‘I’m not dru …,’ I began and stopped, realising Violet had taken a drink. So far as I knew, she’d only had one small glass of wine and a little ginger beer, which was only slightly alcoholic. Though she should have been fine, I hadn’t been with her all the time and, if she’d had more than I thought, I’d be dropping her right in it.
‘I was driving,’ she said, making my hesitation redundant.
‘Is that correct, sir?’ asked the officer looking at me as if at a rat.
I nodded.
‘Are you injured, miss?’ he asked, squatting beside her.
‘I don’t think so. I hit my lip and bumped my head but I’m not really hurt … I just feel a bit funny.’
‘I think she fainted after the accident,’ I said, trying to be helpful. ‘She’s had a stressful evening.’
‘Been out with you had she, sir?’ asked the officer, standing up. ‘Now, miss, just stay where you are while I ascertain a few facts.’ Reaching into his shirt pocket for a notebook, he turned to me. ‘Would you mind telling me what happened, sir?’
I did my best, with Tom interrupting and bemoaning his wrecked garden, judging it sensible to avoid mentioning Violet getting spooked in the arboretum, putting all the blame on the pig and whoever had let it out.
When I mentioned the house from which the pig had erupted, Tom nodded. ‘That’ll be Charlie Brick’s place,’ he said. ‘He keeps pigs round the back.’ He pointed. ‘That’s him by what’s left of my poor hedge. Just look at it! Someone’s going to pay for it.’
‘I’m sure they will, sir,’ said the police officer soothingly, beckoning over a little man wearing dirty white overalls.
Charlie Brick, dark, curly whiskers surrounding a pink face that made me think of a very intelligent monkey, loafed towards us.
The officer got straight to the point. ‘Did a pig run from your house a few minutes ago?’
‘It might have done, sir,’ said Charlie in a slow drawl. ‘The bugger, if you’ll pardon my French, slipped through my fingers in the kitchen.’
‘This gentleman alleges that it caused the young lady to swerve and crash.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but I expects she was driving too fast. Them’s always driving too fast through our village.’
‘Was she speeding, sir?’ asked the officer, looking at me searchingly.
‘I don’t think so,’ I lied. ‘I’m not a driver myself, but I could tell she was slowing down before the accident, and I’m sure she wasn’t driving any faster than anyone normally drives me.’
‘I see.’ The officer, making a note, turned towards Charlie. ‘What happened to the pig?’
‘I don’t rightly know, sir,’ said Charlie, scratching his head in a simian fashion, ‘but I expects he’ll be back when I feeds the others.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘In the sty, sir.’
‘So what was that one doing in your kitchen?’ asked the officer, looking confused.
‘That’s where I does my slaughtering – in the kitchen, if you understand me.’
‘You were about to slaughter him?’
‘Yes, sir, only he took fright when I started sharpening the knife and, well, sir, there ain’t too many places to hold onto a pig. But he’ll be back, the daft bugger … excuse me, and then I’ll have him. There’s nowt like home-cured bacon, sir.’
‘Thank you,’ said the officer. ‘I must warn you that you may have committed an offence by allowing the animal to stray onto the public highway. You may not have heard the last of this.’
‘Well, sir, I didn’t exactly allow him to stray. I begged him to come back, but he wouldn’t listen. That’s pigs for you all over. Wilful they are, sir, wilful.’ Charlie wandered away, shaking his head, scratching his ribs with a long, hairy hand.
The following flurry of activity left me quite bemused. The police officer kept asking questions and speaking into his radio. Violet groaned and was sick. The ambulance arrived at last and the paramedics, after a quick assessment, carried her away. Although I tried to go with her, they shut the doors in my face, leaving me at the roadside, watching her go, until a blaring horn made me jump out of the way. It was a tow truck. Tom’s face turned an even deeper shade of purple as the car, attached to cables, was dragged from his garden, trailing a thicket of bamboo canes and bean plants through the hole in the hedge. As soon as the truck drove away, so did the police officer and, the show being over, the spectators went about their business, leaving Tom and I on our own. He wasn’t very good company.
‘Umm … could I use your phone?’ I asked, realising I’d been left without transport, hoping Hobbes wouldn’t mind picking me up.
‘What?’ asked Tom, his face attaining a darker tinge than I’d have believed possible. ‘Use my phone? You think I’m going to let you into my house after what you’ve done to my garden? Not a bloody chance. There’s a pay phone by the green. Now, get lost before I lose my bloody temper.’
As he stepped towards me, cracking his knuckles, I grabbed my blazer and fled, running until clear he wasn’t following, stopping to take stock of my situation. It wasn’t great, for I had an idea Blackdog Street was a weary walk away; a nearby signpost saying ‘Sorenchester 14 miles’, without any apology, concurred. Completely broke, apart from the penny I’d picked up, the pay phone was useless, even if it happened to be working, and it never occurred to me that I might be able to reverse the charges. Though there would, presumably, have been plenty of telephones in peoples’ houses, I doubted anyone seeing my filthy white trousers, my ludicrous blazer, my soiled and bloody shirt and my battered and holed straw hat would let me in. In despair, I tried to calculate how long it would take me to walk home but, having little idea of my walking speed, my best answer was a long time.
My hand was sore, four long scratches beading blood where Violet had slapped it. Sucking it away, I sighed, starting the trek, realising within a few minutes that it had not just been Tom’s face that had darkened; everything had darkened and not only from the advancing evening. A rumble of not-too-distant thunder hinting at what was to come, my mood dipped even further.
Even worse than the prospect of getting soaked and exhausted, was not knowing how Violet was, though I could take some comfort from the fact that she was in good hands. Although I was nearly sure she’d only fainted, that her injuries were trivial, my mind kept throwing up all sorts of what ifs that deepened my gloom and despondency. Furthermore, Felix’s threats still haunted me, leaving me unsure whether I even dared check up on her. Thinking that, perhaps it was the right time to break things off, I still had to know she was alright.
I hurried on, trying to get as far as possible before the storm hit, though it was clear the mile or two I might put behind me would make little difference; I was in for a soaking.
The storm continuing to rumble with malice, I reached Hedbury, finding it battened down for the night, except for the pubs, which were doing good trade. As I passed the Jolly Highwayman, I looked in through the big bay window, seeing it full of jovial, happy people, wishing I could join them, even entertaining the possibility of begging for a drink, or the use of the phone. Yet pride or, more likely, an unwillingness to be seen in the state I was in, exerted itself and I pressed on.
I was just passing a sign saying ‘Sorenchester 11’ when the first heavy raindrops struck. Coming individually at first, as if the storm was still making up its mind whether to unload its cargo, they made little difference to me since I was already damp with sweat. Within minutes, however, I was immersed in a downpour. Turning up my collar, huddling into my blazer in a futile attempt at shelter, I trudged on, rain ricocheting off the tarmac up to my thighs, passing cars dousing me in a heavy mist. That was when I was lucky. When I wasn’t lucky, sheets of water skimmed across the road from lorry wheels, drenching me. With none of the drivers showing any inclination to stop and pick up a suffering human being, I had to leap onto the verge many times when they didn’t appear to even notice me. I
n fairness, I doubted they expected to see anyone out on such a night.
The roadside was thick with grass, thistle-infested and slick with mud. When I slipped, I slid into the ditch. Though it wasn’t deep, it was swampy and even worse was a selvedge of stinging nettles that spitefully attacked my poor hands as I pulled myself out. The rain, though not a constant torrent, came and went with great persistence as the storm rumbled near and far. To start with I made an effort to avoid the puddles, but it wasn’t long before, being as wet as a frog, I couldn’t have cared less. My clothes clung around my body, making every movement a struggle and, in spite of the effort, my teeth started chattering. As black night engulfed everything, all I could do was to keep walking.
It seemed like hours had passed when, at last, I made out the faint glimmer of electric light from what had to be the town, as an oncoming white van forced me into a puddle, which turned out to be a pothole, turning my ankle. Sitting on the verge, I hugged my leg, trying to comfort it and, despite the pain, the cold and the wet, I laughed; the picnic had lived up to – and exceeded – the disasters expected of Caplet outings. Then I cried.
After several minutes, during which not a single vehicle passed, I wiped my nose on my blazer sleeve, stood up and limped on, nearly crying again when I realised the lights I’d seen were shining across the fields from Randle, a village not even on the same road, and that there were another four miles to go before I reached the outskirts of Sorenchester, and then the best part of another mile after that. The idea of curling up in the ditch and letting life slip away began to have its appeal, yet, before I died, I had to know Violet was safe. I kept going. My tennis pumps, limp and sodden, rubbed my feet, particularly the one attached to my good ankle and, discovering how extraordinarily difficult it was to limp on both sides, my progress was painfully slow. A stick poking from the hedge jabbed into my calf, tearing my trouser leg. Though I swore at it, it made a passable walking stick until, when it snapped, I fell hard, lying for a while in the road, winded, exhausted, sore, aching and shivering. Only a vast expenditure of willpower got me back to my feet. A lightning flash and simultaneous roll of thunder making me jump, I drew a deep breath.
The next flash, seeing, exposed in stark black and white, a figure staring at me from the other side of the road, my blood would have run cold had I not already been so chilled; the muscles in my legs would have turned to water had they not already been so weak and wobbly. I tried hard, really hard, to convince myself my imagination was playing tricks, that, on such a dark and stormy night, a mind could easily wander from reality, especially one weakened by fatigue, shock and pain.
It didn’t work for I knew I really had seen a creature from nightmares, a creature with dark hair, glinting white teeth and reflective eyes, though nothing like a panther. The thing was, it had been standing upright. I wished Hobbes was with me.
I wished I hadn’t just seen a werewolf.
When the next flash split the night, it had vanished. I couldn’t decide if that was reassuring or not. If it had gone, then all well and good, but how did I know it wasn’t stalking me? What if it was already behind me, preparing to spring and tear me apart? Was that a twig cracking? Was that heavy breathing?
Out there in the dripping darkness all my being turned to fear and I learned what a sudden dose of adrenaline can do to a tired body. I ran like an Olympic champion, oblivious to the pain in my ankle, the rawness of my feet, my weary legs, only slowing when the streetlights of Sorenchester surrounded me, cocooning me in the safety of civilisation. When I looked back I was sure something dark slipped into the shadows. Yet, knowing it hadn’t got me, the elation of survival spurred me on.
I hobbled through the deserted streets, the storm receding into distant rumblings, the rain turning to a light drizzle. It stopped completely when I reached Blackdog Street.
The house was quiet when I let myself in. I dragged myself upstairs, filled the bath with hot water, stripped off my filthy, sodden clothes and lowered myself in with a groan. Though my chilled skin protested, my feet stinging and throbbing, it was glorious to feel the warmth ooze back into my body. I would have fallen asleep had I not dropped the soap with a splash. I got out, dried myself, wrapped a towel around my middle and stumbled towards my room. Too tired to worry about anything, even Violet, I must have fallen asleep as soon as I’d got into bed.
14
On waking, I wished I hadn’t. My head was throbbing with the power of a ten-pint hangover, my armpits had apparently been fitted with painful lumps, as big as golf balls, and my ankle kept going into agonising spasms on every heartbeat. Everywhere hurt and, weak as a newly-hatched chick, I was shivering, presumably because all my bedclothes had fallen off. Blindly groping on the floor failing to find them, I opened my eyes and whimpered, for even my eyeballs ached. The door clicked open.
‘Good morning,’ said Mrs Goodfellow. ‘How are you today?’
Shaking my head in response proving a big mistake, my groan sounded as pathetic as I felt.
‘Are you feeling poorly?’
‘Yes,’ I said through chattering teeth.
‘You must be cold, dear, without any bedclothes or pyjamas,’ she said, pulling the blankets over me and touching my forehead. ‘You feel like you’re burning, but I’ll fetch you a hot water bottle.’
She left, returning a few minutes later with a grey rubber object that appeared to have been moulded in the shape of a deformed hippopotamus. I hugged it, enjoying the warmth, and snuggled down.
‘Were you caught in the storm, dear? I thought you must have been because of the state of your clothes. I’m having ’em laundered and Milord should be able to fix the trousers and the blazer, but your pumps have had it and there’s such a big hole in the straw hat I doubt there’s any chance of fixing it. Now, can I get you something to eat?’
‘No.’
‘A nice hot drink, then?’
‘Please … and some aspirins.’
‘Aspirins? I don’t think we’ve got any, though I do have a tincture that should make you feel as right as reindeer.’
As her footsteps receded, having an urgent need to relieve my bladder, I pulled myself into a sitting position, fearing any delay might prove disastrous and, though I hardly dared get to my feet, I had no choice. Wrapping a soft blanket around me, I hobbled to the bathroom, making it with seconds to spare, finding it a long way back.
The storm having passed, the sun shone painfully brightly through the closed curtains, as I curled up in bed, blankets piled high, the warm rubber hippo on my stomach, still shivering when the old girl returned with a mug of steaming something. Fluffing a couple of pillows, slipping them under my shoulders, she helped me sip the concoction. I’m not certain what was in it, though there might have been lavender. Finishing it, I lay back, feeling disconnected from the aches and pains in my body.
A scuffling woke me, or I think so, because everything was vague and fuzzy, almost as if I was dreaming or hallucinating. The curtains having been drawn back and the window opened, I could hear the Saturday bustle of the town as I lay a while, blinking, fascinated by the scintillating patterns swirling in the sunlight. Trying to work out what was causing the peculiar misshapen shadow moving across the carpet, I looked up, seeing Hobbes’s face upside down outside the window, winking at me from beneath a broad grin.
Puzzled, I closed my eyes. When I looked again, he’d been replaced by Milord Schmidt, hunched on a small stool, stitching a tear in my blazer.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said, peering over the top of his half-moon spectacles, stretching out his long, thin legs.
An unfamiliar middle-aged woman, smelling of disinfectant, was leaning over me, poking various tender places, shaking her head and frowning. When I opened my mouth to ask what she was doing, she popped in a thermometer, continuing the prodding occasionally saying ‘um’ or ‘aah’. The ‘ooh’ came from me; her hands could have been warmer.
Retrieving the thermometer, she peered at it. ‘You did well t
o call me in,’ she said, ignoring me. ‘He’s certainly got a high fever, so it’s no wonder he’s feeling poorly. He would appear to have picked up a rather nasty infection, almost certainly a bacterial one, though I’ll take a blood sample to make sure. In the meantime, I’ll prescribe him a course of antibiotics. He should start it as soon as possible. I must say it’s peculiar how the illness happened just like that, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t connected with the scratches on his hand.
‘I almost think he should be in hospital, but I’ve an idea he’ll be better off here. Make sure he has plenty to drink and he can eat a little when he feels up to it. Call me if he gets any worse, or if there’s no improvement in the next two days.’
‘Now,’ she said, swabbing my arm with alcohol, ‘you’ll feel a little scratch.’
When she thrust the needle into my arm just below the elbow, I whimpered, nearly fainting as the little glass tube filled up with my blood. As she straightened up, turning away, I felt a momentary resentment that I hadn’t been involved before drifting off.
Now and again Mrs Goodfellow shook me awake to pop some foul-tasting pills down my throat, washing them down with cool drinks. Sometimes I sweated, kicking off the bedclothes; other times I shivered, clutching them around me. The long night let loose dreams, leading me down nightmare alleys, where big cats with glowing eyes prowled, oblivious to something darker, something worse than panthers, lurking in the shadows. It was something looking like a man, except it was all wrong, though not in the way Hobbes was wrong. It was stalking Violet and I tried to warn her, only for Charlie Brick to release a herd of grinning pigs that ran squealing through a hole in the hedge, getting in my way. Unable to get close, I screamed for her to run.
‘It’s only a nightmare, dear,’ said Mrs G.
I opened my eyes, blinking in the morning light, my chin rasping against the white sheets. I found it was surprisingly bristly.
Inspector Hobbes and the Curse - a fast-paced comedy crime fantasy (unhuman) Page 21