Backlash

by Lynda La Plante

  He rested his arm along the back of her seat. ‘I’m looking forward to confronting the little creep.’

  Anna betrayed nothing, but she was amazed that he had already appointed himself to lead the interviews.

  ‘Did Mike agree to it?’

  ‘Course he didn’t. This is a very big case for him, but you know experience will out. Anyway, at first I’ll just be monitoring how it goes from the viewing room. If there’s a problem I’ll step in. I would say it’s going to be a very long hazardous interview, minefield time. If Oates starts losing it, you’ll have to be ready to deal with it and calm the waters.’

  He fell silent, leaning back against the headrest and closing his eyes, so that she thought he was asleep. Eventually she took the turn off the M40 towards the chalk pit, her satellite navigation directing her.

  ‘Christ, doesn’t that voice send you crazy?’

  He tapped the small screen.

  ‘Bloody dangerous things, you know. If you look to see if you are on the right road following that little red arrow you could have a crash.’

  ‘That’s why you follow her instructions.’

  The chalk quarry was much as depicted in the photographs on the computer, but far far larger, in fact dauntingly huge. They drew up beside a security gate and it took a while before a guard came up to the red-and-white pole. Langton lowered his window and showed his ID, explaining briefly that he would need to talk to whoever was in charge as he was from the Metropolitan Police murder enquiry team.

  Anna got even more of an eerie feeling as she drove down a long dirt track towards a cinder block that housed the offices. Numerous trucks were being driven to and fro, loaded up with crushed chalk. A huge conveyor belt was shifting blocks above the pit into a hanger.

  ‘My God, the size of the place,’ Langton said quietly. Whether or not he felt the same skin-prickling sensation as Anna, she couldn’t tell, but the sheer vastness of the quarry was in itself intimidating. It transpired that the manager was not available, but one of the workers showed Anna and Langton various maps, on which he indicated a vast disused part of the quarry. It would take considerable time to be shown around everywhere and they would also need overalls and boots. Gradually Langton raised the possibility of someone entering the quarries without supervision. They were told that at night the place did have a semblance of security, but to secure the entire area would be impossible. The entrance they had used was supervised, but even that was difficult. The CCTV cameras were in position to cover working areas, which were sealed off to the public by wire fencing. They were very wary of anyone dumping waste, but they had had no recent problems.

  ‘Tell me about the disused quarry – can anyone have access to it?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s a sort of nature reserve now, what with the pond and all the trees. Sometimes we get kids in messing about on mountain bikes.’

  Langton hesitated, but time was pressing so he decided to elaborate on the reason for their visit: the possibility of someone burying a body. Because of the size of the place it looked as if it could be easily done. Now, armed with this added information, the young man called up his superior and asked for permission to drive Langton and Anna to the disused quarry.

  As they returned to Anna’s car, Langton was silent, rubbing at his hands; the feeling of chalk grit made them dry and itchy. What they had seen was a vast empty quarry, a steep cliff of reddish clay and a cavernous pit the size of Leicester Square. Explosives had blasted away the old track into the basin of the pit, leaving it impossible to get down there without safety equipment.

  Woods bordered a high ridge, and to detect visually if anything had been buried there would be almost impossible. Potholes three and four feet deep were half filled with water and chalk-covered rubble, like waves of foam in the ocean.

  ‘Take the back route, see what that wooded area looks like from the road,’ Langton instructed. Anna was loath to do so as it meant leaving a tarmac surface and going onto a dirt track with deep ruts full of mud.

  ‘I’m never going to get the car clean,’ she groaned.

  They moved slowly, bumping and dipping, and Anna swerved as much as possible to avoid the potholes.

  ‘It’s further than I thought,’ Langton said irritably.

  ‘Do you want me to turn back?’

  ‘No. Keep going, it looks less bumpy further along.’

  There was a field on the driver’s side with a wire fence and barbed wire threaded in loops along the top, rusted and with many gaps revealing rotting wooden posts that had fallen down.

  ‘This must have been one of the lanes they used to get to the old quarry,’ Langton said.

  Anna made no reply, becoming more uptight the further they went. They rounded a bend, from where they could see that the track continued up ahead for miles and now the edge of the wood was coming into view on the passenger side.

  ‘Here’s the wood,’ Langton pointed out, and Anna sighed with relief as the dirt track opened onto what had once been a tarmac lane, but which was now in almost as bad shape as the track. There were wide cracks and plenty of dips, but at least they were no longer churning through old deep muddy lorry tracks. The wood became denser, and here a wire fence had been erected around it, then the road widened. Old signs read ‘No Admittance, Private Property’, yet still they drove on before coming to a crossroads. Left would be virtually heading into the wood itself and turning right looked as if it might lead back to the main road.

  ‘I think we should go straight on here,’ Anna said, moving the car forwards along the lane.

  Langton nodded. His knee was clearly bothering him as he kept on rubbing it.

  ‘Well that was very informative,’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘I tell you what is – what a place to dump a body. It’d never be found and you could come this way . . .’ He indicated the track ahead.

  ‘You’d have to know the area quite well.’

  ‘Yeah, but nevertheless, drive up to the wood, climb over that fence and you’d get to the disused quarry.’

  They continued to drive and now Anna was able to pick up speed as the road, although rough, was smoother, even though grass sprouted up between the cracks in the tarmac. They drove past derelict huts and old troughs, and rather unnecessarily she murmured that at one time this must have been farmland.

  Anna braked suddenly, so unexpectedly that Langton lurched forwards, swearing. The road had opened out onto a field where a number of small camper vans and trailers were grouped, with broken-down vehicles littered behind the trailers. Two grey thickset tethered ponies grazed beside a moss-covered horsebox. Near the horses was a precarious pile of scaffolding poles and orange cones. As she slowly passed the entrance to the field she could see washing lines filled with clothes. She reversed to bring the Mini directly up to the entry to the site.

  ‘What, what?’ Langton demanded as he lowered his window.

  ‘Do you see it?’

  ‘What, for Chrissake, what? It’s just a gypsy camp.’

  Anna got out and went over to the old barred gate. She pointed to a pile of vehicles, many minus wheels or doors, some on their side, others stripped down, most rusty. Car seats were stacked up next to the wrecks.

  Langton eased himself out, glad to be able to straighten up.

  ‘I’m sure I’m right,’ she said.

  ‘About what? We’ve obviously got them irritated, they’re coming out of their trailers.’

  Three men were standing staring towards them, their expressions and folded arms making it clear that they didn’t like the intrusion. Then a woman came out and gestured towards Anna and Langton, and then she too folded her arms.

  Anna leaned towards Langton.

  ‘Between the wrecked green van and the red car on its side, isn’t that a Cherokee Jeep?’

  ‘I dunno. I can only see a door hanging off. Anna!’

  ‘Stay here – the ground is too uneven and muddy for you. Let me talk to them.’

  She waved to the
group and one man headed towards her as she took out her ID and held it up. Contrary to what Langton had expected, the man appeared to be very civil as Anna spoke to him. He saw her point to the wrecks and together they headed past the other men, whose sullen expressions never wavered, but at least they did not make a move as Anna struggled to keep her balance in the muddy field.

  Langton leaned against the car, watching as bits and pieces of vehicles were tossed aside to open up an area around the rusty silver Jeep. It lay on its side, with no wheels, no seats or number plates, and it was heavily dented, with broken windscreen and headlamps, and one wing missing. He saw Anna bending down to where a number plate should have been, plainly keeping up a conversation throughout as the big man cleared as much away as possible for her to take a good look.

  Eventually Anna returned and asked Langton if he had a couple of twenty-pound notes; her face was flushed as he opened his wallet and handed her two ten-pound notes and one twenty. She made her way back to the group, who were now talking animatedly to each other. There was a lot of nodding and pointing and then she was shaking hands and handing over the cash as the woman began to take in her washing.

  Returning to the car, Anna tried to scrape the mud off her shoes, but gave up as Langton eased himself back into the passenger seat. When she finally got in beside him she was still flushed.

  ‘What did you need the forty quid for?’ he demanded.

  ‘Had to pay for information . . . and the vehicle. I’ll put money on it, that’s the Cherokee Jeep that was stolen six years ago in Cobham. I phoned the locals and they’re sending someone down to sit on it until the transport guys arrive. There are no licence plates, but we can get the forensic lab to check out the engine and chassis numbers while they give it a going-over.’

  She started up the Mini, waved at the group of men, and then slapped the steering wheel with the flat of her hand before driving off.

  ‘I know I’m right, I know it. By the way, this is a legitimate site. They’ve been there for fifteen years, farmer leases them the land. I’d say it did have licence plates on it when they found it, but I wasn’t going to get into that with them. The main man, the one I was talking to, is called Reg Green; his son found the Jeep – wait for it – about five years ago.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘It was crashed into a tree. He said that whoever smashed it up also tried to set light to it, the back seats were melted, but the petrol tank didn’t blow. Two front tyres were buckled, the two rear ones he said had been slashed – whether that is true or not . . . probably sold them.’

  ‘Did he report it?’

  ‘What do you think? Of course he didn’t, he said he towed it back to the site. I’ve taken some pictures of it on my mobile.’

  She was smiling and he couldn’t help but find it contagious. He rubbed the back of her neck with his hand, resting his arm along the seat.

  ‘Well spotted, Travis, but if you’ll just let me have a quiet word, not to dampen your enthusiasm in any way, but I would say finding a print, finding any evidence connecting that rusted wreck to Henry Oates will be a miracle. It is, I presume, the reason for your excitement that he possibly stole it, but without a witness it’s supposition.’

  ‘You are the one that always says there are no coincidences. Jeep stolen six years ago, same type of vehicle on false plates in Shepherd’s Bush the day before Rebekka Jordan disappears. Oates seen returning home covered in chalk dust. I think he drove it from Cobham to London and—’

  ‘All right, all right, just take things easy.’

  ‘But that is why no one has ever traced the Jeep and if Oates had met Rebekka when he worked on their garden—’

  ‘Shusshh, shusshh, just relax.’

  ‘I am relaxed,’ she snapped, but her hands were gripping the steering wheel. She also hated the way his hand was touching the nape of her neck and she shrugged it away.

  ‘You know to even attempt a search of the quarry is near impossible; it’d take hundreds of officers, let alone digging machinery, and it’s dangerous. We don’t have a shred of evidence, not one witness that saw Oates. Did you ask them if they’d seen anyone?’

  ‘Yes of course, but they only saw the smashed-up Jeep.’

  ‘They remember exactly when they saw it?’

  She sighed for the second time, ‘At least five and a half years ago.’

  She lapsed into silence as she followed the directions Reg Green had given her and eventually they saw signs for the M40. It was with some relief that she got onto the motorway at last.

  ‘Just an added thought. It’s a hell of a long way back to London from there,’ Langton murmured.

  She made no reply because she knew it. All the same, Oates could have thumbed a lift or nicked another car.

  It was almost four-thirty when they drove into the station car park. Mike had grown even more agitated having had to wait for them to arrive, but Langton didn’t bother going into detail about the discovery. Instead he ordered everyone to draw up chairs. By now the team had been joined by the ten extra detectives so the incident room was jammed.

  The tension was running high, as it was very obvious that Langton and Mike were not on good terms. Langton, having already ordered his usual bacon and chicken roll with no tomatoes, sat himself between Mike and Anna in the centre of the horseshoe row of chairs that faced the newly enlarged incident board, which stretched for virtually the entire length of the room.

  At four-forty-five Mike started the briefing. He began with the details of the investigation into the murder of Justine Marks and the discovery of Henry Oates in the children’s party van. The new members listened attentively. Next, Mike introduced Barolli, who stood up to take them through Fidelis Julia Flynn’s disappearance. As he talked he used an old chopstick to point to pictures of the recovered body encased in cement. Langton glanced over at Anna, but she was reading a text message. He couldn’t tell if it was important, but then he could see her replying. It irritated him that it could be personal rather than connected to the investigation. But he found it hard to fault her diligent detective work, since Barolli constantly referred to how DCI Travis had brought in result after result, such as the theft of the crucifix from the sports club Oates used. Barolli looked at Mike, who now stepped forwards and said that there was a lot of work to be done trying to trace the owners of the jewellery found in Oates’s squat but that he would discuss that later in the meeting. He now asked Anna to tell them about her investigation into the disappearance of Rebekka Jordan.

  Yet again Langton was made more than aware of Anna’s competence as she took the floor with a very confident attitude. She was much more detailed than Barolli, listing her evidence in chronological order, starting with the discovery of the small doll’s head and leg, and the similar figures from the doll’s house. The contact with Andrew Markham led to the revelation that Oates had worked at the Jordans’ property and therefore could have met Rebekka. She reminded them of the confusing statement from Oates’s ex-wife, that he had told her he was ‘shovelling shit’, and she explained that Markham had used Oates to shovel out and clean a blocked septic tank. This then led to her discovering that a Jeep Grand Cherokee was reported stolen from Cobham in July 2006 on the same day Oates cleaned out the septic tank. Although the theft of the Jeep took place eight months before Rebekka disappeared, she had wondered if Oates could have changed the number plates, hidden it somewhere and used it when he liked.

  ‘This was important to me because to snatch a young girl off the streets without anyone seeing it and then transport her any distance would have required the use of a vehicle. Barbara ran some petrol theft checks for me over a one-year period after the vehicle was stolen. There were three in London matching the model and colour of the stolen Jeep and using the same false plates. Importantly, one of the thefts was in Shepherd’s Bush the day before Rebekka went missing.’

  Langton, knowing all this already, was able to watch from a different perspective to that of the team. He
had known Anna from her first murder enquiry. Rightly or wrongly, he had had a relationship with her, and they had continued to work alongside each other on many other murder enquiries. He had wrapped her in his arms when he’d had to tell her about her fiancé’s death and advised her to take time off work, which she had refused to do. He had loved her passionately, then in an almost fatherly way, and he still cared for her even more than he admitted to himself, but watching her now gave him an inordinate feeling of pride. In front of him was a woman whose confidence and astute working methods outstripped everyone else’s. He remembered her tottering behind him in her high-heeled shoes covered in mud, he remembered her fainting at her first autopsy, her distress when the appalling injuries to the victim in the Red Dahlia case had moved her to tears. He noticed that her shoes were muddy now from the chalk quarry and the gypsy site, but she appeared to not even be aware of it. Her hair, scraped back in a knot, had strands loose. He had always found it touching the way she fiddled with her hair, making sure she looked presentable. Now it was obvious that, like her muddy shoes, her hair was of no importance. What he was watching was a woman fired up, her determination explicit, and her cohesive delivery of the facts made everyone pay close attention to her every word.

  ‘I believe that Henry Oates has killed at least four, maybe even more. We are dealing with a devious killer, a man who preys on young women and prides himself on his ability to remain undetected. So far we have only recovered two bodies. Justine Marks from the back of the van and Fidelis Julia Flynn encased in concrete in the lift shaft. Earlier today DCS Langton and I uncovered evidence that may lead us to where the other bodies are.’

  She hesitated and gave a small satisfied smile.

  Langton leaned forwards, now attentive to what she was saying.

  Anna stood beside the map of the quarry she had pinned on the board. As Mike and the team were not yet privy to what had happened that afternoon, the room went very quiet.

  ‘You can see on the map a gypsy camp six miles from the disused quarry, on the wooded side. The camp is legal, as they have permission from the farmer and have been camped there for fifteen years. Five and a half years ago, and this is of utmost importance, because it was five and a half years ago that Rebekka Jordan disappeared, they found a Cherokee Jeep. An attempt had been made to burn it after it had smashed into a tree by a ditch near the wood. They towed the Jeep back to their campsite and the virtual shell of it has remained there. The seats, wheels and any part that could possibly be sold on, including the number plates, have gone. However . . .’