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

whom perished when it sank to the bottom of the cold Atlantic Ocean on that fateful night of the 14th/15th April 1912.

Cunard’s RMS Queen Mary, built in Glasgow, the first Queen, the one with the three red funnels, weighed in at 81,237 gross tonnes and ran with a crew of 1,174.

The State of Divine Providence, built in China, categorised as a VLCS, which sounded kind of sophisticated, but simply meant Very Large Container Ship, was a big big girl, weighing in at 169,500 gross weight tonnes. Imagine putting them on a gigantic seesaw, the Divine Providence on one end and the Titanic and the Queen Mary together on the other. No contest! The DP would bust any scales anywhere, far more than the Titanic and the Queen Mary combined, yet it ran with a crew of just 19 human beings, and no passengers, so the shipping company’s website stated. But was that strictly true, that statement about No Passengers, on this trip? Walter hoped not.

Liverpool was one of the few ports in Britain capable of handling such a monster. Plenty of room inside a ship like that to hide something of value, even lots of things of value, like a human being, and a super being at that.

15.03. THE TIDE WAS high, springtide in the autumn, Karen still struggled with that misnomer, and they’d made it there with minutes to spare. But the ship was getting ready to sail, that was obvious enough, because there were three tugs from the Rea company fussing around her skirts, pooping a foghorn every now and again when they wanted attention, and there were stevedores on the quayside, standing around the fat poly blue ropes, laughing and joking and thinking of beer and ciggies and football, for there would always be time for that, waiting for their orders, and there were nervous people up top, glaring down over the side, anxious not to make a mistake, anxious not to break anything, for 169,500 tonnes could do an awful lot of damage if it bumped things. People staring down at the ropes, and the stevedores and the silver Volvo, and the four people who had just arrived and had stepped out, and were approaching the last remaining gangplank.

‘She is massive!’ repeated Karen.

‘Biggest ship you will ever see,’ said Gill. ‘Bigger than any cruise liner, bigger than the weightiest American aircraft carrier, and the only vessel that could rival a VLCS is the biggest and blandest of the oil tankers.’

There were an amazing number of containers on the ship, stretching high into the autumnal sky, while the high cream coloured bridge swept across the width of the vessel, about three-quarters of the way along. Eight stories of accommodation and workspace, judging by the windows and portholes.

‘She may be vast,’ said Walter, ‘but she’s little more than an orange box really, simply packed with containers.’

‘A big girl like this can carry 18,000 of the buggers,’ said Gill.

‘Let’s hope Jessica’s not in a container,’ said Karen, and that was a dreadful thought that none of them had considered.

‘Unlikely,’ said Gill, ‘They’re all sealed.’

They could all be opened and closed again, thought Walter, and he nodded Karen and Jun up the gangplank, as Walter limped up behind, and Gill brought up the rear. At the top, there was a reception committee that would have done the Queen proud. The captain in new uniform; nicely pressed, he’d been seeking an opportunity to wear it for weeks, and he wasn’t going to pass up on his chance. A second officer, younger, nervous individual, career minded, wondering right there if his chosen path might have been a bad one, smart uniform he’d been ordered to throw on at short notice for the occasion, but old and worn and tired, and it all looked a bit hurried.

Next to him, a civilian diplomat, who turned out to be Da Chung from the Consulate, Dan, as he liked to be called in England, and the pilot, a local man named Beardmore, who was looking to steer the ship out of the dock, and away from the mouth of the river. That was the plan. He’d done it a hundred times before, though not often with a vessel the size of the DP.

The captain saluted, to Jun first, maybe that wasn’t so surprising, then to the big black man, because he carried gravitas, at the uniformed English Dock policeman, and lastly at the young blonde. The second dick saluted too, didn’t want to be left out of the loop. Walter didn’t have time for such niceties, and neither did Jessica, if she really was on board.

The captain said something in Chinese and Jun answered back.

‘He welcomes you aboard,’ said Jun.

Walter nodded and glanced across at them. They all looked incredibly worried, or could that be guilt, if only by association?

Despite all the modernisation in China, and all the money they were accruing, and the rampant consumerism that was taking hold in that amazing country, it was still a strict communist state, one party, one wish, one law, one God, and when the big dog barked, the pooches all fall in line. To do otherwise could be dangerous.

China executes more people than any other country on earth, human rights are often at the back of the queue, and you don’t always have to kill someone to reap the ultimate sentence. Crossing someone in a position of power, or putting the big dog’s nose out of joint, could well land you in hot water. Sadly, sometimes it happened. Just how well connected and important was Jessica’s buyer? How high up the pecking order? How much clout and influence?

But those guys gathered there couldn’t have been more helpful, or so it seemed, and Walter gained the distinct impression that someone, somewhere, had put big pressure on to squash the problem, whatever it was. He wondered if it had come through Jun’s phone call to Hong Kong, or maybe Mrs West’s to the Consulate, or something else, or