Inspector Hobbes and the Curse - a fast-paced comedy crime fantasy (unhuman) (28 page)

Her
eyes suddenly coming into focus, she threw her arms around my neck. ‘What
happened?’

‘You
… umm … fainted after the accident.’

‘Accident?
Oh, yes … stupid pig!’

‘Don’t
you go calling me names,’ said Tom, standing over us, grumbling. By the smell
of him, I wasn’t the only one who’d been drinking.

Violet,
letting go of me, glanced up. ‘Do we know him?’

‘No,’
I said, ‘but unfortunately we crashed into his garden and did a bit of damage.’

‘A
lot of damage,’ said Tom, ‘which someone’s going to pay for.’ He kicked a
pebble savagely.

‘Are
they?’ asked Violet, smiling, ‘well, that’s good news, isn’t it? … I think I’m
going to lie down again, I’m feeling a little woozy. Why is all that stuff on
my car?’

‘That’s
my hedge and beans,’ said Tom.

‘Just
so long as we know.’ Lying back, she closed her eyes.

A
minute or two later, to the delight of the onlookers, several of whom seemed disappointed
Violet wasn’t dead, a police car arrived and a police officer strode towards us.
To my disappointment, it was one from Hedbury, not someone I knew.

‘What’s
going on here, then?’ he asked.

‘This
idiot,’ said Tom, jabbing his finger into my chest, ‘crashed through my hedge
and ruined my garden, not to mention injuring the young lady, who is lucky to
be alive. I think I should point out that he’s drunk.’

‘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. In 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.