Backlash (21 page)

‘This is gonna cost,’ Barolli said.

‘I know,’ said Mike slowly, ‘but I think we may have just found Fidelis Julia Flynn.’

I
t 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 multistorey 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.