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

‘He’ll be there soon, any sign of the main man?’

‘Negative.’

‘Keep me posted.’

‘Sure thing,’ and the phone went dead.

He set the newspaper down.

One more hour and both England and Liverpool City Football Club would be seeking a new centre forward. Didn’t bother Jimmy. It was business, pure and simple, and lucrative business at that.

IN THE SMALL KITCHEN in the Kolarov’s house in Beloslav the coin clattered to the floor. It landed on edge and bounced high, then landed and bounced again, sideways this time, thumping into the grey metal foot of the old gas cooker. Then it rolled tantalisingly across the centre of the kitchen as it made up its mind which way to lean, and finally fell over on the very centre tile in the room.

‘Heads!’ screamed Iskra, clapping her hands and doing a little jump and a dance. ‘It’s a head!’

‘Heads it is,’ confirmed Nikolina happily, for it was true, she would much prefer Iskra to go abroad, because if nothing else, Nikolina was more confident that Iskra would indeed send home regular funds.

‘It’s not fair!’ whinged Radka.

‘It was fair!’ insisted Nikolina. ‘Perfectly fair! Iskra will leave for England next Saturday.’

‘When do I ever get any excitement?’ moaned Radka. ‘When do I ever get to go anywhere?’

‘Don’t worry, child,’ said Nikolina, slipping her arm around Radka’s shoulder, and patting her on the head. ‘Iskra will go to England for two years, and no more, and after that, she will come home, and then you Radka, my darling, will have your turn.’

The twins shared a knowing look, for both of them imagined that in two year’s time their mother would have ceased to exist.

THE TOSSING OF THE brand new silver fifty Stotinki coin had taken place three months before. Iskra had duly gone to England, and Radka had sulked for days about that, and then on to Chester by bus where she was met by friends and distant relations, who took her back to the big old redbrick Edwardian house in a suburb called Hoole, a property they were renting close to the railway lines.

Iskra would share a room with two other Bulgarian girls.

The room was not large, and there was barely enough space for three single beds, but it didn’t matter too much because they would all be working long hours, and different shifts, so they were rarely home at the same time.

The other two girls came from Sofia and considered Iskra to be a provincial no nothing, though they didn’t treat her badly, but neither were they friendly. For her part, Iskra thought them stuck up and superior, not that she had any kind of inferiority complex. She thought she was comfortably prettier than either of them, a fact soon confirmed when the menfolk in the house, and local community, were often to be found sniffing round the bedroom door, enquiring as to Iskra’s whereabouts.

That didn’t help her popularity with her roommates either, but that couldn’t be helped, as they quizzed her and helped her with her English, and advised her what questions she would be asked when she went for a job, not so much out of kindness, but more because it was important she passed the interviews at the hotels. Iskra could only pay her share of the rent if she could land a job, and when she did, they would pay less.

She need not have worried.

The manager at the Red Rose Motel was tall and skinny and called Mister Heale, and he was desperate for cleaning staff. Iskra was clean, had a pleasant smile, could say please and thank you, nodded hard when asked if she was a good worker, possessed the correct documentation, and that was it, she’d passed the interview. Iskra was in. She would start the following day, and later on precisely the same thing occurred at the Holiday Lodge Hotel. She was immediately employed there too, and now she had two jobs, thirty hours a week in the mornings at the Red Rose, and then the same again at the Holiday Lodge in the afternoon.

She was amazed at how easy it had been.

England was a strange place.

So many people; and all rushing round everywhere, all in cars, nary a horse to be seen, and sometimes impatient too, blaring car horns, screaming at passers-by, so much shouting and bad temper and pent up fury. The least thing often seemed to send them over the edge. They should all learn to relax a little, to enjoy and savour life, for they were missing so much. They seemed to have lost the knack of contentment. Perhaps they’d never had it. Why were they all so het up all the time? In Iskra’s eyes their problem was that they didn’t know how lucky they really were.

In the morning she would rise at 6.30, eat a quick breakfast, usually the remains of last night’s evening meal, and then set off on the three-mile walk to the Red Rose. She would finish there at 1pm, then walk home, take a quick lunch, usually a roll and a piece of sausage, and then she would undertake another three mile hike in the opposite direction, even when it was raining, to the Holiday Lodge.

There was no point in taking public transport.

For a start, it was expensive, and secondly, she had the time to walk, and lastly, she wanted to earn as much money as she possibly could, for she constantly enquired as to her mother’s condition. Iskra soon discovered she could comfortably afford to send home a clear thousand pounds every month, sometimes more, and in Bulgaria her mother could obtain a great deal of additional healthcare and medication with a thousand English pounds.

SHE WAS AT THE RED Rose Motel that Sunday morning, humming an old Bulgarian folk tune, as she went about cleaning and preparing the rooms she had been allocated. She was a quick worker and conscientious too. So much so that Mary McGrory, her supervisor, had on