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

telling us everything he knows. He says that Smith and Jones have the bodies wrapped in tarpaulins in a grey Japanese people carrier, and they plan to bury the bodies on the dunes at 1am. We don’t know exactly where, I don’t think the kid knows, and as the dunes cover a surprisingly large area, we don’t intend letting them get that far. We’ll stop them on the road just after they leave the A565,’ and she nodded back at Karen to show them precisely where.

21.41. KAREN BROUGHT the map back on the screen. Pointed at the A565. ‘Here’s the airfield, RAF Woodvale; they’ll turn off soon after that. Here’s the coastal road, they’ll turn off left there,’ and she pointed it out and enlarged it and everyone nodded and understood. ‘It leads directly down to the dunes, so the object is to stop them before they get there.’

‘How?’ asked Gibbons.

‘Stinger!’ said Mrs West.

‘It will be deployed on the coastal road before they cross the railway,’ said Karen.

Walter thought about that. The tyre deflation device, invented in America by some Utah patrolman, and an effective tool it is too, even if occasionally it has been known to cause serious collisions with stung vehicles running on out of control. His view was it was unnecessary in this case, but Mrs West called the shots, and she seemed to get a real thrill out of yelling the word, ‘Stinger,’ so stinger it was. It was nothing more than a line of upturned metal spikes, nothing hi-tech about it whatsoever, almost a medieval instrument of war, flung across the road in front of the suspect vehicle. Holed the tyres, slowed the car to a crawl, usually worked without a hitch, so long as the car wasn’t going too fast and careered on and crashed.

‘Whereabouts?’ persisted Gibbons.

‘Here,’ said Karen, ‘before the railway at the junction with Pinfold Lane.’

‘That’s right,’ said Mrs West. ‘Walter and Karen and Jun and Darren will be parked up on the north side. Myself, Hector, Richard and his pal, Jake, we’ll be in the south side. Richard and Jake will deploy the stinger, and all eight of us will descend on the vehicle like flies round dung. Jun can ID them, she’s met them before,’ and everyone glanced at Jun, and she nodded back and said, ‘Looking forward to meeting them again.’

Mrs West bobbed her head and continued, ‘Our other four guys will be back on the by-pass parked up in Dunlop Avenue. You’ll warn us as soon as the people carrier passes through.’

‘Do we have a number for the vehicle, ma’am?’ asked one of the four.

‘No. They keep changing it, but there won’t be many grey people carriers with two IC1’s up, trundling along at around midnight.’

Seemed a fair assumption, thought Walter, but that was all it was, an assumption, and he never felt truly comfortable with those.

‘White Europeans,’ whispered Karen to Jun.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

21.50. ‘EVERYONE UP to speed?’ asked Walter. ‘Any questions?’

Everyone glanced at everyone else but no one had a question.

‘All the gear ready?’ asked Mrs West, ‘torches, stinger, weaponry, ammunition?’

All the equipment was primed and ready to go; just like the team.

‘I’m just going to ring Minstrel,’ said Walter. ‘Make sure everything is all right down there.’

‘Good idea,’ said Mrs West. ‘We leave at 22 hundred hours. Remember, these men are vicious murderers, don’t take any chances!’

Jenny and Jan and the two uniformed kids were all still at Minstrel and all was quiet. Earlier, three coaches laid on by the Border Force, had taken 150 Oriental women away into custody for questioning, including young Shu, and in almost every case, eventual repatriation. Jen and Jan and the other two would stay there all night if need be, just in case Men One and Two, Smith and Jones, returned.

Jen and Jan hoped to get an early call from Walter sending them home, though they’d be lying if they didn’t admit to hoping that maybe, just maybe, Men One and Two might turn up back on their doorstep, and they could make the arrests and grab the glory.

Eighty-One

22.02. Three unmarked cars pulled out of the underground car park and headed in convoy for the ring road. It was the same trip that Walter, Karen, and Jun had made earlier that day.

M53 northbound, sweeping around to the east, as they approached the tunnel and past the bank of tollbooths, a quick cursory wave to the duty officer, who had been expecting them, and he watched them descending down into the Mersey tunnel, and under the heavy river and up into the night on the Liverpool side of the water.

22.32. TRAFFIC WAS LIGHT and no need for outriders to smooth the way. Turning left and heading northward, through the Liverpool suburbs, lots of folks on the streets as the pubs were thinking of chucking out, not raining, no moon, plenty of cloud, not too cold for the time of year, fair bit of traffic about, cabs grabbing late night fares, green buses hurrying home to the shelter of the terminus, people hanging around, gabbing, laughing, joking, pushing, shoving, going for a takeaway, standing on the street, munching hot food, thinking of going on to a late night drinking den or nightclub, girls arm-in-arm in surprisingly skimpy outfits, chatting over-loudly. Didn’t they ever get cold? thought Walter.

They all watched a big drunk take a swing at a startled stranger, but the fat guy was so smashed and unsteady on his feet he missed by a good couple of yards, fell on his backside and looked up, confused, convinced someone had clouted him, and those in the car and on the pavement couldn’t help but laugh.

On through Everton and Kirkdale and Bootle and Seaforth, and past the Freeport where they’d found Jessica earlier in the day, where ocean traders were lit up and busy, unloading and loading cargoes of every conceivable kind, and Walter wasn’t alone in considering, hopefully not human