3 Inspector Hobbes and the Gold Diggers (3 page)

Still, the dunking had cooled me, which was no bad thing as I still had a long way to trudge. All the water I’d taken in reached my bladder just as I was entering a lay by. Concealing myself behind a tree, I unbuttoned my flies, aware such bashfulness was silly with the road so empty.

I’d reached full spate when I was shocked by the sudden roar of car engines and a clang. Twisting my neck, I saw a white van had demolished the gate at the bottom of the recently ploughed field below and was being pursued by four police cars, which were tanking after it, spraying great clods of earth as they bounced and twisted over the furrows. The way the van was being driven, it was clear the driver had little regard for safety and was absolutely desperate. A man’s torso popped up through a hole in the van’s roof. He was holding a shotgun and fired both barrels at the pursuers. One of them, attempting to swerve out of harm’s way, bounced high over a furrow, came down on its side, rolled onto its roof and skidded to a standstill. The others continued the chase, wisely hanging back out of range.

The white van seemed to be heading straight towards me and, as I retreated behind the tree, buttoning my flies with panicked haste, another car hurtled into the field, a familiar blue, rusting Ford Fiesta. I could make out Hobbes’s vast figure wrestling the wheel, as the tortured engine screamed and the car bucked and bounced, leading a swarm of muddy clods. The van roared closer before veering towards a gap, where the thick hedge had been replaced by a section of wire fence. It smashed straight through, landing with a bone-jarring crash and hurtling off down the road, trailing wire and fence posts. Hobbes, who had already overtaken the police cars, waved as he shot past and, feeling somewhat foolish, I waved back, as his car, leaping suddenly like a startled lamb, plunged through the gap, careered down the road and disappeared around a bend. The other pursuers followed at a less breakneck pace.

Down in the field, two dazed-looking police officers crawled from the overturned car. Neither, so I gathered from their remarks, interspersed with bouts of swearing, was injured, so, since there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to help, I continued homewards, mile after aching mile.

Tired of foot, with sore legs and dripping with sweat, I was nearing Fenderton, on the outskirts of Sorenchester, when the traffic started again. I wondered if that meant Hobbes had caught the van, and I hoped he hadn’t been hurt, for, despite his strength and toughness, he wasn’t immune to guns.

At last I reached town, where people kept staring and grinning. I guessed it was because of my clothes, which, although fully dried by then, were limp and filthy, my sharply creased chinos reduced to saggy bags and my shirt more like a cleaning rag. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window. My hair had dried into a sort of wild afro frizz and mud was smeared diagonally across my face, making me look like a new romantic who’d fallen on very hard times.

At least the mud concealed my identity, as well as my blushes, for as I turned into Blackdog Street, I was astonished by the crowd milling round the door of number 13. As I approached, a man walked up to the front door and rang the bell. No one answered.

Tapping someone on the shoulder, I asked: ‘What’s going on?’

He turned to face me, his eyes widening, a chuckle escaping. The camera round his neck and his jacket stuffed with notebooks and pens made it clear to me, a man who’d once worked for the
Bugle,
that he was a reporter, as was everyone else there, unless they were cameramen.

‘It’s the gold robbery,’ he said. ‘We want a word with the inspector.’

‘He’s out chasing the ones that got away.’

‘Oh, really?’ said the reporter, looking suddenly interested, ‘and how would you know that?’

‘Because I saw him.’

Taking a small recording device from his jacket pocket, he held it beneath my nose. ‘Would you mind telling me who you are, and precisely what you saw?’

‘I’m not sure I should say,’ I replied, aware of having become an object of interest.

Reporters were jostling, thrusting microphones and cameras, shouting questions, and I wasn’t enjoying my moment in the spotlight.

‘I won’t say anything unless someone tells me why you’re all here.’

‘After last night,’ said the man I’d accosted, ‘we want the low-down on this Inspector Hobbes.’

‘Why?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Not really. What’s he done?’

‘You should check out the news. He was awesome.’

‘I will,’ I said, ‘if you let me get to the door.’

‘Do you live here?’ asked a little, fat guy.

‘What’s your name?’ asked a fierce looking young woman.

‘What’s your relationship with Hobbes?’ asked someone I couldn’t see.

The crowd was pressing from all sides. ‘Look, I know nothing and my name is—’

‘What?’

‘—not important.’

Getting out my keys, ignoring questions, deflecting cameras, I shoved and dodged through the throng until I was in touching distance of the front door.

‘Why are you so muddy?’ asked a particularly pushy man, who looked vaguely familiar, and was trying not to let me pass. ‘How old is Hobbes?’

It was Jeremy Pratt off the news. I shook my head. ‘Sorry, I know nothing. No speakee English. Leave me alone.’

Managing at last to angle past him, to get up the steps and to stick my key in the lock, I opened the door, hoping I’d be able to stop them following me inside.

I needn’t have worried. Out of the house, big, black and bristling, burst Hobbes’s dog, Dregs. Brushing me aside, making the reporters scatter, he seized Jeremy Pratt firmly by the groin. Jeremy froze, his mouth open in a silent scream.

‘Dregs,’ I said in my authoritative voice, the one he usually ignored, ‘drop!’

To my surprise he dropped, and Jeremy, clutching himself, teetered on the top step and stumbled back down to the street, moaning. I doubted Dregs had done any serious damage, for, beneath his ferocious exterior, he was quite benevolent. As I shut the door he leapt on me, delighted to see me again, and not happy until he’d given me a thorough licking.

‘Get off!’ I said, my authoritative voice having no effect until he’d finished.

‘What on earth is going on out there?’ I asked.

Dregs didn’t know. At any rate, he wasn’t telling. More to the point, there was no sign of Mrs Goodfellow, and worse, no smell of cooking. Heading to the kitchen, I helped myself to a flagon of cool ginger beer, gulping it all down in record time and burping freely. I washed my hands and face, put the kettle on and had a search around for food.

The result wasn’t at all bad. I found a fresh, crusty loaf in the bread bin, a little butter, and some Sorenchester cheese in the pantry, and a selection of Mrs Goodfellow’s home-made pickles in a cupboard. Although my attempts at slicing the bread wavered between slab thick and wafer thin, the sandwiches I put together tasted just fine. Sitting at the kitchen table, Dregs by my side, I tried not to stuff myself and to appreciate the delicate home-baked aroma of the bread and the wonderful, crumbly cheese with its sweet, tangy, almost nutty flavour. And then there were the pickles, which she made on wet autumn days and were, quite simply, the best I’d ever tasted. Hobbes had once remarked that she’d won the Parish Pungent Pickle Prize twenty-seven years in succession before stepping aside to let lesser cooks have a chance. Dregs watched every mouthful and drooled, though he knew I considered Sorenchester cheese was far too good for dogs and he didn’t much like pickles anyway. When I’d finished, I made a pot of tea, rested my weary feet on a chair, and drank the lot.

Relaxed and fed, my leg muscles aching, my feet sore, I wondered where the old girl was, and why Hobbes had apparently not returned for lunch; even when busy, he usually made it.

A glance through the letterbox showed the reporters were still out there, so, turning on the television, finding a news channel, I sat back in the threadbare old sofa.

I didn’t have long to wait. After a rather dull piece about a financial probe, the topic turned to the attempted gold raid. To start with, there was little more than an extended version of what I’d heard last night, plus something about the police closing the main road as they chased the remaining robbers, who had, unfortunately, escaped. I was a little surprised, for Hobbes, on the hunt, rarely came back empty-handed.

The matter-of-fact tone of the newsreader’s voice changed: ‘Last night, the gang had just finished loading the gold into their getaway vehicle when a plain clothes police officer arrived on the scene. A guest in a nearby hotel took this remarkable footage.’

There followed a rather wobbly video clip of the events. Black smoke was pouring from the back of the security van as four men appeared, their faces concealed in balaclavas. As they strutted, showing off a selection of guns, a white van, the one I’d seen earlier, roared into the picture and stopped to let three of the gang transfer a number of heavy-looking bags, while a fourth, a large man, holding a shotgun, covered the guard and two guys in business suits, who were lying face down on the pavement.

As soon as the last bag was loaded, the gang leapt into the back of the van, slamming the door behind them as they began to pull away up The Shambles towards the Parish Church. Hobbes came into view, sprinting, hunched up, his knuckles nearly scraping the road. He leapt at the van, holding on with one great hand and tearing at the loading doors with the other. Despite the van swerving from side to side, he somehow managed to open the doors and to swing inside. Unfortunately, as the van sped up the road, it went out of shot temporarily as the photographer changed his position.

The video continued, showing bags of gold rolling out and bursting in the road before, one after another, in rapid succession, three of the gang flew out the back and skidded along the tarmac. The final clip, just as the van disappeared from view around the corner, showed Hobbes swinging onto the roof.

The newsreader continued. ‘The police officer, identified by witnesses as Inspector Hobbes, incredibly managed to knock a hole through the top of the van, despite coming under small arms fire. His amazing attempt at apprehending the entire gang only ended when the van crashed into a hedge and he was brushed off. Fortunately, he was reportedly unhurt and is already back on duty.

‘Now, we’re going over to Jeremy Pratt in Sorenchester for an update.’

The hapless reporter, dishevelled, and paler than usual, appeared on screen, with our house behind him. It was strange how different it looked on the television.

‘Good afternoon, Jeremy’ said the newsreader, ‘is there any further news of Inspector Hobbes?’

‘Good afternoon. Not much. However, a witness claims to have seen the remarkable inspector in hot pursuit of the fleeing villains.’ He grimaced.

‘Are you alright, Jeremy?’

‘No, I am not. I have recently been indecently assaulted by a vicious dog, which bit me on the …’

‘Thank you, Jeremy! We’ll be back for more, later.’

It seemed Hobbes was hot news, which was hardly a surprise, for his heroics must have looked truly stunning to anyone who hadn’t previously seen him in action. For me, who’d watched him playing leapfrog with rhinoceroses and arresting a rogue elephant, his behaviour had been, more or less, par for the course. I knew, though, how much he would detest all the publicity. It wasn’t that he was shy – quite the contrary – it was just that he was naturally reticent about his own achievements, which, as soon as they were completed, belonged to the past. He preferred living in the present and looking forward to whatever came next.

There was, of course, another, huge reason why he never courted publicity; Hobbes wasn’t exactly human. Although I’d never actually worked out quite what he was, I’d accepted his ‘unhumanity’ long ago and it rarely bothered me. When it did, on those, thankfully rare, occasions when he reverted to a wild and savage state, I was still not bothered. I was terrified, and, although he’d never attacked me during one of his little turns, part of me couldn’t help feeling like a lamb in a lion’s den, fearing that one day he’d have me. Most people failed to see past his veneer, the thin layer of policeman. He was a damn good one, even if he did not necessarily adhere too closely to the letter of the law. Furthermore, he was by no means the only non-human in town, for Sorenchester was a weird place and I’d never quite worked out whether he was the source of the weirdness or just a symptom of it.

I changed channels, switching to a local news programme, which, to my horror, was showing my arrival at 13 Blackdog Street. With my filthy, crumpled clothes, wild hair, muddied face, and the wounds from my battle with the alarm clock and bookcase, I, too, gave off an aura of weirdness, which was quite depressing. However, the look on Jeremy’s face when Dregs nipped him in the bud quickly cheered me up. The clip was repeated in slow motion, before the grinning newsreader joked that the dog had been rushed to the vet with food poisoning. Turning off the television, I headed upstairs for a bath.

Sometime later, thoroughly soaked and deep cleansed, I went into my room and started putting on clean clothing. The street outside was still packed with reporters and cameramen, as well as a host of sightseers. At least the Black Dog Café down the road was doing extremely well, to judge by the number of cups and cakes I could see.

Feeling a little warm, I opened the window to let in some fresh air, and was thinking about combing my hair when a huge, horrible figure, wearing well-polished black boots, baggy brown trousers and a scruffy jacket, swung in through the window, and landed on the rug with barely a sound.