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

The cancellation of my scholarship to King’s, losing my dancing lessons I adored, the harassment and bullying at Saint Edmond’s, the sickness to the pit of my stomach at being rejected by countless foster parents, who would stare down at me and force a closed mouthed smile, and shake their heads. He isn’t quite right, they’d often say, or, he’s not the one for us, just look at him! As they made little attempt to conceal their opinions or contempt or distaste, as if I were stone deaf to their spitefulness.

The shame and worry of being harassed, pressurised and touched by the vicar, Christian de Wyk, coming to terms with my weird adolescent appearance during those crucial formative years, and almost worst of all, the breaking and loss of my wonderful voice on the eve of my big broadcast concert, a festival that some forecast would change my life forever.

My silly falling in love and failed attempts at wooing Machara McGowan, and her trite and hurtful putdown, You’re no-ooo a Scot! And my unsuccessful dates with Jillian’s friends; and failed affairs with drunken women, old and young alike, some with teeth, some without.

Everyone suffers setbacks in their life. It is natural. That is what life is all about. Adversity, but few will have encountered as many as I.

And yet I would have traded all those losses in an instant to be rid of the one catastrophic blow that struck me down the day that Desiree was murdered. Something deep within me died that day. My love of life, perhaps, my love of people, my sanity. They all came under ferocious attack.

One month before she died, Desiree confessed her sins to me.

She had been keeping secrets from me, terrible things, appalling things, unbelievable things that at first I could not comprehend.

She was a killer.

I was living with a killer.

I was married to a killer.

She was killing innocent human beings.

The person I shared my life with, the person I shared my body with, the person I shared my mind and destiny with, my soul with, was killing other people.

Can you imagine how you would deal with that?

If the love of your life came home one day and spilled such wickedness, what would you do? What would you say? Would you want them to touch you again? Would you move out? Would you divorce them? Would you call the police?

If you loved someone as I loved Desiree, you would not do those things because you could not live without them. Yet you would never feel the same way again. It placed terrible strains on our marriage, and on our love. 

Long after she was snatched from me, I saw the black policeman on the television. He was threatening me. Saying things like we would be meeting soon, he would catch me, and I would have to look into his eyes and deal with him. While he was talking he’d look at the blonde sergeant, and she would glance affectionately back, and I knew there was a close bond between them, and wanted to destroy that bond. I wanted to hurt them; I wanted to hurt them so bad. I wanted him and her to feel what it was like to lose someone that mattered, someone they deeply cared for. I wanted them to share my pain; I wanted to kill one of them, to see how they coped with that, and in time, I wanted to kill them both.

So, black policeman, if by some strange quirk of fate you should ever cast your bloated eyes over my diaries, as one day I know someone will, even if it is one of your successors, I want to recap the names of the dead, for they deserve to be remembered.

Pay attention.

Roll-call begins.

Harold James Craddock.

Hilda Mary Anderton.

George Bellway Milkins.

Ena Frances Marlow.

William Richard Amos Clarke.

Michael Patrick O’Leary.

Thora Joyce Beckett.

Not the names you expected, eh?

Seven names. Seven human beings. Seven deaths. Seven murders.

Seven criminal killings committed by my darling wife, Desiree Mitford Holloway, during her experimental work at Eden Leys. There were others too, but these were Desiree’s personal work. Seven deaths that affected her profoundly. Seven deaths that cost her her life, seven deaths that provoked me to murder, seven times over.

Investigate that, why don’t you!

If you dare. 

WALTER SCRIBBLED THE names on his pad and set down his pen. Out of nowhere, he felt quite ill. He glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to eight. Stood up. His legs shook. Walking wasn’t easy. He was hungry and wanted

to go home. He eased the diaries into the metal cupboard, locked the door, attached the key to his key ring, went outside, slipped on his raincoat, bade the skeleton night shift a curt goodnight, and limped away to find a cab.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Walter was back in the private office by 8am, wrote a note for Karen to come and see him as soon as she arrived, and returned to the quiet room, and the diaries.

YOU MUST THINK I AM mad, and, as I have written before, I questioned my sanity. Perhaps that is why Desiree and I dovetailed so perfectly. She too questioned her sanity, and not without reason. But I am not mad when it comes to the information I have provided. Desiree killed those seven people. They lost their innocent lives in the headlong pursuit for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and I can prove it. I possess all her case notes, all the gruesome and grizzly facts.

She showed them to me because she could see the doubt in my eyes. I did not believe her; I did not believe she was capable of such heinous acts. I sat on her balcony as the beautiful Dee gurgled by, and read in detail what she did, what drugs she introduced, what incisions she made to the bodies and brains, what tissue she removed, and what torture and torment