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

but as it was, they had the advantage of surprise, and the last thing they needed was extra troops blundering in, giving away that advantage.

‘Gibbons, take Jun with you, go round about a quarter of the way, 90 degrees, don’t go any further, if it comes to gunfire we don’t want to be shooting at one another. Stay a few yards apart, when it comes to it, give the impression there are more of us than there are.’

‘Gotcha, Guv.’

‘Jun, when I shine my torch, you shine yours too, in the darkness, hopefully they will think we are mob-handed.’

Jun nodded, and Walter said, ‘You get away, we’ll give you a minute and then the show will start,’ and Gibbons and Jun crept away to the right.

‘Ready?’ he whispered to Karen.

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘Up we go,’ he said, and Karen scrambled up the dune and peered over the top.

A couple of yards to her left, Walter made it to the top and took in the view.

Man One and Man Two finally in vision, Smith and Jones, lit up by one feeble gas camping light, gave enough light within the bowl, not too much out of it. One of them was in the grave digging; he was already up to his chest. It was a big hole, and even as he was digging muck out, sand drizzled back in. Must have been annoying. Must have been hard work. Give them their due, they weren’t skimping.

But they were moaning and bickering over something, far too preoccupied to notice watchers, carefully peering over the rim of the dune in the blackness.

Man One, in the grave, said, ‘Come on! Your fucking turn.’

Man Two, pistol in his pants, just as Gibbons had said, replied, ‘I did far more than you! You carry on a bit yet!’

But Man One heaved himself out and said, ‘No chance! Your turn. Get on with it! I wanna get home!’ and he threw the shovel at Man Two’s feet.

They had been getting on each other’s nerves all day, bitching and bickering and arguing non-stop, and the longer the day had gone on, the worse it had become.

They’d specifically left Ellesmere Port early to get there early, to get the job done and get home. It didn’t matter what Brinton had said, they were the ones doing the dirty work, as usual, and they’d do it at a time to suit themselves, not someone else.

They’d arrived there shortly after ten, but that was still too damn early. The place was surprisingly busy, even in the pitch dark. Dog walkers and courting couples, walking arm-in-arm, and kids, young teenagers, with bottles of cider and potent homemade vodka-cola chasers, and even a couple of druggies looking for somewhere solitary to shoot up, and trip and sleep it off.

Gradually, it had grown quiet. But not before Man Two had lost his temper with a young lippy kid, who didn’t want to go home. Man Two gave him a slap; broke his nose, and the kid ran home to tell his mam.

‘You didn’t have to do that!’ said Man One.

‘Fuck off! He had it coming!’

‘He might call the bizzies.’

‘Nah! Told him what I’d do to him if he did anything as stupid as that. He’ll not be back.’

‘Hope you’re right.’

‘I am right!’

They were tired and hungry and hacked off, as the bickering continued

00.15. MRS WEST AND her boys spotted the glow and headed that way. Found the dune, scrambled up, found Walter, peeking over, peered over the top too. Saw Man One and Man Two grab a tarpaulin, one on either end, and unceremoniously toss it into the grave.

‘Good riddance!’ said Man One.

‘All the more money for us,’ said Man Two, and now they only had Brinton to be rid of and they would be top dogs.

Man One desperately wanted to be top dog. They both did.

They picked up the second tarpaulin and moved toward the grave. Just the bloody carpet to do.

Walter had seen enough.

Switched on the torch. Shone it on Man One.

Yelled, ‘Armed police! Stand quite still.’

Jun Woo lit up too. Man Two in her beam.

Gibbons yelled, ‘Armed police!’ from the side of the dune.

Mrs West joined the fun. Lit up, pointed her torch on to the newly dug grave. Screamed in her shrill voice, ‘You are both under arrest.’

‘Fuck!’ said Man One. ‘I told you they’d fetch the bizzies!’

Walter heaved his legs over the rim, and slid down the other side into the bowl. Karen followed, Heckler & Koch in hand, ready to go, and they all piled in, Gibbons, Hector, Jun, Spence, Spence’s pal, and Mrs West, Jun slithering down in the darkness and standing up, pleased to see the Minstrel guys again, up close and personal, in such changed circumstances, as Gibbons pulled out his cuffs, and went to cuff Man Two.

A confused picture of milling nervous bodies, torch beams aplenty, shining every which way, inside a relatively confined sandy bowl, reminding Gibbons of some night-time Cornish beach rave he’d once attended, hideous moving faces and shadows everywhere you looked, and a swinging camping light that Spence had picked up, and was holding by his face, as the heavy black canopy of the night covered and surrounded the bowl, with a shrieking wind blowing, gusts rapidly heading up the Beaufort scale at a rate of knots. Man Two saw Gibbons coming with his glinting cuffs, and he pictured the future ahead of him, and he did not like what he saw.

A lifetime in a top security prison, with losers and bores and faggots and maggots, and bullies and druggies and chancers and braggers, and God alone knows what else, and who else, and he didn’t want that, didn’t fancy it at all, and he wouldn’t allow that, for it wasn’t going to happen, because he was going to get out of there, or take some of the fuckers with him in the trying, and when you’re in a war, and he considered he was at war, you always take out the officers