3 Inspector Hobbes and the Gold Diggers (17 page)

‘Johnson?’ said Hobbes. ‘That name rings a bell.’

‘It should do. It’s my mom’s name.’

‘Shift up, Andy,’ said Hobbes. ‘Give Miss Johnson some space.’

‘Yeah … Of course,’ I said, sliding to the end of the sofa, because she looked as if she’d need most of the rest. ‘Can I take your coat, Miss Johnson?’

Ignoring me, she parked her ample rear. Hobbes watched her, looking bewildered, but keeping a firm grip on Dregs. After a moment of staring and looking nonplussed, he dragged the over-excited dog into the kitchen, came back and pulled up one of the heavy, old oak chairs. As he sat down, facing her, apparently lost for words, I took the opportunity for a good look at the interloper.

My impressions weren’t favourable. She was a stout, lumpy woman, a few years older than me, at a guess, with protuberant, dull-brown eyes, puffy, flabby, sallow skin and with short, orange hair (dyed by her own hand, I assumed) that appeared to have been hacked by a hedge trimmer, although for all I knew, it might have been a fashionable and expensive cut where she came from. She was wearing an unbuttoned green coat and a purple dress that was a little too tight and bulged. So far as I could see, her only attractive parts were her even, white teeth.

‘This is a nice little house,’ she said, looking around.

‘Thank you, Miss Johnson,’ said Hobbes.

‘Please call me Kathy.’

As he nodded, she smiled at him. He was still looking bewildered and I’d rarely seen him at a loss, except the time when my ex-editor’s wife shot him, and when he was stricken by acute camel allergy.

‘I’m forgetting my manners,’ said Hobbes. ‘May I offer you a cup of tea?’

‘Thank you, Daddy,’ she said, ‘but I’d prefer a coffee and I’m famished with all the excitement and the travelling, so I wouldn’t say no to a few cookies.’

‘I’ll have the lass see to it,’ said Hobbes, standing up and leaving at such a pace I almost suspected him of running away.

‘And who might you be?’ she asked.

‘I’m Andy … Andy Caplet.’ I held out my hand.

After a slightly uncomfortable pause, she shook it.

‘So, what’s wrong with you?’

‘Eh?’

‘Your head.’

‘It … umm … got in the way of a beer tray during a pub brawl.’

‘Why were you brawling?’ she asked, looking at me with distaste.

‘I wasn’t. I was with Hobbes, your father that is, when he was stopping it.’

‘Oh, I see,’ she said, ‘so, you’re a police officer, too.’

‘No, I’m not … not exactly.’

‘So, what are you?’

‘I dunno really,’ I said, flummoxed and squirming. ‘I just help him out now and then.’

‘How?’

‘In any way I can.’

She frowned, looking suspicious. ‘What
do
you do if you’re not
exactly
a police officer? What is your job?’

‘I don’t … umm … actually have a job.’ I feared my face was turning red.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. What is your connection with my daddy?’

‘He’s my friend … sort of … and I do try to help him out.’

‘I see. Well, Mr Caplet, I need to have a long talk with him. We have a great deal to catch up on and it would be better if we were alone. Do you understand? I think you should go home now.’

‘This is my home.’

‘You live here? You’re a paying guest?’

‘Well, I don’t exactly pay.’

‘So, what exactly is your relationship with my daddy?’ she asked, raising her pencilled eyebrows.

I didn’t like the way she was thinking, or at least, I didn’t like the way I thought she might be thinking. ‘I’m his friend. We’ve just got back from a camping trip, but I normally stay in his spare room.’

‘For which you don’t pay rent?’

‘No.’

‘And you don’t have a job.’

‘No. Your father is a very kind man. So is Mrs Goodfellow … no … she’s not a man, but she is kind.’

‘And who is Mrs Goodfellow?’

‘The housekeeper.’

‘He has a housekeeper? I guess he must be loaded.’

‘I don’t really know. He doesn’t live like a rich man, but he doesn’t seem short of money.’

‘I see,’ she said, looking thoughtful and, to my mind, greedy and calculating. ‘It seems to me he must be wealthy to have a house like this and a housekeeper, and to afford a freeloader – no offence – staying with him. What does he drive?’

‘Umm … a car.’

‘No shit. What sort of car?’

‘The little red one outside. I don’t know what sort it is. He only got it today.’

‘That piece of junk? Jeez!’

‘The old fellow asked me to bring you this,’ said Mrs Goodfellow, appearing with a tray and making Kathy jump. She placed it on the coffee table. ‘There’s coffee and hobnobs. I haven’t had time to bake.’

‘You must be the housekeeper,’ said Kathy with a nod. ‘That will be all for now.’

Mrs Goodfellow stiffened, but returned to the kitchen without another word as Hobbes reappeared, his dark, bristly hair damp around his face.

‘Help yourself to biscuits … or should I say cookies,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Andy, would you mind leaving us alone for a bit? Miss Johnson …’

‘Kathy, please.’

‘… Kathy and I need to talk. The lass is making a pot of tea.’

‘Umm … yes … of course.’ I got to my feet. ‘Bye.’ I walked away, unwanted.

Going into the kitchen, I closed the door behind me, pulled up a chair and sat at the table. Mrs Goodfellow was battering a lump of meat with a wooden mallet while Dregs, to judge from the snorting and scratching at the back door, had been confined to the garden.

‘Fancy Hobbes having a daughter,’ I said. ‘Who’d have thought it?’

Mrs Goodfellow, sniffing, continued pounding the innocent meat to a pulp.

‘She says,’ I continued, ‘that her name is Kathleen Johnson. I wonder who her mother is. Well, I expect it might be Mrs Johnson. Why isn’t her surname Hobbes?’

‘I knew her mother,’ said Mrs Goodfellow, the mallet still in her hand. She turned to face me, looking fierce: fierce for Mrs Goodfellow, that is. ‘And that woman in there has a definite look of her, a real taint.’

‘How did you know her?’ I asked, fascinated.

‘It was when we were in America, back in 1967. I think you saw the photographs in the attic?’

I nodded, remembering the bizarre snaps of Hobbes hanging out with a bunch of hippies, including a much younger, and confusingly attractive, Mrs Goodfellow. One young woman had always seemed particularly close to Hobbes and it dawned on me that she had looked something like Kathy, particularly about the eyes.

‘So,’ I said, ‘her mother is the one you used to call Froggy, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Goodfellow, nodding, brandishing the mallet like a club. ‘She used to hang around him like a bad smell and the old fellow couldn’t get rid of her until she’d spent all his money. She was off like a shot, taking his car, when it ran out. I knew she was a nasty piece of work all along, but the old fellow wouldn’t see it. You know he can’t see any bad in a woman until it’s too late.’

‘That’s true,’ I said. He’d been completely taken in by Narcisa, my former-editor’s wife, until she imprisoned him, starved him and shot him. Not that my record with women was anything to boast about; it had taken me ages to accept that my last girlfriend was a werecat, even after I’d caught cat scratch fever off her.

‘What do you make of her in there?’ asked Mrs Goodfellow, nodding towards the sitting room.

‘Well,’ I said, trying to be fair, ‘I can’t say my first impression is very good, but it’s unfair to judge her when she’s probably tired and nervous. I’m sure she doesn’t think much of me, though. Do you really think she’s his daughter?’

‘I can’t see it,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t think Froggy and the old fellow were ever … intimate, but it was so long ago and times were very different.’

I shuddered at the mere idea of him being intimate with a woman. It wasn’t that I was jealous, or not especially because of that, it was just that I couldn’t, or didn’t, want to believe it. For one thing, I doubted any human woman was tough enough to survive a night of passion with him. It just didn’t bear thinking about. I tried not to.

‘What’s for supper?’ I asked.

‘Beef wellington,’ said the old girl, who also seemed pleased to change the subject. ‘I haven’t baked one for years, but the fillet of beef looked so tender and succulent and I had a basket of mushrooms that needed using.’

‘If the beef is so tender,’ I asked, ‘why are you bashing it?’

‘That’s just a bit of shin for Dregs, dear.’ She laughed and then sighed. ‘I wonder what’s going to happen with that … woman?’

My diversion hadn’t worked for long.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps he’ll send her packing.’

‘That would probably be best, but what if she tells him a sob story? He’s got too soft a heart for his own good.’

I had to agree for, beneath his rough exterior, he was often startlingly kind and, moreover, he tended to treat women with a gentle, old-fashioned courtesy. At least until they started shooting at him, when his feral side could emerge, quite terrifying, even to an innocent bystander such as me. In the quiet that followed, I could hear the murmur of Hobbes and Kathy talking and, although I couldn’t make out what they were saying, Hobbes’s chuckle suggested they were getting along just fine.

My insides went suddenly cold as I was struck by a horrible fear that something momentous was happening, something that would not be to my advantage. Though my conscious mind couldn’t work out why I was so worried, it conceded that my insides might be correct. Somehow, I felt as if a jury was debating my case, that my case was not a strong one and that my future was in someone else’s hands. I tried to keep calm by drinking tea.

The old girl, having cut some butter into chunks the size of sugar cubes, was mixing them with flour and salt in a bowl, when the kitchen door opened and Hobbes entered.

‘Kathy will be staying for supper,’ he said, ‘if that’s alright?’

Mrs Goodfellow nodded. ‘There should be enough beef wellington to go round.’

‘Thank you,’ said Hobbes, returning to the sitting room.

A few seconds later, he returned, looking a little embarrassed. ‘I explained what beef wellington was and she said she didn’t think she’d like it. She asked if there was anything else?’

Mrs Goodfellow was silent for a long minute, during which he tried to smile.

‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘I could make hamburgers.’

‘Thanks, lass. I’ll see if that’s alright.’

He turned, walked away and checked. ‘That will be fine. She’d like French fries as well.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Mrs Goodfellow.

Hobbes fled.

‘At least it’s good news for the dog,’ said Mrs Goodfellow.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Because he’ll get some beef wellington for his supper. I think
he
will appreciate it.’

‘I thought you were giving him that bit of old shin you were battering.’

She grinned gummily.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I get it.’

I watched her feed the shin through a mincer and then bustle about with pots and pans and meat and vegetables and pastry. Although I tried to pretend that I was thinking deeply, I wasn’t. Any intelligence I possessed had been swamped by a flood of vague worries.

At six-thirty, just as the old girl was dishing up, in walked Hobbes and Kathy. He pulled out a chair for her and she sat facing me and nodded. I nodded back and smiled, feeling I ought to appear friendly for the time being. After all, I might be seeing a lot more of her. When she smiled back, a brief smile to be sure, I hoped I’d made a breakthrough, though I feared I might just have come across as gormless.

When Hobbes said grace, as was his wont, Kathy looked a little startled, but went along with it. Then it was time to eat. The fillet, succulent and pink at the centre, burst from its golden crust, filling the world with subtle scents and flavours, helped along by a pungent, breathtaking horseradish sauce. Hobbes and I ate in a reverential rapture while Kathy wolfed her two large burgers and fries, ignoring the salad. She didn’t, she said, ‘do rabbit food’.

When she’d finished, she leant back in her chair and said: ‘That wasn’t bad. What’s for dessert?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Goodfellow, appearing as if from nowhere, ‘but I haven’t made one.’

‘I see,’ said Kathy, raising her eyebrows.

‘We don’t usually have dessert,’ said Hobbes, ‘except on Sundays.’

Kathy pouted. ‘Do you call that a meal? I heard British meals were insufficient, but … I’m sorry. Thing is I’m still famished.’

My mouth dropped open. Mrs Goodfellow had always struck me as an extremely generous supplier. Certainly I’d never had cause to complain. Nor had Hobbes, even with his colossal appetite.

‘I’m sure the lass can rustle up something,’ he said.