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

‘You can say that again,’ said Gibbo.

‘Aside from her looks! Forget about her looks,’ said Walter. ‘Do you know anything else about her?’

‘I read she’s out of action at the moment. Broken a bone on her foot, summat like that,’ said Karen.

‘I read that too,’ said Gibbo.

‘Anything else?’ asked Walter, becoming exasperated.

‘I think she likes wild men,’ said Gibbo.

At last, thought Walter. Maybe they were getting somewhere.

‘Don’t we all,’ said Karen, smirking and looking away, and thinking of hunky Greg, and last night in particular.

‘She likes to date criminals?’ Walter floated in the air.

‘So they say, but don’t a lot of celebrity women?’ asked Gibbons.

‘It’s nothing new,’ said Walter.

‘Why are we talking about Jessica Stone?’ asked Karen.

‘No reason,’ said Walter. ‘Just wondered what the youth of today had to say on the matter.’

Gibbons and Karen shared another puzzled look.

Gibbons shrugged his shoulders and made to leave the room.

‘Oh, and Gibbons?’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Next time there’s a fire drill, and we have to assemble outside, and you are required to take something out with you, to save some important documents, or equipment, you don’t take out your bloody cheese and pickle sandwiches!’

‘Did he do that?’ said Karen, grinning and sipping her water.

‘He did. The pillock!’

‘Sorry, Guv. Just picked up the first thing that came to hand.’

‘Yeah, your bloody lunch!’

Gibbons nodded and looked sheepish and turned about and went off about his business.

Later, Karen told Walter she’d signed up with Future Growth – FGPP – and in so doing had unearthed some truly astonishing facts and figures.

‘We are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds here, Guv. If that isn’t dodgy, I don’t know what is.’

Her FGPP website was already up and running, and with the aid of her cousin, who was a whiz at all things computer-related, she had already started driving traffic to the site using Search Engine Optimisation – SEO – a subject guaranteed to reduce Walter to early snores. But at her insistence Walter did look at her site, and it did look pretty impressive, and lo and behold while they were watching, someone logged on from the Isle of Man and signed up in front of their eyes, and Karen had earned her first thousand pounds, and had begun recovering her initial outlay.

‘It’s brill, isn’t it?’ she said, looking amazingly cheerful.

‘Are you in this to investigate, or to make money?’

‘Both!’ she said, without a second thought.

‘I should remind you that you need your boss’s permission to carry out a second “job”, a second form of income, while in your present form of employ.’

‘That’s okay, Guv. You’re my boss.’

‘No, my boss.’

‘Mrs West?’

‘The very same.’

‘Do you want me to ask her?’

‘It’s not what I want. It’s what the regs say you must do.’

‘In that case, Guv, it’s the early stages of an investigation.’

‘Don’t be smart, KG.’

‘Don’t worry, Guv. I’ll keep you posted.’

AND AFTER THAT, THE day kind of petered out and Walter hurried home for he wanted another conversation with Wortley.

He had to ring five times, time enough to imagine that the guy was avoiding his calls.

‘Ah, there you are, Darriteau,’ he said, eventually, as if it were Walter who was avoiding him.

‘What news?’ asked Walter.

‘Cliffe was not killed with the missing Glock.’

‘That makes sense. It’s hard to take a gun off someone, especially someone like Cliffe, when he knows what he knows, and then kill him with it.’

‘We are going through all the Jap dark green people carriers with the number HUF. Haven’t turned anything up yet, but I think we will. How sure are you about the number?’

‘Pretty good, she’s a bright kid.’

Wortley coughed. Didn’t sound so good.

‘Any news on Jessica?’ asked Walter.

‘Nothing.’

‘Do you want me to look around up here?’

‘Course not! She won’t still be up there.’

‘And there’s the matter of my expenses.’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘They buggered my best carpet!’

‘They say your carpet was buggered already!’

‘Be that as it may, I now have a huge hole in the middle of my lounge carpet.’

‘Okay, Darriteau. Itemise everything and send me the bill.’

‘To where, exactly?’

‘Oh yeah, that would be helpful, wouldn’t it,’ and Wortley reeled off an address in some nondescript building in Guildford, Surrey, that Walter had never seen or heard of before.

‘I’ll let you know when Jessica turns up.’

‘If she turns up.’

‘Don’t be such a pessimist, Darriteau, but from what I remember you always were that way inclined.’

‘No Sir, just concerned for the girl.’

‘Yes, course, well, we all are, I’ll be in touch,’ and with that Walter was once again alone in the house with his notepad and his figures and his thoughts and his recent memories.

How much would a nice new carpet cost for his front room? Quite a bit, he imagined. He would take a trip to that out of town carpet shop after work, those prunes who are always advertising a price with 50% off, and then another 70% off the 50% off. What a load of nonsense! Why couldn’t they just give the customer a good price to begin with? That was all the buyers wanted, that was all he wanted. What colour do you think, he mused, royal blue, warm maroon, ubiquitous beige? Grey like the Morgans? It was a hard decision. Perhaps he should ask Iskra for some advice. She’d be there on Saturday. She’d have a better idea than him.

Twenty-Two

Very early next morning, and the church clock chimed four times, its reassuring ring echoing across the old city. Full dark, though a half moon on a clear night gave plenty of visibility to those few strange people still wandering about.

A Vauxhall saloon pulled into the swimming baths car park. It cruised to the far end, well away from the inner ring road, and turned round. Two men got out, not in any great hurry, but not slouching either. They left the engine on, idling, sounded sweet enough. They went to the boot and opened up. Grabbed something from the boot, one man either end, and threw it on the tarmac as if it were a bag of