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

left off the main road, past the house with those multi-coloured dahlias in the garden, really quite a show, they should be proud of that, thought Walter, if only he had the time to grow dahlias, but there would be plenty of time for that, one day, and up and over the narrow stone humpback bridge, and down toward the marina where more than a hundred craft were moored up, some looking tired and abandoned, some being laid up at the end of the season, some still gleaming and cleaned, waiting and ready for late season holidaymakers, like Walter Darriteau and his friends.

Carrie pulled the cab into the car park, gently stopped and tugged on the handbrake.

‘There you are, Sir,’ she said. ‘That will be twenty-five quid.’

‘’Bout right,’ he muttered, ‘what with inflation, and all.’

Walter got out of the car and went to the backseat and took out his bag, and slammed the door. Carrie the Cab got out and went to the boot and opened up, took out her bag, and closed the door and beeped the car locked, smiled at him and linked his arm, and they ambled down together in the watery sunshine toward the single story brick block, thirty yards away.

‘Come on, Inspector,’ she said. ‘It’s holiday time.’

‘Call me Walter, please.’

But if she heard him he couldn’t tell, and she didn’t reply, but said, mischievously, he thought, ‘Are you going to inspect me?’

His eyebrows departed for his hairline and he said, ‘Play your cards right!’ and she laughed, quite endearingly. He’d surprised her when he’d asked her to accompany him. But she’d said yes in an instant.

The block housed a grocery shop, but there was no one in there, and next door was a chandlers, housing boat bits and parts and ropes and oils and manuals and guidebooks, and everything you needed to pilot a boat safely up and down the Shropshire Union Canal. Next to that, was the office where new arrivals booked themselves in, and received twenty minutes light training, if they hadn’t sailed a narrowboat before.

Carrie’s brother and his wife Jill were already there, seated and waiting, Geoff in trendy grubby denim from head to foot, too young for him really, thought Walter, reading canal magazines, boning up on the routes and pitfalls and all that kind of stuff. Nice people, easy to get along with, though just for a second Walter imagined that the holiday might have been kind of nicer if it had been just him and Carrie, but no matter. The others sure would come in useful crewing the narrow but long craft, what with berthing and locks and ropes, and God alone knows what other challenges awaited them.

Walter had recently met them in the Peacock pub, a quick dry run, to see if they could all get along in a confined space for a whole week. It had been a unanimous yes, but they had enjoyed a few drinks together, and yes’s were always more likely in such circumstances, and only time would tell. There were two big boxes of provisions there too, on the floor, groceries and drinks and matches, and rolls of paper towels and cleaning stuff and nonsense, all kind of gear that Walter would never have bought and brought in a blue moon. Geoff had insisted that he would get all the gear, and Walter had slipped a welcome twenty into his hand when his wife wasn’t looking.

The boat instructor came in and said, ‘Hello,’ - a young wiry kid in his early twenties, and he asked them if they’d been on the canals before. They all had, except Carrie, and she said, ‘I’m a virgin,’ and they all laughed uncomfortably at that.

‘That’s great! Nowt to it! You’ll be fine, summat ’n’ nottin,’ and that was about the sum total of the instruction they were going to enjoy, as he said, ‘Come on! I’ll show you round the Queen Mary,’ and they grabbed their bags and followed him down the towpath, round a corner and past a dozen other moored and sleeping boats, all snuggled up close together as if hunkering down for winter. They came to a bright red white and blue boat that sure enough had a huge placard on the side that said: The QUEEN MARY, and an equally big phone number beneath for the benefit of gongoozling watchers, a kind of walking, floating, boating, advertising hoarding that would gently mosey on through the Shropshire, Cheshire, and Borderland countryside, before they crossed the line and ventured into deepest Wales, where they planned to take on the high and truly frightening aqueducts that were far more of an adrenaline rush than any fairground ride could ever be, even if their boat was restricted to a paltry 4mph.

The kid jumped aboard and unlocked the door and invited them on. Down three steep steps and they were inside. Large double bedroom at the back, or stern, as the kid insisted on calling it, with a pretty good en suite, a big long lounge with comfortable looking chairs, and a flatscreen TV slapped on the wall to remind them they were truly in the twenty-first century, and not the eighteenth when the canals had first been dug out by Irish navigators, navvies.

There was a modern kitchen in the corner with everything you might need to make a three course meal, roast chicken, and all the trimmings, or whatever, a small fridge with a bottle of white wine inside, compliments of the “shipping line”, and a pull out table with stools to sit and eat at, and already the kid was through to the front, or the bows, and another similar set-up double bedroom, and another very smart en suite.

Then he took them back to the stern, opened up the engine and showed them the oil and water, and what had to be done down there, and the sewage disposal arrangements, very important, he stressed, you don’t want an overflow in there, and the men glimpsed over