Lynda La Plante - Backlash

‘For nothing. The scum thought he had made a collection from the bank but he’d just made a delivery so the container was empty.’

‘Why do you suspect McAleese if they were both masked?’ Anna enquired.

‘You could see on the CCTV video that the man who did the shooting had a pronounced limp in his right leg. Well, so does McAleese, as the result of a bad motorbike accident a few years ago.’

Anna paused by the incident board to study the mug shots of Donald McAleese. He was a tough mean-looking man, with small close-set eyes and his thinning greasy hair combed back from a high forehead.

‘Where is he now?’

‘We’ve got him under surveillance, living with his mother, but without more evidence and with no identity for the second man we don’t have enough to arrest and charge him.’

‘How many suspects can you have with a limp?’

She smiled, but McBride was not amused. He checked his watch.

‘Let me go and check if Mrs Oates has been brought in. You want me to leave you alone with her?’

Anna nodded.

‘Can I get you another coffee?’

‘No, thank you.’

As she waited to be called to the interview room, Anna had another look at Donald McAleese’s mug shots and decided Eileen Oates didn’t have great taste in men.

Eileen Oates looked younger than Anna had expected. She had blonde scruffy hair, a thin pale face with acne scars, buck teeth, and she was wearing a scruffy pink jacket with jeans and imitation Ugg boots. Stirring a beaker of tea with a plastic spoon, she glanced up at Anna as she was introduced. McBride hovered for a few moments before leaving the interview room.

‘Is this sugar or salt? I’ve not got ma glasses.’

Anna picked up the white packet and said that it was sugar. She tore off the top and passed it to Eileen.

‘Ta.’

‘Thank you for agreeing to talk to me.’

‘I hadda an option, did eh?’

‘May I call you Eileen?’

‘If ye wannae, it’s ma name.’

‘First off, I want you to understand that I am not here in any connection to Mr McAleese. It is concerning your ex-husband Henry, and if it’s okay with you I’d like to tape our conversation so I can write up my notes when I get back to London.’

Anna placed her Dictaphone on the table.

‘Nae problem, hen, but I cannae help, I’ve not seen him for years, not that ah would wannae see him. Day I moved back here was the best thing I’ve done. I shouldae done it before, but with two bairns, I was dependent on ma mother to help me out, which God bless her she did.’

Eileen sipped her tea, sucking her lips together.

‘It must have been hard bringing up two girls on your own,’ Anna suggested.

‘Tell me about it. I had one fuckin’ run off from rehab and t’other’s pregnant. It’s a vicious circle tryin’ to keep ’em on the straight and narrow. I think Corinna’s problems come from that bastard. Told her I slept about and he wasnae her real father and on top of that if he wasnae knocking me around wanting sex he was after her.’

‘You mean sexually?’

‘Aye. I caught him in her bedroom, she was only ten. I took a broom and belted him. After that I’d had enough so I packed a few bags and while he was out I took what I could and left with the girls.’

‘Did he try to get you back?’

‘Nae, I said I’d report him tae the polis. For all his fists and loud mouth, he was scared they’d arrest him. He was also, believe it or not, ashamed about trying it on with his own daughter, blubbering that he was drunk and got intae the wrong bed.’

‘Was that the last time you saw him?’

‘It was, aye, he did try, but I wouldnae even speak to him. Couple of years later he sent some presents one Christmas for the girls, but it was just the once. We’ve moved a few times so he had nae forwarding address.’

‘But you must have made contact when you filed for divorce?’

She shook her head and said the solicitors had handled the papers. Eileen then tapped the table with her finger.

‘Not a penny because he was unemployed and had nae income. I got sweet F-all, but at least it meant he couldnae find us. Is that why you’re here, is he trying tae see us?’

‘No, I’m here in connection with a murder your ex-husband has been arrested for and charged with.’

‘Well, not before time. He shoulda been banged up years ago for what he did to me, never mind his own daughter. We’d not have had food on the table if I hadnae… it was him that put me on the game.’

Anna listened as Eileen went into a lengthy excuse as to why she had been charged with prostitution, and the more she talked the angrier she became, constantly slapping the table with the flat of her hand.

‘I’ve worked as a shop assistant, shelf filler, cleaner, but I never did it again. Now I’ve got a steady job in a drycleaner’s and part-time in a bar. Bein’ brought in an’ out of this place is doin’ ma heid in, I could lose my jobs. So if you’re finished with me, can I go?’

Anna opened her briefcase. ‘This shouldn’t take long, Eileen, but I need your help. You see, your husband also claimed that he had been involved in two other murders.’

‘I wouldnae know about anythin’ he done. Like I told you, I’ve not seen him for over eight years.’

Anna took a photograph of Rebekka Jordan out from her file. ‘One of the possible victims is this little girl, missing for five years. When your husband was arrested for the-’ Anna was interrupted.

‘He killed that wee bairn? Is that what he’s been arrested for?’

‘No, another woman, but he claimed he had killed this child. Her name is Rebekka Jordan. But he then retracted his statement, denying that he had admitted having anything to do with her disappearance.’

‘She’s just a wee child.’

Eileen looked at the photograph of Rebekka, shaking her head and sucking in her lips.

Anna explained that Rebekka had last been seen leaving a stable yard in Shepherd’s Bush. She asked if Oates had ever worked in that area.

‘I wouldnae know. He did odd jobs, but I cannae remember if he was workin’ there. I don’t even know where he lives now. When I left him we had a place in Brixton, but I know the solicitors for the divorce had a hard time tracing him to sign the papers as he wasnae living there. He used to move into squats, never had any money.’

‘You said previously that he had assaulted your eldest daughter. Do you know if he had ever had sexual contacts with other young girls?’

‘When he was drunk he’d have sex with a dog. He was a perverted bastard, but I wouldnae know if he had other wee girls.’

‘Tell me about when you went to London and met him.’

She said that she was sixteen when she left home in Glasgow due to a drunken and abusive father. Her mother had arranged for a friend’s family, who lived in East London, to take her in and they had a daughter, Anne, who was the same age as her. Anne’s father, who had recently died of cancer, had been an amateur boxing promoter and not long after she had arrived in London they all went to a boxing match at York Hall in Bethnal Green. This was where she first met Henry Oates, who had fought in one of the bouts that evening. Henry had invited her out for a drink and she liked him and they started a relationship shortly after they first met and he was always very protective of her. She had believed, like Henry, that he was going to become a successful professional boxer. They’d being going out for just over a year when Eileen fell pregnant with Corinna, so they married before her birth. Eileen took out a crumpled tissue from her pocket, her eyes brimming with tears.

‘His boxing career didnae take off so he tried tae get into the Army, you know, get permanent work. It seemed like he’d only just got kitted out with his uniform when they threw him out.’