Inspector Hobbes and the Blood: A Fast-paced Comedy Crime Fantasy (unhuman)

by Martin, Wilkie

  'Oh. I understand now. I thought you'd been talking to the …' I let the sentence fade away as the colour rose to my cheeks.

  He laughed. 'Maybe that knock on your head is more serious than it seems.'

  'Sorry. I got a bit confused.'

  'As if I'd have a conversation with the dog.' He chuckled. 'I wouldn't do such a thing – not till we've been properly introduced.'

  He guffawed and I responded with a feeble twitch of the lips.

  'Anyway,' he said, changing the subject, 'did you get the editor to rewrite your cheque, or were you too busy fomenting civil unrest?'

  'No, not yet.' I felt a sinking sensation in the stomach. I didn't fancy confronting Editorsaurus Rex just then, with an ice pack pressed to my throbbing eye, with torn knees on my trousers and blood splashed over my shirt – at least it wasn't mine.

  'Right then,' said Hobbes. 'If you're feeling better, there's no time like the present. Come on.'

  I followed him of course. By then I didn't even think about it, though I'd have much preferred to curl up quietly somewhere in the dark. I struggled to keep up, while attempting a cool and heroic demeanour for the shoppers. He burst through the doors of the Bugle building, bounding upstairs to the main office.

  'Can I help you?' asked a male voice on my ice-packed side.

  'I doubt it,' said Hobbes, marching straight towards Rex's door.

  'You can't go in. He's busy,' said the voice. I didn't recognise it. Rex hadn't wasted any time in replacing me.

  Hobbes opened the door and walked in, with me bobbing in after him, shrugging apologetically. Rex rose from behind his desk as if someone had cut loose a hot-air balloon.

  'What do you mean by this interruption?' His stare fixed on me. 'It's Capstan, isn't it? Didn't I sack you? What are you doing here?'

  'Sit,' said Hobbes. 'We'll not take long. I am Inspector Hobbes, of the Sorenchester Police.'

  Rex, deflating, slumped into his chair. A skinny woman sitting opposite him turned to stare at us and I recognised her from Sorenchester Life: she was Mrs Witcherley. Her face, beneath a trowel-full of makeup, looked young and soft, her blonde hair shone with youthful lustre, yet her neck, though concealed under strings of lustrous pearls, suggested she was approaching sixty. She sat, legs crossed, cigarette in hand, pungent fumes coiling from between her glossy red lips. Apart from the smoker's pout, she showed no expression.

  'Firstly,' Hobbes continued, 'Mr Caplet requires you to amend a cheque. Andy?' His hand propelled me towards the desk.

  'Sorry to disturb you, sir.' I felt very much the humble supplicant. 'Umm … you appear to have written the wrong name on my severance cheque.'

  'So what do you expect me to do about it?'

  'Umm … change it, please.'

  'You're damn lucky I gave you a cheque at all.' Rex scowled. 'You misled me about your interests and abilities, you consistently failed to file reports on time, if at all, and you were a constant drain on the resources of this newspaper. Now, run along.'

  Hobbes leaned over the desk. 'It would be advisable to pay him, sir.' Without apparently doing anything, he reeked of menace.

  Rex, jerking back into his chair as if he'd been punched, nodded. 'Only joking, Capstan. I will, of course, write you another immediately. What name should I put on it?'

  'Andrew Caplet,' said Hobbes. 'And, if I were you, I would amend the figure, too, just in case anyone happened to let slip what a deplorable and possibly illegal wage you've been paying him.'

  Rex, nodding again, pulled a chequebook from his desk, popping the top off his fountain pen, writing on a cheque, blotting it carefully, tearing it off and handing it to me.

  'Thank you, sir,' I said as I glanced at it. It was for two thousand pounds. 'Thank you very much.' Folding it, I put it in my inside pocket.

  'Good,' said Hobbes. 'Now I'd like to have a word about a member of your staff.'

  'Oh yes?' said Rex. 'By the way, may I introduce Mrs Witcherley, my wife.' He gestured towards the woman who, nodding, exhaled an acrid cloud.

  'Delighted to meet you, Mrs Witcherley,' said Hobbes, taking her hand, raising it to his lips. For a moment I thought he was going to bite her and, from the way her eyes widened, I suspected the same thought had crossed her mind, yet her lips unpuckered into a smile.

  'Delighted, Inspector,' she murmured.

  'Mrs Witcherley and I have no secrets,' Rex said. 'Please feel free to ask anything.'

  'Andy, you'd better step outside.' Hobbes strode across the carpet and opened Rex's door. 'I'll see you at home for lunch.'

  Raising a hand in an ignored gesture of farewell, I cringed back into the main office. All eyes were looking at me, except for Basil Dean's strange one that always did its own thing.

  Ingrid bustled towards me. 'Hi, Andy. What's happened to Phil?'

  'Eh?' I asked, coherently, taken aback.

  'Phil. What's happened to him?'

  'Something's happened to him?'

  'What?'

  'I … umm … don't know.'

  Oh,' she said, 'I thought you'd come here because of him.'

  I was confused. 'Has something happened to Phil?'

  'We don't know, which is why I'm asking you. I assumed the Inspector had come to investigate.'

  'Investigate what?' I was enormously miffed to find her concerned about Phil when I was so obviously battered and bruised and she'd last seen me handcuffed in the middle of a riot.

  There were tears in her eyes. 'He hasn't turned up for work today, and he's not at home.'

  'Bloody Phil,' I muttered.

  She stared at me as if I'd just booted a puppy.

  'I meant, bloody hell, Phil's missing.' I said, trying to inject the authentic note of concern for the git.

  She was crying, looking worried. 'No one knows what's happened to him. I went round to his house when he didn't ring in. His milk's still outside, he didn't respond when I knocked and he's not answering his mobile.'

  'Oh,' I said, 'I wouldn't worry. He's probably working on a story and if he is missing, Hobbes'll find him, or someone will – like with the body last week.'

  She didn't appear to find my words very comforting. 'You think he might be dead?' She sobbed, her pudgy little hands covering her mouth. 'Poor Phil.'

  'Oh no,' I said, attempting reassurance, 'I'm sure he's not dead. Not yet. Well, probably not anyway. Look, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. He'll turn up, just you wait and see.'

  He probably would turn up, I thought, though I wished he wouldn't. Yet, I smiled, Hobbes would still want a word with him when he reappeared.

  'I suppose you're right.' She sniffed and moved slightly closer.

  I raised my arm on impulse, with the idea of wrapping it around her shoulders, to comfort her, yet I couldn't see past her swollen red eyes and the little bead of mucus glistening at the corner of her nose. I recoiled, my arm dropping to my side.

  'Sorry,' I said, 'but I've got to go.' It occurred to me that this was a good time to start undermining Phil. 'I'm sure Hobbes will find him. He probably guessed Hobbes wants to see him, to grill him about a serious crime, and has done a runner.'

  'Is he in trouble?' asked Ingrid. 'I don't believe it.'

  'You'd better believe it,' I said, raising my voice so everyone could hear. 'I'm afraid Phil is wanted for questioning about some pretty heavy stuff and could go down for a long time. He's been linked to some despicable characters involved in theft and kidnapping and now he's disappeared. Well, it doesn't prove anything, but it makes you think.'

  On that climactic note I left, well satisfied with the shocked look on Ingrid's face and the interest I'd stirred up in the others. Phil would have a job explaining his way out of it. I gloated as I strolled along The Shambles back to Blackdog Street. I heard footsteps running as I reached the church.

  The dog brushed past me, with Mrs Goodfellow clinging to his lead like a water-skier behind a speedboat, except water-skiers aren't known to carry big red shopping bags. />
  'Alright, dear? What have you been doing to yourself?'

  'I, umm …' I said, and she was gone.

  I heard a cry of 'Whoa!' as they flashed past the front door, heading down Ride Street in the direction of the park, making me wonder what I would do for lunch.

  I needn't have worried. They'd reappeared by the time I got home, the dog trotting obediently to heel, tail wagging, tongue lolling, the epitome of friendliness. They pushed by when I opened the door. As I followed them into the kitchen, she put down a bowl of water, which he lapped up noisily, before sprawling under the table.

  Mrs Goodfellow attended to lunch, which had been slowly cooking in the oven and filling the house with enticing smells. It was just a cottage pie, though not like the soggy, tasteless travesties in the Bellman's. This was a pie of delights, as I discovered on Hobbes's return. As usual, we ate in silence, which felt right, because Mrs Goodfellow's meals were deserving of reverence. Still, it bothered me that she never took food with us.

  Hobbes and I finished, sitting back with a pair of contented sighs, rising from the table, taking our positions in the sitting room as normal, except that Dregs padded in after us, sitting with his head on Hobbes's knees and his big, heavy, hairy backside crushing my left foot. When Hobbes rested his hand on the dog's head it was barely noticeable among the mass of wiry hairs. Though I tried shuffling my foot, the blasted mutt seemed to like it and began wriggling in ecstasy, contriving to pin both my feet down, as well as wedging my knees against the sofa.

  Mrs Goodfellow cackled as she carried in the tea tray. For probably the first time since I'd been there, I didn't jump; I couldn't.

  'He seems to like you, dear.'

  Hobbes smiled. 'I'm glad you two are getting on so well, Andy.'

  I grimaced, which was all I could do by then as the bloody thing had managed to wriggle up my legs and was lying across me. The more I tried, the less I could move and soon, the brute's weight, being concentrated on my chest, it became increasingly difficult to breathe. In fact, I saw clearly that I was going to expire beneath him and couldn't even find enough breath to complain. What a way to go, I would have laughed if I could. The colours in the room were fading to a dull grey and I was looking at the world through a rapidly narrowing tunnel. I could see brightness at the end and seemed to be rushing towards it. My consciousness flew up, fluttering round the light shade like a large moth and I watched with moth's eyes and purely academic interest as Hobbes pushed the dog from my body. It did look battered, with the huge bruise around its right eye already showing more shades of colour than a sunset. Battered and blue. I remembered a lecture on first aid. Blue indicated cyanosis, which is what happens to a body when it's been deprived of oxygen for too long. I wondered why Hobbes was lifting me in such a way.

  I came to, dangling upside down, my ankles squeezed in his left hand, my buttocks stinging, squirming, squawking like a chicken when I saw his right hand lifted to deliver another blow. I cried like a baby when it landed.

  'Told you it'd work,' said Mrs Goodfellow. 'It always got 'em breathing when I was a midwife. You can put him down now. He's alright. His face is going red.'

  I found myself swinging like a pendulum, the arcs growing wider until I was fully upright when he released his grip. I experienced a brief moment of weightlessness, as if becoming a moth again, before, catching my shoulders, he dropped me onto the sofa. Then the blasted dog leaped up, licking my face, making me wish I couldn't breathe again. It came as a great relief when Mrs Goodfellow dragged him off and led him to the kitchen.

  'Sorry about that,' said Hobbes. 'I thought you were playing until you turned blue. It was quite unusual; your lips matched your eyes. You don't see that every day.'

  I shook my head and groaned.

  'Glad you're better. You should be more careful, though. Dogs can be dangerous. Right then, I was going to tell you about the theft from the church. The first one that is, not the one by the despicable pamphlet pilferer.'

  I laughed bitterly. I was not having a good day. The church clock struck two – two o'clock in the afternoon and I'd already been pursued by a dog, handcuffed by a policeman, reviled by a mob, been in a riot and been unconscious twice.

  'Someone, as you know, broke into the wall safe and pinched the Roman cup. As far as I can make out, the person, or persons, did not break into the church, so, unless they had a key, which is unlikely, it's probable they attended the service on Sunday evening and hid until everything was quiet. Then they must have broken into the safe and slipped out when the warden opened the doors this morning.'

  'Aha! That bloody Phil's gone missing. He must have done it.'

  'I think we do need to find him,' said Hobbes, 'because he may know something of significance. It's probably more than coincidence that he went missing right after the robbery.'

  'Let's hunt him down like the dog he is.' I felt the thrill of the chase rising within.

  'Calm down, Andy, I didn't say he did it. There are some interesting aspects to this theft. Firstly, look at these.' Delving into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a sealed plastic bag, containing cigarette butts and chocolate wrappers.

  'Interesting? Why?'

  'I found them in a pew.'

  'Well? So what? Doesn't it just mean someone's been smoking and eating in church?'

  'It does, yet the pews are always swept after the service. Therefore, someone must have left them there after the sweeping and the church was closed to the public immediately afterwards.'

  'Then,' I said, 'the burglar left them there. All it means is that he smokes and eats chocolate.' I realised Phil didn't smoke. 'Phil eats chocolate.'

  'So do I,' said Hobbes, 'and I'm not going to arrest every chocolate-eating smoker in Sorenchester and district. There's another interesting little fact. D'you remember the break in at Mr Roman's house?'

  'Of course.'

  'Well, don't you remember what I found under the tree to suggest the burglar had been watching the house?'

  I thought a moment, creasing my forehead in concentration. 'Yeah. I remember: cigarette butts and chocolate wrappers.'

  'Correct, and they were the same brand of cigarettes and the same wrappers as in the church. What's more, the cigarette butts are from a brand I'm not familiar with. They've mostly been smoked well down but there's a bit of writing on one of them. See here? It says 'pati'.'

  'So it's likely the same person did both crimes.'

  'So I suspect. I wonder why they wanted the Roman cup, though? What's so special about it? There are plenty of other, much more valuable, treasures in there that weren't stolen, just like at the museum. In both cases someone knew just what they were looking for and where to find it and everything else was apparently untouched.'

  I nodded. 'So you think the same burglar has done Mr Roman's house, the museum and the church? All within a week. That's three crimes linked.'

  'Four,' said Hobbes. 'The death of Jimmy the gardener is another obvious link, though I don't yet know why. If only Roman had told us what really happened.'

  'And Phil has done a runner.' I thought I should remind him.

  'He's certainly gone missing, which brings me to another coincidence. Mr Biggs from the museum discharged himself from the hospital last evening, against medical advice, and he, too, has vanished. I visited his flat this morning. He'd taken clothes as well as his passport.'

  'He must have been in league with Phil.'

  'Now, now, Andy.' Hobbes frowned. 'Still, I ought to have a look at Mr Waring's house and see if I can discover a reason for his disappearance. I'd be glad of your company if you want to come.'

  'I'd love to.' I was convinced, or nearly convinced, that Phil had done it and dearly wanted to be there when justice caught up with him. With any luck, he was the one who'd killed Jimmy; a conviction for murder would keep him away from Ingrid for life. Even so, deep down, a persistent suspicion lurked that maybe I was only trying to convince Hobbes of Phil's guilt, because, if he believed it, then I, too,
could legitimately believe it. A nasty, nagging question popped up from the uncharted depths of my mind and wouldn't go away; was I, in some way, jealous of Phil with his looks and charm and talent and easy, courteous way with women? I had to keep reminding myself that he was a smarmy git who deserved everything coming to him and that I deserved so much more, which Hobbes would help me to achieve.

  'C'mon, Andy. There's no time for daydreaming, there are crimes to be solved. Mr Witcherley gave me Mr Waring's address. It's number two, Aristotle Drive.'

  'Where's that?'

  'Part of the new estate on the edge of town, out Sorington way.'

  I nodded. 'Oh yeah, I know. They're rather smart.' Typical, I thought that Phil would live there. I remembered my late-lamented, grotty, little flat. Life wasn't fair but I wasn't jealous: I just don't like flash gits.

  'We'd better take the car,' said Hobbes.

  'Oh, great,' I muttered, my stomach churning, my pulse starting to race in emulation of his driving.

  'You'd better change your suit first.' He glanced at my knees. 'You're a mess.'

  Going up to my room, opening the wardrobe, I picked one of the half dozen suits hanging there at random. It was dark grey, fitting like it was bespoke. It gave me the shivers that someone else's clothes could be such an amazing fit. I'd always worn off-the-peg stuff and it had never been entirely satisfactory. 'It fits where it touches,' as Granny Caplet used to remark.

  When I went down, Hobbes was standing by the door, the car keys dangling from his monstrous hand like an earring on a wild boar. 'Hurry up. I haven't got all day.'

  I scurried to the car after him and climbed in. 'It's a one-way street,' I moaned as we set off.

  Hobbes turned, grinning. 'And?'

  I shut my eyes. 'I know, I know. You're only going one way.'

  He laughed like a maniac.

  'And the speed limit's thirty miles per hour.' I had to say it, though I recognised the futility.

  'Don't worry,' he said over the screech of tyres and the blaring of a horn, 'we won't be driving anywhere near thirty miles in the next hour, so there's no chance of exceeding the speed limit.'