Inspector Hobbes and the Blood: A Fast-paced Comedy Crime Fantasy (unhuman) (27 page)

He
shrugged, 'I did a bit of overtime last night and picked up his trail near the
Feathers. I found this in the alley.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out
a crumpled cigarette packet. 'What d'you make of it?'

'It's
an old cigarette packet,' I said, puzzled as to why he'd been collecting junk.

'Is
that all?'

The
way he was looking suggested I should be seeing much more.

'Well,
yes.'

'What
about the label? Doesn't it suggest anything to you?'

It
read 'Carpati', with some foreign words underneath 'They're foreign
cigarettes?' I said.

'Very
true, but is that all?' He raised incredulous eyebrows.

'Yes.'

'Alright.'
He shook his head. 'Now look again.' He held the packet with his thumb over the
first three letters.

'Aha,'
I said, as the penny dropped. 'Pati – the same as on the cigarette butt you
picked up at the museum.'

'Correct.'
He grinned.

'So
the burglar smokes foreign cigarettes?'

'Carpati
cigarettes from Romania to be precise. Now shift yourself – we've got to walk
to the station for the car.'

I
was soon in the street, jogging at Hobbes's side, not really understanding what
was going on, except with an idea that, as Mr Barrington-Oddy's house had been
filled with Romanian stuff, then, perhaps, my Roman connection should have been
a Romanian one. There was, though, something more important.

'Do
you think Phil might be with Tony Derrick?' I asked, panting.

'Not
as far as I could tell,' said Hobbes. 'Let's see.'

He
strode ahead, not talking again until we were in the car, speeding towards Tony
Derrick's squat. With my eyes firmly closed, I tried to distract myself by
fretting about what would happen if Phil was there.

'Right,'
said Hobbes, after a few minutes. 'Here we are.'

The
car jerking to a standstill, I opened my eyes. We were parked outside a small
house on an estate, one that appeared to have been built in the 1960s and
neglected ever since. Though a few cars rusted on nearby drives or by the kerb,
no people were about. A cat, curled up on an old mattress in the cracked
concrete and weed garden, opened suspicious eyes, fleeing when Hobbes emerged.
As I got out, my foot scrunching on a litter of old lager cans in the gutter, noticing
a lack of police vehicles, I felt suddenly vulnerable.

'Umm
… don't you have any back-up?'

He
grinned horribly. 'Of course I do, I've got you. What more could I possibly
want?'

'Me?
What can I do?'

'You
can watch.'

'Mightn't
it be dangerous?'

Hobbes
clapped his hands together like an excited child. 'For somebody. Stay behind me
and let's nab him.'

As
he strode towards the front door, I expected he'd knock it open like at Phil's
but, instead, after standing quietly for a moment, as if listening, he raised a
cudgel fist and knocked hard, though not so hard as to damage anything.

'Open
up, it's the police!' he bellowed, turning round, loping past me in his usual
hunched fashion.

For
a moment I thought he was playing the old kids' trick of ringing the bell and
running away. Instead, he ran towards the back of the house down a scruffy
alley. I trotted after him, scrambling past the battered sofa partly blocking
the way, hearing a door open at the back and the sound of running feet. It wasn't
Hobbes's, because he was nearly silent, despite his great, heavy boots. As I
reached the end of the alley, a gate in a rotting fence flew open and Tony
Derrick, vivid in a pink Hawaiian shirt, rushed out. He turned towards me, pausing,
a smile creeping over his face as he removed his glasses and tucked them into
his shirt pocket. Lowering his head, he charged.

At
least that's what he'd planned, because he'd failed to spot what had come to a
halt on the other side of the gate. He only managed two steps before Hobbes
landed on him. The impact was not like being hit by a ton of bricks, for Hobbes
was more solid than that; it must have been more like being flattened by a
paving slab and, although he was undoubtedly a nasty, sneaky, horrible villain
with a bad taste in shirts, Tony had my sympathy.

Hobbes
stood up, holding him by the collar as if he were a bundle of rags. 'Were you
planning on going somewhere?'

Tony
groaned.

'Anthony
Stephen Derrick,' said Hobbes, 'consider that you have just had your collar
felt. You've been nabbed in other words. You are currently incapable of saying
anything, though, when you are able to speak again, you may come to harm if you
do not mention, when questioned, something which I later find to be of
relevance. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Anything you do say
that subsequently proves incorrect may result in … unpleasantness.'

He
lifted Tony a little higher so he could look into his face. 'D'you understand?'
Still keeping a firm grip on him, he used a massive finger to make the lolling
head nod. 'Good.'

Though
I was certain he hadn't used the correct form of words for cautioning a suspect
under arrest, Tony didn't complain.

'Now
let's take a look inside your house,' said Hobbes, heaving him across his
shoulder and letting him dangle.

Tony
looked as if he was still wondering what had hit him as I followed them through
the concrete backyard, a mess of sickly grass with stinking rubbish, spewing
from tattered black bin bags. The house was hardly any better, though the
stench of rot was partially concealed under cigarette smoke and stale beer.
Cans and bottles littered the floor, along with takeaway cartons and pizza boxes.
I'd had my eyes tight shut on the way to this hovel – I felt justified in
calling it that, because it was far worse than my flat had ever been – and now
I wished I could close my nostrils. I did what I could by pinching them and
breathing through my mouth.

Hobbes
was wearing Tony round his neck like a loud scarf – loud in both appearance and
moaning, since he'd come to and was demanding to be put down.

'Language,
Tony, please,' said Hobbes after one exceptionally foul-mouthed outburst.

We
conducted a short tour of the downstairs with Tony yelling and cursing and
occasionally wriggling, until, banging his head on a doorframe, he hung limp
again.

'Oops,'
said Hobbes, carrying him upstairs.

It
wasn't quite so disgusting up there, if you could ignore the bathroom, which I
couldn't and, though I'd never been the world's tidiest or most hygienic man,
it sickened me that anyone would choose to live in such squalor. There were
three bedrooms, two of them empty apart from beer cans, the third containing a
mattress, a stained sleeping bag, a lop-sided pile of dog-eared porn mags and
screwed up tissues scattered over the bare boards.

'Well,
there's no sign of Mr Waring,' said Hobbes, bounding downstairs, three at a
time, Tony bouncing on his shoulders, 'and there's nothing to make me believe
he's ever been here. Now, let's see what this rogue has in his pockets.'

Turning
Tony upside down, holding his ankles, he bounced him gently on a manky rug,
bits and pieces dropping like apples in a storm. There wasn't much, a few
coins, his glasses, a penknife, a fat nylon wallet, some keys, a lighter, a
very upsetting handkerchief and a half-empty packet of cigarettes. Hobbes
grunted, tossing Tony onto a burst beanbag, and picking through the spoils. The
cigarette packet said Carpati, two of the keys were obviously for the front and
back doors, another appeared to be for a heavy padlock and the final one,
attached to a plastic key fob was a car key. The wallet when he opened it made
me gasp as if entering Ali Baba's cave; it was stuffed with bank notes.

'That
must be a thousand pounds!' I said, hoping it was finder's keepers and that I'd
be in for a cut.

'More
than that,' said Hobbes, flicking a callused thumb over the top, 'I'd say about
four thousand, three hundred and fifteen pounds.' Tony wasn't doing so badly.

 Looking
through the rest of the wallet, he found nothing except for a plastic card,
which he held out between his fingernails, letting me see. 'Hallo, hallo,
hallo,' he said, 'what d'you make of this?'

'Umm
… it's a credit card, ' I said. 'Oh, I see! It's Phil's. I knew he was
involved, I just knew it.' A surge of relief rushing though me washed away some
of the guilt about the dropped business card, for this, surely, was genuine
evidence that Phil was connected to the thefts. My suspicions, based only on
prejudice and dislike, appeared to have been vindicated.

'However,
I don't think he was involved, at least, not in the way you mean,' said Hobbes.
'I can't see him having business with a wretch like Tony, apart from as a
source of information for a story. In my experience, people don't normally give
their credit cards away: someone usually takes them, by fraud or force.' He
dropped the wallet into a polythene bag, which disappeared into his pocket.

Tony
groaned.

'He's
coming round,' I said. 'Shouldn't you cuff him?'

'No,
that would be police brutality, something that is frowned on these days, although,
when I joined the force, the odd cuff round the ear was permitted, if not
encouraged. I never favoured it myself but some of the lads used to like it.'

'No,
I didn't mean that. What I meant was, shouldn't you handcuff him so he can't
get away?'

'Oh,
I see. No, I don't like to do that. It's undignified and I mostly find suspects
are willing to come quietly.'

Another
groan emerged.

'You'll
come quietly, won't you, Tony?'

Raising
his head, staring at Hobbes through bleary, blue eyes, he nodded, saying,
'Yeah, I suppose I will. I don't have much choice, do I?'

'Of
course you do,' said Hobbes with a smile. 'You have many choices. You could
come quietly, in which case it's traditional for you to say, 'it's a fair cop,
Guv'nor'. Or you could fight and scream, which is resisting arrest, in which
case I am required to restrain you, with the minimum of force necessary. Or you
could try to run away and then I'm obliged to pursue you, stop you and restrain
you, with the minimum of force. The end result is much the same.'

'I'll
come quietly … it's a fair cop, Guv'nor.'

He
didn't appear to be very happy, yet I think he made the right choice.

'Good
lad,' said Hobbes, his face a mass of happy teeth. 'Now would you like to
answer a few questions here? Or would you rather answer them in the nice,
comfortable police station? You see? More choices.'

Tony
frowned in dazed confusion. 'Uh, the station.'

'The
station what?'

'The
station, please?' Tony's lip curled into what was probably meant as an
ingratiating smile.

'That's
better,' said Hobbes cheerfully, 'good manners don't hurt do they? Oh, and
before we go, do you happen to know the whereabouts of Mr Philip Waring?

Tony
shook his head. 'I ain't seen the git since Saturday.'

I
warmed to him, snivelling, dirty thief though he was, for he'd at least got
Phil pegged right. Still, I did experience another twinge of guilt and regret.

'Let's
be having you, then.'

Hobbes,
pulling Tony upright, took us outside, leading him, meek as a beaten puppy,
from the house, locking the back door behind us. I was expecting Hobbes to head
back to the car but he went the other way, along a cracked, concrete path to a
square surrounded by garages. After scanning the flaking, wooden doors, he
settled on one and strode towards it, pulling the padlock key from his pocket,
opening the door with a flourish like a stage magician, revealing Phil's Audi, encrusted
with mud, squeezed into the garage, as tight as a piston in a cylinder.

'We'll
take this,' said Hobbes. 'It's evidence. Besides, it's much bigger than mine
and we'll all be more comfortable.'

'You
can't take it, it's mine,' Tony whined.

'I
can if I want to.' Hobbes smiled. 'Besides, I'm not convinced it's yours at
all. Doesn't it belong to Mr Waring?'

'He
gave it to me.'

Hobbes
raised an eyebrow. 'Did he really? Like he gave you his credit card? He's a
very generous man, this Mr Waring. He must be a great friend of yours.'

'Yes.'

'And
yet you still called him a git?' Hobbes shook his head. 'You know something my
lad? You don't deserve such a friend. Now stand back and I'll drive it out … a
little further back would be better.'

Somehow,
flattening his bulk against the garage wall, he squeezed into the car. A few
seconds and a puff of grey smoke later, the Audi lurched forth, like a
greyhound from the trap, and came to a halt. Hobbes, getting out, examined it,
while Tony slouched beside me, looking as if someone had just made off with his
wallet. I wondered how often it had been the other way round.

I
suffered a moment of heart-stopping horror when Hobbes, opening the boot,
tugged aside a frayed green tarpaulin. I don't know why, but I half expected to
see Phil's bloated corpse beneath; it was only a collection of power tools.
Without being aware, I'd been holding my breath, which escaped in one long,
relieved stream. There wasn't much else in the car besides an empty Carpati
cigarette packet and a fragment of a chocolate wrapper under the passenger
seat. Phil liked things neat.