Backlash

by Lynda La Plante

  ‘I designed it and brought in the builders,’ she added.

  ‘Can you recall who dealt with the planning permission at your local council?’

  ‘We didn’t need planning permission because of its size. I applied for a certificate of lawful development and the building inspector visited a few times and that was it.’

  ‘Were you still living here while it was completed?’

  ‘Yes. In fact we redesigned the kitchen at the same time and it was all done at once. We sort of camped out in the other rooms.’

  ‘Do you remember the name of the building company?’

  Emily turned to her husband, who said he would have the details in his office upstairs. Left alone with Emily, Anna asked about the photographs.

  ‘I did them,’ said Emily. She went over and stood by her daughter’s picture. ‘The boys made these daisies.’

  ‘They are at boarding school, aren’t they?’

  ‘They are both at university now. When Rebekka went missing I became very protective and wanted to change their school so they would be at home, but Stephen felt it was better they were away – you know, kept to a routine as it was such a terrible time. They have both been traumatized by what happened to Rebekka, she was such an adorable child and they worshipped her. She went to a school that specialized in learning difficulties, as she was dyslexic, but not badly. She was such a physical child, sports and athletics and . . .’ her voice dropped ‘. . . horse riding.’

  Stephen returned with a folder and placed it on one of the worktops.

  ‘The building company brought in a team of men to dig out the garden as there was a stone patio and some trees directly outside the old kitchen. I’m not sure who they hired, but I have the builders’ names. I gave the detectives copies of these when Rebekka disappeared.’

  Anna smiled, thanking him as he passed her a neatly written note with all the contact numbers and addresses.

  ‘Do you think this Henry Oates might have worked for them?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s possible he used a false name but we’ll be making new enquiries.’

  Anna closed her briefcase and stood up, about to leave, just as the phone rang. Stephen answered. He spoke briefly to someone and then turned to his wife.

  ‘Show DCI Travis her room, darling. I’m going to have to take this call upstairs. Will you put it through for me?’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘It won’t take long. Then maybe you’d like to come up and see my office, top floor, I keep all the press cuttings up there and . . .’

  ‘Thank you,’ Anna said, not really wanting to prolong her meeting, but having no real reason not to.

  ‘How is Detective Langton?’ Emily asked.

  ‘He’s well, thank you. Well, not that well actually, he’s had some knee surgery which is why he is not here personally.’

  ‘He was so good. I don’t know how we would have coped without him. He was such a support and his kindness meant so much to us. We also appreciate that he has kept in touch since.’

  Emily seemed to find it hard to refer to her daughter’s disappearance and her slender hands constantly toyed with a delicate gold chain bracelet on her wrist.

  ‘I know he did everything possible, I know that. Please pass on our regards to him and I hope he makes a full recovery.’

  ‘I’ll most certainly do that.’

  Emily gestured for Anna to go ahead of her into the hall.

  ‘You have a lovely home,’ Anna said.

  ‘I was a designer, and may even return to work soon. Stephen is very encouraging about me starting again, so maybe one day.’

  They headed up a winding staircase with polished pine floors and white walls that had colourful paintings on them, all of the seaside.

  ‘These are very old. We have a cottage in Cornwall – well we used to, we sold it two years ago. We’d go there every summer.’ Midway up the stairs Emily stopped and looked back at Anna. ‘I wait, I just wait in case there is a call, you know that if we were away I’d miss it. Now I can’t seem to get out of the habit, if you can call it that. The waiting is never over.’

  They reached the landing, which was also of polished wood, with tapestry rugs, and there was a huge glass chandelier with coloured glass flowers.

  Emily opened a bedroom door and stood back.

  ‘I’ve kept it exactly as it was. This is Rebekka’s room.’

  It was bright with pale blue draped curtains tied with big floppy bows. There was a single bed with oversized dolls laid out on the pillows and a white wardrobe with one door open to show racks of dresses and shoes. Against one wall was a large mirror, ballet shoes left beside it, and a pink net tutu hung over one of the carved arms. Like the rest of the house the floor had bare wood boards, but these were painted a pale blue colour. Next to the wardrobe there were rows of worn riding boots and crops in a heap beside a long trestle table. The table was covered in bits of material and a small red sewing machine stood alongside boxes of fabric that were neatly labelled as lace, velvet and wool. One large box was open to reveal a stack of tiny naked dolls, some without limbs or heads. There were also pots of glue and a paint box with a jar beside it filled with brushes and crayons.

  ‘She spent hours up here. She’d make the dolls for her doll’s house and even the furniture. She was very inventive. She made little mirrors with tin foil for the glass, and the wigs from her own hair; she’d collect it from her hairbrush and we even found her cutting one of the boy’s curls when he was sleeping.’

  ‘The doll’s house?’ Anna said, recalling the one she had seen at Langton’s and the Jordans’ home video she had watched.

  ‘Well, Stephen made it for her, but she had started to really want a bigger one, she said she couldn’t fit in all her families. He is halfway through designing a new one; you’ll see it in his office. It’s very grand and exactly how she wants it, with the main wall opening up to show off the different rooms.’

  Anna gave a sidelong glance to Emily as she lightly touched her daughter’s hairbrush on the small kidney-shaped dressing table.

  ‘So what happened to her old doll’s house?’ Anna asked as she pretended to be interested in the tiny figure of a dog; it was made out of plaster and no bigger than her thumbnail.

  Emily hesitated and then gave her bracelet a twist. ‘James was telling us it was his stepdaughter’s birthday, he said he felt dreadful as he had meant to buy her a gift, but had been held up interviewing someone, so Stephen gave him Rebekka’s.’

  Anna was quite shocked on two counts. One, she presumed the woman’s mention of James referred to Langton, and the other that they would part with something of their daughter’s.

  ‘She didn’t want it,’ said Emily, maybe sensing her reaction. ‘She’d grown out of it and Stephen was so sure she’d come home that he wanted to finish the one he was building as a surprise.’ Again Emily twisted her bracelet round and round and her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He hasn’t. I think he finds it too distressing, you know, to finish it.’

  Emily covered her face as she started to weep, awful shaking sobs, and Anna instinctively went to put her arms around her. She felt terribly frail and Anna could smell a soft flowery perfume.

  ‘I am so sorry, so sorry. I don’t want Stephen to see me like this.’

  She broke free and backed away from Anna.

  ‘He’s upstairs. Please go and see him. I’ll be downstairs.’

  Anna waited a moment and then headed up a narrow staircase to the top floor, where she found Stephen sitting at a large trestle table similar to his daughter’s. The room included high-tech computers and sound equipment, but nothing much else. In one corner was, as Emily had described, a half-finished huge elaborate doll’s house.

  ‘I have really come to say that I’ll be leaving now, but I will be in touch if I have any further news.’

  ‘She’ll be nineteen next month. Hard to come to terms with how she would have grown up. She’ll always be thirteen, won’t she? Al
ways young, always a child.’

  ‘It must be heartbreaking.’

  ‘It is. Maybe if we get something that will let us bury her. We have no grave; we have just hung onto hope for five years. It’s harder for Emily because she won’t leave the house.’

  He got up and moved closer to Anna, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘I beg you to find out where she is and what happened to her, then we can move on and sell this house, because it’s like a haunting, she’s still everywhere. I love my wife and I just want her to get over this terrible guilt she feels.’

  Anna found the warmth of his hand on her shoulder and his closeness uncomfortable, and she stepped back.

  ‘I’ll show myself out. Thank you for your time and I promise I will do everything in my power to give you some peace.’

  Anna did not return to the kitchen, but let herself out and hurried towards her parked Mini, bleeping it open and getting in as fast as she could. It all came down like a heavy weight. The pain inside the white, sparkling-clean house and the anguish of Rebekka Jordan’s parents became confused with her own past. She broke down and wept for the man she had loved and for the future she had lost with his murder. The scene she had just witnessed also brought something else home to her very strongly: she had no one, no one to take care of her like Stephen Jordan, who obviously loved his wife Emily.

  Pete Jenkins, an old colleague and friend, called Anna that evening. She hadn’t heard from him for a long time. He explained that he had tried to contact her in the incident room at the station.

  ‘You were out and about and didn’t answer your mobile.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I had it on silent and haven’t checked it since.’

  ‘Well it’s nothing urgent, more of a moan, as I’ve been told you want all the crap they removed from your suspect’s home sifted. I didn’t get a clear indication from fatty Barolli what I’m to earmark so I thought I’d ask you.’

  ‘Well, I need you to examine anything that may connect Oates to the victims he claimed he murdered; female underwear especially, something he might have kept as a sick token like jewellery as well.’

  ‘The obvious?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. The young girl Rebekka was wearing a pink Alice band, no press release on it, but then her backpack and riding helmet were never recovered. Did you get details of her clothing sent to you?’

  ‘No, and nothing for Fidelis Julia Flynn either.’

  ‘I’ll sort it out in the morning.’

  ‘Okay. In the meantime, I’ll put a mask on and start digging around. You know we have about fifteen disgusting black bin liners full of stuff. I’ve had a couple of assistants start to comb through it all, but I’ll get on with it personally in the morning.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Dinner should be on the cards.’

  ‘You got a rain check on that.’

  ‘Maybe come to my house, meet the wife; she’s lumbering around as we’re expecting a baby next month.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know. Congratulations. Do you know what it is?’

  ‘No, but if it is a boy, he’s going to be called Harold. It’s taken some time to get her to agree to it, but it’s my grandfather’s name.’

  ‘Lovely. Fine, I’ll wait to hear from you.’

  She sensed that Pete would have liked to chat more, but she didn’t feel like it. Her brief affair with him had been a long time ago.

  As she hung up she felt another pang of sadness. Pete and his wife were about to start a family, and she remembered laughing and talking with Ken about raising a big family together. He’d wanted a rugby team! He had been a very good rugby player and she had watched him playing a match, along with his sister and his two boisterous nephews cheering on their uncle Ken from the sidelines. Now there were no tears, not like earlier in the afternoon; it was just the sadness that enveloped her. She didn’t want to go over any of the files and instead had an early night, taking two strong sleeping tablets to make sure she slept. She liked the feeling of sinking into her pillow as they took effect and her mind went blank.

  The next morning it was not her alarm that woke her, but the telephone ringing at six-thirty. Disorientated, she sat up, first catching the time on her bedside alarm clock and then anxiously reaching for the phone.

  ‘You awake?’ Langton’s voice rang out.

  ‘I am now!’ She pulled the duvet around her.

  ‘You talked to Rebekka’s parents?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I meant to tell you about the doll’s house. I’d fallen over the bloody thing when I got out of the hospital.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘It may appear to be unethical to you, but they insisted, so I took it home for Kitty.’

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘No. Is it early? Only I sleep most of the day and I can’t get comfortable. Why haven’t you called me?’

  She sighed. ‘Because I don’t really have anything to tell you, only that Mike split the team into two and I’m working on—’ She was interrupted.

  ‘I know, I spoke to him last night.’

  ‘So you have the update on what we’re doing.’

  ‘I do, but not from you. How did you find the Jordans?’

  ‘Painful, heartbreaking and they didn’t recognize the photograph or the name Henry Oates.’

  ‘Too much to hope for, I guess.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m checking into an extension they had built by local builders just in case they used part-time labourers when they were digging up the ground.’

  ‘We did that, but then we didn’t have a suspect.’

  Anna unwound the telephone extension cord as she got out of bed and reached for her dressing gown.

  ‘You going to interview this creep’s ex-wife?’

  ‘I’m thinking about it, but I’ll have to go to Glasgow.’

  She switched the phone from one hand to the other as she put on her robe.

  ‘I’m in agony. This bloody cage round my knee is torture.’

  Anna listened as he moaned and groaned about how long it was going to take before he could get out of the flat. Eventually she said that she needed to make herself a coffee and take a shower.

  ‘You okay?’

  She sighed and said that she was just fine.

  ‘You got very upset when you left the Jordans, you were crying.’

  She was stunned. Emily or Stephen must have been watching from the house.

  ‘Yes. As I said, I found it very emotional and they are a really nice couple. It made me feel inadequate as I didn’t really know what to say to them or how to help them.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Five years, Anna, five years they’ve waited.’

  ‘They said you were a great comfort.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, not good enough though, is it?’

  She repeated that she needed to get going and eventually he hung up. Langton was really something else, and even though she knew his frustration must be almost as agonizing as the surgery on his knee, she was irritated by his call. Not until she had made some toast and a fresh mug of coffee did she realize that in some ways he must have been concerned about her. She actually felt better and less emotional than she had the previous evening.

  Before she left for the station, she looked into the Jordan files where Langton’s team had questioned the builders that had built their extension. They had given the names and contacts of all the men who had worked for them, and they had all been checked out. It was, for the Langton enquiry, another dead end, but Anna would double-check and now show the photograph of Henry Oates.

  At the station Anna made straight for Barolli to let him know that he had not given a clear instruction to the forensic team about what evidence to look for. He was rather petulant and explained that he had specified any items that could possibly have been kept as tokens from the two victims. She told him about the Alice band and he said that as he hadn’t been informed about any pink Alice band he hadn’t listed it as a priorit
y.

  Anna discovered a Post-it note from Joan on her desk informing her that a DCI Alex McBride was waiting for her to call him. When she was put through to him she had difficulty following what he was saying as he had a very thick Glaswegian accent. Anna told McBride about Oates’s arrest and that she wanted to come to Glasgow to interview Eileen Oates as part of her investigation. McBride told Anna that Eileen had two daughters and lived on a council estate. Although she had a previous record for prostitution in London, they had nothing on file, but her elder daughter had been busted for drugs numerous times and was also arrested for streetwalking. The younger girl was pregnant by a sixteen-year-old Jamaican living on the same estate, and they were due to be married before the birth.

  ‘The ex-husband Henry Oates is not known to us up here, and it appears he’s not been a part of their lives for a long time. In fact Eileen Oates has been involved with a man we interviewed on suspicion of an armed robbery and murder. The reason why we’re so up to date on her is due to her relationship with this man. Eileen Oates gave the suspect an alibi, stating that he was with her at the relevant time. A security guard was shot and died from his injuries and we believe she’s lying to protect her boyfriend.’

  Anna decided that she would make the trip to Glasgow and McBride promised he would arrange for Eileen to be brought into their station for further questioning on his case, and if she agreed, Anna could interview her there.

  Anna next arranged to meet the building contractors who had worked on the Jordans’ extension. Owned and run by two brothers, Bill and Norman Henderson, the company was based in Barnes, not far from Hammersmith. It took Anna over an hour to cross London from Hackney due to rush-hour traffic as it was four in the afternoon. Henderson Building Contractors operated from a small yard at the back of a row of shops on Barnes High Street. Anna parked up in the yard beside an open-backed lorry that was being stacked with wood planks. Two white vans and an old Land Rover were also in the yard.

  Bill Henderson was waiting for Anna. He was much older than she had anticipated; white-haired and with a ruddy complexion. He introduced himself and as they headed into the office he told her the yard had once been a stable and outhouses, and they had converted the stable into their business area. As he ushered her inside she thought the office was hardly a good advert for their work, as it was cramped and untidy with an old mahogany desk and walls lined haphazardly with designs and architect plans for various builds. The filing cabinets were bulging with documents and there were stacks of files and folders left on every available surface around the desk. This had a computer, telephone, fax machine and jars of pens and pencils on it. A worn leather desk chair and two equally worn armchairs were the only other furnishings.