Lynda La Plante - Backlash

Mike smiled. Sometimes she forgot what a good-looking man he was; very blond and blue-eyed. He was also dressing much better since he had been made a DCI, in suits and freshly laundered shirts. In fact, he was starting to resemble Langton – not quite as flashy – but she noticed that like the ‘Guvnor’ he now had bags from the local drycleaner’s in his office.

‘What?’ he asked, seeing her looking at them. ‘Just you look different, very smart and slightly like Langton – you are prepared for an all-night session.’

‘What?’

‘The dry-cleaning. He always used to have half his wardrobe in his office.’

‘Oh right, yes, just for convenience really, and this afternoon I’ve got that prick Adan Kumar coming in.’

‘What’s he want now?’

‘Just to look at the list of forensic exhibits and the unused material in the Justine Marks case.’

‘Has he said anything about a psychiatric assessment of Oates yet?’

‘No, and Langton said don’t raise the subject with Kumar.’

‘Oates being in the prison hospital could help Kumar’s argument that he’s not the full ticket.’

‘Right. I know that, but we’ve been running a check every day with the prison governor and Oates hasn’t required any further medical treatment since the assault. They said he’s suffering from depression and put him on suicide watch just in case.’

‘Do you think he’s faking it?’

‘Could be. Couple of days he refused to eat, but now he’s accepting food and complaining that he’s hungry, so he doesn’t sound to me as if he’s climbing up and down the walls.’

‘Anything worth re-interviewing him about yet?’ Mike shrugged. ‘I’m in no hurry and he’ll be in the hospital wing for a few days yet.’

Again she thought how attractive he was when he gave a lovely smile.

‘I’m hoping we get more on your enquiry and the Fidelis girl. They’ve got a boyfriend coming in this morning.’

Anna stood up and said she’d clear her desk and then get over to Andrew Markham’s garden centre.

‘You got a bad feeling about this guy?’

She hesitated and then after a moment nodded. ‘The thing is, as far as we can tell Oates never owned a vehicle and did not have one when Rebekka Jordan went missing. Whoever picked her up had to have access to a car or a van to snatch her off the street. All the CCTV footage on the day she disappeared from the Tube station shows no sighting of her buying a ticket or catching a Tube, so she had to have been grabbed during that short walk from the stables to the station.’

‘Yeah, but in the report two cameras were out of action, so it’s a possibility she did go into the station, met her killer on the train maybe.’

‘But not one witness came forward, not even after the TV reconstructions or all the press handouts; she had to have been snatched not far from the stables. Well that’s what I think.’

‘You could be right,’ Mike conceded.

‘See you later then,’ Anna said as she headed for the door. ‘I forgot to tell you DCS Hedges rang while you were in Glasgow.’

‘What’s he want?’

‘Well he is supposed to be in charge while Langton is off. He gave me an ear-bashing about Langton going above him. Pissed off with me as well, said that if Langton wants to run the show from his sickbed then he can get on with it. Reckoned if it all goes tits up it’s not his problem.’

‘So we don’t need to keep updating him as well.’

‘Looks like it, yeah.’

Anna returned to her desk and asked Joan to ring York Hall, the big amateur and professional boxing venue, to ask the head trainer if he remembered Henry Oates, his friends or sparring partners and to find out if they kept a library of old fight programmes or posters. Before leaving she took a quick look over Fidelis Julia Flynn’s board. They now had more recent photographs of her. In one picture she was smiling, revealing her slightly crooked teeth. In another she was standing with a spaniel puppy, laughing, wearing a floral dress over black tights and Doc Martens boots. Anna sighed. There was always something from the photographs of the missing or murdered girls that haunted you. It was the light in their eyes, which you knew was now gone.

‘They were sent in by her parents,’ Joan said as she opened a drawer in her desk. ‘There’s more if you want to see them.’

‘No, thank you. I’ll be on my way. Be back after lunch and I’ll be on my mobile anyway.’

Before she left the station she couldn’t resist heading down to the interview rooms on the floor below.

Barry Moxen was sitting opposite Barbara. He had black hair, spiky and gelled, a lot of acne, and was wearing a heavy leather biker’s jacket. Anna watched for a few moments via the window in the door and as she turned to leave Barbara saw her.

‘You want to talk to him?’ Barbara opened the door. ‘I don’t think so.’

Barbara closed the door and stepped out into the corridor.

‘I showed him the picture of Fidelis. He says she always called herself Julia and that she was seeing the bloke from the garage before she went out with him. He was working night shift at the hospital the whole week during the period Fidelis went missing. I rang them and they confirmed it. Last time he saw her was the weekend before his night shift when they went to the cinema. Julia told him she was fed up with the girls in the flat she shared and she was going to see some other rooms for rent and that she’d call him when she got a new address. She never did. Like he told me on the phone, he reckoned she’d ditched him.’

‘Did he try her old flat?’

‘Yeah, he was told she’d moved out.’

‘Okay. Just ask if he knew the address or location of any of the new places Fidelis was going to view. Did she use a letting agent, look in the papers or online, Time Out , Gumtree or whatever, then you’ll have to check back and see if she contacted any of them.’

‘Oh right, will do.’

Andrew Markham’s garden centre was hard to find. It was not far from Cobham in Surrey, but the entrance was on a curve in the road, so easily missed. It had a barred gate with a notice to please make sure the gate was always closed. Only a small sign indicated that it was also a garden design company. Anna opened the gate and drove a few feet before she returned and heaved it shut. She found herself on a dirt track with big cart ruts and deep puddles. On one side was an open field; the other had a large barn with private property notices fixed to the side. The lane went on for about a quarter of a mile before a green-painted sign read MARKHAM’S GARDEN DESIGNS .

A big red arrow pointed to a high barred gate, which was standing open enough for Anna to drive in.

The garden centre had about an acre of land. Scattered around were modern greenhouses and there was another large barn, full of tractors, vans with the company logo, and a Range Rover. There was a trailer-cum-caravan with ‘Office’ printed on a card on the door. Anna knocked and waited, but there was no answer. She tried the door, but it was locked.

Now she wished she’d put her wellington boots in the car as it was very muddy, forcing her to hop over two deep puddles as she headed for the first greenhouse. Plants grew in profusion, every shelf creaking with different varieties of flora. It was very well heated and irrigated, but it was also empty.

‘Hello? Anyone here?’ she called out.

There was no reply so she made her way towards the second greenhouse. Outside were hundreds of clay pots of every size and a few stone statues. Anna could see more plants and inside this greenhouse the sprinklers were turned on. They gave a fine spray, making the windows steam up.