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

‘Help yourself,’ cutting a fresh piece of bread to make toast for himself. ‘All quiet?’

‘Yep, not a sound all night. Let’s hope it stays that way.’

‘I’ll bring in something for dinner,’ said Walter, making a mental note to add it to the ever-growing official chit to cover his expenses.

‘Great,’ said Cliffe. ‘Fish and chips would be nice.’

Walter hadn’t considered providing fish and chips, and cod was bloody expensive nowadays, but so long as someone else was going to pay for it, then, hey, why not?

‘There’s a spare set of keys in the kitchen drawer if you need it.’

‘Ta.’

‘Do you want me to ring you during the day?’

‘Rather you didn’t,’ said Cliffe, and Walter could understand that.

‘Okey-doke, I’m off,’ and Walter let himself out.

It was a lovely autumnal morning, dry and bright, though Cliffe’s car was covered in dew. A huge spider had built a web across the space in the garden gate, and was patrolling across his domain like an angry sentry. Must have been hoping for the best. Walter would be too big, even for him.

Walter ambled to the end of the road and stood by the bus stop. Glanced at his watch. 7.38. There were three other people standing about, regular early morning commuters, and he nodded at them and they nodded back. The bus came pretty much straight away, it was a good service into town, and he sat and stared out of the window on the ten-minute trip, and pondered on the fact that not too many detective inspectors in the kingdom commuted to work by public bus, but it suited him.

The traffic was not so busy at that time and he hopped off in the city centre and ambled into the convenience store to buy a morning paper. On the counter beside the till were some short-dated cartons of juice. Down in price! He bought a reduced sugar cranberry and a similar orange. Job one accomplished. Saving the taxpayer a few pennies too, and fact was, the six foot she thing would be long gone before the sell-by-date expired, leastways he hoped that would be the case.

Back in the office, Karen came in ten minutes later.

‘Morning, Guv. On a health food fad, are we?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The juice.’

‘Oh no, nothing like that, buying them for the neighbour.’

It was a lie, but what could he do about that? He couldn’t tell her the truth, even if he wanted to.

‘Did you have a nice lunch on your day off?’

‘Yeah, it was great, as a matter of fact I wanted to talk to you about that, but first thing’s first. Anything happening here?’

‘Nope. Not a great deal, nothing to get too excited about. The great Chester crime famine seems to be continuing, but make the most of it, because it won’t last long, nothing’s more certain.’

‘Give me a chance to get some of the old paperwork up to date.’

‘In saying that, there was a burglary in a house adjacent to the zoo, and you’ll never guess what went missing.’

‘Do tell.’

‘A bag of bananas!’

‘Geez! Maybe it was a gorilla!’

‘I thought that, but no residents reported missing from the zoo, so we can rule that out. Probably just some local kids. Tell me about your lunch?’

‘Bit of a long story.’

‘Well the sooner you start the sooner you’ll finish.’

‘Have you ever heard of a guy called Kit Napoleon?’

‘Charlatan!’ Walter snapped.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Sells, in quotes, Money Making books, and runs some kind of income schemes and streams. Wouldn’t touch it with next doors.’

‘Greg says...’

‘Who’s Greg?’

‘Oh, didn’t you know, he’s my new man,’ Karen said, grinning proudly.

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘Where I meet all my men friends, at the fitness club.’

‘Is he fit?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘And how long has this been going on?’

‘There’s nothing going on, as you so quaintly put it, but I’ve been seeing him for about six weeks.’

It was nothing to do with Walter really, but she didn’t mind talking to him about it.

‘What’s he like? This Greg person? Is it serious?’

She smirked and said, ‘Questions, questions,’ and then she said, ‘he’s a bit of a gym monster, if you must know, and no, it’s not serious, to tell you the truth, he can be a bit of a dork.’

Walter wasn’t really sure what a dork was, but it didn’t sound great.

‘And this Greg, he’s in one of Kit Napoleon’s schemes, is he?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And he wants you to join?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And how much is that going to cost you?’

‘Three grand.’

‘Three grand! I hope you told him to stuff it.’

‘I didn’t, I mean I haven’t yet, I told him I’d talk to you about it.’

‘If you want my advice, and presumably you do, seeing as you wanted to talk to me about it, my advice is, run a mile. Keep your hard earned in the bank, in an ISA, in a building society, in premium bonds, even under the bed is better than giving it to Kit Napoleon and his ilk.’

She thought about that for a second and said, ‘The thing is, Guv, Greg is doing really well out of it, I’ve seen his figures.’

‘Course he is, because he is getting others to pay his commission.’

‘Suckers like me, you mean?’

‘Correct, if that’s how you want to put it.’

‘But that’s not all. There is this amazing company called Artesia.bmg that collects five percent of all the earnings across the entire group, and all that money goes to providing wells for clean drinking water to kids across Africa and God knows where else, It’s saving lives, Guv, really it is, the presentation was very moving.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

‘I’m not. It’s probably either faked, or just a sentimental strand to get you to part with your cash.’

‘Yeah maybe, that’s why I thought that if you have a few minutes, some time, could you look into this Artesia.bmg thing for me?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Aw, please Guv, I’d really really value your opinion.’

‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘when I’m not too busy,’ and they both knew he wasn’t too busy right then.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Walter, ‘I think the provision