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

  Inspector Hobbes

  and the Blood

  unhuman I

  Wilkie Martin

  Shortlisted for the Impress Prize for New Writers 2012

  The Witcherley Book Company

  United Kingdom

  ISBN 9780957635111 (ebook)

  1

  As I paused beneath the sodium glare of a streetlight to pull a crumpled Post-it note from my jeans, for the fifth time in as many minutes I read the fateful words I'd jotted down earlier: Meet Inspector Hobbes. 5.30 at 13 Blackdog Street.

  The ranks of smart Cotswold stone shops flanking the broad avenue known as The Shambles were funnelling wind down my neck, and rain, or maybe sleet, was spotting my sweatshirt. I shivered, wishing I'd stayed in the office long enough to pick up my cagoule, but, having missed deadline with my piece on the senior citizens' whist drive, the Editorsaurus was on the rampage and a discreet, rapid withdrawal had been the sensible option.

  The church clock striking the quarter hour, I took a deep breath, and resumed my walk, knowing I couldn't afford another screw-up. With fifteen minutes to spare, though, I would at least be early, which would be no bad thing. Still, I wished I was heading almost anywhere else.

  Turning right past the church tower, I entered Pound Street, where an arthritic yew tree had survived the centuries and paving slabs. A set of traffic lights shone red to dam the flow of early evening traffic, so, taking my chance, I crossed into Blackdog Street.

  A shambling old man in a shabby raincoat, clutching a paper carrier bag to his chest, hobbled to the front door of a tall, drab building, struggling with his keys. Walking past, I hesitated, before turning back, smiling, helpful.

  'Excuse me,' I said. 'You … umm … look like you could do with a hand.'

  He glared over his shoulder. 'Are you trying to be funny?'

  'No,' I said, taken aback. 'I just thought you might need a hand.'

  He turned to face me, the bag slipping to the pavement with an ominous shattering of glass. Where his left forearm should have been was a hook.

  'Ah … umm …' My cheeks were heating up, reddening.

  'Get lost!'

  'Sorry … I hadn't noticed.' I'd embarrassed myself again, and it didn't get any easier with practice. 'I just thought you might need some help with the door.'

  'You're the one who needs help, mate.'

  As he raised his hook and shook it, I, cowed beneath a storm of imaginative and anatomical abuse, left at an undignified pace. When certain he wasn't in pursuit, I slowed down, catching my breath, resolving, not for the first time, to get fit, to spend less time in pubs.

  I ran my fingers through my damp hair in an effort to make it presentable and found myself outside a terrace of old stone houses, almost threatening, like cliffs looming over the narrow street. I counted down to number 13. Three steps led towards a black door with a brass knocker, glinting beneath the white streetlights of this ancient part of town.

  I still had plenty of time, or so I reckoned, being without a watch. Mine had blown up in the microwave, slipping off when I was bunging in a frozen curry on return from the pub. The acrid, black, plasticky smoke had completely spoiled my supper, not to mention killing my microwave. A month later, I was still living off sandwiches and takeaways.

  A sharp gust spattered stinging raindrops into my face, goose pimples crawled across my skin and, since it seemed foolish to hang around outside, I made a firm decision to ring the doorbell. But, striding up the steps, raising my ringing finger, I found I couldn't go through with it. Standing outside Inspector Hobbes's door was as close to him as I wanted to get.

  I was scared of him, or, rather, of his reputation, yet the Editorsaurus had decreed we should meet. This, he'd stated, was neither a punishment, nor that my name had sprung to mind as a competent and reliable reporter. It was because no one else was available. Such remarks, typical of the man, made me question why I worked for him. I wouldn't have, had I believed anyone else would employ me, and had I dared hand in my notice, for the Editorsaurus was a big, scary man, yet neither as big or scary as Hobbes, if rumours were to be believed … and I believed them.

  The rain was beginning to penetrate my sweatshirt so, with a shudder and a muttered prayer to whatever gods might protect local newspaper reporters, I leaned forward and jabbed at the bell.

  Before I made contact, the door swung open. Recoiling, I stumbled back down the steps as a diminutive figure smiled at me, her face, a toothless network of fine wrinkles and deep ravines, was framed by a green headscarf. Wiping her hands on a pink pinafore, patterned with red flowers, she stared at me, a pair of twinkling blue eyes behind thick spectacles.

  'Hello, dear,' she said, her voice high and quavery. 'You must be Mr Donahue. Please, come in.'

  'Umm … I'm not Mr Donahue, actually … he couldn't make it. I'm … umm … Andy from the Sorenchester and District Bugle.' Fumbling for my card, I realised I'd left it in my cagoule. She didn't seem to mind.

  'In that case, come in, Andy.' She gestured me inside. 'Get a move on, I've got a stew on the hob. I wouldn't want it to spoil.'

  'Oh … right … the hob … which reminds me, is Inspector Hobbes in?'

  As I entered, she closed the door with a crash.

  'Not yet, dear but he'll be back shortly. Please take a seat.'

  Sitting down on a worn, if surprisingly comfortable, red-velour sofa as the strange old woman left via a door in the corner, I surveyed my surroundings. I was in a small, plain, yet neat, sitting room, containing a pair of old oak chairs and a coffee table with a copy of Sorenchester Life magazine on top. An incongruous widescreen television stood in one corner and an old-fashioned standard lamp in another. The walls were papered in a faded yellow pattern, depicting various exotic plants. I experienced an odd twinge of disappointment: from the rumours, I'd expected something out of the Addams Family. Still, beneath the sweet scent of lavender and wax polish, the room held a faint, feral taint, reminiscent of the wildlife park, and which topped up my nervousness.

  Allowing myself to relax into the softness, I sighed, for it had already been a difficult day. The Editorsaurus had made some caustic, not to say brutal, remarks on realising my article wasn't finished and his language had deteriorated further when I'd confessed to having not actually started it. He hadn't been impressed by my argument that no one really wanted to read about whist drives.

  At least Ingrid had been a comfort, and a vision of her lovely face beneath its thicket of blondish hair proved life at the Bugle wasn't all bad. She had a bright, sympathetic smile, was neat and efficient, smelled of soap, and would often make time for a chat. After the Editorsaurus had, temporarily I feared, exhausted his ranting, she'd made me a mug of coffee, sharing her packet of Bourbon Creams. I never felt guilty about taking her biscuits, feeling, in fact, that I was doing her a favour: losing a little weight would not hurt her.

  Picking up Sorenchester Life, I flicked through its heavy, glossy pages until reaching a section devoted to Colonel Squire's latest charity ball at the Manor. My suspicion that it might merely have been an excuse for a bunch of rich blokes and their toffee-nosed wives to flaunt their wealth and feel good about themselves was confirmed by the magazine's failure to mention the charity the extravaganza had supposedly been aiding. In the midst of sneering at the hypocrisy, my attention was caught by a familiar figure. Before me, in full colour, magnificent in a crisp dinner jacket, stood Editorsaurus Rex, barrel gut precariously restrained by a crimson cummerbund, an expensive-looking blonde woman leaning on the arm not occupied
by holding a drink. 'Mr Rex Witcherley and wife, Narcisa, enjoy a joke', claimed the caption. I wondered whether wife, Narcisa, would be entirely happy with the photograph, which showed her baring her teeth like a wolf.

  A high, quavering voice rang in my ear. 'I've got all my own teeth, you know.'

  I couldn't have leaped up any faster had I sat on a pin. As I landed and turned around, the magazine fluttering to the carpet like a dying pigeon, the blood pounding through my skull, my shin bruised from a sharp encounter with the table, the old lady, standing by the sofa, gave me a gummy smile. Though I could have sworn she did not have a single tooth left in her head, I thought a positive response was appropriate.

  'What?' I said. 'All your own teeth? How wonderful.'

  'Isn't it?' Reaching into the pocket of her pinafore, she pulled out a jar, rattling it.

  I took a step back as the horror hit. It was full of teeth. Lots of teeth. Hundreds of human teeth.

  The gummy grin broadened. 'I collect them. Aren't they beautiful?'

  Nodding queasily, humouring the crazy woman, I looked around for an exit.

  'Of course,' she said, 'they do take such a lot of polishing but they're worth it.'

  'That's excellent,' I said, with what I hoped would develop into a reassuring, calming smile. 'Everybody should have a hobby.'

  She stepped towards me. 'Do you keep teeth, dear?'

  'Only the ones in my mouth.' My smile grew more alarmed.

  She peered up. 'Ooh yes! Aren't they beautiful? I can see you've really looked after them.'

  'Umm … yes, my father's a dentist,' I said, attempting to put the coffee table between us. 'He's always been a great believer in looking after one's teeth.'

  'Can I have 'em?' Her bright little eyes widening, she took another step towards me. 'When you've finished with them, of course.' She laughed.

  I did too, for panic was not far off. 'Why, certainly, you can have them all, when I've done with them. Please, help yourself.'

  'Ooh, you're a lovely young man. I got these beauties the other night.' Upending the jar, she poured a pile of discoloured teeth into her hand. 'Mr Binks at the pub lets me have the ones that come out on his premises. He's a very nice man. Do you know him?'

  'Featherlight Binks? At the Feathers on Mosse Lane?'

  'That's the one, dear. I often get teeth from the Feathers.'

  I nodded, knowing the place rather too well. It was a disreputable dive full of seedy low-lifes, while Featherlight, its landlord, not at all a nice man in my opinion, was a surly brute who never showed reluctance when it came to fisticuffs. I could guess to whose head those teeth had belonged. A customer, not a regular who would have known better, had complained about the head on his beer. When Featherlight, purple-faced and twitching, had asked what was wrong with having a head on beer, the customer had retorted, not unreasonably, that everything was wrong when the head had once belonged to a mouse. I'd slipped away on hearing him demand a fresh pint in a clean glass. Featherlight doesn't like that sort of thing and the heaviness of his brow and the stormy tinge of his skin had led me to forecast imminent violence.

  Cackling, the crazy woman held out the teeth, some still showing traces of blood, for inspection. I swallowed the hot taste of vomit and, on the verge of flight, glanced towards the front door.

  It swung open.

  A vast figure in well-polished black boots, baggy brown trousers and a flapping gabardine raincoat, stood framed in the doorway. As he pulled the door behind him, his blood-red eyes scrutinised me from beneath a tangle of dark, bristly eyebrows. 'I'm Inspector Hobbes. You must be Mr Caplet?'

  His voice rumbled through my chest, as if a heavy lorry was passing. I nodded and he stepped towards me, holding out his hand, which I shook with trepidation, mine feeling tiny, soft and feeble, like a baby's, compared to his, as hard and as hairy as a coconut.

  'Pleased to meet you, Inspector.'

  'Likewise. How is Mr Donahue?'

  'Mr Donahue? Oh … Duncan? He's fine.'

  Hobbes, frowning, released my hand. 'Fine? I heard he's got two broken legs?'

  'Ah … umm … yes.' The question had thrown me for a second, in a similar way that someone had thrown Duncan, the Bugle's crime reporter, from a speeding car, which was just my luck, for otherwise it would have been his responsibility to cover Hobbes. 'I mean apart from that, he's OK. Oh … and he broke his jaw, too, so that's all wired up.'

  Hobbes raised his eyebrows, the eyeballs beneath exceedingly red. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a bottle of Optrex. 'Well, I hope the poor man gets better soon. It was a nasty incident but, at least, I was able to make a quick arrest since the perpetrator is an old acquaintance of mine, one Gordon Bennet, a ne'er-do-well who decided to try his hand at carjacking. The last time I had occasion to arrest him was for persistent indecent exposure. He claimed he'd considered giving up but wanted to stick it out for a little longer. I dissuaded him. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd better go and bathe my eyes.'

  'Oh, right … too many late nights?'

  He grinned. 'No, too many camels. I have an allergy.' He turned to the old girl. 'Could I trouble you to make a pot of tea? I'm parched and I'm sure Mr Caplet would like a drink too.'

  'Of course,' she said.

  They both departed, leaving me to my thoughts. Though I had a feeling getting on his wrong side would be a foolish idea, it seemed he might not be as bad as I'd heard. Yet, on reflection, I wasn't quite sure if I'd heard much at all; I'd just seen the expressions on the faces of those who'd met him professionally. The old lady, on the other hand, scared the wits out of me.

  I tried to calm down by concentrating on Sorenchester Life, its glossy pages, filled with nothing of consequence, having a restful effect, so I was well relaxed by the time Hobbes strolled back into the room.

  'Well, Mr Caplet,' he said, 'Superintendent Cooper informs me that, due to Mr Donahue's accident, you will be my shadow for the next week.'

  I nodded. 'That's right. Ed … umm … Mr Witcherley … told me to report on local policing from your perspective. He wants really in-depth stuff to enlighten and enthral our readers.'

  I tried to speak with a confidence I didn't feel, yet, only that morning, I'd been complaining to Ingrid about never getting important assignments. Certainly, I'd made the odd cock-up in the past, but I felt I'd learned enough in eight years as a cub reporter to be entrusted with something meaty, though I hadn't envisaged anything quite as meaty as Hobbes.

  'Enthral, eh?' he said. 'I'll see what I can do. However, you never know what will turn up and, though much of our work is routine, I ought to warn you it can occasionally be dangerous or shocking, even in such a quiet little town as this.'

  I nodded, making a show of nonchalance, though his words chilled me even more than had the November air. I was not good with danger.

  He sat beside me and continued. 'What's more, we don't work office hours.'

  'Nor do reporters,' I said, which was true, for Phil Waring, the Editorsaurus's blue-eyed boy, was working round the clock on a story that kept him away from the office, sometimes for days at a time. More importantly, so far as I was concerned, it kept the git away from Ingrid.

  'Good.' He smiled, giving me a closer view than I wanted of great, yellow fangs.

  I wondered how my father would react if faced with such a mouth, and felt my left hand creeping up to protect my throat. Hobbes, not appearing to notice, sitting back with a huge sigh, closing his eyes, rested his feet on the coffee table. He'd changed his heavy boots for a huge pair of slippers: they were pale-blue with a dinky little kitten pattern. I stared, shocked.

  He stretched, yawning. 'Caplet is quite an unusual name. French?'

  'It was originally but, please, just call me Andy.'

  'Very well, Andy. I expect you'll want to hear about what I'm working on at the moment?'

  'Yes, please … umm … the Editorsaur … Mr Witcherley said you were investigating the Violin Case.'

  'Correct,' said Hobb
es, 'according to the Bugle's headline yesterday.'

  'Oh, yes. Body Found in Violin Case – most amusing.' I laughed. 'It was like you'd really found a body in a violin case.'

  He gave me a funny look. 'We did. Didn't you read the article?'

  'No, I was too busy,' I said truthfully, for Rex had assigned me to sorting out the stationery cupboard. 'I mean it sounded like someone's body had been found in a violin case. You know, where you'd normally find a violin?'

  He frowned. 'It was precisely where we did find the body.'

  'Oh, I'm sorry.' I grinned, still not grasping the point. 'It must have been a very small body, or an outsize case. You're sure it wasn't a double bass case?'

  'It,' said Hobbes, scowling, 'was a very small body.'

  Shock hit me like a slap round the ears. A sick feeling welled up from my stomach. 'Not a child?'

  He shook his head.

  'Whose body?'

  'That,' he said, 'is what we need to establish.'

  'But if it wasn't a child … how could an adult fit into a violin case? And was it a man or a woman?'

  He pulled his feet off the table, a strange, knowing expression, half a smile, appearing on his face. I gulped, my flippant mood shattered.

  'It's not easy to fit even a child's body into a violin case, at least without boning it first. In fact, this body had been mutilated but there was enough left to prove it was neither a man, nor a woman.'

  I shook my head in confusion. What he was saying made no sense and his casual reference to boning a child had unsettled me. 'I don't get it,' I said.

  'I'm not surprised. I don't think I do. Would you like to see it?'

  'The body?'

  As he nodded, I flinched as if he'd threatened to nut me, an icy tingle chilling my spine. I took a deep breath to steady myself. I'd never set eyes on a real corpse, though, of course, I'd seen plenty in films and on the news when they'd never seemed real. They'd always felt too far away, always somebody else's problem, even when the stories had struck me as especially sad or horrific.

  Yet, I was there to show interest. 'Yes, I'd love to see it,' I said.