The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 by David Carter (best finance books of all time .txt) 📕

Gibbons? He thought of him enjoying a meal over at Karen’s place. No, he didn’t think it was him. And someone had tipped off the press as well. Who’d do that? Jenny? Surely not. Gibbons maybe, and he thought of him again, enjoying a lovely meal over at Karen’s place. Bugger it! Forget about it.

There was a stinking mole in the team somewhere, and he would make it his business to snag him, or her, and something else that Sam had said came back to him. Walter’s bathroom and kitchen were dirty. Maybe they were. Most men didn’t notice such things, leastways not normal men. He’d stick a card in the post office window the next day for a cleaner. No visitor would enjoy a dirty bathroom and kitchen. No female visitor.

He sank half the pint in one swoop and began thinking of the dead.

Colin Rivers, the Lay Preacher with a penchant for going out late, planning church events, run down and smashed on the ring road. The Right Reverend James Kingston, upwardly mobile through the cathedral ranks, talked of as a future bishop, pushed under a train in an almost replica death to Desiree’s. William Camber, the lonely old fisherman, drowned in the New Cut. Maggie O’Brien, a gentle old lady who never hurt a fly, drugged and gassed to death in Delamere Forest. Jago Cripps, the confused young guy, dabbling in drugs, trying to make sense of life, had his wrists sliced open with a craft knife. Sally Beauchamp, another young kid, caught up in high-class prostitution, drugged and suffocated with brown parcel tape, wound repeatedly around her head and neck until she looked like a brown mummy, her body dumped in a North Wales’ quarry.

And what about the seven deaths at Eden Leys?

Walter was ashamed to think he could not recall their names, plus the two attempteds, as Karen called them, one on her at the racetrack, his sergeant, his oppo, hung out to die, and one on him, in his own house, for God’s sake, the bloody cheek of it, in his front room, in his favourite chair, injected with foreign blood. He shivered at the memory of the syringe emptying its poisonous cargo into his body.

What had it all been for?

There was still something bugging him.

How many of those deaths could have been avoided if he’d been on top of his game? How many lives could have been saved? How many of those people would still be walking round the city, perhaps in this pub, enjoying a quiet pint, if only he had apprehended Armitage Samuel Holloway, nee Shelbourne, sooner?

One, two, three, four, five, six, how many?’

Had he failed them?

He hated to think of it that way. Maybe he had.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

He had attended all the funerals, looking the relatives in the eye, seeing the confused mixture of respect and doubt that lingered there, and all the while he knew what they were thinking. Why my son, my daughter, my husband, my aunt, my father? Why oh why oh why?

It was a question he couldn’t answer.

It always was.

His glass was empty.

He nodded the barman over and bought another pint, extra cold.

Forced a smile and paid the guy.

Drank a silent toast to all the dead.

Seven times over.

Author’s Notes

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. Any resemblance to real characters, living or dead, is coincidental. Many of the places mentioned in the book are real. The Shroppie Fly at Audlem, for example, is an excellent place to spend a sunny afternoon. But many places are fictional, such as the Eden Leys complex, which has never, and  will never be built. Rumours persist operations were carried out on live Alzheimer’s and dementia patients at the Porton Down site in Wiltshire. Do they still? Let us hope not.

PLEASE DON’T WRITE and tell me that Mostyn Station doesn’t exist. I know that, but for the purpose of this book it does. Artistic licence, if you will. The station was closed in 1948, though some buildings remain, and trains still rumble through there. Perhaps one day, with a more user-friendly attitude to rail, the station might re-open, and if it does, let us hope it avoids any fatal accidents. And I know the Chester Police HQ is no longer in the city centre, but for this series of books, it is!

MI7 EXISTED, THOUGH it was reported to have been closed after World War II. Could it still exist today? Of course it could. Whether or not it does, I shall leave you to speculate. Special thanks to Anne Sellars, RMN, who knows more about people with dementia type illnesses than most, having nursed such patients for more than thirty years. She put me right on technical matters and also thanks are due for her proofreading skills, advice, and encouragement.

WHEN YOU HAVE A FEW spare minutes I would love it if you could place a brief review on any of the main bookselling sites. It doesn’t have to be long, a single paragraph would suffice. It does help me. That would be very kind of you.

THANK YOU FOR READING, I appreciate it,

Have a great day,

DAVID.

The End

We hope you enjoyed that.

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“The Sound of Sirens”

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The Sound of Sirens

An Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mystery

© David Carter 2019

Revised Second Edition.

The right of David Carter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publishers, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages in reviews. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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