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

To ring the police, and say what exactly? ‘Excuse me, but I think I heard a noise downstairs,’ and all that during a fearsome electrical storm. Of course you can hear a noise downstairs, you stupid neurotic bitch, was how she imagined the station sergeant might reply, or at the very least imagine, even if he was too polite to say.

She set her foot on the top stair and catlike, began descending those thirteen precious dancers.

Belinda’s house had been built in 1925, and was loosely described as Edwardian, even though George the Fifth was parked on the throne at the time, when he was not getting up to all sorts. It was a typical smallish detached house of its time, three bedrooms, two reception rooms downstairs, front lounge, and rear sitting room that Bel’s mother rather grandly liked to call, the drawing room.

Bel crept down the stairs, knowing full well that the second to last one creaked terribly. It always had. She carefully stepped over the creaking step and was safely on the ground floor, standing still in the carpeted hallway. It was pitch dark, other than occasional lightning flashes, but thankfully the lightning had seemed to change from forked to flash, and everyone knows that flash lightning can’t hurt you, can it? Bel shivered. There was a distinct draught blowing through the ground floor, and a cold one at that.

It appeared to be coming from the drawing room door. In the blackness, she felt for the door. It seemed to be open. That was a little odd because she was fairly certain she had closed all the downstairs doors before she went to bed, though she couldn’t be sure. After all, she had been carrying a lot of stuff, so maybe she had forgotten and left it open.

She gently pushed it open.

Flash lightning filled the room.

There was no one in there, but there were shards of glass on the maroon carpet, momentarily lit up like huge precious stones. She had a moment to glance at the French doors before the light vanished. One of the small panes of glass, close to the lock, maybe seven inches by five inches, was broken, hence the glass on the floor. Once broken, anyone outside could carefully reach in and turn the lock and open the door.

She had thought many times to have it replaced with a new double glazed unit with super locks that would forever keep her safe, but she could not, for silly sentimental reasons. Her dad had fitted those doors almost thirty years before, with his own hands. It would take something real and tangible away from the building, from the home, if they were removed, and sterile white plastic replacements fitted. Stupid, she thought right there, but maybe understandable.

She went to the door and found it unlocked. Someone had either been in the house, or had attempted entry, or they were still inside. That thought made her mind up. She would call the police. Stupidly, she had left her mobile upstairs. She would use the landline, and that was in the kitchen on the other side of the hall.

She locked the door and turned round and peered into the darkness across the drawing room.

A huge flash filled the room, dazzling the eyes.

She put her hand to her face and in that split second saw, or imagined she saw, a man, a tall slim man, standing in the internal doorway, a man who leapt from view the moment the flash appeared.

Bel’s heart raced.

What to do now?

Scream? Seemed fairly pointless.

Retreat to the French door, let herself out, and go and find help, but the thought of running down the road in the pouring rain in her dressing gown and fluffy white slip-on slippers, amidst thunder and lightning and rain sodden streets, didn’t fill her with confidence. And anyway, she was armed, with the heavy bat, and she was young-ish and fit-ish.

She did attend the gym occasionally, though right there she reprimanded herself for not going often enough, but she was strong, and courageous, and no damned man was going to chase her from her own home, the same sturdy house that had been the home of the Cooper family for more than forty years.

She would go after him, she would go hunting, and woe betide him when she found him, for she would hit him with all the anger she possessed, and there was quite a bit of that in there too, after five failed relationships, and all that entailed. She was off men, for the foreseeable, no question about that, and if she happened to whack one hard, then so much the better.

And hadn’t the government recently announced that homeowners defending their own homes had the right to attack and injure invaders? She seemed to recall such a thing. She raised the bat ready above her right shoulder and crept across the room toward the door. She paused and waited and listened. She was ready. Couldn’t hear a thing. No man breathing, no man smell, no man’s clothes rustling, no man’s feet on the stairs, or crossing the stone kitchen floor. But he was there all right. Wasn’t he?

Flash!

The hallway lit up better than daylight.

No one there. No one visible. No fleeting movement.

Tricks on the eyes? Could have been.

The door to the kitchen was open.

Again, she couldn’t remember if she had left it open or not.

Blackness again, and just the noise of wind and heavy rain.

She crept into the hallway, intent on heading to the kitchen, and the landline telephone there, a tried and tested piece of old technology that never needed charging, that never kept users waiting to get a signal, that never got lost, that rarely if ever let you down, and never got stolen. That’s the thing about old stuff, and old tech. It was built to last. It keeps on working.

She felt the cold stone floor beneath her feet, as she tiptoed across the silent and still kitchen. Fumbled for the old grey telephone, the