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

by Martin, Wilkie

  'I saw him out on the roof over there. He was wearing stripy pyjama bottoms.'

  'Of course, he'd hardly go out in his bare skin would he? There are laws against that sort of thing. Anyway, it's time for breakfast; he's having a bit of a lie-in. He usually does after a night on the tiles.'

  'What was he doing out there?'

  'How should I know? He's still asleep.'

  'Does he go out on the tiles often?'

  'Only when he wants to, or has to. Now get dressed. I'll make you a nice breakfast and then I'll see if I can find something to put on your eyes.'

  'A bit of raw steak?'

  'I was thinking more of bacon and eggs,' she said. 'I don't think we've got any steak, though the old fellow likes one for his breakfast, sometimes. Mind you, sometimes he prefers Sugar Puffs. I could nip into the butcher's? I was going out later, anyway.'

  'Stop,' I said, 'I don't want raw steak for breakfast. I was asking if you were going to put it on my eyes.'

  'I could if you really wanted, though it wouldn't do you much good. It might amuse Dregs, though. No, dear, I was thinking of my special tincture that I prepare from herbs and stuff: it's very good. Now, hurry up.' She turned and left the room.

  I scratched my head, still the stranger in this bizarre world. Nevertheless, breakfast was breakfast, so having a wash, getting dressed, I went downstairs. Despite the ache of my swollen face, the fry-up was just what I needed, leaving me deeply indebted to the pig who'd laid down his life so I could enjoy the best bacon ever. I hoped he'd thought it was worth the sacrifice. I knew I did.

  I finished off with toast and marmalade and, while I was wolfing down the last fragments, Mrs Goodfellow rummaged in a drawer. Pulling out a small, glass bottle and uncorking it, she shook a couple of drops of pungent, green sludge onto a wad of cotton wool and handed it to me.

  'Go to the sitting room, dear, and press this gently against your eyes and they'll soon be as right as reindeer. You'd best keep the bottle; you're a little accident prone.'

  Dregs was occupying the sofa and, when I tried to persuade him to move over, he went limp and immovable, growling, baring his teeth, something he'd never have dared had Hobbes or the old girl been there. I gave up, sitting down on one of the hard oak chairs, holding the pad against my face. Hell, it stung! I gasped and nearly threw it down in disgust yet, as I persevered, it began to soothe and relax the skin. It was good stuff, if a little on the stinky side of ripe, and I never did discover what she put in it. All she'd say was that it was based on a recipe her Kung Fu master had taught her and that she could tell me the ingredients but then she'd have to kill me. I didn't press.

  For an hour or more I sat still, the pad to my face, peeping out just once to see Mrs Goodfellow climbing upstairs with an armful of neatly pressed sheets. Shortly afterwards, hearing Hobbes's roar, I gathered he didn't appreciate his bedding being changed when still in occupancy. For some reason, Dregs held me responsible for the altercation. He emitted a deep woof and an angry growl and I uncovered my eyes to see the horrible creature leaping from the sofa, approaching, bristling and stiff-legged. His teeth looked awfully big, his snarl reminiscent of Hobbes, who sounded as if he was coming off second best in the struggle for mastery of the bed. Dregs looked ready to spring and, in desperation, I thrust the pad towards his nose. Taking one sniff, he sneezed and fled, yelping, tail squeezed between his legs as a thump from above, suggested a heavy body had rolled out of bed.

  A few moments later, Hobbes slouched downstairs in his stripy pyjamas and slippers and, nodding to acknowledge me, disappeared into the kitchen. By then I reckoned I'd had enough of the stinking tincture. Standing up, walking to the stairs, intending to dispose of the cotton wool and to wash my face, I glanced into the kitchen where Hobbes, frowning and growling, his face dark and bristly, was hunched at the table over an enormous bowl of Sugar Puffs. Dregs, slumped in the corner, whimpered when he saw me. I climbed the stairs with some satisfaction.

  Heading to the bathroom, I examined my face in the mirror, amazed at what a remarkable a job the gunge had done, delighted the soreness and swelling had all but vanished. What remained was a slight, barely noticeable, greenish discoloration beneath my eyes and I wasn't sure if it was a residual effect of the tincture or the remains of bruises. If the old girl had ever marketed the stuff, she'd have made a fortune.

  Sometime later, when the Sugar Puffs and several mugs of tea had raised his spirits and he was washed and dressed, Hobbes called me down to the sitting room. Dregs was there too, but maintained a respectful distance from me, which felt like a victory.

  A strange light was glinting in Hobbes's eyes. 'Would you like to see an arrest?'

  'I'd love to,' I said, 'unless it's me getting arrested.'

  He smiled. 'No, you're safe enough for now. I'm going to nab Tony Derrick.'

  'Good,' I said. 'Umm … where is he?'

  'He's squatting in a house over on the Elms Estate.'

  The clock on the mantelpiece showed ten-thirty. 'Don't you normally make dawn raids?' I asked.

  'As far as a sluggard like Tony Derrick is concerned, any time before lunchtime is as good as dawn.'

  'Great. When are we off?'

  'Now,' said Hobbes, 'so get your jacket on.'

  'Right … umm … how did you find him?'

  He shrugged, 'I did a bit of overtime last night and picked up his trail near the Feathers. I found this in the alley.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled cigarette packet. 'What d'you make of it?'

  'It's an old cigarette packet,' I said, puzzled as to why he'd been collecting junk.

  'Is that all?'

  The way he was looking suggested I should be seeing much more.

  'Well, yes.'

  'What about the label? Doesn't it suggest anything to you?'

  It read 'Carpati', with some foreign words underneath 'They're foreign cigarettes?' I said.

  'Very true, but is that all?' He raised incredulous eyebrows.

  'Yes.'

  'Alright.' He shook his head. 'Now look again.' He held the packet with his thumb over the first three letters.

  'Aha,' I said, as the penny dropped. 'Pati – the same as on the cigarette butt you picked up at the museum.'

  'Correct.' He grinned.

  'So the burglar smokes foreign cigarettes?'

  'Carpati cigarettes from Romania to be precise. Now shift yourself – we've got to walk to the station for the car.'

  I was soon in the street, jogging at Hobbes's side, not really understanding what was going on, except with an idea that, as Mr Barrington-Oddy's house had been filled with Romanian stuff, then, perhaps, my Roman connection should have been a Romanian one. There was, though, something more important.

  'Do you think Phil might be with Tony Derrick?' I asked, panting.

  'Not as far as I could tell,' said Hobbes. 'Let's see.'

  He strode ahead, not talking again until we were in the car, speeding towards Tony Derrick's squat. With my eyes firmly closed, I tried to distract myself by fretting about what would happen if Phil was there.

  'Right,' said Hobbes, after a few minutes. 'Here we are.'

  The car jerking to a standstill, I opened my eyes. We were parked outside a small house on an estate, one that appeared to have been built in the 1960s and neglected ever since. Though a few cars rusted on nearby drives or by the kerb, no people were about. A cat, curled up on an old mattress in the cracked concrete and weed garden, opened suspicious eyes, fleeing when Hobbes emerged. As I got out, my foot scrunching on a litter of old lager cans in the gutter, noticing a lack of police vehicles, I felt suddenly vulnerable.

  'Umm … don't you have any back-up?'

  He grinned horribly. 'Of course I do, I've got you. What more could I possibly want?'

  'Me? What can I do?'

  'You can watch.'

  'Mightn't it be dangerous?'

  Hobbes clapped his hands together like an excited child. 'For somebody. Stay behind me and let'
s nab him.'

  As he strode towards the front door, I expected he'd knock it open like at Phil's but, instead, after standing quietly for a moment, as if listening, he raised a cudgel fist and knocked hard, though not so hard as to damage anything.

  'Open up, it's the police!' he bellowed, turning round, loping past me in his usual hunched fashion.

  For a moment I thought he was playing the old kids' trick of ringing the bell and running away. Instead, he ran towards the back of the house down a scruffy alley. I trotted after him, scrambling past the battered sofa partly blocking the way, hearing a door open at the back and the sound of running feet. It wasn't Hobbes's, because he was nearly silent, despite his great, heavy boots. As I reached the end of the alley, a gate in a rotting fence flew open and Tony Derrick, vivid in a pink Hawaiian shirt, rushed out. He turned towards me, pausing, a smile creeping over his face as he removed his glasses and tucked them into his shirt pocket. Lowering his head, he charged.

  At least that's what he'd planned, because he'd failed to spot what had come to a halt on the other side of the gate. He only managed two steps before Hobbes landed on him. The impact was not like being hit by a ton of bricks, for Hobbes was more solid than that; it must have been more like being flattened by a paving slab and, although he was undoubtedly a nasty, sneaky, horrible villain with a bad taste in shirts, Tony had my sympathy.

  Hobbes stood up, holding him by the collar as if he were a bundle of rags. 'Were you planning on going somewhere?'

  Tony groaned.

  'Anthony Stephen Derrick,' said Hobbes, 'consider that you have just had your collar felt. You've been nabbed in other words. You are currently incapable of saying anything, though, when you are able to speak again, you may come to harm if you do not mention, when questioned, something which I later find to be of relevance. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Anything you do say that subsequently proves incorrect may result in … unpleasantness.'

  He lifted Tony a little higher so he could look into his face. 'D'you understand?' Still keeping a firm grip on him, he used a massive finger to make the lolling head nod. 'Good.'

  Though I was certain he hadn't used the correct form of words for cautioning a suspect under arrest, Tony didn't complain.

  'Now let's take a look inside your house,' said Hobbes, heaving him across his shoulder and letting him dangle.

  Tony looked as if he was still wondering what had hit him as I followed them through the concrete backyard, a mess of sickly grass with stinking rubbish, spewing from tattered black bin bags. The house was hardly any better, though the stench of rot was partially concealed under cigarette smoke and stale beer. Cans and bottles littered the floor, along with takeaway cartons and pizza boxes. I'd had my eyes tight shut on the way to this hovel – I felt justified in calling it that, because it was far worse than my flat had ever been – and now I wished I could close my nostrils. I did what I could by pinching them and breathing through my mouth.

  Hobbes was wearing Tony round his neck like a loud scarf – loud in both appearance and moaning, since he'd come to and was demanding to be put down.

  'Language, Tony, please,' said Hobbes after one exceptionally foul-mouthed outburst.

  We conducted a short tour of the downstairs with Tony yelling and cursing and occasionally wriggling, until, banging his head on a doorframe, he hung limp again.

  'Oops,' said Hobbes, carrying him upstairs.

  It wasn't quite so disgusting up there, if you could ignore the bathroom, which I couldn't and, though I'd never been the world's tidiest or most hygienic man, it sickened me that anyone would choose to live in such squalor. There were three bedrooms, two of them empty apart from beer cans, the third containing a mattress, a stained sleeping bag, a lop-sided pile of dog-eared porn mags and screwed up tissues scattered over the bare boards.

  'Well, there's no sign of Mr Waring,' said Hobbes, bounding downstairs, three at a time, Tony bouncing on his shoulders, 'and there's nothing to make me believe he's ever been here. Now, let's see what this rogue has in his pockets.'

  Turning Tony upside down, holding his ankles, he bounced him gently on a manky rug, bits and pieces dropping like apples in a storm. There wasn't much, a few coins, his glasses, a penknife, a fat nylon wallet, some keys, a lighter, a very upsetting handkerchief and a half-empty packet of cigarettes. Hobbes grunted, tossing Tony onto a burst beanbag, and picking through the spoils. The cigarette packet said Carpati, two of the keys were obviously for the front and back doors, another appeared to be for a heavy padlock and the final one, attached to a plastic key fob was a car key. The wallet when he opened it made me gasp as if entering Ali Baba's cave; it was stuffed with bank notes.

  'That must be a thousand pounds!' I said, hoping it was finder's keepers and that I'd be in for a cut.

  'More than that,' said Hobbes, flicking a callused thumb over the top, 'I'd say about four thousand, three hundred and fifteen pounds.' Tony wasn't doing so badly.

  Looking through the rest of the wallet, he found nothing except for a plastic card, which he held out between his fingernails, letting me see. 'Hallo, hallo, hallo,' he said, 'what d'you make of this?'

  'Umm … it's a credit card, ' I said. 'Oh, I see! It's Phil's. I knew he was involved, I just knew it.' A surge of relief rushing though me washed away some of the guilt about the dropped business card, for this, surely, was genuine evidence that Phil was connected to the thefts. My suspicions, based only on prejudice and dislike, appeared to have been vindicated.

  'However, I don't think he was involved, at least, not in the way you mean,' said Hobbes. 'I can't see him having business with a wretch like Tony, apart from as a source of information for a story. In my experience, people don't normally give their credit cards away: someone usually takes them, by fraud or force.' He dropped the wallet into a polythene bag, which disappeared into his pocket.

  Tony groaned.

  'He's coming round,' I said. 'Shouldn't you cuff him?'

  'No, that would be police brutality, something that is frowned on these days, although, when I joined the force, the odd cuff round the ear was permitted, if not encouraged. I never favoured it myself but some of the lads used to like it.'

  'No, I didn't mean that. What I meant was, shouldn't you handcuff him so he can't get away?'

  'Oh, I see. No, I don't like to do that. It's undignified and I mostly find suspects are willing to come quietly.'

  Another groan emerged.

  'You'll come quietly, won't you, Tony?'

  Raising his head, staring at Hobbes through bleary, blue eyes, he nodded, saying, 'Yeah, I suppose I will. I don't have much choice, do I?'

  'Of course you do,' said Hobbes with a smile. 'You have many choices. You could come quietly, in which case it's traditional for you to say, 'it's a fair cop, Guv'nor'. Or you could fight and scream, which is resisting arrest, in which case I am required to restrain you, with the minimum of force necessary. Or you could try to run away and then I'm obliged to pursue you, stop you and restrain you, with the minimum of force. The end result is much the same.'

  'I'll come quietly … it's a fair cop, Guv'nor.'

  He didn't appear to be very happy, yet I think he made the right choice.

  'Good lad,' said Hobbes, his face a mass of happy teeth. 'Now would you like to answer a few questions here? Or would you rather answer them in the nice, comfortable police station? You see? More choices.'

  Tony frowned in dazed confusion. 'Uh, the station.'

  'The station what?'

  'The station, please?' Tony's lip curled into what was probably meant as an ingratiating smile.

  'That's better,' said Hobbes cheerfully, 'good manners don't hurt do they? Oh, and before we go, do you happen to know the whereabouts of Mr Philip Waring?

  Tony shook his head. 'I ain't seen the git since Saturday.'

  I warmed to him, snivelling, dirty thief though he was, for he'd at least got Phil pegged right. Still, I did experience another twinge of guilt and r
egret.

  'Let's be having you, then.'

  Hobbes, pulling Tony upright, took us outside, leading him, meek as a beaten puppy, from the house, locking the back door behind us. I was expecting Hobbes to head back to the car but he went the other way, along a cracked, concrete path to a square surrounded by garages. After scanning the flaking, wooden doors, he settled on one and strode towards it, pulling the padlock key from his pocket, opening the door with a flourish like a stage magician, revealing Phil's Audi, encrusted with mud, squeezed into the garage, as tight as a piston in a cylinder.

  'We'll take this,' said Hobbes. 'It's evidence. Besides, it's much bigger than mine and we'll all be more comfortable.'

  'You can't take it, it's mine,' Tony whined.

  'I can if I want to.' Hobbes smiled. 'Besides, I'm not convinced it's yours at all. Doesn't it belong to Mr Waring?'

  'He gave it to me.'

  Hobbes raised an eyebrow. 'Did he really? Like he gave you his credit card? He's a very generous man, this Mr Waring. He must be a great friend of yours.'

  'Yes.'

  'And yet you still called him a git?' Hobbes shook his head. 'You know something my lad? You don't deserve such a friend. Now stand back and I'll drive it out … a little further back would be better.'

  Somehow, flattening his bulk against the garage wall, he squeezed into the car. A few seconds and a puff of grey smoke later, the Audi lurched forth, like a greyhound from the trap, and came to a halt. Hobbes, getting out, examined it, while Tony slouched beside me, looking as if someone had just made off with his wallet. I wondered how often it had been the other way round.

  I suffered a moment of heart-stopping horror when Hobbes, opening the boot, tugged aside a frayed green tarpaulin. I don't know why, but I half expected to see Phil's bloated corpse beneath; it was only a collection of power tools. Without being aware, I'd been holding my breath, which escaped in one long, relieved stream. There wasn't much else in the car besides an empty Carpati cigarette packet and a fragment of a chocolate wrapper under the passenger seat. Phil liked things neat.