Inspector Hobbes and the Curse by Wilkie Martin

Author:Wilkie Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: new writer, detective, funny, humorous, mystery, comedy, crime, fantasy, romance, cotswolds, cozy, british, werewolf, light funny holiday read, something completely different, Inspector Hobbes, Andy Caplet, Mrs Goodfellow, Wilkie Martin, unhuman, new series
ISBN: 978-0-9576351-7-3
Publisher: The Witcherley Book Company
Published: 2013-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

12

The mere prospect of spending more time alone with Violet unbalanced my mind so much that the next few hours were a little hazy; I couldn’t even remember what the old girl prepared for lunch, though I’m sure I ate it alone, Hobbes having taken Dregs with him to work. Unable to settle, I kept looking at the clock, standing up, sitting down, walking round the house and garden, watching Mrs G at work and, generally, fidgeting. In the end, having had enough, she bundled me out the front door, saying she wouldn’t let me back in until half-past three.

‘Umm … but that’ll only give me half an hour to have a bath and get ready.’

‘That’s more than enough,’ she said, shutting me out and, although I had my key in my trouser pocket, I didn’t try going back inside. She’d looked as if she meant what she said and it would have been quite wrong to try forcing my way back in; besides, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Instead, having wandered aimlessly around the middle of town in a myopic daze, I came to rest on a bench in the shade of the church, surrounded by a coachload of tourists listening to some history stuff. A problem with my bench was that, even after the tourists moved inside the church, the parapet blocked my view of the clock tower, meaning I had to keep getting up to cross the road, from where I could see the clock’s hands’ lethargic progress. After repeating the procedure several times, becoming convinced the clock had slowed down, I hurried down The Shambles to a jeweller’s shop, where ranks of clocks and watches in the window confirmed the church’s infallibility.

Seeing all the shiny stuff laid out before me made me wish I could afford a new watch to replace the one I’d blown up in a microwave accident, though I was usually quite happy to be free of time’s tyranny.

So much rushing around in the sun had got the sweat flowing, so, dabbing my face with the orange silk handkerchief, I retreated to the bench and fidgeted for several minutes, trying to keep cool. I was joined by the lanky figure of PC Poll, who, having marched up The Shambles, sat down beside me. Making a pretence that I hadn’t seen him, for, despite Hobbes’s influence, a uniformed police officer, even one I knew quite well, still made me feel guilty, I sat unusually still.

‘So it was you, Mr Caplet,’ he said. ‘I might have known.’

‘Hi … umm … Derek. What’s up?’ I said, turning to face him.

He smiled. ‘You are. We had a report of a suspicious-looking character casing the jewellers. What have you been doing?’

‘Nothing … I only looked in to check the time.’

‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to look up at the one on the church?’

‘Well … umm … yes. Actually, I thought it might have stopped.’

‘But,’ said Poll, giving me a sceptical glance, ‘the proprietor reported that you’ve been staring in his shop every couple of minutes, worrying his staff.

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