The Reckoning (7 page)

Claudia looked past Derwent, craning her neck to take in every detail of the room, just as we had. ‘I wanted to see where he died. I was just going to drive past, but then I saw the light was on.’

‘Did you visit your husband here often?’

‘I’ve never been here before.’ She must have seen the look of surprise on my face. ‘Ivan kept his two worlds totally separate. He didn’t work at home. He didn’t have anything from home in his office. That included me and the children.’

‘How many children?’

‘Three. All boys. Four, seven and nine.’ Her face crumpled. ‘They keep asking me when Daddy will be home.’

‘That must be very difficult,’ I said quietly, knowing that nothing we could say would be of comfort to her.

‘Just give me a minute.’ She turned away, dropping her face into her hands. It was a pose that would have looked melodramatic had it not seemed so natural to her. I wondered if she’d ever been a model. There was a studied grace to her movements, but she was too tall to have been a dancer.

While Claudia Tremlett was distracted DC Cowell seized the opportunity to flee. ‘That’s all I know, basically. If there’s anything else …’

‘We’ll be in touch,’ Derwent finished for him. Cowell handed him the keys and nodded to me before slipping through the door, and I listened with pure, uncomplicated envy as he ran down the stairs and slammed the door behind him. Escape was a good idea. There was nothing like speaking to grieving relatives to make you feel grimy in your soul. Especially when the questions you had to ask were far from easy.

With a sniff and a shake of her shoulder-length hair, Mrs Tremlett announced herself as ready to be interviewed. Derwent surprised me by showing a degree of sensitivity as he steered her out of the ransacked office and through the dismal reception area.

‘Let’s talk out here in the hall, if you don’t mind.’

She looked around, at a loss. ‘There’s nowhere to sit.’

There was nowhere in her husband’s office either apart from his greasy old armchair, but I had enough tact not to point that out.

‘You could sit on the windowsill. I’ll be okay here.’ As I spoke, I perched on the third-from-bottom step of the stairs that led to the second floor.

‘And I’m happy to stand.’ Derwent shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall, the picture of barely tempered masculinity. I was meanly pleased that she hardly glanced at him as she brushed dust off the ledge, meticulous even in her distress. She was wearing pale grey jeans and a denim shirt that occasionally slid off one narrow shoulder. It was carelessly sexy in an unforced, unconscious way and I wondered what Ivan Tremlett had been like in life – how charismatic he would have to have been to marry and keep the aristocratic lovely in front of me, even without the criminal conviction.

Derwent must have been wondering the same thing. ‘Did you love your husband, Mrs Tremlett?’

If he’d been hoping to wrongfoot her, he failed. She met his gaze unwaveringly. ‘Yes. Of course I did.’

‘You never thought twice about your marriage? Even with the fact that he pleaded guilty to downloading illegal images of child abuse?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ She drew in a breath and let it out slowly; I recognised it as a trick she had probably learnt from a therapist, a means of easing tension and focusing her thoughts. Derwent was going to find it hard to shake her if she insisted on taking her time before answering his questions. ‘I had a difficult time when Ivan was being investigated. Of course I did. But we talked about it, and we had counselling, and our marriage was stronger afterwards.’

‘After he came out of prison.’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he find it?’

‘It wasn’t a holiday. But he was well treated. He was able to teach computer skills to some of the long-term inmates, so they respected him. He was worried, of course, that he would be a target for abuse because of his conviction, but they left him alone. They believed that he hadn’t done it, as did I.’

‘That was my next question. How did you convince yourself he was innocent when he pleaded guilty?’

‘He was advised to plead guilty because it looked, on the face of it, as if he’d downloaded hundreds of images to his work account. But it was a set-up. One of his subordinates wanted his job and framed him. She had access to his password because she used to do bits and pieces for him when he was out of the office. She logged in as him – pretended to be him in chat rooms and forums that were about child abuse. She left a trail all over the Internet. It was easy for the police to follow it once they were tipped off. Ivan said that if it had been him, he would at least have made a token effort to cover his tracks, but no one listened – not the company, not the police, not the CPS. And that bitch got his job when he was kicked out, so she was happy.’ Claudia was flushed now, her eyes glittering as she spat out the last sentence.

‘Presumably you couldn’t prove any of this.’ Derwent sounded dubious.

‘She was too careful, Ivan couldn’t get anything on her. And the managing director flatly refused to believe she had been responsible. I found it hard too. I’d met her a couple of times – she’d come to dinner in our house. She even rang me after the conviction to tell me how sorry she was for me. As if I wanted her pity.’ She shook her head. ‘Ivan trusted her and so did I. That was the only mistake we made and it’s cost us everything.’

‘Why didn’t your husband fight the case?’ he asked.

‘Our solicitor was totally incompetent. She told Ivan the evidence was damning and his explanation wouldn’t hold up in court. She said that if he pleaded guilty at the first opportunity he’d get a reduced sentence – maybe even a suspended sentence. She said there wouldn’t be any long-term consequences if we got it all over with quickly. So Ivan pleaded guilty and got eighteen months, although he served only half of it. Then he got out and no one was interested in employing him. No one would return his calls. His career was dead. But Ivan never gave up. My father lent him the money to set up on his own and he worked tirelessly to pay it back. Gradually, he made something of this.’ She gestured at the door that hid her husband’s office from view. ‘It doesn’t look like much, but he was doing well. He was clever. Too clever to work for other people, actually. He was better off on his own.’

It sounded to me as if he had been a difficult employee. It also sounded as if he had been guilty. The story about his subordinate didn’t ring true to me any more than it had to his managing director, and I didn’t even know the girl. People did tend to assume they were invisible on the Internet. Even the technologically sophisticated like Ivan Tremlett could underestimate how easy it was to trace them, to follow their progress into the dark places where horrors were shared and sold, and to prove it in court. And thank God they did make that mistake, because it made our job that much easier.

‘He was quite devoted to his routine, by all accounts.’ I kept my voice gentle, a counterpoint to Derwent’s head-on approach. ‘Was that why you became concerned yesterday evening?’

‘He was like clockwork. You could plan your day around him. I did, actually.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘The boys had their tea when he came home. We both thought it was important for them to spend time with us, so we would sit at the table with them and talk while they ate.’

‘Was he good with them?’

She was on her guard immediately, staring at Derwent with hostile eyes. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Just that he had this place so he could get away from the boys, didn’t he? Did he find them annoying?’

‘From time to time. When he was trying to concentrate.’ Her body slackened, the tension leaving it slowly. But I thought she knew, as I did, that Derwent’s question about Ivan Tremlett’s relationship with his sons had been a pointed one. I wondered if she had trusted him enough to leave him alone with them, and the next thing she said answered that question neatly.

‘My mother lives with us. There’s a granny flat in the basement. She moved in when Ivan was arrested and she’s never left.’

‘What does your father make of that?’

She looked uncomprehending. ‘Why should he care? Oh – I see. You couldn’t have known. They’re divorced. They split when I was eight. Both of them married again, then both of them got divorced again. Dad’s on wife number three but Mum never bothered with meeting anyone else. She said two failed marriages was enough.’

‘Are you an only child?’ I asked.

‘Sort of. I have four half-siblings from Dad’s other marriages, but I was Mum’s only child.’

‘The two of you must be close.’

‘We are. Very.’ Her face softened. ‘It’s wonderful for me and the boys, having her so close. They adore her.’

‘What did your husband think of the arrangement? It’s not every man who’d be pleased to find his mother-in-law had moved in to his house while his back was turned.’ Derwent again, characteristically direct.

‘He didn’t complain.’ That didn’t mean he’d liked it, and Claudia didn’t go so far as to pretend he had. ‘The flat is self-contained. She doesn’t impose on us. Ivan had enough sense to know that it was a good thing, having her there. She minds the boys when I can’t, so it took the pressure off him.’

There was no way to ask it delicately, so Derwent didn’t even try. ‘Did your mother think he was guilty?’

She stiffened. ‘We never discussed it.’

‘Strange, isn’t it? Not to talk about it? Was that because you didn’t want to hear what she thought?’

Instead of taking offence, Claudia tilted her head to one side, considering it. Another benefit of counselling, I presumed. She analysed the idea he had presented to her rather than responding emotionally. ‘It might have been because I didn’t want to argue with her. Or it might have been because she didn’t think he was to blame, and she knew I didn’t think he was guilty, so there was no point in talking about it when we both felt the same way.’

‘First option’s more likely, isn’t it? If you were determined to keep him as your husband, the best she could do was make sure he wasn’t left alone with the children.’

Tears filled the blue eyes but they didn’t waver from Derwent’s face. ‘You could put that interpretation on it, I suppose. But that’s not how I saw it.’

‘Didn’t you ever think he might be guilty? Even for a minute?’

Once again, she was startlingly honest in her response. ‘I didn’t allow myself to think he might be guilty. I didn’t want him to be and he said he wasn’t, so I never considered the alternative. I loved my husband very much. I mean, he gave me three beautiful sons, and they’re the most important things in my life. I didn’t want our marriage to end because I didn’t want them to have to struggle as I had when I was a child. The best thing I could offer them was the stability of having Mummy and Daddy there, for as much of the time as we could manage. We never argued. We never even raised our voices to one another. Everything was so civilised.’ She bit her lip. ‘Maybe too civilised. Maybe we should have been more confrontational with one another. Then I could tell you that we’d argued, that I’d wanted him to leave, but he’d convinced me he was innocent, and you’d believe me.’

‘It doesn’t really matter what we believe,’ I said gently. I’d never been in that situation. I couldn’t judge her for what she’d done, but I was glad beyond words that her mother had taken on the role of unofficial bodyguard for their sons. ‘What matters is that it looks to us as if someone else thought he was guilty and punished him for it. We obviously need to find out who killed him and why, and we’re working on the theory that it was someone who’d identified him as having a conviction for child sex crimes.’

‘Was there any other reason that you can think why someone would have wanted to harm your husband?’ Derwent asked.

‘No.’

‘Did he keep secrets from you, do you think?’

‘I don’t think he had any. He worked, or he was at home. He didn’t go out without me, apart from coming here. And I know he was working while he was here because I organise his accounts. He kept a log of work done that accounted for every fifteen minutes of his day. He was meticulous about keeping it, and the invoices always matched up. His clients wouldn’t have paid him for work he hadn’t done, so I assumed he was here when he said he was, and he was working when he was here.’ She must have seen the matching expressions on our faces because her chin went up. ‘I did check it. I wanted to be sure that he was making a go of the business, for Dad’s sake. I wanted to trust him but I couldn’t quite, after what happened. I hadn’t been able to up to now, anyway. My therapist has been working with me on having faith in others, and I really have been trying. But it’s hard.’

It wasn’t remotely surprising that Claudia Tremlett found it hard to take people at their word. The fact that she thought that was
her
problem, for which she required therapy, confirmed for me that her poise and beauty masked rampant insecurity.

‘Did anyone know about Ivan’s conviction?’ Derwent asked. ‘I presume your friends and family would have been aware of it.’

‘We didn’t exactly mention it in our Christmas cards.’ Claudia said spikily, but then relented. ‘Most people thought he’d had a nervous breakdown. I just said that he’d gone away for a while – that he’d left his job in stressful circumstances, and that I was worried about him, but I hoped he’d be back to his usual self soon. The family knew, but I’m not close to my half-siblings. They’re all a lot younger than me. I doubt they would have cared to talk about it.’

‘Did any of your neighbours seem aware of it? Anyone look at you oddly – keep their children away from yours, that kind of thing?’

She smiled slightly. ‘This is London, DI Derwent. No one knows anyone. The boys go to a private prep school a couple of miles away rather than the local primary, so they don’t really interact with our neighbours’ children. I haven’t noticed anyone being especially odd, but they’re not what I’d call friendly. But that’s just how people are around here. I don’t think we were singled out because of Ivan.’

‘Did Ivan seem particularly preoccupied in the last while? Was he sleeping okay, do you know? Did he seem concerned about his personal safety?’