Roz Watkins - The Devil’s Dice - The most gripping crime thriller of 2018 – with an absolutely breath-taking twist

‘I want to see corpses and use my intelligence to solve crimes.’

I suppressed a laugh. ‘That’s what we do. Plus a bit of paperwork.’

‘I think I’d be very good,’ Alex said. ‘Rosie and I are arguing about a logic problem. Would you give us your opinion?’

‘Er… I could do with getting going really.’

‘Please,’ Alex said. ‘It won’t take very long.’

I sighed. ‘Okay. Two minutes.’

‘Hurray!’ He whipped three playing cards from his pocket and handed them to me – two kings and an ace. ‘Shuffle them,’ he ordered. ‘Please.’

I complied and passed them back to him. He dealt the cards face down on the table, giving me one card and himself two. ‘Leave your card face down,’ he said, picking up his two cards.

Rosie folded her arms. ‘No one cares but you, Alex.’ But she stayed at the table.

Alex scrutinised his cards and laid one of them on the table, face up. A king. The other card he laid face down next to it. So, there were two cards face down – mine and his – and one card face up, which was a king. ‘What’s the probability of you having an ace?’ he said.

‘It’s got to be fifty percent,’ Rosie said. ‘Two cards face down: one ace, one king.’ She lifted her mug and took a sip.

My mind was occupied with the ridiculousness of being sucked into playing a clearly contentious card game with a suspect’s child. But I still saw it immediately, with that odd brain of mine, sometimes so sharp it cut itself. I glanced at Rosie. I really didn’t want to make her wrong and Alex right. But I couldn’t bring myself to get it wrong either, even in front of children. What did that say about me?

I sighed. ‘It’s one in three.’

Alex threw his arms in the air. ‘Hurray! See! Detectives have good brains.’

Rosie dropped her mug. It crashed onto the floor, flinging tea across the room in an arc and sending shards of porcelain skating across the tiles. She jumped up. ‘Oh God! I’m always dropping things. I hate it!’

Grace appeared in a flurry of mops and reassurances, Jai following behind, raising eyebrows at the carnage. The children slunk off. Grace cleared up the mess while Jai and I packed up our stuff.

‘That didn’t work out so well,’ I said. ‘He didn’t find out much about the job.’

‘Thank you for talking to him anyway.’ She put the mop back in a tall cupboard and smiled at me. ‘It was good of you. I know you must be terribly busy. And sorry about the tea. Rosie can be a little clumsy.’

‘No problem,’ I said. ‘She seemed like a nice girl.’

‘Yes, she is. I’m helping her with maths. It’s a shame – she used to be excellent but she’s struggling now. She’s Felix’s daughter. You know, Edward’s other partner.’

I nodded. The cat-killing, stair-pushing partner who was so determined Peter had committed suicide. ‘Do you teach Alex every day?’

‘No, we share it between a group of parents. It means I can work too. I have a small business. Edward’s happy with the arrangement provided I don’t neglect the household duties.’

Jai shot me a look.

I cleared my throat. ‘Oh, what do you do?’

‘A small jewellers in Eldercliffe. I enjoy it and it’s a little pin money for me. I’m calling in there now actually. I need to catch up on some repairs.’

I’d visited a jeweller’s in Eldercliffe only last week to get a replacement for a brooch Mum had lost. Swift’s Jeweller’s. Of course.

‘I think you’re making a brooch for my mum,’ I said.

Her face lit up. ‘Oh, the one we’ve made from an insurance photo? What a small world! It’s ready actually, we were going to call you.’

‘Great. I’ll call in for it when I’m in Eldercliffe later.’ I stood and placed my mug on the gleaming countertop. ‘What kind of fish are they?’

‘Koi. Do you want to see them? Some of them are quite beautiful.’

I nodded, unable to resist interesting animals. Jai gave me a despairing look, but followed us through the glass doors onto a weed-free sandstone patio overlooking a raised pond about the size of Grace’s kitchen. I peered into the still water. Koi flitted to and fro – mainly silver and orange but some multi-coloured, and one with what looked like an image of a spine running down its back. Their lithe bodies cruised under the surface, clearly visible between bobbing water lilies.

‘They’re stunning,’ I said.

‘Yes, some of God’s most lovely creatures.’

Chapter 7

Outside, it smelt like fresh-cut grass, and the front lawns looked recently manicured, their edges trimmed and compliant. I turned the car carefully, aware that metaphorical net curtains were twitching, and we left the gated complex to set off for the Station.

‘My God,’ I said. ‘Are the 1950s on the phone wanting their good housewife back?’

Jai snorted. ‘But surely every wife asks her husband’s permission before going out to work?’

‘Unbelievable. I’m still in shock. Is she on Valium or something? The effort of keeping my mouth shut almost killed me.’

‘He was weird too,’ Jai said. ‘Seemed quite chuffed Hamilton had done the decent thing and pegged it.’

‘Did you find out anything more from her?’

‘She confirmed he was home all evening on Sunday watching TV. And as far as she was aware, he was at work all day yesterday, but obviously she doesn’t know that. And she comes from Alabama originally.’

I pulled onto a muddy lane, noticing sheets flapping in the garden of a cottage on the corner, and an old wheelbarrow in the driveway stacked with logs. It was reassuringly messy after the clinical pristineness of Edward and Grace’s estate.

‘Alabama? Maybe that explains the Stepford Wife thing?’

‘She was definitely a bit Stepford. Do you think she could be programmed to kill?’

I laughed. ‘That feature’ll be in the next software update. She’d probably lie to cover for him though. All part of being a good little wifey.’

‘And the comment about the child genius having Jesus in his heart.’

‘I know. Sounds painful. Do you think they can sort that with an operation?’ I glanced at Jai, checking if I was offending him. Not clear-cut either way.

‘And you managed to upset the kid so much he chucked a mug on the floor?’ he said.

‘Something like that.’ I pictured Alex’s smug face when I’d confirmed his view of the card game, and poor Rosie’s disappointment. Why couldn’t I have just said I didn’t know? ‘Did Grace tell you anything else?’

‘She met Edward when he was travelling round the US after he graduated. His car broke down when he was passing through her town, and she rescued him, and they were soul mates.’

‘How romantic. Do you think Edward could have done it?’

‘He’s coldly logical,’ Jai said. ‘I could kind of imagine him disposing of the inconvenient.’

‘And he’d do it intelligently, with no unnecessary blood and gore. Just like the other partner. Could they have done it together?’

In Eldercliffe, sandbags were piled high in an alleyway between cottages. I knew during stormy weather, water ran in streams down this road and sometimes into the living rooms of the houses. But I hadn’t heard a storm forecast.

‘Both partners have got a financial motive, if Hamilton had been screwing up at work,’ Jai said. ‘Sounds like something’s changed in the last year with him.’

‘An affair?’

‘Sounds like more than an affair to me.’

‘I don’t know. If he was sleeping with that client who was expressing her grief by complaining loudly about her patent cases and elbowing me in the ribs, it could be quite traumatic.’

‘Love works in mysterious ways.’ Jai wiped at a smear on the passenger window. ‘Or maybe he finished it with her and she bumped him off.’