The sun was making the road ahead shimmer. I guessed I’d been walking for an hour with nothing passing in either direction, and home felt a weary distance away, when, at last, I heard a car’s engine. A muddy green Land Rover drove towards me along a rutted side road. Hoping it was heading for Sorenchester, I stopped, waggling my hitcher’s thumb and trying to look like a perfect passenger. To my delight, the Land Rover slowed down and stopped.
The driver’s window opened and I stepped forward, leaning in, seeing my benefactor, a young man in a checked shirt, corduroy trousers and a baseball cap, was looking at me expectantly.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Home.’ He pointed along the road to Sorenchester.
‘Me too,’ I said, nodding. ‘Can I have a lift?’
‘Yes, but, I’m going home …’
‘That’s fine. Just take me as far as you’re going.’
‘OK.’ He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. Hop in.’
I hopped, shut the door and belted myself in. ‘Thank you. It’s very kind of you.’
‘It’s nothing.’
He was right. Setting off towards Sorenchester, he turned almost immediately into a dusty lane and came to a stop by the side of an old red-brick farm house.
‘Home,’ he said, grinning. ‘I tried to tell you.’
‘Thanks very much,’ I said, gritting my teeth, getting out and trudging back the way we’d just come. At least it was downhill.
That was the only vehicle I laid eyes on, apart from a distant glimpse of a tractor in a field. The cylinder of hay it was carrying reminded me of a giant Swiss roll, an unfortunate analogy, as I was already starting to feel ravenous and guessed it was lunchtime. No doubt that was why the farmer had been heading home. The sun was at its zenith, sweat was sticking my shirt to my back and I had to keep moving my bag from shoulder to shoulder, aware they were starting to chafe, and, as if to distract me from that particular woe, a blister was coming up on my heel. Licking dry lips with a dry tongue, I wished I’d had the foresight to bring a drink and my thirst wasn’t helped by seeing a sign to the Red Dragon Inn. I wondered how much ice-cold lager they’d let me have for eight pence. None whatsoever, I suspected. I trudged on.
The road really was remarkably empty. Nothing, besides the occasional bird, was moving, and I could almost believe I was the only human left in the world. I guessed there’d been a major accident or something that had meant the road was closed, and it now seemed a very long road, a very hot road, and one that was increasingly hard on my feet. Eventually, a most welcome downhill section took me to the tiny village of Northsorn, about half way to Sorenchester, where I beheld the Squire’s Arms, a fine, old-fashioned, thatch-roofed pub, just off the road.
On reaching it, I loitered near the front door, which was wedged open, and stared longingly at the rows of beer pumps, considering my chances of begging for a drink. Unfortunately, there was a huge, shaven-headed, scowling man behind the bar. He reminded me, with his dim-witted, ugly, malevolent face, massive, thick arms and general look of belligerence, of ‘Featherlight’ Binks, the landlord of the Feathers in Sorenchester. He did not look the sympathetic type. Giving up on beer, I considered getting a drink from the tap in the gents’ toilet but, since it was on the far side of the bar room and I’d have to walk there under the scrutiny of that scowl, I hesitated. When he glared at me, flexing his biceps, displaying an impressive red rose tattoo and giving an impression of great strength, I gave up. I’d just have to keep walking.
However, my situation wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed, for the River Soren appeared out of the fields next to the Squires Arms and ran beside the road for a short distance. Coming across a flat, grassy spot beneath the shade of a fine old cedar tree, I laid down my bag, removed my shoes and socks, rolled up my chinos to my knees and plunged my feet into the stream. Although the initial shock made me gasp, it was soon blissful. I sighed, wiggling my toes as a large rainbow trout rose to inspect them before taking fright and concealing itself within a mass of streaming weeds. When my feet were sufficiently cool, I knelt on the bank, splashed my face and felt much better, despite still being desperate for a drink. Yet, the river, glinting, gleaming, gurgling and burbling, held enough drink for thousands. It was tempting, though I dithered a while, trying not to think of all the bugs it might contain and what the trout did in it. The temptation was too strong. Lying flat on my stomach, leaning over the stream, I opened my mouth and drank greedily. Though a little earthy, the river water was cool, fresh and delightful.
Gulping it down, drinking my fill, I was happy until rough hands grabbed my ankles and lifted them, plunging my head under the surface, causing water to pour up my nose, and explode into my sinuses. Panicking, in pain, desperate for air, flailing, writhing, squirming and kicking, unable to escape, I was certain I was going to drown until I was released to slide into the river. I grazed my hands on the pebbly bottom before, pushing up and kicking, I made it to the surface. Gasping for air, I floundered as the current took me.
‘Help!’ I screamed.
‘We don’t like poachers,’ said the man from the pub, bending to pick up my bag and hurl it.
It hit the water in front of me and I grabbed it, clinging like the proverbial drowning man clings to a proverbial straw, and with about as much effect.
‘I can’t swim well!’ I cried, raising my hands and sinking.
‘Well, stand up, you daft bugger,’ said the man. ‘Then take your sodden bag and clear off.’
My feet touched bottom and I struggled to stand, finding the river was only waist-deep, though the flow was strong and the pebbles underfoot offered little grip. It was a relief to reach the bank, to drag myself ashore and to lie there panting, while my brutal assailant laughed his ugly head off. I wished Hobbes were there to sort him out.
Then, getting to my feet and drawing myself up to my full height, I turned to face him. ‘Can I have my shoes back, please?’
He threw them. I nearly caught the first one. The second caught me on the ear.
‘Now get lost,’ he yelled, taking one giant step towards me.
Clutching my shoes and bag, I fled down the road until it felt safe to stop and catch my breath. After rubbing my ear, I sat on the verge to pull on my socks, which luckily I’d stuffed into my shoes. Then, to my surprise, I heard a car approaching. Unfortunately, it was heading in the wrong direction and was a police car that turned up the lane beside the Squire’s Arms and sped into the hills.
Having put on my shoes, I stood back up and resumed my walk, leaving a trail of drips on the hot asphalt.
I could hardly believe what had just happened. Even Featherlight Binks had to be subjected to some degree of provocation before resorting to violence, and I’d noticed how he usually managed to restrain himself until he’d taken as much of a customer’s money as he was likely to get before punching him or throwing him out. Besides, Featherlight had never, to my knowledge, tried to drown anyone in the river, although this might have been because the Soren was a five minute walk from the Feathers and his rage rarely lasted that long. However, according to Hobbes, he had once made an attempt at drowning a complaining customer in a pan of spicy cat stew.
I couldn’t understand what I’d done to provoke the man, although I’d have been the first to admit I was not to everyone’s taste. There’d been no reason for accusing me of poaching, although I had seen a trout when bathing my feet. I’d never heard of anyone poaching trout with their toes. Hobbes had once told me that he’d been fishing with bears, who’d used their paws to hook in salmon, but I had nothing in common with bears, other than that my bedroom had once been the den of a retired circus bear, called Cuddles, whose mortal remains, now stuffed, occupied the attic of 13 Blackdog Street. That was according to Hobbes; Mrs Goodfellow insisted he’d discovered it in a skip and brought it home as a curio.
Still, the dunking had cooled me, which was no bad thing as I still had a long wa
y to trudge. All the water I’d taken in reached my bladder just as I was entering a lay by. Concealing myself behind a tree, I unbuttoned my flies, aware such bashfulness was silly with the road so empty.
I’d reached full spate when I was shocked by the sudden roar of car engines and a clang. Twisting my neck, I saw a white van had demolished the gate at the bottom of the recently ploughed field below and was being pursued by four police cars, which were tanking after it, spraying great clods of earth as they bounced and twisted over the furrows. The way the van was being driven, it was clear the driver had little regard for safety and was absolutely desperate. A man’s torso popped up through a hole in the van’s roof. He was holding a shotgun and fired both barrels at the pursuers. One of them, attempting to swerve out of harm’s way, bounced high over a furrow, came down on its side, rolled onto its roof and skidded to a standstill. The others continued the chase, wisely hanging back out of range.
The white van seemed to be heading straight towards me and, as I retreated behind the tree, buttoning my flies with panicked haste, another car hurtled into the field, a familiar blue, rusting Ford Fiesta. I could make out Hobbes’s vast figure wrestling the wheel, as the tortured engine screamed and the car bucked and bounced, leading a swarm of muddy clods. The van roared closer before veering towards a gap, where the thick hedge had been replaced by a section of wire fence. It smashed straight through, landing with a bone-jarring crash and hurtling off down the road, trailing wire and fence posts. Hobbes, who had already overtaken the police cars, waved as he shot past and, feeling somewhat foolish, I waved back, as his car, leaping suddenly like a startled lamb, plunged through the gap, careered down the road and disappeared around a bend. The other pursuers followed at a less breakneck pace.
Down in the field, two dazed-looking police officers crawled from the overturned car. Neither, so I gathered from their remarks, interspersed with bouts of swearing, was injured, so, since there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to help, I continued homewards, mile after aching mile.
Tired of foot, with sore legs and dripping with sweat, I was nearing Fenderton, on the outskirts of Sorenchester, when the traffic started again. I wondered if that meant Hobbes had caught the van, and I hoped he hadn’t been hurt, for, despite his strength and toughness, he wasn’t immune to guns.
At last I reached town, where people kept staring and grinning. I guessed it was because of my clothes, which, although fully dried by then, were limp and filthy, my sharply creased chinos reduced to saggy bags and my shirt more like a cleaning rag. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window. My hair had dried into a sort of wild afro frizz and mud was smeared diagonally across my face, making me look like a new romantic who’d fallen on very hard times.
At least the mud concealed my identity, as well as my blushes, for as I turned into Blackdog Street, I was astonished by the crowd milling round the door of number 13. As I approached, a man walked up to the front door and rang the bell. No one answered.
Tapping someone on the shoulder, I asked: ‘What’s going on?’
He turned to face me, his eyes widening, a chuckle escaping. The camera round his neck and his jacket stuffed with notebooks and pens made it clear to me, a man who’d once worked for the Bugle, that he was a reporter, as was everyone else there, unless they were cameramen.
‘It’s the gold robbery,’ he said. ‘We want a word with the inspector.’
‘He’s out chasing the ones that got away.’
‘Oh, really?’ said the reporter, looking suddenly interested, ‘and how would you know that?’
‘Because I saw him.’
Taking a small recording device from his jacket pocket, he held it beneath my nose. ‘Would you mind telling me who you are, and precisely what you saw?’
‘I’m not sure I should say,’ I replied, aware of having become an object of interest.
Reporters were jostling, thrusting microphones and cameras, shouting questions, and I wasn’t enjoying my moment in the spotlight.
‘I won’t say anything unless someone tells me why you’re all here.’
‘After last night,’ said the man I’d accosted, ‘we want the low-down on this Inspector Hobbes.’
‘Why?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘Not really. What’s he done?’
‘You should check out the news. He was awesome.’
‘I will,’ I said, ‘if you let me get to the door.’
‘Do you live here?’ asked a little, fat guy.
‘What’s your name?’ asked a fierce looking young woman.
‘What’s your relationship with Hobbes?’ asked someone I couldn’t see.
The crowd was pressing from all sides. ‘Look, I know nothing and my name is—’
‘What?’
‘—not important.’
Getting out my keys, ignoring questions, deflecting cameras, I shoved and dodged through the throng until I was in touching distance of the front door.
‘Why are you so muddy?’ asked a particularly pushy man, who looked vaguely familiar, and was trying not to let me pass. ‘How old is Hobbes?’
It was Jeremy Pratt off the news. I shook my head. ‘Sorry, I know nothing. No speakee English. Leave me alone.’
Managing at last to angle past him, to get up the steps and to stick my key in the lock, I opened the door, hoping I’d be able to stop them following me inside.
I needn’t have worried. Out of the house, big, black and bristling, burst Hobbes’s dog, Dregs. Brushing me aside, making the reporters scatter, he seized Jeremy Pratt firmly by the groin. Jeremy froze, his mouth open in a silent scream.
‘Dregs,’ I said in my authoritative voice, the one he usually ignored, ‘drop!’
To my surprise he dropped, and Jeremy, clutching himself, teetered on the top step and stumbled back down to the street, moaning. I doubted Dregs had done any serious damage, for, beneath his ferocious exterior, he was quite benevolent. As I shut the door he leapt on me, delighted to see me again, and not happy until he’d given me a thorough licking.
‘Get off!’ I said, my authoritative voice having no effect until he’d finished.
‘What on earth is going on out there?’ I asked.
Dregs didn’t know. At any rate, he wasn’t telling. More to the point, there was no sign of Mrs Goodfellow, and worse, no smell of cooking. Heading to the kitchen, I helped myself to a flagon of cool ginger beer, gulping it all down in record time and burping freely. I washed my hands and face, put the kettle on and had a search around for food.
The result wasn’t at all bad. I found a fresh, crusty loaf in the bread bin, a little butter, and some Sorenchester cheese in the pantry, and a selection of Mrs Goodfellow’s home-made pickles in a cupboard. Although my attempts at slicing the bread wavered between slab thick and wafer thin, the sandwiches I put together tasted just fine. Sitting at the kitchen table, Dregs by my side, I tried not to stuff myself and to appreciate the delicate home-baked aroma of the bread and the wonderful, crumbly cheese with its sweet, tangy, almost nutty flavour. And then there were the pickles, which she made on wet autumn days and were, quite simply, the best I’d ever tasted. Hobbes had once remarked that she’d won the Parish Pungent Pickle Prize twenty-seven years in succession before stepping aside to let lesser cooks have a chance. Dregs watched every mouthful and drooled, though he knew I considered Sorenchester cheese was far too good for dogs and he didn’t much like pickles anyway. When I’d finished, I made a pot of tea, rested my weary feet on a chair, and drank the lot.
Relaxed and fed, my leg muscles aching, my feet sore, I wondered where the old girl was, and why Hobbes had apparently not returned for lunch; even when busy, he usually made it.
A glance through the letterbox showed the reporters were still out there, so, turning on the television, finding a news channel, I sat back in the threadbare old sofa.
I didn’t have long to wait. After a rather dull piece about a financial probe, the topic turned to t
he attempted gold raid. To start with, there was little more than an extended version of what I’d heard last night, plus something about the police closing the main road as they chased the remaining robbers, who had, unfortunately, escaped. I was a little surprised, for Hobbes, on the hunt, rarely came back empty-handed.
The matter-of-fact tone of the newsreader’s voice changed: ‘Last night, the gang had just finished loading the gold into their getaway vehicle when a plain clothes police officer arrived on the scene. A guest in a nearby hotel took this remarkable footage.’
There followed a rather wobbly video clip of the events. Black smoke was pouring from the back of the security van as four men appeared, their faces concealed in balaclavas. As they strutted, showing off a selection of guns, a white van, the one I’d seen earlier, roared into the picture and stopped to let three of the gang transfer a number of heavy-looking bags, while a fourth, a large man, holding a shotgun, covered the guard and two guys in business suits, who were lying face down on the pavement.
As soon as the last bag was loaded, the gang leapt into the back of the van, slamming the door behind them as they began to pull away up The Shambles towards the Parish Church. Hobbes came into view, sprinting, hunched up, his knuckles nearly scraping the road. He leapt at the van, holding on with one great hand and tearing at the loading doors with the other. Despite the van swerving from side to side, he somehow managed to open the doors and to swing inside. Unfortunately, as the van sped up the road, it went out of shot temporarily as the photographer changed his position.
The video continued, showing bags of gold rolling out and bursting in the road before, one after another, in rapid succession, three of the gang flew out the back and skidded along the tarmac. The final clip, just as the van disappeared from view around the corner, showed Hobbes swinging onto the roof.
The newsreader continued. ‘The police officer, identified by witnesses as Inspector Hobbes, incredibly managed to knock a hole through the top of the van, despite coming under small arms fire. His amazing attempt at apprehending the entire gang only ended when the van crashed into a hedge and he was brushed off. Fortunately, he was reportedly unhurt and is already back on duty.
3 Inspector Hobbes and the Gold Diggers Page 2
