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

Grace slipped out of the kitchen.

‘So we gather,’ I said. ‘And we have a possible murder to investigate. So let’s press on, shall we?’

He pulled out a wooden chair and sat facing us. He steepled his fingers in a show of confidence but couldn’t seem to pull it off, so resorted to picking up his pen and making as if to write notes on my performance. ‘If I don’t get this draft done by the end of—’

‘When did you last see Peter?’

He glanced at Jai and then gave me a huffy look. ‘On Friday at work.’

‘And did you notice anything unusual?’

‘No, but I only said hello in the corridor. He looked fine.’ He tapped his pen against the table.

‘Did you and Peter get along well?’

‘Yes, well enough. We went into business together.’

‘But that was five years ago. What about recently? I understand Peter had changed recently.’

Edward cleared his throat. ‘He seemed to have become a little careless, yes.’

‘And what were the implications of that?’

‘It could be very serious in our profession.’

With some witnesses, you could set them going and they’d be off like the Duracell bunny, revealing every tiny detail of the victim’s usually tedious and irrelevant life. The problem was shutting them up, but at least you had something to work with. This was clearly not going to be the case with Edward.

‘Why is it so serious?’

‘Patent work is very deadline-driven. In most branches of the law, if you miss a deadline, you can extend it, no one’s harmed. But we have certain deadlines where if we miss them, that’s it. An invention potentially worth millions isn’t protected any more. And if the client’s disclosed the invention, you can’t ever get valid protection.’

‘Had Peter missed one of these deadlines?’

‘Look I can’t really say much. It’s all confidential. I don’t see what this has to do with his death.’

‘Why? What do you think is relevant to his death?’

‘I really have no idea.’ He wouldn’t catch my eye.

‘So how do you know this isn’t? And don’t you care?’

Edward put his pen down and then picked it up and started the annoying tapping again. ‘Yes, of course I do. I am sorry about Peter but he had been a pain in the neck recently. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.’

‘So, had he missed an important deadline?’

Edward sighed. ‘He may have done.’

‘Where were you yesterday?’

‘I was in work all day. I didn’t even go out at lunchtime.’

‘Why do you think Peter got careless?’

‘I don’t know. I wondered if he was drinking. Not in the daytime but in the evening, and then feeling under the weather in the daytime.’

‘Why were you going through his files when he was on holiday?’

Edward blushed and the pen froze mid-tap. ‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes, that.’

‘I was checking he was on top of his work. Which he wasn’t. Or his partnership duties.’

‘What partnership duties?’

‘Look, can we continue this another day? It’s bad enough having to take on half Peter’s clients without losing more time.’

‘Tell me what partnership duties he’d neglected.’

‘He hadn’t renewed our professional indemnity insurance, which was pretty serious given the state of his work. We trusted each other to do things. You have to in a small firm – you can’t be checking up on each other all the time or you’d never get your work done.’

‘Was that serious? Not renewing the insurance? I imagine it was.’

Edward gave a humourless laugh. ‘You could say so. We’re still a traditional partnership, which means we have unlimited liability. We could be personally bankrupted by one of his mistakes.’

‘Was that what you and Felix Carstairs were discussing?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I heard you had discussions, just the two of you.’

Edward put the damned pen down and looked straight at me, but didn’t quite meet my gaze. ‘We were concerned about Peter’s performance, yes, and this indemnity insurance issue was very alarming.’

‘Did you consider asking Peter to leave?’

‘It’s not that simple. We’d have had to find a lot of money.’

‘Why would you have had to find a lot of money to get him to leave?’ I leaned forward in my chair.

‘We’d have had to buy his share of the business – worth several hundred thousand. And we’d probably have had to pay him a year’s salary, too.’

‘And do you have to buy his share in the business from his beneficiaries now?’

‘Yes. But we have insurance to cover that. He didn’t let that one lapse.’

‘You’ve checked that already?’

‘Of course.’

‘So, it’s actually quite convenient that he’s dead?’

Edward examined his hand, the one without the pen. ‘Yes, actually, it is. It’s easier to pick up his clients between us than to manage his mistakes.’ He wiped his large forehead. ‘Look, they’ve probably told you I’m not good with people and I’m also not a good liar. It is convenient that he’s dead but I didn’t kill him.’

I sat back in my chair. ‘Okay, we’ll leave it at that for today. We may need to talk to you again.’

Edward grabbed his notepad and bolted from the room.

I rocked my chair recklessly onto two legs, and turned to Jai. ‘I wonder how many levels of bluff a man that intelligent could handle.’

‘Enough to fool your average cop,’ he said.

Grace reappeared and offered us another drink, which we declined.

‘Do you have time to talk to Alex today?’ she said. ‘It’s fine if not. I know you’re very busy.’

I grimaced. Did some mental calculations. ‘Okay. I’ll have a word with Alex while my colleague asks you a few questions.’

‘Oh, thank you so much. He’ll be thrilled. Do tell him if he’s being too precocious. We’re really trying to avoid that. It’s just… he didn’t get on well at school. I so want him to have a happy childhood.’ She hesitated. ‘And to be brought up with Jesus in his heart.’ She beckoned Jai from the room and he followed her, glancing back and giving me a theatrical, Don’t-make-me-go-with-the-Nutter look.

I ignored Jai, and sat back and closed my eyes against all the weirdness.

I heard the thud of approaching children. It sounded like at least four. I opened my eyes unwillingly.

Alex appeared in a cloud of ginger. He bounded over and sat on the chair opposite me, his elbows pushed forward onto the table. ‘I’m going to be a detective when I grow up.’

A girl of about fifteen followed, clutching a mug of tea, and sat next to me, legs crossed. She looked at me and rolled her eyes. ‘Lucky you, getting to talk to Alex. He’ll probably ask you to do his stupid logic problem.’

‘This is Rosie,’ Alex said. ‘She comes for extra maths because she’s not that good at it.’

I gave Rosie a sympathetic look.

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘But at least I’m not a spoilt brat.’

Alex’s eyes darted back and forth between Rosie and me. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Mum told me I should think about other people’s feelings. Sorry, Rosie, it’s not your fault you’re no good at maths.’

Rosie laughed. ‘Thanks, Alex. I feel so much better now.’ She looked at me. ‘He doesn’t actually mean to be rude. It’s a disability.’

I smiled at Rosie and turned to Alex. ‘Did you want to ask me about being a detective?’ I was keen to move the conversation away from poor Rosie’s ability or otherwise in maths.

‘Yes,’ Alex said. ‘Do you use deductive logic?’

I felt a frisson of panic. I was used to questions about dead bodies and Tasers. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Maybe more often inductive.’ I wasn’t sure I could fully remember the difference. ‘Why do you want to be a detective?’