Backlash

Chapter Twenty-Two

The following morning the team gathered in the incident room at 9 a.m. for an update briefing from Mike Lewis and Anna about the previous day’s interviews and interesting developments concerning Timmy Brad ford working at the nightclub in the Mile End Road. The same club that Angela Thornton had been to the night she was believed to have been abducted and murdered. Langton stayed in Mike’s office, listening to the recorded interviews they had already had with Bradford and preparing for the further interview with him that was to take place after the briefing.

The interview of Timmy Bradford, again with his solicitor Mary Adams present, started at just after 10 a.m. Anna, Barbara and Joan were all in the viewing room, eager to see if Langton would finally get Timmy Bradford to tell the truth and confess to his involvement in Angela and his mother’s deaths, but more importantly if he would reveal Oates’s involvement in the crimes.

‘I tell you, I reckon there’ll be floods of tears again in that room,’ Barbara said with a serious look on her face.

‘Bradford looks pretty calm to me,’ Joan replied.

‘No, not him, bloody Langton if he doesn’t get Bradford to roll over this time!’ Barbara retorted amusingly, causing everyone to laugh loudly.

Mike had turned on the recording equipment and Langton was about to start his questioning when Miss Adams interjected.

‘As you are aware, Detective Langton, I had a lengthy consultation with my client both last night and this morning. He has informed me that he had not told you the truth previously, as he was afraid of Henry Oates who is clearly a violent and dangerous man. Mr Bradford is now prepared to tell you about both his mother’s and Angela Thornton’s deaths. He is also willing to give evidence against Oates at trial.’

‘Thank you, Miss Adams, for advising your client to assist us,’ Langton said before again being interrupted by Miss Adams.

‘However, he maintains, and will explain why in detail, that the deaths of both women were not in any way premeditated.’

‘Let’s start with Angela then, Timmy. Tell me about how you met her and the night she died,’ Langton said, and then sat back in his chair, anticipating only partial truths from Bradford.

‘I was working at the nightclub in Mile End and I’d seen Angela there a few times and I asked her out once but she said she had a boyfriend. Henry knew who she was as well cos I pointed her out and told him I fancied her.’

‘Where was that?’ Mike asked.

‘The nightclub. I’d got Henry a temporary job there under a false name, cash in hand, while another bloke was off sick. It was to make up for him not getting work at the chalk quarry. I can’t remember the exact night, but Henry was with me and we’d finished work and were going back to my flat in Bow in my car.’

‘The red Fiesta?’ Mike asked.

‘Yes. I saw Angela by the Mile End Tube Station; she looked drunk and was staggering about, carrying a bottle of alcopop and her shoes. I stopped and asked her if she was okay. She said she had missed the last Tube home and didn’t have enough money for a cab,’ Bradford told them in a subdued voice.

‘Timmy. I need you to speak up so the recorder picks up everything you are saying,’ Mike told him.

‘Sorry. It’s just so hard because I lied to her. I said I didn’t have any insurance and had been drinking so I didn’t want to risk driving her all the way out to Epping.’

Langton sat up and leaned towards Bradford, expecting him to say that he and Oates then left Angela in the street and someone else must have picked her up and killed her. He was surprised when Bradford went on to say that he offered Angela a lift home, thinking at first that she lived locally, and she got in the car. Once in the car she said she lived in Epping so he lied about the insurance and drinking. He realized how drunk she was and, wanting to take advantage of this, he told her that he had a spare room at his flat and she could stay there for the night and get the Tube home in the morning.

‘So you coaxed her back to your flat with the intention of having sex with her and no doubt you then plied her with more drink,’ Langton stated and Bradford nodded.

‘She got so drunk she fell asleep on the settee and I carried her through to my bedroom and had sex with her. She didn’t resist though,’ Bradford said in a feeble attempt to excuse his actions.

‘Did Henry have sex with her as well?’ Mike asked, deliberately avoiding the fact that it was rape for fear of upsetting the flow of Bradford’s account of what happened to Angela.

‘No, he slept in the spare room and he was still there in the morning when I was panicking and asking him what to do cos I couldn’t wake her up.’

‘So how did you kill her?’ Langton asked, confused by what Bradford had just said.

‘That’s it – I didn’t. Henry came and looked at her and said she must have choked on her own vomit and died. Henry laughed, he thought it was funny, but I wanted to call an ambulance. He said no way because they would call the police then we’d be arrested for rape and murder.’

Anna and the others were still in the viewing room and it seemed to them that Bradford, although visibly distraught, was holding himself together and probably now telling the truth, and his further account of what happened explained why Oates had such a strong hold over him.

Bradford went on to say that he had found himself in an unreal place, terrified of being arrested and consumed by guilt about Angela’s death. Oates had told him that he shouldn’t worry as he would get rid of the body for him but he needed to use his car to do this. Oates had said that by disposing of the body it made them partners and Timmy owed him. Bradford never knew or asked where the body had been taken and he thought that Oates had since sold the car or burnt it.

Bradford went on to say that after Angela’s death Oates had contacted him five or six times demanding money. He gave him what he could but about two years ago he told Oates that he had had enough and if Henry didn’t leave him alone he would go and tell the police what had happened to Angela. After reading about Oates’s arrest in the paper, Bradford was sure it was all going to come out but he figured Oates hadn’t said anything about it as he was never arrested and was not asked about Angela when DCI Travis came to see him or when he was asked about the quarry incident at the police station.

Langton decided that it was time to move on to the death of Bradford’s mother, Mrs Douglas.

‘Thank you, Timmy, for telling us about what happened to Angela Thornton, but I now want to move on to the death of your mother. Do you want to continue or would you like a short break to compose yourself?’ Langton asked.

‘No, thanks. I had been running up gambling debts and I was two grand in debt to a loan shark so I asked my mum if I could borrow some money to pay him off but she refused to help me.’

‘When was this?’ Langton asked.

‘A day or so before Henry escaped and came to the flat. I was desperate, so while Mum was out I phoned the bank and said that she wanted me to make a withdrawal on her behalf and I asked what they needed for me to do this.’

‘The cashier said she spoke with your mum for her password and approval,’ Mike informed Bradford.

‘That was me pretending to be her. She kept her bank stuff and password in her bedside table. She obviously guessed I was up to something cos that night she searched my room and found the letter of authority that I had made up and signed in her name.’

‘Did this lead to an argument?’ Langton asked, wanting to cut to the chase.

‘Yes, in the living room. She was shouting and swearing at me and telling me to get out. I pleaded with her and said I was sorry and she came right up to me, face to face, and said that as long as she lived she never wanted to see me again and she slapped me.’ Bradford went silent and started to cry.

‘What happened then, Timmy?’ Mike asked.

‘I gently pushed her away; she tripped over the rug and fell backwards. Her head hit the window ledge and then she just slumped onto the floor. There was no blood coming from her head. I thought she had passed out. I tried but I couldn’t wake her up.’

‘Why didn’t you call an ambulance?’ Langton asked.

‘She was just lying there like Angela. I knew she was dead so I put her in her nightdress and then in her bed. I was going to call her doctor in the morning and say she must have died in her sleep,’ Bradford replied, staring at the floor with more tears streaming down his cheeks.

‘So if she was already dead before Oates escaped and you let him into your mum’s flat, you must have agreed to help him when he rang you at 3 a.m.,’ Mike said.

‘Not at first. Henry was hysterical and said he was on the run and needed a place to stay. I lied and told him my mother was in hospital after a heart attack but he phoned again and made threats about Angela, saying that he had kept her gold bracelet and the police had found it, so I went and picked him up in Soho,’ Bradford told them.

‘I have to say, Timmy, as unbelievable as it all sounds I doubt you’d be capable of making it up. What I’d like to know is how the hell your already dead mother was found hanging in the bathroom?’ Langton asked, trying to keep up with Bradford’s astonishing account of what had happened.

Bradford told Langton and Mike that he hadn’t wanted Oates to see his mother’s body, because he would yet again have another hold over him, so he removed the bath panel and laid her on a dressing gown behind the panel before borrowing a friend’s car and picking Oates up in Soho. Then on the way back to the flat he told Oates that while his mother was ill in hospital he had made an arrangement with the bank to withdraw ten grand and he would give Henry half of it to help him get out of the country.

‘What on earth were you going to do with your mother after Oates left?’ Langton asked incredulously and looked at Mike, who seemed as confused as he was.

‘Well, it was all happening so fast I wasn’t sure. At first, if Henry took the money and left, I was going to call the police and say that he had tied me up but I escaped and then found my mother hanging from the pulley and you would think he had killed her.’

‘You said “at first”, so the second option was…?’

‘Kind of forced upon me when you lot nabbed me after I got the money from the bank.’

Both Langton and Mike noticed the change in Bradford’s demeanour. He had stopped crying and was smiling as he went on to explain how, even after they had apprehended him at the Kingston Lodge Hotel, he still tried to turn the tables on Oates and frame him for his mother’s murder. Langton and Mike were initially confused about the telephone call Bradford had with Oates from the hotel, but all was revealed as Bradford explained that although Oates had said he was edgy, the clock was ticking, and he might kill someone, Henry wasn’t referring to Timmy’s mother as he thought she was in hospital, and the same thing when Timmy said at the flat that he wanted to see his mother. Langton was annoyed with himself as it dawned on him that it was after Oates had put the phone down that Bradford started pleading for him not to kill his mother. Langton realized that Timmy Bradford, like Oates, was not as stupid as he looked – they were both streetwise quick thinkers.

Insult was added to injury for Langton as Bradford explained that Oates had never threatened him, other than about Angela’s death, and when Henry was taking his time counting out the money he had gone to the bathroom and removed his mother’s body from behind the bath panel and hung her from the pulley with her dressing-gown cord. He took the stepping stool from the kitchen and put it beside his mother. Bradford went on to say that he knew the police would soon burst in as he saw the camera drill start to come through the wall, so he went back into the living room, knowing that Oates had already said he would tie him up and leave after he had dyed his hair. He had figured that even if Oates denied murdering his mother the police would never believe him and not only would he be rid of Oates for ever but he would get his mother’s money as well. He said that he had even considered stabbing and killing Oates at one time and saying it was self-defence, but he didn’t have the bottle to physically murder someone.

At the conclusion of the interview Langton informed Bradford that he would be charged with the murders of Angela Thornton and his mother, and also with perverting the course of justice and harbouring Henry Oates.

‘I swear I didn’t mean to kill them, it was accidental.’

‘Well it won’t be accidental if a jury convicts you of murder, Mr Bradford!’ Langton said as he got up and left the room.

It had been yet another exhausting day full of surprises. Langton, although irate that Timmy Bradford had had him over, more than once, was nevertheless pleased that he and Mike Lewis had finally got out of him what seemed, as amazing as it was, to be the truth. Certainly the post mortem results confirmed to a large extent that his account of his mother’s death was true, and where Angela was concerned he did not appear to be a cold-blooded killer, and ironically this might be something that Oates could confirm.

Now it was time for the final onslaught: the last interview with Henry Oates, before having him formally charged with all the other murders they had uncovered as well as perverting the course of justice by disposing of Angela Thornton’s body. Armed with the new information from Bradford, the team began to prepare for the final interview.

The full and detailed post mortem reports on the victims’ remains would take a number of weeks, as there were many scientific tests that still needed to be carried out, so the team would not know how long the women had been dead or exactly how, if they would ever know at all, some of the victims had died until those examinations were completed. For now, discovering how Oates had abducted, murdered and eventually buried them was heavily dependent on what he said during further interviews. Only Rebekka Jordan’s file was complete. Enquiries into where Oates had buried Angela Thornton and the identity of the unknown body recovered from the woods were still ongoing.

Still the team hoped that with the pressure of having been recaptured and the recovery of the bodies while he was on the run, Oates would make a full confession and confirm Timmy Bradford’s admissions.

Henry Oates had remained well behaved since his re-arrest at the flat and was quite content sitting in the police cell reading about himself in the papers. There were no signs of depression – more of elation and arrogance that he had escaped at the quarry. He even boasted to his guard about being shot with the Taser gun and how the officers who entered the flat were scared to take him on in a fight. Kumar had been to visit him and to explain that the police had recovered the bodies from the woods and were making further enquiries before they would interview him again. Oates had laughed and told Kumar that he wasn’t going anywhere, so the police could take as much time as they wanted.

Oates was reserved and polite when he was led into the interview room. He still bore the remains of red hair dye, which gave him an almost clownish appearance, but he didn’t act the fool. Langton and Mike were sitting waiting. Much as Anna would have liked to have been part of the interview, she was not the senior DCI and Langton was still intent on Mike getting as much kudos as possible, so she took her seat in the viewing room. As she did so, her mobile rang. It was Pete Jenkins saying that he had received the DNA swab and access to the Scottish database from DCI McBride and should therefore have a result later that morning. Eileen Oates’s saliva sample was being tested and he would get back to her as soon as he could; he knew the importance of it, so was dealing with it per sonally.

Anna turned her attention back to the interview. She could tell by how slowly it was going that it could be hours before they got to Mrs Douglas. The only good thing about it was the way Oates appeared to be being helpful and answered clearly as they took him through one victim at a time. Since he had already admitted to the murder of Justine Marks and Fidelis Julia Flynn, they had moved on to Kelly Mathews, Mary Suffolk and Alicia Jones, asking where he had abducted and murdered them before taking their bodies to the woods and burying them. He had difficulty recalling the exact dates and places so Mike used the ‘Misper’ files to help jog Oates’s memory as to where they had last been seen and what they were wearing.

Anna broke off to drop into the incident room and ask Barbara if she’d taken a call from Pete Jenkins, but she hadn’t.

‘How’s it all going?’

‘Slowly, but he’s behaving himself.’

Anna checked her mobile for a text message from Pete but there wasn’t one, so she headed back to the viewing room, where the tension had gone up a notch. Langton and Mike were revisiting the case of Rebekka Jordan as they were not happy with Oates’s account of how he had killed her and that he had not sexually abused her. Oates continued to repeat that he had never intended to hurt her, that it was an accident. Anna watched Langton move off on a tangent, asking about the Jeep and how he had stolen it – anything to keep him calm and pliable. Oates liked to talk about how clever he was, and even discussed how he’d slipped up by not watching the Jeep blow up rather than just catch fire.

Langton put down the photograph of Angela Thornton.

‘Tell me about this girl.’

‘I had her gold bracelet, that’s about as much as I can remember about her. I prised out the red stones – they was garnets, not worth much.’

‘Where did you meet her?’

‘Don’t remember.’

‘You sure about that? Only we have a problem, Henry: none of the bodies we’ve brought back from the woods matches her dental records – do you understand what I mean by that?’

‘I took her up there, that’s all I know.’

‘I am going to come clean with you, Henry: Angela Thornton went missing in June 2007 and the unidentified body we recovered has been dead less than six months. I think you murdered both of them and what I need to know is where you buried Angela and who the unidentified girl is.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘Yes you do, you’re lying.’

‘Why would I lie?’

‘You didn’t kill Angela, you just want us to think you did. The more the merrier, is that it, Henry? Another one for the front page in the papers?’

‘You are such a bunch of fucking wankers – why are you wasting my time? I killed that bitch like all the others. I took off her bracelet and I kept it with the rest of my gear, so go on, charge me.’

He pushed back his chair and Mike ordered him to sit down.

‘You got a mouth, have you? I was beginning to think you was dumb.’

He turned on Kumar and prodded him.

‘Get me out of here.’

Kumar shrank away from him. Oates’s rage was starting to surface.

‘What are you fuckers waiting for? I done all those, right? RIGHT?’

He shoved his hand towards the stack of victims’ photographs.

‘I dunno their names, I don’t give a fucking shit about a single one of them. Who cares what time I met them, where I fucked them? I am sick of this, I killed them, I buried them and you dug them up, right? RIGHT?’

Kumar told his client to calm down and Oates raised his hands.

‘For Chrissake, what more do you want from me?’

‘Timmy Bradford, did he kill Angela Thornton?’ asked Langton.

Oates’s mood suddenly changed and he began to laugh out loud, shaking his head and smiling.

Anna felt her phone vibrate and dashed out of the viewing room as she couldn’t get good reception in there. It was Pete Jenkins. The results were in. She waited a few moments, listening to Oates, who was still laughing in the interview room. She knocked on the door and looked in on him; he was flushed and gesturing wildly and refusing to answer any further questions. It was Mike and not Langton who came out.

‘Give me ten minutes with Oates,’ she said, before he could ask her what she wanted. She watched, holding her breath, as Mike spoke to Langton, who gestured to her to go in.

Langton spoke into the tape recorder, stating the time and that Detective Chief Inspector Travis had now replaced DCI Lewis. She was flushed and very tense as she quietly put down her briefcase. Langton didn’t say anything, but from the look on his face she knew he was thinking that it had better be good, especially as she had interrupted the interview at such a vital moment.

‘You’re aware, Mr Oates, that we recovered a body from the wood close to the quarry,’ she began, knowing that she had to play her hand carefully.

‘Yeah, you dug up four, didn’t you?’

‘Please don’t interrupt me. Angela Thornton is not one of those four bodies as her dental records don’t match any of them. So this leaves us with one unknown female, which as I’m sure you understand we need to identify so we can inform her family.’

Anna passed across a photograph of the black patent leather knee-high boots.

‘Do you recall ever seeing these boots, Mr Oates?’

‘No.’

‘The boots belonged to a girl called Morag Kelly; she was in a rehab clinic with your daughter Corinna. Are you sure you have never seen them before?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘These boots were found in the basement where you lived, Mr Oates.’

‘So, I get stuff from charity shops and car boot sales.’

Anna brought out more photographs, of cheap underwear, and tapped them with her pencil.

‘What about these items, would you say you got these from a charity shop?’

‘What the fuck is this? I’ve never seen none of this shit before.’

Langton sat with his hands folded in front of him, with no idea where Anna was going with this line of questioning, yet he couldn’t ask her to divulge anything in front of Oates and his solicitor. Kumar seemed equally nonplussed, as Oates pushed the photographs away.

‘You were accused of molesting Corinna-’

Oates interrupted her, angrily saying that only his wife had accused him, that he hadn’t and would never have interfered with his own daughter. The next photograph Anna put down was the mortuary shot of the decomposed and as yet unidentified victim. She used the same pencil to indicate the hair.

‘As you can see, most of the hair is no longer attached to the skull. It doesn’t matter as through toxicology tests the scientists can still say the victim was a heroin addict.’

The next photograph was from the burial site, red markers indicating each grave’s location. The pictures were taken at various stages of the exhumations. Anna kept her voice low as she pointed out the graves of Kelly Mathews, Mary Suffolk, Alicia Jones and the grave with the unidentified body.

‘The boots were stolen from a rehab centre by this victim. The underwear belonged to her and I can now tell you that a comparison with your ex-wife Eileen’s DNA has identified the body as that of her daughter.’

Oates drew back in his chair. Kumar muttered to Anna that this information should have been disclosed to him, and she replied that it had only just been verified to her.

‘You killed your own daughter, didn’t you, Mr Oates? Whether or not you also sexually abused her-’

‘I never fucking touched her!’ he screeched.

‘Yes you did, YES YOU DID – what happened? Did she come to you after she’d run away from the rehab centre, come to ask for your help, and you-’

‘I never touched her, I swear before God I never touched her.’

Langton warned Oates to sit still as he had started kicking at the table leg.

‘If you didn’t kill her, why did you take her to the woods and bury her alongside your other victims?’ Anna said.

‘Someone else did that, not me, I didn’t do that.’

‘Your own daughter couldn’t be allowed to get away from you, was it that your wife had taken your children away from you before you could molest them and so when she turns up you couldn’t keep your hands off her?’

‘NO, NO.’

‘YES. Your own flesh and blood, you stripped her naked – look at how we found her.’

Oates stopped kicking the table, and asked for water. He drank the entire bottle, screwed the cap back on and crushed it in his hand.

‘I’m no pervert, and I’m gonna come clean with you, about the Angela girl as well.’

Langton gave an open-handed gesture; making eye contact with Anna he took over.

‘Well that’s really very impressive, but you see, Mr Oates, we have already charged Tim Bradford with her murder.’

‘No, that’s not right.’

Kumar looked nonplussed, as he was not privy to the fact that Timmy Bradford had admitted his part in the death of Angela Thornton. For the first time Oates looked bewildered, and Langton leaned across and snatched the crushed plastic bottle out of his hand.

Mike Lewis was in the viewing room, Barbara standing by his chair.

‘I don’t understand why he’s claiming…’ Her voice trailed off.

Mike agreed with her that it didn’t make sense. Either Oates wanted to claim he murdered Angela out of some sick need for attention, or he was trying to make out he was mad by admitting to anything so he could be deemed unfit to plead and his admissions would be held as unreliable. He nodded to the monitor screen.

‘He’s a clever bastard, or he’s been so well briefed by that bastard Kumar that he knows his way around the law.’

‘Why would Kumar do such a thing?’

‘This gets to trial and it’ll be the focus of media attention on a par with Fred and Rosemary West, never mind the Yorkshire Ripper.’

‘Beats me.’

‘What beats you, Barbara?’

‘These games. It starts not to be about the victims, doesn’t it?’

Mike stood up.

‘It’s always about the victims for us, that’s the big difference, and if that scum killed his own daughter and shows hardly any reaction he’s got to be-’

Mike just managed to stop himself blurting out the word psychopath. But there on the screen was Oates, head bowed, crying like a baby, blowing his nose and wiping his eyes.

‘I never done another one after her.’

They took a break so that Oates could be fed while they disclosed to Kumar the admissions that Bradford had made about Angela Thornton and how he had caused the death of his own mother and then intended to frame Oates with her murder. Kumar reported that Oates had told him that Mrs Douglas was not at the flat when he’d gone there and that Bradford had said she was in hospital after a heart attack. Furthermore, Oates was adamant that he, not Bradford, had killed Angela Thornton but had not told him how or why. Langton told Kumar to stop trying to pull a fast one for a psychologist’s nut and gut decision that Oates was not fit to plead. Kumar was insistent that no matter what Langton thought, he had not instructed his client to make false confessions; he certainly didn’t want to upset Langton again after the incident at the quarry and he hoped the matter of the press helicopter had been forgotten.

After Oates had had some food, Langton and Mike continued interviewing him for another two hours. Oates claimed that Corinna had turned up late one night at his basement in the late spring. She had been very strung out and in need of a fix as she had started using heroin again as soon as she had run away from the rehab centre. She had gone out and turned a few tricks to get money and he insisted that he had told her that he didn’t want her around. She had come back in an even worse state, fallen asleep, and when he went to wake her she was dead. He had described undressing her, wrapping her body up, stealing a car and driving her to the woods. Langton didn’t believe his account of the way Corinna had died, but there was not as yet any forensic evidence to prove he was lying and he doubted Oates would ever admit to what he really did to her, his own daughter.

Lastly, Oates explained how Angela Thornton had really died. He said that everything happened as Timmy Bradford had told them, up to a point. They’d seen Angela alone and drunk by the Tube station, persuaded her into the car and to go to Bradford’s flat, then to have more alcohol with them both. Timmy got drunk and had sex with her in the bedroom. Oates said that he had carried on drinking a bottle of brandy, and the more drunk he got the more he thought she was a cheap slut – in fact she reminded him of what his mother was like. When he went into the bedroom, Timmy and Angela were both out of it in a drunken stupor. The bombshell came when Oates said that he had felt like a child again seeing his mother in bed with yet another man. He wanted to end the misery so he put a pillow over her face and suffocated her. To him it wasn’t Angela he had killed but his mother. The next morning he realized what he had done and thought it was funny. He told Timmy that the police would think he had raped and killed Angela. Timmy thought it was all his fault, and started to panic and cry. Oates realized that by getting rid of the body he would have a hold over Timmy that he could call upon whenever he wanted something from him. He used Bradford’s car to take the body to the quarry. The pathway along the side of the woods was so wet and muddy he didn’t dare risk driving down it, not after the incident with the Jeep, so he carried her to the first part of the woods and dug a shallow grave with his hands as he didn’t have a spade or anything he could use to bury her properly, and covered her over with old logs and leaves. Afterwards he cleaned the car and sold it to a dealer at a car auction close to Wandsworth Bridge. He had kept her bracelet as he knew he could always use it against Timmy Bradford.

Oates confirmed that over the last five years he had obtained sums of money from Bradford, threatening that if he didn’t give him what he wanted he would go to the police and tell them about Angela. He knew Bradford would have to help him after his escape because of the hold he had over him. Oates admitted he was surprised that Bradford had intended to fit him up with his mother’s murder, and the coolness of this statement left Mike and Langton stunned.

After the interviews were over Oates was formally charged with four further murders: Rebekka Jordan, Kelly Mathews, Mary Suffolk and Alicia Jones. Langton had contacted the CPS, who had said that they would want to read the files on Angela Thornton and Corinna Oates before they decided whether to have him charged with their murders as well. This was not only due to the fact that Angela’s body had not as yet been recovered but also because there was a possibility that Oates might be lying and Bradford had killed her after all, or they had both done it together. As for Corinna, Oates had denied murdering her and said she died of an overdose, so the CPS decided to wait for the forensic and pathology work to be done on the body, before reaching a decision on whether or not to charge him with her murder.

Langton had asked for a crate of wine to be brought into the incident room, and they had a surprise visitor, Paul Barolli, on crutches, looking a lot thinner and very pale-faced, who was given a round of applause. It wasn’t exactly a celebration, but there was a sense of incredible relief. Meanwhile, the work would continue for months in preparation for the trials, and the pathology department would have their work cut out for them as they continued the detailed examination of the victims’ remains to try and establish the likely dates when each victim had been buried.

Members of the team would also be present at the funeral of not only Rebekka Jordan but those of all the victims. Grieving parents and other members of their families might then manage to reach some kind of peace, but they would all have to face the trial and learn the horrific details of what happened to their daughters.

Anna did not call Eileen Oates personally, but informed McBride that they had found Corinna Oates’s body. It would be left to a family liaison officer to tell Eileen.

Anna was sipping the last drop of her wine, watching the party begin to break up, when Langton approached to say he would like a word with her in private. She saw him asking Mike if he could use his office. Mike glanced over, and then turned away, back to his conversation with Barolli, who was sitting down. Joan and Barbara had fussed over him and he’d told them he was going on extended leave for while.

Anna closed the office door. Langton was sitting behind the desk, flipping a pack of cigarettes up on its end and back flat down again.

‘You wanted to see me?’

‘Too damned right I do. You walk in on an interrogation, having, I believe, not mentioned to a single member of the team the fucking mind-blowing information regarding the fate of the suspect’s bloody daughter.’

‘Hang on a second, it was all just supposition until I got the DNA result from Pete Jenkins.’

‘What do you take me for, take us all for? You have photographs of boots, underwear, you’d got a toxicology report…’

‘It wasn’t finalized, it still isn’t, I said there was heroin found in her hair to unnerve him.’

‘Lying to a suspect can get interviews thrown out in court, you know that.’

‘Yes, but I’d received a phone call about it and besides you’re always pulling tricks in inter-’

‘This is not about me! What about the DNA? How long were you working solo on this line of enquiry, Travis?’

She felt her legs begin to shake.

‘Again it was just supposition on my part, knowing that Corinna had run away from the rehab centre.’

‘Is that on the board?’ he snapped.

‘I think it might be, but I was just piecing together bits of information that I’d picked up.’

‘That you declined to share with anyone else.’

‘That is not quite true – I didn’t get to speak to the contact from the rehab until late at night, the girl Morag Kelly.’

‘This on the board, is it?’

‘No it isn’t, I didn’t have the time.’

‘So go on, you got in contact with – who was it?’

‘Morag Kelly, she had been in rehab with Corinna Oates, and the reason I wanted to talk to her was to try and find out what clothes Corinna might have been wearing and a description of her hairstyle.’

‘Why was that? Did you happen to mention this to anyone?’

‘Joan or Barbara – I can’t remember – one of them got me Morag’s number.’

‘But they didn’t know why you wanted it.’

‘No. I knew that Mike and you were busy with Timmy Bradford’s interview and I went to the forensic lab. This was after Morag had mentioned that she thought Corinna had stolen her boots. I found the boots described by her in the bundles of clothes removed from Oates’s basement.’

‘But you didn’t mention this to anyone?’

‘No, because I couldn’t be certain they were the same boots until I’d seen them for myself.’

‘So when did you start this DNA enquiry?’

Anna had to gasp for breath, and her legs were shaking even more as she tried hard to control her temper.

‘When I saw the body of the unidentified victim.’

‘I see. So while we were interrogating Bradford you were running around the mortuary…’

‘I wasn’t running around. I went there out of interest, and I told you when I got back that we had not recovered Angela Thornton and therefore had an unidentified victim. Also I-’

‘Yes, yes. I know this – so you go on your own accord out of interest to check the remains, am I right?’

‘Yes, and I noticed that her hair was braided and very dark. Eileen Oates said Corinna used to wear it in braids like Jamaican girls do. I wasn’t sure about her ethnic origin.’

Langton flicked at the cigarette box; it was really irritating.

‘Tell me why the ethnic origin was of such interest?’

‘Well it’s bloody obvious we didn’t have the remains identified, so I suspected from the hair that it could also possibly be a black girl-’

‘Yes, yes, you are missing the point. Why did you request DNA samples from the victim to be matched with Oates?’

‘The forensic anthropologist wasn’t sure but said the unidentified victim could be white European.’

‘Oh, so now the body is not black but white.’

‘The age range fitted Corinna, as did the decomposition to the time frame from when she absconded from rehab. Do you mind if I sit down?’

‘Be my guest.’

She sat down.

‘I had interviewed Bradford and Ira Zacks and they had told me that Eileen Oates had maybe forced Oates into marrying her because she was pregnant.’

He did a mock look around the room.

‘I never had a report about this. You inform anyone else about this shotgun wedding?’

‘No I did not,’ she snapped. ‘At the time it did not appear to be of any consequence.’

‘Oh I see, so when did it, in your opinion, become of consequence?’

She had to clear her throat before she could continue.

‘Bradford told me that when the baby was born, Oates flew into a rage and claimed it could not be his child because it was dark-skinned and Ira Zacks made a similar comment.’

Langton waved at her with his hand.

‘All this is in your notes, yes?’

‘Yes, but I didn’t think at that time it was of importance to the case so I didn’t add it to the incident board, as it was eighteen years ago.’

‘When did it become important then?’

‘Bits of information just all suddenly seemed to fit together. Corinna missing, the boots, the hair colour and hairstyle of the body.’

Langton ran his fingers along the edge of the desk, clicking them, and then looked up.

‘Well go on, I’m listening.’

‘I began to wonder if the unidentified girl was Corinna. Eileen Oates had been adamant that she was Henry’s daughter so I asked for her hair to be tested, and knowing we had Oates’s DNA on record I wanted to determine from familial DNA if it was his daughter. I still only had the boots to really make the connection, the hair was just a possibility.’

‘And?’

She felt as if she was on trial, and it was almost impossibly hard for her to keep her temper in check.

‘It was negative, the hair was no longer suitable for a full DNA profile, only mitochondrial inherited from the mother.’

He leaned forwards.

‘Negative, negative?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jesus Christ, are you now telling me it wasn’t his daughter?’

‘If you would just let me finish: it was obviously disappointing, and one of the reasons why I didn’t put all this out to the team because I still wasn’t sure-’

‘Corinna Oates is not his fucking daughter?’

‘NO, but I then had sent from Glasgow a swab from Eileen Oates, and a blood sample which she agreed to give. Corinna is her daughter, but Oates is not her biological father, even though he is named on her birth certificate.’

Langton jerked at the knot of his tie so hard it came loose.

‘But that still doesn’t prove it’s Corinna. Eileen Oates could have a hundred daughters for all we know. I can’t believe you didn’t see fit not to divulge any of this to the team, to me, to DCI Lewis.’

‘The Scottish DNA database sent a copy of Corinna’s DNA profile to Pete Jenkins and he’s still working on a bone sample from the body for a direct comparison and match.’

‘This just gets better and better, Travis! So you made Oates think in interview that Corinna was his daughter without a full DNA match?’

‘No, I said that a comparison with his ex-wife Eileen’s DNA has identified the body as his daughter.’

‘You lured him into a confession with a lie. If Kumar picks up on this that whole interview will be out the window, case over.’

‘I didn’t lie to him. Yes, I took a calculated gamble, but it paid off.’

‘You seem to have forgotten that I was blind in that interview. I had no idea what you knew or where you were going. You accused him of murdering his own flesh and blood when she wasn’t. The defence will call it oppression and ask for the interview to be thrown out!’

She stood up to face him. She sensed her control was on the verge of slipping.

‘I only got the result ten minutes before I came into the interview room. Yes I had the photographs of the boots, yes I had the photographs of the underwear, yes I had her identified when nobody else bloody had, and I can’t understand why you are interrogating me as if I have acted or conducted myself in an unprofessional way. Everything I requested from the lab was logged and listed, everything I wanted from forensics was logged and listed – do you want to see the reports?’

‘Sit down.’

‘No I won’t. You know maybe, just maybe, you should be giving me a fucking pat on the shoulder. The connection between Oates and the murder of his daughter was what opened him up: after he was accused of having sex with her, abusing her, he hated it! I DIDN’T DO THAT! From then on he started telling the truth. Now you maybe don’t like the fact that it was me and not you that brought the evidence to the table, but facts are facts.’

‘Sit down, Travis, don’t you dare yell at me.’

‘I am not yelling!’ She was. ‘I am telling you the facts. You brought me onto this team because of Rebekka Jordan, a case from five years ago that you headed up. Do I hear “Congratulations, Travis”? I have been out there working my arse off, so EXCUSE me if I have not marked up a couple of items on the board.’

Still refusing to sit, she faced him across the desk.

‘Maybe, sir, I should also have added to the incident board that the victim Rebekka Jordan’s doll’s house was discovered in your flat! Not on the incident board, why not? Oh, it wouldn’t look very good, would it? WOULD IT?’

She leaned across the desk, pushing her face towards him, spittle forming at the edge of her mouth in her rage.

‘If it hadn’t been for me, Chief Superintendent, we’d never have got the Cherokee Jeep connection. You want me to list how much I have brought to this case, do you? DO YOU?’

The slap was so hard it sent her reeling sideways, but she managed to stay upright, her fists clenched. She lunged at him across the desk, swinging a punch; he was so shocked he stepped back, away from her. She picked up the telephone and threw it at him, then anything she could lay her hands on she hurled with as much strength as she could. He dodged sideways and the next moment she was round the desk and fighting like a wildcat, kicking and punching. He didn’t defend himself, just tried to catch hold of her arms.

He was amazed at her strength, and it took all of his to grip hold of her and lift her off her feet. Then her right foot kicked him viciously in his injured kneecap, and he was forced to let go of her as he crunched over in agony.

She paced up and down, wrapping her arms around herself, muttering almost inaudibly that if it wasn’t for her they would never have gone to the quarry, if it wasn’t for her they would not have uncovered the fact that Bradford’s mother was already dead. He leaned with one hand on the desk, the other rubbing at his knee as she opened her briefcase and began ripping up pages from her notebook, hurling them into the air as she continued, ‘Did anyone else bring up the excavation of the Jordans’ property? NO! Here’s my notes, want to read my notes about the way I pieced together that the Jordans’ house extension had to be a lead? What about Andrew Markham? He only employed Oates to work for him, who got that lead? ME. All on the board, sir, everything written down.’

One of her high-heeled shoes had fallen off, her hair had come loose from its band, and two buttons on her blouse had come undone. She was panting, her chest heaving, and there was a pitiful pain-wracked expression in her eyes. Slowly the rage calmed and she gave a helpless look around the office as if only just aware of what she had done.

‘It’s okay,’ he said softly.

He gently took her in his arms, her heart was beating so rapidly he could feel it against his chest.

‘It’s okay,’ he repeated.

‘Why wasn’t I able to stop it? I didn’t do enough.’

Her voice was muffled and he couldn’t quite make out what she said.

‘Why did he have to die? I didn’t do the work, it was my fault, I should have been more aware that it might happen.’

Then he understood. What he had just witnessed was the rage he had long suspected lay hidden, and had finally erupted, all this time after the trauma of losing her fiancé. Anna blamed herself for not being more aware of the danger Ken Hudson had been in, as a crazed prisoner who’d had a fixation on her had murdered him. Her obsession with the Oates murder case had really been fuelled by her guilt, and her refusal to grieve.

He stroked her hair as she calmed.

‘I want you to take a couple of weeks off, while we get ready for the trial, are you listening to me?’

She nodded.

‘Then you get back to work.’

She nodded again.

‘Now I think we’d better clear up Mike’s office.’

She moved away from him, picked up her shoe, and watched him bending and wincing as he collected all her torn scraps of paper from her notebook.

‘Now we have to be singing off the same hymn sheet, Travis. What happened here is over and done with. I guarantee that crew out there were all ears, so I will tell them we just had a bit of an argument and you accidentally threw the telephone at the wall!’

She laughed then went to him and held him, resting her head on his shoulder.

‘Thank you.’

‘Think nothing of it, button up your blouse, and what went on we put to bed, I mean it… it’s over. That said, it was a very low blow, kicking an injured man where you knew it would hurt.’

‘I wasn’t aiming for your knee.’ She gave him a wonderful smile.

‘Don’t push your luck with me, Travis, I’ll be limping out of here now.’

He didn’t; they both went back into the incident room and behaved as if nothing had happened. Langton quietly joked with Barolli about Joan bringing him her mother’s home-cooked meals in hospital. He noticed Anna walking out, briefcase in her hand and back straight; she didn’t say goodnight to anyone.

‘Everything all right, guv?’ Mike asked.

‘Everything’s fine, but you might need to order a new desk phone – tripped on the wire and hit my bloody knee.’

‘Travis has gone, has she?’

Langton gave him a cool dismissive glance and helped himself to a glass of wine.

‘Well, she certainly did her homework,’ Mike observed.

‘Yes she did, Mike.’

He held up his glass.

‘Cheers.’

He turned towards the incident board as he sipped his rather tepid white wine. The faces of the victims all appeared in shadows – it was late, the main lights turned low. He walked slowly from section to section, victim to victim. Lastly he paused in front of the photographs of little Rebekka Jordan. He more than anyone knew the toll this enquiry had taken on them all, especially Travis. She was a loner, like himself, and he knew that she was probably one of the best detectives he had ever worked with. He turned to the room and raised his glass.

‘To DCI Anna Travis.’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’ He turned in surprise. She had combed her hair and put fresh make-up on, showing no sign of what had taken place just minutes before. He watched her move from one member of the team to another, sipping her wine and smiling, until she came to stand beside him.

‘How’s your knee, sir?’

‘Aching.’

‘Like my heart. But I want you to know that I will take on board everything we discussed. I promise. Goodnight.’

For the second time he watched her leaving. The double doors swung closed behind her. His admiration for the way she handled herself went up another notch. DCI Anna Travis was a class act.