The Reckoning Read online

  ‘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.

  Palmer had lived in something approaching squalor and it was hard to tell what had been moved by the intruders and what was part of his normal surroundings, but his sister had said the place had been ransacked. It looked as if he had moved none of his mother’s belongings after she died, just overlaid them with his own detritus. Small, ugly ornaments and arrangements of dried flowers fought for space with empty beer cans and mugs stained brown from tannin. The gas fire dated from the same period as the wallpaper, which was probably the last time it had been serviced. Out-of-date TV listings magazines, a brimming ashtray and dirty plates were stacked on either side of a red armchair that occupied prime position in the room. The rubbed, greasy patches on the back and the arms of the chair suggested it was his favourite place to sit. He had a large collection of videos – not even DVDs – and the boxes were thrown everywhere, the cassettes fractured, the tape spilling out in shiny brown-black coils. DI Derwent pushed past me and started turning over the boxes with gloved hands. I turned away, searching for something to distract me from what lay on the floor.

  And found it in the signs of violence that jumped out at me once I started looking. Fractured glass was starry in the picture frames that still hung on the wall, lighter patches on the paper showing where others had hung. Blood spatter had dried dark on the biscuit-coloured tiles surrounding the fire. The drawers were pulled out of the sideboard, their contents scattered on the floor. Broken glass was mixed in with the tangle of cutlery and napkins and the stopper from a cheap decanter lay in the middle of it all. The carpet was violently patterned with brown, cream and red swirls and it was only when I looked closely that I could see where the blood had soaked into it, spreading out from the body, the meagre pile drying in tufts. Unwillingly, I followed the blood back to its source.

  The body lay in front of the armchair, as if he had been sitting in it and pitched forward at the moment of his death. He was naked from the waist down, the skin blanched. Blood obeys gravity when it is no longer pumped around the body by a beating heart; the front of Palmer’s body would be patched with livid purple when Dr Hanshaw turned him over. His only clothing was an undershirt, yellowing with age, pulled up above his waist. His sparse hair was rusty-red from the blood that had soaked into it; it was impossible to tell what colour it should have been. One hand lay beside his head, his arm curved around as if he had been trying to shield himself from something or someone. I looked at the hand for too long, trying to work out what was odd about it. The shape was wrong, somehow.

  ‘They took three.’

  I jumped, startled. Derwent was standing beside me, watching Dr Hanshaw’s careful examination of the corpse. The pathologist had just taken the internal temperature, a procedure that always made me feel embarrassed for the dead person. The public indignity of death was profound. Personally, I hoped for a quiet passing, no post-mortem required. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Three fingers. Two from the right hand. One from the left.’ He pointed and I realised that there was a stump where the forefinger should be on each hand, and the middle finger was missing on the right side, dried blood crusted around the wound. ‘They weren’t messing around.’

  ‘I’m going to turn him.’ Dr Hanshaw said, looking up. ‘Give me a hand.’

  To give Derwent his credit, he bent immediately and took a firm hold of the corpse’s legs, something that I wouldn’t have wanted to do even with gloves on. On the pathologist’s command, they rolled Palmer on to his back. A hiss of shock went through the room.

  ‘Significant damage to the genitals.’ Dr Hanshaw bent for a closer look. ‘He was castrated. After a fashion.’

  Even Derwent was looking pale. He rallied enough to ask, ‘What did they use?’

  ‘Possibly the same thing they used on his hands. Heavy cutting equipment – garden shears, secateurs, that kind of tool.’

  ‘Might have been something they brought with them.’ Sean Cottrell was the senior SOCO who was managing the crime scene. ‘We haven’t found anything like that, and there’s no garden as such – just a concrete yard behind the house. Nothing to cut with garden shears.’

  ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if they came equipped,’ Derwent said. ‘Whoever did this knew what they wanted to do here. They were straight into him as soon as he opened the door.’

  ‘But what did they want?’ I was pleased to hear how matter-of-fact I sounded. No one would have guessed I was struggling to keep my composure. ‘It doesn’t look as if he had anything worth stealing. And he served a reasonably long sentence for the child abuse. It’s not as if he was out after a few months and someone felt justice hadn’t been done.’

  ‘Vigilantes?’ Derwent suggested. ‘Maybe they thought prison wasn’t enough punishment. Or they wanted to get rid of him and discourage anyone with a similar background from moving in.’

  ‘Why now? He’s been living here for almost a year. Plenty of harassment – the neighbours certainly didn’t want him here – but nothing like this.’ I made myself look again at the body, confirming what I had already thought. ‘I’m not saying they didn’t enjoy doing it, but this looks like it had a purpose. They tortured him for a reason.’

  Derwent raised his eyebrows. ‘You’d certainly hope it wasn’t for fun.’

  Dr Hanshaw had been ignoring our back-and-forth, concentrating on what he was doing. ‘His face is badly swollen – some of that is post-mortem, but it’s fairly clear he was beaten severely. Whoever attacked him took their time over it.’ He probed the skull and gave a little grunt. ‘There was a significant blow to the head that caused a m
assive skull fracture. I’ll have a better idea when I look at his brain during the PM, but I’m fairly sure I’ll find this was the fatal injury.’

  The victim’s face was a gargoyle mask, his tongue protruding from his mouth, one cloudy eye staring at the ceiling while the other was swollen shut. I made myself stare at it without flinching. Whatever they had wanted from him, they had made sure he suffered. And they had made sure he died once they were finished with him. I wondered if he had told them what they wanted to hear, in the end. I wondered if they had cared. The level of violence was extreme – it was overkill. And they had enjoyed it.

  Judging that I’d spent long enough staring at the body to prove to anyone who cared that I was tougher than I looked, I turned to Derwent. ‘Mind if I have a look around the rest of the place?’

  ‘Good idea. Check it out.’ He sounded distracted, still focused on the body. I had found it hard to warm to the new DI, but that didn’t mean he was bad at his job. I might yet come to respect him, even if liking him seemed a long way off.

  Threading a careful path through the forensic team, I made it to the kitchen and wished I hadn’t. Every surface was thick with months’ old grease and the windowsill was sprinkled with dead insects. The kitchen units were old, a white laminate that had peeled badly here and there, and the doors hung off the cupboards. Again, it was hard to tell what was recent damage and what state the room had been in before Palmer’s nightmarish visitors had arrived, but the drawers upended on the floor and the tins rolling everywhere suggested that the intruders had been in the kitchen too. An officer was painstakingly examining the tiles for footprints. Someone had opened the back door and I edged towards it on the pretext of looking at the yard outside, but really so I could get some air. The tiny concrete space smelled of wholesome exhaust fumes and stale beer from the pub, better than an alpine meadow as far as I was concerned after the ungodly stench in the house. I inhaled deeply and enthusiastically, staring up at a sky that was a cloudless clear blue stitched with vapour trails.