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

Jumped back in the car, a little quicker this time, closed the doors, jammed the car into gear, and away. Fly-tipping. A ruddy nuisance to the council, and someone would have to pay to clean up the mess.

WALTER DARRITEAU HAD a headache, not an all-consuming cruncher like a migraine, more of a minor irritant, and he couldn’t make up his mind as to whether it was the four cans of stout he had drunk the previous night, or the late jazz movie he had stayed up too late watching. He dropped two saccharin tablets into his coffee and picked up the polystyrene cup and revolved it slowly before his ample chest, hoping the tiny tabs would disperse, but they never did.

Karen came in, said, ‘Morning, Guv.’

Why did she always have to sound so damned cheerful, and at 7am at that? Walter hated the early shift. He was getting too old for it. She went off, heading for the vending machine where pound to a penny she’d buy a bottle of ice-cold blackcurrant flavoured water.

Walter watched her go. Slim, young, eager and ambitious, everything that Walter was not, or at least that was how he saw things. Then she was back, water already opened and raided. She sat opposite and glanced at her boss.

‘You look a bit, err ...’ but she didn’t finish the sentence.

Walter did it for her. ‘Knackered?’

‘No, I wasn’t going to say that.’

‘So what were you going to say?’

Karen smiled that crushing smile of hers, the one she imagined, with some justification, hugely attractive to men, and said, ‘Shit, actually, Guv... sorry.’

It was only as he expected. Walter sniffed and was still thinking of a suitable reply for his oppo, but before he could utter a word the phone in front of her burbled and she snatched it up and said, ‘Incident Room, Sergeant Greenwood speaking.’

Walter pursed his lips and stared at her.

‘Where was this?’ he heard her say, concentration etched on her fair face.

Where was what, wondered Darriteau, thinking it might have something to do with Jessica Stone. He had been thinking about her most of the night.

‘Okay, we’ll be there in fifteen.’

She set the phone down and said, ‘Action stations, Guv.’

‘What?’

‘Major incident. Woman’s body, dumped on the forecourt outside the swimming baths.’

‘Bugger!’ said Walter.

‘Sorry?’

‘Carry on.’

‘There’s a uniform there now, I’ll go and get a car. See you downstairs.’

Darriteau sighed and nodded and thought of Jessica and watched his sergeant gather her recently unpacked things together, before she headed off toward the lift to head down to the basement to grab the best car she could find. At that hour there would be a decent choice. Greenwood was a big petrol head, always had been, fascinated by the bloody things, a fascination that Darriteau neither understood, nor shared. Walter thought again of the skinny six foot she thing. Hoped to God it wasn’t her. She didn’t deserve that. Fact was, he liked her.

If the quiet period in local serious crime hadn’t already come to an end, it certainly had now.

He picked up the coffee and emptied it down his throat. Bent down and did up his black shoes, he always preferred to leave them undone when sitting at a desk, good for the circulation, so they said, though it was important one remembered that little fact, especially when making a quick getaway.

Stood up, stretched his heavy arms above his head; yawned aloud, attracting some attention, and turned and limped toward the lift. Bumped into Gibbons coming out.

‘Have you been to see Patsy?’

‘No Guv, not this morning.’

‘Make sure you see him today!’

‘Is there something I should know?’

‘Maybe. Just do as I ask.’

‘OK Guv, if it’s important.’

‘It is,’ and Walter pushed past him and stepped into the lift.

KAREN WAS WAITING IN the car right outside the lift entrance, the big unmarked navy blue BMW idling away, spewing lethal fumes into the stinking underground car park. She leant across and opened the passenger door and Walter fell in. Before he had a chance to slip on his seatbelt she’d hit the accelerator and the car squealed away toward the exit ramp.

‘This isn’t the bloody Sweeney,’ he said.

‘Sorry, Guv. Thought you might want to get there quick.’

‘Did the uniform say anything else?’

‘Not much. Oriental he thinks. That was about it.’

Oriental, mused Walter, that sounded promising, at least from Jessica’s point of view, it did.

‘Cause of death?’

‘Didn’t say.’

They dashed around the Chester inner ring road, Karen bullying other dozy vehicles out of the way. She had a way of driving that sent others scurrying, even before she put on the blue light, and Walter wondered how she managed to do that. Talented girl. Too talented, some said, but could one be too talented?

Quarter past seven, another sunny autumnal day forecast, town predicted to be busy, some kind of big food and drink festival on, people were coming from all over, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the swimming pool would be open to allcomers. Pity the car park was now a crime scene, and for the foreseeable future would be closed to Joe Public and his sweaty chums.

The road was surprisingly busy for the hour, proving that Walter and Karen, W and K, or W AN K, as DC Gibbons had unkindly christened the team behind their backs one night in The Bell, were clearly not the only people to be at their desks by 7am, not by a long chalk.

Karen swerved the car into the car park and spotted the uniformed officer on the far side. It wasn’t difficult, there was an ambulance there, a civilian, and bike rider too, a traffic cop off the ring road who had come to offer support, so he said, when in reality he wanted to see what was going down, and that was no bad thing. Better to be interested than to head in the opposite direction.

She stopped the car twenty yards away. Walter already knew it was not Jessica, and that was something. Simply not big enough. They got out