The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 by David Carter (microsoft ebook reader TXT) 📗

RELAYED THE news and then said, ‘Obviously any and all suspects must account for their whereabouts at that time.’

‘We should ask them all,’ said Mrs West. ‘Rekatic, Flanagan, Nesbitt, Crocker, and this Williams guy.’

‘Flanagan’s tag curfew has not been breached, ma’am,’ said Jenny.

‘That’s him in the clear then.’

‘If the tag info is reliable,’ muttered Hector.

‘Don’t start that again!’

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

Walter put his phone away and said, ‘Karen and I will speak to Williams and Rekatic. I want Gibbons and Hector to speak to Flanagan, Crocker and Nesbitt. All first thing tomorrow.’

‘The sooner we get into Belinda’s technology the better,’ said an increasingly grumpy Mrs West.

‘Tech boys say we should be in there before seven tonight,’ said Karen.

‘If there is nothing more on the Bel Cooper case immediately,’ said Walter, ‘can we talk about Ellie Wright for a moment.’

Mrs West pulled a face and nodded and muttered, ‘Go for it.’

‘How did you get on Nick, checking out the pub clientele?’

‘I was just going to tell you about that,’ he said, grinning and revelling in his moment in the spotlight.

‘Well? Spit it out,’ said Walter, eager to get his teeth into any morsels of fresh intel.

‘As it happens, they did come up with one name.’

‘What?’ said Karen. ‘For one of Ellie’s known customers?’

‘Yes,’ said Nick. ‘So they say.’

‘And are you going to share that with us?’ said Walter.

Nicky Barr glanced down at his notes to make sure he wasn’t going to say anything incorrect.

‘The name they have given me was Ronny, presumably Ronald, Speight.’

‘Is he known to us?’ asked Mrs West.

‘Can’t find anything.’

‘Did you get a description?’ asked Walter.

‘I did. Six feet plus, maybe as much as six feet five inches tall, lucky man, slimmish build, dark neatly parted hair.’

‘There are a lot of tall people in the world all of a sudden,’ said Gibbons, saying what others were thinking.

‘Yes,’ said Walter, ‘and Lena said that Bel only liked tall men. Be nice if this Ronny Speight character was one of the five just men,’ and he turned to Karen and told her to ring Lena and ask her if the name Ronny Speight meant anything to her.

They all heard her ask the question, and soon gathered there was a positive answer coming back.

‘I’ve been racking my brains trying to remember his name,’ said Lena. ‘How did you know?’

‘Just a name that has come up in our enquiries. Do you know where he lives?’

‘Not exactly, but I’m pretty sure South Wirral somewhere, Burton, Mollington, Willaston, one of them places.’

‘Thanks for that,’ said Karen.

‘Glad to be of help. Is it true what they are saying?’

‘What are they saying?’

‘That Bel’s dead, that she has been murdered.’

‘Just a sec,’ and Karen glanced at Mrs West and Walter in turn, and said, ‘She’s asking if Belinda Cooper is dead?’

‘We can’t go on saying nothing forever,’ said Mrs West. ‘It will be all over the media any time soon.’

‘Tell her the truth,’ said Walter. ‘That we have found a body, but it has yet to be formally identified.’

Karen nodded and looked suitably grim, and relayed the info to Lena Freeman. Lena gasped for breath, and started crying and rang off.

‘So,’ said Walter, turning over the fresh news in his mind. ‘There can’t be that many Ronny Speights living in South Wirral. I’ll give you fifteen minutes to come up with his address.’

Jennifer Thompson did it in eight, courtesy of the voter’s roll, or at least there was definitely a Ronald Colin Speight living in Sandstone Cottages, Burton, South Wirral, and it seemed more than likely that he was the first man who positively linked both cases together.

‘We’ll go and see him in a minute,’ said Walter. ‘In the meantime, crack on with everything else we have discussed.’

Twenty-One 

Sandstone Cottages lived up to their name, constructed from the local red sandstone. A pair of semi-detached houses with grey stone lined windows, and small neat gardens to the front. Karen opened the green timber front gate, and Walter ambled through it and up to the matching green timber front door.

He reached out and grabbed the brass doorknocker and banged it twice. In the next second a bolt was drawn across the door from the inside, and the door opened with a slight squeak. He was a big man, was Ronald Colin Speight, and the door wasn’t particularly high, so he had to stoop a little to see who was bothering him.

‘Ronald Speight?’ said Karen.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Police,’ said Walter, flashing ID. ‘Can we come in?’

‘Can I stop you?’

‘You could do, though we’d think that awfully uncooperative.’

Speight grimaced and clicked his tongue, and nodded them in. They went through to the back of the house where there was a large square kitchen, maybe seventeen or eighteen feet square. In the centre was a rectangular dining table on which sat an opened copy of that night’s Liverpool Echo, the crossword half done, an ashtray with a recent cigarette butt, and a half full mug of stewed tea.

Speight sat in front of the tea as Walter sat opposite. Karen remained standing, looking around at pictures and photos on the walls, and at anything else that caught her eye.

‘So,’ Speight said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You know Belinda Cooper?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Just answer the question,’ said Karen, smiling down encouragingly at the neat cut man.

‘Yes, Bel and I had an on-off thing that ran for almost four years. She couldn’t get her head around the fact that I was married.’

‘Was?’ queried Walter.

‘Yeah. Was. Though, yes, we are still legally married, and we still share a house, but we have not been married in the true sense of the word for at least five years.’

‘What’s your wife’s name?’ asked Karen.

‘Debra, though I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything.’

‘Where’s Debra now?’ asked Walter.

‘I’d like to say I haven’t a clue, but she did tell me she was going to Spain with a couple of mates. As I say, we share a house these days and bugger all else, so I don’t really