Devil in the Detail

by A. J. Cross

  He stopped and looked across at Watts. ‘Here’s a key question: why wasn’t Molly Lawrence shot in the head?’

  ‘I don’t get—?’

  ‘It would make more sense. She would have died. As it is, he left her as a witness. Why would he do that?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Traynor stood, paced, came back to the table and leant on it, his eyes on Watts’ face. ‘The working theory of this investigation was initially homicide-by-stranger. I’ve just given you my views on execution as motive.’

  ‘So, where does it leave us and why the extended search of the area?’

  Traynor sat, his face intent. ‘That area is the one incontrovertible “known” we have. It was chosen by the gunman. I suspect he either knew one or both of the Lawrences or he knew of them. We look for evidence of him in the area where he shot them. Tell officers to ask all residents specific, targeted questions: do they recall seeing anyone close to the time of the shootings who looked out of place? Anyone who, for whatever reason, didn’t appear to fit the area. They need to be asked similar questions about any vehicles seen. Their task is to focus residents’ attention on any anomalies of the kind I’ve described.’

  ‘You’ll provide the questions?’

  ‘I trust you to outline what I’ve said. Impress on them to keep it short. Specific.’

  Watts stood. ‘I’ll send more officers to the Lawrence scene with an order to work towards the Bristol Road interchange, and I’ll have Julian evaluate whatever information they get as it comes in.’

  Checking his watch, he left the office and went up to the incident room, finding Jones and Kumar there.

  ‘Any news for me?’

  They looked at him, dispirited. Jones shook his head. ‘No, Sarge, but the three community leaders we talked to were receptive, once we outlined why we’ve got such a presence there. The residents we met at the community centre didn’t have anything to tell us but they’ve got our contact details and they seemed keen to assist if they do hear anything.’

  Watts headed for the whiteboard, looked at the two maps, one showing the cluster of carjackings close to the Bristol Road, the other the Lawrence shooting. The distance between the two scenes still looked small to him.

  He turned to other officers sitting nearby. ‘I want you four with Jones and Kumar. You start at Forge Street and work outwards in the direction of the intersection. You talk to everybody—’

  Jones looked at his colleagues, back to Watts. ‘We have, Sarge. Nobody knows anything.’

  ‘This is different. I want you asking a couple of specific questions of everybody you see: residents, shopkeepers, the homeless, Big Issue sellers, people in workplaces, anywhere else where there’s people. You ask every single one of them to think back to a couple of days either side of the Lawrence shooting. Do they recall seeing anybody around that time who looked like he didn’t belong, whose face didn’t fit for whatever reason. Ditto, for any car seen passing through or parked.’

  Jones and Kumar exchanged glances. ‘You want us asking the same of everybody in that whole area, Sarge?’ asked Jones.

  ‘You’ve got it. You and these four know it well by now. This is a new phase of the inquiry. It’s targeted. Keep your questions brief. You’re not after anyone’s life story. You don’t need more than two or three direct questions. You ask them, you record the responses, you move on.’ He paused, aware that what he was about to say wasn’t part of Traynor’s view of this phase. ‘While you’re at it, ask another, general question. What do they know about street crime such as attempted carjackings around the area? Plus, anybody who might have started carrying a weapon. Any sort of weapon.’

  They quickly wrote, Jones looking at Watts.

  ‘From what Will Traynor said, I thought the idea of a connection to the carjackings had been knocked on the head.’

  Watts eyed him. ‘Who’s SIO of this investigation?’

  ‘You are, Sarge.’

  ‘Glad we got that sorted. We’ve got no motive for the Lawrence shootings so I’m ruling nothing out.’

  ‘There’s a lot of weapons about, Sarge,’ said Kumar. ‘People around there will be leery of volunteering anything for fear of reprisals. They stick together in those sorts of areas.’

  Watts slow-walked to him. ‘How long is it since you started here, Kumar?’

  ‘Ten months, Sarge, straight from training.’

  ‘How much inner-city investigative work have you done?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Then you’re in for a surprise, lad. That area is close-knit. The people who live and work there are no different from people in any other area. Yes, some might not give a toss about what’s going on around them, but there’s plenty of others that do. They’ve got homes there that they value, kids they need to protect, they’re as sick of crime as anybody else and a lot of them are public-spirited. Get an early start tomorrow morning on what I’ve just said. Your focus is the Lawrence shootings, but keep alert for anything which might relate to the carjackings. If there’s any problem talking to the Asian population, you lead on it, Kumar.’

  Kumar stared up at him. ‘Me? Why me? I know my way around a takeaway menu but that’s about it. Like my mom and dad, I was born in West Brom.’

  Watts sighed, rubbed his eyes. ‘Right. Take interpreters with you. Our area of inquiry is now extended to people living and/or working between the Lawrence scene and the Bristol Road.’

  Watts came into his office to find Traynor sitting at his desk, long legs stretched, arms folded, looking like he had a lot on his mind. ‘Officers will be out early, speaking to residents like you suggested.’ He paused, then looked across at the maps. ‘It’s not a big area but there’s a lot of people. It’ll take more than six.’

  Traynor stood. ‘It could be a good return in terms of the data they collect. When Julian has analysed it, it might throw up motives we haven’t yet considered.’

  Watts was reviewing what he’d just told his officers, the order he’d given them to ask questions about carjackings. He had wanted Traynor on this investigation because he was good – he knew what he was doing. Which didn’t mean that Watts would be swayed from the direction he believed it had to go, in the absence of a convincing reason why it shouldn’t. He looked at him. It was time for straight talking. And Traynor wasn’t going to like it.

  ‘You and me are from different worlds, Will, and very occasionally I get a sharp reminder of it. You can take your time, choose your theories, work to prove or disprove them. It’s all the same to you because everything you come up with might be of interest, might be relevant. That doesn’t work for me. I don’t have the luxury of time to chase whatever appeals, the “what-ifs”. My job is about getting evidence, following it, identifying potential suspects, making a case, and while I’m doing that, the clock is ticking. In the absence of specific evidence to the contrary, I’m continuing to run the carjacking cases alongside the Lawrence investigation.’

  Getting no response, he said, ‘And while we’re discussing it, what the Lawrence shootings are still telling me is that whichever cretin is responsible, he did it for one simple reason: the Lawrences were there, they looked well-off, he wanted their stuff and the situation turned lethal. It’s a tragic but common enough story.’

  ‘What’s needed for both of us to be on the same page with this investigation?’ asked Traynor.

  ‘Evidence. Something concrete that tells me the Lawrence shootings aren’t what I think they are: mindless acts of physical destruction motivated by greed.’ Watts watched Traynor head for the door. ‘Let me have the date you agree to see Molly Lawrence again. Make it soon, yeah?’

  TWENTY

  Monday 17 December. 8.45 p.m.

  Traynor was at his university window, looking at the inner city far below shrouded in mist, watching ghost vehicles surge, stop, surge again along tangled ribbons of roads. To him, it reflected the progress of the Lawrence case. He had called Molly Lawrence at her home earlier. Her mother
had answered, told him that Molly was unwell, that today had been a bad day. He had given Mrs Monroe two possible dates on which he could see Molly again. She had agreed to give them to her. He had rung Watts 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 two incident room officers do independent trawls of past city shootings. Nothing fits the Lawrence case.’

  Traynor’s eyes were still fixed on the photographs. ‘That’s not what I mean. What I’m saying is that unlike the gang member and the bank robber, what we have here in the behaviour he’s showing us is not this offender’s reason for being, his way of life.’

  ‘Say again.’

  Traynor crouched, reached for the photograph showing Michael and Molly Lawrence bleeding inside their car and held it up to him. ‘This is what he did, but I think he has a whole other life which doesn’t feature violence. He doesn’t need it. His authority, his strength of character carries him through. I doubt he’s in any records. From what we know of the attack, from what Molly has been able to tell us, he’s somebody who is confident at directing and controlling other people. It may relate to the kind of work he does. It may be a reflection of his personality. He has a natural authority which he’s able to exercise in order to take control of highly charged situations. I was wrong about his age. This is no “young dude”.’

  Watts stared down at the photograph. ‘Degree of authority suggests certain types of work to me … and I don’t like what I’m coming up with.’

  ‘You will if it leads us to him.’ He looked up at Watts. ‘All lives have diverse aspects. Criminality doesn’t feature in most. I don’t believe it does in his.’ Seeing Watts’ disbelief, he said, ‘You’ll have known at least one killer whose homelife was a model of conventional living: a wife. two-point-four children, relatives, friends, colleagues, all of them shocked when he’s arrested and a court finds him guilty of unspeakable violence.’

  Watts watched Traynor move away, letting the last of the Lawrences’ photographs drift to the floor where it settled in the midst of the others. ‘So, how does that help us?’

  ‘It shows us what he is.’

  ‘That he’s a regular type who got a gun, saw the Lawrences and used it on them? That sounds psychopathic to me.’

  ‘You say that because we still don’t know his motivation. This is no thug who can’t control his fury. Neither is he a young, antisocial male, bigged-up by a weapon. He’s like most people …’ He paused. ‘Except, when he did this. There had to be something he really wanted. When we finally have his identity, we might b
e shocked.’

  Watts waited. ‘I’m already shocked at what you’re telling me.’

  Traynor pointed to a photograph of Forge Street. ‘There’s a question there I can’t answer.’

  ‘Only one? Lucky you.’

  ‘I joined this investigation thinking that what happened to the Lawrences was opportunistic. It wasn’t. It was thoroughly planned—’

  ‘Hang on!’

  ‘The question is, why?’ Traynor returned to the photographs and crouched over them, his face intent. ‘Why did he choose that place?’ He glanced up at Watts. ‘Actually, that leads to more questions. How did he know of Forge Street? It’s a forgotten place. If he’s not local, did he regularly pass along it and consider it ideal for what he had planned?’

  Watts looked down at the Forge Street photograph, shook his head. ‘There’s a problem with what you’re saying. Everything we know points to the Lawrences arriving there first.’

  Traynor straightened. ‘In that case, “everything” has to be wrong. I suggest you get the security guard who works nearby into headquarters.’

  Watts’ head came up. ‘Nigel? Why? Come on, Traynor. I’ve known his family for years. He’s—’

  ‘The single individual in this case so far who has work which gives him a degree of authority, plus the demeanour and physicality to support it.’

  Watts’ phone buzzed. ‘Yeah?’ He looked at Traynor. ‘And? … I’ll be there as soon as I can.’