Backlash

by Lynda La Plante

  ‘The two of you need to sit down and go over all the evidence you have so far.’

  ‘We’ve already agreed to do that and prepare the interviews together.’

  ‘Good. You see, you don’t need some prick profiler or behaviour adviser thingy as you call them.’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ Anna said, avoiding eye contact by looking down at her plate of food.

  ‘I used a profiler on a stranger’s murder a few years back. He was a useless self-opinionated pain in the arse. Made the evidence fit his bullshit theory and sent us miles off course, then to top it all the bastard had the cheek to hit us with a three-grand bill.’

  ‘I can guess what you told him to do with his bill.’

  ‘Too right. Samuels, I said, go fuck yourself! Enjoyed saying it but still had to pay him in the end.’

  Anna nearly choked on her food and gulped her wine to clear her throat.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she gasped between breaths. ‘Food went down the wrong way.’

  Langton poured himself another glass of wine, offering to top hers up but she refused as she was driving.

  ‘So nothing new with the Rebekka Jordan enquiry?’

  ‘Well, I have confirmation that Oates was living in the basement at the time Rebekka went missing. The search team are still working on the three houses but they haven’t found anything other than the jewellery.’

  ‘But nothing has come up evidence-wise that could actually move your enquiry forward?’

  Anna hesitated, and then described how Oates had looked on the night Mrs Murphy had seen him returning home. This possibly around the date Rebekka Jordan went missing.

  Anna got up and showed Langton her notebook of dates. The Murphys knew when Oates had helped with the gates because they were delivered in the last week of March 2007, and this was when they got to know him because he had helped to put them up. Mr Murphy was certain that it was two weeks before when Oates was seen by his wife.

  Langton looked at the scribbled pages and shook his head.

  ‘Well this is all very crossword puzzle, you seem to have a lot of cryptic clues but nothing that fits right in your time frame.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘The forensic lab has found no blood or DNA of Rebekka’s on any clothes or shoes from Oates’s basement.’

  ‘Well he probably threw away the clothes he wore when he abducted her.’

  ‘He worked odd jobs on building sites, which could account for any chalk on his clothing.’

  ‘That’s my point. If the Murphys are right about the gate delivery date, then the time she saw Oates covered in chalk was the same week Rebekka went missing. If he was working on another site at the time he could have buried her there during the night.’

  Langton closed his eyes and yawned.

  ‘Sorry if I’m boring you!’ she said, closing her notebook.

  She stacked their dinner plates onto the tray along with her wine glass. Anna felt she needed some breathing space before her temper exploded.

  ‘I’ll take these into the kitchen. Do you want a coffee?’

  ‘No.’

  Anna calmed down as she washed the dishes and left them on the draining board. The remains of the shepherd’s pie she covered with tin foil before going back to find he’d now moved to sit on a sofa and was irritatingly thumbing through her notebook.

  ‘The bastard gets multiple giro cheques, benefits and Christ knows what other handouts. If the Work and Pensions fraud squad had got their act together they could have had him locked away years ago.’

  Anna sat herself opposite him.

  ‘He was pretty adept at working the system. We found numerous claim forms under different names, and heaps of addresses he’d dossed down in, but they did throw him out of a council flat – he was subletting the rooms!’

  Langton tapped his hand with her notebook.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like a man who’s not the full ticket, does he?’

  ‘We’ve underestimated him. He doesn’t just abduct a woman off the street and kill her on the spur of the moment. He’s a planner who knows exactly what he’s going to do.’

  ‘Rebekka, though, doesn’t seem to fit his MO – she was only thirteen, the other two girls were a lot older.’

  ‘His wife Eileen caught him touching up their daughter when she was ten!’

  ‘What about the other case – Fidelis?’ he asked.

  ‘Still no eyewitness, crucifix didn’t belong to the victim. Yeah, he was working at the multi-storey car park but no paperwork with his name on it to confirm the exact dates. Mike says it’s still all circumstantial and the CPS may say there isn’t enough evidence to charge.’

  ‘Are you any further forward on the Jeep?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think with the amount of money already laid out on this and the first Jordan investigation, unless you come up with something soon or Oates makes a full confession then you may have to call it a day.’

  She swiftly reached over to retrieve her notebook and put it into her briefcase, then picked up her coat.

  ‘I won’t give up. I disagree with you, and I think we are accumulating enough evidence. So it’s taking time, so it’s costing, but look how much we have uncovered so far. We are nearly there.’

  ‘Nearly isn’t good enough.’

  ‘No, but if this box of trinkets really does contain sick tokens and Oates has killed, not only our three known victims but others, we have a duty to continue this enquiry.’

  ‘You going?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come here.’ He patted the seat on the sofa beside him.

  She sat down, keeping her coat and briefcase on her knees.

  ‘Sometimes, Anna, as hard as it may seem, you have to reach a conclusion that you’ve done as much as possible to gain a positive result.’

  She turned towards him.

  ‘If Rebekka Jordan was your daughter, how would you feel if you were told that?’

  ‘Don’t go there,’ he said sharply.

  She stood up angrily and hurled her briefcase down beside him.

  ‘Yes I will, because I am not giving up. You brought me onto her case and I am confident I will get a result, contrary to what you believe. She was thirteen years old, her parents deserve to have closure and I’ll get it for them.’

  He watched her pulling on her coat and pointed at her briefcase.

  ‘You’ve got nothing in there, Anna, that’ll stand up in court. All you have is dates and times and possible connections, but admit it, you have no hard evidence. Do you think that I didn’t feel the same way as you when I had to leave the case open? Yes, they have a right to closure, every victim’s family has that right, but sometimes you just have to accept you are not going to get it.’

  ‘Oh really, so we find a gold bracelet that belonged to a girl called Angela and we just drop it – a bracelet found in a stinking basement where we know a killer lived?’

  ‘Go home. You’re giving me a headache.’

  ‘If everything boils down to how much it costs I may as well quit. How can you put a price tag on a thirteen-year-old girl’s murder . . . or anyone’s, for that matter! You want to close the case, do it, and live with it, because I couldn’t. And don’t even begin to think I will be the one who tells the Jordans.’

  She yanked open the front door and banged it hard behind her. He could hear her thudding down the stairs, and would have liked to run after her, but he couldn’t. He clasped the sofa arm to ease himself up and then reached for his walking stick, poured the remainder of the wine into his glass and drained it. It had become consistently harder to control budgets and he had already had a lengthy discussion with Mike Lewis, warning him that it was becoming tough for him to constantly get more financing. The archaeologists, the specialist police search teams and the mounting forensic work were all costly, and he had to approve more and more officers to be attached to the investigation. He turned as if to pace the room the way
he always did and almost fell over. He swore, gritted his teeth and, with determination, began walking slowly up and down the room. He paused by a photograph of his stepdaughter. Anna had implied that if it had been Kitty who had disappeared he would not have left the case on file. It wasn’t true. He had worked twenty-four seven trying to get a result on this one. He had becomes friends with her distraught parents, he had wanted to give them some kind of peace, but the weeks had turned into months, and the longer Rebekka was missing the smaller, he knew, were her chances of being found.

  He had felt guilt. He had lived with the fact that he had been unable to find any suspect; it had been the most frustrating investigation he had ever headed up. If he was honest, the case had never truly been over for him and now it had reared up again. He began to go over in his mind the entire conversation with Anna, eventually conceding that she had touched an extremely raw nerve.

  Anna was at the station by seven-thirty the next morning. Mike arrived shortly after, so she asked to speak to him in his office. She was very tense, her hands clenched.

  ‘I had dinner with Langton last night.’

  ‘Oh, how is he?’

  ‘Let me ask you. He is not overseeing my investigation, he’s on sick leave, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but he’s had his finger in the pie all along. I already told you that as far as DCS Hedges is concerned both cases are Langton’s.’

  ‘He is getting ready to close down my enquiry and by the sounds of it yours as well. He maintains we only have circumstantial evidence.’

  ‘Maybe we do, but we haven’t even re-interviewed Oates yet. When we present him with what we do have, he might cough up.’

  ‘If he doesn’t?’

  ‘Where are you going with this, Anna?’

  ‘I am just warning you he’s going to withdraw officers. He says the budget’s out of control, and that it’s all about finances.’

  Mike ruffled his hair distractedly.

  ‘I’m refusing to back off, Mike, and I want you to also refuse, because I truly believe we are close to proving Oates is the killer of both Fidelis and Rebekka.’

  ‘Listen, I know you’ve been doing a lot of work, and with results, but I also have to consider the facts.’

  ‘He’s already called you, hasn’t he?’

  Mike flushed.

  ‘Oh my God, I don’t believe it, don’t tell me you agree with him?’

  ‘Whatever my feelings are, Anna, Langton makes the rules. At the moment, though, he’s just considering it, so in the meantime we don’t slow down.’

  ‘He shouldn’t even be considering it.’

  ‘The investigation right now is costing a fortune. We had a full-scale search of not one but three properties that—’

  ‘Resulted in the finding of a box of jewellery that could belong to other victims, a box with only Oates’s fingerprints on it, a bracelet with a girl’s name engraved on it. We got a result, Mike.’

  Mike slapped the desk.

  ‘If Oates is guilty of more murders, the fact is we have him charged with that of Justine Marks and he will stand trial for her murder. If we do not have proof beyond circumstantial evidence for the other cases you know the CPS will not proceed.’

  Anna stood up. Mike had obviously been got at by Langton so she didn’t think there was anything more to say.

  Anna couldn’t sit still after such a start to the morning, so she decided to visit the swimming pool in Hackney known to be used by Oates. She was completely wired, extremely angry, and also very disappointed by Mike’s reaction. Half of her doubted she would gain anything useful from going to the pool but she recalled Fidelis’s parents saying she had won swimming medals. On the pretext that the young woman might have met Oates there she got out of the incident room as fast as possible, only pausing to ask Joan to run a web search for chalk production – how and where it was mined, and its use on building sites – and leave the printed results on her desk. Anna was surprised at how large the sports complex in Hackney was. It consisted of not just a swimming pool, but facilities for karate training, trampolining, and dance classes from aerobics to modern ballet. The gym was well equipped and private training lessons were available. There were pre- and postnatal classes and a crèche where mothers could leave their children to do painting and pottery. Altogether it was a very well-run centre funded by the council. There was even a café serving hot meals, with windows that overlooked the swimming pool, where plenty of attendants supervised schoolchildren taking swimming lessons in roped-off lanes.

  Anna waited at the reception desk and watched two pleasant girls working at computers and answering the telephone, before she was led to the manager’s office. Jim Banks was a fit-looking man wearing a tracksuit top with a badge of the centre’s logo, dark trousers and training shoes. He shook her hand and indicated for her to sit in a chair opposite his smart desk, on which computers and telephones and papers were neatly arrayed. Behind him was a wall of cups and trophies.

  Anna explained about the investigation into the murder of Fidelis Julia Flynn. She showed him Fidelis’s and Henry Oates’s photographs, asking if Banks recalled either of them.

  ‘Yes. He was a regular up until about a year ago. Never seen her before, though.’

  Banks turned to his computer.

  ‘I was a swimming instructor when he first joined. In fact, it was shortly after we opened six years ago.’

  ‘He was a member?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll just see if we still have his particulars.’

  Banks tapped a few keys and scrolled through the past and present membership lists.

  ‘Nothing on here for Fidelis Flynn, but yes, there you go, details of his joining date, membership number and photograph.’

  He printed out the information and passed it to Anna. At the top of the page was a star and the words NOT APPROVED FOR FURTHER MEMBERSHIP. Banks next went to a filing cabinet and withdrew a folder.

  ‘I keep a file on people who we have complaints about or who’ve been barred for one reason or another. The girls at the desk also have a copy because of the photograph.’

  Anna was hardly able to contain herself as she asked why Mr Oates was no longer approved for membership.

  ‘We have a policy: anyone using the swimming pool has to go through the shower and foot bath before entering the water, it’s all about health and safety.’

  She waited.

  ‘Mr Oates was to say the least rather unkempt, and I recall him very well because when I worked the pool area he had obviously not showered. I think he was working on a building site and I caught him coming into the swimming pool area from a staff door. He had not used the shower and so I sort of earmarked him as someone to watch. I did on a couple of other occasions turn him back to go through the disinfectant foot bath; his feet were filthy. We also had a couple of complaints from other swimmers and he was warned that if he didn’t shower he would not be allowed to use the pool.’

  Banks went on to say that Oates was a very strong swimmer, and would do up to a hundred lengths every time he used the pool. He also used the gym, where again complaints had been made about his appearance. In fact, the list of complaints also included using someone’s shampoo and sitting around too long in the café.

  ‘He was warned a couple of times that he would not be allowed to use the centre and his membership would be revoked. There was some altercation on a running machine once. He was quite athletic and would be on the treadmill for hours.’

  ‘Did you ever see him approaching young girls?’

  ‘I think a swimming instructor did give a memo about him taking too much interest in a group of schoolgirls.’

  Anna remarked to Banks that the list of complaints against Oates was extensive, yet he had still been allowed to use the premises.

  ‘We are a council-run club, not private, and we have a three-warnings rule, but in actual fact we didn’t ask him to leave due to his hygiene or behaviour – we had a spate of thefts. Tracksuits and shoes went missing
, and we did a Miss Marple, cross-checking the members that were signed in when the thefts occurred. Overall, Oates was top of the list.’

  ‘Did it get reported to the police?’

  ‘No. It was nothing of value really and often the stolen item wasn’t missed immediately. We did install some interior CCTV cameras and, if my memory is correct, it was just before we had them installed that Mr Oates was asked to leave. We always had them in the car park, but not inside the club.’

  ‘So he was never caught on camera stealing?’

  ‘No. One of our instructors was in the gym for a one-to-one workout with a member, said she had taken her crucifix off and put it on the windowsill. When her class was finished . . .’ He paused and shook his head.

  ‘No, sorry, it was the young lady’s, she had taken it off because it got in the way when she was doing press-ups and Judy the instructor filled out the lost property report for her. Again it was not of great value, more sentimental value really.’

  He frowned and stood up.

  ‘Just in case I get the facts wrong she still works here if you would like to talk to her.’

  ‘Thank you, I would, and I need to take the file you kept on Oates.’

  Anna was so excited she burst into the incident room. Barolli physically jumped, as he was closest to the door.

  ‘I got a result, one you won’t believe.’

  Anna dumped her briefcase down as people around paid attention.

  ‘Henry Oates was confronted by a fitness trainer at the sports centre where he went swimming but he also worked out in the gym there. They’d had a spate of thefts – running shoes, tracksuits – and one of the members left her gold crucifix on a window ledge. Oates was running on a treadmill; he was the only other person in the gymnasium.’

  Anna had taken off her coat and was opening her briefcase.

  ‘When Oates was confronted and accused of taking it, he became very abusive and threatening. The manager was called and said Oates refused to allow them to search his bag – in fact swung it at him and ran out. He was subsequently barred from the centre.’

  Anna crossed to the incident board and picked up a marker pen.