatever you think of him, he’s the one doing most to keep the peace. If it wasn’t for him there’d be a lot more trouble. In fact I know some people choose to live here precisely because they’ve heard he’s fair and won’t let anything happen to them because of what they are.’

  ‘That’s just my point. Don’t you see? If not for him, the weirdoes wouldn’t keep coming here and, if any did, the decent folk could kick them out and good riddance. But Hobbes’s days are numbered, like all the other freaks. After I’ve rid the area of the filthy werewolves, I’m going to drive all the weirdoes and deviants out, and make it a place fit for decent people.’

  His voice, determined and utterly terrifying, boomed through the woods as if he were addressing a rally of his supporters. Furthermore, the pale eyes kept staring at me, adding an even darker dimension to my fear, though I knew one thing at least was good: so long as he was talking, he wasn’t hitting me or setting his panther on me. It appeared that he appreciated a captive audience, and I suddenly realised his words might be evidence, especially should a few intelligent questions prompt him to reveal more than he should.

  ‘What d’you mean drive them out?’ I asked.

  ‘I intend to clean out the filth by whatever means necessary and if that means by force and fire, so be it.’

  ‘And if they still won’t go?’

  ‘They’ll go. I have my removal men.’