‘Hiya!’ Billy Shawcroft, miniscule in stature though massive in ability, waved and directed his motorised skateboard towards us from the other side of the road.
‘Good afternoon, Billy,’ said Mrs Goodfellow as he approached.
‘What have you been up to?’ he asked, examining the wheelchair.
‘There was this leopard and some Yet … ’ I began.
Mrs Goodfellow interrupted. ‘He fell over and hurt his leg.’
I realised how close I’d come to letting slip a detail of my secret journey.
‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘I was checking out … umm … some yet to be opened restaurant … near Tode-in-the-Wold … and I fell down the steps. The … umm … leopard turned out to be a cat.’
‘Were you drunk?’ asked Billy.
‘A little tipsy, perhaps,’ I said, pleased how well I’d covered up. ‘I’m a lot better now and expect to be getting around on my own in a day or two.’
‘And how is Mr Binks?’ asked Mrs Goodfellow.
Billy sighed. ‘Featherlight is not in the best of moods.’
In my experience, Featherlight Binks was never in the best of moods, unless he’d just flung an unfortunate customer into the street. But for some reason, Billy got on well with him and even worked behind the bar at The Feathers.
‘He won’t say why,’ Billy continued, ‘but he’s been like it since that development got accepted. And learning that a child had been murdered made him even more morose. Well, I can’t stay long—I said I’d help him clean the beer pipes.’
‘He cleans the pipes?’ I was astonished—having drunk more than my share of lager there, I could testify that it was the worst kept in Sorenchester.
‘I said I’d do it,’ said Billy. ‘It’s high time someone did, and he’s not to be trusted with cleaning fluid and, with a few exceptions, I’d rather we didn’t poison our customers. See you!’ He skated away.
Mrs G pushed me home, helped me inside, and left me to my own devices.
I slumped onto the sofa and mulled things over—I’d seen no other reporters at the trouble, so I’d probably got a scoop if I wanted it. But, if I wrote an honest account of what I’d witnessed, I had an idea Ralph would twist it so that it appeared the trouble had really been a cynical publicity stunt by the SODs, even though I suspected the thugs had been acting for the developers.
Despite all the claims that the development would be good for Sorenchester, bringing not only new houses, but jobs and countless other benefits, I was increasingly opposed to it. Sure, I could see that having more potential Bugle buyers might help keep the paper going and, thus, keep me in a job, but the downsides seemed massive: the disruption, the huge change to the town’s character, the lack of available jobs for the newcomers, the need for new facilities to cater for them. These things barely got a mention in the plans or the publicity, and the list of minor problems went on and on. However, what really bothered me was building over the common. It struck me as an act of vandalism that such a wild, secluded area could be buried beneath concrete.
The doorbell rang. I got up, opened the door, and a big, black, hairy dog storm engulfed me, leaving me flat on my back, getting nuzzled and licked, despite my yelps.
‘Glad to see you up and about,’ said Hobbes, retrieving Dregs.
‘I’m actually down and licked,’ I retorted, though it was good to be appreciated, if only by a delinquent canine.
Hobbes helped me up. ‘How’s the leg?’
‘Weak and still tender, but much better. Is the trouble in town over?’
He nodded. ‘It is. Derek Poll checked the number plate from the pickup—it was stolen from a similar vehicle in Pigton. The owner reported the theft three days ago, but he’d been away for a month so had no idea when it had happened. There were no useful prints on it.’
‘So, not much use as a lead,’ I said and sat back down.
He shrugged. ‘You’re probably right, but it does tell me the thief has been in Pigton within the last month, and since the vehicle the plates came from was kept out of sight behind a locked gate, it suggests local knowledge.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but the thief might have been intending to commit a burglary, found he couldn’t get in to the house, so took the number plates as a trophy or something.’
Hobbes smiled and shook his head. ‘Unlikely—there were no signs of an attempted break in.’
‘So, the number plate was taken specifically to disguise the pickup,’ I said, cottoning on at once. ‘Get down, Dregs!’
To my astonishment, the dog, who’d just settled his lumpy head like a lead weight on my groin, bounded away. Seconds later, he returned with one of my walking boots. He took it to a corner and lay down, sniffing it like a connoisseur with a fine wine.
‘Is he going to eat it?’ I asked.
Hobbes smiled. ‘I doubt it. It’s more likely he’s just interested by the exotic odours picked up on our excursion. Excuse me.’
His mobile was ringing. He answered, saying little except ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’.
‘What’s up?’ I asked, seeing his frown.
‘That was Derek Poll. Keith Brown turned up at the station and confessed to shooting Timmy.’
‘That’s good,’ I said, before noticing his exasperated expression. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. Keith confesses to everything—he once claimed he’d shot Archduke Ferdinand and started the First World War.’
‘Why would he do that?’ I asked.
‘He has what they call “issues”, though I think he just enjoys being the centre of attention. The lads call him Culpability Brown. Whenever he turns up at the station, they give him a cup of tea, listen to his confession, pretend to take notes and send him on his way.’
‘Won’t they do the same now?’
‘They would have,’ said Hobbes, ‘if DCI Kirten hadn’t overheard him. Despite what everyone has told him, he is taking it seriously. I’d better go over and sort things out. See you later.’
He called Dregs to heel and left me to my thoughts.
I might have decided to write the article had my laptop been working. The thought of having to use pen and paper put me off, and, although I could have tapped something out on my mobile, its insane autocorrect function had scared me off.
12
Daphne returned from work. I stood up to give her a welcome home kiss, and mentioned that I’d broken my laptop. She picked it up, pressed the on button, and handed it back. It started. ‘It must have turned itself off when you dropped it.’
The camera, however, as I’d successfully diagnosed, was beyond all hope, no matter how much I grimaced at it.
‘I was hoping I’d got some awesome photos,’ I complained as I sat back down. ‘My stunning stories of a Bugle reporter in the wild will seem a bit lame without them.’
‘Don’t despair yet,’ she said.
‘Despairing early gets it over sooner,’ I said, sharing the benefit of experience.
She removed the flash card, patted it dry on a tissue, and inspected it. ‘It looks okay—let’s give it a go.’
She sat beside me, slotted it into the laptop, and I had my photographs. Despite my lack of talent, many of the snaps looked amazing: rugged snow-tipped mountains, verdant valleys, rushing rivers, and rocky ravines, barren plains … and Yetis in their cave!
I gaped. ‘I don’t remember taking that!’
Daphne pointed to the edge of the picture. ‘You didn’t—that’s you, isn’t it?’
A pathetic, crumpled figure was lying on the fur-covered hammock in the background. ‘So it is,’ I admitted. ‘Umm … so who took it?’
‘A Yeti,’ she said. ‘It probably pressed the button when it was checking out the camera. There are a few more photos.’
‘They’re not very good, though,’ I complained as we scanned them. ‘They’re all a bit blurry. I expect they didn’t know to focus … and the light wasn’t great.’
‘Despite all that,’ she said, ‘you hav
e photographs of Yetis at home—I especially like the group portrait. As far as I know, no one’s obtained anything like it before. If only you were allowed to sell them, you’d be rich and famous!’
I sat back, dreaming of what might have been—me, Andy Caplet, going down in history as an intrepid mountaineer and friend of Yetis. It would have been fantastic. On the other hand, back in the real world, the infamous Andy Caplet going to prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act was not such a pleasing prospect. I sighed. ‘Oh well. But at least I can use the other photos.’
Daphne nodded and brought some other pictures up on screen. ‘Look at this!’
The unmistakable shape of a big cat was looking down at me from a crag.
‘I remember taking this one,’ I said, surprised, ‘but I thought it was just scenic—I never spotted the leopard. I think it was the day before it pounced on me.’
She laughed and nodded. ‘That was just after you’d started taking the monk’s magic medicine. Do you have any left?’
‘No, the flask got squashed. A pity.’
‘Why, do you want to attract more cats?’
I smiled. ‘No, but I miss the way it made me feel. I’ve never felt so full of energy.’
‘So, I noticed in the tent,’ she said with a wink that made me grin like a naughty schoolboy. She changed the subject. ‘Are you hungry?’
A foolish question, as she well knew. I nodded.
‘I’ll order something,’ she said. ‘What do you fancy?’
‘Umm … don’t know … Chinese, maybe?’
‘Yeah, why not?’ She reached for her mobile and brought up Aye Ching’s takeaway. However, a message apologised that the shop was closed for a family holiday.
We settled for ordering from the Leaning Tower of Pizzas. Our meal arrived within twenty minutes. It was nothing to write home about, but it was filling.
When we’d finished eating, I washed up while Daphne started up her laptop to prepare a lecture for the morning. After finishing my chores, I took the opportunity to bang off a piece of lurid prose describing how I’d battled adversity, terror and injury in the mountains, to bring the glories of nature in the rough, to Bugle readers.
After that, since Daphne was still busy I decided, it was time to write something about the afternoon’s trouble—it was my job. I bashed out a quick five hundred words, without apportioning blame, though I did mention the SODs and the involvement of out-of-towners. At the end, I thought it an engaging and honest piece. I pushed the button and sent it on its way, though I suspected Ralph would edit it into something more compact and, to my mind, less readable.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the afternoon. Who would favour the development so much that they’d want to disrupt a protest against it? Colonel Squire? It seemed plausible—he had form. Or Valentine Grubbe? Other than that he was handsome, suave, and rich, I knew too little about him to speculate. So, I turned to Google.
My first search brought up only an article about a long-dead, but well-respected philanthropist of the same name. A second search including the word ‘developer’ got me my man—Valentine Edward Grubbe.
It turned out that he was thirty-nine (though I’d have guessed a little older), and had been born in Ogborne St Lukes, an obscure village in Wiltshire. Following an undistinguished academic career at a minor public school, he’d joined the army, rising to the rank of captain, where he’d seen action and won medals for gallantry. In addition, he’d played rugby and cricket for the army and won trophies for target shooting. He’d married a Helen Fry, and his career had been on an upward trajectory until a court-martial for theft. Although acquitted, he’d left the army soon after.
It was interesting enough stuff in a gossipy kind of way, but told me little about the man.
The doorbell rang.
‘Who’s that at half-past eight on a Sunday night?’ I asked.
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Daphne, getting to her feet.
I half expected Hobbes.
I did not expect Valentine Edward Grubbe.
‘Apologies for intruding,’ he said, with a nod at me and a smile at Daphne as he came in, ‘but I was wondering if you might reconsider my proposal.’
‘What proposal?’ I asked.
‘The one I discussed with your wife,’ said Grubbe, sparing me a brief glance.
‘Eh?’ I said, succinct as ever.
‘Mr Grubbe offered me some paid work when we met him at Colonel Squire’s house,’ said Daphne.
‘Please, call me Valentine,’ said Grubbe.
She smiled. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you, Valentine. We’ve been away and only came home a few days ago. I’ve been busy catching up since them.’
‘A holiday?’ asked Grubbe with a pleasant smile.
I hoped it was the trip that interested him rather than my wife. He seemed to be standing a little too close to her, oozing charm and affability, the bastard.
‘It was great,’ she said, ‘but it was work.’
Grubbe nodded as if to say that he knew all about working trips.
‘Please, take a seat,’ I said before he could say anything else. I indicated the armchair in the corner.
‘No thanks, I’m fine. So, Daphne, what do you say?’
She looked thoughtful. ‘Well, the money would be welcome, but I am rather busy at the moment—apart from the day-to-day stuff, there are loads of school trips to the museum at this time of year and they take so much preparation—I’ve had to work this afternoon.’
‘Of course,’ said Grubbe, smoothing back a hair on his immaculate haircut. ‘However, I would not expect the work to impinge on your time very much.’
‘What work?’ I asked.
‘Valentine wants me to research old records about Sorenchester Common.’
Grubbe smiled. ‘For which your training makes you a perfect fit. Plus, of course, you have access to the museum’s records.’
‘I don’t understand why you haven’t engaged solicitors to do this,’ said Daphne.
‘We have, of course,’ said Grubbe. ‘They scanned Land Registry documents and deeds and covenants and so forth. However, the common is ancient and we are just ensuring there are no charters that might still apply and which might delay our development. I’m also interested if there’s anything strange I should know.’
Daphne frowned. ‘I must think about it a little more.’
‘Of course,’ said Grubbe, ‘but I’ll need your answer soon—if you say “no”, I’ll have to find someone else. Tell you what, why not discuss it with your husband, sleep on it, take a day or two to consider, and let me know your answer?’
‘Alright.’ She nodded.
Grubbe continued. ‘I’ve an idea—why don’t I take the two of you to lunch tomorrow? We can talk about it then. I understand Le Sacré Bleu is decent. Do you know it?’
‘Isn’t it the one at the bottom of Helmet Hill by the river?’ said Daphne. ‘I suggested going there on our last anniversary, but Andy wasn’t keen.’
I said nothing because the last time I’d been there, the food had been delicious, the wine had been amazing, and the ambiance had been perfect until Violet, my girlfriend at the time, had rather spoiled it by murdering someone. I’d never gone back in case they recognised me.
‘It’s quite a long way to go for lunch,’ I said, hoping to change Grubbe’s mind. ‘How about Bombay Mick’s in town? It does a fine lunchtime buffet.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Grubbe. ‘I’ll send a car round and pick you up. Shall we say at twelve-thirty?’
‘All right,’ said Daphne and glanced at me. ‘What do you say?’
‘Umm … ’ I dithered, caught between wishing to keep an eye on Grubbe and memories of that horrible summer evening. I shifted my gaze towards him. ‘Yes, alright. Will your wife be joining us?’
Grubbe glared. His fists curled into tight balls, and then he smiled. ‘I’m not married.’
‘But …’ I began and stopped. Perhaps th
e information had been wrong—he ought to know, after all. ‘Sorry. I was making assumptions.’
‘No problem, Andy,’ he said. ‘Sadly, I’ve never been lucky in love like you. Perhaps one day.’
‘It’s true,’ I admitted. ‘I am lucky.’
But what, exactly, did he mean? Did he hope to get lucky with Daphne? Or was I reading too much into an innocent comment?
‘Well, I must be on my way,’ he said with a glance at his Rolex. ‘Where is the best place for my driver to pick you up? At the museum?’
‘Here would be better,’ said Daphne. ‘It’s difficult to park in town during the day, and Andy can’t get there—he hurt his leg when we were away.’
‘That’s settled then.’ Grubbe got to his feet and swaggered towards the door with Daphne. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
The front door closed and Daphne returned. ‘He seems nice,’ she remarked.
‘If you say so.’
‘But I suspect a streak of ruthlessness underlies his charm.’
‘I hadn’t noticed the charm,’ I said. ‘What are you going to do about his job offer?’
‘It’s not a job as such. It’s just a few hours’ work.’
‘But you’re busy.’
‘I am. However, I’m sure I can arrange things so I’ve got the time. He’s offering good money.’
‘How much?’
‘Two thousand pounds plus a bonus.’
That took the wind from my sails—it was a lot for just a few hours’ work, and would help towards the new windows our house needed. ‘Bonus? How much?’
She smiled. ‘Another thousand if I turn up what he’s looking for.’
‘And what is he looking for?’ I asked.
‘That is not entirely clear. It’s something to do with cryptids and land rights.’
‘Cryptids, eh? But … umm … didn’t Hobbes ask you about them?’
She nodded. ‘He did. I thought that was to do with our trip, though Yetis can hardly be said to be mythical creatures now my husband has lived with them and captured pictures on his camera.’
Inspector Hobbes and the Common People: Comedy Crime Fantasy (Unhuman Book 5) Page 12