Devil in the Detail by A.J. Cross (love letters to the dead .TXT) 📗

Barnes and you see Engar and Alphon on Friday? Or the other way around. Whatever you want … OK, I’ll be here at eight.’

Within twenty minutes of Judd leaving, Watts had tracked down a phone number for Benedict Sill.

TWENTY-FOUR

Thursday 20 December. 9.50 a.m.

A youngish man with a wispy beard opened the door in response to Watts’ ring. He and Judd absorbed the baggy jeans, flip-flops and ratty-looking sweatshirt.

‘Mr Williams? Detective Inspector Watts and Police Constable Judd. I phoned you.’

Williams stepped back. They walked inside. The place was a muddle, but warm and clean-looking. Williams went ahead of them, moving what looked to be laundry in need of an iron from a couple of chairs. ‘Sorry for the mess, but I’m working to a deadline. Sit down.’

Judd took out her notebook. Watts evaluated Williams. On first examination he looked to be a gangling youth, although he had to be in his early thirties if he was a contemporary of Mike Lawrence. ‘You’ve already had a visit so you know why we’re here, Mr Williams. To talk about Michael and Molly Lawrence.’

‘Yes. Sorry, hang on.’

He disappeared through a door. They waited, picking up a smell of burning, heard a muttered expletive and the sound of a toaster ejecting something. Judd jabbed her pen at a nearby worktable. Watts eyed the large-screen computer, surrounded by what looked to be bits of plastic of various shapes and colours.

Williams was back, grinning. ‘Breakfast beyond saving. It can wait.’ He dropped on to a nearby chair, his face serious. ‘I just can’t get my head around what’s happened to Mike and his wife.’ He shook his head. ‘What a tragedy.’

‘Tell us all you know about them, Mr Williams.’

‘Mike has been on my mind since I first read about it. He was a mild, cool kind of guy, you know? We were students at the same college but following different courses. Mike was into art and design. I was on the digital arts course but we hung around together when we weren’t in lectures.’ He nodded to the table. ‘I design activities.’

Watts glanced at it. ‘You mean for kids?’

‘They’re not toys. They’re constructional. The people who buy my stuff are all ages, from eight to eighty.’

‘I’ve seen them in shops,’ said Judd. ‘Somebody I know who’s into that kind of construction says they’re great.’

Watts asked, ‘You knew Mike Lawrence for quite a while?’

‘It was an on-off friendship, but yes.’

‘Start by telling us about the off part of it.’

Williams looked nonplussed. ‘No, no. I didn’t mean that the way it might have come across. We got on well as students.’ He grinned. ‘Both interested in the pub, women, you know.’ Seeing Watts waiting, he carried on. ‘As I said, we just hung around together. After we finished our degrees, our paths diverged.’ He shrugged. ‘It happens. We still met up occasionally. When Mike got married, that got less, of course, but when we did see each other, it was always a good catch-up.’

‘What about Mrs Lawrence?’

‘What about her?’

‘How much contact did you have with her, Mr Williams?’

He frowned. ‘What do you mean, “contact”?’

Watts sent him a direct look. ‘How often did you see her, where did you see her, who was there, who’s idea was it—’

‘I get it. There’s not much to tell. I met her two or three times, always with Mike, so I didn’t know her that well. Actually, she wasn’t at all what I expected.’

‘Say again?’

‘I knew some of the women Mike had dated. They were’ – he shrugged – ‘straightforward, I suppose. Molly struck me as very serious. Not somebody given to small talk.’

‘And you didn’t see much of her.’

‘I didn’t see that much of either of them once they were married. Mike phoned me a few weeks back to say that Molly was pregnant. He sounded really chuffed. I decided to cool it a bit. They had enough to do and think about.’

‘When was the last time you had direct contact with either of them?’

They waited as Williams appeared to think about it.

‘It had to be shortly after he phoned me. I dropped in at their place one day when I was passing and saw Mike’s car outside. It was the first time I’d been there. It was really nice. All the expensive mod cons.’ He grinned, looked around. ‘No living like a student any more for Mike. Molly was at work. Mike showed me the room they were going to make into the nursery. He had colour charts and stuff …’ Williams looked at the floor. ‘When I heard what happened to them, like I said, I couldn’t believe it. It sounds like they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because of what it said on the news. About the area.’

‘Know it, do you?’

‘What? No. I hardly ever go into the city.’ He indicated the room. ‘This is where I spend most of my work time.’

‘What about when you’re not working?’

‘I tend to stay local. See a few mates.’

‘Are you married, Mr Williams?’

He frowned. ‘No. Not that that’s relev—’

‘Did you and Mike Lawrence have friends in common?’

‘A couple, yes. Matthew Barnes. Benedict Sill.’

Watts’ eyes fastened on Williams. ‘Has there been any contact between you and either of those two individuals recently?’

Williams’ eyes went from him to Judd and back. ‘No, none.’

Watts slow-nodded. ‘Work gets in the way of life, right?’

Williams didn’t reply. His legs jiggled.

‘This Benedict Sill. Where’s he?’

‘I’ve no idea. I can’t provide any details for Matt either. In the past, when I met up with them it would be Mike who arranged it.’

‘Is there anybody else you know who was a friend of Mike Lawrence?’ He watched Williams choose his words.

‘Not a friend, exactly. Sebastian Engar was Mike’s employer. Seb has to be in his fifties but from what Mike told me I got the impression that Seb thought highly of him. So highly, according to Mike, he was planning to hand over the daily running of the company to him when he