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

up the lights, full beam on Stevie Cliffe, and in the next moment they were taking seemingly dozens of pictures from every conceivable angle.

‘Finished?’ one said to the other.

‘Yep.’

Walter watched them pick up the body and in the next moment they were folding Cliffe’s remains away into the trunk as if it were a ventriloquist’s dummy. It went in easy enough and the lid was snapped shut.

They wheeled the trunk to the front door, down the path, and Walter watched from the door as it was loaded into the side door of the van. Then they were back in the house with numerous thick plastic bags and sacks.

Walter watched them dismantling and bagging up the lights and camera equipment, and one of them said, ‘We’ll need the blood stain,’ and they all glanced down at the still moist red turning brown stain on the carpet.

‘What, the whole carpet?’ said Walter.

‘Nope. Just the stain,’ and one of them produced a carpet-cutting tool and got down on the floor.

‘Okay?’ he said, glancing up at Walter.

Walter blew out his cheeks and said, ‘Whatever.’

The guy went to work with the knife, cutting out a large shape, leaving maybe three inches spare all the way round the blood marked carpet. Took the underfelt too where the blood had soaked through, revealing bare Edwardian floorboards that hadn’t been seen in years. The clipped out piece was perhaps three feet by one foot six, a long rectangular section now missing from the centre of the carpet, just before the sofa.

‘Well that’s buggered that!’ said Walter, staring down, hands on hips.

The guys looked at the remainder of the carpet.

One of them said, ‘To be honest, mate, it was buggered long before we came.’

The other one said, ‘We’ll need to collect the missing one’s things. Everything she brought.’

‘It’s all upstairs, I’ll show you,’ and one of the guys followed Walter up the stairs to the small bedroom. He began bagging up Jessica’s clothes, cosmetics, toiletries, bathrobe, handbag, purse etc, and then they were back down again, and Walter pointed to the coats and the trilby on the hooks.

‘Anything else?’ the guy said.

‘Yes. This,’ said Walter, producing the SIG Sauer from his pocket.

‘Loaded?’

‘Fully.’

‘Has it been fired?’

‘Not recently.’

‘Potent weapon,’ the guy said, obviously impressed.

‘Not potent enough,’ said Walter, wondering exactly what had happened in his sitting room.

One of the guys took everything outside and loaded up the van. The curtains in number 58 definitely twitched.

Then the guy was back inside.

‘Do you want my expenses claim now?’ asked Walter.

‘Nope, nothing to do with us. You’ll have to sort that out with DCS Wortley.’

Walter said nothing, though his expression said: Great!

‘Anything else?’ the guy asked again.

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Thanks for your help, and sorry about your carpet,’ and he grinned and then they were outside, starting the black van, and it trundled off down the road as if it had never been there at all, and disappeared into the night. Walter closed and bolted the front door. Just before he did so he glanced across at number 58. The curtains to the main front bedroom were drawn, but the lights were still on. Walter glanced at his watch. Twenty past one. An odd time to still be up, and Mr Morgan and Lizzy both had work in the morning, as did Walter.

He went through to the kitchen. The purple bottle of Echinacea was still on the windowsill.

‘You forgot the Echinacea!’ he said to no one in particular. He opened the bottle. Took out a capsule, went to the fridge, poured a small glass of Jessica’s juice and washed down the pill. The juice was vile. That would remain in the fridge. Maybe Iskra the cleaner might like it, and after that he went upstairs to bed.

Walter had lived alone for a long time and he had grown used to his own company. But having other folks in the house for a few days, well, he’d grown used to that too, and he knew which he preferred. Despite the lateness of the hour he struggled to find sleep. Kept thinking he heard someone moving about the house, kept thinking that someone was running the bath, kept imagining Stevie Cliffe making toast in the kitchen, kept remembering Jessica on his landing, smiling and grinning and mumbling, I know what you older gen’mum can be like. But did she? And where was she now, and most importantly, was she safe?

Twenty-One

Walter was a little late arriving at work in the morning. Karen was there poring over some crime stats that had just come in. She seemed remarkably cheerful despite the detection stats not being that great. Apparently the way the stats were computed had been amended, and most of the wise judges who gabbed on about these things said it was merely a blip, and next month would surely be a whole lot better.

Didn’t really interest Walter. All that concerned him was that serious criminals operating on his territory needed to be apprehended, and that was no different to how it had ever been, and right there the only criminals and the only case he could think about was the murder of Stevie Cliffe, and the abduction and kidnap of Jessica Stone. The infuriating thing was he couldn’t discuss it with his colleagues and he couldn’t investigate the case. Or could he?

‘Karen?’ he said.

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘What do you know about Jessica Stone?’

‘Jessica Stone?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Don’t know anyone of that name, the only Jessica Stone I know is that quirky supermodel.’

‘That’s the one.’

Gibbons entered the office, he’d been to see Patsy again and he’d picked up the end of the conversation, and Gibbons was interested in Jessica Stone too, for she had always intrigued him.

‘What are you talking about Jessica Stone for?’ he said.

Karen and Gibbons stared at their boss, keen to know more.

‘What do you know about her?’ repeated Walter.

‘She’s fab looking,’ leered Gibbo.

‘You think?’ said Karen. ‘Bit of a giraffe, no?’

‘Besides her looks what else do you know about her?’ persisted Walter.

‘Well, she’s