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

of it, and a trilby hat pulled down over the face. Pound to a penny: the Protected. The wide guy, no hat, short coat, bulky pockets, nervous disposition, glancing about, seemed happy enough, and a moment later two tall strangers were walking up Walter’s garden path as if they owned the place, something that ten hours before would have seemed most unlikely. Walter shivered and hauled himself out of the seat. What the bloody hell had he done to deserve this?

The doorbell rang. Ding Dong, and again, Ding Dong, Ding Dong, sound waves floating down the hall.

‘Okay! Okay! I’m right here!’

Walter unlocked the front door. The wide guy, what was his name again; Walter struggled to recall, Stevie Cliffe, stood before him. Spoke with minimal backlift, of the mouth that is, thought Walter, almost like a ventriloquist.

‘Inspector Darriteau?’

‘That’s me, come on in.’

The wide guy nodded as Walter stood to one side and the pair of them entered and Walter shut the door.

‘First things first, can I see ID?’

‘Sure,’ said Cliffe, producing his card that Walter took and examined carefully before returning it. He was never one to glance casually at anything so important.

‘You can hang your coats up there,’ said Walter, nodding to a row of coat hooks on the other side of the hall screwed into the wooden partition beneath the stairs. They weren’t quite straight, but what the hell did that matter? Walter had never been a DIY fiend and had long realised it, and now employed outside experts if it was anything important.

The skinny one turned his back on Walter and removed his hat and coat and hung them up. Cliffe took his coat off too and jabbed it on the hook.

‘I’ll just go and get the bags,’ said Cliffe, and he nodded at the door for Walter to open it again, and then he was outside, checking up and down the road, Walter could see him through the open door, and he heard the car door open and close, and then the guy was back with two small overnight bags. At least they hadn’t brought long-stay suitcases; that was something.

The tall skinny one shook his head and his short black hair neatly fell into place, only to be pushed this way and that, and then he turned round. The skinny six foot “he”, was a skinny six foot “she”, and no heels either, just flatty trainers.

Cliffe grinned and said, ‘This is Robyn Dapper,’ and Robyn held out a slight, white, hand.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said, letting her tiny hand be enveloped by Walter’s massive black paw. A lightweight voice from a lightweight woman, there was no meat on her anywhere, yet she was still looking down on Walter, and smiling that coy smile that she probably thought attractive to men, leastways that was how Walter saw it.

‘Yeah, sure,’ said Walter. ‘Do you want to come on through? Or do you want to see your room,’ he said to Robyn Dapper. She pulled a face. Cliffe said, ‘Maybe later, we’d like something to eat if that’s possible.’

‘Yeah, I can do that.’

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I could use the bathroom.’

‘Oh yeah, sure, I was forgetting, you’ve had a long trip, help yourself. Top of the stairs on the left, should be nice and clean, I have a good cleaner, Iskra, comes every week.’

The skinny six foot she pulled a face and nodded and bounded up the stairs in three jumps, and the next thing the guys downstairs heard was the squeaky door latch being slid over, something that Walter never used. When he was in the house by himself he would never even close the bathroom door, rarely did even when the cleaner was there, and he couldn’t remember when he last locked the blessed thing.

The men shared a look and went into the sitting room.

‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Walter, out of something to say. ‘Hope you’re not Jewish...  or Muslim, I didn’t think.’

Cliffe grinned and nodded and muttered, ‘Sounds good to me. Got any bread and butter?’

‘Yeah,’ muttered Walter. ‘This is the twenty-first century, think even I can run to bread and butter, ’cept it’s low fat margarine,’ and Walter slapped his ample tum to make the point that he was trying, ever so slightly, at some kind of diet.

Cliffe sat on the sofa and took a gun from his pocket and set it on the coffee table. Walter glanced down at the weapon. Glock 17. Safe Action Pistol, so the official spiel went. Semi automatic, Austrian made, been around since the 80s, but tried and tested, solid and reliable, polymer framed, in other words it was made of high grade plastic, but don’t let that deceive you, and you would never know to look at it.

Supposed to be invisible to metal detectors in airports and suchlike, though that was debateable, but that was the thinking behind its construction. Massively successful in the USA too, outselling most local products. Big in the UK as well. A good gun that Walter knew very well, if any gun could ever be described as good. Fired seventeen rounds without reload, hence the name, and it was fully loaded too, though Walter wasn’t to know that.

Robyn Dapper came down the stairs; stood in the doorway, glanced at the men, saw the pistol on the low table. Seemed happy enough to see it there, no alarm in the eyes, Walter detected that.

‘Would it be possible,’ she said, not addressing anyone in particular. ‘If I could have a bath later?’

Walter nodded. Extra leccy cost, thought Walter, and he wondered if he could bill the utilities on Stevie’s official little chits.

‘I really need a bath,’ she said again.

‘No probs,’ said Walter ‘I’ll put the immersion on,’ and he disappeared into the kitchen, and the next thing his two visitors heard was the Ping! of the microwave as the sweet and sours came to the boil.

‘Dinner’s up!’ he yelled through, and in the next second they were in the kitchen, grabbing buttered bread and