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

towards the top she stopped and paused. Wondered if he was there, waiting for her, planning on striking her before she struck him. Where would he and could he be hiding on a darkened landing? When his only hiding place was the darkness itself?

But he wasn’t on the landing. She knew that for sure, because she could smell him. Three quite distinctive masculine odours, and the stink was coming, without any question, from her bedroom, where someone had turned off the light.

She crept silently toward the door, her soft slippers enabling silent running. She breathed in through her nose, just the once. Not a sniff, not a noise inducing action, but gentle inhalation.... of man, and invader, in her house, in her bedroom, for God’s sake.

Deodorant. The first odour. That high profile under arm and all-over brand advertised on the TV and in men’s magazines. The one that was supposed to have women drooling in numbers and falling at men’s feet, the one that men supposedly couldn’t live without, the one that bestowed on all men a magnetic attraction, no matter how ugly, no matter how old, no matter how fat, no matter how cold.

It didn’t attract her. Not one tiny bit.

Aftershave. Odour number two. Another big brand that came at a hefty price. The same brand that Gareth the solicitor soaked himself in, imagining that it would make him more attractive to women, and in a way it did, for no woman wants a sour smelling man. But you can have too much of a good thing, and in common with many men, he always used far too much of it.

Bel stood quite still outside her bedroom door. She reached out to touch it, but it wasn’t there, not where it would have been if it were anywhere near closed. It was open, at least half way open, and that was precisely as she expected.

The third odour was there too.

The stink of a nervous man.

Not body odour per se, but that indefinable reek that a jumpy male exudes. They probably don’t even know they are exuding, their pores busy expelling surplus natural perfume. He almost certainly didn’t, and that aroma of man hadn’t been present in her bedroom since Gareth had done damned things in there that he probably shouldn’t have, and if that wasn’t enough proof for her, there was now the icing on the cake.

She could hear him, breathing.

Even though he was trying hard to hold his breath, even though he was standing stock still, even though he was doing his best to keep his heart rate under control, and his body functions neutral, she could hear him operating in the darkness, like the complicated and amazing machine that he was.

Bits moving in and out. Air flowing through the gears. Liquid rushing round the pipes. Electricity running through the brain. Fuel digesting in the fires of his stomach, bones readying to move, like some giant locomotive. They all make noise, no matter how softly or how stunted, no matter how disguised or cloaked. She could hear his systems working hard, on slowdown maybe, but there, nonetheless, excited, readying themselves. The only thing her hyper senses didn’t tell her was where precisely in the bedroom he was.

The door was hinged on the left-hand side. It was a new door, one of the few things that she had allowed to be tampered with, for the original high waisted doors had buckled over time, and would no longer close properly. She had replaced all four of them a year before with modern white panelled models.

She put herself in his position. Where would she be? Where would she hide? Where would she place herself for maximum safety and protection, and the greatest surprise? It had to be behind the door. Where else would anyone wait in ambush?

She flared her nostrils and allowed clean air to circulate in. The same three odours were still present, one-two-three, all quite separate, all quite distinct, yet all combined into one positive trail, telling her that her quarry was not moving, not coiled and about to spring out, but waiting for an opportune moment, biding his time, waiting for her to make her move, waiting for her to blindly enter the room when he could attack, or bolt for freedom, like a startled fox driven from its lair.

Bel nodded to herself in the certainty of her logic, and envisaged precisely what was about to happen. She made her move. She gently pulled the bat back the last few inches to the very top of the back swing, as the golf coaches like to say, the highest point, the point of no return, the zenith, the point from where all future movement and momentum and force is down, and across, and forwards, and on, smashing into the target.

In the blackness she stepped quickly into her bedroom, and unleashed a single blow, the likes of which would have brought down a lion. The trajectory went around the edge of the door, and behind the door, and struck viciously to precisely where she saw in her mind he was cowering, striking down the triple-odoured man who had invaded her house, and her space, and her bedroom, and her quiet life.

The bat kept on going, Bel still clinging onto the handle, though it almost slipped from her grasp. It slammed into the primrose painted plaster, making a large indentation, a fingerprint from the bat itself, onto and into the wall. He had not been cowering behind the door, and in that millisecond of recognition she realised that she was in deep trouble, for she’d given her position away, enabling the man to pounce.

He was immediately on her, behind her. Grabbing the bat at both ends through gloved hands. He was clever, that was clear. He’d done his envisaging well. He’d out thought her, this time, and he was strong. Incredibly strong.

‘What are you fucking doing?’ she screamed.

It was a total waste of breath and vital energy, and worse still, thinking