Lynda La Plante - Backlash

‘I’ve been on one for twenty years. I hate bran, it’s like chewing cardboard, but I reckon my system has got used to it. I crave a big fry-up, but I get terrible indigestion. I’ve got packets of Rennies in all my handbags and pockets because if I’m not careful I get this heartburn after anything fried.’

Anna tucked in, not really paying any attention to Barbara’s stomach condition.

‘How did it go in Glasgow?’ Barbara eventually asked.

Anna gave her a sketchy outline, ending with the one new possibility that Henry Oates had worked in a riding stable.

‘Well, shovelling shit could mean anything, road sweeping even.’

‘I know.’

Barbara sipped her green tea and pulled a disgusted grimace. ‘I hate bloody green tea as well.’

‘You have anything from yesterday?’ asked Anna.

‘Not that much. Trying to piece together a character build and last known sightings for Fidelis Flynn. We had her flatmates in, nice girls, both at art college when Fidelis answered the advert for sharing. They said she was younger than them and from what I could gather they didn’t want to know that much about her. She was behind with the rent and was always very argumentative; you know the type of thing that happens with flat-sharing.’

‘I don’t actually.’

Barbara gave her an odd look of surprise. ‘Well it’s who takes the last of the butter, uses your shampoo and doesn’t clear up after themselves that starts the friction. They said she was always a few quid short for the rent…’ Barbara leaned forwards. ‘She didn’t intend leaving – well I don’t think so, because we found her make-up and a purse in one of the suitcases she left with her clothes, and in it were two twenty-pound notes and some loose change.’

‘But did she take any other belongings with her?’

‘They didn’t really know what was missing, if anything, because they didn’t know what she had in her wardrobe. All they recalled was that the evening Fidelis went missing she left their flat to go to work and didn’t appear to be worried about anything. They thought she might be working late as the garage stays open until midnight, but what they did remember was that she always carried a rucksack-type bag. When she didn’t return, they did nothing.’

‘Doesn’t quite make sense. Why did they think she’d done a runner without paying the rent she owed if she’d left her make-up behind and the wardrobe was still full of her clothes?’

‘No, they were packed into the suitcases and zip-up bag that local police seized later.’

‘Still sort of doesn’t sit right. Also, if there was money and she was short of it, why leave it behind if she didn’t intend returning?’

‘A workmate at the garage was questioned when her parents reported her missing. He said that he had an on-off relationship with Fidelis and although she had started seeing a male nurse they were still friends. He had expected her to come to work the night she went missing.’

‘Was this the first time she’d failed to show up for work?’

Barbara nodded and said that she and Joan had talked about it and what they came up with was that Fidelis had maybe intended leaving, perhaps was even going to meet someone to rent another room somewhere. But as she’d left her belongings and money behind, they thought she must have been planning to return, at least for that night.

‘Did you get anything further from her phone calls?’

Barbara’s eyes opened wide and she smiled. Anna knew that she was at last about to be told something encouraging.

‘Yes, the unregistered phone. I ran a property lost or stolen check on the number and I got a hit. Reported stolen in a mugging a few days after Fidelis went missing.’

‘Good work, Barbara. So who does the phone belong to?’

‘A Barry Moxen, and he’s coming into the station this morning, never even knew she had been reported missing. He’s a nurse who works in Charing Cross Hospital. When I talked to him he said he had not seen or heard from Fidelis for almost nineteen months. He met her at a New Year’s party and had been having a sexual relationship with her on a regular basis and when he didn’t hear from her he just presumed she had finished with him.’

Anna moved her plate aside.

‘It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? The girl goes missing and everyone that appeared to know her never reported it. If it wasn’t for her parents we’d maybe never have even known she’d disappeared.’

Barbara returned to the incident room and repeated her conversation with Anna to Joan, who suggested they quickly update the incident board with all the data as she didn’t want Anna finding fault. They had just completed it when Anna came in from the canteen, but she went straight to her desk. The first thing she did was pick up a voicemail from Pete Jenkins at the forensic lab. When she rang back he was not available as his wife had just been taken into hospital; her waters had broken and the baby was coming earlier than expected.

Anna had no other calls so she picked up her marker pen and went over to the section of the incident board that was allocated to Rebekka Jordan. She began listing all the information she had gathered from the last few days.

Barbara glanced up. ‘Looks like she’s writing a novel,’ she whispered to Joan. But they didn’t get an opportunity to read it all for themselves until Anna had gone into Mike Lewis’s office.

‘What’s this about the doll’s house?’ Joan wondered. She peered closer and then pulled a face.

‘She’s got a suspect, Andrew Markham.’ Barbara tapped his name and Joan returned to her desk.

‘Do you watch CSI , Barbara?’

‘Sometimes, why?’

‘They had a long-running case, over quite a few episodes, about a serial killer that sent in these little doll’s house rooms to police just before the murder. Then after the murder he posted these tiny dolls with knives stuck in them or gunshot wounds matching how he had actually killed the victims. One even had a teeny little cup and poison…’

‘I didn’t see it.’

‘My mother never misses an episode.’

Mike listened as Anna brought him up to date and finished by asking if she could put Joan or Barbara onto tracing any known associates of Henry Oates. He agreed. They had found no address book or diary in Oates’s basement so they had no idea of who he knew, but they had been gathering details on his infrequent employment through his National Insurance number and Jobseeker’s. It appeared that whenever the Department for Work and Pensions threatened to withdraw his Jobseeker’s Allowance he managed to find work for six to eight weeks. Apart from the jobs listed it appeared he had basically worked for cash in hand. They had tracked down various building, painting and decorating businesses, but it was tedious work and questioning each employer was taking up a lot of time. The priority was to check construction work he could have been involved in eighteen months previously and if there was any site that might be linked to the disappearance of Fidelis Flynn.

There was no record of him having worked for Andrew Markham, even though they had gone back as far as seven years. Anna suggested they send someone to the stables again to see if anyone could recall him working there on a cash basis.

Mike agreed, but observed that the old stable yard had recently been taken over and refurbished. The new stables were much larger, but still close to the Shepherd’s Bush flyover.

‘I’d like to go and look at this Andrew Markham’s garden centre,’ Anna said.

‘Okay. I’ll get Barolli to check out the stables for you, and go ahead with asking Barbara to trace any boxing associates of Oates.’

‘Thank you.’