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

Jones was there, pointing upstairs to the interview room. ‘Duty solicitor has arrived, Sarge.’

‘So, I hear.’ He looked at Judd. ‘Do you want me to take over?’

‘No.’

They came into the room where the duty solicitor was sitting, face flushed, his eyes fixed on Lawrence. He looked up at them. ‘Beyond informing me that she might consider an admission of guilt in exchange for a specific disposal of her case, Mrs Lawrence is refusing to talk to me—’

‘Don’t speak about me as if I’m not here!’ she snapped. ‘Who the hell do you think you are!’

Judd placed papers on the desk and reached for the recording machine. She and Watts sat. ‘That isn’t how the system works, Mrs Lawrence. It’s for the court to recommend disposition. You can’t just demand it.’

The solicitor sent Judd a weary look. ‘I’ve already told her.’

Lawrence turned her blue eyes onto Watts. ‘Tell them both to leave. I want to talk to you.’

Judd placed her hand on the papers. ‘Mrs Lawrence, I’m leading this interview. The evidence we have here indicates that you murdered your husband.’

Lawrence’s eyes remained on Watts as Judd continued.

‘What you’re saying is that you want control over the outcome of the case against you. That’s not going to happen.’ She paused. ‘But some indication of a willingness to cooperate with this process might help you in the long term.’ She watched Lawrence’s face break into a smile, her eyes still on Watts.

‘She thinks she’s good, that she’s got this case by the tail.’ She turned her face to Judd, the smile switching off. ‘But not good enough.’ She sighed then shook her head, her attention diverting to her cuticles.

‘Mrs Lawrence, you can’t dismiss evidence …’

Lawrence yawned. ‘Yes, I can. I was there. It was Brendan who killed Mike and shot me. There’s nothing else to say.’

Judd glanced at Watts, then: ‘We know about the life insurance on you and your husband.’

‘So what? Most professional people have life insurance.’

‘Not for almost a million pounds.’ Judd looked at her. ‘One of the worst aspects of what happened that night in Forge Street is that your husband believed he was there solely to help his brother out of a financial problem. He had no idea that he was about to become a victim. Your victim.’

The blue eyes settled on Judd’s face. Lawrence yawned widely and blinked, her mouth set.

‘You’re being uncooperative, Mrs Lawrence. Let’s move to a different issue. Tell me about your sister.’ Judd hadn’t anticipated a reaction from the woman sitting opposite her. She didn’t get one. ‘You were there when she died. What happened?’

‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

Judd stared across at her, weighing up what she was about to say. ‘It might eventually get you what you want.’

The cuticles were now getting more attention. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘What happened?’ repeated Judd.

‘We went swimming. In the sea.’

‘A risky place for two young girls. Whose idea was that?’

‘My sister was a strong swimmer.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘What happened?’

‘She got into difficulties. I tried to save her.’

Judd slow-nodded, willing to bet that, while she could feel her own heart thudding, the same wasn’t happening inside the woman sitting opposite. ‘Did you get on with your sister?’

Lawrence looked at her and laughed. ‘You are so transparent. She was a pain in the bum, if you want to know, but that was OK because she was leaving to go down to London to stay with one of our aunts so she could go to ballet school.’ Judd heard the exaggerated delivery of ‘bal-leigh’.

‘Envious, were you?’

‘Oh, please. I was glad. At least, with her out of the way, I didn’t have to listen to the bloody music, watch her prancing around, listen to Mum and Dad going on about how talented she was.’ She looked directly at Judd and grinned. ‘I meant “out of the way”, as in London.’

‘According to the coroner’s report, your sister had a deep gash on her head.’

‘So?’

‘How did she get that?’

The blue eyes widened. ‘How am I supposed to answer that? Maybe she struck her head on something as she sank slowly beneath the waves.’ A pin dropping to the floor would have been louder than the silence in the room. The duty solicitor was staring at her, his mouth open.

Judd said, ‘Going back to the murder of your husband—’

Lawrence raised both arms and stretched. Folding them, she gazed ahead, unblinking. ‘I’m bored. I’ve had enough of all this talking. I did it. So what?’

Watts’ pen stilled. Judd stared at her, momentarily outflanked. ‘When you say that you did it—’

‘For Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with you people! Do you want me to spell it out?’

‘Yes. Are you admitting that you shot your husband, or that you killed your sister? Or both?’

‘My husband. That’s it. End of topic.’

‘It isn’t. You need to tell us why you shot him.’

Lawrence’s half-closed eyes slid over Judd’s face. ‘What do you know about anything?’ She sighed, tilted back her head, then gazed at the ceiling. ‘Mike was boring. No drive, you see. No ambition. Happy to just go along, doing whatever he had to do at work, then come home to paint the house, plan the nursery, talk non-stop about the baby, going on and on and bloody on.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It wasn’t what I wanted.’

‘And the only way out that you could see was to kill him and claim the life insurance.’

The blue eyes were back on Judd. ‘You’re making some big drama out of this. I wanted out. Out of the marriage, out of being a mother, but I wasn’t leaving good old, sensible, responsible Mike empty-handed. I wanted that pay-out.’ She laughed. ‘In fact, the only interesting thing he ever did was agree to help Brendan out of his financial hole!’ She shook her head.

‘I went online, got the facts on shooting at the right angle to avoid seriously damaging myself, but hopefully ending the pregnancy. I told Mike that something was wrong