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

virgin, and neither was she pregnant, she hadn’t had a child, nor did she carry any diseases, sexual or otherwise, and nor were there any drugs in her body. Her age was estimated to be between eighteen and twenty-three. Dinky unbroken nose, somewhat surprising seeing as someone had given her a beating, and perfect teeth. Estimated time of death was put at between 3pm and 8pm on the previous day. She was slightly underweight, but otherwise in good health, or had been. But who was she? And why had she been murdered and dumped by the swimming baths?

There was one other thing of note, she did wear glasses, ingrained mark on the bridge of her nose, but hadn’t done so for some time. None were found, and she wasn’t wearing contact lenses.

Her fit body had been wrapped in six items of clothing: jeans, knickers, bra, T-shirt, right trainer, left trainer, plus one used paper handkerchief. All the clothing was of the cheapest kind, and all had emanated from the Far East, but that wasn’t unusual. You could buy identical garb in almost every British high street discount store. There were marks and bruises in several places on her body, and she had not had intercourse for some time, which one might have expected in certain lines of work.

There was some good news for the investigators. Four tiny hairs, two brown, two grey, definitely not hers, found on her clothing, abundant DNA. It was all you needed.

WALTER WAS SITTING in his boss’s office high up in police HQ. Mrs Joan West had just come back to work after a well-earned week’s break. She’d insisted Karen be there too, as Mrs W got up to speed with everything that was going on

‘So,’ she said, ‘we have a body, a murder, no ID, no one reported missing, no motive, and no prime suspect, indeed no suspect of any kind.’

‘It’s early days,’ said Walter. ‘We have just finished going through the CCTV.’

‘And?’ she said, pointedly.

Walter glanced at Karen. She recognised her moment and jumped into the conversation.

‘Two men were in the car that dumped the body. Average guys. Five eight, five nine, slim, fit, difficult to age as they wore scarves across their faces, and big unmarked dark baseball hats.’

‘White?’

‘Certainly not blacks,’ said Walter. ‘The pictures are not great, they could be Oriental.’

‘That would make sense, I suppose,’ said Mrs West, glancing at her watch. I believe we have recently found the car?’

‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘Burnt out on waste ground in Saltney. We won’t get anything from that.’

‘And it was stolen?’

‘It was, ma’am,’ confirmed Karen, ‘from outside the cinema on the Greyhound Industrial Estate.’

‘So where do we go from here?’

‘We have some photos,’ said Walter, ‘of the dead girl, but they are not good.’

That was always the problem with photos of dead people. They always looked precisely that, dead, very dead indeed, and usually pretty unhappy about it too, and no matter what the experts did with a corpse to cheerful it up, it was damned hard to make it look natural, or to make it look even remotely happy. The bumps and bruises didn’t help.

‘I’m sending some people round Chinese restaurants and Chinese laundries to see if anyone knows the girl.’

‘Is there such a thing as Chinese laundries these days?’ asked Mrs West.

‘I have never seen a Chinese laundry in my life,’ added Karen, smirking at Walter.

Walter harrumphed and said, ‘Chinese businesses, you know what I mean, anything Chinese. Delicatessens, supermarkets, that kind of thing.’

‘Who are you going to send?’ asked Mrs West.

‘I thought I’d try that new Polish chap, Jan whatever his name is.’

‘Not by himself?’

‘No, thought I’d send Jenny to keep an eye on him. They’re a bright pair, they don’t miss much.’

Mrs West and Karen both nodded at that, and Mrs West said, ‘and the deceased is not known to us?’

‘That’s correct, ma’am.’

‘No record anywhere?’

‘None, neither within our records, or on any immigration fingerprint scans.’

‘So, if she’s an illegal, which is looking likely, no business is suddenly going to put their hand up and say “oh yes, she’s one of ours” - not with the hefty fines involved.’

‘True, ma’am, we are just hoping for a hint of recognition at this stage.’

‘Have you got the photographs with you?’

Karen opened her file and slipped three large mug shots across the desk.

‘Oh dear! See what you mean. Well, good luck with that. Everyone has been telling me how quiet it has been, and I come back and all hell breaks loose! Anyway, crack on with it, I want this matter resolved as soon as possible,’ and she nodded at the door and Walter and Karen took their cue and stood up and left, and as Walter vacated the room he muttered under his breath: You don’t know the half of it, ma’am.

Twenty-Four

Jan Popieluszko had been with the team for barely two weeks, but he was a bright lad and popular, and everyone had taken to him from the get go. He was ferrying mugs of coffee across the office and when he saw Walter and Karen come back in he smiled and said, ‘Do you wanna coffee?’

Karen returned the smile and shook her head. Never touched the caffeine-ridden stuff. Predictably, Walter said, ‘Sure, never say no to a caffeine fix,’ and he added, ‘and I want a word with you when you come back.’

Jan pulled a face and wondered what he had done wrong and hurried back to the coffee machine to fetch the boss a drink. When he returned they were all sitting round the bank of desks. Walter, Karen, Darren Gibbons, Hector Browne, and Jenny Thompson. Jan set the coffee down before the boss and sat on the end of the desk.

‘You wanted a word?’

‘Yeah,’ said Walter. ‘I have a job for you and Jenny, to do with this dead Oriental girl. Karen has some new pictures,’ and she set them down on the desk before them.

‘Oh dear,’ said Gibbons.

‘Poor girl,’ said Jenny.

Jan didn’t say a word,