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

‘There’s no point in me going,’ said Neil.

‘Oh yes there is,’ said Walter. ‘You might recognise the pictures, and you might be safer there too.’

Neil pulled a face. Perhaps the copper had a point, said, ‘What about the instruments?’

Walter glanced across at Sissy as if for help.

‘They’ll be safe here,’ she said.

‘They will, because police officers will be staying here too.’

Out of the corner of his eye Walter noticed the doc covering the body. Made sense. Some people are disturbed by dead bodies, especially bloodied and holed ones.

‘Get Neil out of here,’ said Walter, wondering if there might be an accomplice secreted somewhere in the crowd, and Karen bundled him out through the back door and away to a car. Ordered the driver to take him straight to the station and hurried back to the crime scene.

‘It’s nearly midnight,’ moaned the Chinese.

‘I don’t care what time it is,’ said Walter. ‘There’s a gunman out there who’s partial to shooting people dead, and we need to find him. Your cooperation would be most appreciated.’

Ang Ung had promised his girlfriend a night to remember. She’d be disappointed and so would he. Ang sighed loudly.

‘Turn into a frog at midnight, or something, do we?’ said Walter.

Nug pulled a face and shook his head and closed his violin case.

‘What about Jeff?’ asked Patna.

‘He’ll be looked after.’

‘Bit late for that,’ said Johnny Phillips, eyeing up a young uniformed policewoman. She was all right for a copper, pity about the job, but he’d still like to get to know her better.

‘All the more reason to catch the culprit,’ said Walter.

A striking woman appeared in front of Walter’s face, not the usual young crowd from the Ship, more business-like. Glanced down at the covered body, looked back at Walter, straight in the eye and said, ‘Inspector Darriteau, do you have any leads as to who was the assassin?’

Walter glanced down his nose at the newcomer. She knew his name. She was on the wrong side of forty, but not by much, auburn, wavy hair parked on her shoulders, pretty face, nice teeth, quality dark green suit. Walter glanced at Karen, as if to say, who let this woman in, and who the hell is she? Karen shrugged and turned away. Walter glanced back at the woman and said, ‘And you are?’

‘Gardenia Floem,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you, Inspector. Chester Observer, chief crime reporter,’ and she held out a pink nailed hand.

Walter ignored it.

‘To answer your question I have been on this case for precisely ten minutes, so the answer is: No.’

‘Is this a drugs related case?’

Walter shrugged as if to say, How the hell would I know? said, ‘We’ve nothing to say to the press at this time, now if you don’t mind,’ turned to Karen and mumbled, ‘Get her out of here.’

Karen stepped between them and tried to usher her away.

‘The citizens have a right to be concerned when one of their sons is gunned down in a busy city centre pub,’ the woman shouted, each word further away from Walter than the last.

‘Goodnight, Miss Floem.’

‘This is going to be big news, Inspector,’ she squawked from further across the bar, as Karen continued to ease her toward the door and outside. ‘Big news!’

Walter shook his head and tried to eradicate her words from his mind. Is this a drugs related case? Maybe it is, who knows? Walter whispered to himself, but I am not jumping to conclusions. He turned round and shouted, ‘Come along now!’ and glanced and winked at Sissy behind the bar. She was still standing in that same hard pose. He thought he might have detected a softening in her eyes, but he could have been mistaken. ‘We haven’t got all night.’

Karen came back and said, ‘Sorry about that, Guv,’ then turned to the remnants of the band and said, ‘Where does Jeff Player live?’

‘He used to live down by the canal, one of those new flats,’ said Patna.

Karen noted the use of the past tense and nodded and took down the address. Someone would soon have the shitty job of telling Jeff’s mother, delivering the death-o-gram, and she hoped to God it wouldn’t be her.

Three

Luke Flowers was at the clock five minutes early. He leant on the railings on top of the ancient city walls and stared down at the frantic shoppers below, bustling around like bees in a blooming rapeseed field. He was waiting for Jimmy. He was waiting to get paid.

£25,000 for one night’s work, one minute’s work. You couldn’t beat it. Luke enjoyed his method of making a living, and he was good at it too. Much preferred it to drug dealing or loan sharking or copying dodgy software. In his current line of business one night’s work could keep him in treats for a whole year. Less hassle, less stress, less effort, less worry, more money, more free time, more travel, more cachet, more respect. It suited Luke just fine.

He was going to take his bird to Venice, two whole weeks with the lovely Melanie Kirton. Twenty-two, five five, long blonde hair, light brown eyes, figure to die for, the dentist’s daughter with the incredible teeth and amazing tongue.

They thought, Melanie’s parents, that their sweet child was far too good for the likes of Luke Flowers, and they might have had a point, but it didn’t matter what the hell they thought, because Melanie was besotted with Luke. She adored her bit of rough off the estate, and couldn’t get enough of him, and anyway, he was very good looking in a boy band kind of way; a little on the short side it was true, but she could live with that. He drove a super silver sports car too, and was never short of money, and she was always thrilled to walk into a busy pub on his arm, to show him off to her mates, and besides all that, he was devastatingly good in bed.

Luke planned to visit the travel