Devil in the Detail A.J. Cross (read full novel .TXT) 📖

with his doubts that Molly Lawrence would be a quickly available source of information. Watts hadn’t taken it well.

He looked out at the darkened city, at arterial streets studded with lights. Somewhere in this diverse, brash, urban sprawl was an individual with a reason to destroy Mike and Molly Lawrence. He turned away. There was something he had to do. Something he should have done days ago.

He headed to the large worktable with its neat piles of textbooks and a large bundle of photographs. Sharing his thinking with Watts about motive in this case had not helped. Watts was right. Their roles were too different. The approach he was now taking was one he hoped might draw out, give shape to, the shadow man. Offender profiling per se was not an option. The attack on the Lawrences was a single event. There were no behavioural patterns to search for. But might the basic principles of profiling still be of use?

He reached for the data Molly had provided of the attack on that dark night in Forge Street. He went through it, read her descriptions of the attacker’s appearance, the limited actions she had described, adding the few facts the police had in relating to the stationary Toyota, and finally, the man with the gun leaving the scene, Michael Lawrence mortally wounded, Molly seriously injured, their blood seeping on to the Toyota’s seats and forming deep pools. A merciless attack. In cold blood.

He reached for the transcript of Molly Lawrence’s call to the emergency services, read again her fear-laden words, severely limited by pain and shock. Within the desk lamp’s pool of light, he examined again the limited detail she had given him of their attacker. The few sounds inside the almost deserted building faded. He gazed down at the list he had constructed of the specific actions and physical details she had described, including some small additions she had recalled: the sudden movement at Michael Lawrence’s car door. Reappearing on the other side. Opening rear door. Getting inside. Waving gun. Demanding valuables. Molly Lawrence’s confidence that he never saw her hide her watch. Just as well he hadn’t. This big, heavy-looking man with body odour and large staring eyes might well have killed her if he had. This man who told them to do as he said.

‘And we did.’

And he shot them both. Because he could. Their car was not locked.

Traynor paused, reached for his notes on her recall of the attacker’s words and actions, searching for the man within them. A man willing to commit two homicides to get his hands on the Lawrences’ valuables. He scanned Molly Lawrence’s words again, seeing little in the way of interaction prior to the shooting. His eyes stopped at three sentences: Hand me your valuables. Put them inside your bag. Give it to me.

Traynor’s head rose. He gazed into darkness beyond the desk lamp’s reach. Shadow man had issued three cool, discrete orders in a situation filled with risk to himself and fear for his two victims. Was this a man used to giving orders? A man with experience as an authority figure? Had he a job which required him to be authoritative? Traynor reached for his pen, wrote: health worker, rescue worker. health and safety officer. He paused, then added, police officer. If the big man with the staring eyes was any of those or similar, he wasn’t young. He had sufficient intellect to participate in the required training. The commitment to see it through. The ability to remain cool under pressure, competent, in control. Traynor read what he’d just written. If all of that were true of him, why had he found it necessary to shoot the Lawrences?

He returned to Molly Lawrence’s limited physical description of their assailant, his imposing build. Was his ability to impose his will on the situation also an indication of a pathological need to control? Was domination a payoff here? He reached for a file, opened it, found Watts’ notes of a visit to a shop near to the crime scene, read them once, and again, stared into the darkened room. ‘Come on. Show yourself,’ he whispered.

He stood, reached for the stack of black-and-white scene photographs, took them to the middle of the room and switched on a nearby lamp. Slowly, methodically, he held up each one, looked at it, let it go, watched it drift down and gently land face up in the pool of light on the wood floor, his eyes fixed on each of the thirty scene shots as it settled there: the Lawrences’ Toyota, one rear door open, another with three of its doors open, a glisten of fine rain on the dark bodywork, the startled half-face of a hooded SOCO captured at the extreme edge of another showing the car’s bloody interior, its front seats heavily mired. More photographs drifted from Traynor’s hand to the floor, two of them taken by police officers who had arrived very soon after Watts, relatively lacking in definition, yet both victims easily identifiable inside the car: Mike Lawrence’s face a rictus of pain, his wife slumped, her face obscured by her dark hair, her heavily stained hands lying loose in her lap—

A loud buzz sounded. Traynor reached for the phone. It was night security. ‘That’s fine. Send him up.’

Traynor returned his attention to the photographs, paced from side to side, eyes fixed on them. The door swung open.

‘Looks like neither of us can leave it alone.’ Watts came across the room and stared down at the photographs.

Traynor pointed at them. ‘Shootings are mostly simple to understand. Retribution for encroachment on gang turf. A raid for significant financial gain. In the Lawrence case, such straightforward motives don’t apply. I’m doing something I should have done days ago: walked in his shoes to understand the individual he is. What he did and how he did it are indicators of what he is. They tell us about his life.’

‘If you’re saying he’s done this before, I’ve had