3 Inspector Hobbes and the Gold Diggers

by Wilkie Martin

  I smiled back and felt rotten. Put out: she could hardly have chosen better words. A cat gets put out, evicted from warmth and comfort and forced out into the bleak, cold night, but at least I wasn’t going to be put out that particular night. I put on a brave mask.

  ‘That’s very good of you to offer,’ said Hobbes, ‘but you have nowhere else to go, unless you want to go back to your parents.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’d rather not, but I should be able to find somewhere to stay round here.’

  ‘It won’t be easy,’ said Hobbes, ‘without any money. You’d have to get a job.’

  ‘I know. I’ve … umm … been meaning to.’

  ‘Everyone should have a job,’ said Kathy. ‘Otherwise, how they gonna live?’

  ‘I don’t want you to leave,’ said Hobbes. ‘I’ve thought about it and, as you say, it is my house and in matters such as this I will make the decisions. Therefore, as I said, I will sleep on the sofa tonight, and tomorrow I’ll clear some space in the attic. The lass has been saying I should. I think she’s worried the weight will bring the house down.’

  Kathy snorted as she suppressed a laugh.

  ‘There’s plenty of room up there for me to make up a bed,’ he continued, ‘and I will be perfectly comfortable.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem fair,’ I said, though the relief almost made me dizzy.

  ‘I agree,’ said Kathy. ‘I don’t see why my daddy has to give his bed up.’

  Hobbes shrugged. ‘Nevertheless, that is my final word.’

  His tone of voice indicated that he meant it.

  12

  I found it difficult to relax that night, being acutely aware of the stranger in the room next door, as well as feeling guilty that Hobbes was downstairs. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the sofa, besides a little old age fading and scuffing, but it was no place for such a big guy to spend the night and I don’t know how he managed, for next morning, after mowing his overnight bristles, taking a shower and dressing in his smart suit, he showed no hint of tiredness or stiffness. Despite the Sunday morning clamour of the church bells and the scent of frying bacon, Kathy was a no-show for breakfast. Although conceding the possibility that she was jet-lagged, I was more inclined to put it down to laziness.

  Hobbes had just finished his third huge mug of tea when the phone rang and he went to answer it.

  ‘That was Sid,’ he said, on his return. ‘There was a break in at the bank overnight.’

  ‘A break in?’ I said, always quick on the uptake. ‘Was anything stolen?’

  ‘It’s unlikely someone broke in to make a deposit. Now I have a slight problem. I was intending to escort the lass to church this morning, so would you mind going with her instead?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, biting back on my objections, hiding my disappointment that I would not be taken to the crime scene and still determined to be on my best behaviour. ‘It’ll be my pleasure.’

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ said Mrs Goodfellow, who’d just reappeared in her Sunday best, a slightly-too-big green frock, patterned with orange flowers. She had inserted her previously-owned false teeth and had topped off the entire creation with a saggy, baggy black hat with artificial daisies. ‘Go and put on a suit. A good thick one would be best as it’s chilly outside.’

  ‘OK … I’ll wear the dark one.’

  ‘And quickly, or you’ll be late,’ said Hobbes, heading out. ‘I’ll be off. Dregs, stay.’

  Dregs, a connoisseur of crime scenes, slumped under the table as Hobbes left.

  Hurrying upstairs, I pulled out the heavy, dark woollen suit that, like my entire wardrobe, had once belonged to Mr Goodfellow and which, like everything else, fitted uncannily well. The last time I’d worn it had been to the funeral of a murdered man, when, although I hadn’t realised until later, my then girlfriend had been the killer. In fairness to her, the victim hadn’t been nice. Then I tentatively removed the bandage round my head and gazed in the mirror for a moment, impressed by the rainbow colours beneath.

  ‘Very smart, dear,’ said Mrs Goodfellow as I came downstairs ready for action. ‘Let’s go. You can carry this.’

  She handed me a large paper bag. To my surprise, it was full of aubergines.

  Leaving the house, turning left down Blackdog Street, we headed for the church. The wind was tossing litter and leaves around, ruffling my hair, making me shiver as if it were thrusting icy fingers through my clothes. I wished I’d put on an overcoat, and maybe a trilby, though I doubted it would have stayed on long. A brief shaft of sunlight stabbing through the heavy grey cloud only seemed to make the day colder, and I was pleased when we reached the church door and could leave the wind to its mischief.

  Someone was playing a sprightly tune on the organ and the ancient stonework was decorated with flowers, fruits, and sheaves of wheat and barley. Although not a churchgoer, except for the occasional wedding, funeral or christening, it seemed busy to me, with plenty of bums on seats. I recognised a few of them from the Feathers and elsewhere.

  ‘There’s always a good congregation for the harvest festival,’ said Mrs Goodfellow, guiding me towards a pew.

  After apologising for standing on an old gentleman’s gouty foot, and nodding at my friend Les Bashem and his pack of young werewolves, I sat down beside her.

  ‘Is the harvest festival today?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Is that why we’ve brought aubergines?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Is that the vicar coming in?’

  She nodded a third time, adding a slight frown.

  ‘Should I shut up now?’

  She nodded and the service started. Although I made an effort to pay attention, I was itching to find out what had happened at the bank and kept drifting away. It seemed strange that Sid’s bank had been targeted twice in such a short time. I wondered why, and what had been taken. After all the publicity last time, I couldn’t believe anyone would be so rash, or stupid, to risk the wrath of Hobbes.

  Mrs Goodfellow nudged me. I was the only one still seated, apart from a very old chap in a wheelchair. Embarrassed, I rose to my feet and joined in the singing of ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’, rather enjoying myself, until I realised everyone else was singing ‘Come Ye Thankful People, Come’. That was probably the highlight for me, and by the time the vicar took to the pulpit for his sermon, my mind had moved on to lunch; in particular, the magnificent fruit pie I’d noticed the old girl had baked. As a result, I couldn’t remember much of the vicar’s spiel, except for a bit about someone toiling in the vineyard of the Lord, which struck me as odd, since there were no vineyards round Sorenchester. Even so, I made a real effort to fidget as little as possible, lowered my head to conceal my yawns, and tried to look intelligently interested, though my eyes seemed terribly heavy. The thump of my forehead striking the pew in front and the pain it caused made me yelp. I avoided looking towards Mrs Goodfellow, who I feared would be seriously annoyed. Fortunately, my cut didn’t reopen.

  At least I was awake when the curate, Kevin Godley, known as Kev the Rev because of his motor bike obsession, got up to do a reading from the Bible. Since he was a far better speaker than the vicar, it wasn’t difficult to pay attention and a phrase struck me as apposite: ‘And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.’ I did, I reflected, have food and raiment and was quite content, or would have been had I a little money to call my own.

  As if reading my mind, Kev continued: ‘For the love of money is the root of all evil’. I shrugged off the attack, for I neither loved, nor needed money, getting on pretty well without it. A warm glow of self-righteousness spread through me, a most welcome sensation in the draughty old church.

  ‘They that will be rich,’ said Kev, ‘fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.’

  Not being rich, or ever likely to be, it was unlikely I’d succumb to that particular temptation and I enjoyed a sudden feelin
g of righteous superiority over my less fortunate, if much richer, neighbours.

  My happy complacency lasted until the vicar resumed control and announced it was time to present harvest gifts. Mrs Goodfellow sent me to the front with the bag of aubergines. As I stood up, I realised I was the only adult, a giant among the children. I was thinking I should sit down again when Mrs Goodfellow gave me the look. Realising the futility of trying to be inconspicuous, aiming for nonchalant good humour, I stepped into the aisle, swinging my bag casually, as a little girl with a wicker basket full of shiny apples rushed past, eager to reach the front. I was on the down swing and my bag smacked her full in the face. She fell, emitting a wail of distress, and my bag split, spilling its bounty in a wide arc. A tubby boy with freckles, the next in line, stepped on a very ripe aubergine, skidded and crashed into a pew, causing his magnificent marrow to explode. He burst into tears and the vicar, hands raised, looking aghast, rushed to help.

  ‘I’m … umm … ever so sorry,’ I said and bent down to help the child.

  It was simply bad timing that the girl’s mother was already rushing to the rescue. As her knees hit my back, she went right over the top, crashing down and felling the onrushing vicar, whose sprawling demise caused a domino effect among the children, and a shower of tomatoes and freshly laid eggs.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I said, standing up, rubbing my back, stunned by the carnage I’d caused.

  ‘It’s that man again!’ cried a lady with blue-rinsed hair and a face that looked like it could chop through logs. ‘He’s always trouble.’

  ‘Not always,’ I said, ‘and it was an accident.’

  ‘What have you done to my wife and my little girl?’ asked a burly, balding man, striding forward, his face as red as the squashed tomato beneath his foot. As he slid past, arms flailing like a novice ice skater, he demolished the poor vicar, who was just getting back to his feet, his once pristine surplice horribly egged and slimed.

  A firm hand grabbed my shoulder. It was shaking with indignation and I was fully expecting painful retribution from an outraged parent, but it turned out to be Mrs Goodfellow’s. People were sniggering, trying to look suitably outraged, except for the young werewolves who were howling with laughter.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘it’s time to go.’

  My cheeks aflame, hanging my head in shame, muttering apologies to anyone who caught my eye, I allowed myself to be frogmarched through the church and evicted into The Shambles.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ I said, hoping to calm her anger with a show of penitence, although it really hadn’t been my fault. ‘I didn’t mean any harm. It was just an unfortunate accident.’

  ‘What are you, dear,’ she said, looking me right in the eye, ‘some kind of Doomsday machine?’ She exploded into laughter, leaning against me, her eyes streaming. ‘That was the best service I’ve been to in years, and I don’t know about the rest of them, but I feel thoroughly invigorated. Thank you.’

  Wiping her eyes, she patted me on the back, as I stood before her, nonplussed and still horrified by what I’d done. From inside came the singing of ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’. My antics had not held things up for long.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, her hysterics subsiding, ‘let’s go home and see to the dinner.’

  ‘Great,’ I said, feeling immediately better. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing special. It’s slow roasted belly pork with mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, peas and a nice apple sauce, using some of the windfalls.’

  ‘That sounds delicious, but is that all?’ I said, joking.

  ‘No, dear,’ she said, seriously. ‘I’ve also made a blackberry and apple pie.’

  ‘I saw it,’ I said, wishing dinnertime would hurry up, ‘and it looked absolutely marvellous. Let’s hope Kathy will be alright with it.’

  Mrs Goodfellow shrugged. ‘I hope she’ll like it.’

  ‘And another thing,’ I said, feeling a little sorry for her, ‘what will she do when she wakes up and finds no one’s home?’

  ‘She’ll be fine. I left a note, telling her to help herself to whatever she wanted for breakfast.’

  I grimaced, recalling the first time I’d had to make my own breakfast at Hobbes’s. Things had not quite gone according to plan and I’d come perilously close to torching the kitchen while trying to make a cup of tea.

  ‘Let’s hope she’s better at it than you were,’ said Hobbes.

  I must have leapt a good foot skyward. ‘Where did you come from?’ I asked on landing.

  ‘From across the road, I’ve done what I had to at the bank and was just leaving when I saw you two having a laugh.’ He glanced at the clock on the church tower. ‘You’re out early.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Goodfellow, regaling him with my misadventures as we strolled home.

  His guffaw resonated off the church walls like the sound of a great bell. ‘How do you manage it?’ he asked.

  ‘I only wish I knew.’

  ‘How many did you actually bring down?’

  ‘Only two directly, I think, though a few more came down in the aftermath.’

  ‘It reminds me,’ said Hobbes, ‘of when Bob Nibblet went to church.’

  ‘Skeleton’ Bob Nibblet, the skinniest man in the county, was its most unsuccessful petty criminal and a notorious drinker. The two were not unconnected. I wouldn’t have reckoned him a churchgoer.

  ‘Bob was experiencing a run of bad luck,’ said Hobbes, ‘having been caught red-handed five times in a week. On the sixth evening, he decided to forego poaching and to drown his sorrows. At throwing out time, having taken on board a gallon of Old Bootsplasher Ale, some joker bet him ten pounds that he couldn’t vault the car park wall. Eager for easy money, Bob accepted the bet and successfully cleared the wall.’

  ‘Good for him,’ I said, as we crossed into Blackdog Street, ‘but what’s this got to do with church?’

  ‘I was coming to that. Although he got over, he had quite failed to look before he leapt. He landed in a parked car.’

  ‘Don’t you mean on it?’

  ‘No, it was parked parallel to the wall and he crashed straight through the driver’s window.’

  ‘Was he hurt?’

  ‘He broke his leg. Worse for Bob was that the car belonged to Colonel Squire, the magistrate who’d just fined him one hundred pounds for poaching.’

  ‘That was bad luck.’

  ‘It was, and more so for the colonel, who had just enjoyed a pleasant meal with Mrs Squire. Fortunately, Bob is not the burliest fellow in the world, but it is still not pleasant to have a fully grown man wearing hobnail boots land on your face.’

  ‘I expect not. But what has this got to do with church?’

  ‘I was coming to that.’ He paused at the bottom of the steps outside the house. ‘Next morning, after a night of being plastered, and having learned that he’d been summonsed, charged with being drunk and disorderly, he realised Colonel Squire’s fiery temper would not have been improved by a broken nose and several loose teeth. Therefore, he decided to seek comfort in the church.

  ‘It turned out that a visiting evangelist was leading the service and the vicar, disapproving of the young man’s style, had taken refuge in his office.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Mrs Goodfellow. ‘The evangelist’s name was Gordon Cursitt.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Hobbes. ‘He preached about the healing power of the Lord and, Bob, carried away by the power of his words, struggled to the front of the church, threw aside his crutches and cried “Alleluia!”’

  ‘That’s amazing.’

  ‘Gordon Cursitt rushed to tell the vicar of the miracle and the vicar, remorseful for his scepticism, hurried out to see what had happened, but there was no sign of Bob.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘Behind the font, groaning and clutching his leg.’

  He chuckled, bounded up the steps and opened the door. I hoped the story was true, though I had to admit I sometimes doubted Hobbes’s
veracity. The savour of roasting pork drove lesser considerations from my mind as I followed Mrs Goodfellow into the house.

  Kathy was sitting at the kitchen table, an empty plate and a glass of water in front of her.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Hobbes, as Mrs Goodfellow let Dregs into the garden, ‘did you sleep well?’

  ‘Not really. That pesky dog was under my bed. He snores.’

  ‘You should keep the door closed,’ said Mrs Goodfellow.

  ‘I did. He must have snuck in when I went to the bathroom.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Hobbes. ‘You should have pushed him out.’

  ‘He growled.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Hobbes. ‘I’ll tell him not to do it again.’

  ‘Did you find everything for breakfast?’ asked Mrs Goodfellow with a friendly smile, displaying her false teeth.

  ‘Not really. The bread wasn’t sliced and you don’t appear to have a toaster, I couldn’t find the coffee machine and there were no sodas in the ice box.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Hobbes, ‘but the lass bakes her own bread and slices it with a bread knife. There’s a grill on the cooker and she makes coffee on the hob. Would you like one now?’

  ‘Yes, please. I’ve only drunk water from the faucet and I can’t face the day without my coffee.’

  ‘I’ll make you some,’ said Mrs Goodfellow. ‘Did you find anything to eat?’

  ‘Only a pie,’ said Kathy. ‘I made do with that.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mrs Goodfellow.

  ‘I hope that’s alright,’ said Kathy.

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ said Hobbes. ‘If you’re hungry, you must eat.’

  I couldn’t believe she’d guzzled the whole pie, for, unlike Hobbes, I looked forward to my puddings. A slice of that pie would have been the perfect finale to the roast pork and she had deprived me of a real treat. I would have liked to have said something fine, biting and sarcastic, at least, if I’d been able to think of anything, but instead, still trying to be on my best behaviour, I was reduced to a sort of mental spluttering. The whole pie? The old girl was a generous cook and there were always seconds and leftovers and, though Kathy was a large lady (I was still on my best behaviour), I couldn’t get my head around it. The whole pie? Succulent with apples and ripe with blackberries? I could have wept and it wasn’t because I was obsessed with food, for although I had a healthy appetite, I enjoyed a wide range of interests; anyone fortunate enough to have eaten one of the old girl’s pies would have understood my point of view.