3 Inspector Hobbes and the Gold Diggers (21 page)

After about ten minutes, as we advanced another few inches and were next in line to pay, a sudden thought twisted me up inside.

‘Kathy,’ I whispered, the blood rising to my cheeks, ‘do you have any British money on you?’

‘What d’you mean, “on me”?’

‘Do you have any British money with you? Now?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Well … umm … the thing is, I haven’t either. I forgot. I’m sorry.’

‘You really are something else. Jeez!’

‘I just didn’t think.’

‘I can believe that, but, don’t worry, I’ll get us in.’

‘How?’

‘Watch and learn, buddy.’

But, just as the young couple in front had paid for their tickets and were heading inside, she groaned, swayed and tottered forward.

‘Pardon me,’ she said in a feeble voice, ‘I’m feeling faint.’

The young man, fortunately a strong young man, caught her as she dropped into his arms and, although his knees sagged, he held firm.

‘May I sit down for a moment?’ she murmured, exuding fragility.

The young man, with minimal assistance from me, supported her to a bench and the young woman, her face all concern, sat beside her, holding her hand, asking if she was alright. It was clear to me that she wasn’t and I was shocked how quickly it had come on.

‘Perhaps,’ said Kathy, ‘I might have a glass of water?’

‘I’ll fetch you one,’ said the woman at the till, hurrying away.

‘Shall I fetch Mrs Goodfellow?’ I asked, panicking and feeling useless. The old girl always seemed to know exactly what to do in a crisis.

‘No,’ said Kathy. ‘Stay with me, please.’

When the till lady returned with a glass of water, Kathy took it and sipped, before swaying and groaning. For a moment, I thought she was going to pass out.

‘Shall I call an ambulance?’ asked the till lady, taking the glass back.

‘No,’ whispered Kathy. ‘I’ll be alright in a few minutes. I have these turns now and again. It’s low blood sugar and comes on when I haven’t eaten enough. I’ve hardly had a bite all day, but I’ll be alright in a minute. I always am.’

My mouth gaped. How could she say such a thing?

‘Andy, would you sit with me?’

‘Yes, of course.’

She took my hand in her soft, pudgy one and gave it a gentle squeeze, leaving me puzzled and slightly alarmed.

‘Can we do anything else?’ asked the young woman.

‘No, but thank you so much for helping me. I’m a little better already. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a moment. Please, go and enjoy the museum.’

Kathy smiled bravely and leant forward, head in her hands, as the couple departed, and the till lady returned to her till.

‘Right,’ said Kathy, glancing around and standing up, ‘let’s take the tour.’

As we headed towards the first exhibition hall, the till lady called out: ‘Excuse me, but you haven’t paid yet.’

‘We have,’ said Kathy. ‘Andy had just picked up the tickets when I had my turn.’

‘That’s not how I remember it,’ said the lady.

‘Well,’ said Kathy, ‘you are very busy. Andy, show the lady our tickets.’

‘Eh?’ I said, wondering whether her brain had been affected.

‘They’re in your pocket.’

Embarrassed, I went through a pantomime search and was astonished and confused to actually find a pair of museum tickets. I showed them to the till lady.

‘He sometimes gets so worried when I have a turn,’ said Kathy with a big smile, ‘that he forgets what he’s just done.’

The till lady smiled, looking at me as at a well-meaning, but hopeless, idiot. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘my mistake. Enjoy your visit.’

‘I’m sure we will,’ said Kathy, beaming.

As we entered the first hall and I realised what had just happened guilt surged through me and I began shaking. I wanted to confess. I wanted to run away.

‘Hold it together,’ she said. ‘Stay cool, or we’ll never pull this off.’

‘I’ll try. I would never have had the nerve to do that. I thought you were really ill.’

‘Is it your perceptiveness that Daddy finds so helpful?’

‘Yes … umm … no,’ I said, ‘but you can’t just go round breaking the law willy nilly. Don’t forget your father is a police officer.’

‘Who’s Willy Nilly?’

‘It doesn’t matter. But, what about that nice couple who helped you? You stole their tickets.’

‘They were already inside, so what’s to complain about? No one was hurt.’

‘We might have been caught!’

‘We weren’t, so chill out and enjoy yourself.’

Filled with a strange mixture of admiration for her cool ingenuity, fear we’d yet be found out, wild elation that we’d pulled it off, and guilt, I might have confessed had she not grabbed my arm and hauled me towards the exhibits. She surprised me by wanting to see everything.

We began at the beginning and it was fascinating, even to me, who was ignorant of archaeology and possessed but a sketchy knowledge of history. There were prehistoric stone tools, exquisite Bronze Age brooches, Roman pillars and statues and amazing relics of the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War. I could have kicked myself for not having spent time there. In fact, the only thing I didn’t much like was all the people milling about, looking at what I wanted to look at and getting in the way.

‘How weird is this?’ said Kathy, grabbing my arm. ‘Look!’

She pointed to a black and white photograph of a group of locals that, according to the caption, had been taken following the discovery of a Roman mosaic during renovations to an inn in 1935.

‘Sorenchester as it used to be,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t changed all that much, except there weren’t many cars back then. It looks better without them, doesn’t it?’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’

‘I think the inn is the Bear with a Sore Head,’ I said, ‘though it was probably still called the Ram in those days. Hobbes … your father … keeps the original bear with the sore head in the attic. It’s … umm … stuffed of course. It all began with a darts match and …’

‘Yeah, yeah’ said Kathy, ‘I’m sure it’s a very interesting story, but have you seen this guy?’

‘The one with the shovel?’

‘Doesn’t he look like Daddy?’

It was definitely Hobbes.

‘Yes,’ I admitted, hoping to put her off the scent, ‘it does a bit, except for that ridiculous moustache.’

‘Shave it off and it could almost be him. It must be a relation of some sort, I guess.’

‘I guess,’ I said cautiously, afraid she’d realise how old he was and freak out.

‘And that guy in the vest, the one leaning against the wall, he looks a bit like Daddy as well. I guess he had family hereabouts.’

I stared in amazement for, although the other man did indeed look a little like Hobbes, he looked a lot more like Featherlight Binks, the landlord of the Feathers. Several ideas tried to get in my head, but I turned them away, not wanting to think about it.

‘Actually,’ I said, jerking from my daze, ‘he once told me he was an orphan and was adopted and raised in the Blacker Mountains. I don’t think his family was from around here at all.’

‘Oh, well.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess it’s just coincidence.’

‘Let’s go and see the Viking stuff,’ I said.

We entered a twilight world where the only light came from glass cases and stands. The Viking hoard, silver coins, gold arm rings and bracelets, hack silver, precious stones, rusted remnants of weapons, made a marvellous display. What most impressed me was a massive silver goblet engraved with fantastic figures of long ships and warriors and, despite not being gold, it was even more beautiful than the one in the church. I wondered who’d buried it and why he or she had never retrieved it and was amazed it had been in the ground for so long, with generations walking over it, oblivious to the unimaginable wealth beneath their feet. It left me quite melancholic.

We sat on a bench and watched an educational video. One William Shawcroft, a local metal detectorist, had uncovered the hoard in a field by the River Soren. I only realised who it was when a historian, a tall, thin, grey-haired woman, interviewed him. Despite his piping voice and diminutive stature, he came across as authoritative and knowledgeable.

‘That’s Billy!’ I said, ‘I know him.’

‘The little guy?’ asked Kathy.

‘Yes, he’s a friend of Hobbes … your father, but I never knew he was into this, though, come to think of it, he did once show me a Roman coin he’d found in Ride Park.’

‘Suddenly,’ explained the on-screen Billy, ‘I had a massive signal on my detector, so I dug down a couple of inches and found a coin. When I cleaned it, I could see it was gold and from the reign of King Athelstan, in the tenth century AD. I went a little deeper and came across the goblet and knew at once I’d discovered something truly amazing.’

The video showed that, before cleaning, the find had looked exactly like something dug up from a muddy field, more like a crushed turnip than something valuable. Then, moving on to the conservation of the articles, it showed the techniques. I was fascinated by how much effort had gone into scraping out the tiny bits of embedded dirt, using porcupine quills and electrical vibrations.

Just before the end, the focus pulled from a bracelet in the process of being cleaned to show the person cleaning it.

I gasped. ‘That’s Mrs Duckworth!’

‘You seem to know a lot of folk in the treasure business,’ said Kathy, sounding sceptical. ‘Is she a friend of yours, too?’

‘No, I’ve only met her once, but it was last week, just after I’d found her husband’s skeleton.’

‘Bullshit!’ said Kathy. ‘Are you some sort of crazed fantasist?’

‘No, it’s all true. It was when we were camping. I was with Dregs and he found the skull.’

‘So you didn’t find it. The dog did. If you’re gonna impress folk with tall tales, you gotta be consistent.’

‘I was with the dog. The police reckoned there’d been an accident, but I don’t think so. The man had been buried under rocks and Hobbes thinks he might have been murdered. At least I think that’s what he thinks.’

‘I’ve heard enough of your ravings. Let’s get out of here.’

‘Alright, but I am telling the truth. You should ask your father.’

‘I will, too.’

A wall clock showed the time was approaching five o’clock, or, as the museum staff called it, closing time, but she insisted on looking round the gift shop before we left. Although I was nervous, fearing she’d steal something using me as a decoy, all she did was browse a booklet about the hoard. It had been written by Daphne Duckworth, whose photograph was inside.

So that was her name! I liked it: Daphne. I was saddened that I’d never see her again. Not that I could expect anything if I ever did, because I was sure she hadn’t thought much of me. Still, getting to know someone over the dry bones of her husband was not ideal and, perhaps, had circumstances been different …

‘Sometimes,’ said Kathy, ‘I think you’re not really with me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, falling back into reality, ‘I was thinking of something.’

‘Congratulations. What are you gonna show me now?’

‘Well … umm … it’s getting late, so nothing much will be open now.’ Nothing, I thought, except some of the pubs. I didn’t half fancy a pint, or two, of lager, but being penniless, that was out of the question. ‘We might as well go home. The old girl will make us a cup of tea, or coffee if you prefer.’

She nodded. ‘That sounds like a plan.’

We walked out into the street where the lights were already glowing bright and the cold wind was nipping at ears and fingers. I put my hands in my pockets.

‘Let’s get a move on,’ she said, shivering.

We hurried back along Ride Street towards Blackdog Street. A middle-aged woman, carrying a pair of heavy string bags, was a few steps in front when a hooded figure darted from the shadows and shoved her. She fell with a cry, spilling groceries over the pavement. The figure ran away.

‘He’s got my handbag!’

I picked up a tin as it rolled into the gutter and hurled it, watching as it arced through the evening sky, completely missing the target, but smashing the back windscreen of a parked car. The mugger, running round a bend, went out of sight.

I started after him, as a furious woman got out of the car. She was pretty. She was also familiar.

‘What,’ she said, holding up the tin, ‘did you do that for?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, biting my bottom lip, ‘it was an accident.’

She stared at me and her frown deepened. ‘I know you, don’t I?’

‘Yes, Mrs Duckworth. It’s Andy. I found your husband.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I live here. I’ve just been showing her round the museum.’ I pointed at Kathy who was helping the victim retrieve her shopping. ‘We saw you on the video. I thought it was very interesting.’

‘Great. I’m flattered, but why were you throwing tins of beans?’

‘I was trying to stop a mugger. He’s got that poor lady’s handbag.’