There was a murmur from everyone and then silence. Anna, who now had their full attention, opened a bottle of water and sipped a few mouthfuls.
‘There’s more. Although Mr Markham was questioned about the disappearance of Rebekka, he had an alibi for the day she went missing, as did his two assistants, one of whom had already left for Australia. Bearing in mind that Oates was not a suspect at the time and Mr Markham had only ever met him briefly, it is, I suppose, acceptable that it was something he could forget. However, as soon as I showed him a photograph he was certain that Oates was the man he had hired, and was able to recall his Christian name.’
Barolli let rip applauding, and she held up her hand.
‘Markham said that Oates was in and out of the Jordans’ garden removing bricks and it was possible that Rebekka came into the garden while Oates was there as she often checked on her frogs when she returned from school.’
Anna told them about the two ponds, and that Markham had taken Oates back to his house in Cobham where he had helped unload the bricks. Markham then took him to the local train station and gave him extra money for his fare back to London.
‘Bloody hell!’ Mike shook his head angrily; he couldn’t believe that Markham had not come forward with the information years ago.
‘Okay, time frame. Markham first worked at the Jordans’ at the end of June 2006 and Oates helped with the bricks, he thinks, on a Thursday. It would be reasonable to assume that Oates may well have seen Rebekka in the garden.’
Anna was interrupted by Mike, who was now standing by the incident board. He pointed to Rebekka’s details.
‘Rebekka didn’t go missing until March 2007, so I don’t see how this fits.’
‘Can I just finish?’ she said irritably.
Anna continued, explaining that about two weeks after helping with the bricks Oates turned up at the Markham house looking for work at eight in the morning on a Saturday. He was asked to unblock the septic tank but during the morning Mrs Markham, Andrew’s mother, caught him in her kitchen. She thought he might have been looking for something to steal so she asked her son to get rid of him. Andrew Markham paid him and asked him if he wanted a lift to the train station, which he turned down, saying he would walk as it was a nice day.
‘Do the Markhams know if Oates had any contact with Rebekka around the time she actually went missing?’ Mike asked impatiently.
‘No. However—’
‘Then I really think we need to move on.’
Anna ignored Mike and continued.
‘Acting on the possibility that Oates may have stolen a car in order to return to London, I went to the local cop shop and spoke to the duty sergeant. She was not only interested in what I had to say but as it turned out was very helpful.’
It was clear to everyone in the room that Anna was not only having a dig at Mike for yet again interrupting her but her tenacity had obviously uncovered further evidence. She looked at Mike, who raised his hands apologetically and nodded his head for her to go on.
‘I asked the duty sergeant to check back through the records for any motor vehicles that were stolen within a two-mile radius of the Markham house from July to September 2006. The area is not a hotbed of crime and only one car was reported stolen on a Saturday, about two miles from the Markham house. It was a 2004 silver Jeep Grand Cherokee, which has never been recovered. The owners were away at the time when someone broke into their house, stole some property and the Jeep keys. The report also gave details of a man matching Oates’s description knocking door to door in the area looking for odd jobs to do.’
The room was very quiet apart from the clerical staff monitoring the phones. No one interrupted Anna as she pinned up a picture of a silver Jeep and wrote the registration number next to it.
‘Although no fingerprints were found at the Jeep owner’s house I think Oates may have committed the burglary and stolen the vehicle. As it was never recovered he could have sold it on, scrapped it or maybe dumped it somewhere. I know it’s a long shot but he might have decided to keep it for a while, which would mean putting false plates on it. We need to find out what happened to it.’
Anna instructed Joan to run a computer check on all crimes reported in the London area for one year from August 2006 where the words ‘Cherokee’ or ‘Jeep’ came up, and to firstly concentrate on any reports where such a vehicle had made off without paying for petrol from a filling station.
Anna knew this would not be an easy task but was encouraged when Barbara volunteered to help. Joan had just started to run computer checks on the suspect vehicle when her phone rang and she answered the call. She waved at Mike to get his attention.
‘They’ve uncovered the remains of a decomposed left hand,’ she whispered, handing him the phone.
Mike and Barolli headed for the multi-storey car park in a patrol car with the siren blaring. Anna, left in the incident room, felt exhausted. She sat at her desk, her head in her hands. Both cases were now being galvanized into action, and the evidence against Henry Oates as the killer of Rebekka and Fidelis was mounting up. The similarities in the two cases were coming together, and the incident board, with its coloured arrows linking Oates to each victim, was beginning to look like a Tube map.
‘Coffee?’ Joan placed a mug down on her desk.
‘Thank you. I need it.’
‘I was going to go home, but I want to wait to see if Mike calls in with an update. They said it was a human hand, but I don’t think they can tell if it was male or female.’
Anna didn’t feel like talking, so she sipped her coffee.
‘You know, when I was about seven, my mother lost me in Woolworths,’ Joan said. ‘I’d just wandered off and then I got panic-stricken because I couldn’t see her anywhere. I went outside and I will never forget what happened when she eventually found me, she was hysterical and gave me such a slap, she’d never done anything like it before and I was crying, and then she started crying as well, saying that she thought someone had run off with me, and—’
Anna interrupted her. ‘Is there a point to this, Joan? I’ve got a terrible headache.’
‘Just that I’d only been gone ten minutes. What her parents must be going through, have gone through, over five years waiting and hoping, it’s heartbreaking.’
‘Yes.’
‘Same with the Flynn girl – her parents keep on calling, you know, asking Mike if there’s any news.’
Anna ignored her desk phone as it began to ring. Joan asked if she was going to answer it, it could be from Mike.
‘No, I’m going home. You can tell whoever it is I’m not available.’ She had an intuition that it was Langton calling.
Joan reached over to answer the phone as Anna picked up her coat and briefcase.
‘Incident room, DCI Travis’s desk.’
Anna paused.
‘Good evening, sir.’ Joan put her hand over the mouthpiece and mouthed that it was Langton. Anna gave a waft of her hand to indicate she didn’t want to talk to him.
‘I’m sorry, sir, she’s not available. Can I take a message for her?’
Joan came round to sit behind Anna’s desk.
‘Well it’s a big update; they found skeleton remains at the multi-storey car park.’
Langton was clearly listening, making only the odd interruption to clarify dates, and Joan was enjoying being the focus of the Chief Superintendent’s attention. She’d never in all the years she had worked for him had such a lengthy conversation.
The arc lights lit up the dank lift-shaft pit, the drills carefully working their way in to the concrete around the skeleton. They now knew from the original car park plans that two foot of extra concrete had been added to hide the body. The archaeologists had drilled down a further six inches into the older layer, allowing them to use small controlled explosive charges to split the two levels apart. Lifting pins with eyes like giant needles had been drilled into the concrete around the body and chains attached to allow the removal of the concrete coffin to the ticket mac
hine area on the ground floor, which was now covered in heavy-duty white plastic sheeting.
Dressed in protective clothing they used small chisels, hammers and special saws to chip and cut away the concrete without damaging the badly decomposed remains. The smell was intense now that the body was open to the air. The archaeologist explained that because it had been entombed in concrete no air could get in or out and although the lime mix in the concrete aided the decomposition there was nowhere for the body fluids to fully soak away. There were shreds of clothing left intact, and one boot was hardly damaged.
‘She was last seen wearing a dark sweater – that looks like wool to me, and isn’t that a part of a leather sleeve?’ wondered Mike.
Barolli peered closer; he could see strands of wool that might be described as yellow-ish. The head and strands of hair were clearer, but the cement had got into the open mouth and eye sockets. The encased remains were eventually light enough to be wrapped in a body bag and taken to the mortuary. It would be some considerable time before they would have confirmation of the identity, but the body appeared to be female.
Anna went straight to bed as soon as she arrived home, knowing the following morning was going to be busy. It was clear that Oates would steal a motor vehicle if he needed to, so uppermost in her mind was the hope they could trace the Jeep, doubtful though it was. Oates’s remark to Eileen, that he had been shovelling shit, began to make sense, as he could have been referring to his work emptying Markham’s septic tank.
Anna realized that they still had no clue where Oates had been living or any employment he might have had after that job. They knew he had worked on the multistorey car park site eighteen months ago when Fidelis Julia Flynn had disappeared, but she had yet to discover exactly where he was around the time Rebekka Jordan went missing. She wondered if Oates could have been living rough around Shepherd’s Bush.
There was no information about the Jeep the next morning. It was quite possible that the number plates had been changed, or even that it had been broken up, but it was a very long and tedious task to check all Cherokee Jeeps of that year and colour used in crime, sold or crushed in breaker’s yards.
Anna rang the Drug Squad again about Ira Zacks, and this time was put through to the officer who was dealing with the investigation into his drug dealing. They had a lengthy discussion, during which she described the luxury flat. To her relief the Drug Squad was not carrying out surveillance on the address as they were not aware of it. The lease, it turned out, was not in Zacks’ name but his girlfriend’s, and they had been waiting for him to turn up at a known associate’s address to arrest him when the deal went down. Whether or not Anna’s unconnected visit had made Zacks wary, the Drug Squad officer said he had gone ‘walkabout’. The name Henry Oates had not surfaced anywhere in their investigation. The officer thanked Anna for her information, saying he would get a search warrant for the girlfriend’s address, then, if and when they tracked Zacks down, they would be in touch.
It felt very much as if everything was on hold, and the team was now waiting for the pathologist to examine the skeletal remains. The priority was to get an identity as soon as possible. The dental records of Fidelis Julia Flynn had already been forwarded from a dental practice in Dublin some months ago and were on her ‘Misper’ file. The concrete around the mouth area was being chipped away very slowly to avoid any damage, so that the forensic odontologist had the best chance of making a match. Mike decided that he would hold off interviewing Henry Oates again until they had confirmation, either by dental records or DNA, that the remains were indeed those of Fidelis Julia Flynn.
Mike had a very terse conversation with Adan Kumar, who was clearly fishing to see if there was any more evidence.
‘I keep getting calls from my client. As you are no doubt aware, Mr Oates is on suicide watch and is clearly not fit to be interviewed. I think he needs to be further assessed by the prison psychologist.’
Mike couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his reply.
‘Well he must be unstable if he keeps calling you . . . and yes, having spoken with the prison I am aware he is on suicide watch, which is about to be lifted.’
‘Have you found any evidence that implicates my client?’
‘Our investigation is ongoing, Mr Kumar, and all will be disclosed to you when we are ready to re-interview Oates.’
Mike cut off the call. Thanks to his daily contact with the prison governor he knew that, contrary to Kumar’s assessment, Henry Oates had settled down, and although he was still segregated he had had no violent mood swings. He was eating three meals a day and sleeping. Even though he remained on suicide watch and unable to be interviewed, Mike was not overly concerned by this as it gave him more time to put the evidence together. Oates had no visitors apart from Kumar.
Mike left his office to study the incident board. ‘Zacks has done a runner,’ Anna informed him, putting down her marker pen. ‘Drug Squad think that my visit might have worried him. I really need to narrow down the date he last saw Henry Oates. He was vague about it when I spoke with him, said it was three or more years ago. Oates didn’t have a vehicle then, so if this meeting occurred shortly before or after Rebekka Jordan went missing he may have got rid of the Jeep.’
‘There’s a lot of difference between three and five years,’ Mike retorted.
‘I know but I don’t think he was really concentrating on what I was saying, especially if his drug dealing was on his mind.’
‘Kumar called,’ Mike said gloomily. ‘He wants Oates reassessed by the prison psychologist. I think he’s trying to get the suicide watch extended so we can’t interview him. I don’t want to be caught out; we need to look at all the evidence together then get Oates back in police custody for interview.’
Anna shrugged. She felt like the investigation was beginning to stall but she knew that it could move rapidly forward if they could only get Oates to open up and reveal more about his crimes.
‘Have you thought any more about the Behavioural Investigative Adviser?’
‘I’m not sure. Langton was dead against it . . .’
‘What have we got to lose?’
‘Well for one it could all backfire on us if the BIA thinks Oates is nuts. I don’t want all our time and effort wasted.’
‘How about we ask him to stick to advice on an interview strategy only?’ Anna suggested.
‘Who’s the best?’
‘Guy called Edward Samuels, doctor of psychiatry, works at the Bethlem Hospital. I’ve not met him personally but I have heard him lecture and also recommended him on a few cases; he’s a cool customer with a lot of experience. Feedback’s always good . . .’
‘Then go ahead, unless Langton disagrees – I’d run it by him.’
‘Yeah, right, I’ll do that,’ Anna said with sarcasm and laughed.
‘Sorry, stupid suggestion. We’ll keep it to ourselves for the time being then. I’ll make DVD copies of the interviews with Oates and all the relevant statements and get them couriered over to Samuels.’
‘Thanks, Mike, I appreciate your help. I’ll ring him and brief him on the case and what we need,’ Anna said.
Glad that Mike had agreed with her, she couldn’t help wondering if he would back her if and when Langton found out.
‘By the way . . . sorry for interrupting you during the meeting yesterday. What you had to say was a leap forward for the investigation, but you do go the long way round to get to the good bits.’
‘You know me, Mike,I like everyone to know all the facts.’
While Mike headed off to the canteen for breakfast, Anna took the chance to use his office phone to speak to Samuels. After a lengthy conversation she went back to her own desk in the main office to try and concentrate on discovering how long Oates had lived in the basement squat. She knew from his ex-wife that he had at one point lived in Brixton, and basically survived off benefits and working odd jobs for cash in hand. She and Joan contacted social security, employment and National Insurance r
ecords, finding that Oates had been working the system and making various claims for years.
During the initial search of Oates’s squat the scene of crime officers had removed a stack of claim forms and old rental receipts dating back years. Joan and Anna set to work to try and make sense of them all. Anna couldn’t believe how long Oates had worked the system; the number of different addresses, let alone assumed names, made it difficult to compile a straightforward list. He appeared to be able to move from one area of London to the next, constantly claiming unemployment and benefits in a variety of names. It seemed from the dates on the seized documents that he had stopped making false claims three years ago. Did he think he was about to be caught or had he become bored, she wondered. What amazed Anna was that Oates, over a five-year period, was always one step ahead of the authorities, and had never been arrested for any benefit fraud offences. She wondered if they had all underestimated Oates’s level of intelligence – clearly he was clever and able to plan his crimes.
To discover how long he had lived in the basement took yet another round of calls by Joan. The house was under a protection order and had been empty for six years; numerous squatters had lived in the property, so to try and trace anyone who could confirm just how long Oates had been there seemed impossible. There were old computer records of the police being called out, as neighbours across the street had made complaints about squatters on a number of occasions. These were from six years ago, shortly after the owners had moved out and the squatters moved in.
‘You know, I’m going round in circles, because Oates’s squat was due for demolition and the houses either side are also under the same order, so he could have been ejected and then moved back into the basement after things calmed down,’ Joan said to Anna.
Anna sighed, and suggested they get some of the team over there to ask the local residents if they could recall seeing Oates.
The dental records for Fidelis Julia Flynn had now arrived at the mortuary, where the forensic odontologist was taking dental X-rays from the body for comparison. It had taken hours of painstaking work to excavate the body from its concrete tomb. The remains, now laid out on the mortuary table, had been cleaned, with the last residues of cement carefully washed away. The remnants of clothing had been removed and parcelled up ready to be sent to the forensic lab: scraps of wool, one boot, part of a sleeve from a blue anorak and fragments of material from what might have been a skirt or jeans.
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