Backlash (13 page)

‘Yes, the unregistered phone. I ran a property lost or stolen check on the number and I got a hit. Reported stolen in a mugging a few days after Fidelis went missing.’

‘Good work, Barbara. So who does the phone belong to?’

‘A Barry Moxen, and he’s coming into the station this morning, never even knew she had been reported missing. He’s a nurse who works in Charing Cross Hospital. When I talked to
him he said he had not seen or heard from Fidelis for almost nineteen months. He met her at a New Year’s party and had been having a sexual relationship with her on a regular basis and when
he didn’t hear from her he just presumed she had finished with him.’

Anna moved her plate aside.

‘It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? The girl goes missing and everyone that appeared to know her never reported it. If it wasn’t for her parents we’d maybe never have
even known she’d disappeared.’

Barbara returned to the incident room and repeated her conversation with Anna to Joan, who suggested they quickly update the incident board with all the data as she
didn’t want Anna finding fault. They had just completed it when Anna came in from the canteen, but she went straight to her desk. The first thing she did was pick up a voicemail from Pete
Jenkins at the forensic lab. When she rang back he was not available as his wife had just been taken into hospital; her waters had broken and the baby was coming earlier than expected.

Anna had no other calls so she picked up her marker pen and went over to the section of the incident board that was allocated to Rebekka Jordan. She began listing all the information she had
gathered from the last few days.

Barbara glanced up. ‘Looks like she’s writing a novel,’ she whispered to Joan. But they didn’t get an opportunity to read it all for themselves until Anna had gone into
Mike Lewis’s office.

‘What’s this about the doll’s house?’ Joan wondered. She peered closer and then pulled a face.

‘She’s got a suspect, Andrew Markham.’ Barbara tapped his name and Joan returned to her desk.

‘Do you watch
CSI
, Barbara?’

‘Sometimes, why?’

‘They had a long-running case, over quite a few episodes, about a serial killer that sent in these little doll’s house rooms to police just before the murder. Then after the murder
he posted these tiny dolls with knives stuck in them or gunshot wounds matching how he had actually killed the victims. One even had a teeny little cup and poison . . .’

‘I didn’t see it.’

‘My mother never misses an episode.’

Mike listened as Anna brought him up to date and finished by asking if she could put Joan or Barbara onto tracing any known associates of Henry Oates. He agreed. They had found
no address book or diary in Oates’s basement so they had no idea of who he knew, but they had been gathering details on his infrequent employment through his National Insurance number and
Jobseeker’s. It appeared that whenever the Department for Work and Pensions threatened to withdraw his Jobseeker’s Allowance he managed to find work for six to eight weeks. Apart from
the jobs listed it appeared he had basically worked for cash in hand. They had tracked down various building, painting and decorating businesses, but it was tedious work and questioning each
employer was taking up a lot of time. The priority was to check construction work he could have been involved in eighteen months previously and if there was any site that might be linked to the
disappearance of Fidelis Flynn.

There was no record of him having worked for Andrew Markham, even though they had gone back as far as seven years. Anna suggested they send someone to the stables again to see if anyone could
recall him working there on a cash basis.

Mike agreed, but observed that the old stable yard had recently been taken over and refurbished. The new stables were much larger, but still close to the Shepherd’s Bush flyover.

‘I’d like to go and look at this Andrew Markham’s garden centre,’ Anna said.

‘Okay. I’ll get Barolli to check out the stables for you, and go ahead with asking Barbara to trace any boxing associates of Oates.’

‘Thank you.’

Mike smiled. Sometimes she forgot what a good-looking man he was; very blond and blue-eyed. He was also dressing much better since he had been made a DCI, in suits and freshly laundered shirts.
In fact, he was starting to resemble Langton – not quite as flashy – but she noticed that like the ‘Guvnor’ he now had bags from the local dry-cleaner’s in his
office.

‘What?’ he asked, seeing her looking at them.

‘Just you look different, very smart and slightly like Langton – you are prepared for an all-night session.’

‘What?’

‘The dry-cleaning. He always used to have half his wardrobe in his office.’

‘Oh right, yes, just for convenience really, and this afternoon I’ve got that prick Adan Kumar coming in.’

‘What’s he want now?’

‘Just to look at the list of forensic exhibits and the unused material in the Justine Marks case.’

‘Has he said anything about a psychiatric assessment of Oates yet?’

‘No, and Langton said don’t raise the subject with Kumar.’

‘Oates being in the prison hospital could help Kumar’s argument that he’s not the full ticket.’

‘Right. I know that, but we’ve been running a check every day with the prison governor and Oates hasn’t required any further medical treatment since the assault. They said
he’s suffering from depression and put him on suicide watch just in case.’

‘Do you think he’s faking it?’

‘Could be. Couple of days he refused to eat, but now he’s accepting food and complaining that he’s hungry, so he doesn’t sound to me as if he’s climbing up and down
the walls.’

‘Anything worth re-interviewing him about yet?’

Mike shrugged. ‘I’m in no hurry and he’ll be in the hospital wing for a few days yet.’

Again she thought how attractive he was when he gave a lovely smile.

‘I’m hoping we get more on your enquiry and the Fidelis girl. They’ve got a boyfriend coming in this morning.’

Anna stood up and said she’d clear her desk and then get over to Andrew Markham’s garden centre.

‘You got a bad feeling about this guy?’

She hesitated and then after a moment nodded.

‘The thing is, as far as we can tell Oates never owned a vehicle and did not have one when Rebekka Jordan went missing. Whoever picked her up had to have access to a car or a van to snatch
her off the street. All the CCTV footage on the day she disappeared from the Tube station shows no sighting of her buying a ticket or catching a Tube, so she had to have been grabbed during that
short walk from the stables to the station.’

‘Yeah, but in the report two cameras were out of action, so it’s a possibility she did go into the station, met her killer on the train maybe.’

‘But not one witness came forward, not even after the TV reconstructions or all the press handouts; she had to have been snatched not far from the stables. Well that’s what I
think.’

‘You could be right,’ Mike conceded.

‘See you later then,’ Anna said as she headed for the door.

‘I forgot to tell you DCS Hedges rang while you were in Glasgow.’

‘What’s he want?’

‘Well he is supposed to be in charge while Langton is off. He gave me an ear-bashing about Langton going above him. Pissed off with me as well, said that if Langton wants to run the show
from his sickbed then he can get on with it. Reckoned if it all goes tits up it’s not his problem.’

‘So we don’t need to keep updating him as well.’

‘Looks like it, yeah.’

Anna returned to her desk and asked Joan to ring York Hall, the big amateur and professional boxing venue, to ask the head trainer if he remembered Henry Oates, his friends or
sparring partners and to find out if they kept a library of old fight programmes or posters. Before leaving she took a quick look over Fidelis Julia Flynn’s board. They now had more recent
photographs of her. In one picture she was smiling, revealing her slightly crooked teeth. In another she was standing with a spaniel puppy, laughing, wearing a floral dress over black tights and
Doc Martens boots. Anna sighed. There was always something from the photographs of the missing or murdered girls that haunted you. It was the light in their eyes, which you knew was now gone.

‘They were sent in by her parents,’ Joan said as she opened a drawer in her desk. ‘There’s more if you want to see them.’

‘No, thank you. I’ll be on my way. Be back after lunch and I’ll be on my mobile anyway.’

Before she left the station she couldn’t resist heading down to the interview rooms on the floor below.

Barry Moxen was sitting opposite Barbara. He had black hair, spiky and gelled, a lot of acne, and was wearing a heavy leather biker’s jacket. Anna watched for a few moments via the window
in the door and as she turned to leave Barbara saw her.

‘You want to talk to him?’ Barbara opened the door.

‘I don’t think so.’

Barbara closed the door and stepped out into the corridor.

‘I showed him the picture of Fidelis. He says she always called herself Julia and that she was seeing the bloke from the garage before she went out with him. He was working night shift at
the hospital the whole week during the period Fidelis went missing. I rang them and they confirmed it. Last time he saw her was the weekend before his night shift when they went to the cinema.
Julia told him she was fed up with the girls in the flat she shared and she was going to see some other rooms for rent and that she’d call him when she got a new address. She never did. Like
he told me on the phone, he reckoned she’d ditched him.’

‘Did he try her old flat?’

‘Yeah, he was told she’d moved out.’

‘Okay. Just ask if he knew the address or location of any of the new places Fidelis was going to view. Did she use a letting agent, look in the papers or online,
Time Out
,
Gumtree
or whatever, then you’ll have to check back and see if she contacted any of them.’

‘Oh right, will do.’

Andrew Markham’s garden centre was hard to find. It was not far from Cobham in Surrey, but the entrance was on a curve in the road, so easily missed. It had a barred gate
with a notice to please make sure the gate was always closed. Only a small sign indicated that it was also a garden design company. Anna opened the gate and drove a few feet before she returned and
heaved it shut. She found herself on a dirt track with big cart ruts and deep puddles. On one side was an open field; the other had a large barn with private property notices fixed to the side. The
lane went on for about a quarter of a mile before a green-painted sign read
MARKHAM’S GARDEN DESIGNS
.

A big red arrow pointed to a high barred gate, which was standing open enough for Anna to drive in.

The garden centre had about an acre of land. Scattered around were modern greenhouses and there was another large barn, full of tractors, vans with the company logo, and a Range Rover. There was
a trailer-cum-caravan with ‘Office’ printed on a card on the door. Anna knocked and waited, but there was no answer. She tried the door, but it was locked.

Now she wished she’d put her wellington boots in the car as it was very muddy, forcing her to hop over two deep puddles as she headed for the first greenhouse. Plants grew in profusion,
every shelf creaking with different varieties of flora. It was very well heated and irrigated, but it was also empty.

‘Hello? Anyone here?’ she called out.

There was no reply so she made her way towards the second greenhouse. Outside were hundreds of clay pots of every size and a few stone statues. Anna could see more plants and inside this
greenhouse the sprinklers were turned on. They gave a fine spray, making the windows steam up.

Anna looked around the yard. The last building was the barn, and she plodded through the mud to get to it. The old wooden door was ajar and through it she could hear the sound of a tinny radio
playing Bruce Springsteen.

‘Hello? Is anyone here?’

She peered inside: it was huge. Both sides were stacked with sacks of peat and soil reaching the ceiling. Then her gaze fell on a mass of gardening equipment – rakes and brushes and
shovels – all piled in a square wooden pen. Wheelbarrows were propped against each other in a row and beyond them was a stable. A horse’s head stuck out, chewing straw, and the closer
Anna got the more she could smell the overpowering stench of manure. A large second pen held bales of straw and sacks of horse feed. Propped above an old carpenter’s bench were saddles and
riding equipment, and hard hats balanced on pegs.

The second stall was empty but Anna was drawn by the sound of water and clanging buckets.

‘Hello?’ she called.

There was a girl wearing jodhpurs, a green padded jacket and a cloth cap. She had rubber riding boots on and was using a hose to wash down the walls.

‘Excuse me. Hello,’ Anna tried again.

The girl turned and gasped with shock as Anna had surprised her. She pulled out an earphone.

‘Christ, you scared the hell out of me.’

‘I’m so sorry. I’ve been calling out for ages.’

‘What do you want?’

Anna showed her ID and the girl pulled off a thick padded leather glove.

‘Shit, this isn’t that bloody farmer having a go at us again, is it?’

‘No, but if you could spare me a few minutes I’d like to talk to you. I am Detective Anna Travis.’

‘I’m Mari. Here, take the keys and go into the caravan and I’ll finish in here. Only the other horse will be back any minute and I want it clean before he’s
here.’

Anna opened up the caravan and got into the warmth. An old Calor gas heater made it feel like an oven. There was a decrepit floral sofa with the stuffing hanging out, two
equally old armchairs, a large desk, and filing cabinets that were new and covered one wall. There was also a small kitchen with rows of chipped mugs and instant coffee jars and boxes of tea bags
with names taped to them.

It was about fifteen minutes before Mari banged into the caravan, making it shake.

‘That man is making our lives a nightmare. We are not allowed to put up a decent sign on the road, so we don’t get any passing customers – not that we really need them –
but it’s a constant battle. I hope to Christ you shut the gate when you came in.’