Backlash (31 page)

It was a shaken Adan Kumar who was led through the disclosure of his client’s connection to the disappearance of Rebekka Jordan and the murder of Fidelis Julia Flynn. He made copious notes
and often asked for Mike to repeat himself, which he obligingly did. Kumar appeared hardly able to digest the bulk of evidence mounting against his client. He did attempt to argue that he should
have been given prior access to the documents, but Mike pointed out that the enquiries were still ongoing and it was hoped that his client would be able to assist them.

Kumar, now visibly nervous, was given access to Oates to discuss the disclosure evidence and, to the surprise of the team, he returned after spending only half an hour with his client, to inform
them he was now ready to be interviewed.

Langton was already set up in the viewing room with Barolli. The interview would be filmed and recorded to DVD. Whilst they waited for Oates to be brought up from the cells, Mike and Anna
checked through the trolley filled with files and made sure that the photographs and statements for the Justine Marks case were laid out. Mike glanced at Anna. She had her notebook out and a row of
sharpened pencils beside it.

‘You all set?’

‘Yes.’

They had only a few more minutes to wait before they heard footsteps outside in the corridor. Kumar entered and sat opposite Mike Lewis. He took out his notes and took one of the bottles of
water provided on the trolley. The solicitor said nothing, but he gave a couple of anxious coughs and looked at his watch. Heavier footsteps sounded from the corridor as two uniformed officers
approached with Henry Oates between them. One opened the door, the other stepped back to allow the suspect to walk into the room. He was wearing prison-issue denim jeans and shirt and black slip-on
trainers. He was smaller than Anna had anticipated, no more than five feet nine, but he was well built, with broad sloping shoulders and a slim waist, and the jeans without a belt looked loose.

‘I sit here, do I?’ he asked, nodding to the only vacant chair.

‘Yes, please,’ Mike said, without looking up.

‘Opposite her,’ Oates said, smiling.

Anna forced herself to return his smile and stared into his face. His wide-set very blue eyes were unnerving, babyish, the nose even more flattened than in the photographs, as if the entire
bridge had been crushed. His flared nostrils tilted upwards, giving his cheeks a strangely flat appearance. His thick lips were pinkish, and from his smile she could see that his teeth were gapped
and stained. He wore his hair in a dirty blond curly crew cut which revealed that one of his ears was much thicker than the other.

Mike quietly read through the police caution, gesturing first to the tape recorder and then to the cameras. It was ten-thirty-five. He started off by asking Oates if he could call him Henry, to
which the prisoner nodded in agreement. Mike said he was sorry to hear about the assault on him in prison and that he hoped Oates was now feeling better. Oates said nothing but just sat looking
around the room. Anna knew that Mike was trying to soften him up as Samuels had suggested, but so far this was not bringing any noticeable response from Oates.

‘We have here, Henry, your original statement when you were arrested,’ Mike went on, ‘and I would like to draw your attention to certain paragraphs in which you told me how the
body of Justine Marks came to be discovered in the rear of the van you were driving.’

Oates listened attentively, slouching in the chair.

‘I need to go over what happened with Justine again.’

‘Why? I already told you it was an accident.’

‘Yes, and we appreciate your honesty, but last time I didn’t really give you an opportunity to tell your side of the story and there are a few things I didn’t
understand.’

‘All right, fire away then,’ Oates replied with a yawn.

‘You said that you stopped to offer Justine a lift home but she was rude. How was she rude?’

‘Bitch told me to fuck off when I was just trying to do the right thing.’

‘She must have liked you, though, as she obviously changed her mind.’

‘Yeah, but I had to tell her I was okay, like nothing for her to get worried about.’

‘You must have really turned on the charm to persuade her to have sex with you,’ Mike suggested.

‘Well, not a lot. I think she was just up for it and fancied me anyway.’

‘Wish I was so lucky.’

‘Well you got it or you ain’t,’ Oates replied with a wink of his eye.

Both Anna and Mike noticed that Oates had started to sit more upright as the conversation went on. He was now leaning forwards making eye contact with Mike as if he was having a lads’ chat
in the pub.

Langton sighed. This was going to be a very long day. He found it extremely irritating to have to sit and listen to Mike being all namby-pamby with a man like Oates, but he
knew there was a purpose to it and that it had to be done if Oates was to fall into the trap. He was actually impressed with Mike’s tactics and the way he was drawing Oates onside. He did
wonder how much of the strategy was down to Travis’s advice, but either way the fact that they had planned the interview and were now executing it together was good to see.

‘You said that after willingly having sex with you Justine suddenly became hysterical and attacked you . . .’ Mike was saying.

‘Kicked me in the balls.’

‘That must have pissed you off, let alone hurt like hell.’

‘It did piss me off. I thought, you ungrateful slag. I give her a good shagging and she then throws a hissy fit .’

‘If I were you I think I’d have slapped her as well.’

Kumar suddenly interrupted.

‘DCI Lewis, I really think this line of questioning is leading—’

Before he could finish his sentence Oates with a look of rage in his eyes turned quickly and poked his solicitor firmly in the chest.

‘You don’t ever interrupt me again!’ Oates shook his head in annoyance then turned back to Mike, who resumed at once.

‘I was saying I could understand you losing your temper like that and hitting her with the spanner.’

‘It was just there beside me. I was really wound up, I picked it up, she turned like this, didn’t she, to avoid the thingy. I just let her have it . . . but only once.’

He had the audacity to swivel round in his chair, indicating the back of his head. Mike was finding it hard to restrain his own anger with Oates but knew he had to continue in the same vein,
especially as Kumar was unlikely to interrupt again.

‘Sounds like the slapper deserved it, Henry.’

‘Fucking right she did.’

‘So after you hit her, did it shut her up?’

‘Well, she wasn’t screaming no more, just sort of moaning and gurgling.’ Oates smiled as if he was enjoying recalling the moment.

Mike said nothing; he simply acted as if he too was enjoying what Oates was saying and nodded to encourage him to go on.

‘I realized I’d hit her a bit hard, shook me up a bit, it did, but I thought I’d better take her to a hospital.’

Mike leaned forwards as Oates shook his head, acting bewildered.

‘At what point did you discover she was dead?’

‘When the moaning stopped.’

‘So the drive to a hospital would have been pointless?’

‘I guess so.’

Oates was still obviously lying but he had gone from a visible high in describing the sex and assault on Justine Marks to a sudden low. He clearly thought that Mike was genuinely sympathetic and
believed his lies. Anna thought Mike looked drained and wondered if it was the right time for her to step in and take over the interview. She reached over to the trolley and picked up the pictures
of Justine Marks that had been taken in the van and during the post mortem. She tapped Mike’s knee beneath the table, and he slowly closed his notebook without looking at her.

‘I would like to ask you some questions, Mr Oates,’ Anna began.

Oates raised his head and looked at her with contempt.

‘Oh here we go, now we get the woman’s point of view. How could you do a thing like that, the poor defenceless girl. Doesn’t matter the bitch kicked me in the nuts, does
it!’

Anna held the pictures as if she were a croupier about to deal a pack of cards. She turned the first one over and laid it on the table. It showed the rear of the van with the doors open and
Justine’s body wrapped in the bin liners.

‘Justine’s blood was found smeared on the outside of the rear doors, on the bumper and the floor of the van,’ she said.

‘I told you, I hit her on the head in the van.’

Anna now turned over the next picture, which was a close-up of the scuffmarks on Justine’s boots.

‘From these marks on her boots and the direction of the blood patterns on the outside of the van, the scientist says that she was hit on the back of the head before she was dragged into
the van.’

Oates said nothing. He started chewing his bottom lip and tapping his right foot on the floor as he had done in the interview after his arrest when asked if he had abducted and killed Rebekka
Jordan.

‘You attacked Justine in the street with the spanner,’ Anna persisted. ‘She was already dead when you dragged her into the back of the van, wasn’t she?’

Again Oates said nothing. There was a long pause before Kumar broke the silence.

‘Are you suggesting that Mr Oates is a necrophiliac, DCI Travis?’

‘I’m saying what the evidence suggests, Mr Kumar. Only your client knows the answer to that.’

‘I am bloody not.’

She turned and looked at him.

‘Do you know what Mr Kumar means, Henry?’

‘Yeah I know what the word means, and no way, screwing a dead body, do me a favour.’

‘Why don’t you tell us the truth about what happened that night? It may dismiss any ideas we have that you did have sexual intercourse with Justine after she was dead.’

‘She was alive when I fucked her.’

Adan Kumar could see that his client was becoming agitated and he turned to have a whispered conversation with him, holding his hand up to cover what he was saying. Oates leaned closer to him
and then nodded. Anna promptly leaned towards Mike and whispered to him in a similar way, hiding her mouth by holding up her notebook.

‘Wait a minute,’ Oates said and pointed to Mike. ‘You know I’m telling the truth, she wanted to have sex with me.’

Kumar gestured for him to sit back, but Oates wafted his hand away.

‘I am not one of them sick perverts, she was alive. I never done it to her when she was dead.’

Langton pulled a chair in front of him to rest his leg on as Barolli passed him a coffee, asking, ‘What’s all this necrophilia stuff, what’s the
angle?’

‘She’s needling him, she never said he’s a necrophiliac – Kumar did. Doesn’t like it though, does he?’ Langton sipped his coffee, watching the monitor closely
as he knew exactly where she was leading Oates. Oates’s ego was such that he wouldn’t like the implication he was a necrophiliac. He liked women to know exactly what was happening as he
first raped them and then killed them. The forensic evidence had shown he had abused Justine Marks only after he had raped her, possibly in anger that she was unconscious and didn’t respond
to his violence. Anna and Mike’s intention was to draw Oates out into the open by firstly siding with him through empathy and then by Anna attacking his lies.

Langton couldn’t believe how well things were going. He watched with satisfaction the way Oates answered questions, unwittingly revealing his deep contempt for women.

‘He’s talking and reacting like Samuels said he would . . . didn’t think it would happen so fast. That bit with Kumar was something else.’

Langton sipped his coffee in satisfaction.

Like Langton, Anna was surprised how quickly Oates had opened up. He was very self-assured, almost cocky, yet agitated. She knew that Oates felt in control when Mike questioned
him, but now that an object of his hate, a woman, had taken over, she was worried he might say nothing more, but Oates continued.

‘This is exactly how it went down. I liked the look of her, right? And seeing her walking all by herself was like an open invitation.’

‘One you took advantage of, didn’t you?’ Anna said encouragingly and Oates nodded, going on to explain how he had stalked Justine for only a matter of yards before he hit her
on the back of the head with the spanner then dragged her into the van.

‘She was all dazed and her head was bleeding. I got her inside the van within seconds. In fact, if it had taken any longer someone could have walked past, a pub’s a busy place. I
drove off sharpish, but she came round, started to scream and yell, and so I pulled over and parked and went to shut her up.’

He recalled very specifically how he had gripped her by the hair and hit her with his fist, rising out of his chair to demonstrate how he had shaken her and then thrown her hard onto the floor
of the van. He banged his fist into his hand to imitate the sound as his face twisted into a grimace.

‘I didn’t want it to go down like that, I liked the look of her, but these things happen. I got stuck in and she started to come round again just as I was full on and I pulled her
bra up round her throat.’

He raised his hands in a twisting motion towards Anna. She didn’t flinch, but kept up a steady gaze, nodding to encourage him to keep talking. He explained how he had realized she was dead
and that it made him angry because he liked it when she struggled and had planned to have much more time with her.

Anna knew the next question could be a provocative one coming from her and at this point she didn’t want Oates to fly off into a rage, so she tapped Mike’s leg.

‘Angry enough to insert this inside her?’ Mike asked, placing the photograph of the spanner onto the table, and Oates nodded, puffing out his cheeks.

‘Yeah, that was a bit over the top, but she really pissed me off, dying like that. Anyway, I got back into the front, sat there for ages. I was in a quandary, understand me? I had to do
something with her, I had to get rid of her, cos me mate wanted the van back.’

‘When did you wrap her body in the plastic bin liners?’