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

‘Is it kept locked?’ asked Karen.

Shirley nodded. ‘It’s kept shut. There’s a catch on the top, but Mischief had learnt how to open it with a broom handle. I’d found her outside on the front lawn several times, and once, next door but one, where her friend lives. I told her time and again not to go out alone. Time and again!’

Karen nodded sympathetically and said, ‘Have you checked? With your neighbours?’

Shirley nodded and said, ‘Yeah! I’ve checked everywhere! Everywhere I can think of looking. I think someone’s taken the little mite!’ and the tears came back, and Karen said, ‘let’s go back inside, put the kettle on,’ and they went into the kitchen and Shirley sat at the seventies style wooden table and wiped her eyes.

Karen went to Gibbons and whispered, ‘You know the drill. Rule One: the first thing we do is search everywhere thoroughly. You do the outside, gardens, flowerbeds, car, sheds, if there are any, wheelie bins, coalbunkers, any space that could hide a small child, and check the boundary fences all the way round, see if there’s anywhere else a kid could have slipped out.’

Gibbons nodded and said, ‘Sure, sarge.’

‘I’ll do the inside, meet back here in fifteen.’

Gibbons nodded again and said, ‘I wonder what the Guv would have done.’

It wasn’t what Karen wanted to hear.

‘I don’t want to hear the G word again, understand? This is my inquiry, and I will sort it!’

‘Sure, sarge, yeah, sorry.’

Karen’s phone rang and Gibbons and Shirley stared at her.

‘Well?’ said the caller.

Officious. Shrill. Demanding.

All the things one might expect of Mrs West, and she rarely disappointed.

‘We’re just about to search the house and grounds, ma’am. The side gate was open, blowing in the wind. The child might have gone to a friend’s place. She’d recently picked up a habit of doing that.’

‘I’ll give you thirty minutes, after that it’s...’ but she let the thought die on her breath. She’d made her point.

‘Fine, ma’am. Leave it with me. Thirty minutes.’

Karen tried a hopeful look at Mrs Chesters and said, ‘We’ll find her. Get to it, Gibbons,’ and turning back to Shirley, she said, ‘Can you show me Mischief’s room?’

Shirley nodded and said, ‘this way,’ as Gibbons went out the back. Two wheelie bins. Different colours. One empty. One half full. Not enough room beneath the rubbish for a child to hide in. One old coalbunker. Empty, except for some old and disused and cobweb-covered plant pots. Gibbons scooted up the side path. Went out to the front. Gazed around. All quiet, some pigeons cooing somewhere, a plane in the sky, and a few cars bringing the worker bees home after a busy day in the fields. But no kids, playing or otherwise, and no sign of Mischief Chesters. Not a trace. He went to the little red car. Placed his hand on the glass and squinted inside. No one in there, bit untidy like so many cars, but he couldn’t see into the hatch at the back. Plenty of room in there for a kid to hide, alive or dead, though that thought didn’t bear thinking about. Could be, though. Ran into the house. Shouted up the stairs, ‘Where’s the key for the car?’

‘On the hook in the kitchen,’ yelled back Mrs Chesters. ‘But she’s not in there, I’ve checked!’

Rule Two: Never accept anything a parent of a missing child ever says. Check and double-check everything yourself! Even Gibbons remembered that one. There were lots of keys set to one side of the cooker including one for the neat little Cayton Cerisa. Grabbed the key. Ran outside. Optimistic. Clicked open the central locking. Lifted the tail. Lots of second hand clothes inside, looked like car boot sale or garage sale stuff, and a big red tartan blanket. Plenty of room for a kid to hide under that lot, or to conceal a small dead, or drugged, body. Gibbons pulled off the blanket and threw it on the path. Pulled all the clothes every which way. Shirley was right. Mischief was not in the hatch.

Went round to the side of the car. Opened the door. Climbed in the backseat. No one there. Under the seat? Nothing, other than a big plastic bottle of half drunk water, and a spray can of general cleaner. Got out, down on hands and knees, looked under the car. Mini oil leak on the tarmac, and a startled ginger kitten that faced with Gibbons’ enquiring face and urgent body language, thought it time to skedaddle, and it meowed and ran off and leapt over the fence and disappeared into next door’s undergrowth.

Gibbons sniffed his disappointment and closed up and ran back to the rear garden. Began checking the fences all the way down either side. There were one or two places where a child could have squeezed through the rotting timbers, but someone, maybe Michael on his last and final leave, had carefully nailed new chicken wire across the gaps, it hadn’t yet rusted, probably done for that very reason, and no kid could squeeze through there now. Caring parents think of just about everything, but there’s always something they can miss.

Upstairs, Karen had finished searching Mischief’s bedroom. Nothing. Not a sign. Began searching the big front bedroom. On the top shelf of the wardrobe she found a large pile of well read porno mags.

Glanced questioningly at Shirley.

‘Mike’s,’ she said. ‘I was going to take them to the car boot sale but didn’t have the guts. Can you imagine that? Your neighbours turning up at your table and seeing them?’ and she tried a dismissive laugh, but nothing came. ‘I’ll take them downstairs and throw them in the bin while I remember.’

There was nothing else of interest in the big bedroom and time was getting on. Karen glanced at her watch. ‘Where are you, Mischief?’ she said softly, and went out and checked over the bathroom, including under the bath that clearly hadn’t been opened for years, judging by