Backlash (45 page)

The tech support officers were now ready to drill from the Pearsons’ bathroom into Mrs Douglas’s. It would be a very difficult process going through at floor level
to come out in the corner wall beside the toilet and would take at least half an hour, maybe longer. By using a fish-eye camera lens on the end of a thin optical cable they would be able to check
on her condition and most importantly see if she was still alive. It was considered too risky to drill into the living room to see what Oates was doing. Bradford had described how his deceased
stepfather had suffered from arthritis and so a pulley on a ring with a hand bar had been installed for him to grip onto to heave himself in and out of the bath. The ring was secured to the ceiling
and Oates had tied a dressing-gown cord to the pulley, looping it round his mother’s neck. She was balanced on a kitchen stool.

Keeping him calm, Anna and Mike sat with Timmy as he was given some very sweet coffee. He explained how Oates had found his mother’s bank statements and forced him to make the arrangement
to withdraw the money and then collect it or he’d kill her. He cried, and then wept even harder when he said that he’d never forgive himself for not being there the night Oates had got
into the flat. He’d been out betting on the dogs at Wimbledon race track until late, not returning home until after midnight. He’d lost all his cash and had had to walk from the track,
which was the reason he’d been so late. Oates had rung the bell and his mother, presuming her son must have forgotten his key, had opened the front door without a second thought.

‘She’s in her nightie,’ he said pitifully.

‘She’s going to be okay, we’ll get her out. Has he got any weapons?’

‘He’s got a kitchen knife he carries around all the time. Ten grand – that’s all her savings, and you know if anything happened to her it’s not how I wanted to get
my inheritance.’

Anna nodded. The over-anxious son was worried about his mother but also about losing her money.

Langton gestured for Anna to come over.

‘Hard to believe that in the middle of all this I get the hotel manager come up and give me the bill for the champagne and sandwiches the Pearsons ordered – bloody people. .
.’

Langton held up the holdall containing the money.

‘Too dangerous to wire up Bradford so we’ve got a pin-sized microphone fixed to one of the studs on the base of the holdall. The tracker’s been taken out—’

‘There’s been some complications, sir,’ the technical support officer said as he rushed into the room. ‘The concrete is thicker and harder to drill through than we
originally imagined so the team at the Pearsons’ flat will need another thirty to forty minutes before they can get a camera lens into the bathroom.’

‘We don’t have that long,’ Langton snapped.

The clock was ticking, and to keep Bradford in a calm state was far from easy. They simply didn’t have the option of waiting, and Bradford was told to be ready to return to the flat.

Mike whispered to Anna that he wasn’t sure Bradford was going to be able to keep himself together. She watched Langton yet again sit close to him and this time he really pumped him up.

‘This is a fight, Tim, you up for it? Can you go in there and come out on top? We need you and we’re doing it this way to protect your mum. You can save her, right? Look at me, Tim,
you set to do this?’

Bradford nodded and he did seem to be up for it, licking his lips and nodding.

‘Okay, here’s the holdall with the money, the shoebox and the bag with the hair dye, you just act normal. Make sure you put the holdall down in the living room so we can hear
everything. The sooner you hand this gear over to him, the sooner he’s gonna walk out and we’ll have him, okay?’

Bradford was driven up to the edge of the Kingsnympton estate, from where he then walked up to the flat with the moneybag, the boots and the hair dye. They watched him head
towards the block, still with his baseball cap pulled down low, and he came into view once more as he headed along the corridor towards the blue front door.

‘Silver at the door, letting himself in now.’

On camera they could see Bradford putting the key into the lock and stepping inside.

Meanwhile the drilling continued. They were almost through the wall, the specialist silent drills working carefully and, inch by inch, following the pipeline, getting closer so they could
finally see inside the bathroom.

Langton signalled that they had a pick-up from the microphone hidden in the holdall.

‘These my size?’

‘Yeah, you said ten and a half, right? Try them on.’

‘Very nice, they look like Doc Martens, don’t they?’

‘I need to see my mum.’

‘You’ll fucking see her when I’m ready. Now gimme the bag. I want to count the cash.’

‘It’s all there, ten grand. I done what you asked me to.’

There was then a long period where all they could hear was Oates counting the money. Langton had told Bradford to keep Oates talking but assumed that he was just sitting there paralysed with
fear. There was no sound of a scuffle and it was nearly ten minutes before they heard Timmy’s voice again.

‘You got my leather jacket on.’

‘Yeah, and your trousers. Here, there’s a few quid for you.’

Oates laughed. In the hotel conference room everyone grew very tense as it appeared that Oates was preparing to move out.

‘I’m sorry to tie you up, Timmy, it’s just to give me time, right?’

‘You said I could see my mum, she’s fucking eighty-two years old.’

‘Once you get out of these ropes you can. I guess you’re hoping she’s still alive?’

They could hear Bradford start to cry. Oates told him to shut up and then asked where the hair dye was. Bradford told him it was in the kitchen in the Boots bag.

Langton got the signal that the drills were through the wall and the camera was being threaded through into the bathroom. On the small screen they could see Mrs Douglas hanging motionless from
the pulley ring. The kitchen stool lay on its side and her feet were dangling inches above the bath. Oates, it seemed, had already murdered Timmy Bradford’s mother.

With Mrs Douglas obviously dead and Bradford’s own life clearly under threat Langton turned to Mike.

‘DCI Lewis, do we go in? Just give the signal.’

Mike nodded, and Anna knew yet again Langton was placing Mike in the driving seat.

‘Let’s do it.’

After such a tense long waiting game, the actual arrest was over very quickly. An SO19 officer used a hand-held metal battering ram on the front door and then threw in two
thunder flashes, which went off with a massive boom, disorientating not only Oates but Bradford as well. Three more armed officers, one carrying a Taser stun gun, crashed into the flat, screaming
out a warning that they were armed.

Oates was in the kitchen, red hair dye dripping down his face, the carving knife close to hand. As he turned towards them the officer with the Taser fired the dart-like electrodes into his
chest, sending an electric current racing through his body. Oates’s muscles went into spasm and he collapsed onto the kitchen floor and was quickly handcuffed. Oates was taken to Hackney
Police Station under armed guard in a police van using its blue lights and sirens along the route from the Kingsnympton estate.

Anna followed hard on the heels of the armed officers and went straight to Timmy Bradford. She tried to be as diplomatic and as caring as possible as she untied his hands.

‘I’m afraid your mother . . .’

‘What? Is she okay? Is she all right?’

‘No, I’m sorry, we’ll have a medical team in straight away—’ She didn’t get the opportunity to tell him as Bradford started to push past her, heading towards
the bathroom.

The door was now wide open and the pitiful body could be seen hanging from the pulley ring. Bradford stood there, mouth opening and closing like a fish, his eyes wide in disbelief.

‘He’s killed her. Why, why, why?’

‘I’m so sorry.’

It was very obvious Mrs Douglas was dead. She was dressed only in her nightgown; her eyes protruded from their sockets and her face was a purplish red colour. Her mouth was covered with masking
tape and her hands were tied behind her back with the same tape. It was a tragic, hideous sight and Bradford crumpled onto the floor, sobbing.

The flat was cordoned off for the forensic team to cut her down and then her body was taken to the mortuary as the distraught exhausted Timmy Bradford was helped from the flat.
At one point he did become concerned about the moneybag, but was told it was safe and had to be kept for evidence. He agreed that he would go with them to give a statement at Hackney Police
Station, where he was well taken care of. The police doctor came to see him and prescribed some sedatives, he was given food and a change of clothes and a family liaison officer sat with him until
the team were ready to take down a full statement.

Oates was being held at the station in the cells and had hardly spoken to anyone. The entire operation had to be written up and reports submitted before they could move on and
interview him again. Although they had made a successful arrest and prevented any harm coming to Timmy Bradford, the fact remained that Henry Oates had murdered Mrs Douglas after he had escaped
from police custody. This was something that the media had picked up on at once, with headlines and stories of police incompetence leading to the murder of an eighty-two-year-old woman. The Deputy
Commissioner, along with Langton, held a big press conference, which in truth was nothing more than a damage limitation exercise. They both praised the skill and efforts of DCI Lewis in
apprehending Oates and saving Timmy Bradford. When it came to the death of Mrs Douglas they said that as it was an ongoing enquiry and a suspect awaited interview they were not prepared to comment
on that side of the investigation.

The team all congratulated Mike Lewis on the way he had handled the arrest, but it was tainted by the fact that Mrs Douglas was dead. They knew it was possible she had been
murdered as soon as Oates had forced her to let him inside her flat. The weary team did not break until two in the morning, knowing that they would reconvene early the next day to re-question
Oates. There was no sense of achievement, more of relief, and it still wasn’t over. Anna, like everyone else, went home to recharge for the following days, which would finally lead to closing
the investigation.

As tired as she was, Anna was unable to sleep. The haunting picture of Mrs Douglas kept returning to her in flashes. It made her angry that the officers sent to question
Bradford had not done their job properly. Oates had been inside that flat all that time, most probably in the bathroom, and she wondered if this might even have been when he killed Mrs Douglas in
fear she’d cry out for help. Anna tossed and turned. Had he actually killed her as soon as she had let him in? Something didn’t add up, but she was too exhausted to put it together. She
got up to make herself a cup of hot milk and brought it back to her bed. Sitting up with her hands cupped around it, having taken two aspirins and a sleeping pill, still she couldn’t stop her
mind churning over all the facts and trying to figure out what was wrong – what was stored in the recess of her mind? The jigsaw pieces that linked one case to the other had all appeared to
be in place, but the more restless she became the more fractured the pattern became. Adding a big slug of Scotch to the now tepid milk didn’t help. But it made her groggy enough to lie back
and close her eyes. She sighed. Maybe it would fall into place in the morning.

O
ates was still being held in the cells, apparently having accepted that his bolt for freedom had failed. He was showing no visible signs of stress
– on the contrary, he was eating and sleeping well. He looked very odd, as part of his hair was a bright orange colour where he had attempted to dye it.

Anna told Mike that she had arranged to go over to the mortuary to discuss the four bodies recovered from the woods with the pathologist and to get an estimate of how long Mrs
Douglas had been dead. She asked Mike what he thought.

Mike shrugged and said that he reckoned that Oates had probably killed her after a few hours. He further suggested that Oates, with Kumar’s advice, might try to claim that he left her
standing on the stool and she must have slipped and accidently hanged herself.

‘See you later then.’

‘We got good news about Barolli. It’s not as bad as we first thought; he should be on his feet in a week or two,’ Mike added.

‘That’s great. How long do they think before he’ll be back at work?’

‘Good few months – he’ll have rehab treatment at the police home in Goring, but at the moment his condition is stable and he’s been visited by Barbara and
Joan.’

Anna felt a little guilty that she hadn’t really given Barolli much thought so she went over to Barbara.

‘When you see Paul, give him my best.’

‘Will do. Joan’s been to see him and took him in some home-cooked meals her mother prepared.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘Yeah. Well you know Joan, she’s got nothing else to do with her spare time and it gives her mother something to do.’

‘Well, thanks.’ Anna paused. ‘The girls recovered from the woods, can you do me copies of their “Misper” files?’

‘Now?’

‘Yes please, I need to take them to the pathologist, might help with how long they have been dead. Never know, evil bastard Oates could have kept them alive for a while before killing
them.’

Anna crossed to the incident board and studied the photographs. It was strange: Kelly Mathews, Mary Suffolk, Alicia Jones, Angela Thornton, Rebekka Jordan, Justine Marks and Fidelis Julia Flynn
all looked as if a light had been turned off in their eyes, as if it was finally over. Even Mrs Douglas looked distant in the picture most recently attached to the board.

When Anna arrived at Lambeth the mortuary assistant told her that the pathologist, Professor Hall, was currently working on the body of Mrs Douglas in the main examination
room. Anna told the assistant that if possible she’d first like to see the remains of the bodies they had recovered from the quarry. He took her into the cold room where dead bodies were kept
in metal fridges with four in each compartment stacked on sliding removable trays. The assistant had already removed the bodies, the remains of which were now in new zipped body bags. Each bag was
laid out on a trolley along with a copy of the post mortem paperwork attached to a clipboard.