The Legal & the Illicit: Featuring Inspector Walter Darriteau (Inspector Walter Darriteau cases Book 5)

by David Carter

  ‘Laura Lancelyn-Biggs,’ she said, ‘I’m pleased to meet you.’

  It sounded like an introduction from another age. They both thought that, but sometimes a gentle reminder of long forgotten times makes curious sense.

  The Fasten Your Seatbelts sign flashed three times and remained on. She clipped hers neatly together, but the hostess returned to check on Vimy, as in her eyes, he was a renowned naughty boy, late, incapable, and awkward, the kind of man she found easy to ridicule and rebuke.

  ‘I can do it!’ he protested, half jokingly.

  Laura turned towards the window and giggled at his discomfort.

  Once the hostess was satisfied and had retreated to her eyrie in the centre of the plane, Vimy said, ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Winchester. You?’

  ‘The Wirral.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, as if struggling to remember where the heck the Wirral was.

  She felt a hit coming on. Men were always hitting on her whenever she flew alone. Perhaps it was the altitude that emboldened them; perhaps it was the freedom a travelling businessman experienced when spending a few days away from a demanding wife. They were always the same. ‘I say, would you like my card?’ they would utter, as they’d pass her a business card, as if she were an important buyer, as if she couldn’t wait to grab their grubby card. She never knew what they expected her to say. Did they imagine their little business card presentation ceremony might impress her?

  They were invariably from men twice her age with a highfaluting title from some small company she’d never heard of. She despised men who presented her with damned business cards when what they really wanted was a date, but hadn’t the courage to ask for, when what they really wanted was to spend a night alone with her, to remove her clothes, and run their flabby fingers over her body. They were so predictable, and exactly the same.

  Nine times out of ten she’d accept the card awkwardly, and at the first opportunity slip it down the back of the seat, where it would drop to the floor to be retrieved by cleaners at Heathrow, and eventually be buried in a landfill site in Essex, along with spent paper handkerchiefs, licked sweet wrappers, and crushed drinks cartons. It’s where they all belonged, she figured, spent business cards, the lot of them, and somewhere out there were thousands of buried cards from sad middle-class lonely businessmen, and she laughed inwardly at the thought.

  On the one occasion she’d contacted a chap who’d presented his card, a grumpy middle-aged woman answered the telephone.

  ‘Who is this?’ she’d demanded. ‘Colin is my husband, if you must know. Don’t you dare ring here again, you tramp!’

  Laura Lancelyn-Biggs was preparing to receive a card from the broad brown-eyed young man beside her, the same man who had sat quietly, seemingly interested in everything she said all the way back from Ankara, carefully listening, as she prattled on about her life and work. The same man who had so ridiculously kissed her hand. Truth was, his interest had made the journey fly by. But how she wished he wouldn’t issue her with his blessed business card, and he didn’t. She watched him take a small diary from his inside pocket. It was a Veloote & Daniels diary, and she knew Veloote’s well; they were one of the biggest accountants around, and not the kind of firm to trifle with losers.

  He opened the diary to the back page, one reserved for notes, and handed her his precious little black book, along with a silver ballpoint pen.

  ‘Write your phone number there,’ he said, and though he spoke softly, it never once sounded like a request. It was an order. The cheeky bugger, she thought. Who does he think he is? But his approach was undeniably different. Fact was, he was different, and mercifully there was no sign of any business card. She leant across and took his book and pen and wrote her number, and the correct number too, and strangely, that made her feel good.

  That done, she leant across and returned his possessions, and as she did so, he caught a hint of perfume. Their eyes were close, and though darting about, they insisted on returning to one another’s. The slightest smile formed on their faces, then vanished, and no one knew they had ever existed. He slipped the diary in his pocket and sat back in his seat, satisfied, and afterwards they barely spoke. The plane landed safely; they smiled at one another one last time, and went their separate ways. Their whole life cards were being played, diamond on diamond, heart on heart. Correct timing, correct order. So far.

  Chapter Nineteen

  WALTER DARRITEAU SAT at his desk in the Central Chester Police Station, a contented look set on his expressive face. He strummed his fingers on the timber, but not through impatience or dissatisfaction, for he was in a great mood.

  The West Indies had slapped India four to zip, as the current commentators described it, and that hadn’t happened since Sir Viv Richards, backed by four vicious seam bowlers, demolished anyone who dared pick up a cricket bat against them.

  Walter adored cricket and would watch anyone. But having lived in England since he was a boy, England was his first team, or so he imagined. But when the country of his birth, the country of his ancestors, that strange country that didn’t actually exist, the combined team of the West Indies were playing, his loyalties would be stretched to the limit, a conundrum that would lead to downright confusion when the West Indies lined up against England. Weirdly, during those five-day long matches he always pulled for the team that was losing, a policy that inevitably meant he went away disappointed, as the team he wanted to win always lost.

  Sergeant Karen Greenwood came bounding into the office. Tight cord pants that showed off toned muscles in her legs, thin mauve woollen jumper, and a smirk on her face that told anyone, never mind super detectives, that all was well in the life of Karen G. She grinned down at her boss and sat down, threw her small leather bag in the big drawer, and muttered, ‘Happening?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Walter. ‘Happening to you too.’

  ‘No, I meant is there anything happening?’

  ‘I think I know what you meant, I was just....’ but he didn’t elucidate.

  ‘Being a difficult man?’ she said, grinning across at his wide-eyed face.

  ‘Yes, something like that.’

  Her phone rang. She nodded at Walter and picked up.

  He heard her say, ‘Where was this?’ and began talking and writing at the same time, multi-tasking, and she was always good at that. ‘Saint Martin’s Way,’ she said, and then, ‘Hang on a sec,’ and she covered the phone with her hand and said, ‘A weird one, Guv, complaints about dogs barking at all hours of the day and night. The RSPCA were called out, dog squad, whatever, anyway they couldn’t get a reply and were unhappy about things, called us in, and apparently entrance was forced and bodies found.’

  ‘Dogs or humans?’

  ‘Dead humans, live dogs.’

  ‘Do you know where Saint Martin’s Way is?’

  ‘Sure, Guv, in the city itself, inside the city walls.’

  ‘Why weren’t we told about this?’

  She pulled a face and said, ‘I guess that is the point of this call.’

  Walter harrumphed.

  Karen said, ‘Shall we get down there?’

  ‘You said bodies found?’

  ‘Yes, so they said. Two elders of the city.’

  ‘Get a car, Greenwood, bodies are interesting things to inspect.’

  Karen nodded, told the caller she would handle the matter, slapped the phone down, grabbed her bag, and ran off towards the lift.

  Walter sat for a moment, his eyes closed, as he pondered the scene. Two bodies, two deaths, two older people, though “old” was relative. Sixty-five used to be old when he was a kid. But now eighty-five-year-olds were jogging and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and doing triathlons, if the local press was to be believed. One murder, one suicide, perhaps, joint suicide, highly likely, or two people, maybe life long partners dying of natural causes within the same twenty-four hours. It happened, and more often than people thought. Broken hearts are powerful things. He reached down and did up
his big black lace-up shoes. His doc advised him to undo his footwear when desk sitting, think of the circulation, the doc said, on condition that Walter remembered to do them up again before attempting to move out.

  DC Darren Gibbons came in, whistling. It sure seemed to be a day when everyone had some kind of cause to be happy, though maybe not for the former residents of some house down in Saint Martin’s Way. Walter told Gibbons all he knew about that, but asked him to carry on investigating the theft of luxury cars that had been going on across the area for several weeks. Luxury cars that were never seen again, believed to be exported, maybe to Eastern Europe or the Middle East or even Africa, where they could be sold for big bucks, and no questions asked, documentation immaterial. It was a lucrative trade, free stock, luxury sought after products, no shortage of buyers, and maybe a hundred grand a time, though no doubt they didn’t get anywhere near that amount on the selling stump. Quick turnaround, steady source of supply, hungry and willing buyers, what more could any growing business want? There were more difficult ways to be a career criminal.

  ‘Be back as soon as I can,’ Walter muttered, setting his right shoe on his chair to tie up.

  ‘I’m on it, Guv.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Walter languidly, as he did up the other shoe. ‘But Mrs West is on it too, so to speak, giving me grief over this, so we need to put a stop to this little game. People who can afford expensive cars don’t like their beloved mo-mo’s going missing off their driveways, and that’s understandable.’

  Mrs West was Walter’s boss and had been for a good while. They got on great, most of the time, but relations could become strained when cases sat on her desk unsolved. Pressure inevitably seeped down like drops of water through sandstone. Like all senior officers he had known, unsolved cases brought an odour that soured everything they touched.

  ‘If we haven’t made any progress by the weekend, we need to start putting up some sizeable cash bonus’s for the scally street gang guys to set us on the right road. I don’t like doing it, but sometimes needs must.’

  Darren grinned and said, ‘Good job it’s only Tuesday, gives us a little leeway,’ though whether Walter heard that was a moot point as he was already striding out, hustling into the open lift that would take him down to the basement garage.

  DOWN THER5E, SERGEANT Karen Greenwood found a cute car, a grey metallic hatchback Volvo. Walter Darriteau didn’t know the model as such things left him cold. He had never been car mad, unlike Karen, who worshipped the damned things. He jumped in, slammed the door louder than necessary, and she zipped the vehicle away, and on through the congested old city. It would take a matter of minutes to reach the house, traffic permitting.

  Walter said, ‘You know this road? Saint Martin’s Way?’

  ‘Yeah, went to a party there once, when I was young and foolish.’

  ‘I thought you still were.’

  Karen grinned and grunted a strange laugh.

  ‘Expensive houses?’ persisted Walter.

  ‘Silly question. If you can show me cheap houses within the city walls I’d be there with my cheque book hanging out of my hand.’

  Walter nodded, and already they were turning into Saint Martin’s Way. There was an RSPCA van parked outside, plus a single marked police car, a small ambulance, and Doc Grayling’s Jag. How the hell had he arrived so soon?

  Karen parked as close as she could, cut the engine, and jumped out. Walter climbed out a little more slowly and followed her towards the house, cursing at his slight limp that had returned. They needed to pass the RSPCA van to get to the house. Dogs barked inside. Didn’t sound happy hounds, either. Walter paused and glanced up at the redbrick building.

  Almost certainly Georgian, probably a listed building, three story town houses that were as sought after now as they were two hundred and fifty years ago, when some lucky buyer bought it brand new. Walter wondered who that was, and what they did for a living, and if everything in their background was legal and legit. It came with the job, that expanding of knowledge about anyone he came across, even if they had been dead for a couple of centuries.

  No front gardens of any kind. The front door opened out onto the street, except they opened inwards. Barely even a front doorstep. The right-hand end one had been thoroughly overhauled but not modernised, for that wouldn’t have impressed the city planners. It looked a real gem, most desirable and expensive. The next one to the left looked as if it hadn’t had a penny spent on it in a hundred years.

  Maybe that peed off the other residents in their desirable little street, lowering the tone, though more likely lowering the house prices, not likely in such a prestigious locale. Walter checked out the house. One big window to the left of the front door, two long and handsome windows on the first and second floors. Twelve panes of glass in each first-floor window, but only nine panes on the second floor ones. Walter noticed mundane details. He couldn’t help himself. White window frames, definitely no plastic anywhere, and old-fashioned sash windows that could stick on occasion, but that was a small price to pay for history.

  The front doors were black, some recently painted with new gleaming numbers fitted, and he guessed that was written in the property contracts: the front doors MUST be black. It did add a little uniformity, though an occasional touch of colour could work wonders. The door to the neglected house hadn’t been painted in years and was half open. Karen had gone inside. Walter followed her into a long and narrow hallway. The dusty hall light was on, though it still seemed dark and dingy; white walls but long since stained yellow, probably through nicotine and its associates. There were cobwebs in various corners of the ceiling, and one particularly large, spindly and active spider that seemed a little stressed at the frantic activity going on below. There was an awful smell in the house, as if the windows hadn’t been opened since Queen Vic’s time, overlaid with tobacco products of every conceivable kind. But worse than that, the distinct smell of death, that horrendous stink of rotting flesh that once smelt could never be forgotten.

  On the left was a doorway that opened out into the front sitting room, maybe fifteen feet by twelve. Walter still worked in feet and inches and always would when he could. There was no one in there, just a selection of old mismatched armchairs, grubby and uncomfortable looking, as if they had been worn out by so many people parking their backsides down heavily over the last half century. On the old sideboard was a glass tank, half full of murky water and weeds, housing a couple of relaxed looking terrapins. That whole set-up stank too, though it was being overwhelmed. Maybe the RSPCA man would come back for them.

  Karen shouted down the stairs, ‘We’re up here, Guv.’

  Walter stared that way, but thought better of it and retreated to the front door and gently closed it. He didn’t want any embarrassing incidents of opportunistic sneak thieves creeping in and dashing off with an expensive armchair, however unlikely that seemed.

  He went down the hall where it bent to the left, and opposite was a narrow staircase that went up to the first floor. Twelve compact stairs, and with each step the smell grew worse. At the top he found the bathroom on the right, front room on the left, a bigger room too, maybe fifteen by fifteen, the room with the twelve paned windows. It was busy in there. Four live humans, Karen, the Doc, the animal man, and a young PC, small-talking and muttering and peering down at two dead humans.

  The live folks were grimacing and trying hard not to breathe, though that was a losing battle. They all partook in sniffing smelling sticks Doc Grayling handed round like sweeties. The dead people were sprawled out on separate settees set opposite one another. The live ones glanced at Walter standing in the doorway, slipping on his latex gloves with a flourish.

  ‘Walter,’ said Doc Grayling, ‘I knew you’d get here, eventually.’

  ‘Oh, you are witty.’

  ‘Have you finished with me?’ said the fresh-faced RSPCA man.

  ‘Have we got the young fellow’s details?’ asked Walter, addressing the lone uniformed PC.

&
nbsp; ‘Certainly have, sir.’

  ‘Yep, you can go,’ said Walter. ‘On second thoughts, and I know it’s inconvenient for you, but can you wait on in the van downstairs?’

  The disappointment was writ large on his face, but he hid it well, and said, ‘Of course, I’ll wait to hear from you,’ and he headed down the steps and disappeared.

  Walter clasped his hands together and rubbed them as if to warm them and said, ‘What has gone on here?’

  Chapter Twenty

  MIDGE AND CORAL AMBLED arm-in-arm through Larissa’s, Athens’ leading department store, like lovers with all the time in the world, honeymooners maybe, on the lookout for gems to cap their home-making. They bought two sets of linen tea towels and an expensive cedar wood knife block housing six fine kitchen knives.

  Midge examined the tools, holding one to the light. German manufacture. Gleaming, powerful, stainless steel, cutting edge, German technology, as if they’d fallen from the finest Teutonic machine. He was happy.

  They hired a Fiat hatchback and drove away from Athens on the Patrai road, an hour up into the Peloponnesian Mountains, before turning off on a narrow twisting mountain road. Ten minutes later they came to a white stone lay-by that looked out across the valley to the mountains beyond. He pulled the Fiat to a halt and turned off the engine. Close to the edge of the ravine was a single rough wooden bench seat. Midge jumped from the car and sat in the blazing sun, staring out; thinking, thankful he’d remembered his sunglasses. Coral joined him, crossed her legs, and felt the heat on her naked knees.

  ‘What now?’ she asked.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll hire a boat, a good boat. They’ll be no messing about with ferries. We’ll cruise to Carsos and make our acquaintance with this Nicoliades character.’ Midge spat out the name and spat over the edge of the cliff.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We’ll do what we came for,’ he said, turning back towards her. ‘Agreed?’