3 Inspector Hobbes and the Gold Diggers Read Free Page B

the den of a retired circus bear, called Cuddles, whose mortal remains, now stuffed, occupied the attic of 13 Blackdog Street. That was according to Hobbes; Mrs Goodfellow insisted he’d discovered it in a skip and brought it home as a curio.
    Still, the dunking had cooled me, which was no bad thing as I still had a long way to trudge. All the water I’d taken in reached my bladder just as I was entering a lay by. Concealing myself behind a tree, I unbuttoned my flies, aware such bashfulness was silly with the road so empty.
    I’d reached full spate when I was shocked by the sudden roar of car engines and a clang. Twisting my neck, I saw a white van had demolished the gate at the bottom of the recently ploughed field below and was being pursued by four police cars, which were tanking after it, spraying great clods of earth as they bounced and twisted over the furrows. The way the van was being driven, it was clear the driver had little regard for safety and was absolutely desperate. A man’s torso popped up through a hole in the van’s roof. He was holding a shotgun and fired both barrels at the pursuers. One of them, attempting to swerve out of harm’s way, bounced high over a furrow, came down on its side, rolled onto its roof and skidded to a standstill. The others continued the chase, wisely hanging back out of range.
    The white van seemed to be heading straight towards me and, as I retreated behind the tree, buttoning my flies with panicked haste, another car hurtled into the field, a familiar blue, rusting Ford Fiesta. I could make out Hobbes’s vast figure wrestling the wheel, as the tortured engine screamed and the car bucked and bounced, leading a swarm of muddy clods. The van roared closer before veering towards a gap, where the thick hedge had been replaced by a section of wire fence. It smashed straight through, landing with a bone-jarring crash and hurtling off down the road, trailing wire and fence posts. Hobbes, who had already overtaken the police cars, waved as he shot past and, feeling somewhat foolish, I waved back, as his car, leaping suddenly like a startled lamb, plunged through the gap, careered down the road and disappeared around a bend. The other pursuers followed at a less breakneck pace.
    Down in the field, two dazed-looking police officers crawled from the overturned car. Neither, so I gathered from their remarks, interspersed with bouts of swearing, was injured, so, since there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to help, I continued homewards, mile after aching mile.
    Tired of foot, with sore legs and dripping with sweat, I was nearing Fenderton, on the outskirts of Sorenchester, when the traffic started again. I wondered if that meant Hobbes had caught the van, and I hoped he hadn’t been hurt, for, despite his strength and toughness, he wasn’t immune to guns.
    At last I reached town, where people kept staring and grinning. I guessed it was because of my clothes, which, although fully dried by then, were limp and filthy, my sharply creased chinos reduced to saggy bags and my shirt more like a cleaning rag. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window. My hair had dried into a sort of wild afro frizz and mud was smeared diagonally across my face, making me look like a new romantic who’d fallen on very hard times.
    At least the mud concealed my identity, as well as my blushes, for as I turned into Blackdog Street, I was astonished by the crowd milling round the door of number 13. As I approached, a man walked up to the front door and rang the bell. No one answered.
    Tapping someone on the shoulder, I asked: ‘What’s going on?’
    He turned to face me, his eyes widening, a chuckle escaping. The camera round his neck and his jacket stuffed with notebooks and pens made it clear to me, a man who’d once worked for the Bugle, that he was a reporter, as was everyone else there, unless they were cameramen.
    ‘It’s the gold robbery,’ he said. ‘We want a word with the