‘Only sometimes?’ I asked.
She laughed.
‘But I don’t understand how the former Mrs Grubbe knew about you?’ I said, getting back on to the subject.
Daphne shrugged. ‘I suspect Mr Hobbes let her know what was going on.’
The waitress delivered our lunches. Hobbes was right—excitement did give me an appetite. My slow-cooked shin of beef was succulent and tasty, though the sauce was bland and salty. I gulped it down and was reaching for my notebook before remembering I was no longer the Bugle’s food critic.
‘How’s your ravioli?’ I asked, struggling to overcome a sense of loss I hadn’t expected.
‘Not great,’ she said. ‘It could do with a lot more flavour and a lot less salt.’
‘Oh no!’ I gasped and clapped a hand to my forehead
She looked astonished by my reaction. ‘It’s not that bad!’
I shook my head. ‘Not the food—I’ve just had a horrible thought. When we were leaving Clarence’s, Hobbes put all the documents into his coat pocket.’
‘So?’ she asked through a spoonful of ravioli.
‘Since then, his coat has caught fire and got dunked in a fish pond—the documents will be ruined!’
I grabbed my mobile and called him.
‘Good afternoon, Andy. What do you want?’
‘Are they alright?’
‘Are what alright?’
‘The … umm … papers from Clarence.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘They didn’t get burned or wet?’
‘No.’ He laughed. ‘I see what you’re getting at—you thought I’d left them in my coat pocket. However, I learned the hard way that it’s best not to carry anything important into a situation where it might get lost or damaged. They were in the car.’
‘That’s a relief,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine thanks, apart from a bit of singeing here and there. I’ve had a quick chat with Rosemary—her story fits what we’d surmised already.’
‘That’s good,’ I said, pleased by the ‘we’. ‘What about Clarence’s documents?’
‘I’ve handed them to Jane Mortimer … ’
‘Who?’
‘A solicitor, specialising in land law. She’s been working pro bono for the SODs.’
‘Umm … Bono?’
‘She’s offered her services for free,’ said Hobbes.
‘I knew that,’ I lied. ‘Did she say anything about the documents?’
‘She’ll have to go through them all with a fine-tooth comb. However, she appeared relieved to receive them. Was there anything else?’
‘Umm … no.’
‘Then I’ll say goodbye for now. I’m off home for lunch.’ He ended the call.
‘Did you catch all that?’ I asked.
Daphne nodded. ‘Most of it. I must let Helen know—she feared her friends would lose their homes.’
‘Of course,’ I agreed. ‘Did she leave an address or phone number?’
‘No, I don’t think she has such things. I’ll have to pay a visit. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find her.’
‘It will be—the common is a vast area and there aren’t any houses … at least I didn’t see any.’
‘There must be,’ said Daphne.
I shook my head. ‘There are no roads either—just hidden paths. It’s difficult to get to.’
She shrugged. ‘But you’ve been there—you can take me.’
‘Okay,’ I said, hoping I wouldn’t let her down. ‘When?’
‘After work. I’m finishing at five o’clock. Is that alright?’
‘Why not? It’s not as if I’ll be working late at the Bugle?’
After our lunch, I walked her back to the museum.
‘I’ll see you here at five,’ I said.
Alone and with no work to occupy me, I found myself at a loose end. I mooched around town for half an hour finding nothing to interest me, and was seriously considering going home and cleaning the kitchen when my mobile rang.
‘Hi, Andy,’ said Ralph. ‘When are you coming in today?’
‘I’m not. It may have … umm … slipped your memory, but you fired me.’
‘I never did, Andy, mate! Why would you think such a thing?’
‘Because Olivia told me.’
‘You shouldn’t believe everything that silly girl says,’ said Ralph with a nonchalant chuckle. ‘Why would I fire a valued member of staff?’
‘Are you sure you’ve got the right person?’ I asked—he’d not had a problem dismissing Duncan and Basil.
He laughed. ‘Positive. If you can come in now, you can help me with a story—it’s going to be a big one!’
‘Alright,’ I said, ‘though I’ve got to leave at five for an appointment.’
‘Of course. When can you get here?’
‘In ten minutes.’
‘I’ll see you then, buddy,’ said Ralph, cheerful and affable like an old friend.
I didn’t trust him at all, though I was intrigued, as well as feeling a glimmer of hope. Presumably, he wanted my account of the morning’s action with Rosemary and Kirten and, with suitable modifications, I was prepared to give it. Plus, of course, I had the scoop about the development—how, I wondered, would he react to that? What positive spin could he apply to the story?
But did I really want to work for him? Did I really want to work for Grubbe’s consortium? Then again, could I afford not to?
I dawdled down The Shambles, trotted up the stairs to the office and entered. My old desk was waiting for me, much as I’d left it, but tidy. Olivia and Arabella were sharing Basil’s old desk in the corner. I greeted them with a cheery ‘Good afternoon’, but received only a glower from Arabella in response. Olivia nodded and smiled.
Beaming like a Cheshire cat, Ralph sallied from his office. ‘Andy! Glad, you could make it. Come in here—I’ve got something to show you.’ He led me into his office and sat me down in front of his computer screen. ‘Look at these!’
There were pictures of the morning’s action and, though I hated to admit it as I scrolled through, they looked sensational: Kirten, megaphone in hand, posing like a film star in front of Rosemary’s house; Kirten sprawling in the road; Kirten crawling away; Kirten diving over the wall into a rose bush. Then came pictures of the fire—I looked heroic in front of the flames, but the most spectacular ones showed the fiery figure of Hobbes plunging from the window.
‘They’re great,’ I said.
Ralph grinned. ‘Wait until you see the next lot!’
These showed the incident in Church Fields—I guessed Ralph must have used his long lens. I saw myself talking calmly to Rosemary (tagged ‘the armed assassin’), the arrival of Hobbes, and him disarming her with courtesy. The final scenes showed me flying through the air, bringing down Kirten, and knocking the rifle from his hands. It appeared Ralph had missed Hobbes hurling me.
‘You see?’ said Ralph, excited. ‘This is going to be so big! It’ll make the nationals … even the telly news—I just wished I’d videoed it. You’re going to be famous, Andy, my boy!’
Despite the apparent photographic evidence, I’d been no more than a convenient tool in Hobbes’s hands, and I didn’t want to be famous for being a tool. I grimaced.
‘I’ve nearly finished the copy, too,’ said Ralph, ‘but I need a few more quotes from you. So far, I have you modestly saying, “I was in the right place at the right time”.’
‘I would never say that!’
Ralph smiled. ‘You probably will some time.’
I shrugged. ‘I suppose I might.’
‘There you go!’ said Ralph in triumph. ‘You will say it, and time is relative.’
‘Yeah, okay,’ I admitted, and read out my next supposed quote: ‘“Anybody faced with a crazed man threatening people with a rifle would have done what I did”. I never said that either.’
‘You just did!’ Ralph looked complacent. ‘It’s a fantastic photo story—it’ll shift tons of
copies.’
‘But it’s not true!’
‘In essence it is,’ said Ralph. ‘Pictures don’t lie, and all I’ve done is jazz up the story to make it more entertaining. It’ll fill the front, second and third pages. Most of the rest of the paper is ready—the usual dog and pony show fluff, local clubs and such like, but we still need a good, solid story, if you wouldn’t mind writing about five hundred words. Any ideas?’
I nodded. ‘As it happens, I do have one.’
‘Great! What about?’
‘The end of the Sorenchester Common development.’
Ralph laughed. ‘Very funny!’
‘No, it’s true—Colonel Squire doesn’t own the land.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Ralph, suddenly serious.
‘One of the old General Squires signed it over to the Common People who’d saved his life. By the way, Valentine Grubbe’s ex-wife lives with them.’
‘What? On the common? Where did you pick up such nonsense?’ asked Ralph, attempting a condescending smile, but looking pale.
‘It’s not nonsense—I’ve seen the documents.’
‘And where are they now?’ asked Ralph, trying to sound casual and friendly, though I detected a sharp, angry edge to his voice that made me wary—perhaps I’d already said too much.
‘In the hands of the authorities.’
‘How did you get to see them?’
‘I … umm … was in the right place at the right time.’
‘Where and when?’ Ralph’s tone had become that of an interrogator, and I half feared he’d turn his desk lamp on me.
‘This morning. I was … out of town. I can’t reveal any more—I have to protect my source.’
‘Not from me,’ said Ralph. ‘You can trust me, can’t you?’
‘Of course, I can,’ I said, smiling, though I didn’t. At the back of my mind, my brain was forging seemingly random links of information into a chain.
‘So, tell me,’ said Ralph.
‘Sorry, but I never reveal my sources. Not even to friends.’ I’d spoken the truth in that no one had ever asked me before.
Ralph stared for a few uncomfortable seconds, shrugged, and smiled. ‘Fair enough. I admire your integrity. Go and write the article.’
I returned to the main office, interrupting a conversation between Olivia and Arabella. They barely even spared me a glance between them. Under other circumstances, I might have felt affronted, but I was too busy wondering what Ralph was up to. His change of tone and manner had been too abrupt and, on the other side of the door, I could hear him making a phone call, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Perhaps he was informing Colonel Squire of my news. If so, it was worrying, for Squire had a ruthless streak which I knew from painful, personal experience. Somehow, though, he’d always got away with it, keeping himself at a safe distance from any violence and criminality. Only his unfortunate henchmen ever got to feel the full force of the law. According to Hobbes, Squire maintained a barrier of plausible deniability—if things went wrong, he just blamed overzealous staff for misinterpreting his wishes.
I drafted my article anyway, but instead of emailing it to Ralph as normal, I sent it to my personal laptop and deleted the copy I’d been working on. I got up casually, told the ladies I was going to Cafe Nerd for a takeaway coffee, and asked if they wanted anything. Neither replied, so I sneaked away. I had no intention of visiting Cafe Nerd, but needed to think about the connections coming together in my head.
I’d just started walking when my mobile rang—it was Daphne.
‘Hi, just reminding you we’re going out soon.’
‘Out?’
‘To the common—you’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’
‘Me? Of course not. In fact, I’m on my way now. Thanks for the reminder, though. I’ll see you … ’ I glanced at the time. ‘ … in five minutes.’
25
I reached the museum just as the five o’clock bongs from the church tower were fading. Daphne emerged from the staff door and after a quick kiss, we set off for the common. I told her of my reinstatement at the Bugle and how Ralph had reacted to my news.
She frowned. ‘It might have been better to have kept quiet, especially if he did phone Colonel Squire, as you suspect.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ I admitted. ‘I drafted the article for Ralph, but decided against sending it. The thing is, I suspect he might be … ’
She finished my sentence, ‘ … working for Squire.’
I nodded. ‘And also for Grubbe—he does own the Bugle.’
‘Yes,’ Daphne agreed. ‘Which explains why it has become little more than their propaganda tool, favouring the development while ignoring or ridiculing the SODs. The days when it reported facts and let the readers make up their own minds are long gone.’
‘I’m not sure it was ever quite as pure as that,’ I said. ‘Owners and editors have always had their own agendas, but Rex and Phil would at least report the truth as they understood it, and would always report opposing views. Thinking about it, I reckon that’s why Ralph got rid of Duncan and Basil—they might have been cynical old hacks, but they would never write anything unless they believed it was substantially correct.’
Daphne smiled. ‘He got rid of you, too.’
‘And then he brought me back when he thought I might be useful to the paper.’ Another of the links clinked into place in my brain. ‘It explains why he’s taken on Olivia and Arabella, too—they’re both young and naive as well as being in the family—they’ll do what Colonel Squire tells them to do.’
I walked on, shaking my head, appalled at the corruption, assuming our musings were right, and I had little doubt they were.
It was a warm, sunny evening with a gentle, cooling breeze. We reached the more modern housing on the edge of town, and I had a strange sensation that someone was behind us. When I looked back, no one was there. I tried to reason that I was just nervous because I’d felt the same way in the morning, and had been right then.
‘I think we’re being followed,’ Daphne whispered.
I looked again, but there was no sign of anyone. Though I tried to reassure her, I wasn’t quite convinced myself.
She fiddled with her mobile, and I kept a little closer to her.
Another fifteen minutes took us to the wooded edge of the common. We’d seen no one. I relaxed a little and led her along the paths Hobbes had used last winter, though they were now all but obscured by the spring growth, and there were far too many brambles, thistles, and nettles for my liking. Fortunately, I found a short stick and used it to beat a passage when all was too dense or prickly. The woods went on for longer than I remembered, and I was suspecting I’d made a mistake when the path opened out onto rough heathland. We’d found the common, now lush and alive with birdsong. Flowers and blossom perfumed the evening air.
‘We’re here,’ I said. ‘Now what?’
‘We find Helen and tell her the news.’
‘There’s four square miles of this! The plants have grown over everything since I was last here, and I couldn’t see any houses even then.’
Daphne nodded. ‘Okay. Where did you see the face?’
‘I’m not sure—everything looks so different now.’ I gazed around. ‘Maybe over there by that hawthorn.’ I pointed—it could have been where I threw the frisbee for Dregs.’
There was a mass of spiky gorse bushes near the hawthorn, so I was almost sure I’d found the right place. There were no masked faces, though.
‘We could try calling for her,’ said Daphne.
But there was no need.
Frustrated, I whacked the bush with my stick.
The bush bellowed.
It wasn’t all bush.
A figure, seven-foot tall and dressed in a loose green robe, burst from the gorse. I dropped the stick and gaped at the leaf-masked face, dumbfounded.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Daphne, smiling at the unexpected apparition, her voice soothing. ‘Andy didn’t see yo
u. We are looking for Helen. Do you know her?’
‘Helen?’ the apparition said.
Its deep, rumbling voice reminded me of Yetis. He (I assumed it was he) beckoned, turned and loped away.
‘I think he wants us to follow,’ said Daphne.
We tagged along behind him, though I wondered if we were being wise.
As we neared a huge thicket, the apparition whistled, and a barrier of briars and brambles moved aside. Before us was a compound of six large, low, round, thatched buildings.
Our guide led us inside, where a handful of masked figures, some even taller than him, appeared, staring at us as if we were the weird ones. Our guide spoke, though the only word I could distinguish was ‘Helen’.
‘I understand your Yeti reference now,’ Daphne murmured, wrinkling her nose at the stink of unwashed bodies, decay and worse.
‘Clarence Squire said they’re Not Yetis.’
A pretty woman, a few years older than Daphne, emerged from the largest hut in the middle. She was much slighter than those around her and wore a robe similar to our guide’s, but no mask.
She looked astonished and then smiled. ‘Daphne, what a surprise! How did you find Dolmuk? He’s one of our best at concealment.’ Her words rolled out slowly and deliberately, as if she was groping for the right ones in the depth of memory.
‘Andy accidentally hit him with a stick,’ said Daphne, ‘and … Dolmuk … kindly brought us here. I have some good news.’
‘Yes?’ said Helen.
‘It appears that Colonel Squire doesn’t own this land—one of his ancestors gave it to … ’
‘So, this is where you’ve been hiding!’ Valentine Grubbe, his hair sticking up, his usually immaculate clothes dishevelled, strode through the gap in the barrier, looking belligerent.
Helen grimaced. ‘Hello, Val.’
‘You gave up your life to live with these throwbacks! Why?’ Grubbe sneered at the Not Yetis, the ugly core beneath his charm in full view.
Helen shrugged. ‘The company is so much better.’
Grubbe stopped as if she’d punched him. He burst into tears. ‘We had plans.’
‘No, darling,’ said Helen, injecting total contempt into her words. ‘You did. I don’t remember being asked.’
‘We were happy together!’
Inspector Hobbes and the Common People: Comedy Crime Fantasy (Unhuman Book 5) Page 25