Inspector Hobbes and the Curse - a fast-paced comedy crime fantasy (unhuman) (22 page)

I
sat at the kitchen table, staring into space, until Dregs, frenzied and exuberant,
burst in on me. It was a hard job keeping him at a safe distance as he shook
himself, trying his damnedest to rub his damp fur against my legs. Ending up in
a sort of obstacle race round the kitchen, I found I was enjoying the chase
almost as much as he was, and a cackling laugh from Mrs G, who’d appeared with
a couple of grubby towels, suggested she appreciated the spectacle.

‘Well,
dear,’ she said when we’d quietened down, ‘have you any preferences for your
picnic tomorrow?’

That
was a poser. My memory stretched back to the rare occasions when mother had
packed a picnic for a day on the beach or in the park. It had usually rained, or
hailed, forcing us to spend long, gloomy hours in the steamy car, its plastic
seats sticking to the backs of my bare legs, a faint aroma of vomit in the air.
I’d been sick on the way to Great Aunt Molly’s funeral and, although I’d only
been sick on that one occasion, if repeatedly and profusely and, over the
years, we’d had several cars, some with leather seats, the brain insisted on
plastic seats and vomit. It also insisted on white bread and fish-paste
sandwiches in greaseproof paper, packets of salt and vinegar crisps, which I
didn’t much like, and packets of cupcakes, which I loved, the whole lot being washed
down with stewed, lukewarm tea from a tartan flask, a flask matching the rug on
which we’d planned to sit.

In
fairness to the past, I did recall an occasion when the sun had shone for us in
a flower-strewn meadow beside a lazy river. I remembered the satisfying, rich,
earthy aroma of the water, watching fish splash and jump, the way it all
started to go wrong when father, smiling for once, biting down on a chocolate
cup cake, was stung by a wasp. His tongue swelling up as big and purple as an
aubergine, we had to pack everything away as quickly as possible and get him, groaning,
back to the car, which had, in the meantime, been thickly plastered in pungent
slurry by a careless farmer. I would never forget father’s incoherent grunts of
rage and pain as we rushed him to casualty. Since, so far as I could remember,
that had been the Caplet family’s most successful picnic ever, I began to panic
about subjecting Violet to a similar fiasco and fretted, wondering if I should call
the whole thing off, before any harm was done.

‘Are
you alright, dear?’

The
old girl, interrupting my pondering, made me jump. ‘Umm … yes. I’m alright, but
I’m not sure what’s best for a picnic.’

‘Well,
dear,’ she said, her face crinkling with thought, ‘how about a nice bit of cold
beef? And there’s some chicken in the fridge. I’ll make a nice salad to go with
it, and I could bake a veal and ham pie.’

‘That
sounds pretty good,’ I said, my mouth beginning to water.

‘That’ll
do for a start. Then I’ll put in a crusty loaf and some biscuits, and I was
thinking of baking a fruit cake.’

‘Fantastic.’

‘And
some ginger beer and wine. How about hard-boiled eggs?’

‘It
sounds rather a lot,’ I said, intending to impose some mild restraint, starting
to worry about carrying it all. ‘And that’s without any fish-paste sandwiches.’

‘I
can do you some fish-paste sandwiches, if you really want.’

‘No,
please don’t, but everything else sounds great!’

‘Good,’
she said, smiling. ‘I haven’t made a picnic since my old man went away and there’s
a nice hamper just gathering dust in the attic. I’ll get it down after supper
and make sure the mice haven’t eaten it.’

‘I
can do that.’

‘That’s
very kind of you, dear.’

‘Not
at all.’ Since Hobbes had, at last, got round to fixing the loose planks in the
attic, I was glad of any opportunity to look around up there, being half
convinced that great treasures nestled among the piles of junk. ‘I’ll do it
now, while I think about it.’

‘Very
good, dear. I think you’ll find the hamper behind the trunk, the elephant’s
trunk that is, not the wooden one. That reminds me, Mr Goodfellow’s old summer
blazer is in the wooden one and you’ll look really smart in it.’

‘OK,
then,’ I said, turning away, heading towards the stairs.

The
phone rang as I passed it. Hoping it might be Violet, I lifted the receiver, my
heart pounding.

‘Congratulations,’
said a disembodied voice, ‘you have won a guaranteed major prize in the
Lithuanian State Lottery.’

I
slammed the phone down, muttering a curse under my breath as I walked upstairs.
They’d got me once. Never again.

I
stood at the top of the loft-ladder besides the enormous stuffed bear, which
was either a former resident or something salvaged from a skip, depending on
whether you believed Hobbes or Mrs Goodfellow. The stiletto beam of sunlight
stabbing through a crack in the grimy window added little to the feeble glow of
a naked light bulb; I waited as my eyes adjusted. Since Mrs Goodfellow, regarding
the attic as Hobbes’s space, rarely visited, there was a sprinkling of dust and
dirt everywhere. Most of the floor was covered in tatty piles of clothes, bits
of old bikes, nameless junk and a rusty steel rack, concealing dozens of Hobbes’s
paintings. In my uneducated opinion, he had genuine talent, yet it seemed to
embarrass him and he didn’t like to talk about it. I found his work oddly beautiful
and deeply disturbing in equal measure. Besides the paintings, something else about
the attic made me a little uneasy, yet, since he’d never said I shouldn’t go
up, at least since he’d made the flooring safe, I reckoned I was reasonably
safe.

Spotting
the old wooden trunk I wanted beneath a large cardboard box, I went towards it.
As I moved the box aside, the bottom dropped out and hundreds of photographs
fell to the floor. Kneeling down, annoyed, intending to pick them up, to put
them back, I made the mistake of looking.

They
were in rough chronological order, the early ones showing sepia or faded black
and white images of Sorenchester, and it was strange to see horses and carts on
streets that had otherwise changed little over the years. Hobbes appeared in
some, usually in his police constable’s uniform, a splendid moustache obliterating
most of his mouth. After I’d shuffled through a few dozen, Mrs Goodfellow made
her first appearance, though she wasn’t Mrs Goodfellow then, but a small,
solemn-faced girl. She’d once told me how Hobbes pulled her from the
smouldering wreck of a house after a bomb had killed the rest of her family during
the war. I wondered about her family, what her name had been then, where she’d
lived, realising how little I knew about her, feeling guilty that I’d never
bothered to ask.

Still,
time was passing so I pressed on, carrying out a botched repair on the box,
placing it on a crate, apparently one containing a magic lantern, and began piling
everything back, dropping a large, brittle brown envelope, spilling a pile of
colour prints. They were holiday snaps, a little out of focus, faded in the way
excessive washing fades summer clothes. Hobbes had barely changed, except that
he was sporting a magnificent pair of sideburns and looked very casual in jeans
and a t-shirt. Mrs Goodfellow, looking disturbingly young and attractive,
wearing a variety of scandalously short skirts and huge straw hats, was with a
man in flared scarlet trousers and a paisley-patterned waistcoat, whose
shoulder-length dark hair was tied to his forehead with a beaded band. I
guessed, although it was hard to make out any distinguishing features behind
the mass of facial foliage, that he was Mr Goodfellow. A youngish woman I couldn’t
identify, with protuberant eyes and a long pigtail, wearing a loose brown kaftan,
appeared in many of the prints.

On
the back of one, Mrs Goodfellow had written
The old fellow, Robin, Froggy
and me – Monterey, California, 1967
. Remembering something about the famous
festival there, I giggled at the idea of Hobbes and Mrs G hanging out with
hippies. It seemed so wrong.

As
I flicked through them, I noticed how Froggy – I assumed that was the young
woman’s nickname – was usually by Hobbes’s side, often with a hand on his
shoulder, making him look rather nervous, and couldn’t help wondering what sort
of relationship they’d had. He’d never mentioned her, being reluctant to talk
about his past; I had an idea this was more because he lived his life in the present
than because of any reticence. Still, I could ask Mrs G, who was always happy to
talk about him; the problem was shutting her up once she’d started.

As
I began putting the photos back, I noticed one of Hobbes, messing around in the
woods, shirt off, exposing a chest as hairy as a gorilla’s. The image, being
vaguely familiar, I wished I could remember where I’d seen it before.

I
must have been up there for over an hour before I actually got a move on, putting
all the photos back, starting the search for the picnic hamper, which, though it
wasn’t difficult to spot, was a pain to reach because of all the boxes and
piles of old-fashioned police uniforms and other obsolete clothing in the way.
Hobbes might have made a decent living as a theatrical supplier, if any actors
matched his girth and shape. I dug through, shifting wooden boxes overflowing
with cups and shields, suggesting he’d been some sort of sportsman in his day and,
though he didn’t have the physique of a typical athlete, I’d never come across
anyone as healthy or so strong.

I
struggled with a musty, old canvas tent in my way, hauling it aside, revealing a
rusty crate, bound with heavy chains and padlocks. A wave of horror pulsed
through me, the hairs on the back of my neck stiffening, my heart racing,
because, for some reason, an idea that I’d stumbled across the last resting place
of Arthur Crud burst into my head, making me realise I still didn’t entirely
trust Hobbes. The thought wouldn’t go away, even though I was probably being ridiculous,
the crate looking as if it hadn’t been disturbed for decades. Grabbing the
hamper, I turned around, wanting to be downstairs as quickly as possible,
nearly forgetting the blazer.

I
hurried back towards the trunk and opened it, finding the blazer neatly rolled
on top. It turned out to be one of those red, white and blue striped affairs,
not my style at all, yet possessing a certain je ne sais quoi, though I wasn’t
sure quite what it was. Grabbing it, I shut the lid and hastened towards the
ladder.

‘Hurry
up, Andy,’ Hobbes yelled from below, ‘supper’s ready.’

Catching
my foot on something, overbalancing, I fell headfirst through the hatch,
dropping my cargo. He caught me by the ankles.

‘Thank
you,’ I said, grateful and uncomfortable if not especially shocked.

‘I
take it,’ he said, flipping me the right way up, ‘that you’re hungry?’ He set
me down on the carpet and picked up the hamper and blazer.

‘I
am rather,’ I said. ‘I didn’t realise I’d been up there so long.’

‘Well
you have, it’s nearly half-past six and the lass is about to dish up rib-eye beef
steaks. So wash your hands and come along, and quickly, because I’m starving.’

Doing
as I was told, I tried to clear my mind, tried to convince myself I’d been
imagining things. After all, why would he keep a body in a crate in his attic
when he had all those tunnels? Disgusted with myself because, though he’d just
saved me once again, I didn’t entirely trust him, I resolved to try to be fair.

The
aroma of frying steak and onions percolating upstairs proving far stronger than
mere self-disgust, I headed for the kitchen, pondering how, since I’d been
staying at 13 Blackdog Street, I’d always eaten so well and so much and yet my
waistline had shrunk. I put it down to all the exercise, though nervous terror
might also have played a role.

After
the truly delicious, succulent rib-eye steaks with onions and wonderful crispy,
fluffy chips, with a mug of tea in my hand and a satisfying fullness in my belly,
I sat on the sofa, where Hobbes was deep in thought.

‘How’s
Eric?’ I asked.

‘Eric?
He’s still undergoing treatment for shock. They tell me he’ll be alright but he’s
not happy.’

‘Well,
you wouldn’t be happy if an elephant had demolished your café.’

‘I
don’t have a café anymore, but I take your point. Apart from swearing, he was
almost speechless, yet I got the impression something was worrying him. Yes, I
know an elephant demolishing his means of livelihood would worry him, but I had
the notion there was more.’

‘What
d’you mean?’

‘He
seemed uneasy, as if he might be scared of something.’

‘Or
somebody,’ I suggested, wondering if the reason for Eric’s discomfiture might
be sitting beside me.

‘Or
someone,’ he agreed. ‘What made you suggest that?’

‘Umm
… I don’t know really,’ I said, the familiar heat of a blush rising around my
ears. It reminded me of the time Editorsaurus Rex overheard me calling him a
fat, dozy prat. The consequences still made me cringe.

Hobbes
took my remark at face value. ‘Oh, well, I wondered if something had occurred
to you, too. You see, I have a hunch the elephant incident was deliberate.’

‘But
why?’ I asked, filled with scepticism. ‘I can understand anyone getting upset
with Eric, but using an elephant to get back at him is ridiculous. It must just
have been a bizarre accident.’

‘That’s
what everyone at the station says,’ said Hobbes. ‘They reckon it would be too
complicated, too expensive and too ludicrous for anyone to go to the trouble of
transporting an elephant merely to annoy Eric. Maybe they’re right, or maybe
that’s what someone wants us to think. In any case, Eric is refusing to talk and
I haven’t been able to persuade him: the nurses were keeping too close an eye
on me. I need to think.’

I would have liked to ask more but, turning
on the television, he sat back, relaxing, apparently enthralled by the black
and white cowboy film. I watched for a while until, a cougar attacking the
hero, I got the heebie-jeebies and retreated to the kitchen.

Mrs
Goodfellow, sitting at the table, having washed and polished bits of cutlery
and wine glasses until they glittered, was replacing them in the picnic basket.
‘I’m making sure everything’s ready for tomorrow, dear,’ she said, her false
teeth grinning from the yellow duster by her side. They gleamed as bright as
the cutlery.

‘Thank
you. That’s very kind.’

‘Not
at all, it’s nice to find a use for the old basket. It brings back such
memories; my husband bought it for me when we were in America.’

‘Oh,
yeah,’ I said, ‘I found some photos of you in America in the attic.’

‘Happy
days!’ she said. ‘At least they were happy for Mr Goodfellow and me, but the
old fellow found it tough going.’

‘It
couldn’t have been too bad; it looked as if he’d got himself a girlfriend.’

Mrs
G frowned. ‘She got him more like, and took advantage of him.’

‘Really?’
I asked, sniggering at the revelation. ‘Shouldn’t she have made an honest man
out of him?’

‘He
always was honest. I mean she took advantage of his generous nature.’

‘How?’

‘She
lied to him, making up stories of her hard, tragic life until he felt obliged
to take care of her, sorting out her debts, giving her money he couldn’t afford
to lose. She was a nasty piece of work.’

‘Was
she called Froggy because of her eyes?’

‘No.’

‘She
wasn’t French was she?’

‘No,
dear, it was because she caught flies with her tongue, a very nasty habit, if quite
useful in a field full of hippies.’

‘You’re
having me on. Aren’t you?’

She
grinned. ‘Actually, we called her Froggy because of her voice.’

‘Wasn’t
that a bit mean?’

‘I
suppose so, but it was what her friends called her. Others called her “the
Leech”, which was as fitting a name as you could hope for.’

‘What
was her real name?’

‘She
said it was Enola-Gaye Johnson, but I think she was lying.’

‘What
happened to her?’

‘I
don’t know. When the old fellow’s money ran out she ran out too and we never
saw her again, for which I, for one, was grateful. She’d left him so low on
money he had to get a job.’

‘What
did he do? Detective work?’

‘No,
he got into the movies.’

‘A
film star?’

‘He
was hardly a star, dear. He was an extra.’

‘Was
he in anything?’

‘Just
one film, dear. He played a gorilla in
Planet of the Apes
.’

‘Quite
a stretch for him, then,’ I said. I don’t think she got the joke.

‘Not
so much as you might think, because he had acted before, playing the bear in
the Sorenchester Players’ production of
A Winter’s Tale
in ’62 and he
was in their production of Frankenstein, though I can’t remember what he
played.’

‘He
must be a talented actor.’ I smiled. ‘And it’s amazing he never became a star.’

‘Maybe
he would have been,’ she said, ‘if it hadn’t been for the incident in the
woods.’

‘What
was that?’ I asked.

‘It
was so hot, we’d been skinny-dipping in a beaver lake,’ she said, blushing, ‘thinking
no one else was around. After a while, the old fellow noticed a racoon
rummaging around in our things and ran over to make sure it didn’t do any
damage, not realising he’d been spotted by a cameraman. Next thing we knew, he
was headline news. They thought they’d filmed Bigfoot.’

‘They
thought Hobbes was Bigfoot?’ I said, faking amazement, remembering the snippet of
film I’d seen on the telly, understanding why the photo of him in the woods had
looked so familiar.