Backlash

Chapter Ten

It was 7 p.m. when Anna joined the entire team in the incident room as Mike was giving a briefing update. He brought out photographs of the lift shaft and a copy of the picture from the monitor screen showing the shrouded shape encased in concrete. The identity could not be confirmed until they had completed the excavation and removed the body to the mortuary for full forensics and a post mortem examination. Digging out the body was not going to be an easy task and would take some time. Not only were they working in a confined space using specialist cutting equipment, but the archaeologists would have to slowly and painstakingly cut round and under the body to try and remove it as a block.

He explained all that he and Barolli had learnt about Oates’s employment on the site. On the day Fidelis disappeared he had completed digging out the ticket machine area and left work at six in the evening. The next day he filled it with ready-mix concrete pumped in by hose from a truck and was due to return the following day but he never turned up for work again. Mike went on to say that as the car park was near completion the site barriers had been removed and overnight security consisted of a guard in a Portakabin who was supposed to patrol the grounds every hour.

Barbara raised her hand and said that if Oates had gone to the site at night, thrown the body down the lift shaft and covered it with concrete the next day then surely someone would have noticed the new level the following morning!

‘Good point, Barbara, but the lift was already completed and in working order, so nobody ever had a need to look inside the shaft. Oates would have to have used some kind of transport to get the body to the site so he probably borrowed, or more likely nicked, a motor. Joan, I need a list of all lost or stolen vehicles in London on the day Fidelis went missing.’

Listening to Mike and watching the expressions on the faces of the team, Anna realized what she had missed while on Specialist Casework. She could once again feel the buzz of excitement and adrenalin rush through the room when an investigation suddenly made a major breakthrough. She hoped that what she was about to tell the team would add to the euphoria. Mike looked over to her as she came forward.

‘I have a big development. I went to Cobham to interview Andrew Markham who runs a garden design company. He excavated the garden for Rebekka Jordan’s parents.’

Anna pinned up the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures given to her by Markham.

‘There was this brick wall and tree that had to be removed before the builders could dig out the earth and lay the foundations for the extension. Mr Markham dismantled the wall brick by brick, they were Victorian and he decided rather than get rid of them in the skips he would retain them for himself to use in his work.’

She could sense a lack of enthusiasm around the room, and Mike pointedly looked at his wristwatch. She decided to get straight to the point.

‘This work was done late June or early July 2006, some four months prior to completion of the Jordans’ extension. Mr Markham identified Henry Oates as the man he paid to wheel out and load the bricks onto his van.’

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 machine 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 multi-storey 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 records, 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.

They had measured the body and determined that their victim was five feet six, and the shoulder-length hair, which had now been washed through, was clearly auburn and still reasonably undamaged. They had recovered a small gold crucifix on a chain still snagged to one of the woollen remnants. It had been swabbed for DNA, photographed and then put in an evidence bag so Barolli could take it away with him to show Fidelis’s two known boyfriends.

The forensic pathologist could not determine time or cause of death because of the level of decomposition. Although there didn’t appear to be any broken bones or stab wounds he couldn’t rule out the use of a knife and also suggested she might have been strangled or suffocated to death.

Mike had put off contacting Fidelis’s parents until the odontologist had checked out the dental records. Finally, at five that afternoon, he had a confirmed match, and not only from the dental records: the DNA comparison to her parents showed that the remains were those of Fidelis Julia Flynn.

They now had evidence that Oates had worked at the construction site on both the day before and after their victim went missing. What they did not have was any witness that saw him with Fidelis.

By six that evening the team of three detectives had returned from interviewing the residents in Oates’s street. Shown a photograph, one neighbour was able to confirm that he did live in the basement, and she could give an exact date she knew him to be living there because he had helped her husband put up new gates. Oates had been living in the basement for even longer than they had anticipated, for at least five and a half years, because the gates had been bought in March 2007. She also said that he came and went and was sometimes absent for days or even weeks on end, but as he was no trouble and often helped wash cars for cash, no one bothered making a complaint about him. She had never seen Oates with any children, and as far as she could recall she’d never seen anyone else entering or leaving with Oates. She also implied it was disgusting that the house had been left unoccupied for so long because the owners were waiting for planning permission to demolish all three buildings and build a block of flats. She had never seen Oates with a car, or a Jeep, but claimed he was always helpful and pleasant and had shovelled up the snow from her pathway the previous year.

Although the evidence linking Oates to Rebekka Jordan and Fidelis Julia Flynn was mounting, they still had no eyewitness who had seen Oates in the company of either girl. The hope of finding any forensic evidence from Fidelis’s remains or clothing that might implicate him was slim.

‘Could he have killed Rebekka in the squat?’ Anna wondered.

Barbara pointed at the photographs of the house, boarded up on three floors.

‘I know this neighbour said she never saw anyone coming or going apart from Oates, but don’t tell me she was at her window twenty-four seven. He could have snatched her, hidden her body in the house.’

Anna came over to stand beside her. ‘It’s possible, but how did he get her there? We still haven’t established that he was driving the Jeep – the neighbour never saw it parked up and we have no witness that saw him in it. We suspect he stole it, but only by supposition because someone saw a man fitting his description outside the owner’s house. We have no proof that it was Oates that took it.’

‘Still no trace of it either,’ Joan said, joining them.

She had been contacting every garage, auction house and dealership, plus the wreckage yards, and there was no trace of it.

‘Any luck with the crime reports?’ Anna asked.

‘I’ve given all the details to the station crime analyst and I’m waiting for her to get back to me.’

Anna went into Mike’s office.

‘Did the search team who went over Oates’s place look under the floorboards?’

‘Yeah, they used an optical cable attached to a monitor. Nothing untoward, though.’

‘So they didn’t lift the floorboards?’

‘No, they thought using the lens would be quicker.’

‘Rebekka could be buried under the floorboards! I want Oates’s basement stripped, in fact the entire house – pull the bloody place apart.’

‘Wheels are already in motion.’

‘What?’

Mike gave a wide-handed gesture. ‘Langton, he implied the house should have been searched properly as soon as the doll parts were discovered. We didn’t realize they had cut corners so the search team’s going back in tomorrow morning. Crime Scene Manager’s going to keep an eye on them.’

‘Good, but he should have been there to supervise the first search.’

‘Langton had a lengthy conversation with our Joan and she brought him up to date. I’ll give him a visit tonight; let him know we have identified the recovered body as Fidelis.’

‘Don’t let him use you as his housemaid.’

‘Listen, can you do me a big favour, the Flynn parents are flying in and I’d appreciate it if you could see them over at the mortuary.’

Anna was so wrong-footed she wasn’t sure how to react.

‘But she’s been identified by dental records.’

‘I know, but they insisted. It’s a grotesque sight, and the remains are not recognizable as their daughter.’

‘Okay, what time are they due?’

‘I’ve got a car picking them up from Heathrow and taking them straight to the mortuary, should be there around eight tonight. Barolli left this on my desk. You might want to take it with you,’ Mike said, handing her an evidence bag containing the crucifix and chain.

‘Was this on the body?’

‘Caught in some clothing. Probably Fidelis’s but we need to be sure.’

Anna went back to her desk. It was not yet seven, so she decided to grab a bite to eat, then go straight to the mortuary. Joan and Barbara had already left. Written up on the board were the details of the search teams for Oates’s flat, and she could see ten officers were assigned to the job. She suspected Mike’s budget was going through the roof. She partly wished she had taken the call from Langton. It really irritated her that even holed up unable to walk he was overseeing the cases. Her case specifically.

At eight-fifteen, Anna was waiting in a small ante-room off the mortuary set aside for relatives. By eight-thirty there was still no sign of Mr and Mrs Flynn, and Anna was becoming impatient. What was left of Fidelis’s body was now shrouded in a white sheet and laid out on a trolley in the chapel of rest. All that could be seen of her was a skeletal face and her auburn hair. The mortuary assistant played with the light dimmer in a futile effort to dull the shock that awaited the Flynns before pulling the shroud up over where her face had been.

Anna was about to call flight arrivals at Heathrow when Mr and Mrs Flynn were ushered into the room. Their flight had been delayed owing to fog, and they were very apologetic, but their nervousness made it even more difficult for Anna to prepare them for what they would see. Mr Flynn was a robust man with a barrel chest, and bright very blue eyes; in contrast his wife was ashen-faced, with deep circles beneath her eyes, and she clutched a tissue, close to tears.

In as gentle a way as possible Anna told them how their daughter’s body had been found and that her dental records had identified her. They didn’t interrupt but sat tightly holding each other’s hands. Anna then explained to them that Fidelis’s body was badly decomposed and what they were about to see would not look like the daughter they so lovingly remembered. Mr Flynn put his arm around his wife and said that perhaps it would be best for her to stay in the waiting room.

Mrs Flynn refused, so Anna escorted them into the chapel of rest. It was wretchedly sad as they stood side by side holding each other, both trembling with the anxiety of what was to come. Anna nodded for the assistant to ease away the sheeting from the skull, which he did very carefully, and there was a terrible pause. They did not move closer but remained standing a little away from the body.

‘When they are finished will they let us take her home?’ Mr Flynn asked, and Anna assured him that it would be arranged. He then gave a small nod of his head, and the sheet was drawn back over what was left of Fidelis Julia Flynn’s head.

They walked slowly back to the waiting room, holding onto each other for comfort. Anna asked if they would like a cup of tea, and they accepted. It was a relief because it meant she could leave them alone for a while. She heard Mrs Flynn begin crying as she closed the door.

Tracking down the tea-making facilities took a while, but at least it gave the Flynns time to compose themselves before the next part of their ordeal.

As they sipped their beakers of tea, Anna took a small plastic evidence bag out of her briefcase.

‘Is this your daughter’s crucifix?’ she asked gently. They asked if they could take it out to have a closer look. Mr Flynn cupped it in the palm of his hand; the chain was broken in two places. He stared at it, and then held it out to his wife.

‘I’ve never seen this before, have you?’

‘No. I have never seen her wearing this. Is it gold?’ Mrs Flynn touched it lightly with her forefinger. She gave a nervous look at Anna. ‘Do you mind if I pick it up?’

‘Do, please.’

Mrs Flynn held the cross in her hand, turning it over to look at the back; she rubbed it with her thumb, and then chewed at her lips.

‘I don’t think this could belong to her, it’s rolled gold, and she was allergic to anything that wasn’t real gold. You remember the St Christopher?’ she asked her husband.

‘No.’ Mr Flynn watched her as she continued rubbing at the cross.

‘My sister gave it to her for her sixteenth birthday, but it left a terrible rash on her neck just like the swimming medals she won. Doctor said it was the nickel in them that gave her eczema. I tell you it was the same with her pierced ears, they got itchy and started weeping because the posts weren’t real gold… It’s the ones where the posts go through the ear I’m talking about.’ Mrs Flynn handed the cross and chain back to Anna.

‘So you never saw her wear this and doubt that she would have worn it?’

‘That’s right.’

Anna replaced it into the small plastic evidence bag. She knew that she had to say something, knew that they would be thinking this meant that perhaps the remains they had just seen were not their daughter’s.

‘I’m afraid the dental records sent from your daughter’s dentist in Dublin were a confirmed match. Also we’ve compared the DNA samples you sent over. I’m very sorry, and if there is anything I can do whilst you are here…’

Somehow, through all of this, the couple were able to maintain control over their emotions, impressing Anna with their quiet dignity.

As soon as she got home, Anna called Barolli, who had been to see Fidelis’s boyfriend Barry Moxen, the nurse at Charing Cross Hospital, about the crucifix; she repeated the concerns of Mr and Mrs Flynn.

Barolli said that he had shown Moxen some photographs of the crucifix and although not one hundred per cent certain he ‘thought’ that it did belong to the victim.

‘Thought isn’t good enough, Paul, you have to go back with the actual crucifix itself and get him to look at it, also go to the ex-boyfriend who worked at the garage and her flatmates and see if they recall her wearing it.’

‘Right, will do, have you still got it with you?’

‘Yes, I’ll bring it in first thing in the morning; you do realize the importance of this, don’t you?’

‘Course I do – if she wasn’t wearing it, then it could belong to the killer.’

‘Exactly.’

She replaced the phone, and closed her eyes, sighing. Nothing she knew about Henry Oates led her to believe that he would wear a crucifix, let alone a cheap rolled-gold one. The chain was broken, as if it had been snapped, the tiny links flattened. She knew if it had not been worn by Fidelis, or Oates, then they would have yet another massive round of enquiries to trace its origin, unless they struck lucky and got a hit for Oates with the DNA swabs taken from it. But if the DNA on it was unknown, or absent altogether, Anna knew it would open up the door for Kumar to allege that Oates was not their killer.