Backlash

by Lynda La Plante

  ‘Yes?’ The door was opened by a stern grey-haired woman.

  ‘I’m Detective Anna Travis from the Met; could I have a few words with you?’ She showed her ID.

  ‘They’re making a mess over there, dust’ll be everywhere, and they’ve been at it since eight this morning.’

  ‘I’m sorry for any inconvenience.’

  ‘Is it the developers? They’ve been supposed to do something for ages, that’s three houses left empty for almost six years.’

  ‘Could I come in? I’m sorry, you are?’

  ‘Adele Murphy. Wipe your feet.’

  Anna did so, and stepped into the hallway. The smell of lavender polish was very strong, combined with some kind of floral air freshener.

  ‘We can sit in here, or in the kitchen.’ The woman indicated a closed door.

  ‘Whatever is convenient?’

  ‘Well the kitchen’s best as I’ve just hoovered and cleaned in the front room.’ Anna followed Mrs Murphy into a kitchen with green linoleum floor, pine tables and chairs, pine cabinets and a big white range cooker. The sink and draining boards looked new; everything was polished to within an inch of its life.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me, I know you were previously asked about the resident of the derelict house opposite.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call him a resident, he was a squatter, but not like the others we’ve had, hooligans drinking and playing loud music. We’ve all called the police out numerous times, they board up the place but they come back, well they did. We had an officer with a dog that used to patrol the neighbourhood; he sort of made sure the place was cleared.’

  ‘But you have stated that Henry Oates lived in the basement opposite your house?’

  ‘Yes, told them all about him, and he was no trouble, and he kept himself to himself.’

  ‘You apparently used him for odd jobs?’

  ‘Yes, my husband did, he helped put the gates up and sometimes washed the car.’

  Anna went over all the previous questions, and Mrs Murphy answered them without adding anything new. She also said that she had never seen Oates with a car or any other kind of vehicle. She calculated that he had been squatting in the basement for over five years, possibly nearly six as the house had been empty for that long.

  ‘They moved out families, you know, and then do nothing. One by one they’ve been bought up, all three of them. At first it was just the house opposite. They’re still arguing over the protection order in the courts.’

  ‘Did you ever see Mr Oates with anyone, male or female?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So he came and went, never entertained anyone, no friends?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Mrs Murphy then frowned, and ran her finger along the pine table top.

  ‘I was thinking about him since the other detective spoke to me, and my husband and I talked about it, and then he reminded me about one time. I’d forgotten about it.’

  She pursed her lips.

  ‘It was a long time ago, not long after he moved in, and I know it was just before he helped with the gates, as they were delivered at the end of March 2007.’

  Anna waited as Mrs Murphy still tapped the table with her finger.

  ‘I’ve always had trouble sleeping, I often get up to make a cup of tea, and I was standing with the cup in my hand just looking out into the street. It’s such a shame those houses standing empty, I mean it’s not right, and it had to be two-ish or even later in the night, and I saw him.’

  ‘With someone?’

  ‘No, no, I’ve said I never saw him with anyone, but it was just strange. Maybe it was the streetlights, but it was like seeing a ghost.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He had like white, powdery white stuff over him. He was just walking down the road, then he went inside the house. It probably was just the way the lights made him look, I don’t know, but, like I said, it made him look sort of ghostly. It was even in his hair, on his face.’

  ‘Did you speak to him about it, ask what the white stuff was?’

  ‘No. I never had anything to do with him until – I’ve told you, about him giving my husband a hand putting up the gates in late March 2007. They weighed a ton, we didn’t think they’d be that heavy, and he was strong. It was hard lifting them up onto the hinges, and then he’d also helped mix up the cement for the posts, they had to dig down quite a way so the posts could hold the gates up.’

  ‘So the work went on for some time?’

  ‘Yes, they had to let the cement dry, it all took a few days.’

  ‘So during this time you must have got to know him quite well.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, he didn’t ever come inside the house and we never crossed the road to go into his basement. I did give him some sandwiches and cups of tea, bottles of water. He was stripped to his waist, digging, and he was paid in cash!’

  Anna turned as a small white-haired man appeared at the kitchen door.

  ‘I thought I heard voices. I was having a nap upstairs.’

  ‘This is my husband. Ronald, this is Detective . . .’

  Anna introduced herself, and he shook her hand.

  ‘She’s asking about Henry from over the road.’

  ‘Can either of you recall when he helped you with the gates or any time you saw him if he was wearing any neck jewellery?’

  ‘Don’t think so, do you, dear?’ Ronald said as he looked to his wife, who shook her head.

  ‘My eyesight’s much better than his, and my memory, for that matter.’

  ‘Would you both look at this photograph, please, and tell me if you ever saw Mr Oates wearing this.’

  They both looked at the photograph of the crucifix, and neither could remember ever seeing Oates with anything like it.

  ‘There’s a lot of action going on over the road,’ Ronald remarked as he drew up a chair and sat between them.

  ‘I’ve been asking your wife about the time Mr Oates worked with you putting up the gates.’

  ‘Strong as an ox. I couldn’t have done it on my own, we paid for the paving stones to be laid by a company. I just reckoned I’d be able to put the gates up by myself. I’d sized it all up, made the order and they delivered them. Left them propped up by the wall, said it wasn’t their job to hang them.’

  ‘What did you make of Mr Oates?’

  Mr Murphy shrugged, and said that apart from needing a bath, he was very helpful. He nodded at his wife.

  ‘She wouldn’t let him inside here, he was very scruffy, but then I’d also seen him all scrubbed up. He used to go swimming in the local baths. I often saw him with a rolled-up towel under his arm.’

  ‘Did you ever see him with a vehicle?’

  ‘No. You know, the other copper that came here asked a lot of questions about him, said it was connected to a murder enquiry, but we’ve not had any details, not seen it in the papers.’

  ‘Mr Oates has been charged with the murder of a woman called Justine Marks, and we are also making enquiries into two other cases that we believe he could be involved in.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Are they looking for bodies in the house opposite, like in the Fred West case?’ he exclaimed, looking at his wife in shock.

  ‘They are looking for evidence, yes; did you ever see him with anyone entering his basement or anyone visiting him?’

  ‘No, he was a real loner, though he’d always be friendly, wave over to me if I saw him. This is very worrying. I said having those houses empty was bound to create trouble.’

  ‘But they weren’t all empty when you used him to help you with the gates?’

  ‘No, the two either side got boarded up quite a while after, they had a bunch of squatters in the middle house that were causing problems and they were moved on, then the sitting tenants were moved out from the houses either side.’

  Mrs Murphy was clearly becoming quite agitated and Anna asked if she could just confirm that Henry Oates was living in the basement in March 2007, and that it was before the other properti
es were boarded up. Both agreed. Next she asked again if they had ever seen Oates driving a car, or possibly a Jeep. They both were certain they had never seen him with any kind of vehicle.

  Next Anna had them confirm that Oates had helped mix cement for the gate posts and Mr Murphy said that he was glad that he had helped him as he was very professional, knew exactly how much sand was required. Oates had explained to Mr Murphy the importance of getting the right consistency.

  ‘So do you think he was working on a building site then?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Might have been, and I’ll tell you why. I mentioned to him, when he was helping me with the gates, that he’d given my wife a bit of turn, that she’d seen him coming home looking like a ghost. He said to me that that was chalk dust, he said something about a bag dropping on him!’

  ‘Chalk dust?’

  ‘That’s right, then he went on complaining about trying to get work, said the Poles were taking all the available jobs and accepting lower wages. I never said nothing to him; I mean, he was obviously capable of getting a job but I reckon he couldn’t be bothered if the giro cheques kept coming.’

  ‘Did he get post delivered to the house?’

  ‘No, he’d collect from our local post office, often saw him in there,’ Mr Murphy said.

  Lastly Anna showed them the photographs of the victims. They went very quiet, but could not recall ever seeing them. Mrs Murphy was shocked when she looked at the photograph of Rebekka Jordan.

  ‘She’s just a young girl.’

  Anna was now eager to leave, and knew that if she stayed any longer they would start asking more questions about the murder enquiry. Mr Murphy walked her to the gate, opening it for her and pointing out the cement-filled area around the posts.

  ‘You won’t have to dig all this up, will you?’

  Anna smiled as she told him there was no need for him to worry about his gates or driveway.

  She was still standing there when she noticed Barolli parked up opposite in an unmarked police car, and the Crime Scene Manager handing him something through the driver’s window. Anna crossed the road and opened the passenger door.

  ‘You heard?’ Barolli asked her, as he took from the CSM a large square plastic box in an evidence bag. ‘This was found stashed up the fireplace; I’m taking it straight over to forensics to check for fingerprints and DNA.’

  ‘What’s inside it?’

  ‘Load of jewellery trinkets, could belong to a victim or just junk stuff, but as the place had a load of squatters at one time or another we need to see if Oates’s dabs are on the box.’

  Barolli nodded over to Mr Murphy, who was watching them intently.

  ‘Get anything else from them, did you?’

  ‘Not really. I’ll be interested to see what’s inside that box, though.’

  ‘Likewise, but I’m not touching it until it’s been dusted.’

  Anna was about to do a web search for ‘chalk + building’ when Mike arrived back at the incident room.

  ‘You hear about the box found in Oates’s basement?’ he asked. ‘Hidden in the fireplace. Paul said it was full of jewellery. He’s having it individually photographed then the lab can get to work on it.’

  ‘Yeah, hoping to get prints off the box.’

  Mike ruffled his hair.

  ‘You know what it could mean?’

  She nodded as her desk phone rang, and coincidentally it was Pete Jenkins. They had been able to get some good prints from the plastic surface of the box, and as they had already taken prints from Oates when he had been arrested it wouldn’t take long to do a comparison.

  ‘You know what my gut feeling is about this stuff?’ Pete said. ‘I’ve examined tokens like this in other murder cases. You want to come in and see for yourself?’

  ‘Be right there. I had the same feeling. Give me half an hour or so.’

  Anna set off at once, but as she drove to Lambeth, she couldn’t shift the dread that the prints would not match with Oates’s.

  But they did. It was a perfect match: three left fingers, a right palm and left thumbprint all belonged to Oates, and no other prints had been found.

  Pete was standing in the section of the laboratory that had been given over to the Oates murder enquiry. Many items had been discarded, but that still left a vast amount of clothing and bed linen. There was even a filthy rolled-up towel and swimming trunks. Everything was being carefully checked over, tagged and bagged.

  Anna asked if any items of clothing had chalk dust over them and explained her conversation with the Murphys. Pete said that as far as he knew there was nothing and, given that Mrs Murphy had said that it had been in March 2007, a minimal trace would be worthless as evidence and not even worth looking for.

  Laid out neatly on brown paper was the square empty plastic box and beside it, an array of jewellery: cheap brooches, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, single earrings, a couple of rings and a string of fake pearls. Many pieces were broken, stones were missing out of clasps; nothing appeared to be of any great value.

  Anna examined the hoard using plastic lab tweezers to look more closely at each item.

  ‘I’ve had individual photographs taken back and front where necessary,’ Pete told her. ‘I’d say the thing of any value is the bracelet, which is hallmarked gold. This is the one item you can concentrate on first because . . .’

  Pete, wearing gloves, picked up the gold bracelet. The clasp was broken and missing some stones, and a safety chain held the two bands together. He took a magnifying glass and Anna moved closer.

  ‘It’s engraved,’ he said. ‘Angela 1999 from Mum and Dad.’

  Anna sighed; she knew what she was looking at – days, weeks of backtracking through unsolved case files, missing persons, burglary and robbery and lost property reports in an effort to identify all the items. She and Pete couldn’t help coming to the same conclusion: these items could be the sick tokens of a serial killer. That left Anna little choice but to return to the station to speak to Mike.

  Mike closed his eyes at the news.

  ‘Jesus Christ, if there are more murdered women out there our cases could spiral out of control.’

  ‘Well, we can’t be sure until we identify the jewellery, and that won’t be until the photographs and details are sent over in the morning. So I don’t know about you, but I need to go home, get ready for the shit to start hitting the fan tomorrow.’

  Anna had just started up her Mini when Mike tapped on the window to say that Dr Samuels had just rung the office to let them know that he had nearly finished going over the Oates file and would come to the station in a day or so to advise them on the best way forward with the interviews. Just at that moment Anna’s mobile rang: ‘Does he know about Samuels yet?’ demanded Mike. Anna shook her head as she answered the phone.

  ‘You avoiding me?’

  ‘No, it’s been quite an eventful day.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting to hear the details, so get over to me as soon as you can.’

  ‘I’m really tired.’

  ‘So am I, tired of not being kept up to speed, all right?’

  ‘Okay, I’ll come straight over.’

  ‘Good. Have you eaten?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll fix us something. Bye.’

  At least he hadn’t asked her to schlep over groceries, and she was certain he’d order a pizza delivery. In some ways it was better for her to share that afternoon’s depressing discovery with Langton, rather than go home alone, and more than likely order a takeaway Chinese.

  Chapter Twelve

  Langton had set the table in the living room, even if the cutlery did look as if he had half-heartedly thrown it onto the cloth. Napkins, wine glasses and an open bottle of Merlot had been dumped alongside HP and tomato sauce.

  The main front door had been buzzed open, and the flat door had stood ajar for her to walk in.

  ‘Get a glass of wine, won’t be a minute.’

  She was surprised that his voice came from the kit
chen.

  ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘Nope, I’ll tell you when I need you.’

  Anna poured two glasses and arranged the cutlery and napkins into place settings, turning as Langton appeared. He looked remarkably well, shaved and wearing a grey loose tracksuit; he smiled, and lifted his walking cane.

  ‘Plaster’s off, but the worst part, and I’ve never felt such agony, was bending the leg. Bloody hell, Travis, it was excruciating, but hardly a twinge now.’

  ‘That’s marvellous.’

  ‘Stuff ’s on a tray if you could just carry it in.’

  He walked a trifle unsteadily, but considering how he had been when she last saw him it was obvious he was well on the road to recovery.

  ‘Stairs are still hazardous but I’m doing exercise gradually.’

  He eased into one of the hard-backed chairs at the table. Anna found the kitchen is some semblance of order, and a tray with a Pyrex dish of shepherd’s pie and a bowl of vegetables.

  ‘Don’t tell me you cooked this?’

  ‘I’d be lying if I did. I’ve got a freezer full of easy meals, but I have to watch it as I’ve put on weight.’

  She put the tray on the table, and returned to the kitchen to collect plates and serving spoons. By the time she had filled first his plate and then her own he was already wading through his portion, eating with his usual haste.

  ‘Right, let me have it, cheers to you, Travis.’ He lifted his glass and she raised hers.

  ‘To recovery,’ she said.

  He almost drained his entire glass, topping it up as she ate, with his trademark tangible impatience. Slowly she gave him the update, between mouthfuls of food and sips of her wine. He helped himself to another serving of the tasty shepherd’s pie, squirting ketchup over it, and listened attentively without his usual interruptions. As Anna described the task of tracing the owner of the gold bracelet he let out a sigh, shaking his head.

  ‘Dear God, you know it could open a can of worms. If this is a collection of sick tokens it’ll be weeks of work. What’s happening with Oates?’

  ‘Suicide watch is about to be lifted but Kumar wants him reassessed. Mike’s going to get him back in police custody any day now.’