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

very particular and most selective about which men she would go with, no pipsqueaks, remember, and as for doing it for money, absolutely no chance! Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘Just another inquiry that’s overlapped into this one,’ said Karen. ‘We just needed to be sure.’

‘You can be.’

‘Have you ever heard of a man called Marcus something?’ asked Walter.

‘Oh yeah, the gay one! I’d forgotten all about him. She was so embarrassed about that, when she found out she’d been sleeping with, well you know,’ and she lowered her voice, and mouthed rather than said the word, ‘a homo, God, she was so upset with him about that, went the very next day and had a blood test, just in case, came back negative, thank the Lord, but she felt so.... so.... betrayed.’

‘Do you know where this Marcus lives?’ asked Karen.

Lena shook her head and then said, ‘I think he moved away, yeah, I think Bel told me he was so upset and annoyed, with himself, as much as anything, that he upped sticks and moved away, she thought Brighton or Blackpool or Bournemouth, one of them B’s anyway, I think that’s what she said, though I could be wrong on that. It’s a while ago now.’

‘Do you have a surname for him?’

‘Not that I recall.’

‘Thanks for your assistance,’ said Walter. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’

‘Anytime. Has she been officially ID’d yet?’

‘Ah yes, that’s another thing I meant to mention.’

‘Oh?’

Karen took up the thread.

‘She has no relatives, none at all, and it would appear that you would be her very best friend, so we were wondering if you might agree to identify her.’

‘What? Look at her dead body, you mean? Oh, I don’t know about that, I’ve never seen a dead body, I’m not sure that I could.’

Walter frowned and said, ‘I know it’s difficult, but someone has to do it, and it has to be a friend, a real good friend, there’s nothing to it, and it will only take a minute or two. You’d be really helping us.’

‘Oh, go on then, the things I get talked into. Maybe it’s not even her, have you even thought about that?’

‘That’s why it must be someone who knows her well,’ said Karen. ‘So we can be sure.’

‘Where do I go?’

‘The morgue, you can go anytime, right up to midnight, but it needs to be done as soon as....’

‘Yeah, I get you; I’ll go after work.’

Karen grabbed a pen from the desk and wrote the address on a piece of scrap paper.

‘Thank you,’ said Walter, and they said their goodbyes and the officers left.

IN THE CAR ON THE WAY to the ASN Bank Karen said, ‘Can we rule out this Marcus guy, if he’s left the area?’

‘We don’t know he has, so no is the answer to that, though I agree, he is looking a rank outsider.’

‘Unlike the Mirror man who, in my humble opinion, is in it up to his neck.’

‘Let’s see,’ said Walter, as she pulled the car into the car park outside the bank.

INSIDE, THE SAME BRIGHT young thing was on display behind the shiny reception desk. Walter and Karen headed for the door on the left to the corridor, and he grinned across at the girl and said, ‘Just another few questions for Mr Rekatic,’ and they disappeared through the door, but not before Karen glimpsed the girl jumping on the phone.

Miro’s office door was open; Walter and Karen hurried in to find the man on the phone, looking disappointed that his day was being ruined again.

‘Just a few more questions, Mr Rekatic,’ said Walter. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘What now?’ he said, as Walter and Karen sat down.

‘Your charming piece of equipment,’ said Karen.

‘What about it?’

‘It has blood all over it, Ellie Wright’s blood, to be precise, care to explain how it got there?’

Miro grimaced.

‘How would I know?’

‘Not a good answer, Mr Rekatic. I think you need to give that a little more thought,’ said Walter. ‘You are close to being arrested for the murder of Eleanor Wright. I’d come up with a better answer than that, if I were you.’

Miro coughed and said, ‘Ah yes, I remember now, she had a nose bleed.’

‘A nose bleed?’ said Walter. ‘How convenient.’

‘Wonder how that was brought on,’ muttered Karen.

‘Yeah, you know, blood coming from the nose.’

‘I know what a bloody nose bleed is!’ said Walter.

‘What brought it on?’ said Karen. ‘Did you hit her?’

‘No! Course not. Well, maybe a few small playful taps.’

‘A few small playful taps,’ said Karen, making an issue of writing the comment in her notebook.

‘Yes, look, she liked the submissive role, she got off on that.’

‘Yeah, sure. Isn’t the truth of it that you like to play the dominant one, and you got off on that, as you beat the hell out of the poor girl, as she was trussed up like some Christmas turkey,’ said Karen. ‘And that maybe you even lost your cool and assaulted her so badly you spilt blood all over the place, and eventually killed her? Isn’t that nearer the mark?’

‘And seeing what you had done,’ continued Walter, ‘you cooked up a plan to dispose of the scene by setting fire to that little old caravan? Though “cooked up” might not be the best phrase in the circumstances. Perhaps you imagined that no one would miss or care about some lonely little tart of a girl who’d taken some wrong turns in life.’

‘No! That’s not what happened at all. If you are going to persist with this I think my solicitor should be present.’

‘He wants a solicitor present now, Guv.’

‘Yes, interesting that, he needs someone else to speak for him, in case he says the wrong thing, the incriminating thing. But no matter, let’s continue, and regardless of that, we’d appreciate your cooperation for a little while longer.’

Miro pulled a face and slowly nodded.

Karen asked, ‘Where were you between midnight and 2am on the night of,’ and she added the day and night of Belinda Cooper’s death.

‘At home, in