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

by Martin, Wilkie

  'It's not right,' he whined. 'You said you loved me and that we were made for each other. It's why I helped you steal everything. It wasn't the money.'

  Unable to believe his claim, to my horror, I snorted with disdain.

  'What was that? I heard someone. Honest.'

  'It doesn't matter,' said Narcisa. 'Just shut up and let me get on.'

  'But someone's in here.'

  I retreated deeper into the shadows, awaiting discovery and whatever came of it.

  'It'll just be Hobbes,' she laughed.

  'Hobbes? What d'you mean Hobbes?' Tony, pulling his hood back, stared around wildly.

  'Mr Waring wasn't the only one snooping into my business. Hobbes turned up too, shortly after he'd let you go.'

  'Where is he?'

  'That's not your concern, he'll not interfere. Now shut up.'

  So, Hobbes was down there and I couldn't guess what she might have done to him to be so confident. I stole towards the very back of the chamber, where there were no candles and the gloom became blackness. The heavy, almost narcotic, scent of flowers faded and I became aware, ever so faintly at first, of the feral odour I associated with Hobbes.

  As Narcisa resumed her chanting, the strange words echoing hypnotically round the chamber, I hesitated, torn between trying to find Hobbes and trying to rescue Phil. The latter was in imminent peril, assuming Narcisa meant what she said, and I had no doubt she intended to kill, yet Hobbes would be able to stop her far better than I could. In all honesty, I'm not a fighter; I doubted I could overcome Tony and, as for Narcisa, something about her made me suspect she knew how to hurt a man. Besides, she'd got the pepper spray and the dagger. Again, I dithered, though I was starting to think that, if I couldn't find Hobbes very soon, I would have to do something.

  Do or die – it wasn't a happy prospect.

  'You're going too far,' yelled Tony, sounding angry and scared. 'Stop it now, or I'll stop you myself.'

  Narcisa laughed. 'You're too late.'

  Clasping the dagger with both hands, she raised it above her head. Phil screamed.

  Tony, as fast as a weasel, caught her wrist, forcing her backwards. The hood of her gown fell back and for a moment her blonde wig clung to the top of her skull before sliding to the floor. Tony grunted, maintaining his grip, making her cry out, making her drop the dagger, barely managing to twist his foot out of the way as it stuck in the floor. His movement allowed her to break free, to pull something from her gown. Her back being towards me, I guessed she'd gone for her pepper spray.

  Tony, his eyes bulging with fear, spun round and bolted. Narcisa turning after him, was not holding the spray but a small revolver. There were two explosions, shocking and painful in the confined space, sparks sprayed from the wall above Tony's head as he scurried through the arch, fleeing like a hunted rat. If she intended hitting him, and I'm sure she did, she was a rotten shot. I dropped to the floor like a pile of dirty washing.

  It took a few moments to work out why I'd got a dead leg, and why a hole had appeared at the top of my left thigh, oozing blood and burning. A ricochet must have hit me, though it must have been nearly spent, because I could touch the bullet's distorted shape, slightly proud of my skin. It still felt red-hot. Licking my fingers, as you do when snuffing a candle, I tugged at it, almost fainting as it popped out with a sucking sound. Unable to suppress a groan, I lay, panting as the agony slowly subsided.

  'Well, well,' said Narcisa looking down on me, her gun pointing at my face, 'fancy meeting you here, Mr Caplet. And dressed so formally, too.'

  'The name's Capstan,' I said. 'I mean, no it isn't. It is Caplet.'

  As she smiled, I stared at her teeth, trying to see if they were suspiciously sharp.

  'Make up your mind. Rex said you were a ditherer. He still gave you many chances, the soft fool. I see you've been injured – a couple of inches over and you'd be a gelding. Well, never mind. Stand up.'

  My wound throbbing, blood trickling down my leg, I pulled myself upright, leaning against a pillar for support. 'What are you going to do? Are you going to call the police?'

  She laughed. 'Your reputation for stupidity doesn't do you justice. I'm going to have to shoot you. You've seen far too much.'

  I rested my forehead on the pillar, its rough, cool solidity somehow soothing, though my heart was thumping, as if I'd run a marathon with Dregs. My breathing was fast and shallow and not enough and I could see Narcisa, as if at the end of a tunnel, raising her revolver, taking a step closer, taking aim. I thought she must really be a rotten shot to do that. But it put her within range. Swinging my arm, I watched the carrier bag, as if in slow motion, straining under the weight of the leg of lamb, describing a perfect arc straight into the side of her head. The revolver, flying from her hand, clattered on the stone floor as she went down like the great white hope.

  1 8

  A strange mix of elation and horror combined with sharp pain as I swayed over Narcisa.

  'Who's stupid now?' I asked, silently thanking Mrs Goodfellow for my unlikely weapon.

  Phil's voice brought me back to myself. 'What's happening? Andy, is it you? What are you doing here?'

  Before I could respond, my leg buckling, I stumbled backwards into heavy, musty cloth, like a curtain, grabbing at it for balance. As it ripped away, I plunged into emptiness.

  I dropped a long way before hitting something hard, if not as hard as I feared, and came to rest on a cold stone floor, lying flat on my back, stunned and winded. As breathing returned, I sucked in lungfuls of cool, fetid air, sitting up, still clutching a fragment of cloth, wondering what had happened, while my eyes adjusted to the faint light filtering in from somewhere above. I'd fallen into a pit, four or five metres deep at a guess, and, maybe three metres across. A pile of leaves in the corner had saved me from harm.

  The leaves moved and an animal odour filled my nostrils. Something snarled and I leaped to my feet, despite the agony shooting through my leg, as an unkempt, ugly head emerged.

  'Hobbes!' I gasped. 'Are you alright?'

  Growling, he stood up, sniffing the air like a dog, staring without apparent recognition. It worried me. Even worse, he was looking at me the way a starving man looks at a steak dinner. Flattening myself against the wall, I edged away.

  'It's me,' I said, 'you know … Andy.'

  He was following my every movement, tense like a predator, licking his lips and swallowing.

  'What's wrong? I'm sorry I fell on you … stay back!'

  Blood, trickling into my sock, it felt as if I'd stepped into a warm, sticky puddle as I began to panic, fearing what the scent of blood might do to him. Then some words I'd heard a few hours earlier, when the world had been a friendlier place, came into my head, 'He'll be hungry and I ought to tell you, dear, he can get rather wild when he's hungry. You'd best take the leg of lamb.'

  As I upended the bag, Hobbes pounced. I screamed as, with one hand, he tossed me over his shoulder into the leaves. Snarling, he turned his back on me, like a lion shielding a carcass from a jackal. Covering my ears to drown out the growls, the slurping, the tearing of flesh, the crunching of bone, I prayed the lamb wouldn't just be the appetiser. Nightmare minutes passed as the slobbering and cracking continued.

  I had to get out of the pit or die, yet the walls were smooth and sheer, unclimbable except, maybe, to a gecko. I contemplated yelling for help, yet Phil was chained up, Tony had run away and Rex, even if my voice could reach him, was dead drunk. Accepting my fate with all the dignity I could muster, I began to cry like a snotty little kid. It wasn't fair after all I'd done.

  That thought snapped me out of it. All my imagined brilliance in finding Hobbes and Phil, in knocking out Narcisa, came to nothing now I was stuck in that dismal hole. I hadn't actually rescued anyone, but at least I'd tried, which was no comfort whatsoever.

  Hobbes stood up, loping towards me, still carrying a hefty chunk of bone. I shrank back.

  'Thanks for that,' he said, 'I was rather peckish.'
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  'Hobbes?' I stared into his face. Bristles sprouted from his chin and flecks of raw meat were stuck to his lips and between his teeth as he smiled. By God, I had never been so pleased to see a smile in all my life!

  'Yes. Sorry if I alarmed you.'

  Getting to my feet, I damn near hugged the bastard. 'You scared the life out of me,' I said, damn near to kicking the bastard.

  'Oops,' he said. 'We'd better get out of here, and quickly. Your leg needs treatment and Mrs Witcherley is waking up.'

  'How can you possibly know that?'

  'Trust me.'

  'Umm … we can't get out of here.'

  'We can try.'

  'Haven't you tried already? You must've been down here for ages?'

  He nodded. 'I did have a go, of course, but the rock's too hard and brittle.' He showed me his hands, his nails all torn and bloody. 'However, you may have provided a solution.'

  Taking the bone, which he'd gnawed into a crude pick, he attacked the wall.

  Stone chips flying in all directions, I hung back out of harm's way, sticking a finger into the hole in my leg to slow the oozing, though the sensation made my head float. I had to close my eyes until the nausea and faintness abated, yet it wasn't long before I could pay attention. He was not, as I'd supposed, making a mad assault on the wall. He was excavating ledges to serve as toe and finger holds.

  'She's got Phil chained to an altar,' I said. 'She was going to kill us so I knocked her out.'

  Hobbes, grunting, pulled himself up, wedging his feet into a small hole at waist-height. Bits of stone fell at my feet. 'I know,' he said. 'He's very frightened and she's regaining consciousness. I must work harder.'

  I didn't bother asking how he knew. He was speeding up, despite having to hold on with one hand, the sinews on the back of his neck bulging with the effort. He still had a long way to go. Above us, Narcisa groaned and muttered.

  Two thirds of the way up, he paused, gnawing at the bone's edge, sharpening it I guessed. As he examined it, he slipped, falling at my feet. Though he leaped back up in an instant, I'd seen the sweat streaming down his face and neck and heard how hard and fast he was breathing.

  A light shone into the pit.

  'Stop right there,' said Narcisa, standing above us, the revolver in one hand, a candelabra in the other.

  Without thinking, I began hurling debris and, though I don't think I actually hit her, she obviously hadn't expected resistance and ducked back. Her head appeared twice more and volleys of rocks kept her at bay. Hobbes, ignoring her, was making astonishing progress. She didn't return again but once more, from a distance, I heard her intoning the strange words of her ritual.

  'Hurry! She's going to kill him.' I nearly wept.

  Stone chips flew as the incantation continued. I couldn't stop myself hopping in a frenzy of agonised helplessness, wishing I had some inkling what she was on about, wishing I could do something.

  At last, Hobbes, stretching out a long arm, grabbed the edge of the pit, hanging for a moment by his fingertips. With a grunt, he swung up and onto the floor.

  He beckoned. 'C'mon, Andy, and quickly.' Then he was gone.

  My leg throbbed and spasmed as I began to climb, yet the holds were so far apart and so narrow, I only managed a couple before falling. Though pain made me cry out, I had another go and was balanced on a narrow ledge, stretching for a handhold when a shot rang out. The shock making me lose my grip, I slid down the wall, skinning my elbows and jarring my leg. I barely noticed the pain, as another shot echoed around, followed by a succession of shots.

  'Hobbes!' I yelled and, forgetting impossibility, launched myself up the wall and over the edge. Narcisa screamed as I got to my feet. Hobbes had his back to me and he'd got her by the throat. She kicked and howled as he jerked her above his head, as if he meant to dash her brains out against the wall.

  'No,' I said. 'Don't!'

  He turned, staring at me for a long moment, as if puzzled, blood soaking his shirt front, dripping onto the stone floor. 'You're right,' he said. 'I should never hurt a lady. Thank you.'

  He fell onto his face. She skidded across the floor like a stone, bouncing over a frozen pond until she came to rest against the altar and lay still. As still as Hobbes.

  'Andy!' Phil cried, sounding desperate, 'get these bloody chains off me. Please.'

  'Hold on,' I shouted, hurrying towards Hobbes. 'Are you alright?'

  He wasn't. Kneeling, sweating with the strain, I rolled him onto his back. He didn't even twitch. Four neat round holes pierced his front and my hands were red and sticky with hot blood.

  Putting my face in my hands, I groaned, knowing I'd failed. Yet Phil was sobbing and begging for release and, after what he'd been through, I couldn't blame him. My leg throbbed like a voodoo drum as, pulling myself together, I stumbled towards him. Hobbes, after all, had come here to rescue him, so it was the least I could do and the least seemed to be the most I would achieve.

  Phil gasped as I reached him. 'Your face! What's wrong with your face?'

  'There's nothing wrong with it,' I said, infuriated. I was trying to save his life and all he could do was insult me.

  'It's covered in blood. Have you been shot?'

  'Yes, in the leg.'

  'But your face?'

  'Oh … umm … it's Hobbes's mostly. He's hurt.'

  Although I couldn't find the keys to the padlocks securing Phil's chains, I managed to unbolt the shackles that anchored them. He sat up, clanking and groaning like Marley's ghost, staring at me, looking puzzled.

  'Andy,' he asked. 'Where are your trousers?'

  'In the kitchen window.'

  He nodded. 'Great. How did you get here? I thought I was going to die. It's been awful.'

  As he sobbed, I wrapped an awkward arm around his shoulders, despite his stink.

  'There, there,' I said, feeling useless and embarrassed, 'but I've got to help Hobbes now. She shot him.'

  'Why? And why did she want to kill me? And why here? Like this? What's going on?'

  Unable to give a satisfactory reply, I shrugged, hobbling back towards Hobbes, kneeling beside him, wishing I could remember what to do. The thing was, Rex, insisting that everyone working for the Bugle should know at least basic first aid, had made everyone take a course. Ingrid had been on mine, and having been far too interested in her short skirt to pay attention to anything else, the ABC of resuscitation was all that came to mind, the instructor having banged on about it for long enough. Unfortunately, unable to remember why, I could have kicked myself as the blood spread and steamed.

  Phil knew what to do, of course. Clanking his chains, kneeling opposite me, pulling Hobbes's head back, he peered into his mouth. 'His airway's clear,' he said, 'and he's breathing, though not very well. I'll check his circulation.' He poked around Hobbes's neck. 'I can't find a pulse.'

  My leg kept erupting into spasms of hurt and my body shook with cold and shock. The stink of hot, fresh blood and its tacky feel as it dried on my hands was getting to me, so, feeling my head floating, I closed my eyes and, had Phil not grunted unexpectedly, might have fainted. On opening my eyes, I found he'd beaten me to it, slumping across Hobbes like a wet blanket. I shook him. 'Wake up.' There was no response, except that he slipped to the floor, leaving it all up to me. I gritted my teeth.

  At least I now knew the ABC stood for Airways, Breathing and Circulation and, though I couldn't find a pulse either, the blood still pumping from the holes suggested he was still alive and that I should plug the leaks. Without bandages or dressings, I had to improvise. Picking up the dagger, cutting strips from Phil's nice silk shirt, I removed my vest and, folding it into a pad, used the strips to bind it over Hobbes's wounds.

  'Right,' I said out loud, though I doubted he could hear, 'that should staunch the bleeding while I go and phone for an ambulance. Don't worry.'

  Pushing myself up, I staggered towards the arch, convinced Hobbes was a goner.

  'Stop right there,' said Narcisa.

 
; Her makeup had run, she had a lump the size of a duck egg on her forehead, a purple bruise on the cheek where I'd hit her, and she'd put her wig on askew. Though she looked grotesque and battered, she was holding the revolver in a steady hand. I had a vision of myself standing before her, facing death, bloodied and shocked and surprisingly heroic. Strangely, I felt little fear.

  'You couldn't hit a barn door at this distance.'

  'You could be right,' she said grinning and her teeth looked uncannily white in the candlelight, 'so, you'd better come closer.'

  'I'm not that stupid.'

  She laughed and sneered, 'Oh, but you are. If you don't, I'll shoot him.' She pointed the gun at Phil's head.

  Even she couldn't possibly miss at that range, so forced to comply, I limped towards her as slowly as possible, hoping for the best.

  'Good boy,' she said. 'Now, if you don't mind, or, let's face it, even if you do, I want you to lift Mr Waring back onto the altar.'

  'No,' I said.

  'No is not the answer I expect when I've got a gun in my hand. Do you imagine you're being heroic? You ought to take a look in the mirror sometime. You're a mess. Now, move him before I get angry.'

  'No.'

  'There's no chivalry in young men these days. Are you sure you mean no?'

  'No. I mean, yes, I'm sure I mean no.'

  'Oh, well,' she said and raised the gun. 'Parting is such sweet sorrow.'

  'And parkin is such sweet cake.' I couldn't help thinking that my attempt at a James Bond-style witty riposte hadn't quite reached the standard. They were hardly famous last words and I grimaced, though I didn't anticipate them being either famous or last.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened. She squeezed it again and again.

  My mind was clear and any fear was minimal. I'd counted how many shots she'd fired. 'You're out of ammo,' I said.

  Screaming, she hurled the revolver at me but it was a real girlie throw, one even I might have bettered. It clattered to the floor behind.