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

‘Too busy, I’m afraid.’

Austerity snorted and said, ‘Too bad. It would be fun!’

There were plenty of women that Walter would dearly like to go on holiday with, and plenty that he would not. But those he wanted to, didn’t or wouldn’t, and vice versa, and in a way that summed up his life in a sentence. It was a conundrum that he’d never really come to terms with.

Austerity continued to tell them of her latest wheeze to expend her funds while she was still alive.

‘If I don’t spend it quick, Queenie will nick it!’ she said.

Harry’s tongue was clicking aloud, second time. Walter didn’t have the heart to tell him. Austerity was rushing through her story at a rate of knots of the childcare facility in the poorest part of the city that had had its funding withdrawn. She had stepped in and guaranteed to cover the bill for four years.

‘I read about it in the Observer,’ she said. ‘In the bloody paper! And Darriteau! I’m not taking no for an answer this time, I’m paying!’ and she wafted her big podgy hand across the table.

Walter and Harry shared a smile.

‘We are living in a time of great austerity,’ she said, ‘and the great Austerity is alive and well and ready for anything,’ she whooped, and that was that.

‘If you insist,’ muttered Walter.

Sometimes graciousness overtakes pride.

They sat and listened to the woman, as she rapidly made her way through most of the menu, sometimes eating and speaking at the same time, but slowly Walter’s mind drifted away. He began thinking about the case, about Wazir and Ahmed and Mohammed and Maaz, about Luke Flowers and Jermaine Keating, and Gardenia Floem and Sahira Khan, because Walter was a thinking man. It was the thing he did best. It was the one attribute that made him the best detective in Chester, and beyond. Imagination, and deep thought, a potent combination.

Austerity was still eating, speaking, and talking for England. Walter half tuned in. Thought he heard her say: Tomorrow I’m going to eat an Egyptian, though he might have been mistaken. Tuned out again. He’d heard enough. Returned to his thoughts.

He valued his mind above all else, and consoled himself that it would last a year or two yet. He wasn’t yet ready for the home for retired and retarded minds. Nowhere near. Thanks be to God. Walter caught the eye of the handsome Punjabi kid and ordered the biggest jug of beer they could find. The kid smiled and nodded and turned to the bar. The world moved on. There would be another fascinating case along in a day or two.

The End.

Book III is coming up in two seconds

And it’s called “The Twelfth Apostle”.

The Twelfth Apostle

The Twelfth Apostle

An Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mystery

© David Carter 2019

www.davidcarterbooks.co.uk

Follow David on Twitter @TheBookBloke

Second Edition.

The right of David Carter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publishers, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved.

One 

Kit Napoleon woke up and scratched his neatly trimmed grey beard. He’d slept surprisingly well despite the fact he had a big day ahead. He sloped from the bed and went into the bathroom. Glanced in the mirror. Pulled out his tongue. Didn’t care for what he saw, and put it away. Ran his bear-like hands through his overlong grey hair. He didn’t mind the grey look, he’d long since grown used to it, ever since the occasional grey hair had sprouted while he was still at grammar school, and that was almost thirty years ago.

He began brushing his teeth, all the while rehearsing the brief but witty speech he knew he would be expected to deliver. Casson & Cates, publishers, paid him well, but they needed to, for they sure as heck took a big enough slice of his earnings.

Kit thought ahead to the celebratory luncheon at the Grosvenor Hotel in the centre of Chester that had been laid on to publicise his new book, Make Money While You Sleep, glossy hardback, big page count, big ticket price. It would be his eighth book, and advance orders had already ensured it would enter the book charts in the top five. C & C, as everyone knew them, were still hopeful it could blockbust its way straight in at the top of the pile, and it wouldn’t be the first of Kit’s books to do precisely that.

Kit Napoleon smirked at himself in the glass. Winked even. Life was truly sweet, and what made it all the better was that things hadn’t always been that way. He’d tried umpteen avenues as a young man to find fame and fortune and glory, but it was only when he began writing self-help books under his nom de plume of Kit Napoleon, that things really began to change for the better.

So taken was he by the success he changed his name by deed poll and Kit Napoleon became his legal name, much to the chagrin of his parents who had often been somewhat baffled by their offspring who always appeared oddly uneasy in his own skin.

It was true, Kit had never felt secure and comfortable as Keith Higginbottom, a fact he would often allude to in his inspirational speeches where he would invariably include the line: People judge a book by its cover... and a man by his name, and for some reason that always brought a guttural laugh to his devoted followers.

A hundred pounds a ticket they were paying for their celebratory lunch, and they had sold out within