3 Inspector Hobbes and the Gold Diggers (9 page)

‘Did you see that?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘The red kite.’

‘No,’ I said, frustrated, but determined to keep my eyes skinned and to point something interesting out to him.

‘Never mind. We’ll stop here for lunch.’ He swung his kit to the ground.

I wriggled free from my rucksack, enjoying the breeze, feeling my shirt sticking to my back. The day was somewhat cooler than it had been and the valley, to my eyes, was uninviting; bare, broken rock with now and again a whiff of stagnant water from a nasty, green bog at the bottom.

‘Is there a reason for stopping here?’ I asked, rummaging in my rucksack for my cagoule, already having had enough of the wind.

‘There’s fresh water.’

‘I can’t see any,’ I said, peevish with hunger, wrinkling my nose, ‘unless you mean that stinking stuff down there.’

‘No.’ He laughed, and said, ‘There’s a spring.’

‘Where?’

‘In the cave.’

‘What cave?’ I asked.

‘This one,’ he said, dropping to his knees and crawling into what I’d taken to be a hummock, where there was a fissure just big enough for him to squeeze through.

‘Pass me the jerry can,’ he said, disappearing, leaving only his hand remaining in the light.

I passed it, and can and Hobbes were gone. Although Dregs found the procedure most entertaining, he showed no inclination to follow and nor did I, for I’d had too many bad frights in dark places. Instead, I dug out the kettle, the stove, and a box of matches and waited, hoping Hobbes did not get himself lost or stuck. If my worst fears were realised, I would have to attempt a rescue, as I had no mobile phone and would undoubtedly get lost should I go looking for help. After a few minutes of silence, my stomach tightening with nerves, I dropped to my knees and stuck my head into the dark, narrow cave.

‘Are you alright?’ I yelled.

There was no response, so, I crawled inside.

‘Hello!’ I cried, my voice muffled.

‘Are you shouting to me?’

I jumped, headbutted the low ceiling and groaned. Puzzled, but relieved, I reversed into the daylight.

‘Umm … how did you get here?’

‘It’s like a labyrinth in there,’ said Hobbes. ‘I came out another way.’

As I stood up, I considered punching him, and might have, had I believed it would hurt him more than it hurt me. Instead, I put the kettle on and, with a flourish like a stage magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, he produced a large, brown paper parcel from the rucksack. Inside was bread, cheese, pickles and salad, and two of Mrs Goodfellow’s best china plates. I couldn’t help thinking that he’d really catch it if we broke one.

I could barely restrain myself until it was time to eat and, as Hobbes passed me a plate, I fell to eating, like a wolf on the fold. Hobbes was more restrained, and Dregs was disappointed to get only water. The bread was fresh, crusty and fragrant, the Sorenchester cheese sweet and tangy, and the pickle pungent and perfect.

Hobbes, having filled two mugs with tea and given me one, took a slurp from the other. ‘You’d better make the most of it. There’s a meat pie for supper and after that we’ll have to rely on what we can find or catch.’

‘What,’ I asked, staring at the desolate, empty landscape, ‘is there to eat around here?’

‘There are rabbits, hares, hedgehogs, stoats, fish, ducks and all sorts of roots and things. And there may still be wild strawberries, if we’re really lucky.’

‘But, how will we, umm … you catch them?’

‘Strawberries don’t usually require much catching,’ he said, smiling. ‘As for the others I will use stealth, cunning, and possibly a rock. If we’re unlucky, there are emergency rations in Dregs’s pannier.’

‘What are the chances we’ll need them?’

‘We’ll see.’

Although his answer failed to reassure me, I experienced the sudden realisation that I didn’t
not
want to be there and that I would have hated giving up on the life adventurous. Sometimes, I doubted my own sanity, because when things became dark, dangerous and uncomfortable, as was frequent when Hobbes was around, I still wanted to be there. I had sometimes cursed myself for not sticking to safe, familiar ways, but not often.

Having rested and eaten my fill, I was in a fairly cheerful mood as we set off again, finding the going far easier on my feet than yesterday’s road had been. It was hard to believe that had only been a day ago.

‘Where, exactly, are we heading?’ I asked breathlessly, having caught up.

‘Straddlingate.’

‘I know, but what is it? A camp site? Or a village?’

‘It’s a valley with an old quarry and some mine workings. It’s said there was gold in these here hills, long ago.’

‘Why are we going there in particular?’

‘Something, I’m not sure what, is drawing me back. Possibly, it’s because I always felt comfortable there, even though it can be a fearful place.’

‘Fearful? What d’you mean?’

‘I don’t know exactly. Careful where you tread; that’s a bog asphodel and it’s quite rare.’

Looking down, I avoided crushing a plant with small orangey capsules and smooth stems, but only by stepping into a patch of thick, stinking, bubbling mud.

‘Well done,’ said Hobbes, as I extricated myself. ‘Let’s get a move on.’

As we strode deeper into the bleakness, he occasionally stooped to throw a stick for Dregs. Where Dregs had found a stick in such a desolate landscape was a mystery, but he was really in his element, his long legs making light work of the rough terrain.

It was a lot later when I realised that Hobbes had distracted me from questioning him about Straddlingate. Still, I reasoned that the company I was in would keep me fairly safe.

Hobbes stopped and pointed. ‘Did you see them?’

‘What?’

‘The stoats.’

‘No.’

He shrugged and carried on. I was annoyed with myself and feared he’d perceive me as a hopelessly unobservant clod.

The land remained bleak and lonely until we crested another ridge and started heading into a valley, where the air was fresh and clean, scented with gorse and some sweet herb. At the far end was a small pool, fringed by broken reeds, its dark waters backed up by a rugged cliff. I was feeling strangely euphoric, as if I’d cast off all the cares of the world, even though I’d never felt so far from the comforts and security of civilization, and even the tiredness of my leg muscles seemed pleasurable. I speculated that perhaps I was, at heart, a mountain man. Still, I was grateful when Hobbes said we’d arrived, for even Dregs had run out of bounds by then.

‘Did you see that?’ he asked as I stopped.

‘Yes,’ I lied.

‘Then why did you step in it?’

My right foot was in the rotting, maggoty carcass of a crow or something. Its stench was such that even Dregs fled before it. I used a rock to prise it loose and finished the clean up on a tuft of heather.

‘We’ll camp down there,’ said Hobbes, pointing towards a spring, bubbling from the side of the valley and forming a small stream that trickled and twisted down to the pool, where a grey heron, hunched on the far side, ignored us.

‘This,’ he said, still appearing as fresh as he’d been at the start, ‘is Stradlingate. Let’s get the tent up.’

Dropping my rucksack, I sprawled on a flat, sun-warmed rock and let him get on with it, for he knew what he was doing, and I would only have been in his way and got tangled up in all the lines. I did, however, pick up the bag of pegs, ready to hand to him, while Dregs, who believed Hobbes was being attacked by a vast canvas monster, growled encouragement and attacked any flapping edges. Yet, even with Dregs’s contribution, it was not long before the tent was secure in the shelter of a gorse bush and Hobbes was punching in the final peg.

Although I couldn’t stand up straight in it, there was plenty of room for all three of us. I just hoped the musty, dusty smell would go away. Dregs, accepting the transformation from monster to shelter with equanimity, lay down and went to sleep as soon as his blanket had been unrolled. I wasn’t surprised that, instead of modern lightweight, micro-fibre sleeping bags, Hobbes had brought woollen rugs, which we piled on a pair of rubber-backed canvass groundsheets.

‘That’s yours,’ he said, pointing to the left, ‘and this is mine.’

‘Will it be warm enough?’ I asked. ‘It must get pretty nippy at night.’

‘We’ll be fine … probably,’ said Hobbes. ‘I doubt the weather will turn bad for a day or two.

‘I fancy a bit of a run up the Beacon. D’you want to come?’

‘I think I’ve had quite enough exercise today,’ I said, yawning. ‘Where is the Beacon?’

Taking me outside, he pointed to a distant peak that rose high above the ridges. It was conical, covered with browning bracken on the steep sides, with bare rock as it reached the domed top, reminding me of Friar Tuck’s tonsure. The sun, still bright and hot, was over the summit.

‘It looks a long way off,’ I said, glad I’d chickened out.

‘Not really,’ said Hobbes. ‘I’ll be back by dusk.’

‘When’s that?’

‘When it starts to get dark.’

He left, his great loping strides taking him along the valley and then, via a cleft, towards the peak. I watched until he was out of sight and joined Dregs, who was snoring gently and twitching on his blanket. With a yawn, I lay down on top of my rugs, it being too warm inside to cover up, and rested my eyes for a few moments.

I awoke to Dregs’s low growling, though that wasn’t what had woken me. He was outside, bristling and ill at ease, and I understood, for something felt wrong, though I couldn’t put my finger on quite what. I got up, surprised how gloomy the day had grown, and shivered, wishing Hobbes was back. Then I felt it, a weird sensation, an odd vibration, passing through my feet, up my body into my head. Though I couldn’t have explained why, I decided it was coming from some distance, but as I left the tent, it stopped. In the distance, I could see Hobbes jogging towards us. Dregs rushed to greet him.

‘Did you feel that?’ I asked when they were back.

Hobbes nodded.

‘What was it?’

‘I don’t know, but I remember something like it when I was a boy.’

I had never envisaged Hobbes as a boy. He gave the impression of having arrived fully formed, although he had made occasional remarks about his childhood, particularly about Auntie Elsie and Uncle Jack, who’d adopted him and guided him through his troubled youth. From what I’d gathered, he’d caused much of the trouble.

‘It felt,’ he said, ‘like machinery in the mines.’

‘Does that mean someone’s mining?’

‘Possibly,’ he said, ‘but I’d expect to see some signs.’

‘Back when we left the road, you reckoned a heavy vehicle had been along before us.’

‘That is true,’ he said, ‘but it seems unlikely they’d restart mining. They were all closed in the nineteenth century.’

‘Then it’s a mystery,’ I said, with masterful insight.

‘It is,’ said Hobbes with a laugh, ‘but it’s nothing to do with us. All the land round here is private and what the owner does on it is his business.’

‘What do you mean private land? We’re not trespassing are we?’

‘Only in the legal sense,’ said Hobbes.

‘What other sense is there?’

‘Moral, or ethical. This whole area used to be common land, land that many families depended on. Then Sir Rodney Payne enclosed it and took it for himself, but his right to do so is debatable. What is not debatable is that Sir Rodney used considerable force and the enclosure was, in effect, robbery with violence.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Uncle Jack told me. His father used to have a small farm, grazing sheep on Blacker Knob, until Sir Rodney threw him and his family out.’

‘So, if he hadn’t, would the farm have come to you eventually?’

‘No. Uncle Jack was a younger son and, back then, inherited property went to the eldest.’

‘When was that?’

‘Late in the eighteenth century. Sir Rodney was widely regarded as the most odious man in the county and the same family still owns it. Most of them are no better than Sir Rodney, if the stories are to be believed. The point is, I have no compunction in being here. The Payne family may have the law on its side, but it does not have justice and, besides, we won’t be doing any harm; there’s nothing we could damage. Furthermore, we have the legal right to roam these days.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Umm … when is supper?’

He laughed. ‘You have a talent for getting back to what is really important. Supper’s ready as soon as you’ve made tea and I’ve got the pie out.’

I filled the kettle and set it to heat on the stove, worried that there only appeared to be one gas cylinder, but hoping he had a plan for when it was used up; although he might not have had a problem with raw stoat, I certainly did and even Dregs preferred cooked meals. Still, that was a worry for later and the sight of the huge meat pie set my mouth watering. I made tea, Hobbes said grace and sliced the pie into generous chunks. We sat at a long, smooth rock that made a useful table, stuffing ourselves. Afterwards, he produced a bag of apples and, munching one, I began to feel comfortable and confident. The sun had long ago dipped beneath the Beacon, the temperature was dropping and night was falling fast. Hobbes lit a candle lantern, our only light.