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

fresh loaf, standing proud, baked that morning, standing high, on ten thousand pounds. Chrissie grinned.

‘Good job you shouted through,’ Colin said. ‘Only just got it in there in time.’

Chrissie shook her head and sat down.

‘Good job I didn’t offer them a cheese sandwich! What are we going to do, Col?’

‘I’m going to bury it.’

‘What!’

‘I’m going to bury it, in the pigpen. It’ll be our little secret. We won’t spend a penny of it, that way we’ve done nothing wrong.’

That didn’t sound quite correct to Chrissie but she wasn’t going to say, and anyway Colin was talking again, talking nonsense.

‘After all, we don’t even know if it came from Donald.’

‘Who else could it have come from?’

‘No idea, that’s why, until we get to the bottom of it, we’ll hang on to it, our little nest egg, an emergency reserve, no one will ever know. Where’s that old metal biscuit tin?’

‘In the cupboard.’

‘Well fetch it!’

Colin put his boots back on and went outside. Herded the pigs into one corner of the pen and boarded them in. Set about digging a very deep hole. Two canal boaters cruising by at the bottom of the garden thought he looked like he was digging a grave, but everyone knew that country folk were a wee bit peculiar and did strange things. Colin returned to the kitchen. She showed him the money in the tin, closed the lid, tied it fast shut with thick old string, and handed him the rusty box.

‘Make sure you bury it deep, we don’t want the porkers digging it up and going crazy.’

‘No chance of that.’

‘And make a note somewhere of the exact place the treasure is buried.’

‘X marks the spot,’ he said, laughing like a pirate, as he walked away toward the pigs.

Twenty minutes later after flattening down the ground and sprinkling a handful of barley over the top, he let the pigs back into the run, and ten minutes after that the disturbed ground was covered in trotter prints, and a lovely layer of fresh pig muck.

Walter and Karen went and checked out Willow Lodge. Enquired as to Maisie’s whereabouts. She was working in London, as the Rushnells had said, but her parents had spoken to her that very morning. She was very happy, by all accounts, met a new man, a bit like you, Inspector, they said, if the description was to be believed. Nothing serious is it? About Maisie? They asked, and duly reassured they all went about their business.

Driving back to the station Karen said, ‘The Rushnells were very nervous.’

‘They were,’ agreed Walter.

‘Do you think they’ve heard from Donny?’

‘We’re checking their mail, monitoring their phone calls.’

‘Private couriers!’ she said.

Walter nodded.

‘Quite possibly. We can’t think of everything. Check on all the local couriers when we get back to HQ. Pound to a penny if they have had a delivery it’ll be cash.’

‘More pounds than pennies,’ she said, and Walter grunted and closed his eyes and turned his mind to Jessica Stone.

Forty-Six

Mr Pryce was at work early. Turned on the computer. Glanced at some updating numbers. They were marginally better than he expected. Buzzed Brinton in the office next door and invited him to join him. Brinton came in a minute later and sat down and said, ‘Have you seen the figures?’

‘Yes.’

‘We are getting there.’

‘How did you manage that?’

‘Kicked some ass, well and truly. I’ll know more later. I’m on my way in there as soon as we’ve finished here.’

‘Keep them on their toes. No slacking! There’s no leeway.’

Brinton nodded and waited to be dismissed.

‘About the other thing...’ said Pryce.

Brinton looked up.

‘We’ll talk about it later today.’

‘Okay, whenever you say.’

‘Go and do what you have to do.’

Brinton stood up and left the room and headed for the assembly plant. Pryce went to the large metal wall cabinet. Took out his keys, opened up. There was a green glass mineral water bottle there, about a third full, screw top, no label on the bottle. He picked it up and placed it on the desk. Went back and locked the cupboard, grabbed the bottle and swept out of the office, heading toward the assembly plant.

KIT NAPOLEON HAD ENJOYED a superb breakfast. His appetite was better than ever, though Jennifer, his second wife, tried her best to keep an eye on the calorific intake, and Kit’s softening waistline.

He was preening himself in the bedroom, as he liked to do, when Jenny called through, ‘Are you nearly ready, car will be here in a minute.’

Kit glanced at himself in the full-length glass and fiddled with his KN tie one last time, and smiled and said, ‘Coming, hun.’

Jennifer glanced through the sitting room window over the perfectly manicured lawns and rose-beds that were at their best. She liked the floribunda pinks the best, and then she saw the maroon Rolls Royce purring up the circular drive. The car had been Kit’s present to himself in recognition of all the hard work he’d put into Future Growth over the past eighteen months, though in truth she’d had to lean on him hard to spend cash on a new and very grand car, leastways that was how she saw it.

It was the first day of the northern tour. The Kit Napoleon road show was about to hit town. It would visit thirteen towns and cities throughout the north of England and Scotland in just fifteen days, a gruelling schedule in anyone’s language, but Kit was looking forward to the whole parade, because somehow when he was up on his feet talking to members and investors, and even the outright curious, he was at his very best. And of course the icing on the cake would be the opening of the new Ellie Napoleon Center, deliberately spelt the American way for reasons that had long since been forgotten, high up in the Shropshire Hills, and that would be an event that would live with them forever.

Jenny stepped into the car. Kit followed and she linked his arm and tugged herself close.

‘Okay, Michael,’