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

occasion pleaded with her to slow down, for she was putting some of the other room maids’ performance to shame.

Iskra promised that she would, with a smirk and a shake of her ponytail, and the other girls couldn’t get angry with her because of the smile that rarely left her mischievous face, and they were happy for her.

She had finished in room forty-nine.

In her eyes it was just perfect.

Ready for the next guests that Iskra always imagined might be a honeymooning couple, and because of that, everything had to be just so, though the truth was that honeymooners rarely troubled the Red Rose Motel.

On to the next room with a spring in her step, and a change of record in the music in her mind. She pulled out the master key she had been entrusted with and unlocked and let herself into room fifty.

JIMMY GLANCED BACK at the clock on the dash. It was twenty minutes past ten and his spotter had still not confirmed that Luke was in place. Jimmy was getting worried. He rang his man again.

‘Well? What news?’

‘Nothing boss, I’d have told you if he was here.’

‘Are there many there?’

‘People are beginning to arrive. Think the sunshine has brought them all out.’

‘No sign of the main man?’

‘Nope, not yet boss. Come on, come on, you little turd.’

‘He’s beginning to test my patience.’

‘Mine too, boss. Loads of cars are arriving now, quite a few people about, quite a few coppers too, maybe he’s been caught up in traffic.’

‘I told him to get there early!’

‘Well, he’s still not here. Eh up, I think he’s here now.’

‘Thank God for that!’

‘No, not your man, the main man.’

‘What!’

‘Yep, looks like it, big black Audi, blacked out windows, registration KEAT1, yep it’s him alright.’

‘Jee-zus, my client is not going to like this.’

‘Lots of people round the car, autograph hunters, people with cameras, at least one professional photographer, I’d say, and now a copper’s trying to push his way into the shot.’

‘And no sign of our little weasel?’

‘Nope, nada, nothing, sorry boss.’

‘Don’t suppose you’ve packed the wherewithal?’

‘Geez no, boss, out of my comfort zone with that.’

‘He’s going to regret this.’

‘The door to the car’s opening. The crowd’s pushing forward, not that many of them really, maybe twenty odd, and the bird’s got out, smiling and waving as if she’s royalty. Stupid bitch, nice looking though, tumbling blonde hair, curvy body, tight flowery cotton dress.’

‘All right, all right, I get the picture; this isn’t a report for bloody OK magazine.’

‘Sorry boss, just trying to paint the scene.’

Something in Jimmy’s mind told him that Luke was there. In the past he had always been such a reliable operator, and a clever one at that. He seemed to possess an almost unique knack of blending into the background, a slight, unremarkable guy that could often go unnoticed. Jimmy hoped that that was the case and that Luke had fooled everyone, including the experienced spotter he was talking to on the phone.

‘JK’s out of the car, grinning, waving, acting like a tosser.’

‘He is a tosser!’

‘If you say so, boss.’

‘Now, boy, now!’ whispered Jimmy to himself, sitting in the Mercedes overlooking the cricket field. He still half expected to hear four shots ringing out, the sound bolting down the spotter’s phone, and spilling into Jimmy’s ear.

There was plenty of sound coming through the ether, but only that of a happy holiday crowd greeting their hero, the Liverpool City and England centre forward, the grinning man with magic in his toes and a price on his head.

‘What a pompous arse he is. Wish you were here to see it, boss. He’s loving every minute of it, lapping it up, I’ve half a mind to go over and slap him myself.’

Jimmy said nothing.

His mind was running free.

Where the hell was Luke Flowers?

What the heck would Jimmy’s client say about this fuck up?

And what would be a suitable punishment for Luke?

Castration would be too lenient.

Thirty-Five

Room fifty was smelly, but that wasn’t unusual. It was the same design as most of the other rooms. Bathroom immediately off to the left. Ahead was a short corridor and then the room opened out to the left. There was a king-size bed there, out of sight from the doorway and the little approach, matching light oak bedside table on either side, a big TV fitted to the opposite wall, most of them now flat screen, though there were still the occasional unliftable monster to be seen, two small armchairs, and a long bench table fixed to the far wall where the coffee and tea and cups and saucers and glasses and menus and brochures were scattered about.

Iskra pulled the main door closed behind her and carried her box of cleaning potions and rags, and hurried into the bathroom and set it down on the tiled floor.

Most of the white towels looked as if they hadn’t been used, but they would all be taken out and washed again, just in case they had. She saw two or three specs of blood on the floor, and on the closed lid to the lavatory too. Maybe someone had cut themself shaving, or perhaps someone had had an accident.

The main mirror above the hand basin was pretty clean, but Iskra took out the spray and spurted scented chemical goo over the mirrored glass in the hope that it would conquer the smell. She began furiously wiping and buffing up the glass. Leant forward and huffed on a tiny mark and wiped it away, and then she burped loudly, catching her mischievous face in the glass as she did so. She’d had indigestion all morning; it was that hurried breakfast that had done it, the warmed up leftovers of last night’s Bulgarian beef stew. Someone had overdone the paprika, and the cayenne, and the garlic. Iskra burped again and spoke to the image in the mirror as if it were her twin sister there with her now.

‘How is my mother, Radka? I hope you are looking after