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

all three, but one thing was for damn sure, these guys were under pressure to behave, and to produce.

‘How long have we got?’ asked Walter.

The pilot glanced at his watch. He saw 15.10.

‘I can give you till 15.45,’ he said, ‘not a moment longer, if we are to get away today, we must move by then.’

Half an hour leeway from the original departure time, that was decent of him, but would it be enough?

‘No time to waste,’ said Walter.

Dan had been translating proceedings, as neither of the Chinese officers spoke English.

‘Where do you want to start, Jun?’ asked Walter.

‘Down below,’ she said. ‘The ten foot tin tomb?’

Walter nodded and said, ‘Tell the deputy dog to lead the way,’ and Jun barked something at him that sounded incredibly abrupt, and the young officer jumped on the spot, and glanced at his superior and was nodded on, and he was leading them all inside the superstructure and toward the first set of steps, and they began descending, glancing at their watches as they went, leaving the pilot, looking confused, to return to his duties.

Down and down, six decks down.

The Divine Providence wasn’t similar to Heavenly Peace at all. She was exactly the same, an identical twin, as if, as soon as HP had left the stocks some high powered manager had come along and said, ‘What are you all waiting for, guys? Repeat the exercise. Build another one!’ And the DP had been born, using the same yard and the same plans, the same workforce, the same everything, and it all made perfect sense. It’s always easier and quicker to build a copy of an original. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken. A production line for metal monsters, and voila, there you have it, two mighty ships, ready and sailing on the big pond.

Along a clean corridor, smell of oil, lots of thick coloured pipes, red and orange and blue, running along the ceiling and walls and tucked into the side of the floor, softly vibrating engines, making ready to put to sea. Jun leading, the rest trooping behind, wondering where they were heading. They stopped half way down the corridor and Jun touched the solid metal door and said, ‘Here, this is the room, I was held here,’ ’cept she wasn’t held there at all because it had been on a different ship in a different time, and the young officer glanced at his boss and he yelled, ‘Open up!’ - even Walter didn’t need that translating, and the young guy opened the door and snapped on the solitary light that was set in the centre of a metal ceiling, housed behind thick unbreakable wavy glass.

Jun stepped inside, and everyone followed, Sergeant Gill having to be careful he didn’t bang his head on the light.

The room was empty.

Not a single thing in there.

Just a cold dank tin tomb, ten by ten, thought Walter, and they all glanced at Jun as if she had fouled up.

‘What is this room used for?’ asked Walter.

Dan and Jun both translated.

The captain shrugged as if he felt uncomfortable with the answer. A question he would rather duck. Walter stuck his hands in his jacket pocket and glared across and waited for a reply.

The captain began speaking.

‘It’s just err,’ all a bit of a stumbled reply came forth, ‘occasionally if we have, err, someone who needs disciplining, if, err, someone has done something wrong, seriously wrong, they might be, err, shut in here, for a day or two.’

Dan translated, err’s included, with an air of discomfort. Walter glanced at Jun for confirmation, realising that she could be on tricky ground herself, but regardless, she nodded confidently.

The officers and the diplomat stepped outside; convinced it was all one big mistake. Walter glanced at Karen and Jun, and they all stared at the rutted metal walls, painted off white, and the floor, painted off white, and smudged and scuffed where some poor souls had been brought and locked in for heaven knows how long, without food and drink. There was nothing in there, not a thing, not even a piece of rope or a small tin of paint, a stool, a bowl, nothing at all.

Or was there?

Walter crouched down. Ran the palm of his hand across the cold and dank floor. Bit of dust, bit of muck, bit of detritus that seems to get everywhere, even inside a sealed room, so it would seem, that never saw the light of day, but there was something else there too, something small and sharp, something no one else had seen or touched, for if they had, they might have removed it.

Walter’s large index finger and thumb closed around the tiny object in the dim light like a prosthetic limb. He stood up and held it to the light. There was no doubt about it. It was part of a fingernail. A woman’s fingernail, and on the sliver of nail was a fragment of scarlet nail varnish, and a picture of Jessica lounging on his sofa, painting her nails, flooded into his head.

‘What is it?’ asked Jun.

‘Part of a woman’s fingernail,’ said Walter.

‘Let me see!’ she said.

Walter carefully set it in her hand.

She presented it to her young and perfect eyes, 20:20 vision, passed that test without a hiccup, literally in the blink of an eye, when she’d joined the HKPF.

‘It’s not Chinese!’ she said, with an air of finality that brooked no argument, though how she could tell that she didn’t say.

She stepped outside and showed the officers the fragment.

Yelled at them, courageously, Walter and Karen thought, and though they could have no idea what she was saying, they might have guessed she was repeating, ‘English girl’s fingernail! Where the fuck is she?’

And while that was all going on Walter whispered to Karen, ‘I think Jessica left that there on purpose, hoping that someone might find it.’

‘Like us, you mean?’

‘Could be. Clever girl. She’s here somewhere.’

Seventy-Eight

15.30. Walter glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes and the ship would be under