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

stuff, and wears false lashes like big black hairy caterpillars. You won’t miss her, or them.’

‘Car, Jen?’ said Walter.

‘On my way, Guv, see you downstairs in ten.’

Walter glanced back at Karen.

‘Have a good morning, I’ll want you in on the Speight interview later.’

‘Sure, Guv,’ and Walter turned about and limped away towards the lift. After he’d gone Karen pondered on her continuing predicament. Now it was even worse, for she had the little runt Nicky there snooping around, and how bad would it be if he found evidence of the fifth man before she did? That didn’t bear thinking about. She’d have to give him something to keep him busy that didn’t jeopardise her own position, and that wouldn’t be easy, but one thing was clear, she was going to have to reveal the ID of the fifth man soon.

Nicky ambled over and smirked down and said, ‘I’m all yours.’

The idiotic little guy seemed to think he had a chance with her. The fool. She gave him Bel’s bank statements, going back five years.

‘What am I looking for?’

‘Clues, DC Barr, clues.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Anything that looks out of order, any payments to and from anyone involved in the case. You have read all the reports involved in these cases, I take it?’

He looked guilty. ‘Maybe not all of them.’

‘Well do that now!’

‘Sure, sarge,’ and he ambled away, as Karen smiled to herself.

AUSTERITY HAYES OLD department store hadn’t changed that much in forty years, and it was still busy too, even first thing. It didn’t matter one bit that it was a dank November day; there were still plenty of tourists about. Chester is a touristy town, and they kept the tills ringing with their euros and dollars and yen and yuan, and a goodly proportion of visitors had chosen to pack out the perfumes and cosmetics department on the ground floor.

Walter and Jenny stepped through the recently modernised double glass doors to be hit with an aroma that reminded them of first dates, and Christmas gifts, and romance, and, dare one mention the word, sex, too? Though Walter would keep that colourful thought to himself.

They sought out the floor manageress, explained to her that they needed somewhere quiet to talk to Andrea Dennehey. She wasn’t in any kind of trouble, simply helping with their routine enquiries, and the manageress was most accommodating, providing them with a quiet furnished room.

‘Do you want me to fetch her for you?’ she asked.

‘That would be great,’ said Walter, sitting at the modern desk. Jenny to one side of him, as she took out her notebook.

A couple of minutes later the manageress showed a pair of hairy black caterpillars into the room, Andrea Dennehey following immediately behind. The manageress made her excuses and left, as Jenny did the introductions.

‘What’s all this about?’ asked Andrea, still wary of police in any shape or form, after her last brush with the law.

‘Take a seat,’ said Walter, pointing to the chair before the desk. ‘Just a few questions, nothing to worry about.’

IT WAS HARD TO TAKE the eyes away from the lashes, or so Walter thought. Maybe it was because Karen had mentioned them, but by hell they caught the eye, and not all of it was good.

Andrea grinned and sat down and crossed her legs with a flourish, and smoothed down her short black skirt. Walter looked up and across the desk and tried not to see the ’pillars.

‘You’re Iain Donaldson’s fiancé, I understand?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. He said you might want a word with me.’

‘Did he now, and what would that be about?’

‘Presumably the baseball bat murder, everyone’s talking about it.’

‘Are they now?’

Andrea nodded and said, ‘So what do you want to know?’

‘You were with Iain on the night of the murder?’ said Walter, as Jenny chipped in with the date.

‘Yes, I was. All night.... you know, together, just the two of us.’

‘Quite,’ said Walter, ‘and you wouldn’t lie about that, would you?’

‘Course not. What do you take me for?’

‘You’re a member of the gym, I believe?’

‘Yep, gotta keep in shape, you know how it is, mind you,’ she said, looking at Walter’s ample figure, and she glanced at Jen and pulled a face and said, ‘I thought you lot had to keep in shape.’

Walter ignored the barb.

‘They tell me you are very strong?’

‘What? For a woman you mean?’

‘No, I mean as a human being.’

‘I am strong, I can whack Iain at arm wrestling, lots of fellas come to that, you want to try me?’

‘That won’t be necessary. What would you say if we found your fingerprints on the baseball bat?’

‘I’d say you were lying twats! Because that ain’t possible,’ and she thought about that for a second and then said, ‘Hold on a minute, is this what you are about? Trying to fit me up with that murder, ’cos you can’t find the real killer? What’s your game?’

‘We are not trying to fit anyone up. We just want to get at the truth. Iain, your Iain, was once the partner of the deceased, it’s standard procedure to look at all ex-partners, and their new partners.’

‘You mean me?’

‘Yes, in this instance, that’s you.’

‘Do you like my lashes or something?’

‘Pardon.’

‘It’s just you keep staring at them.’

‘Do I? My apologies if you think that.’

‘They’re not that expensive,’ and she glanced across at Jenny and back at Walter and said, ‘your young little friend here could do with some, if you don’t mind me saying. Improve her no end.’

‘Tell me about when you attacked two young women in the lavatory?’

‘Oh, here we go! They attacked me, is the truth of it. You know all about that. It went to court and I was punished, wrongly in my opinion, but there we are, end of.’

‘Have you ever attacked anyone else?’

‘I have not!’

‘Have you ever been in Belinda Cooper’s house?’

‘Certainly not!’

‘Iain has.’

‘Of course he bloody well has, and it ain’t the only thing he’s been in, in that house, if you get my meaning,’ and she smirked at the two coppers