The Reckoning (2 page)

‘And it wasn’t,’ I said knowing the answer.

‘It was not. Mr Tremlett was in the office, all right, with his computers, but neither they nor he were in what you might call a viable condition. Mr Tremlett’s injuries were not compatible with life.’

It was typical police understatement: the phrase generally meant someone who was so very dead it was hard to recognise them as having been human in the first place. ‘Who took the case? Lambeth CID?’

‘They did the initial work. Didn’t take it too far – they just took statements from the people working in the laundrette, and Mrs Tremlett, and secured the scene. In fairness, they didn’t have much of a chance to get stuck in, because this came in at lunchtime.’

‘This’ was the crime scene that was our eventual destination, if the traffic ever released us. But Derwent hadn’t finished with the software designer yet.

‘The last time anyone heard from Tremlett was around two yesterday afternoon when he spoke to his wife. The computers had been smashed to bits, but we might be able to raise something off a hard disk to tell us when he last used them – that could give us a better idea of when he was attacked, but let’s say it was between two and five yesterday afternoon.’

‘No witnesses?’

‘Not so far. No one in the laundrette heard or saw anything. It’s a noisy place, apparently – machines on the go all the time, people in and out. Besides, no one really knew Ivan Tremlett was there. He kept to himself, and his office had a separate entrance, so they wouldn’t have seen him or anyone else coming and going.’ The car in front of us braked and Derwent’s face lit up with a demonic glow. He grinned at me. ‘Here’s where it gets interesting.’

I smiled politely in response. Interesting was never good, in my limited experience.

‘Around one o’clock this afternoon, the control room received a 999 call from the address of a forty-three-year-old male, an unemployed gentleman by the name of Barry Palmer. He lived alone in a two-bedroom house. His sister had become concerned about him, not having heard from him for a couple of days, and had gone around to see if he was all right. She had a key to his front door, so she let herself in. The house had been ransacked. She found her brother in the front room.’

‘And he was dead.’

‘Very much so.’

‘Did he die before Ivan Tremlett or after?’

‘Good question. I don’t know the answer, as it happens, but Dr Hanshaw is meeting us there. He’ll be able to tell us more.’

‘Why are you linking the two murders?’

‘There were similarities between the two crime scenes – obvious similarities, as you’ll see when you have a look yourself. I take your point about not making assumptions, but take it from me, we’re looking for the same killer or killers.’

‘So what do Ivan Tremlett and Barry Palmer have in common? Who would want to kill them? Did they know each other?’

‘Gold star to DC Kerrigan. Those are exactly the right questions to ask.’

I felt patronised rather than encouraged, but at least the inspector seemed pleased. I was beginning to feel a mild, fragile sense of optimism. Maybe the new DI wasn’t so bad. He would have to be something special to be worse than his predecessor, the rat-faced Tom Judd, a charmless manipulator who had taken a totally undeserved promotion and was now leading a robbery team in the East End. The team had held a massive leaving party to celebrate. We hadn’t made the mistake of inviting Judd himself.

‘I don’t know if they knew one another, but I can tell you one thing Tremlett and Palmer share. They both have criminal records. And there’s no shortage of people who might want to see them dead.’ Derwent paused to let that sink in. I waited patiently for the explanation. ‘Tremlett pleaded guilty to downloading child pornography three years ago. He was working for a small company in Kent and they found it on his computer. He did nine months. Lost his job, not surprisingly, so he set up on his own once the dust had settled. It explains why he kept himself to himself.’

‘And the security he had on his office.’ I frowned. ‘So they’ve got kids, and he’s a convicted sex offender, but Mrs Tremlett was happy to have him in the family home?’

‘Apparently so. We can ask her about that. Wouldn’t be the first wife to be in denial about what she’d married.’

‘If this all happened in Kent, did anyone in the local area know about his conviction?’

‘Something else to ask her about, but Lambeth CID say not. He was on the register. No record of anyone making enquiries about him, though.’

The sex-offenders’ register wasn’t open to general access, though a recent law made it possible for members of the public to check whether individuals were listed on it, and for what. But they had to be suspicious to begin with. The ordinary punter in the street didn’t seem to realise that, for the most part, the sex offenders who are really dangerous are the ones you would never, ever suspect.

‘What about Mr Palmer?’

‘Mr Palmer is different. He was a known paedophile. Last October he was released from prison after serving a seven-year stretch for raping two little girls. Against the advice of his probation officer, he went back to Brixton, to the house where he had lived when the abuse took place. Not unexpectedly, the local community didn’t put out a welcome mat for him. He reported a campaign of harassment ranging from name-calling to a paper bag full of dogshit that was dropped through his letterbox. They’d set fire to it first, so when he went to put out the flames by stamping on it, he got it all over himself.’

‘That old trick.’

‘He should have known better,’ Derwent agreed. ‘He had trouble with graffiti – scum out, kiddyfiddler lives here, that kind of thing – and the locals wouldn’t speak to him or serve him in shops.’

‘Why did he want to come back?’

‘I spoke to his probation officer just before we left the nick. The house was his mother’s. She died while he was inside, so it was vacant when he got out. He needed somewhere to stay and a rent-free home was appealing. His sister wouldn’t have him living with her. She’s got kids herself. Palmer swore he was innocent and the sister says she believed him, but you wouldn’t take the chance, would you?’

‘Not if there was any alternative.’ Nothing that I’d heard so far sounded like good news. ‘So there are a million suspects and when we ask around no one is going to have seen or heard anything.’

‘That’s about right.’

‘Brilliant.’ I looked at him, curious. ‘This is shaping up to be a nightmare case. You don’t seem too worried.’

‘It’s win-win, isn’t it? If I solve it, I get the credit for clearing up a double-murder. If I don’t …’ He shrugged. ‘No one much cares about the victims, do they? No one is going to be demanding paedophiles should be better protected.’

‘Cynical.’

‘Realistic. Anyway, don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We’ll work it out together. I’ll make sure you’re not left out at the prize-giving.’

I restrained myself from rolling my eyes. Fantastic. Another copper who was going to talk down to me just because I was female.
Sweetheart my arse
.

Derwent was still talking, oblivious. ‘According to the boss, this is an important case and needs sensitive handling. That’s why he assigned you to work on it with me, which makes some sort of sense. The last thing I need is one of those hairy-arsed DCs from the team clumping around offending the families by saying the wrong thing.’

‘I’ll do my best to avoid that,’ I said stiffly.

‘That’s the thing. You don’t have to say anything at all. Just stand back, look pretty, and let me do all the work.’ Derwent squinted out through the windscreen and I was glad that he didn’t look in my direction, because the expression on my face was nothing short of murderous. ‘This should be an easy gig for you. Just stay out of my way so you can watch and learn.’

Just like that my enthusiasm for the new case, and my new colleague, slipped all the way down to zero.

And things were only going to get worse.

Barry Palmer had lived and died in a two-up, two-down redbrick cottage at the end of a long terrace of similar houses, the last survivors from rows of Victorian workers’ cottages that had been obliterated during the Blitz. Derwent found a parking space a little bit further up the street and I got out before he’d switched the engine off, desperate for even a few seconds of respite from the new DI’s company. On the pretext of checking out the area, I wandered away from him, scanning the surroundings. Industrial units and high-rise council flats flanked the houses on the streets on both sides, looming over the rooftops. Palmer’s house was on the corner and shared a wall with a large, noisy pub of surpassing grimness named the Seven Bells. I risked poking my head in and found an old Victorian pub that had lost all of its character in a series of refits, none recent. It now had too-bright lighting, filthy carpets and faux-leather seats. The music was played at headache-inducing volume and banks of games machines churned out electronic beeps and pings as the customers fed them pound coins. The pub fronted on to a busy road that thundered with buses and lorries. It was the worst sort of location for finding witnesses to a murder, even without considering whether anyone would want to help us find Palmer’s killer. No one would have heard anything strange, I was willing to bet. Even if he had screamed.

The house itself was cordoned off with blue-and-white striped police tape looped around a pair of lampposts to create a rectangle where no one but those on official police business could go. On the other pavement, a group of neighbours were standing, watching. None of them even looked particularly shocked by what had happened. Certainly no one looked as if they were in mourning.

A uniformed PC, square in his luminous jacket, stood by the front door of Palmer’s house. He looked more bored than I would have thought possible. They had already put up a blue plastic tent around the door to limit how much the onlookers saw. The windows hadn’t yet been covered. They were grey with dirt, but I could make out brownish net curtains that had a floral pattern woven into the lace and looked like they had hung there, unwashed, for decades. Behind them, movement, and the occasional flare of a camera flash told me the SOCOs were already working.

A black van stencilled with the word AMBULANCE was parked right outside the house, ready to take the body away once Dr Hanshaw had finished his preliminary examination at the scene and Derwent had given permission for it to be removed to the mortuary. The mortuary vans always gave me the creeps. I went past quickly, holding my breath in case I caught a whiff of decay. I knew that they were kept scrupulously clean but I couldn’t forget what they routinely carried, or what was waiting for us inside the house. I shouldn’t really have been so squeamish; I was just as much a part of the death business as any undertaker. But at least I didn’t have to be hands-on.

I took one last look around, then headed towards Derwent who was waiting for me, a sardonic expression on his face. He was holding the police tape over his shoulder so I could duck underneath, a simple courtesy that made me uncomfortable. I didn’t need his help, but turning it down would have seemed churlish. Then again, telling him to back off might have put a stop to the sweethearts and darlings.

‘Ready to join me in the house? Or do you want to have another look round first?’

‘Just getting a feel for the place,’ I said, not allowing myself to sound ruffled.

‘I’d have thought you’d be keen to get in there. See the body.’ He sniffed. ‘Probably won’t be stinking yet even though the weather’s been warm. But the house looks pretty filthy from here. I bet it’s ripe in there.’

I sent up a small silent prayer of gratitude that I had grown up with an older brother who liked to torment me. Presumably I was supposed to respond with girlish horror. Derwent could try all day and he’d never manage to get a reaction like that from me. I smiled instead, as if the DI had made a witty, brilliant joke, and followed him to the blue tent. It was more than my life was worth to kick up a fuss about putting on a paper boiler suit over my clothes and paper booties on my feet, but I was aware that I looked ridiculous and it was no consolation that everyone else did too.

Someone had pushed the front door so that it was almost shut and I looked at it closely, imagining it as it would have looked to a passer-by on an ordinary day. The paint on the door was dark brown and peeling away. Just above the letterbox, someone had scraped the word ‘Nonce’ into the door, getting right down to the wood. The letters were thick and straggling, but easy to read. It must have taken them a while to do it. I wondered what it would have been like to stand in the hallway of the house and listen to someone carve the five jagged letters that spelled out what he was. He would have been afraid to stop them. He would have been afraid all the time.

With good reason, it seemed, because stepping into the hallway was like stepping into a nightmare. The overhead light was on, a harsh incandescent bulb in a dusty lace shade that was incongruously delicate, and the glare picked up the detail of what had taken place there. The walls were papered with a stylised pattern of flowers in tones of pale brown and cream, décor that had to date from the 1970s. The bottom foot or so was grey with rising damp. Here and there the paper bubbled away from the wall, puffed out with moisture. Apart from that, and a scuffmark or two, it had survived reasonably well. At least it had until someone had dragged something blood-stained the length of the hallway, a reddish-brown smear halfway up the wall that was feathered around the edges. Hair produced that effect when it was soaked in blood, I happened to know. The bloodstains told a sorry story to anyone who could read them. He had answered the door – God knows why – and the first thing they had done was to beat him until he bled. And that was just for starters.

I followed the trail past a malodorous sheepskin coat hanging on the end of the stairs, down to a doorway on the left side of the hall. It led into the front room, a small space made smaller by the clutter stacked on all sides and the number of people standing in it. The white suits made everyone anonymous but I picked out Dr Hanshaw immediately. He was taller and thinner than anyone else in the room, for starters. He was also leaning at a perilous angle to get a better view of what lay on the floor. I couldn’t bring myself to look down – not yet, anyway. The room stank of blood, of human waste, of full ashtrays and dirty clothes and damp. It was hot and the windows were tightly closed. There was no air in the room, and no escape from the smell.