Backlash

Chapter Twenty

Oates was still being held in the cells, apparently having accepted that his bolt for freedom had failed. He was showing no visible signs of stress – on the contrary, he was eating and sleeping well. He looked very odd, as part of his hair was a bright orange colour where he had attempted to dye it.

Anna told Mike that she had arranged to go over to the mortuary to discuss the four bodies recovered from the woods with the pathologist and to get an estimate of how long Mrs Douglas had been dead. She asked Mike what he thought.

Mike shrugged and said that he reckoned that Oates had probably killed her after a few hours. He further suggested that Oates, with Kumar’s advice, might try to claim that he left her standing on the stool and she must have slipped and accidently hanged herself.

‘See you later then.’

‘We got good news about Barolli. It’s not as bad as we first thought; he should be on his feet in a week or two,’ Mike added.

‘That’s great. How long do they think before he’ll be back at work?’

‘Good few months – he’ll have rehab treatment at the police home in Goring, but at the moment his condition is stable and he’s been visited by Barbara and Joan.’

Anna felt a little guilty that she hadn’t really given Barolli much thought so she went over to Barbara.

‘When you see Paul, give him my best.’

‘Will do. Joan’s been to see him and took him in some home-cooked meals her mother prepared.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘Yeah. Well you know Joan, she’s got nothing else to do with her spare time and it gives her mother something to do.’

‘Well, thanks.’ Anna paused. ‘The girls recovered from the woods, can you do me copies of their “Misper” files?’

‘Now?’

‘Yes please, I need to take them to the pathologist, might help with how long they have been dead. Never know, evil bastard Oates could have kept them alive for a while before killing them.’

Anna crossed to the incident board and studied the photographs. It was strange: Kelly Mathews, Mary Suffolk, Alicia Jones, Angela Thornton, Rebekka Jordan, Justine Marks and Fidelis Julia Flynn all looked as if a light had been turned off in their eyes, as if it was finally over. Even Mrs Douglas looked distant in the picture most recently attached to the board.

When Anna arrived at Lambeth the mortuary assistant told her that the pathologist, Professor Hall, was currently working on the body of Mrs Douglas in the main examination room. Anna told the assistant that if possible she’d first like to see the remains of the bodies they had recovered from the quarry. He took her into the cold room where dead bodies were kept in metal fridges with four in each compartment stacked on sliding removable trays. The assistant had already removed the bodies, the remains of which were now in new zipped body bags. Each bag was laid out on a trolley along with a copy of the post mortem paperwork attached to a clipboard.

It would be chilling to go from one body to the next unzipping each bag to see how much remained of each victim. Anna stood for a while looking at the first body, the tiny figure of what was left of Rebekka Jordan. She looked through the report; amongst the paperwork was a request for burial and the release of the remains to her parents. It had not yet been signed. As the lab assistant came over, Anna jumped in surprise.

‘You see these, and you think at one time they were all young and vibrant with their whole life ahead of them, and one crazy sick bastard is responsible and took it all away. You ever think about why evil is punished? I’m not talking about hang them high, I’m not talking about capital punishment, it’s something else and I don’t understand it…’

Anna turned to face the young man, he was no more than mid-twenties and had a quiet authority. He was so calm, almost dispassionate.

‘What don’t you understand?’ she asked.

‘That it doesn’t hurt, that he could take these lives in a brutal way, one after the other, and keep walking around, keep living as if there was to be no punishment.’

‘Well, the punishment will be meted out at his trial.’

‘Going to jail isn’t punishment enough, it should be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t think I want to get into this, I’m sorry. I’ve not got a lot of time.’

Anna moved on from one body to the next, glancing through the reports. Kelly Mathews, Mary Suffolk and Alicia Jones’s identities had all been confirmed through their dental records. The assistant told her that Kelly and Alicia had broken hyoid bones, which were ante mortem, and so it looked like they had been strangled.

‘It’s the decomposition, makes it hard. Mary there and the other one at the end, well Prof Hall’s got to do more work on them yet.’

‘Her name’s Angela Thornton,’ Anna said, picking up the report.

‘No, there’s no Angela Thornton here. That one’s a UI.’

Anna picked up the report and, sure enough, clearly marked on the front in large red marker pen were the letters ‘UI’ for unidentified. She looked at the dental records in the report; there was a copy of Angela Thornton’s with ‘no match’ across them, again written in red marker pen.

‘The dental records don’t fit. We had her listed as possibly being…’

‘Angela Thornton,’ Anna said quietly.

‘Yes, but so far we don’t have a Scooby Doo who she is. Her body was caked in mud so we didn’t really see the hair wasn’t a match until we washed her down…’

Anna unzipped the bag and this time the smell that hit her from the rotting flesh made her gag, as it was much stronger than the other bodies. The corpse, she noticed, was also the least decomposed of all the recovered victims.

‘You’re right, Angela had thick blonde curly hair, but this is braided,’ Anna remarked as she touched one of the tightly woven braids that was laid out around the skull, which still had a few braids attached to it. It was impossible to tell what colour skin she had or what she originally looked like; her skull with its empty sockets gave no indication of the colour of her eyes, or the shape of her lips.

‘Where is the clothing that was removed from her?’

‘Wasn’t any, not even any fragments. She was the only one in her birthday suit, but with so much on we’ve not been able to do much more on her yet. Could be a West Indian with hair like that.’

‘Thank you.’

Anna went into the examination room where the pathologist was working on Mrs Douglas and gestured at him to see if he could spare her a moment. He was masked and gowned up and not happy with the intrusion.

‘Detective Travis, I am working as fast as I can, this has been bordering on the farcical. Detective Chief Superintendent Langton has been bombarding me not only with so many bodies that I’ve almost lost count, but he’s continually on the phone. I’ve got a forensic anthropologist coming later this afternoon to look at the remains of all the bodies from the quarry and help with how long they have been dead. There is no way I will complete the post mortem on Mrs Douglas today.’

Anna interrupted.

‘I’m sorry, Professor Hall, for disturbing you; I have no intention of putting any more pressure on you and your dedicated team.’

‘Well that is very civil of you, I am sure.’ He was a very old hand and near to retirement age, a tall hooked-nosed man who wore half-moon glasses. He loosened his face mask, revealing his rugged features.

‘What is it exactly you want from me?’

‘The unidentified remains – we sent you the dental records of a possible victim called Angela Thornton…’

‘I unfortunately can’t recall names, but I am aware the odontologist did not get a match from one of the bodies’ dental records.’

‘Yes, I know, and we have been very grateful for your immediate attention with regard to all the victims that were brought in. It’s just there is one big favour…’

‘I knew there had to be something, and you are fortunate that you happen to be a sweet-faced young woman. What is it?

Anna asked if he could give her an estimated time of death for the one unidentified victim.

He sighed and said that after he had finished with Mrs Douglas he would get her brought back in and examine the body with the anthropologist, but it wouldn’t be until later that afternoon.

‘Would it be possible for me to take a sample of her hair for a DNA test?’

‘Yes of course, but you don’t need me to be there for that – get my assistant to do it for you.’

He turned away, and Anna hesitated.

‘Professor, I just wondered, with regard to Mrs Douglas, how long you think she might have been dead.’

He sighed and glared at her over the top of his glasses and gestured to the examination table.

‘A rough estimate based on the skin coloration and the fact that there was no longer any rigor mortis in her body would be at least forty-eight hours. Also the hypostasis is somewhat strange.’

‘Sorry, what do you mean strange?’

‘About six hours after death the blood in the body will settle in direct response to gravity. After a period of time the staining becomes permanent. In Mrs Douglas’s case her blood had settled in her back and legs so she’d clearly been lying flat on a hard surface for some time.’

‘You mean she was already dead before she was left hanging from the pulley ring?’

‘Ten out of ten, DCI Travis.’

‘How did she die then?’

‘Can’t say until I’ve completed a full internal examination. I’m not happy with the marks on her neck either so I need to dissect the throat and tongue as well. Now I really do need to get on and, please, no more interruptions, especially from DCS Langton.’

Anna had obtained one of the braids from their unidentified victim and took it to Pete Jenkins’ office in the forensic science department. As she entered the room Pete gave her a warm welcoming smile.

‘Hi, Anna. Is there a dead body left in London that you haven’t unearthed?’

‘Don’t go there, Pete. How’s the forensic work going?’

‘I’ve got more fragments of clothes, but trying to ascertain what they were before they rotted to shreds is very difficult. I’m using the labels mostly, but I don’t honestly have much for you to go on and I won’t for some time.’

‘I need a DNA test on the hair taken from one of the bodies brought out of the woods near the quarry.’

Pete mock-slapped his head and then offered her a coffee as he’d just made a fresh pot.

‘I don’t have the time, Pete, and if you could do this a.s.a.p. for me, here’s the sample. I need to know ethnicity and have it checked for a match if possible.’

‘Well, you know hair samples take a lot longer and this one will be pretty degraded due to the decomposition. It’ll be at least twenty-four hours, but I’ll get it first in line. Anything else?’

She smiled and asked if she could have one more look at the evidence brought from Henry Oates’s basement. He raised his eyebrows and said that it had been bagged, tagged and moved into one of the secure rooms.

‘Truth was, we couldn’t wait to get the stuff out of the lab, it stunk the place out. I doubt most of it is of any use to your case and we’re waiting to get it cleared and off our hands – all the vitals have been sent over to the station. Is it anything particular?’

‘Yes, it’s the women’s clothing. I remember there were a number of items and there’s now a chance some of it may have belonged to one of his victims.’

Pete led Anna into the ante-room, where the bagged items were stacked in large plastic boxes on long wide shelves.

‘Help yourself. With all the work you’ve been bringing in I don’t have the time or inclination to dig around in here with you, but my offer of coffee still stands, so come back to my office if you want to join me.’

‘Thank you.’

He turned to go and paused. ‘How’s Paul Barolli?’

‘Recovering very well.’

‘That’s good.’

‘How’s Matilda?’

‘She is the light of my life, and I don’t get much light, been here for night after night, but I read you’ve got the guy under arrest.’

‘Yes. We have.’

He smiled and closed the door, leaving her in the musty-smelling room. There were strip lights overhead and the neon shed a bluish light on the rows of tagged plastic bags. She moved along the shelf until she got to a bag marked women’s clothes, then she carried it to a small side table and opened it. There was some rather unpleasant dirty underwear, a pair of drainpipe jeans and some sweaters. She took her time sorting them and then checked the labels, putting a couple of items aside. She then replaced the bag on the shelf and listed the items she had removed. Next she found a smaller bag containing ladies’ shoes and opened it. There was one high-heeled shoe and a pair of patent leather knee-high boots. They were all very worn and the shoe was a different size to the boots. She made a note of the sizes and replaced them.

Anna didn’t take Pete up on his offer of a coffee. Instead she went back to her flat as it was just across the river from the Lambeth laboratories. There she made herself a sandwich and a cup of tea and skimmed through the Angela Thornton file. She had disappeared after a night out with girlfriends in the Mile End area of London. She had to all intents and purposes been a pleasant young woman, well dressed and still living at home with her parents. The inscribed bracelet that had led eventually to her missing person file was, of all the items removed from Henry Oates’s stinking basement, the odd one out because of its value. The fact that the clasp was broken and it was missing some stones, which her parents had said were garnets, also made it different. Nothing else they had recovered had been of anything like the same value.

As soon as Anna got back to the station she rang Glasgow. McBride gave her the contact number of the rehab facility that Corinna Oates had, as a condition of her sentence for drugs offences, been ordered to attend. Frustratingly she was switched from one department to another and no one appeared to know what she was talking about. She tried McBride again, apologizing for bothering him, but explaining she urgently needed to contact either Eileen Oates direct or whoever had been dealing with her daughter absconding from the rehab centre. After yet another series of time-wasting calls she found no one able to give her any assistance, but then McBride called her to say that Eileen was at the hospital with her youngest daughter who was about to give birth.

Everyone had noticed that Anna was obviously caught up on some business or other as she had been on the telephone most of the afternoon. As the team were all working on the charges against Oates, everyone was equally busy. Oates was still being held in the cells at the station, and Mike as the DCI on the investigation had been closeted with the Area Commander and Langton as they reviewed the mass of new evidence. Preparing to re-interview and then charge Oates with the murder of Mrs Douglas along with the other victims was a lengthy process, and they were still waiting on the post mortem reports to finalize the papers, whilst at the same time evidence was still being brought from Mrs Douglas’s flat. It was hard to even contemplate that number of man-hours.

Anna had turned her attention to the tapes of Henry Oates’s interviews. She was focusing in particular on the moment when Oates placed the bracelet on top of the photograph of Angela Thornton, playing it over and over. She would then rewind to the bit when he had dismissed various other photographs of missing girls until he had selected the ones he claimed to have murdered then taken to the quarry. He was abusive and rude about some of the missing girls’ looks, but he had clearly picked out the picture of Angela Thornton and he had placed the gold bracelet on it. Although he did not know their names, he could identify the items he had removed from each body. Backwards and forwards she rewound, replayed, half unsure of what she was looking for, until Barbara interrupted her.

‘I’ve got the name and contact number of a girl who shared a room with Corinna Oates at the rehab centre. She left there just after Corinna absconded. I’ve not managed to talk to anyone at the centre as they blank me with invasion of privacy, and without having permission from Christ knows who they just clam up, but this girl is clean and doing community work as part of her sentence. Her name is Morag Kelly, she’ll be at that number after ten this evening.’

‘Terrific, thank you.’

‘I’ve been onto BT and they are getting back to me, but I’ve been a bit caught up.’

Anna pursed her lips.

‘This is very important, Barbara. Leave it with me, I’ll do it myself.’

‘Mrs Douglas’s flat is a crime scene – I mean, surely Mike can get this information within seconds?’ Barbara suggested.

‘He’s busy right now; as I said, I’ll check it out. Besides, right now it’s just a theory, so don’t bother him with it.’

Barbara gave a small shrug of her shoulders and went back to her desk. Bursting with irritation, she turned to Joan.

‘She’s off on some theory of her own! But she’s got me running around for her as if we’ve not got enough on our plates.’

‘Well, she’s not the DCI on the case, Mike is, and she’s sort of got the Rebekka Jordan charges to deal with.’

‘But it’s too much. She’s constantly interrupting me to check on things that aren’t part of our work.’ Sighing, Barbara looked across to Mike Lewis’s office, where the blinds were drawn down. She checked her watch – it would be time for another round of coffees in there any minute now.

Meanwhile Anna had got onto BT. They were very accommodating and she now had a printout of all the calls made from Mrs Douglas’s flat from a month prior to Oates’s original arrest. Unfortunately tech support said that because Mrs Douglas’s phone was an oldstyle, it did not record details of who had called in during the same period. Anna noticed however that two reverse charge calls had been made to the flat on the day after Oates escaped. Underlining all the numbers of interest in pink highlighter, she carried the pages over to Joan, and asked her to find out who those numbers belonged to. Almost as an afterthought, she also asked Joan to double-check the races held at the Wimbledon dog track on the night Henry Oates escaped from the quarry.

Anna truthfully could not have given her reasons for what she was doing, but knew it was like her father used to say: a gut reaction based on copper’s instinct with no rational explanation. She didn’t even think about sharing her concerns, as it was very obvious the entire team were inundated. Although time and time again Langton had reprimanded her for not being a team player, she genuinely didn’t consider that this was the right time to voice her suspicions.

As tray after tray of coffee disappeared into Mike’s office, Anna had the first hint that she might be on the right track. Joan presented her with the traced numbers of the calls made from Mrs Douglas’s flat. On the day prior to Oates’s escape there had been a call to the NatWest Bank in New Malden and also one the following day. The two reverse charge calls were from pay phones – and they were in the early morning after Oates had escaped from the quarry. Adding to her mounting suspicions was the news that Timmy Bradford had lied about being at the dog racing in Wimbledon on the night Henry Oates had taken his mother hostage. There was no racing as the track was under refurbishment and was not reopened until the weekend. Annoyingly the bank had already closed for the day, but Joan was given the task of getting hold of the manager and making an appointment for Anna to see him. Fortunately the ten thousand pounds was still retained by the police as evidence.

A second hit came from Professor Hall at the mortuary, who was very loud and pompous when he rang. Anna had to hold the receiver at arm’s length.

‘DCI Travis?’

‘Speaking.’

‘The marks on Mrs Douglas’s neck are as I quite rightly suspected post mortem. She was hanged with the cord after death.’

‘Was she strangled with it first?’

‘No, and this is strictly off the record for now, as a neurologist needs to examine her brain before I can give you a definitive cause of death.’

‘I really appreciate this, Professor Hall.’

‘So you should, dear. Right, I’ve confirmed the victim did not die from the cord noose: although it was drawn very tightly she was dead before it was wound round her neck. My approximate time of death is, again subject to further tests, but I’d say at least two days ago and no more than three. No signs of defence wounds, but there is a large bruise to the back of her head and also one on her chest and it’s possible your victim died of natural causes.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t confirm it just yet, but although there is some swelling to the brain from the head injury, Mrs Douglas may have died of a heart attack. Also, whoever was with her re-dressed her as her nightdress was on back to front, unless of course she put it on back to front herself.’ He gave a snorting laugh.

Anna was too impatient to be amused by his joke, but as she listened further she could feel her heart start pumping.

‘The anthropologist has looked at the unidentified remains and believes, from the cranial features, that our victim is white European, aged between eighteen and twenty-five, and from the decomposition she has been dead for less than six months.’

‘She’s not black then?’

‘This is more or less an observation and not a certain fact – further tests will need to be done on the bones, soil particles, the clay and the chalk effects to give a much clearer time frame. At this stage I couldn’t even begin to give you a cause of death.’

‘I really appreciate you contacting me.’

‘So you should, and kindly inform those concerned that I am doing everything within my power to ensure they get results as soon as possible, but it will take considerable time thanks to the decomposition of-’

‘Yes, yes,’ she interrupted, wanting to get him off the phone, and finally managed to get rid of him.

She sat back and closed her eyes. If she was correct she would still have to get more evidence.

‘Joan, have you arranged a meeting for me with the bank manager yet?’

‘Not yet, but you know I have some priority files to get in order and-’

‘Just do it now. Contact him at home if necessary!’ Anna snapped and got up from her desk, so tense she needed to go to the Ladies’. She banged out of the incident room as Joan angrily snatched up her phone.

Sitting in the cubicle Anna leaned forwards, trying to ease her stomach, which was cramping from her being so wound up. Now, thinking about what she had learnt, she made the decision that she wouldn’t go it alone, but tell Mike and Langton what she had uncovered, even though the picture was far from complete because she still had to make further enquiries in Glasgow. By the time she had washed her hands and combed her hair she was calmer, and almost relieved that she was going to get it off her chest.

Anna tapped on Mike’s office door, opened it and entered.

‘Ah, we wanted some sandwiches – oh, it’s you, Travis, where have you been…?’

She interrupted Langton before he could get started. ‘The mortuary and then making some urgent enquiries. I need to have a talk with you and Mike.’

‘You are the other DCI on this investigation. You should have been here when we began. I’m not going to repeat everything we have discussed over the last few hours so-’

‘It’s important.’ She clutched her notebook tightly.

Mike was sitting behind his desk, with Langton on one of the chairs in front of him. There were stacks of files everywhere and the room felt overheated and claustrophobic.

‘Floor’s yours,’ Langton said.

Anna was flushed as she stood in front of them.

‘Firstly I have to say I have not confirmed everything, and I have been acting on a sort of gut instinct that we might have been-’

‘Never mind the bloody instinct, Travis, get on with it – we’ve still got a lot of work to plough through,’ Langton cut in.

She was hesitant at first and shifted her weight from foot to foot, but forgot her nerves as her conviction grew.

‘Angela Thornton’s is not one of those bodies at the mortuary, the dental records didn’t match. We’ve got an unidentified white female, aged eighteen to twenty-five, who’s been dead for less than six months.’

‘So Oates made a mistake with the “Misper” photographs and killed someone else.’

‘I’m not sure about that, but I took a hair sample to the lab to try and identify her by DNA. The other thing is, Timmy Bradford lied to me when I first interviewed him with regard to how well he knew Henry Oates. When he was brought into the station for further questioning he gave us more details about when he had actually met with him, and he admitted taking him to the quarry.’

‘We know all this, Travis,’ Langton said irritably.

She opened her notebook.

‘After Henry Oates escaped from the quarry, we spent a long time trying to trace his whereabouts, only to discover he was holding Mrs Douglas hostage, and we believed-’

Langton leaned towards her.

‘Believed? What are you talking about?’

She kept it as brief as possible: she now suspected that Henry Oates made prior contact with Timmy Bradford because the same night he escaped there were two reverse charge calls from public pay phones to Mrs Douglas’s flat in the early hours of the morning. One made from Hammersmith and the other from Soho. It was likely that Oates had some very big hold over him. At the present time she was unable to determine what exactly it was, but she thought that Bradford had agreed to help hide him and give him the ten thousand pounds to aid his escape.

Langton got up and pulled at his tie, shaking his head. He couldn’t fathom out where the hell she was going with this.

‘I think that Timmy Bradford’s mother was already dead,’ Anna went on. ‘It is not yet confirmed, but it’s a possibility the time of death does tie in with when Bradford told us Henry Oates broke into the flat.’

Langton sat back down in his chair, as Anna explained that Bradford’s claim that he was at the dog track was a lie, and furthermore she had been checking the phone calls from the flat and it appeared that Bradford was possibly making arrangements at the NatWest to get his mother’s money before Oates was even there.

‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Langton.

Mike Lewis stared down at his hands and then looked at the stunned face of Langton. He was red-faced with anger and clenched his fists.

‘Is this all confirmed by the pathologist’s report?’

‘Not one hundred per cent, yet! But if Bradford gets a call from Oates asking for help, it would have been a perfect set-up to frame him for his mother’s murder – he might even have intended to kill him. There was immediate media coverage and it was plastered over every newspaper, Oates was on the run and-’

‘Hold it right there,’ Langton said. Mike and Anna fell silent as he yanked at his tie.

‘This is all conjecture right now, and you’re running on empty as far as Bradford’s concerned; you’ll need a lot more evidence, but if this is true we’d better clear it up and fast. We go pressing charges against Oates for the old girl’s murder and his legal team prove we’ve screwed up, we could lose the whole fucking case in court.’

‘Exactly, which is why I felt it was necessary to give you as much detail as I have been able to acquire.’

It was decided that they would call it quits for the night as everyone was tired out. Tomorrow morning they would bring in Timmy Bradford for questioning, tease him out with the carrot of the ten thousand and see if they could break him down. By that time they would have made contact with the bank manager and hopefully had Mrs Douglas’s time of death confirmed.

As Anna packed up ready to leave for the night, Langton came and perched on the edge of her desk.

‘What’s the hold you reckon Oates has over Bradford?’

‘I don’t know.’

He cocked his head to one side.

‘You have an idea though?’

‘I’ve not thought it through yet, but as I said I’m trying to get more information on the unidentified victim.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well obviously, who she is for starters. I’ve not got anything confirmed and then there’s also Angela Thornton. Although we haven’t found her body I do think Oates murdered her as well.’

Langton walked over to the incident board and stared at the girls’ photographs. He realized what Anna was thinking.

‘Why did he put that bracelet on her picture, claim that she was one of his victims,’ he wondered, tapping the photograph.

Anna stood beside him, arms folded.

‘That’s what bothers me. I’ve looked at the footage from his interview and he carefully places her bracelet over her picture, just as he did with all the other victims’ possessions.’

‘But she wasn’t brought back from the quarry.’

‘No, so that leaves us with either another body up there in the woods, or wherever, and the unidentified remains in the morgue.’

‘Shit, this case is like a nightmare, it never ends.’

He eased his tie back up and pressed down the edge of his collar.

‘Well, tomorrow is another day and I’m going home.’

He gave the small of her back an affectionate pat and smiled.

‘Good work. I think you gave Mike heart failure, but if you’re correct, thank Christ for you. Like it or not, now the press are all over the investigation and due to the fuckups so far we now have to run everything by Commander Leigh – you know, protocol, big brother, et cetera.’

The night staff were beginning to take their desks as he strolled out. Barbara and Joan had already left, but Anna felt restless and sat at her desk. She saw the lights go off in Mike’s office and kept her head down as if reading her notes as he walked past.

He paused in the doorway, turning back to her.

‘Are we to expect any further surprises from you?’

‘Depends on how tomorrow pans out. But if it all tallies up it could be the reason Oates has behaved himself since we re-arrested him.’

‘Goodnight, Anna,’ he said quietly.

‘Goodnight, Mike,’ she replied.