Lynda La Plante: Backlash

Barbara said that she had spoken personally with the officers assigned the Flynn ‘Misper’ investigation and that they had made extensive enquiries, even travelling to Dublin to interview the family. Her two flatmates had said that she just upped and left and wanted to know if her parents would pay her outstanding rent. City University said she suddenly stopped turning up for lectures, and her boss at the garage, aware she was looking for somewhere else to live, thought she had just ‘moved on’. Julia had no credit card, but her bank account was overdrawn to the limit, with no transactions just prior to or since the time she had gone missing. Her mobile phone had been ‘pinged’ by sending a signal to it to try and determine its location, but it was clear it was no longer in use and that the battery was long since flat. Calls and texts had been checked but nothing out of the ordinary turned up. Fidelis Julia Flynn, like Rebekka Jordan, had simply disappeared with no evidence of foul play, but the fact that it was eighteen months since she had gone missing matched the interview admission of Henry Oates.

Mike Lewis then told them he was going to call DCS Langton and he didn’t want to be interrupted. As he retired to his office the admiration and respect for Langton was immediately obvious as members of the team shouted out ‘Give him my regards!’ and ‘Tell the old bastard to get well soon, but don’t hurry back!’

Mike was on the phone for nearly an hour, but no sooner had he put the receiver down than the impatient Paul Barolli was knocking at the door, ever eager to find out what Langton had to say.

‘Come in, Paul. Before you ask, yes I have spoken with him and-’

‘So you talked to Langton?’

Mike tapped his right ear. ‘Is it still red? He hammered away at me for an hour, firing off questions like a machine gun.’

‘From hospital?’

‘Nope, he discharged himself yesterday, but he’s supposed to be resting up and doing physiotherapy as he can’t walk without the aid of a Zimmer frame.’

Barolli smiled. The image of the energetic Langton using such a thing amused him.

‘It’s not funny, Paul. He went off the deep end about the Rebekka Jordan case; I knew he would. I suspected he loathed having no closure on it and I was right. He’s something else, he is – it was as if it had happened last week instead of five years ago. I’ve always known he was obsessive, but he was barking at me like a Gatling gun, and I couldn’t answer half his questions because I’ve not even read his entire case file yet.’

‘Better get on with it then. I’ll also brief the team about familiarizing themselves with it. Do we focus on Rebekka rather than the Irish girl?’

‘No. Langton wants them both opened up, said we need to put the pressure on, so we’ll have to go back to Henry Oates and see if we can get any more details. I can’t organize a big search party until I can be sure he’s not stringing us along.’

‘That what he said?’

‘No. You know Langton, he’d have the fucking Army out. Good news is he’s going above DCS Hedges to the Commander to get clearance to beef up our team and get a bigger budget. Reopening these investigations is going to cost.’

‘Joan said that her social enquiries showed that Oates had done some building work. If he killed them he had to get rid of them, maybe buried them somewhere on site.’

‘Good point, Paul, ask Joan to find out where he worked but especially the dates, then we can prioritize any searches that fit the Jordan or Flynn timescale.’

‘Big career move for you though,’ Barolli said with a smile.

‘Yeah, or a desk job for eternity if I mess up. Whether that bastard Oates is lying or not I can guarantee it won’t be Langton that takes the backlash, it’ll be me.’

‘Sometimes, you know, it feels good to have not got my promotion – I don’t think I could take the pressure.’ Barolli chuckled as he headed out of the office.

Mike made no reply, but wondered if he was taking on too much. However, he put in a call to the Wandsworth Prison governor to arrange a visitation with Oates and then called Oates’s solicitor. He hadn’t liked the tall thin and waspish Adan Kumar when they had met previously, and now he disliked him even more.

Kumar was very well spoken, choosing his words carefully and continually repeating himself, in a rather condescending manner.

‘DCI Lewis, how can you expect my client to answer any further questions about Rebekka Jordan or a fictitious Irish girl called Julia? He has told you he read about the Jordan girl’s disappearance and he simply made up the name Julia.’

‘Well, Mr Kumar, let me remind you he said Rebekka was the first and Julia, a year and a half ago, was the second. He described Julia and said she came from Dublin-’

Kumar then interrupted. ‘As I recall my client never actually said he murdered either of these girls. Did he?’

‘No, but he intimated as much and I believe would have said more if you hadn’t advised him to make no further comment.’

‘You know full well that my role is to protect the legal rights of my client and give appropriate advice where I think fit during an interview.’

‘I am aware of that but we are still making enquiries.’ Mike was quietly seething at Kumar’s arrogance.

‘I am pleased you are aware, officer,’ Kumar said sarcastically.

‘Be aware then, Mr Kumar, that Fidelis Julia Flynn, a twenty-one-year-old from Dublin, was reported missing from Kilburn eighteen months ago. I personally did not know this until your client raised her name in interview so I want to speak to him in connection with her disappearance!’

‘Mere coincidence and conjecture, DCI Lewis, not to mention a different Christian name.’

‘Just make sure you are at Wandsworth tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., remand wing, interview room two. Thank you for your time, Mr Kumar.’

Mike slammed the phone down. As much as it annoyed him he knew Kumar was right as Oates had not made a full and frank admission that he had murdered a woman he knew as Julia. Mike looked at the ‘Misper’ poster for the young Irishwoman. You idiot, he thought to himself, realizing that in his anger with the solicitor he had made a big mistake in revealing that Fidelis had been reported missing. Kumar could now advise Oates to say he got her details from a missing persons poster.

Mike was beside himself as Langton had told him to get the bastard to talk. The DCS had made it clear that if there were an element of truth in what Oates was saying then Mike would have to draw it out of him slowly and carefully.

Mike knew he needed to recover lost ground, particularly if he wanted to escape Langton’s wrath. He thumbed through the typed copy of his interview with Oates, using a highlighter pen to mark the relevant references: ‘ginger girl, exchange student, Dublin, Julia, year and a half ago’. In frustration he threw the pen across the room, racking his brain about his exact words to Kumar, almost certain he’d only said Julia was a twenty-one-year-old ‘Misper’ from Dublin. He again looked at the ‘Misper’ poster, comparing the details to those in the interview, and intuitively he knew something wasn’t right. Grabbing the Fidelis Julia Flynn file from his desk he hurriedly scanned the original report and her parents’ statement. Suddenly everything became clear. It wasn’t what was in the Flynn file, it was what was missing that was the possible link. Mike leapt out of his seat, shouting for Barbara before he had even opened his office door.

Anna parked her car almost directly outside Langton’s flat in Warrington Crescent. She knew the area well as she had lived a few streets away at one time, and Langton had also lived with her in that flat when he was recovering from a brutal attack that had left him with appalling injuries. His present kneecap problems were a result of that assault. It had been so severe that for a period it was doubtful if he would recover, but to everyone’s amazement, Langton had such focus and determination he had returned to work after only six months. Now her relationship with Langton was long over, though they had worked together since on numerous cases. Anna had at times found their friendship difficult to deal with, but Langton had been a strong support for her in her heartbreak after the man she was about to marry was murdered. In many ways she and Langton were very similar; Anna with immense strong will and ferocious determination had dealt with her grief by continuing to work case after case.