The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 David Carter (autobiographies to read txt) 📖

a man who thought he’d already won the war, the other girl in the doorway was peering back down the corridor, looking out for her mate, and the young fit looking guy seemingly wasn’t armed. They had all underestimated him, and now they would pay the price.

His right hand shot out toward the drawer and the Glock 17 that was sleeping there. Karen caught the sudden movement, but too late, she wasn’t quite on the right line, fired anyway, one shot, big racket, plenty smoke, but the bullet missed and slapped into the wall. Brinton had a gun in his hand, bringing it up fast, yet it seemed like slow motion, trying to get off a shot at the Chinese bitch he’d always loathed, always known was big trouble, the same slut who’d brought the law to his door.

There was nothing slow motion about the short arm jab that Walter issued, left-hander too. It connected with Brinton’s chin, flush on the button, one big fleshy hand, packed with fifty-eight year-old bones, bones that hadn’t yet gone soft. They all heard the crack, as Walter’s fist smashed into Brinton’s stubbly chin. One big lights out punch, issued with no backlift whatsoever.

Brinton’s eyes glazed over, his iris’s appeared to leap to the top of his eye sockets, his right hand went up and up, still holding the skewing gun, and the last thing he remembered was squeezing the trigger. A single shot thudded into the ceiling, sending down a mini-cloud of dust and muck. The gun fell to the carpet and skittered away. Gibbons jumped on it and picked it up and yelled, ‘Glock 17, Guv, maybe your man’s,’ as Brinton fell over to his right, and against the wall, and collapsed to the floor on his back.

Gibbons knelt down and patted Brinton’s cheek.

‘Geez, Guv, I think you’ve broken his jaw. He’s out cold.’

‘Pity. I wanted to talk to him, and I wanted him to talk to me.’

Karen bent down. She’d been on first aid courses. Said, ‘I think he’s quite seriously injured, Guv,’ and she was already on her mobile, calling an ambulance.

Seemed a bit odd to Walter. One moment they are happy to try and shoot him dead, and in the next they were summoning ambulances because the poor chap had a sore face, but she was right of course, as she invariably was, just didn’t feel that way, not right there. Felt like rough justice.

Jan came back.

‘There are no keys at reception.’

Walter said, ‘Jun, see if there are any keys in Brinton’s pocket,’ and she said, ‘Sure, Guv,’ which was a nice thing, she didn’t have to say “Guv”, and she nodded and knelt down and felt his trousers, and grinned and came up with a monster ring-load of keys.

‘Onward and upward,’ said Walter, and he and Jun left the room and turned right, and headed for the end of the corridor, and the double doors that led into the inner hallway, and beyond.

Seventy-Six

13.30. Jun Woo tried a key. Didn’t work. Tried another. That didn’t work either. No point in getting impatient, thought Walter, think of the blood pressure, and he thought of the short arm jab he’d issued, and realised that all those hours watching videos and DVDs of Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, and more recently, Floyd Mayweather, had all come together and had produced one big dividend. Zonk! Bang! Lights out! Happy days! He hadn’t even hurt his hand.

Jun tried another key and the lock turned over as clean as a whistle. She glanced back over her shoulder and smiled and the big bear of a man grinned and nodded her on, and then the doors were open and they were inside the inner hallway.

Walter glanced about. Saw the small office to the right, nodded Jun that way, and in the next second she was at the door, trying a key, the correct one first time, and in they went. Walter snapped on the striplight, it spluttered and coughed and burst into bright white light. One desk, one chair either side, one empty washing up bowl on the floor to the right, not the kind of thing you’d expect to see in an office, so why was it there? There was a burn mark on the desk, a neglected cigarette maybe, though it didn’t look like that to him.

He tried the desk drawers. Not locked. Pulled one open. Half eaten packet of biscuits, three-quarters eaten bar of chocolate, attract mice if they weren’t careful, large plastic bottle of water, almost empty, so what was this place? A break room? A refreshment room where people went to top up their energy levels before going back to work, or could these be emergency rations for someone incarcerated there? And what exactly was that bowl for? Walter had an idea about that. Opened the second drawer. Large collection of black cable ties, strewn around, loose, and ready to pick one out at short notice, ideal for restraining things, like human limbs, maybe to the chair.

Inspected the chair frames, no skin, no blood, no signs of bodily stress or torture, inspected the floor, no sign of blood either, so far as he could see, and that was positive, but if you had a very valuable human being, and were trying to sell her, or him, for big money, you’d hardly be likely to smack it about, would you? You might ruin the deal: Here’s your goods, sorry about the state of the face. Nah, you’d keep them looking pretty.

Tried the third drawer, nothing in there other than a couple of ball-pens and some loose white paper, nothing written at all. He took out the top sheet, held it to the light, no indentations so far as he could see, from some previous writing, nothing to be gleaned.

Jun went outside and approached the double doors into the assembly plant. Glanced back over her shoulder. Saw Walter come out of the small room. She glanced down at the keys.