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

the base. It is an enormous site; you will want for nothing there, supermarket, cinema, bowling facilities, swimming pool. I doubt you will leave that often.’

‘I see.’

‘You will report to a Professor Mary Craigieson, got that?’

‘Mary Craigieson,’ Desiree repeated.

Mrs Bloemfontein nodded and said, ‘Any questions?’

‘No, none.’

‘If you think of any later, you have my number. That concludes this meeting. Good luck. I am sure you will do well.’

Mrs Bloemfontein stood, switched off the device and offered her hand. Desi took it and shook it, the same cold handshake, and an awkward moment as Desi stood her ground, only to be nodded away. Desi was dismissed. Time for someone new. She bobbed her head and left the room.

In the morning a black BMW took the same four students back to Ludlow railway station, where they boarded separate trains and headed home. Desiree would never see Billington Hall again.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The PM report on Sally Beauchamp was in. Walter mulled it over in his mind. Death by asphyxiation, but a considerable amount of flunitrazepam evident in the body, Rohypnol by any other name, the date rape drug. Where does one acquire flunitrazepam? In the past, there may have been a lead there, tracking the supply chain, but now? No chance.

It came from the Internet, where else? Log on, type prescription drug supply into the browser and away you go. The Internet was a wonderful invention, but it had a lot to answer for, and policing it was impossible.

The suppliers were likely to be in Latvia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Jamaica or Belize. A hopeless task and what about quality control? Who knows what substandard product might be delivered, if anything ever came, when one went online and paid through the nose for prescription drugs bought without a prescription?

Death by asphyxiation.

What kind of person could do that? Walter put himself in the killer’s shoes, tried to imagine what was going through his, or her sick mind, as they wound a whole roll of sticky tape around someone’s face. What was the point in that, when a couple of feet would have done the job? No fingerprints on the roll either, not a surprise. Walter hadn’t expected any.

He wondered if the killer enjoyed it, the drawn-out act of murdering a fellow human being. It wasn’t like a single gunshot or stab wound, over in a second. No, this must have gone on for minutes. Hadn’t it worried them? Were they happy in their work? Smiling, grinning, chuckling, what? Were they talking too, as they went about their murderous work, winding round and round, perhaps talking dirty as if frantically making love. What was in the killer’s mind? Would he ever know?

He was sitting in John’s office, Mrs West’s, and Cresta was rabbiting on about something. He glanced across at her. What was this? A primrose blouse, unbelievable, that was different. The purple garb must have been in the wash. It still left purple skirt, eye shadow, nails, hair, and lips. Darting lips, spouting forth her latest theory. Not that he heard a word. They were a nightmare, those purple salivating lips.

He pondered on whether Cresta was someone’s squeeze. She had never mentioned anyone. No rings that day, either. If she had worn any, they would have contained purple stones. A nightmarish thought flashed through his head. Him waking on a Sunday morning, finding Cresta there in the bed, purple from toenails to hair, some kind of weird purple alien, talking, talking, talking, spewing out verbiage through those restless lips, expounding new thinking, fresh from the killer’s mind.

Sounded good, meant nothing.

Walter had been in the game long enough to know that no matter how well you knew someone, whatever they said, did, wrote, or intimated, you never knew what was in the dark recesses of the human mind. You couldn’t imagine what complicated thought processes were going on in there, because human beings didn’t want you to know, because they were too scared, frightened, and ashamed of their real thoughts, and of other people knowing them.

Cresta Raddish had been a useful addition to the team, he would admit that. When any bunch of human beings met and mulled over a complicated case, there was always the chance someone might throw a new thought into the communal pot. It hadn’t happened yet, but it didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. But neither did it mean profilers were the answer to all their problems and thank God for that.

Cresta Raddish contributed nothing toward the killer’s arrest, but no one had, because the killer was still at large. Free to murder again, something Walter was convinced he, she, or it, would do, and sooner rather than later. Or maybe they had already. At least they knew the Chester Mollester was the killer. Any idea of a crazy hoaxer was out. The last missive named the latest victim’s initials, SB. Long before a body was discovered, before any murder was known about.

Death by asphyxiation, the latest in a long and differing line, death by asphyxiation, by slitting wrists, carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, being flattened by a train, by being run down by a car. What next? Where does The Chester Mollester go after that? Was there any pattern to it? There was a build-up in the ferocity of the personal violence inflicted on the victims, but where and when and what was to come? If Walter had to guess, he would plump for firearms. But could the he-she thing gain access to a gun? The Internet again. Could anyone buy a firearm online? Probably, if you looked hard enough.

Cresta’s lips ceased flexing like a rubber puppet’s. Thank heaven for that. She had run out of words, for now.

Earlier, Mrs West had called him into her private sanctum for a one-to-one. She explained she was under enormous pressure. Weren’t we all, Walter wanted to add, but didn’t, and he could imagine the daily strained telephone calls from her superiors that must have wriggled into her business-like head.

He didn’t envy her that,