Lynda La Plante - Backlash

‘I’m no pervert, and I’m gonna come clean with you, about the Angela girl as well.’

Langton gave an open-handed gesture; making eye contact with Anna he took over.

‘Well that’s really very impressive, but you see, Mr Oates, we have already charged Tim Bradford with her murder.’

‘No, that’s not right.’

Kumar looked nonplussed, as he was not privy to the fact that Timmy Bradford had admitted his part in the death of Angela Thornton. For the first time Oates looked bewildered, and Langton leaned across and snatched the crushed plastic bottle out of his hand.

Mike Lewis was in the viewing room, Barbara standing by his chair.

‘I don’t understand why he’s claiming…’ Her voice trailed off.

Mike agreed with her that it didn’t make sense. Either Oates wanted to claim he murdered Angela out of some sick need for attention, or he was trying to make out he was mad by admitting to anything so he could be deemed unfit to plead and his admissions would be held as unreliable. He nodded to the monitor screen.

‘He’s a clever bastard, or he’s been so well briefed by that bastard Kumar that he knows his way around the law.’

‘Why would Kumar do such a thing?’

‘This gets to trial and it’ll be the focus of media attention on a par with Fred and Rosemary West, never mind the Yorkshire Ripper.’

‘Beats me.’

‘What beats you, Barbara?’

‘These games. It starts not to be about the victims, doesn’t it?’

Mike stood up.

‘It’s always about the victims for us, that’s the big difference, and if that scum killed his own daughter and shows hardly any reaction he’s got to be-’

Mike just managed to stop himself blurting out the word psychopath. But there on the screen was Oates, head bowed, crying like a baby, blowing his nose and wiping his eyes.

‘I never done another one after her.’

They took a break so that Oates could be fed while they disclosed to Kumar the admissions that Bradford had made about Angela Thornton and how he had caused the death of his own mother and then intended to frame Oates with her murder. Kumar reported that Oates had told him that Mrs Douglas was not at the flat when he’d gone there and that Bradford had said she was in hospital after a heart attack. Furthermore, Oates was adamant that he, not Bradford, had killed Angela Thornton but had not told him how or why. Langton told Kumar to stop trying to pull a fast one for a psychologist’s nut and gut decision that Oates was not fit to plead. Kumar was insistent that no matter what Langton thought, he had not instructed his client to make false confessions; he certainly didn’t want to upset Langton again after the incident at the quarry and he hoped the matter of the press helicopter had been forgotten.

After Oates had had some food, Langton and Mike continued interviewing him for another two hours. Oates claimed that Corinna had turned up late one night at his basement in the late spring. She had been very strung out and in need of a fix as she had started using heroin again as soon as she had run away from the rehab centre. She had gone out and turned a few tricks to get money and he insisted that he had told her that he didn’t want her around. She had come back in an even worse state, fallen asleep, and when he went to wake her she was dead. He had described undressing her, wrapping her body up, stealing a car and driving her to the woods. Langton didn’t believe his account of the way Corinna had died, but there was not as yet any forensic evidence to prove he was lying and he doubted Oates would ever admit to what he really did to her, his own daughter.

Lastly, Oates explained how Angela Thornton had really died. He said that everything happened as Timmy Bradford had told them, up to a point. They’d seen Angela alone and drunk by the Tube station, persuaded her into the car and to go to Bradford’s flat, then to have more alcohol with them both. Timmy got drunk and had sex with her in the bedroom. Oates said that he had carried on drinking a bottle of brandy, and the more drunk he got the more he thought she was a cheap slut – in fact she reminded him of what his mother was like. When he went into the bedroom, Timmy and Angela were both out of it in a drunken stupor. The bombshell came when Oates said that he had felt like a child again seeing his mother in bed with yet another man. He wanted to end the misery so he put a pillow over her face and suffocated her. To him it wasn’t Angela he had killed but his mother. The next morning he realized what he had done and thought it was funny. He told Timmy that the police would think he had raped and killed Angela. Timmy thought it was all his fault, and started to panic and cry. Oates realized that by getting rid of the body he would have a hold over Timmy that he could call upon whenever he wanted something from him. He used Bradford’s car to take the body to the quarry. The pathway along the side of the woods was so wet and muddy he didn’t dare risk driving down it, not after the incident with the Jeep, so he carried her to the first part of the woods and dug a shallow grave with his hands as he didn’t have a spade or anything he could use to bury her properly, and covered her over with old logs and leaves. Afterwards he cleaned the car and sold it to a dealer at a car auction close to Wandsworth Bridge. He had kept her bracelet as he knew he could always use it against Timmy Bradford.

Oates confirmed that over the last five years he had obtained sums of money from Bradford, threatening that if he didn’t give him what he wanted he would go to the police and tell them about Angela. He knew Bradford would have to help him after his escape because of the hold he had over him. Oates admitted he was surprised that Bradford had intended to fit him up with his mother’s murder, and the coolness of this statement left Mike and Langton stunned.

After the interviews were over Oates was formally charged with four further murders: Rebekka Jordan, Kelly Mathews, Mary Suffolk and Alicia Jones. Langton had contacted the CPS, who had said that they would want to read the files on Angela Thornton and Corinna Oates before they decided whether to have him charged with their murders as well. This was not only due to the fact that Angela’s body had not as yet been recovered but also because there was a possibility that Oates might be lying and Bradford had killed her after all, or they had both done it together. As for Corinna, Oates had denied murdering her and said she died of an overdose, so the CPS decided to wait for the forensic and pathology work to be done on the body, before reaching a decision on whether or not to charge him with her murder.

Langton had asked for a crate of wine to be brought into the incident room, and they had a surprise visitor, Paul Barolli, on crutches, looking a lot thinner and very pale-faced, who was given a round of applause. It wasn’t exactly a celebration, but there was a sense of incredible relief. Meanwhile, the work would continue for months in preparation for the trials, and the pathology department would have their work cut out for them as they continued the detailed examination of the victims’ remains to try and establish the likely dates when each victim had been buried.

Members of the team would also be present at the funeral of not only Rebekka Jordan but those of all the victims. Grieving parents and other members of their families might then manage to reach some kind of peace, but they would all have to face the trial and learn the horrific details of what happened to their daughters.

Anna did not call Eileen Oates personally, but informed McBride that they had found Corinna Oates’s body. It would be left to a family liaison officer to tell Eileen.

Anna was sipping the last drop of her wine, watching the party begin to break up, when Langton approached to say he would like a word with her in private. She saw him asking Mike if he could use his office. Mike glanced over, and then turned away, back to his conversation with Barolli, who was sitting down. Joan and Barbara had fussed over him and he’d told them he was going on extended leave for while.