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

unhuman
II

W
il
kie
Ma
rtin

The Witcherley Book Company
United Kingdom

ISBN 9780957635135 (ebook)

When
I drew Hobbes’s attention to the unpleasant, if somewhat underwhelming, article
on the front page of the
Sorenchester and District Bugle
, neither of us
could have foreseen the deadly and bizarre events it heralded. The next few
weeks were to prove among the most painful, frightening and horrific of my life,
taking me to dark places I would have given almost anything to have avoided.

I
was, at the time, having to live at Hobbes’s, sleeping in his spare room,
jobless, broke and pretty low. Mrs Goodfellow, his housekeeper, had left us to
fend for ourselves while she attended a dental conference in Norwich: she wasn’t
actually a dentist, merely obsessed by teeth, having amassed a collection of
several thousand. To start with, things had been fine, for she’d prepared meals
to heat up, but we’d devoured the last one the previous night and I’d
volunteered as stand-in cook, having made a passing study of the old girl’s
culinary technique during the months I’d been staying there. Admittedly, my
experience had been mostly confined to hanging around, getting in her way and
eating whatever she prepared, yet I’d been quietly confident I’d absorbed
enough and could cope so it had seemed only fair that I, as a non-paying guest,
should help out. Hobbes, to his credit, had let me get on with it, on a trial
basis. Breakfast had been a doddle, there being little I could do wrong with
Sugar Puffs and marmalade on toast; my first big test was lunch.

Since
we’d been surprised by a burst of intense summer, I had opted, as a first
attempt, for simplicity. I threw together a salad and cold meats, using up a
few leftovers and adding some green stuff from the garden. Unfortunately, it
hadn’t looked sufficient for me, never mind for Hobbes’s vast appetite, and so
I’d decided to make a nice gazpacho, using a recipe I’d spotted in
Sorenchester
Life
. This, I thought, combined with our remaining bread, would fill the
void.

Taking
advantage of the fine weather, I served the meal beneath the fractured shade of
the knobbly, old apple tree in the middle of the luxuriant, flower-scented back
garden. After Hobbes, according to his custom, had said grace, his voice
competing against the buzzing of countless bees, I handed him the salad, which
was, in my opinion, not bad. Certainly, he ate his without fuss, seeming not to
mind the big green caterpillar on the lettuce, and he even complimented me on
its freshness. He did, however, point out that the potatoes in a potato salad
are better when cooked.

Then,
proudly, I ladled out the gazpacho, its blood-red hue and tingling aroma of
herbs and spice a promise of excellence, yet, from my first spoonful, it was
obvious something had gone terribly wrong, resulting in a weirdly unpleasant meaty
flavour that, combined with a nasty grittiness, caught the throat and turned
the stomach. Hobbes only got as far as sniffing his before, aiming a puzzled
frown in my direction, he headed towards the kitchen.

Sitting
on the garden bench, watching the ants avoiding a spot of soup I’d spilled, I
tried to figure out where I’d gone wrong, following a recipe the magazine
claimed to be foolproof. So far as I could remember, I’d followed the
instructions precisely, using only fresh vegetables, and, being short of
tomatoes, a big squirt of tomato purée. Although my soup had come out
considerably redder than the photograph, I’d put it down to the printers saving
on red ink.

When
Hobbes returned, carrying an immense slab of cheese and pickle sandwich, he tossed
the tomato purée tube in front of me with an amused snort, except it wasn’t
tomato purée at all but the dog’s meat-flavoured toothpaste. Hobbes, grinning
at my shudder of revulsion, my look of despair, took a big bite from his
sandwich and sat chewing.

On finishing, he suggested it would be better
if we ate out, or bought in takeaways until the old girl got home. I didn’t
argue, merely taking myself to the kitchen to make a pot of tea, a task at
which I’d become reasonably adept.

I’d
just picked up the
Sorenchester and District Bugle
when Hobbes,
sauntering in from the garden, helped himself to a steaming mugful of tea from
the pot I’d made. Chucking in a handful of sugar, he stirred it with his great,
hairy forefinger, relaxed into the battered, old chair next to mine, stretched
out his thick legs, took a quick slurp, and placed his mug on the kitchen
table.

‘Let’s
hope,’ he said, grimacing, ‘that the lass returns before you finish both of us
off.’

I
shrugged, trying not to feel more inadequate than usual, for I was really doing
my best in the absence of Mrs Goodfellow and, pointing at the front page,
changed the subject. ‘Umm … According to this, there was blood everywhere.’

‘Whose
blood?’

‘The
sheep’s I suppose. What d’you reckon did it?’

Frowning,
he scratched the side of his bull neck. ‘The very beginning is a very good
place to start. About what are you talking?’

‘This.’
I pushed the paper towards him.

Taking
it, he scanned the article, his bristling eyebrows plunging into a scowl. ‘You
want
me
to tell
you
what killed it, even though you’ve got all
the information I have?’

I
nodded. ‘Well, you are a detective.’

He
smiled. ‘Alright, I’ll do what I can, though there’s precious little to go on.
First point: yesterday morning, a farmer found a dead sheep in a field just off
the main road to Pigton. Second point: its throat had been torn out. Third
point: it had been partially eaten. Those are the facts; the rest is filler.’

It
was, I thought, a good summary, though the reporter had managed to inflate the
story to cover half the front page, while hinting at dark mysteries.
Still, ‘Sheep Killed’ was not among the snappiest headlines Rex
Witcherley, the editor, or Editorsaurus as I called him, had come up with and
the blurry photograph of a sheep in a field, entitled ‘A Sheep in a Field’ that
occupied most of the rest of the page, was not the most creative idea he’d had.
To be fair to the Editorsaurus, it wasn’t always easy to find hot news in a
small Cotswold town like Sorenchester. Furthermore, he’d been going through a
tough time since his wife got herself locked up in a secure unit for attempting
to murder Hobbes, me and others the previous November, and wasn’t yet back on
form.

Hobbes,
taking another swig from his mug, continued. ‘I suspect a dog might be to
blame, possibly a stray, because when pet dogs run wild they are less likely to
eat what they kill. Anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it, unless there are
further incidents.’

Dregs,
Hobbes’s delinquent dog, padded in through the open back door, his long pink
tongue snaking out to lick a blood-red globule dripping from his shaggy black
muzzle. He slumped onto the cool red-brick floor with a sigh, wagging his tail
as if he’d just done something clever.

‘Look!’
I cried, my finger trembling as I pointed, ‘It was him, but he’s always well
fed.’

Hobbes’s
laugh rumbled round the kitchen. ‘You’d be hard pressed to make the charge
stick, since he was with me at the station at the alleged time of the incident.
Furthermore, if you observe more closely, you’ll notice that it’s not blood but
your … interesting tomato soup round his chops. You shouldn’t jump to wild
conclusions.’

I
flinched and said nothing, wallowing in a familiar sense of failure. It was
worse that, this time, I had really tried.

At
length, draining his mug, he got to his feet. ‘I’d better be off,’ he said, ‘Superintendent
Cooper asked me to have a word with Skeleton Bob Nibblet. Do you fancy a trip
out?’

‘Umm
… Yeah. Why not? What’s he been up to this time?’

‘Same
as usual – poaching.’

‘Well,’
I said, ‘you can’t blame him; he looks like he needs the meat.’

Bob’s
hollow eyes, sparse frame and skull-like head were familiar to
Bugle
readers, his frequent appearances before the magistrate providing the crime
desk with a constant trickle of small news. His offences, always petty, usually
detected early in their inception, meant he would never be regarded as a
criminal genius, yet he had a reputation as an excellent poacher and, according
to pub rumours, supplied many respectable people with illicit game.

Hobbes
led Dregs and me from number 13 Blackdog Street towards his rusting blue Ford
Fiesta. As we got in, I wondered why I was always relegated to the cramped back
seat whenever the dog travelled with us. In a way I was glad of this inferior
position, for Hobbes’s maniacal driving, showing no signs of abating, meant I
enjoyed a slight sense of security when cowering in the rear, reasoning that
the chances of him reversing into a tree at breakneck speed were considerably
less than those of smacking into one at full speed ahead. Dregs, on the other
hand, showed every confidence in Hobbes’s abilities and, to give him his due,
the facts backed up his nonchalance, for no one I’d asked could recall Hobbes ever
being involved in a road accident. Apparently, the time to worry was when he
went off road; more than one vehicle had allegedly disintegrated about him
while he was hot on some miscreant’s trail.

The
engine growled into life. Dregs growled back in challenge, barking madly until
we yelled at him to shut up. The ritual complete, we hurtled along Blackdog
Street, screeched round the corner, flew along Pound Street and Spittoon Way,
ignored the red traffic light onto the main road and sped in the general direction
of Pigton.

Despite
the open windows directing a hurricane of miscellaneous insects into my face,
sweat was soon trickling down inside my loose white shirt and pooling around
the belt of my khaki chinos, which, like all my clothes, had once belonged to
Mrs Goodfellow’s husband, last heard of attempting to set up a naturist colony
on Tahiti. Dregs’s long tongue was lolling like a pink snake as he stuck his
black head out the window, enjoying the jet stream. Hobbes, though apparently
unaffected, still wearing his usual heavy, bristly tweed jacket and baggy
flannels, making me sweat even more whenever I glanced at him, had, as a
concession to the heatwave, ventured out without his battered gabardine mac.

At
least with him driving, it only took a few desperate minutes before we were turning
off the main road into a tree-shadowed lane. After a couple of hundred yards
and a sharp turn, we bounced onto a track, stopping in a fog of dust. Back home
on the kitchen wall, Mrs Goodfellow had put up a calendar showing glossy images
of romantic cottages, all black and white walls, thatched roofs and roses round
their doors, but Bob’s cottage would never have got anywhere near the long list,
though, what it lacked in roses it more than made up for in brambles. It was,
in fact, a crumbling, red-brick hovel amidst a small yard overflowing with
rusting bits of car, and mysterious remnants of machines that might once have
had an agricultural purpose. In the corner, a rotting shed slouched against a
crumbling brick wall and next to it stood a cage, shiny and clean and looking
well out of place.

As
we got out the car, Skeleton Bob, filthy string vest drooping from bony shoulders,
was perched on an upturned beer keg in the porch. A faint, musky odour tainted
the breeze.

Hobbes
nodded. ‘Good afternoon, Bob.’

Bob
grunted.

‘Who
is it?’ asked a woman’s breathless voice from inside.

‘It
looks like the circus has come to see us,’ said Bob grinning, displaying a
spectacular set of discoloured and broken teeth. ‘Leastways, we’ve got the
strongman, the lion and the clown.’

A
spherical, red-faced woman immersed in a billowing purple tent rolled from the
cottage, coming to rest beside Bob, her hands on where her hips might have
been.

‘Good
afternoon, Mrs Nibblet,’ said Hobbes, touching his forehead.

‘Oh,
it’s you. What’s he done this time?’

‘I’ve
done nothing,’ said Bob.

She
frowned. ‘You can shut up!’