Inspector Hobbes and the Blood: A Fast-paced Comedy Crime Fantasy (unhuman) (12 page)

By
the time two police vans arrived, uniformed officers bursting from them,
looking mean, the trouble had ceased. All was weirdly quiet, except for the
moaning of the debris piled at Hobbes's feet. The police looked at the shop
front, then at the groaning heap, and then at Hobbes. I sensed indecision. They
must have suspected him of being responsible, yet no one appeared willing to
accost him. Their relief was evident when he flashed his ID.

'These
men attacked the shop,' he said. 'It was a set-up, using the cover of the
football crowds. Fortunately, I happened to be passing and prevented the
situation getting too ugly, though Mr Sharif was assaulted by this gentleman.'
He poked a groaning man near the bottom of the heap with his boot. 'This man
broke the window.' He pointed at a body near the top. 'This one,' he hauled one
from the middle, collapsing the pile into individual moaning invalids, 'tried
to put the boot in.'

'These
good people,' said Hobbes, pointing at a group, shamefacedly holding electrical
goods, 'witnessed the attack. Didn't you, lads?'

They
stared, dumfounded and, one by one, nodded.

'I
see they've picked up a few items for safekeeping with the intent of returning
them to Mr Sharif. If they put them back immediately, we will say no more about
it. Right?'

They
returned the goods.

'Great.'
Hobbes turned his bulk towards the police officers. 'I'll leave it in your
hands.'

Smiling,
he strode back to the car, got in and began threading it through the crowd.
People, talking in small groups, pointing at us, raised their thumbs or nodded
as we passed. I acknowledged their gestures, feeling the warm glow of
satisfaction and reflected heroism.

All
too soon, the crowds thinning and Hobbes's foot growing heavier, we were hurtling
back down the dual carriageway towards Sorenchester. He was humming sonorously
over the engine. It was a tune I thought I ought to recognise and I tried to
decipher it, since it took my mind off the speed, though, whenever I was
getting close, the car would swerve or brake and my thought process would
tumble like a pile of child's bricks. I never did get it.

We'd
parked outside the police station and were heading for the entrance when it
occurred to me to ask to see what Jimmy looked like. Hobbes, stopping, fished
in his coat pocket, pulling out the photograph and holding it under a light.
Jimmy, more than a little pie-eyed to judge by his expression and the number of
empty glasses heaped around him, was smiling. I'd guess he was about thirty, small,
with dark, slicked-back hair, an undergrowth of stubble sprouting from chin and
cheeks. He was in a black shirt and jacket and, since the flash had turned his
eyes red and his skin deathly pale, looked extraordinarily sinister.

'I
wouldn't want to meet him on a dark night,' I said, sniggering, unthinking.

'I
suspect you already have,' said Hobbes.

Realisation
hit me like a punch to the stomach. 'It was Jimmy in the bin?'

He
nodded. 'I fear so, though I won't know for certain until the forensic lads
report. Of course, his face had been bashed in, but the bits left looked like
bits on the photograph, though not necessarily in the same place.'

'Poor
Anna,' I said, feeling sorry for the little woman. 'Who could have done it?'

He
shrugged. 'I don't know yet, but I agree, Miss Nicholls will be distraught.
Still, in my opinion, she could do far better than Jimmy Pinker.'

'Umm
… d'you think Jimmy is connected with the burglary?'

'I'll
be surprised if there isn't a connection, but shouldn't we go to my office? Or
do you prefer standing out here?'

The
wind, whistling around my ears, left them feeling as though they'd been boxed.

I
shivered. 'Let's go in. I'm getting cold.'

'Not
as cold as Jimmy.' Putting the photograph back in his pocket, he turned towards
his office, sniffing the air. 'I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a
frost tonight.'

All
I could smell was car fumes, burnt rubber and, blown in from afar, a subtle
hint of chips. I followed him inside, making tea, while he, slouching at his
desk, wrote laboriously on a sheet of paper. I supposed it was a report, although
I wasn't sure he actually reported to anyone.

It
gave me time to sit and think about the case. If Jimmy had been the burglar,
then who'd killed him? Perhaps, whoever it was had wanted to get their hands on
his swag, if he'd actually stolen anything that was. But why? And who had
buried the body? And why in that particular grave? What really puzzled me was
why whoever had done it had then returned and dug it up again. The whole affair
was grotesque, yet it felt right that Hobbes was investigating. I just wondered
what my role was.

Though
no answers came, more questions did. Was the body, in fact, that of the burglar
and, if so, had Mr Roman been responsible? It might explain why Hobbes had found
him so distracted, why he'd made up such a bizarre story and killed himself. Still,
I found it incredible that a respectable man would murder and dispose of the
body in such a crazy manner. Why would he? And, of course, it couldn't possibly
have been Roman who'd dug it up again, because he was dead by then. So, perhaps
Roman hadn't killed Jimmy at all and we were looking for someone else. I concluded
that I didn't know what the hell was going on and that merely thinking about it
would give me a headache.

Hobbes,
still engrossed in his paperwork, I placed a mug of tea beside him, looking
around for distraction. There was a pile of books on the rug by my chair and,
sitting back down, I selected a leather-bound, musty volume from the top of the
pile and flicked through. It was filled with pages of old-fashioned
handwriting, a mess of loops and blots and the occasional smudge, and appeared
to be a record of old Sorenchester crimes. Heinous offences they'd been too, judging
by the first item to catch my attention, one about a certain Thomas 'Porky'
Parker who'd been arrested on suspicion of pig stealing. Though the pig had
never been recovered, a substantial quantity of sausage had been returned to
its rightful owner. I chuckled, looking at the following page, where Mistress
Katherine Boot, having been discovered intoxicated in the parish church, tried
to put the blame on her next door neighbour, Gramma Black, claiming she'd
cursed her.

As
I bent to replace the book, a scrap of yellowed paper, a cutting from the
Bugle
,
fluttered to the floor. Picking it up, I noticed it was from August 1912 and
about an aerobatic display in the church grounds. Though marvelling at the
blurry photograph of the aeroplane, a flimsy structure of wood, canvas and
wire, with an astonishing curved propeller, it was the women's enormous hats
and the men's vast whiskers that struck me as most remarkable.

Or
so I thought, until, when about to return the cutting, I noticed the police
constable holding back the crowd. The unfortunate fellow was almost a dead
ringer for Hobbes, though not quite so bulky, and with his face partly
concealed behind a dark, drooping moustache. Finishing my tea, I speculated
whether he might have been an ancestor. Hobbes laid down his pen and sat back.

'Was
your grandfather a policeman as well?' I asked.

He
looked up with a small frown. 'As well as what?'

I
held out the cutting. 'This policeman looks a bit like you and I was just
wondering if he was a relation?'

'No.'
He pushed aside his papers and leaned back in his chair with a strange grin.
'He's no relation. I never knew my grandparents, or my parents for that matter;
I was adopted.'

'I'm
sorry.'

'Don't
be. My adoptive parents were kind and looked after me as if I was really their
own. They forced me onto the straight and narrow and held me there long enough
that I wanted to stay. They were good people and it's a shame there aren't a
few more like Uncle Jack and Auntie Elsie.'

'I
sometimes wish I'd been adopted,' I said. 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad,'
to quote Jim Betjeman … or was it L S Eliot?'

'Larkin,
I think you'll find.' He shook his head, sighing. 'It's always easy to blame
others, particularly parents, for one's own shortcomings. I have observed that
bringing up a child is never easy and that the majority of parents and adoptive
parents do their best, most of the time. People just find it difficult to take
responsibility for themselves and their own mistakes.'

'Do
you ever make mistakes?' I was astonished to hear him speak in such a way.

'Of
course, though not so many as I used to. For instance, in my younger days I
would sometimes miss mealtimes when on a case. I don't do that anymore, unless
it's an emergency, which is why we are leaving now.'

'Are
we leaving?'

He
was on his feet, nodding. 'Put the cutting away, it's time to go home. Mrs
Goodfellow will have our suppers ready.'

I
did as instructed, happy at the prospect of being fed, for I'd had a growing
feeling of hunger, and followed him into the night air. A few shreds of cloud,
clinging to the face of the half-moon, were torn away as I looked up, and were lost
in the darkness. Despite the town's brightness, stars glittered in the open sky
and I blessed the thick tweed suit, shrugging into it as the rising wind
chucked leaves and grit into my face.

I
expected we'd drive but Hobbes wanted, he said, 'a brisk walk to blow away the
cobwebs and stir the juices before supper'. Turning up my collar, taking an
almost wistful glance at the car and its promise of shelter, I followed down an
alley into The Shambles, where a handful of Saturday night revellers were
braving the chill in their search for fun and alcohol. Pub windows glowed with
welcome. Passing whiffs of cooking piqued the appetite.

'Are
you originally from Sorenchester?' I asked, struggling to keep up.

'No.
We had to move around a lot when I was young. They were troubled times. I first
remember living near the Blacker Mountains on the Welsh borders. Afterwards we
lived near Hedbury in a cottage in the woods until there was some trouble and
we had to move to London, where Auntie Elsie worked in a hat shop and Uncle
Jack became a docker. I went to school there until there was some trouble and
we left for Wales. I used to love the mountains and the green valleys and the
singing. After the trouble in Tenby, we lived in a caravan, touring round the
shows and carnivals. Later, Uncle Jack worked at a factory in Pigton, where we
lived until there was some trouble, and moved here when I was eleven. There was
never much trouble here, so we stayed.'

'Trouble
seemed to follow you around.'

He
chuckled. 'So they told me. I regret being the cause of much of it, in the days
when I was young and wild.'

We
crossed The Shambles opposite the church, from where we could hear a choir
practising. Hobbes, dawdling outside the great studded doors, closed his eyes,
evidently enjoying the sound. Being no fan of choirs, preferring a good
stonking beat in my music and lots of volume, I was glad when the song ended and
we could get on. I shivered, hoping there might be an overcoat hanging in the
wardrobe.

'I
know you were adopted,' I said, as we turned up Pound Street past the old yew
tree, 'but did you ever try to trace your real parents?'

Hobbes
shook his head. 'Uncle Jack said they were killed.'

'An
accident?'

'No.'

'What?
D'you mean someone killed them?'

'That's
enough. They died. Uncle Jack and Aunt Elsie looked after me.'

'But—'

'Enough.'
He scowled and I shut up.

Though
curious to know more about him, and pleasantly surprised at his brief openness,
I knew he'd closed up again, and feared my probing had touched a sore spot. I
consoled myself that there would be plenty of time for further investigations
for, though my remark about going freelance had been no more than bravado, the
thought had been growing. I really could write something about Hobbes,
something to amaze the people in Sorenchester and, maybe, those as far away as
Pigton, or even further, would find him fascinating. I could make a name for
myself with a racy article in the national press. Or why not a series of
articles? Or a book? Hobbes could be my ticket to fame and fortune. I'd have a
flat in London, probably a penthouse, a mansion in the country, a villa in
Spain and there'd be girls and parties and designer suits. Editorsaurus Rex
would grovel to get my reports and he'd be sorry he sacked me. Plus, I'd be
able to sneer at my father's pathetic little dental practice from a safe
distance. I felt I was scaling new heights.

Arrival
at 13 Blackdog Street brought me down to earth. My penthouse and all the rest
were way over the horizon. For now, I'd have to make do with Hobbes's spare room,
Mrs Goodfellow, suppers in the kitchen and Mr Goodfellow's old suits. I hoped
it would be worth it.

The
door opening, an enticing savoury aroma welcomed us and my mouth was awash by
the time Hobbes shut the door on the cruel night. As we took our places at the
kitchen table, I restrained myself until he'd said grace and then got stuck
into the casserole, as if I hadn't eaten all day. Mrs Goodfellow, opening a
bottle of red wine, left us to it. When I'd slowed down a little, had enjoyed a
sip of the smooth, fruity wine and the kitchen's warmth had soaked into my
core, my optimism began to rise, for Hobbes wasn't so bad when you got to know
him and Mrs Goodfellow was just a harmless old biddy who fed me and brought me
drinks.