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

knew it. The money laundering laws and rules and regs and systems had been tightened hard and were working pretty well. Drug dealers always had too much cash and nowhere to spend it, and would constantly face the major problem of working it back legally into the system. Of course he would have bought all meals with cash. Went without saying, drip, drip, drip it away. There was no doubt about that.

‘You’re right, Darren, thank you for reminding me. How did you get on with Flanagan?’

‘The guy’s taken the day off, so he was at home, and get this, he is something of a computer whiz, even liked to brag about it, until he saw it was something we were taking an interest in.’

‘A computer expert, eh? That’s convenient.’

‘He sure is. But he would not let us see his computer.’

‘What do you think? Can he somehow bypass the tag?’

‘I can’t see it myself, but Hector is convinced that’s what he is doing.’

Walter stood there and breathed out heavy and took a moment to think, and said, ‘Can we link him to Belinda Cooper? No. Can we explain how he bypasses the tag? No. Can we prove he killed Ellie Wright? No. That looks dead in the water to me.’

‘He killed his wife,’ said Hector. ‘Known indisputable fact, that says a lot.’

‘Mmm,’ said Walter. ‘Nick, do you know what is happening with the complete SOCO report on Belinda Cooper’s house?’

‘They are still all there, Guv. Working hard. They’ll be a little while longer yet.’

‘I wish they’d get a bloody move on,’ and raising his voice he said, ‘For those of you that don’t know, we have yet another suspect in the frame, and this time it’s a woman.’

‘That make’s a change,’ said Gibbons.

‘Who?’ said Jenny.

‘Andrea Dennehey. Already known to us, convicted within the last twelve months of GBH and affray.’

Hector sniggered and said, ‘Belinda Cooper’s neck was broken. I think we can discount her.’

Karen glanced up from the laptop.

‘Andrea Dennehey could snap you in half like a twig,’ and in the way she said it no one had any doubt that Andrea could.

Walter looked down at Karen.

‘Anything more in those emails?’

‘Not yet, Guv. Just lots and lots of graphic lovey-dovey messages.’

‘I could do with some graphic lovey-dovey messages,’ said Gibbons, grinning.

Most of them laughed at the thought.

‘I could fix you up with Tracey Day for fifty quid,’ said Hector, laughing at his little joke.

‘Oh, funny, yeah!’

‘Maybe we should seize Flanagan’s computer,’ said Walter, thinking out loud. ‘He’s out on licence. We could do that.’

‘I’m up for it,’ said Hector.

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Walter, sitting down and closing his eyes for a big think.

Twenty-Eight

Corla Revelation resembled Oliver Cromwell, high forehead, large flat nose, and hefty warts aplenty, yet for all that, she was a vivacious woman, and rarely short of admirers.

She made a decent living through her full-time counselling work, and part-time fortune telling business, though where one finished and the other began was becoming increasingly blurred. She liked to say she was a spiritualist, and a medium, and had gone to the trouble in the past of inventing highfaluting sounding associations that she christened: “The British Spiritualist Congress” and the “European Mediums Association” and proceeded to have printed expensive and impressive looking Articles and Certificates, that she framed and set on her walls. They sure as hell impressed Corla, and in due course wowed her clients too. That was the plan, and most times, it worked.

In a good light and on a bright day she could pass for thirty-nine, as her friends would eagerly confirm, especially after Corla had bought the drinks. But on a bad day after a heavy night out, and maybe not standing her corner, those same friends would swear she was fifty-nine, looking sixty-nine. Fact was, no one really knew how old Corla Revelation and her close-knit family of warts were, and that was exactly as she liked it.

She’d always had an eye for the main chance, and that had served her well in the past, and it would continue to do so in the future, and she always paid a great deal of attention to the criminal cases covered in the press, and especially ones from Chester and surrounding areas, and most particularly the ones where financial rewards were offered, and of special interest to her were the worst crimes imaginable, and that invariably meant rape, murder, and death.

The Chester baseball bat murder had certainly piqued her interest, as she devoured all the media coverage she could find. It was causing quite a stir, for it wasn’t everyday that a well-liked and well-known local woman was murdered in her own home in the genteel city of Chester.

In her quiet moments Corla believed she possessed ESP powers, and she would test that ability to the max by sitting back in her favourite wing-backed armchair, a bottle of whisky on the small table close by, with her favourite crystal cut glass, as she attempted to reconstruct the face of the killer in her mind. If you don’t believe in yourself, she mused, how could you expect others to believe in you? He will come to me, she would say aloud. He will come.

He’s a tall man, and dark too, that was eminently clear, though whether that intelligence had been garnered through her imaginary powers, or subconsciously, via the increasing media coverage, it was difficult to tell.

Corla sipped twenty-year-old malt whisky, and closed her eyes and blanked her mind, and let the force swirl over her, and through her, and then she said aloud in a real strange voice: It will appear, as it always does, everything about him will materialise, and sooner than we think, and then, I shall be famous.

She reached out and topped up the glass. Always nice to whet the whistle before one went out on the town. She glanced at her expensive wristwatch, a present from a long ago wealthy lover. She’d quite forgotten his name. The watch ticked on,