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

and of course it could and would chatter into the ear of the monster every time the monster was switched on. Walter searched them all. Came up with a few titbits of interesting information.

Wazir held the liquor license, had done for years, no surprise there, and the police had never objected to it. Mohammed had once been caught speeding up on the Wirral, three points and a seventy-pound fine, and young Maaz was recorded too. He had been in more serious trouble, something that came as no surprise to Walter, though he hadn’t previously been aware of it.

The younger Khan had lost his temper in the restaurant one night and had assaulted a man. Maaz had pleaded that the guy had been disrespectful to his mother, Akleema, but more than that, Maaz Khan alleged the man had made lewd comments and propositioned her. The youth, as he was then, had flipped, and the guy called the police and later left the State, bloodied and bruised.

The case had been considered sufficiently serious, and Maaz’s behaviour sufficiently weird, for the CPS to suggest to the family that they would not prosecute, but only on condition that Maaz voluntarily attended an institution for the treatment of mild mental illness, whatever that meant.

Walter was able to call down the report.

Maaz had “gone away” for two years, had received extensive medication, drugs that appeared to have cured whatever problem there was that went on inside the mixed-up mind of young Maaz Khan.

That was five years ago and Maaz was only sixteen back then, probably why the CPS took a relatively lenient standpoint on the whole issue. Sad to say, it wasn’t unusual for teenagers, and especially boys, to suffer mental difficulty in their transforming growing up years, and, boys from minorities were always more prone to that.

Walter thought back to his own teenage years. He’d struggled through them with the aid of a handful of good friends, young guys of every race, who stood by him when he needed support, came to his aid when he needed muscle, though most people would think twice about taking on the ample framed Walter. It helped too that back then there was a lot more muscle and a lot less flab. Walter weathered his teenage years relatively unscathed, but only just, and only with the help of his friends.

Maaz, seemingly, had been less fortunate. Perhaps he never had any good friends. They were so family orientated, very close, perhaps too close, inward looking, insular, imagined Walter, maybe that didn’t help. The last report said that Maaz Khan should remain on medication indefinitely. Walter wondered if the headstrong young man agreed to that, and was acting on it.

Surprisingly, there was nothing at all in the PNC relating to women at the State, or maybe it wasn’t a surprise at all. No drivers’ licenses, no licenses of any kind, no prosecutions, no reports of lost property, no filed complaints, nothing. It was as if they didn’t exist. Perhaps that was how the Khan dynasty wished it to be.

Walter’s next port of call was the Voters’ Roll, and there he discovered a little more. Seven people listed on the Roll, the four generations of men, plus Nadirah Khan, aged eighty-four, presumably Wazir’s wife, Akleema Khan, aged forty-two, possibly Mohammed’s wife, or maybe even Ahmed’s, and Sahira Khan, aged twenty-three, possibly Maaz’s wife, though Walter doubted that, more likely a sister and daughter, could be Mohammed’s, could be Ahmed’s. That was how Walter saw it.

He tried to remember them, the women. He had occasionally seen them, but not recently, and he couldn’t remember them, not so well as he could identify them if they walked into his office right then. He pondered on where they might be at that very moment, and what they were doing, and most of all; he hoped they were all safe and well.

HIS MIND TURNED TO food. Later on, Galina the cleaner was cooking for him, and he wondered what it might be like. He had never eaten Ukrainian before, but the thought of it made his mouth water, made him hungry, and he made his excuses and left the office and ambled over to Pierre’s for a light lunch, a large portion of quiche and a pint of best, and as he ate alone and in silence, he pondered on whether he could leave early, get home on time for once, leave plenty of time for a good wash and shave, a chance to change his shirt and lash on the deodorant, for it was another hot day, and Walter went through deodorant like water.

THE TEAM CAME BACK late afternoon. Every dentist in the area had been spoken to and a copy of the idontogram left. Most promised to get back the following day, some said it would be the day after, all had promised to help, and oddly Walter wasn’t sure he wanted to hear anything positive.

He pondered on whether he should hurry back to the State and have it out with Wazir, man to man. Just where were the womenfolk? But that kind of strident talk would only sour their relationship, and he didn’t want to lose his friends in the State.

Fact was; it was highly likely that none of the local dentists would come up with a match, so there was no point in blundering in and making a fuss over nothing. He’d bide his time and wait. There were more pressing things on Walter’s plate. Mrs West was giving him gip over why he had not brought the criminals to book for decapitating a Chester citizen, even if the deceased man was a proven murderer.

The drip drip of intelligence from the underworld had yielded nothing substantial which suggested the killers, whoever they were, were not established villains, and if they weren’t established villains, who could possibly have done such a vile thing? So-called honour killers, that’s who, and Walter shivered at the thought.

IT WAS A LITTLE