Backlash (51 page)

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 personally.

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.