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

She glanced at the browsed fruit, and wondered how long he’d been waiting. He couldn’t have known she couldn’t eat a thing.

Walter exhaled and checked out the room. There were so many things he wanted to ask, but it didn’t seem the right moment.

‘I didn’t see him,’ she said, her voice coming out in half whispered croaks.

‘A him?’

Karen nodded and mumbled, ‘Strong.’

Walter’s turn to nod.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘this person has a big grudge against us, against me. He tried to hurt me by taking you. He must have seen us together on the TV, in the papers; it’s very personal for him. Who would have a beef like that?’

Karen pulled a face and shook her head. Whispered, ‘Could be anyone, must be hundreds...’ as her voice tailed away.

‘Yeah, but this guy’s got a bigger grudge than the usual nutters.’

She frowned and shook her head.

‘Beats me,’ he said, ‘there must be something.’

He glanced into her face. Was there a hint of recognition? She tried to speak. An otherworldly breath escaped her lips. She turned to the bedside table, pointed to a pad and a blue pen. There was ample writing on the pad: need loo, need water, terrible headache, another pillow, hungry. He placed the pad in front of her and the pen in her right hand. She was cack handed, he’d forgotten, took it from the right, slipped it into the left. She half smiled, and began writing.

H...

‘Harris?’ he said.

Shook her head. O...

‘Hooker?’

She shook her head.

He gave up trying to guess.

L...I...D...A...Y.

‘Holiday, when I was on holiday?’

Karen bobbed her head.

Walter never took holidays. He hated going away. He hated leaving his station to come back to find other people sitting at his desk, other officers dealing with his cases, poking around. He hated missing the day-to-day things, tiny facts that could later build into a case, clues that once missed were gone forever, and you could miss so much in two long weeks. It took ages to get back up to speed afterwards. Holidays were for amateurs.

The spring before last Mrs West lost patience with him and ordered him away from the station for two weeks. She said he was tired, jaded, and not the Walter of old, all facts he decried. He’d gone home, where he’d sat alone for forty-eight hours, before ringing in and pleading to be allowed back.

‘No!’ she said, ‘You come back and you collect your cards.’

Why he did what he did next, he couldn’t explain. He jumped a train to London, then the express commuter to Heathrow, and caught the first plane to Kingston. Had to pay through the nose for a standby ticket and that annoyed him. He hadn’t been back for twenty years and most of the people he knew were dead. His parents had been dead when he’d left the island as a nine-year-old, packed off all alone to see his Aunt Mimosa in Brixton. He thought he was on a holiday treat back then, only to discover he had a one-way ticket. Walter wouldn’t be going back. He’d never gone back, not permanently. His Aunt Mimosa was his new mummy, the only person he had in the whole world. She was dead too.

Throughout the ten-day stay, he revisited all the haunts of his childhood. Reminiscing, seeing fleeting ghosts from his past, playing with his schoolboy pals in the fields and on the beach with Jackie Nurse. Jackie had later gone to the States and fallen in with the wrong crowd. Got busted for car theft, drug running, and possessing an illegal weapon. He was sent to the FSP, the Florida State Prison in Bradford County.

And Wellworthy Griffiths, Welly, as everyone called him. Walter tried to find out what happened to Welly, but no one knew. They shrugged their shoulders and said, ‘He’s gone away,’ as if he’d vanished. ‘He’s gone away,’ no one knew where, no one knew when, hadn’t been seen in years. No one seemed to care much either. Walter wondered what happened to his friend, the tall skinny happy kid who would bowl at him all day long, as Walter tried to copy the main man, Everton Weekes, Sir Everton DeCourcy Weekes, to give him his full title, the greatest batsman ever to pick up a cricket bat, according to Walter Darriteau, even if he was a Barbadian.

Maybe when Walter retired, he could return to Jamaica and use his detection skills to find out what really happened to Wellworthy Griffiths, though even as the thought occurred to him, he knew he wouldn’t.

The holiday took ages to run its course, and when it was through, he was glad to be going home, for Britain was his home. It had been for fifty years, more than five sixths of his entire life. It was where he belonged, where his work was, where his friends were, where the he-she thing lived, where he wanted to be.

He glanced back at Karen.

‘What happened when I was on holiday?’

Karen gulped, tried to speak. Pointed at the glass of water. Walter handed it to her. She noticed his hand shook. Took a big pull on the glass, emptied it. Walter refilled it. Set it on the table. Karen nodded her thanks. Started writing again.

D...E...A...

‘Death?’ he said, unable to stop himself.

Karen half smiled and nodded.

O...N

‘Death on the Nile?’

Karen smirked and shook her head. Began again.

R...A...

‘Radio? Range? Race? Rally?’

Karen shook her head, carried on.

I...L...

‘Rail? Death on the railway?’

Karen stopped and nodded.

‘Like at Mostyn?’

‘Ya,’ she said, one short, sharp syllable.

‘Where?’

Karen shook her head.

‘You can’t remember? You don’t know?’

She nodded.

‘What about a death on the railway?’

She looked spent, close to tears, looked in need of a week’s sleep.

‘I need a name, Karen, I need a name.’

She closed her eyes, thinking, resting, sleeping, maybe.

Her blue eyes popped open again. Recognition, memory, fighting through whatever drugs they’d pumped into her. Began writing again.

H...O...L...L...O...

It took an age to write.

W...A...Y.

‘Holloway,’ he said aloud. It meant nothing to him, and yet, there was something there, but what? He couldn’t remember.