Lynda La Plante - Backlash

‘I didn’t get much luck either.’ Anna wrote up her section of the board, underlining that Andrew Markham was still to be questioned on his return from Thailand.

‘What’s he doing there?’ Barolli asked.

‘Holiday.’

‘Ah, likes the young girls there, I bet. That’s why most blokes go there. They throw themselves at you.’

‘Really? Well, we’ll see what he says, but according to this girl Marigold Summers, he buys up a lot of artefacts there and gets them shipped here for his garden displays.’

‘Excuse me, ma’am.’ Anna turned to see Joan standing there. ‘I’ve had some luck on the boxing front. I’ve sent out one of the guys to York Hall to bring in old posters and programmes that they had in storage and I’ve got a couple of names and possible addresses for boxers that trained there in the nineties and were friends with Henry Oates.’

‘Good. Put the details on my desk, Joan.’

Realizing it was getting late, Anna went to the Ladies for a wash and brush-up and then rushed to the canteen. By the time she returned to her desk it was after six, and Barbara and Joan had already left.

Anna seriously considered packing up and doing the same. Beside her desk was a large brown carrier bag with a lot of rolled-up posters and old boxing programmes, all with that distinctive musty smell as if they had been stashed in a damp cupboard somewhere.

The two ex-boxers identified as friends of Henry Oates were a Timmy Bradford and Ira Zacks. There was an address and home number for Bradford and a mobile number for Zacks. Anna sighed – she really didn’t feel fresh enough to contact them and arrange interviews so marked it up as a priority for the morning. She decided she wouldn’t even look over the posters and programmes, but make her escape and have an early night.

As she headed to the car park, Anna’s phone rang. Langton. She didn’t answer, but it immediately rang again. She swore under her breath, certain it would be Langton, but it turned out to be Pete Jenkins from the forensic lab. Feeling guilty about not calling him about his baby, she answered.

‘Pete. I was just about to call you.’

‘I’ve been at the maternity hospital. Baby came early. She’s doing all right, but it’s been touch and go; she was just three pounds and has got some infection, so she’s still in the intensive care unit. Her breathing’s getting better, though, she’s a real little fighter.’

‘I’m so sorry, but a baby girl, congratulations!’

‘She going to be called Matilda, Maddy, and she’s got thick black curly hair. It’s scary; she nearly fits into the palm of my hand.’

‘I love the name. How is your wife?’

‘She’s very tearful and it’s hard to go back onto the ward with all the other mothers as they have their babies with them, so she’s coming home. In fact I’m going to pick her up now.’

‘Fingers crossed then, and thanks for calling.’

‘I just wanted to say I’ll be back at the lab tomorrow. My assistants have done a lot of dirty work sorting stuff if you want to come in. I’ll be there around twelve.’

‘See you then.’

‘Okay, bye now.’

Anna sighed and started up the ignition, just as her mobile rang yet again. It was Langton this time, of course, but she was eager to get home.

No sooner had she got through her front door than her landline rang. This time she decided to pick up.

‘Travis?’

‘Yes. How you doing?’

‘Don’t you answer your effing mobile?’

‘Been out interviewing.’

‘Any chance of you dropping in?’

‘Not tonight. I’ve only just walked in.’

‘On your way in tomorrow then, we can have breakfast. Bring some fresh bagels and smoked salmon. I also need some coffee.’

She scrawled his requests on a notepad by the phone. ‘See you in the morning about eight.’ She cut off the call, not wanting to talk further. He was starting to really grate on her nerves and she’d tell him so in the morning.

Lying in bed after a long hot shower, she mulled over the day’s progress. She didn’t have a lot. There were no further developments in the Rebekka Jordan enquiry. She thought about Pete with his beloved little Matilda in an incubator and it made her wonder about what it would be like, God forbid, to lose a child. Ken had wanted a family – his rugby team – and she had wanted it too. An awful sadness swamped her. She had hoped for so much and had been left with nothing.

Langton’s kitchen looked as if an earthquake had hit it. There was broken crockery, dirty dishes stacked in the sink and on the draining board. The fridge door had been left open and now wouldn’t close thanks to the ice blocking the door latch. Dirty pots and pans littered the floor and a garbage bag was spewing out its contents.

‘My God, your kitchen is disgusting,’ Anna said, from the doorway of his bedroom.

‘I fell over in there yesterday. Just leave it all, the girl that cleans the flat upstairs is dropping by this afternoon to do the place over.’

That was easy enough to say, she thought as she walked back into the kitchen. She’d have to wash up some of the plates left in the sink, and there was no way she could prepare their breakfast until she had wiped down the surfaces and done a partial clean-up.

Carrying in the tray of the menu he’d requested, smoked salmon and bagels with fresh black coffee, she asked if he could at least clear a space on the bed for her to rest the tray. He did so by shoving all the newspapers and files onto the floor with one sweep of his arm.

‘There you go!’

He was obviously hungry, as he devoured his bagel and smoked salmon so quickly he made himself burp.

‘Excuse me. Delicious, just what I fancied.’

She nibbled hers as he drank his coffee, leaning back against the pillows.

‘Okay, give me the lowdown.’

She told him about the garden design centre and that she still wanted to talk to Andrew Markham as there was a possibility Henry Oates could have worked for him, and that she would investigate the two boxers who’d been friends of Oates.

‘I wouldn’t bother with Markham, I interviewed him.’

‘Really?’

‘Yep. He used pals that worked at Kew Gardens to help with the work on the excavation.’

‘Terrific. You know his name doesn’t even feature in your files!’

He frowned and said that it must be some oversight because he had talked to him personally. He then changed the subject and asked about Oates. Anna told him that he was still in the prison hospital after the assault and as yet Kumar had not asked for a psychiatric assessment.

‘Is he still acting up? Oates, not that prick Kumar.’

‘He stopped eating for a while, said he was feeling very depressed, so to be on the safe side they put him on suicide watch.’

‘He’s pissing them about so he can stay in the hospital wing and have an easy time.’

‘Gives us more time to find the evidence.’

‘You’ve not done too well so far. Listen, if you or Mike don’t find anything against Oates for the Flynn or Jordan girls you will still have to interview. If he killed them then a full confession to everything that happened is the only way forward, so I want you to talk to Mike. If I’m right, Oates is the kind of bastard that likes to gloat. Now he said…’

Langton leaned over the bed and rooted around before he retrieved the copies of the original interviews with Oates from when he was first arrested.

‘He said he remembered Rebekka because of all the press statements about her being missing, right? You with me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell Mike to draw him out, test his memory, say he just needs to see how he could recall her name and the date she disappeared so clearly. Pictures of her posted up everywhere, right? Ask him if he can – because of the media attention – remember what she was wearing. I told you the one thing we held back.’