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

Galina disappeared up the hall in a flurry of steam and chemical cleaner aroma, and Walter sipped his coffee and glanced back at the news gal. She was pressing on regardless, still more vital news to relay to the nation by the look of things, and she had switched to the day’s sports story, the weird sports story.

‘LIVERPOOL CITY FOOTBALL Club has announced that Jermaine Keating will not play for the club again this year. This comes after it was announced late last night that Mister Keating, seen here at a recent appearance at the Ness Gardens fete, had failed a drugs test taken immediately after the Cup Final, believed to be for cocaine. In the last few minutes the club has announced that this is the second time Mister Keating has failed a routine test. He has been suspended indefinitely pending a full inquiry, and is believed to have temporarily left the UK. There have been reports, so far unconfirmed, that he is undergoing treatment in a Swiss addiction clinic. A spokesman for the Football Association announced earlier this morning that Mister Keating would not be considered for England internationals for the foreseeable future.’

WALTER PULLED ANOTHER knowing face. He would be a big loss. Keating’s goals had been almost solely responsible for England sitting top of their qualifying group, not to mention his importance to Liverpool City FC, whose surging revival and return to the following season’s Champion’s League had been fired on the back of Keating’s impressive strike record.

But there was something else that interested Walter.

During his team’s recent trawl through the low-life bars and clubs and snouts and grasses and bookmakers and drug addicts, a trawl that had picked up precisely zero to do with Luke Flowers’ beheading, one or two of the team had picked up some crazy rumours that there was a contract out for a hundred big ones on the head of a famous sportsman. No names, no pack drill, no ID, no further information available, and most of the team had laughed it off and assumed, if indeed there was anything to it at all, that it was probably something to do with the jockey who had failed to bring home the red hot favourite in the previous April’s Grand National meeting at Aintree.

Could those threats possibly have something to do with Jermaine Keating; pondered Walter, and more specifically, with Luke Flowers?

Could that be why Keating had fled the country?

Could there be more to this whole story than met the eye?

All possible, but nothing more than crazy speculation. The mind can take one to strange places on the back of a titbit of information.

The news gal was back. She would not be denied, smiled and said, ‘And now it’s straight back to Moscow for the very latest casualty figures...’ salivating, as if it was a sports scoreboard, and everyone must share in the updated numbers.

Walter heard Galina coming down the stairs and remembered there was something he wanted to ask her before he left her to it and went back to work.

Forty-Two

When Galina came down the stairs she found Walter standing in the middle of the sitting room, hands in trouser pockets, bouncing back and forth on his toes, as if deep in thought. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said. ‘There’s something I want to ask you.’ She lowered her head and focused on him and said, ‘Yes, and what is that?’

‘I am thinking of getting the room done out,’ and he waved his hand around the room, in case she didn’t understand. ‘You know, decorated, smartened up.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, wondering where the conversation was heading.

‘What do you think? What should I do? Any ideas? What needs doing?’

She glanced disdainfully around at his possessions as if she had never seen them before.

‘Filth!’ she said.

It seemed a favourite word of hers, but then she was in the filth game, filth removal, filth relocation, filth destruction.

‘What would you do?’

Another defiant look. ‘Me?’

Walter nodded.

‘Easy! Get rid!’

‘What? Rid of everything?’ he said, peering round to see if there was anything that could be saved.

Galina nodded fast.

‘Everything!’ she said. ‘Chairs, carpet, wallpaper, television, lamps, everything. Get rid, gazoom! Start again!’

‘The whole lot?’ said Walter, unable to resist a smirk.

‘Deffo!’ she said, revealing that she had been mixing with, or listening to, some locals at least.

‘Deffo!’ She said again and then she added, ‘You want me to cook meal for you this week?’

Walter waggled his head, put on his thinking face, and said, ‘All right, if you’re sure.’

Galina smiled and said, ‘I sure. Monday night?’

‘Monday night’s good.’

‘Fine. I come Monday, six thirty OK?’

‘Six thirty is fine, if I’m not back by then just let yourself in and make yourself at home.’

‘I do,’ she said, as Walter took his wallet from the back pocket of his trousers. Opened it, took out a big note, and proffered it to the girl. ‘For the dinner.’

‘No! No!’ she said. ‘I buy meat, I pay meat, my idea, I pay,’ and before he could say another word she took a step toward him, took the note from his hand, took the wallet from his other hand, opened the wallet, slipped the note back inside, turned him round, and slipped the wallet back into his trouser pocket, and patted it before he could say chicken bloody Kiev.

Walter exhaled loudly and shook his head and tried to remember where he had left his black shoes.

‘I’ll have to go to work,’ he said. ‘Time’s getting on.’

‘I not keep you,’ she said, and she switched on the cleaner and frantic back and forward motion began.

HALF AN HOUR LATER he was sitting at his desk, eyes closed, arms locked behind his head. The place was really busy, seeking murderers, Saturday morning or not. There had been a quick run on the monster, but not for long; and it hadn’t revealed much, hadn’t solved the crime, and the thing had been wheeled back against the