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

one more reason he had never sought the top dog job. He would remain in the field for as long as he could. The idea of him sitting in his run down Edwardian detached house, flicking through daytime TV channels, alone, with his Police magazines and newsletters and Racing Post, was one too dreadful to contemplate.

‘It’s coming to crunch time,’ she said.

He knew what that meant, but she explained it in more detail.

‘The Met will be brought in. We’ll lose control of the case. Lapdogs, that’s what we’ll become, lapdogs to the mountain lion, do you want that?’

There had been a time when he was the mountain lion, as she described it. He’d enjoyed it too, being parachuted in, taking charge of complicated murder cases from Cornwall to Norfolk, from Northumbria to the south coast, annoying the local plod, detecting errors, pointing out their provincial mistakes, and getting up everyone’s nose. But he would produce a result by identifying the killer, making an arrest, prosecuting the criminal, securing a conviction, witnessing the satisfying moment of sentence, and seeing the devil being taken down. So why couldn’t he do that again?

‘It will be a huge stain on my curriculum vitae...’ she said, ‘and yours too.’

He knew that, about his record being stained, but was too old to worry about failure. It wasn’t the stain on his record that concerned him; it was failing to bring the culprit to justice that irked him. He had never failed to track down and prosecute a serial killer, and he wasn’t going to spoil that record.

‘Let’s get Karen and Cresta in and go over everything again,’ she said, and the four-way meeting began.

‘We are missing something,’ said Joan West. ‘Missing something!’

Of course we are missing something, thought Walter. Six bloody deaths and we still don’t have a prime suspect. But what?

‘How is the car search business going?’ he asked, though he was thinking of something else.

‘Almost finished,’ said Karen, ‘only about twenty to do.’

‘Maybe that will turn something up,’ mumbled Walter.

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Mrs West, becoming more impatient.

It wouldn’t turn anything up because it couldn’t, because unbeknown to them, the killer had already been checked and passed and eliminated from their enquiries. It had happened the previous Saturday afternoon. Two rookie police officers had called at Iona House, as Samantha was preparing to go out.

‘Sorry to bother you, ma’am,’ said the first, as the second checked out the slender, classy woman. ‘Just routine enquiries, but we want to look over your car?’

‘Sure,’ she said, in that gentle way of hers, producing the keys from her designer bag, and leading them across the small car park to her gleaming Cayton Cerisa. She didn’t need to go near the car, she could have stood on the doorstep and pointed and fired, but that seemed bad manners, so she followed them toward it before opening up.

‘Is it OK to go inside?’ said the handsome younger bloke.

‘Course,’ she said, nodding, her blonde bob cut shivering in the breeze.

He opened the boot.

Empty, nothing there at all, pristinely clean, like the lady herself. You could always tell. Not a hair out of place, perfect make-up, everything immaculate.

He opened the doors and climbed inside. Glanced in the glove compartment, under the seats, in the side panels, in the cash box nestling beneath the handbrake, in the CD holder secreted up toward the roof to fool potential car thieves, nothing on the parcel shelf, nothing in the pouches on the back of the front seats except for an old and outdated UK road atlas, once common. Now redundant through satnav.

No craft knives or rolls of brown tape, no railway timetables with details of services along the North Wales coast, no hose-piping to introduce gas, no lingering smell or sign of gas either, no bumps or scratches on the front of the vehicle, no syringes, or signs of drugs of any kind, not even a blessed aspirin. Clean as a fresh penny whistle.

They tried to engage her in casual conversation. Samantha knew that. Perhaps they were hoping she would invite them into the flat. There was no chance of that. Hell would freeze over first. Perhaps they were hoping for a relaxing coffee and a sit down on her leather chesterfield, even a free sandwich. It was never going to happen.

‘Will you be much longer?’ she asked. ‘It’s just I have a date, and William goes crazy if I’m late.’

The two guys shared a look. Lucky William.

‘No, miss, I think we are finished here.’

‘Excellent,’ she said, locking the back door and getting into the car, making ready to drive away.

They smiled at her again and she smiled back.

They would never forget that smile.

Jumped in the police car and drove away.

Before they had gone twenty yards one of them said, ‘Before you say anything, I most definitely would.’

‘Me too, no doubt about it.’

‘You’re married.’

‘Don’t care.’

‘It couldn’t have been her anyway,’ said cop number two. ‘The killer has green eyes, so Cresta Raddish said. Did you see her blue eyes?’

‘Of course I did. You couldn’t miss ’em.’

‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen such blue eyes.’

‘William goes crazy,’ cop number one mimicked her words.

‘I’ll bet he does,’ said the other.

‘He probably gives her a right thrashing.’

‘I’d give her a good thrashing if I had the chance,’ said the other, and as they were thinking about that, driving concentration waned. Neither was the young woman concentrating as she stepped out into the road, pushing a buggy containing two gurgling toddlers.

The cop braked at the last moment, throwing up smoke, depositing rubber on the tired tarmac; blowing a loud squeal into the air. Stopped in time, no sweat, only just, though, as the dizzy young thing grinned into the car and mouthed: Sorry, as if it had been her fault.

After that, the policemen forgot about the fragrant woman. They were thinking of their next five appointments, all in Handbridge. They were nearly finished, and because flashy Japanese hatchback owners were likely to be owned by young and attractive career