Inspector Hobbes and the Curse - a fast-paced comedy crime fantasy (unhuman) (13 page)

‘What
is that?’ asked Hobbes, bounding over the coffee table to take a look.

‘It’s
a skull.’

‘I
can see that. Where did it come from?’

‘Mrs
Goodfellow.’

Picking
it up, he examined it, his frown appearing to be one of concern, rather than
anger. ‘Would you mind stepping in here, lass?’ he shouted.

She
came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her pinafore. ‘Yes?’

‘This
skull,’ he said, ‘do you know what it is?’

‘According
to the dentists, it’s from a man with an unfortunate dental condition. His
teeth aren’t pretty but they are most unusual.’ She smiled, patting the dome.

‘Most
unusual,’ he agreed. ‘It’s not from a man, though.’

‘A
woman’s?’ I asked.

‘I
don’t believe it’s human at all: not exactly.’

‘Umm
… What do you mean by not exactly?’ I asked.

‘I’m
not quite sure,’ said Hobbes, ‘but it reminds me of something from years ago.’

‘What?’

‘A
werewolf.’

Whereas
Mrs Goodfellow merely nodded, I, my mouth dropping open, stared at Hobbes,
dumbstruck for a few moments, thinking that he’d played cruel jokes on me
before. I wasn’t inclined to fall for this one, at least not without a fight.

‘A
werewolf?’ I said at last. ‘Come off it!’

‘It’s
unusual, I admit,’ said Hobbes, ‘and I’m not absolutely certain, because it’s
so many years since I’ve seen one wolfifesting and, of course, he had his skin
on at the time.’

‘What
the hell do you mean wolfifesting?’ I asked.

‘Language,
Andy. Wolfifesting is the process whereby a werewolf transforms into wolf form;
it’s the opposite of manifesting.’

‘No
it isn’t, you’ll not get me this time,’ I said, well aware that he’d proved
himself adept at making me fall for ludicrous tall stories. The trouble was, some
of the tallest had proved to be true.

‘I’m
not trying to.’ Turning the skull round, he sniffed it. ‘This one doesn’t look quite
right. I wonder if maybe he was killed mid-transformation.’

‘Are
you telling me that there really are werewolves?’

‘Oh
yes, dear,’ said Mrs Goodfellow, ‘of course there are, but I haven’t seen any
since old Wolfie Tredgrove passed away, and that must be over thirty years ago.’

‘More
like forty years,’ said Hobbes. ‘Poor old Wolfie. He grew very deaf in his
final months, becoming more of a “what? wolf”. Still, he was getting on, being
well over ninety – I’m not sure what that would be in dog years – and it was
the mange that got him in the end, an uncomfortable place to get it. Unfortunately,
werewolves have grown scarce and increasingly shy since the invention of the
gun. Many people are so intolerant of anything different and, in fact, this
poor fellow was shot. See this?’ He pointed to a small round hole towards the
base of the skull.

I
almost believed him. ‘Umm … would you use silver bullets on a werewolf?’

He
frowned. ‘Of course not. Bullets can be very dangerous, even silver ones. You
might hurt somebody.’

‘I
mean, would you use them if you wanted to kill one?’

‘Why
would I want to kill one?’

‘Well,
it if attacked you.’

‘It’d
hardly be likely to do that; wolves are shy creatures, werewolves doubly so. If
one ever did get a little frisky, then a short, sharp rap on the nose with a
rolled-up newspaper would do the trick.’

‘But
aren’t they really dangerous?’ I asked. ‘I mean to say, I don’t know much about
them, only what I’ve seen in films, where they’re usually portrayed as
bloodthirsty monsters …’ I paused, realising suddenly how completely I’d swallowed
his story. Nearly completely, anyway.

‘I’m
afraid most people only see what they want to,’ said Hobbes, shaking his head. ‘They
have a regrettable tendency to justify themselves when they’ve acted shamefully,
such as trying to portray the wanton killing of a harmless creature as somehow
heroic. I’ve never understood how using a high-powered rifle to kill an
unsuspecting animal from a safe distance makes some feel courageous and manly. People
can be very strange, but, getting back to your point, you are partly right, in
that werewolves can be fierce when cornered.’

‘So
what would you advise then?’

‘I’d
advise not cornering them.’

I
made a decision: should an opportunity arise, I would not, under any circumstances,
attempt to corner one.

‘You
should see the pups,’ said Mrs Goodfellow with a smile. ‘They are adorable.’

Hobbes
nodded. ‘Though they can give you a playful nip if you get careless.’

‘Would
you turn into a werewolf then?’ I asked, fascinated, despite the occasional
twinge of scepticism.

‘No.’
He chuckled. ‘You’re confusing them with the silly old tales. With werewolves and
I believe with vampires, it’s genetic. However, should you chance to get
bitten, I would recommend a course of antibiotics; they’ve never been keen on
baths and you don’t know what they might have been eating, or where they might
have been. I wouldn’t worry; there haven’t been any round here since Wolfie.’

‘That’s
a pity,’ I said, though really I was glad. Whatever Hobbes said, I hoped never
to meet one.

‘Right,’
he said, replacing the skull, ‘I ought to get back to work. I intervened in an
attempted mugging on the way home and the bad lad’s probably had enough of
hanging from a lamppost.’

I
looked at him, shocked. ‘You shouldn’t have hung him from a lamppost,’ I said.

He
grinned. ‘I didn’t put him up it. He bolted up while attempting to evade arrest
and refused to come down. Since I didn’t want to be late for my dinner, I left
him there.’

‘I
expect he’s run off by now.’

‘I
doubt it. I left Dregs on guard. He knows his stuff.’

‘Can
I come with you?’ It was always fascinating to watch Hobbes dealing with law
breakers.

‘No,
you’re still under doctor’s orders and need rest.’

‘Yeah, right. But I am going out tomorrow. I’m
much better now.’

I
went upstairs for a nap and fell asleep immediately; werewolves and panthers,
red in tooth and claw, pursued me through dreams. Awaking, hot and sweaty, soft
breathing tickling the back of my neck, I leaped up with a bellow of alarm.

Sleeping
dogs, I discovered, can perform vertical take-offs. Dregs, rocketing from the
bed, crashed to the floor, giving me such a reproachful look I was embarrassed,
though my heart was going like the clappers.

‘Sorry,’
I said, patting his head.

The
house shook as Hobbes, pounding upstairs, burst through the door. ‘What’s going
on in here?’

‘Umm
…’

‘Have
you been teasing the dog?’

‘No.
It’s just that, when I woke up, there was something breathing on my neck. I …
umm … didn’t know it was him. I thought it was a werewolf.’

Hobbes
snorted with laughter. ‘I suppose we need to make allowances for that bang on
the head. Never mind, it’ll soon be supper time.’

‘I’ve
slept right through the afternoon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was
the mugger still up the lamp post?’

‘Of
course and he’d drawn quite a crowd. He wouldn’t come down and became quite
obnoxious. In the end, I was forced to borrow a tin of pink salmon from an
onlooker and knock him from his perch.’

‘Was
he hurt?’

‘Apart
from a small bump on his noggin, he was fine, but he didn’t enjoy going to the
station for a little chat.’

Having
been present at a number of his little chats, chats that, even though they’d
been directed at the suspect, had reduced me to gibbering terror, I understood.
In fact, suspect was the wrong word. When Hobbes decided to arrest someone, he
was never a mere suspect; he was a definite.

‘When
I was sure he’d seen the error of his ways,’ Hobbes continued, ‘I took him home
and made him a cup of tea. I had to go out and buy him tea and milk because
everything in his fridge was green.’

‘Was
he a vegetarian?’

‘No.
It was mainly sausages.’

‘That’s horrible,’ I said, screwing up my
face, trying to ignore the fact that the fridge in my flat had sometimes
contained similar pestilential relics. I’d since grown accustomed to a more
gracious standard of living.

Supper,
a simple macaroni cheese, confirmed my opinion that Mrs Goodfellow possessed astounding
alchemical skills, being able to transmute the basest ingredients into pure
gold; I wished I knew the secret.

Afterwards,
I washed up, since the old girl had gone to her Kung Fu class. I’d once considered
joining, getting as far as listening outside the church hall, the sounds of
screaming and thumping turning me into a quivering jelly, making me chicken out.
Next day, I discovered I’d got the wrong part of the hall and that I’d been
listening to the philately group’s AGM: passions could evidently run high in
stamp collecting. Since then, I’d never summoned sufficient courage to go back
and, besides, I didn’t need to know self-defence if Hobbes was around.

He
was sitting at the kitchen table, finishing the crossword, as I scrubbed the
last pan. ‘Featherlight’s in the cells again,’ he said, putting down his pencil
with a satisfied smile.

‘What’s
he done this time?’ I asked, turning the pan upside down to drain, reaching for
a tea towel.

‘He
assaulted an assistant at the garden centre.’

‘What
was he doing in the garden centre?’

‘He
works there.’

‘No,
I mean, what was Featherlight doing there?’

‘He
said he’d decided to carry out some improvements to the pub.’

‘Really?
Well, I suppose it’s about time,’ I said, suspecting little had been changed,
or cleaned, in the last fifty years.

‘He’s
thinking of turning the back yard into a beer garden. At the moment it’s full
of cracked slabs, weeds and rubbish. He went to the garden centre looking for
ideas.’

‘But
why assault the assistant?’

‘I
was coming to that,’ said Hobbes, his mouth twitching. ‘He says he was
wandering innocently round the store when, in his words, a “spotty herbert”
approached asking if he could be of assistance. Featherlight explained why he
was there and the youth apparently said, “you need decking, mate”. Featherlight
decked him first, claiming self-defence, although he’s twice the assistant’s
size.’

‘If,’
I said, ‘anyone else had come up with such a lame reason, I wouldn’t have
believed it. In his case it could be possible.’

Hobbes
nodded. ‘I believe him, though it doesn’t excuse him.’

‘Is
the spotty herbert alright?’

‘Apart
from a black eye, a thick lip and a mild concussion. I had to arrest
Featherlight, though.’

‘Did
he come quietly?’

He
shook his head. ‘He never does anything quietly. He cursed and swore all the
way to the station.’

I
could believe it for Featherlight, as far as I could tell, was unique in
lacking fear when confronting Hobbes. I had an idea this did not attest so much
to his courage as to his stupidity.

‘What’ll
happen to him?’

He
shrugged. ‘He’ll go to court tomorrow and probably get off with a fine, as
usual. I fear that one day he’ll really get himself into trouble – and he’ll
deserve it, though he’ll not have set out to cause any harm. He never does. I’ll
have to have a long chat with him sometime, when he’s sober.’ He sighed and
stretched, ‘Ah, well, sitting here and wagging chins won’t get the dog walked.’

He
took Dregs out and I, having Violet to consider, forgot about Featherlight’s
misfortunes. My main problem was where to suggest she might take me. While it
couldn’t be anywhere too expensive, in case she thought me a freeloader, it
couldn’t be anywhere too tatty, in case she thought me a low-life. The trouble
was I didn’t know many eating places not on the tatty side of the register; besides
pubs, and the Greasy Pole, I hadn’t a clue about dining out. There was the
Black Dog Café, of course, but I feared I was still persona non grata there.

Resorting
to careful study of the
Yellow Pages
, finding loads of restaurants but
no inspiration about their suitability for dining with a sophisticated lady, a
millionaire’s sister, I was, after an hour, no nearer to a decision. Taking out
my frustration on an innocent cushion, I punched it with great zeal, until it
exploded, a soft cloud of feathers encircling my head, getting into my mouth
and nose. I was spluttering and choking when Hobbes and Dregs returned.

Hobbes
stared at the carnage and frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’

Fearing
I was in trouble again, I tried to explain but only spat feathers.

‘A
little down in the mouth, eh?’ he said with a chuckle.