Inspector Hobbes and the Blood: A Fast-paced Comedy Crime Fantasy (unhuman) (20 page)

Hobbes
and I finished, sitting back with a pair of contented sighs, rising from the
table, taking our positions in the sitting room as normal, except that Dregs
padded in after us, sitting with his head on Hobbes's knees and his big, heavy,
hairy backside crushing my left foot. When Hobbes rested his hand on the dog's
head it was barely noticeable among the mass of wiry hairs. Though I tried
shuffling my foot, the blasted mutt seemed to like it and began wriggling in
ecstasy, contriving to pin both my feet down, as well as wedging my knees
against the sofa.

Mrs
Goodfellow cackled as she carried in the tea tray. For probably the first time
since I'd been there, I didn't jump; I couldn't.

'He
seems to like you, dear.'

Hobbes
smiled. 'I'm glad you two are getting on so well, Andy.'

I
grimaced, which was all I could do by then as the bloody thing had managed to
wriggle up my legs and was lying across me. The more I tried, the less I could
move and soon, the brute's weight, being concentrated on my chest, it became
increasingly difficult to breathe. In fact, I saw clearly that I was going to
expire beneath him and couldn't even find enough breath to complain. What a way
to go, I would have laughed if I could. The colours in the room were fading to
a dull grey and I was looking at the world through a rapidly narrowing tunnel.
I could see brightness at the end and seemed to be rushing towards it. My
consciousness flew up, fluttering round the light shade like a large moth and I
watched with moth's eyes and purely academic interest as Hobbes pushed the dog
from my body. It did look battered, with the huge bruise around its right eye
already showing more shades of colour than a sunset. Battered and blue. I
remembered a lecture on first aid. Blue indicated cyanosis, which is what
happens to a body when it's been deprived of oxygen for too long. I wondered
why Hobbes was lifting me in such a way.

I
came to, dangling upside down, my ankles squeezed in his left hand, my buttocks
stinging, squirming, squawking like a chicken when I saw his right hand lifted
to deliver another blow. I cried like a baby when it landed.

'Told
you it'd work,' said Mrs Goodfellow. 'It always got 'em breathing when I was a
midwife. You can put him down now. He's alright. His face is going red.'

I
found myself swinging like a pendulum, the arcs growing wider until I was fully
upright when he released his grip. I experienced a brief moment of
weightlessness, as if becoming a moth again, before, catching my shoulders, he
dropped me onto the sofa. Then the blasted dog leaped up, licking my face,
making me wish I couldn't breathe again. It came as a great relief when Mrs
Goodfellow dragged him off and led him to the kitchen.

'Sorry
about that,' said Hobbes. 'I thought you were playing until you turned blue. It
was quite unusual; your lips matched your eyes. You don't see that every day.'

I
shook my head and groaned.

'Glad
you're better. You should be more careful, though. Dogs can be dangerous. Right
then, I was going to tell you about the theft from the church. The first one
that is, not the one by the despicable pamphlet pilferer.'

I
laughed bitterly. I was not having a good day. The church clock struck two – two
o'clock in the afternoon and I'd already been pursued by a dog, handcuffed by a
policeman, reviled by a mob, been in a riot and been unconscious twice.

'Someone,
as you know, broke into the wall safe and pinched the Roman cup. As far as I
can make out, the person, or persons, did not break into the church, so, unless
they had a key, which is unlikely, it's probable they attended the service on
Sunday evening and hid until everything was quiet. Then they must have broken
into the safe and slipped out when the warden opened the doors this morning.'

'Aha!
That bloody Phil's gone missing. He must have done it.'

'I
think we do need to find him,' said Hobbes, 'because he may know something of
significance. It's probably more than coincidence that he went missing right
after the robbery.'

'Let's
hunt him down like the dog he is.' I felt the thrill of the chase rising
within.

'Calm
down, Andy, I didn't say he did it. There are some interesting aspects to this
theft. Firstly, look at these.' Delving into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a
sealed plastic bag, containing cigarette butts and chocolate wrappers.

'Interesting?
Why?'

'I
found them in a pew.'

'Well?
So what? Doesn't it just mean someone's been smoking and eating in church?'

'It
does, yet the pews are always swept after the service. Therefore, someone must
have left them there after the sweeping and the church was closed to the public
immediately afterwards.'

'Then,'
I said, 'the burglar left them there. All it means is that he smokes and eats
chocolate.' I realised Phil didn't smoke. 'Phil eats chocolate.'

'So
do I,' said Hobbes, 'and I'm not going to arrest every chocolate-eating smoker
in Sorenchester and district. There's another interesting little fact. D'you
remember the break in at Mr Roman's house?'

'Of
course.'

'Well,
don't you remember what I found under the tree to suggest the burglar had been
watching the house?'

I
thought a moment, creasing my forehead in concentration. 'Yeah. I remember:
cigarette butts and chocolate wrappers.'

'Correct,
and they were the same brand of cigarettes and the same wrappers as in the church.
What's more, the cigarette butts are from a brand I'm not familiar with.
They've mostly been smoked well down but there's a bit of writing on one of
them. See here? It says 'pati'.'

'So
it's likely the same person did both crimes.'

'So
I suspect. I wonder why they wanted the Roman cup, though? What's so special
about it? There are plenty of other, much more valuable, treasures in there
that weren't stolen, just like at the museum. In both cases someone knew just
what they were looking for and where to find it and everything else was
apparently untouched.'

I
nodded. 'So you think the same burglar has done Mr Roman's house, the museum
and the church? All within a week. That's three crimes linked.'

'Four,'
said Hobbes. 'The death of Jimmy the gardener is another obvious link, though I
don't yet know why. If only Roman had told us what really happened.'

'And
Phil has done a runner.' I thought I should remind him.

'He's
certainly gone missing, which brings me to another coincidence. Mr Biggs from
the museum discharged himself from the hospital last evening, against medical
advice, and he, too, has vanished. I visited his flat this morning. He'd taken
clothes as well as his passport.'

'He
must have been in league with Phil.'

'Now,
now, Andy.' Hobbes frowned. 'Still, I ought to have a look at Mr Waring's house
and see if I can discover a reason for his disappearance. I'd be glad of your
company if you want to come.'

'I'd
love to.' I was convinced, or nearly convinced, that Phil had done it and dearly
wanted to be there when justice caught up with him. With any luck, he was the
one who'd killed Jimmy; a conviction for murder would keep him away from Ingrid
for life. Even so, deep down, a persistent suspicion lurked that maybe I was
only trying to convince Hobbes of Phil's guilt, because, if he believed it,
then I, too, could legitimately believe it. A nasty, nagging question popped up
from the uncharted depths of my mind and wouldn't go away; was I, in some way,
jealous of Phil with his looks and charm and talent and easy, courteous way
with women? I had to keep reminding myself that he was a smarmy git who
deserved everything coming to him and that I deserved so much more, which
Hobbes would help me to achieve.

'C'mon,
Andy. There's no time for daydreaming, there are crimes to be solved. Mr
Witcherley gave me Mr Waring's address. It's number two, Aristotle Drive.'

'Where's
that?'

'Part
of the new estate on the edge of town, out Sorington way.'

I
nodded. 'Oh yeah, I know. They're rather smart.' Typical, I thought that Phil
would live there. I remembered my late-lamented, grotty, little flat. Life wasn't
fair but I wasn't jealous: I just don't like flash gits.

'We'd
better take the car,' said Hobbes.

'Oh,
great,' I muttered, my stomach churning, my pulse starting to race in emulation
of his driving.

'You'd
better change your suit first.' He glanced at my knees. 'You're a mess.'

Going
up to my room, opening the wardrobe, I picked one of the half dozen suits hanging
there at random. It was dark grey, fitting like it was bespoke. It gave me the
shivers that someone else's clothes could be such an amazing fit. I'd always
worn off-the-peg stuff and it had never been entirely satisfactory. 'It fits
where it touches,' as Granny Caplet used to remark.

When
I went down, Hobbes was standing by the door, the car keys dangling from his
monstrous hand like an earring on a wild boar. 'Hurry up. I haven't got all
day.'

I
scurried to the car after him and climbed in. 'It's a one-way street,' I moaned
as we set off.

Hobbes
turned, grinning. 'And?'

I
shut my eyes. 'I know, I know. You're only going one way.'

He
laughed like a maniac.

'And
the speed limit's thirty miles per hour.' I had to say it, though I recognised
the futility.

'Don't
worry,' he said over the screech of tyres and the blaring of a horn, 'we won't
be driving anywhere near thirty miles in the next hour, so there's no chance of
exceeding the speed limit.'

'Oh,
that's alright, then,' I said, my sarcasm unremarked and wasted. I wondered if
he really believed what he'd said.

When
I opened my eyes, we were hurtling towards a crossroads – and we were on the
minor road. Whimpering, I tried to close my eyes again, finding all my muscles
had taken fright and refused to comply. As we crossed the dotted line, a blue
car sped towards us from one direction, a white van approaching from the other.
Though I don't know how, we avoided them both by the thickness of a layer of
paint, zipping up the road ahead, leaping the traffic-calming bumps with the
exuberance of a spring lamb and landing with a sickening thud. I know it was
sickening because it made me sick. I only just managed to wind down the window
in time. Mrs Goodfellow's cottage pie decorated the side of the car like lumpy
go-faster stripes.

'Are
you alright?' Hobbes asked.

'Never
felt better in my entire life,' I said, my groan becoming a retch, ending as a
hysterical laugh. I flopped back in the seat. He was staring at me, with a
puzzled expression.

'Everything's
just wonderful,' I giggled. 'Live fast. Die young. Leave a beautiful corpse. Or
one smashed into a million bloody quivering fragments. Oh, yes, everything in
the garden's roses.'

Hobbes
was still frowning as we took the next speed bump. I guessed we were doing
seventy. We'd have been faster if the wheels had stayed in contact with the
road for longer.

'Yeehah!'
I screamed.

Without
looking away from me, Hobbes spun the wheel, skidded into Cranberry Lane and
braked rapidly and smoothly. Only my seat belt prevented a close encounter of
the painful kind with the windscreen. I stopped my crazed giggling, watching a
small, dishevelled, black cat flee across the road in front of us, pursued by a
fat ginger tom. At least we hadn't killed them and the thought calmed me until
his foot stamped on the accelerator and the car leaped forward. Just to think,
a couple of days earlier I'd believed I'd been getting used to his driving. No
way. It's just that nerves can only take so much before exhaustion leads to
acquiescence.

'I
can go faster if you like.' At least he was looking the way we were going.

'No.
Please.' I gulped. 'How did you do that?'

'Do
what?'

'Stop
before those cats ran out! You weren't even looking, for God's sake.'

'Language,
Andy. I stopped the usual way, by pressing on the brake pedal and I don't need to
look to find it, it's always in the same place.'

'Umm
… why did you stop?'

'Because
I didn't want to run over the animals.' He looked puzzled.

'What
I mean is, how did you know they were there?'

'Oh,
I see. Well, you learn to anticipate such things when you've been driving as
long as I have.'

I
thought, just for a moment, before he turned away, I could detect a hint of
embarrassment in his expression. As he tugged the wheel, the car danced into
Aristotle Drive. Phil's driveway was the first on the right, which meant we had
to cross the road. Hobbes could have waited until the post-office van had
passed but, no, he turned in front of it, the brakes screeching as we came to a
standstill.

'Here
we are,' he said. 'Not too bad a journey, eh?'

My
head shook. I wasn't disagreeing, it was just that every part of me was
shaking. Taking several long, deep breaths to calm myself, I staggered from the
car, making sure not to look at my mess down the side, still queasy.