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

Rekatic had had enough.

‘I don’t know where you are going with this, but I am not answering any more of your questions until you tell me what this is all about.’

‘What is your wife’s name?’ asked Karen.

That was an easier one.

‘Grizelda, everyone calls her Grizzy. She’s German. Why?’

‘And what nationality would you be?’ asked Walter.

‘Serb. Why? What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘It goes without saying that you have the necessary work permits?’ asked Walter.

‘Course I have! Is this what this is all about?’

‘No, not really,’ said Walter.

‘Do you want to get to the point?’

‘When did you last visit Ellie Wright at the foot of Marigold Lane?’

‘Eh?’

‘You heard the Inspector,’ said Karen.

It looked like Miro needed some thinking time on that one, and he got it too, for his phone rang, the landline on the desk before him. Miro grabbed it and yelled: ‘What?’

‘Your next appointment is here for you now, Mr Rekatic.’

It was a good phone system. Crystal clear. Walter and Karen heard every word.

‘Cancel it!’

‘But I can’t, they have come all the way from Leeds!’

‘I said, fucking cancel it!’ bawled Rekatic, as he set the phone down hard. ‘Sorry about that. Work issues. I did tell you I was busy today.’

‘So you did,’ said Walter. ‘Now where were we? Ah yes, you were just about to tell us when you last visited Ellie, and what you got up to down by the river.’

Eighteen 

In the travel agents in the city centre, Lena glanced at her watch. It was coming up lunchtime. She’d rung Bel three times that morning, still without success. Her boss came back from the bank and glanced across at an obviously worried Lena, and said, ‘Any news?’

‘Not a thing. Still no answer. It simply isn’t like Belinda. You know that, don’t you?’

The boss man pulled a face and looked up at the wall clock. It was true it had never happened before. On the very rare occasions when Belinda Cooper had fallen ill, bad flu, badly sprained ankle, that kind of thing, she had always without exception kept them fully informed.

‘Do you want to go and see if she’s alright?’

Lena nodded, and said, ‘It would put my mind at rest.’

The boss nodded too, and said, ‘Fair enough, it’s almost your lunch hour, why don’t you take an early lunch and go and check it out?’

An incredibly generous offer, thought Lena, sarcastically, and she said, ‘I’ll do that, I’ll get back as soon as I can.’

The boss man nodded again, and began opening new cardboard boxes full of fresh brochures to restock the shelves.

‘Keep me informed,’ he muttered, as Lena collected her things together and slipped on her beige raincoat, and headed for the door.

IT TOOK HER NO MORE than twenty minutes to arrive outside Bel’s nice little detached house. All looked quiet and in order from the front. Lena skipped up the short garden path and rang the bell. She heard it clearly enough, but no one came. She stooped and pushed open the old green metal letterbox, and looked inside. She couldn’t see much. There was another internal door maybe four feet away that led to the hall.

‘Bel!’ she yelled. ‘It’s Lena. Are you okay?’

No sound. No reply. No nothing.

Lena took a step back and glanced up at the bedroom windows. The curtains were drawn. That was a little odd for the middle of the day. She headed round to the side of the house and the side gate. Over the small wall to next door a man came out and began fiddling about with the refuse wheelie bin.

He peeked over the wall and saw Lena there. He thought he’d seen her once or twice before, and indeed he had.

Lena caught his eye and said, ‘Have you seen Bel at all? She’s not been at work, and she’s not answering her phone.’

The man scratched his chin as if thinking, and said, ‘Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her for a few days.’

‘Can I get round the back?’ said Lena, trying the side gate that opened easily enough.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ said the man.

Lena nodded and muttered, ‘Please do,’ and they made their way around the side of the house.

Several puddles of rainwater covered the small paved patio that lay outside the French windows, but it wasn’t the puddles that grabbed Lena’s and the neighbour’s immediate attention, but the obviously broken pane of glass.

‘I don’t like the look of this,’ said Lena, pointing to shards of glass inside on the carpet.

‘You and me both.’

The neighbour tried the door. Locked fast.

‘Look!’ said Lena, ‘the key,’ and they both stared through the glass at the key, nestling in the centre of the carpet, more than half way across the room.

‘Bel!’ yelled Lena. ‘It’s Lena, from work, are you okay?’

No reply, nothing at all, other than a wailing and working bin lorry somewhere in the distance, as it approached the road.

‘I could get my fishing rod,’ suggested the neighbour. ‘That’ll do the trick.’

‘Do that!’ said Lena, and the guy hurried back to his house to collect his angling gear. He was back within five minutes, but by the time he’d returned, Lena had changed her mind.

‘I don’t think we should go in,’ she said. ‘I don’t like this at all. I think we should call the police.’

‘I agree, it is more than a little odd. Have you got a phone?’

Lena nodded and pulled out her phone and carefully prodded in 999.

WALTER GAWPED AT MIROSLAV Rekatic and rippled his eyebrows as a little reminder that he was still awaiting a reply.

‘Sorry,’ said Rekatic. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said, when did you last visit Ellie?’

‘Er,’ Rekatic scratched his chin, trying hard to remember, or was that a charade he was putting on to gain thinking time. ‘Last week sometime.’

‘When last week?’ shot back Karen.

‘Friday, yes, I think it was Friday.’

‘Come on Miro, you can do better than that. You weren’t visiting her to drop off