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

I wanted to check Mark Hamilton’s and Kate Webster’s movements for the day before. The surgery where they worked was on a side street which climbed from the town centre, and I struggled up between stone cottages so tiny they looked like Hobbit houses. I wondered if there was a kind of medieval witch trial system in place, because anyone capable of making it up the hill to the doctor’s clearly wasn’t particularly ill.

The surgery sat like an ugly boil amidst the loveliness of the other buildings – a concrete edifice overlaid with square windows like a messed up Mondrian. The early evening sun emerged briefly from behind the clouds as I arrived, sending a shaft of light onto the front of the building and further emphasising its hideousness. I tutted about planning laws, and walked through automatic doors into a spacious reception area that smelt of bleach and sickness.

Both walls were lined with patients – mainly docile-looking older people, but also a child who was removing toys from a plastic box and spreading them around the waiting room with a furious enthusiasm. His hollow-eyed mother glanced up with a dairy-cow expression before returning to her copy of Hello magazine.

I showed my card to a receptionist labelled Vivian . ‘Could I have a quick word please?’

‘Yes. What’s it about?’ The woman folded freckled arms across her stomach.

‘I just need to check Kate Webster’s and Mark Hamilton’s movements for yesterday please.’

The woman sighed audibly. ‘Oh, of course. Dr Webster’s husband.’ She pushed wire-framed glasses up her nose towards her eyes. ‘They’d be prime suspects, I suppose?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Oh, nothing.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper and glanced at the patients sitting glumly in the waiting room. ‘The police always suspect the wife, don’t they?’

‘So, yesterday?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She twisted to look at a screen to her right, and tapped on a keyboard in a slow, two-fingered style. ‘Well, they were both here all day from about 8am to about 5pm, according to the computer.’

‘And did either of them go out at all during the day?’

‘It doesn’t look like it from the computer.’

‘But do you remember?’

‘Oh, no, I don’t remember. I can’t keep track of what they all do. But the computer should say if they went out. Health and Safety. Unless it’s been tampered with , of course.’

Well, she was a loyal employee. ‘Who could tamper with it?’

‘Well, any of the partners, I’m sure.’

I suspected the lovely Vivian was going to be less helpful than she appeared. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘One of my colleagues will come and take a statement from you.’

I retreated through the waiting room and out of the doors, tripping on a plastic lorry which the child pushed into my path. The glass doors shushed to a close behind me, and I glanced backwards. A young woman had followed me.

‘Are you a detective?’ the woman asked. She had long, blonde hair and a charity-shop-chic look.

I nodded.

‘I heard something last week and thought I should tell you, in case it has a bearing on the investigation.’

‘Okay, go ahead.’

‘I’ve got to be quick. I should be inside.’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘I overheard Dr Webster, the dead man’s wife, on the phone. I don’t know who she was talking to, but she sounded panicky. I forgot to knock and she slammed the phone down when I went into her surgery.’

I was a big fan of people who forgot to knock. ‘What did you hear?’

‘I heard her say something about typhus, and then she said we need to be careful, the police have been sniffing around. I remembered because of her saying about the police.’

‘She mentioned “typhus”?’

‘That’s what I heard.’

‘I know times are hard in Derbyshire, but typhus? Surely not. Wasn’t it spread by lice? In medieval times and World War One trenches?’

‘I don’t know. I just do the filing. I’m going to uni next year though and doing law.’ She gave me an appraising look. ‘I might be a detective actually. I heard something else, too.’ She certainly seemed well suited for a career in detection. ‘Something a bit weird.’

‘Weird?’

She nodded. ‘I heard Vivian, you know, the receptionist, on the phone. She sounded upset. She said Dr Webster was doing the Devil’s work .’

Chapter 9

I walked back down to the marketplace, wrapping Carrie’s scarf tightly round my neck against the bitter wind. My car was still in the car park and hadn’t plunged down the hill into the side of a shop, as per my imaginings. I had my hand on my key when I remembered about Mum’s brooch, ready for me to pick up from Grace Swift’s jewellery shop. It was just over the road, and probably due to shut as it was bang on five o’clock. I dashed over the marketplace as fast as my dodgy ankle could carry me, ran in front of a driver dopily looking for a non-existent parking spot, and burst in.

The shop was empty. I glanced back at the door and saw the sign – Open . Oh dear, the other side must have said Closed . But the door had been unlocked, and I needed Mum’s brooch.

‘Grace!’ I called.

No answer. A distinct clunk came from the door. I jumped. It had sounded like something locking. I gave the door a shove. It didn’t move. I twisted the handle and rattled the door, a feeling of unease squirming inside me. I was locked in.

‘Grace?’ I tried to keep my voice calm.

I could hear a ticking noise, like a loud clock. I was sure there hadn’t been any ticking when I’d first walked in. It had started when the door clunked and locked. I told myself to think calmly. There had to be an innocent explanation.

I looked around the small shop. Glass cabinets were filled with standard fare – watches and so on – but one cabinet caught my eye. It seemed to glow. Inside were pendants and bracelets made from a precious stone I didn’t recognise. It had a kind of magical luminance – colours swirling and mixing and seeming to change before my eyes. A top shelf contained pale, bright pieces and a lower shelf darker pieces, both beautiful.

Where was Grace? The hairs on my arms pricked and I remembered there was a murderer somewhere in this unlikely community.

I noticed a door at the back of the shop, behind the till. I walked round and pushed it. It resisted, then swung open with a creak to reveal a small workshop. I stepped in, trying to avoid knocking over any of the vats of noxious-looking chemicals. The air was thick with the smell of burning metal.

Grace was hunched over soldering equipment. She looked up and her soldering iron fell and clanged on the floor.

‘The door was open,’ I said. ‘But then it locked me in.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ Grace stooped and retrieved the soldering iron. ‘I set it to lock at five. My assistant must have left early.’

‘Yes, there was no one around. Aren’t you worried about leaving the shop unattended?’

‘God wouldn’t let me be burgled.’

I replayed the words in my mind, trying to work out if I’d misheard. I hadn’t noticed God taking a hands-on role in crime prevention in the area.

‘And the cabinets are electrified after five,’ Grace said.

‘Electrified?’ I said weakly. Obviously God wasn’t quite up to the job on his own.

‘Yes. With a simple electric fence set-up.’

I remembered the clicking I’d heard in the shop. ‘That sounds dangerous.’

‘Oh no, it’s quite safe. It’s high voltage but the pulse duration is short, so the energy transmitted is low. Like a fence for horses.’ She put down the soldering iron and led me back into the shop. The clicking sounded more ominous now.