Free The Reckoning by Jane Casey

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?’
    ‘There was nothing different about him.’ She gestured to the door. ‘He was always concerned about his security, but he was more bothered about the business than about himself.’
    ‘So as far as you’re aware, he had no warning.’
    ‘Nothing.’ She gave a long, quavering sigh. ‘I thought things were getting back to normal. But things will never be normal now. I’ve already had a couple of phone calls from reporters asking about Ivan, about his past. Everyone will know. We’ll have to move again. And I don’t know what I’m going to tell the boys.’
    This time, she didn’t cry. I had a slight suspicion that life would be easier without her husband around. Maybe Claudia was coming to that conclusion too. She stood up and brushed off the seat of her jeans. It wasn’t too fanciful to see it as wiping away all traces of the office building. I hoped she could walk away and not look back. She deserved to leave her husband’s mistakes behind her. And if she could think about him without bitterness – well, so much the better for her. It was beyond me, but I’d worked on child pornography cases; I’d seen it for myself. I didn’t need to imagine the kind of images Ivan Tremlett had downloaded. Nor did I need to imagine what kind of person would be titillated by them. It was a crime for a reason. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing how thoroughly he had been punished.
    Damn. That was worryingly close to how the killer seemed to feel. It had been too long a day, I thought, as I said goodbye to Claudia Tremlett and watched