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

that she has been promoted to full Inspector with immediate effect, for services above and beyond the call of duty, and that brought a well deserved round of applause, and a top up of drinks all round.

‘Inspector, eh?’ teased Gibbons, ‘in your early twenties, unheard of!’

‘And a big pay rise,’ said Hector.

Jun smiled back, she was actually enjoying the attention. It had never happened before, not quite like this, and it certainly wouldn’t have happened in precisely the same way back in Hong Kong, where the Force was much more serious and straight-laced, and Gibbons seemed awfully keen on her all of a sudden. Just a pity she didn’t feel the same way, and as always happens with great dinners, the time flew by, and it was all over and done with, and there was talk of going clubbing, something that Walter opted out of straight away, and to Gibbons’ disappointment, Jessica did too, citing tiredness and stress, and in the circumstances that made perfect sense.

They phoned for a cab and Walter hoped it would be Carrie the Cab, but some maggoty-faced misery-guts of a man turned up, and moaned about his lot in life all the way home, as Walter and Jessica sat in the back and exchanged looks and grins.

THEY HADN’T BEEN IN the house long before the landline rang. Walter ambled into the hall and picked up, but before he could say a word Chief Superintendent Wortley barked, ‘Darriteau!’

‘That’s me.’

‘Seems the Twelfth Apostle has finally come up trumps!’

‘Maybe.’

‘Do you want to quickly run me through things?’

Walter didn’t really, but what can you do when a work superior asks a detailed question, even if it was nearly midnight? So he told him of Pryce’s murder and Barton’s murder, and Brinton’s arrest, and of how one of the remaining villains had killed the other for reasons that no one seemed to quite comprehend, and the fact that the killer of Sergeant Stevie Cliffe was either dead, or charged with Cliffe’s murder, take your pick. Either way it was closed, solved, finished, though it would never be forgotten.

‘Mmm...’ said Wortley, as if he was weighing up everything he had been told, and then he said, ‘and the Protected?’

‘She’s here.’

‘What? Staying with you?’

‘Yes. I thought that’s what you wanted.’

‘Yes, maybe originally, but... put me on to her!’

Walter called Jess through, and she reluctantly took the phone and spoke to Wortley.

‘When are you coming back to London?’

‘The day after tomorrow.’

‘I’ll need to interview you.’

‘Thought you might,’ and they fixed up a time and a place and Wortley hung up, just as abruptly as he’d arrived, and just as abruptly as he had entered Walter’s life in the first place.

She ambled back into the lounge, deep in thought and said, ‘I always thought the Twelfth Apostle was Paul... not Walter.’

‘Ha hah, you know your stuff.’

‘So why does he call you the Twelfth Apostle?’

‘You were the twelfth person to be accommodated.’

‘Just my luck, eh? To get you.’

‘Yeah,’ said Walter. ‘You were. Do you want a cocoa?’

‘Nope,’ she said, ‘actually Walter, I’m whacked, think I’ll turn in.’

Walter nodded and headed for the kitchen and he heard her say, as she ascended the stairs, ‘It could have been worse, Walter, you could have been the thirteenth, and how unlucky would that have been?’

Walter grinned and muttered, ‘True,’ and wondered whether he would ever hear from DCS Melvin Leslie Wortley again. Come to think of it, that would be kind of nice, if he didn’t.

Eighty-Six

The following day Inspector Jun Woo was summoned back to Hong Kong. She’d been expecting it, but it was still too soon, and a big disappointment. Gibbons beat off allcomers and grabbed the job of driving her to Manchester airport. He’d happily have paid for the petrol himself if need be, but if he was hoping for some kind of farewell kiss he was left standing, as Jun grinned and said goodbye, and smiled in that captivating way of hers, and slipped happily away. She hoped it wouldn’t be long before she was back, staying with Karen.

The day after that was Jessica Stone’s turn to make tracks, but not before she’d ID’d Ricky Barton’s body and autographed any number of fashion mags and lifestyle magazines and photos that Hector had brought into the office. Lots of the autographed mags were for Gibbons’ nieces, or so he said, but in the days that followed quite a few of them ended up at big bucks on that auction website that promises so much, and sure as hell charges the earth for doing so.

Walter arranged for Karen to come to his house and pick him and Jess up and drop her off at the railway station, where she was booked on the 12.55 London train.

Karen arrived at 12.20 in her own car and Walter took one final check round to make sure that none of Jess’s newly acquired possessions were still in the house. At the last moment he even remembered the blessed echinacea.

Jess jumped in the back, her small bag beside her, and settled down in her seat, as Karen started the car and headed toward the railway station.

‘You’ve got my number,’ said Walter. ‘Ring me and tell me how you get on with Wortley.’

‘I will,’ she said.

‘You can ring me any time you like.’

‘You might be surprised, I might get in the habit of ringing you.’

‘I mean it,’ said Walter. ‘You can ring me any time you want,’ and after that the car went silent, as Karen weaved expertly through the lunchtime city traffic, as they each thought of something sensible to say before the opportunity was lost forever, as often happens when goodbyes are coming up fast.

Jessica glanced down at her restless feet, then at the back of Karen’s seat. There was a document pouch on the back of it, the kind of thing that maps and atlases used to be kept in, but that was redundant now, old hat, atlases and paper maps killed off by technology, just