Backlash (33 page)

‘Yes please, Mr Oates.’

Mike reminded him that he was still under caution, and the cameras and recorder were started up as he gave the time the interview was resuming and who was present.

‘I had steak and kidney pie, mashed potatoes, carrots and gravy and a custard tart,’ Oates announced.

‘I’m glad you enjoyed it,’ Anna said

‘I never said I did – it was horrible, prison food’s better. Did it come from your canteen?’

‘I believe so.’

‘What did you have?’

‘Sandwiches and coffee.’

‘What was in them?’

‘Mr Oates, can we continue the interview, please,’ she said quietly, as Mike placed onto the table the Rebekka Jordan file.

‘Just making conversation,’ Oates said, disgruntled.

Rather than go down the usual route of displaying photographs and asking if the suspect knew the victim, Mike and Anna had discussed presenting the bulk of evidence they had accumulated.

They kicked off with the discovery of the doll’s head and leg found in his basement, explaining that these had been identified as belonging to the young girl who went missing five years
previously.

‘Rebekka Jordan,’ Oates said.

‘Correct.’

‘I remember that case, which was why I brought it up when I was arrested.’

‘Because you did, Mr Oates, we began an extensive enquiry.’

‘Read about it in the papers.’

‘I am sure you did – it was a very big media story, the missing girl was only thirteen years old.’

‘Why I remembered it, but it had nothin’ to do with me.’

‘How did the pieces of doll get into your basement flat?’

‘I don’t know – in fact, how do I know you didn’t put them there? I told you last time you’d try and fit me up.’

Anna continued to talk, quietly giving details of the Andrew Markham connection, showing that they knew that Oates had been in the Jordans’ garden, and that they had confirmation that
Oates had been to the Markhams’ house on two occasions: once to help unload bricks and the other two weeks later when he cleaned out the septic tank.

Oates nodded and then leaned towards Anna.

‘You’ve put fresh make-up on.’

‘Yes, that is correct. I knew I’d be coming back to talk to you and I also combed my hair, very observant of you.’

‘You look better than you did earlier.’

‘Thank you.’

Mike brought up the subject of the stolen Jeep, but Oates gave no reaction and concentrated on staring at Anna.

‘We have your prints from the stolen vehicle,’ Mike told him.

Kumar tapped the table, saying he had not been given this information, and Mike replied that they had only just heard it themselves.

‘What is the connection between my client and this Jeep?’

‘We believe that your client abducted Miss Jordan using this stolen vehicle.’

Oates shook his head, smiling.

‘So I nicked the Jeep, I admit it, but they’re lousy things to drive, and it wasn’t automatic, I like automatic cars. I just dumped it along the A3 somewhere and I left the
keys in the ignition so who knows who nicked it after I done.’

‘We discovered your hidden box of jewellery and are checking it out right now. I bet we find that the items belonged to women who have been reported missing.’

‘Rubbish, I get that stuff off car boot sales. Is there any murder you might have missed that you think I done?’

Anna smiled. ‘A lot, a lot more, Mr Oates.’

Mike felt her nudge him under the table and he let her take the lead.

‘How do you get along with your neighbours across the way?’

‘Oh, swift change of subject, right? Getting nowhere with the Jeep, right? Well I get along just fine.’

‘You clean their car, don’t you?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I do. I also, as you probably know, helped the old geezer put his gate posts up, mixed the cement.’

‘Do you know you scared Mrs Murphy?’

‘What, me? Never, I hardly had two words with her, gimme a cup of tea and biscuits, but God forbid they asked me inside their house. She’s got polishing mania, that woman, the brass
strip of her doorstep is like glass.’

‘She said she thought she had seen a ghost, all white and walking down the road at two o’clock in the morning; frightened the life out of her and she told her husband. He said she
was dreaming, must have been the way the lights were shining.’

Oates laughed, nodding his head.

‘Yeah, right. He asked me about it – funny, he said she was scared I was a fucking ghost, right, but it was just—’

He pulled back and wagged his finger.

‘Fuck me, you nearly made me say something then, didn’t you?’

‘Like what?’

‘That I was covered in chalk dust.’ He wafted his hand and then laughed again.

‘There you got me, didn’t you?’

‘Was it chalk dust?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where did you get it from?’

‘You tell me.’

‘No, Mr Oates, I need you to tell me.’

Langton was tense, his fists clenched.

‘Where the hell is she going with this?’

Barolli murmured that she was trying to get Oates to say he was at the quarry.

‘Why doesn’t she just come out with it?’

‘I dunno.’

Langton leaned back as the game continued in the interview room.

Anna then brought up Timmy Bradford, who had when interviewed said that Oates had tried to get work with him at the quarry. Oates refused to rise to the bait.

‘He said they wouldn’t give you work because you didn’t have a driving licence, which I have to say surprised me as you are a very competent man and I’m amazed you were
unable to pass a simple driving test.’

‘I never needed one, I never went with him.’

‘But you obviously did, to try and get work. It must have really made you angry to go all that way and then get turned down, and Timmy didn’t even offer to drive you back to London,
did he?’

‘Listen, that guy’s a prick, and not a good fighter, he’s got a glass chin, always getting knocked out.’

‘He told me about a fight, one when you were punched so badly the ref tried to stop the fight.’

‘Right, but I never gave up, I kept getting back on my feet, nobody knocked me out.’

‘So when they said you couldn’t work driving the trucks, but he could because he was clever enough to have a licence, maybe that big fight did something to you – you know, made
you punch-drunk.’

‘I was never that – he is, Timmy is, his brain’s scrambled, fucking taking me all that fucking way and then dumping me.’

‘Got you again, haven’t I?’

‘What?’

‘Well, now you have just admitted that you did go to try and find work at the chalk pits.’

Before he could get angry with her she switched to admiring him.

‘But you managed to get a ride back, never bothered with him again, right? It must have taken you hours, though.’

‘Yeah, bloody miles from anywhere.’

‘Did you walk a long way?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, with you being so fit, I’d say you could have run all the way.’

‘Yeah, got fucking lost, though.’

‘Was that the only time you’d been there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So how did you get covered in chalk dust all that time after, months after? In fact it was March the 15th, as Mrs Murphy recalled the exact date she saw you walking home.’

Anna knew she was chancing her luck when she dropped in the lie about Mrs Murphy knowing the exact date but thought it was worth the risk.

‘It was cement, something or other, and her seeing me as a ghost, it was a joke.’

He shrugged.

Anna glanced at Mike, feeling it was his turn again.

‘Did you keep the Jeep and change the number plates on it?’ he asked.

‘I told you, I dumped it on the A3 – someone else must have found it and done that.’

‘Why dump it so far from where you lived?’

‘Because I didn’t like it not being automatic, for Chrissake, and I’m telling you, some of the drivers on that A3 are like lunatics, seventy, eighty miles an hour, flashing
their lights at you.’

‘The same type of Jeep was used with false plates to drive off without paying for petrol. The description of the driver in each case matches you.’

‘Then someone who looks like me was using it.’

As they couldn’t get Oates to admit he had kept the Jeep they had to move on. If he had abducted Rebekka in it he would have had to have driven it into and possibly out of London.

Anna watched as Mike brought out the photographs of Rebekka Jordan, placing them in front of Oates. Then she felt her mobile phone vibrate in her pocket. She hesitated, and at that moment there
was a knock on the door. Langton gestured for Anna to leave the interview room.

‘This is Rebekka Jordan, Mr Oates,’ Anna said.

‘Well, if you say so. I mean, I recall her name, but nothin’ else and—’

He swivelled round in his chair as Anna stood up and spoke into the tape recorder to say she was leaving the incident room. She stepped out into the corridor, where Langton was very
agitated.

‘Pete Jenkins found something in the rear of the Jeep. It was in the boot well where the spare wheel’s kept, reckons that’s why it survived the fire.’

‘What? What is it?’

Langton had to pause to get his breath, he was so hyped up.

‘He reckons it’s part of one of the dolls.’

Anna closed her eyes.

‘You are kidding me.’

‘It’ll be here in fifteen; you’ve got the other two items, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, the head and leg, but I got no reaction from him when I brought them up earlier, other than that he thinks we’re trying to frame him. As for the jewellery, he
said—’

‘I know, got it from car boot sales. I’m watching from the viewing room. The bastard must have killed Rebekka, then put her body in the boot well of the Jeep before dumping
her.’

Anna gasped, then nodded – it made sense. ‘You will come and get me as soon as the evidence arrives, won’t you?’ Langton agreed. Before she went back in she checked her
mobile and there was a text from Pete telling her about the toy. Closing her eyes, she had to take a few moments to compose herself before re-entering the interview room.

When the police courier arrived at the station Barolli was waiting to sign for the sealed security bag. He ran with it to the incident room where Langton was waiting. Langton
cut the seal and opened the bag and there inside was the tiny piece of doll, in a Perspex box. He held it up: it was a tiny left arm with the remains of a pin attached where it would have been
joined to the shoulder of the doll. The little hand had been crushed; minuscule jagged pieces of wood were all that remained of it. Langton stared at enlarged images of the head and the leg on the
incident board, and he could make out an identical pin at the top of the leg.

Anna was hardly able to contain herself while she waited. Mike had attempted to draw Oates out by showing him more pictures of Rebekka and asking why he thought it would
‘be a laugh’ to say he had murdered a thirteen-year-old, but Oates continued to sit back, glancing at Mike without any show of emotion.

‘Listen, I’m sorry about this girl, but, you know, I’ve admitted to you about the others, and I wouldn’t hurt a little girl, no way would I do that, I got
daughters.’

Anna nudged Mike’s leg, the signal for her to take over.

‘I know about your daughters, Mr Oates, you were very close to one of them, so close you were accused of sexually abusing her so—’

‘That’s a fucking lie, that’s my wife – she’s a lying bitch. Corinna wasn’t even mine but I raised her like she was. I wouldn’t ever have harmed either
of them. If she says different, get her to say it to my face cos she wouldn’t dare.’

‘Wouldn’t she? Because if she did you’d knock her out, isn’t that why she left you and took the girls as far away from you as possible?’

Oates clenched his fists, but before he could answer there was a rap on the door. Anna’s hand was shaking as she looked into the sealed bag. Langton said he was certain the arm was
identical to the bits of doll found in Oates’s basement, but Pete Jenkins had taken a paint sample from it for testing to be sure. She nodded. But there was no time to waste as Langton had
already turned to go back to the viewing room, leaving her to resume the interview with Oates.

‘Mr Oates, you claimed earlier, when these items were shown to you, that you had never seen them before.’ Anna took the boxes containing the small head and leg from the trolley and
placed them on the table.

‘Yeah, yeah, we’re going round in circles here. I said I never saw them. If they was in my place they was planted, just like the box of stuff you say was in me fireplace. I go on
weekends to car boot sales and—’

Anna pushed the boxes towards him.

‘You have also claimed that on the day you stole the Jeep, you didn’t drive it into London but left it on the A3 with the keys in the ignition, speculating that anyone could have
picked it up and used it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you look at this item which has been recovered from the Jeep, please?’

Anna opened the sealed bag Langton had given her and placed the box with the little arm next to the other pieces of doll.

Oates leaned forwards and grimaced.

‘I dunno what it is.’

Anna placed some white tissue paper on the table then removed the tiny head and leg from their containers and laid them down on the tissue. Next she put the latest find beside them.

‘As you can see they are from dolls, very small dolls, as made for Rebekka Jordan by her father. The pin in the leg is identical to the pin in the tiny arm – they are actually sewing
pins cut to measure by Mr Jordan and used to join the bits together. This bit, a left arm, was found in the Jeep you stole.’

‘Listen, you don’t expect me to believe this shit – you must have fucking planted that, it’s wood, isn’t it, so it would have burnt up in the fire.’

‘Burnt up? What are you referring to?’

Oates twisted his head as if his neck was constricted.

‘I know what you are talking about, because I know you have lied,’ Anna went on. ‘You didn’t leave the Jeep on the A3, did you? You drove it back to London and put false
plates on it so you could use it when you needed to go looking for your next kill, which was Rebekka Jordan.’