3 Inspector Hobbes and the Gold Diggers

by Wilkie Martin

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  Also Available Inspector Hobbes and the Blood

  Also Available Inspector Hobbes and the Curse

  Acknowledgements

  About Wilkie Martin

  Contact Wilkie Martin

  A note from the author

  Inspector Hobbes

  and the Gold Diggers

  unhuman III

  Wilkie Martin

  The Witcherley Book Company

  United Kingdom

  ISBN 9780957635159

  Published in the United Kingdom

  by The Witcherley Book Company

  Copyright 2014 Martin J Wilkinson and Julia How.

  The right of Martin J Wilkinson (Wilkie Martin) to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright owner, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Names, characters, places and events in this book are fictitious, and except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to any actual events or locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9780957635142 (paperback)

  ISBN 9780957635159 (ebook)

  ISBN 9780957635180 (ebook)

  Book cover jacket designed by Cathy Helms (www.avalongraphics.org)

  1

  ‘This evening,’ said the newsreader, just as my head was starting to nod, ‘the quiet Cotswold town of Sorenchester was rocked by an explosion and small arms fire when a gang attempted to snatch gold with an estimated value in excess of one million pounds. Jeremy Pratt reports from the scene.’

  I sat up agog as the familiar buildings of The Shambles appeared on television, with Jeremy Pratt, tall, thin and solemn, standing with a microphone in his hand. He was outside Grossman’s Bank, which was enwrapped in police tape. In the background a van was smoking, while a fireman coiled up a hose as thick as an anaconda.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Jeremy, smiling with maximum condescension and minimum humour. ‘At nine-thirty this evening, a gang, who were armed and wearing balaclavas, made a daring raid on the armoured security van behind me, which, a spokesman has confirmed, was being used to transfer a large consignment of gold sovereigns to the vault of Grossman’s Bank. I have with me Mr Percival Longfellow, the driver.’

  Jeremy turned to a tubby, balding man at his side, a man who looked utterly bewildered. ‘Tell me, Mr Longfellow: is it true the robbers used explosives to break into the van?’

  ‘Eh?’ said Mr Longfellow, cupping his already prominent ears in his hands.

  ‘Did the robbers use explosives to break into the van?’

  ‘I can’t hear very well since they blew the bloody doors off.’

  ‘I see. Was anybody injured?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did the explosion hurt anybody?’ asked Jeremy, articulating every syllable.

  ‘You need to learn not to mumble so much, mate. I’m a little deaf since the explosion. They blew the doors off, you know.’

  Jeremy raised his voice. ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘What happened after they blew the doors off?’ Jeremy shouted, red faced and exasperated.

  ‘No. What happened was they blew the bloody doors off and stole the money.’

  ‘Amazing,’ said Jeremy, looking baffled. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Longfellow.’ He shoved him out of shot.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Anyway,’ Jeremy continued, ‘it would seem that, after the gang had blown the van’s doors off, they threatened a guard with firearms and there are unconfirmed reports of several shots having been fired. Then, having overpowered the guard, they seized the contents of the van, which, I have been led to believe, included a substantial quantity of gold sovereigns. They loaded them into the back of a get-away vehicle and made off with their ill-gotten gains. However, it appears they were thwarted by the local police, who have arrested three members of the gang and retrieved all of the gold.

  ‘A police spokesman has, however, confirmed that two of the gang managed to escape and that the police are now looking for a white van with a large hole in its roof.’

  The picture returned to the studio. ‘Thank you, Jeremy,’ said the newsreader. ‘We’ll come back to that story as soon as further details emerge. Now, over to Penny for the latest weather forecast.’

  Once I was over the initial surprise, I was disappointed that I was missing all the excitement, for, much to my amazement, I’d become something of an adrenalin junkie since coming to know Inspector Hobbes of the Sorenchester Police. Anyone spending time with him needed to adjust, and quickly, to living with high intensity excitement: and fear. It had struck me just how often I’d been terrified since our first meeting and, although sometimes I wished I’d never set eyes on his huge, ugly frame, I’d survived and come to realise I wouldn’t have wished to miss any of it. Life with Hobbes in it was interesting.

  As I lounged in my chair, a number of thoughts kept resurfacing in my head. The first was why would anyone be taking gold to a bank at night? The second was how did the robbers know it was going to be there? The third was that if the robbers had been inside the getaway van, then how had the police retrieved the gold and arrested three of them? It all sounded weird to me, and since that was the case, I suspected Hobbes had been on the scene.

  I was frustrated I wasn’t there. A case of extreme bad timing had meant that I happened to be overnighting at my parents. Trying to get a good night’s sleep on their ancient camp bed – uncomfortable, unstable and creaking with every breath – had proved a colossal failure and, giving up, I’d crept back into their lounge, switched on the television and slumped into an armchair, hoping the twenty-four hour news would be showing the usual boring stuff, and that I’d soon be lulled to sleep. Instead, I ended up sitting in front of the news for another two or three hours before, getting cold and there being no further developments, I returned to bed, where I supposed I must have dozed in between long intervals of tortured wakefulness.

  I’d finally dropped into a deep slumber when there was a knock on the door and Mother walked in with a mug of tea.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said in a loud, cheerful voice. ‘Rise and shine!’

  She meant well, so, suppressing a groan, forcing a smile, I sat up and reached for the mug, muttering my thanks.

  I should have taken more care, should have remembered how unstable the camp bed was. I didn’t and it collapsed in a sequence of awkward stages, propelling my head backwards, flinging my feet upwards and resulting in a wave of hot tea breaking over my face as the mug caught me a might
y wallop on the bridge of the nose. As I thrashed about in the wreckage trying to break free, my big toe struck a bookcase at my side, but I had no time to fully appreciate that particularly exquisite agony, because I’d dislodged an old-fashioned alarm clock that dropped, with a merry jingle, into my right eye socket. Groaning, one hand reaching for my toe, the other clutching my face, I curled up, believing the worst was over. A foolish mistake. A deluge of books, all of them hardbacks, rained down, heavy wooden shelves battered me, and finally everything went dark. The bookcase had crashed down, like a coffin lid.

  As I lay there, stunned and in pain, I heard the muffled voice of my father: ‘What on earth is the idiot doing this time?’

  ‘He’s had an accident,’ said Mother.

  ‘He is an accident.’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault, really. It was the camp bed.’

  ‘Pah! The boy’s a fool. He takes after your brother.’

  ‘You leave Harold out of this. He can’t help it.’

  I was unable to move, and interesting though my parents’ discussion was, I wanted air. ‘Help me,’ I cried.

  ‘Help me, what?’ said Father.

  ‘Help me, please.’

  ‘That’s better.’ With a grunt, he lifted the bookcase, allowing me to roll free.

  ‘Well, what do you say?’ asked Father, as I got to my feet, shedding books like a moulting dog sheds hair.

  ‘Ouch?’

  ‘Bah!’ Turning, he walked away, shaking his head and muttering.

  Mother handed me a wad of tissues to staunch my bloodied nose and fetched a cold flannel for my eye, which was already swelling. Then Father insisted that I cleared up the mess I’d made, which took a surprising time, since all the books had to be replaced in alphabetical order.

  Some good came of the accident, for my nose was so stuffed with blood clots I could barely taste the breakfast kippers. I’m not keen on them at the best of times, but the blackened, chewy relics Mother favoured were appalling. As a guest at Hobbes’s, where I was fed daily by Mrs Goodfellow, his housekeeper, I now recognised and appreciated excellent food and knew just how terrible a cook Mother was. I could barely believe that, once upon a time, I’d thought she wasn’t too bad.

  Yet it was, indirectly, her cooking that had brought me to stay with them. The previous afternoon, she’d phoned in a panic, telling me Father was ill; dying, she’d suggested. Although we’d never got on, mostly because he’d always treated me as an imbecile, I’d felt compelled to do my filial duty. Arriving after a forty minute bus ride from Sorenchester and a long walk, and fearing the worst, I’d pressed the doorbell of Dunfillin, their new bungalow.

  I’d been astonished when Father opened the door. He was not dying, but had merely been suffering extreme indigestion after overindulging on Mother’s lasagne. Since it was late, I’d had little choice other than to pass the evening with them and to spend the night. Mother was, as ever, too clingy, while Father’s sarcastic streak had broadened since he’d retired from dentistry and had no one to torture. Besides, now he ate all his meals at home, his chronic dyspepsia had not improved his temper.

  Despite a slight nausea, fatigue, and being well battered, I volunteered to wash up after breakfast. I should have known better. It turned out that a kipper had exploded in the microwave and it took me over an hour before I was able to chip off the last few chunks. At least it gave me time to think about the robbery, though having no more information than I’d had last night, I had no idea what had really happened.

  Eventually, having finished my chores and eager for further news, I went through to the lounge, where Mother was ironing socks, while Father read the newspaper, providing a running commentary on whatsoever caught his attention. Having learned in my youth not to disturb them when they were thus engrossed, I sat down, kept quiet and fretted. I thought of ringing Mrs Goodfellow and finding out what was happening but, having bought a bus ticket, I was short of cash and feared Father’s acerbic comments should I not drop a substantial donation into the tin they kept by the hall phone. I wished I had a mobile. I’d had one once, when I, Andy Caplet, had been the worst-paid reporter on the Sorenchester and District Bugle, the Sad B, as it was affectionately known, but it had perished with the rest of my belongings when my flat had burnt down. Since then, having lost my job, I’d never had the money to buy a new one, or, to be honest, much need of one.

  For the next half hour or more, I struggled to keep still, forcing myself not to wriggle, scratch or sigh. Instead, I stared at the deep, brown carpets, the heavy plush furniture, and the porcelain figurines that had to be dusted twice a day. It seemed like an aeon had passed when Father went to the bathroom, leaving the paper behind. I grabbed it, flicked rapidly through and was disappointed there was nothing about the robbery. I guessed the story had broken too late. Wishing the bungalow had thicker internal walls, I tried to ignore Father’s rumblings.

  ‘Did you know there was a gold robbery in Sorenchester last night,’ I asked when he returned, still doing up his trousers.

  ‘When are you going back there?’ he asked. ‘The sooner the better, I say, before you demolish the bungalow.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Mother. ‘He’s no trouble, really. He’s going to stay with us for a few days, aren’t you, Andy? I counted four changes of clothes in his bag and I can always wash them if he needs more. It’ll be no bother. He’s lost weight and looks like he could do with some good home cooking.’

  ‘That would be really nice,’ I said, ‘but, since Father’s better, I think I really must go back today. Hobbes might require my assistance.’

  ‘God help him if he does,’ said Father.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, trying to ignore Mother’s look of disappointment, ‘but I’d better get there as soon as possible.’

  2

  My departure was hastened by the sight of the lump Mother disinterred from the freezer, intending to warm up for our lunch. Too polite to ask what it was, convinced nothing edible should be such a mottled grey, and certain it should not have such a peculiar, rainbow sheen, I made my excuses. Grabbing my bag, saying my farewells and promising to keep in touch, I set off for Sorenchester. It was approaching midday, and I was hoping to be back in time for dinner, as Hobbes habitually called lunch. Not that I was overly concerned about being late, because I was confident Mrs Goodfellow would rustle up something delicious, should I look hungry enough, and I had a talent for looking hungry. Just as importantly, I was desperate to find out about the attempted gold robbery, straight from the Hobbes’s mouth.

  My first problem arose on reaching the bus stop, when an increasingly frantic search through my pockets revealed a horrible truth: I’d lost my return ticket. In desperation, I counted out all the money on me, a scanty collection of silver and copper coins, my heart sinking as I realised it totalled less than one pound. Although I could have returned to Dunfillin and begged, I did have a modicum of pride, and besides, the bus was approaching. As it stopped, I made up my mind. I was nothing if not decisive.

  The doors opened and I stepped aboard, where the driver, a spotty young man with short, greasy hair, smirked at me as if he’d never seen anything so funny.

  ‘How far can I get for ninety-eight pee?’ I asked, clutching my change in a sweaty grasp.

  With a shrug and a long-suffering sigh, he consulted a dog-eared scrap of paper. ‘Ninety pence will get you to the Deerstone stop.’

  ‘Will I be over the hill, then?’

  ‘Looks like you’re already over the hill, mate,’ said the driver, displaying an irregular set of teeth with a greenish tinge.

  ‘I mean,’ I said, ‘will that take me past the top of Nobby Hill?’

  ‘That it will, mate.’

  ‘I’ll do it!’ Counting out ninety pence, I dropped it into the slot and picked up my ticket.

  The bus was three quarters empty, with an ingrained residue of sweat mingled with diesel fumes. I took a seat by the window, reasonably pleased, because, after Nobby Hill, which was re
nowned both for height and steepness, the road to Sorenchester was relatively flat and I thought it would be a moderately easy walk from there. Certainly, it was going to be a long one, fifteen miles I’d guess, but it was a nice day and I hoped to thumb a lift. Even if I couldn’t, I reckoned I’d make it to Sorenchester in four hours or thereabouts.

  As we chugged though town, although glad to be going home, my mind was ticking over and barely aware of anything happening in the dusty streets, until we pulled up at a stop.

  ‘All aboard,’ said the driver, as the doors opened. ‘Hurry up!’

  ‘I am hurrying,’ said a woman. ‘I just need a moment to put my clothes on.’

  Instinctively my head turned towards a pretty young student, dressed in tight jeans and t-shirt. She was shoving a large laundry bag aboard. I settled back down, amused, but disappointed.

  It wasn’t long before we reached Nobby Hill, where the bus, slowing to little more than jogging pace, strained to reach the summit. Massive trees flanked the sides of the road, glowing green under a sun that was still fierce for the time of year, although here and there a dash of tawny and the reddening of rowans hinted at the changing season. A pair of puce-faced hikers toiling up the hill made me even gladder I was riding the bus. Yet, all too soon, having reached the summit, we dipped towards the Deerstone stop.

  ‘It’s the end of the road for you, mate,’ said the driver, as if I was thinking of staying put.

  We stopped and I disembarked, pleased I’d remembered my bag. I watched the bus drive away, took a deep breath, slung my bag over my shoulder and began walking with my thumb stuck out in the time-honoured signal. Half a dozen cars and a lorry passed by almost immediately, all of them ignoring me, and then there was nothing: absolutely nothing. After about twenty minutes, I began to wonder if hitching a lift had been a fanciful idea, although it had seemed reasonable enough on a road that was normally busy. There was nothing I could do but shrug, keep walking, and wonder what had happened to the traffic.