The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4, David Carter [diy ebook reader .txt] 📗

‘No!’

The one sided conversation came to an abrupt close, as Dot booted the car onward and round the last bend and up to the heap of twisted and burnt metal and cinders and ash.

‘Kids!’ she said, slowly getting out of the car, for she wasn’t sure she wanted to see what there was to see.

‘Bloody kids!’ she said again. ‘Kids get up to all sorts these days. You’d be surprised,’ and then Dot thought that maybe Ellie had an outside client, one who preferred “entertaining” in their own home. It happened more and more, so Ellie had said one afternoon in one of the local pubs, when she had treated her mother to a Sunday carvery luncheon, a meal that ended up in a row after all the obvious awkwardness. Two gents, who clearly knew Ellie’s trade, had taken to winking and leering at both Ellie, and worse still, her mother too, across the bar, and Dot couldn’t wait to get out of there after that.

That was probably it, thought Dot, as she walked slowly before the face of the wreckage. She’ll be working off site. Dot thought the bricks were still hot, though she may have been wrong. She thought she could smell petrol, though that might simply have been a leak from the old Ford.

Thinking of which, she went over to Ellie’s car and peered through the dirty windows. No one about, no one sleeping inside due to a recent loss of quarters. She tried the door. It opened. Ellie rarely locked it, especially right down there where few people other than Ellie’s clients, ever ventured.

She took out her mobile and rang Ellie’s number again, praying for it to ring, praying to hear some simple explanation. Straight to voicemail – We cannot take your call at this time.

‘Shit!’ she said aloud, as she wandered back toward the charred remains of Ellie’s former home.

The sun came out. A watery weak November sun, though surprisingly bright for all that, and for a second Dot shielded her eyes, so much of a surprise was it. When she took her hand away she spotted something, glinting in the sunlight, within the wreckage.

‘What the hell?’

She stood up uncomfortably on the brick base, set one foot within the charred remains, feeling crunching burnt wreckage giving way beneath her feet, and yes, it was still warm too. She bent down and retrieved the sparkle. It was a large diamond, like the one set in Ellie’s silver and diamond ring. Her daughter’s most prized possession, given to her by her father four years earlier, before he had one afternoon simply abandoned them, walking out never to return.

Ellie never took that ring off. She’d put on a few pounds since then, and couldn’t take it off. It was always stuck fast on Ellie’s finger, until now.

‘Fuck!’ said Dot aloud, thinking terrible thoughts, as she took out her mobile again, and slapped in triple nine.

Four

Inspector Walter Darriteau was in a great mood. He had a new girlfriend. He’d met her on the Internet. Everyone was doing it, they said, and Walter was no spring chicken, or spring cockerel, to be more precise, and you only live once, and he’d lived alone for years and years, discounting a few brief dalliances along the way, and now when not far from retirement, he’d decided to take the bull by the horns, so to speak. It would be quite nice to find someone a little more permanent, he imagined.

Sergeant Karen Greenwood had steered him toward the site. She admitted she’d used it in the past, and that surprised him for Karen Greenwood was young, blonde, slim, blue-eyed, very desirable, and, if it wasn’t politically incorrect to think, or say so in the twenty-first century, very pretty too.

‘Everyone’s doing it,’ she’d said, giggling, and she told him the web address, and that was how he’d met the busty Carlene Henderson. Walter began thinking of her, of her large heaving bosoms to be more accurate, and then the phone rang.

DC Darren Gibbons grabbed it and barked, ‘C.I.D’

Dorothy Wright had been passed through from central control.

‘I’ve just discovered my daughter’s caravan burnt to the ground. Can you send someone quick? I’m really worried she might have been in there.’

‘Okay, let’s start at the beginning. Your name is?’

Walter stopped thinking of Carlene’s assets and glanced across at Gibbons, as did Karen, for there was something immediate in his voice, something that alerted experienced officers like Walter and Karen.

Gibbons was talking again, loudly, as was his style.

‘Where is the caravan, where was the caravan?’

‘By the river.’

‘Yes, but where by the river, a postal address.’

‘I don’t know! She never gets post here, it’s too remote. Can you come quick?’

‘But where to? We need an address.’

Dot tried hard to remember the name of the twisty lane that led down from the main road, but could not.

‘I don’t know!’ she said again, suddenly close to tears.

‘Keep calm. Which district?’ asked Gibbons, maintaining his cool.

‘Off the Farndon road.’

‘Ah, I get you, hold on a sec,’ and he jumped up and ran over to the massive big scale local map that covered half of one wall.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Walter.

‘Not sure, Guv, lady says her daughter’s caravan has burnt down and she’s worried her daughter was inside.’

‘Where?’ asked Karen, jumping up and joining Gibbons at the wall.

‘She says by the river, a twisty lane, off the Farndon road.’

‘Don’t think there are many lanes off that road,’ said Karen, pointing to a possible candidate.

‘Yeah, that could be the one,’ said Gibbons, hurrying back to the landline.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Course I’m still here, and twice as bloody worried. I’ve found a diamond in the wreckage, I think it’s from her ring, and she never takes it off, never could take it off. Please hurry!’

‘Is it at the bottom of Marigold Lane?’

‘It is!! How did you know that?’

‘Detective work,’ said Gibbons, smirking at Karen. ‘Someone will be with you in about twenty minutes.’

‘Thank the Lord! See you soon. Don’t forget me!’

‘We’ll not