Backlash (46 page)

It would be chilling to go from one body to the next unzipping each bag to see how much remained of each victim. Anna stood for a while looking at the first body, the tiny figure of what was
left of Rebekka Jordan. She looked through the report; amongst the paperwork was a request for burial and the release of the remains to her parents. It had not yet been signed. As the lab assistant
came over, Anna jumped in surprise.

‘You see these, and you think at one time they were all young and vibrant with their whole life ahead of them, and one crazy sick bastard is responsible and took it all away. You ever
think about why evil is punished? I’m not talking about hang them high, I’m not talking about capital punishment, it’s something else and I don’t understand it . .
.’

Anna turned to face the young man, he was no more than mid-twenties and had a quiet authority. He was so calm, almost dispassionate.

‘What don’t you understand?’ she asked.

‘That it doesn’t hurt, that he could take these lives in a brutal way, one after the other, and keep walking around, keep living as if there was to be no punishment.’

‘Well, the punishment will be meted out at his trial.’

‘Going to jail isn’t punishment enough, it should be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t think I want to get into this, I’m sorry. I’ve not got a lot of time.’

Anna moved on from one body to the next, glancing through the reports. Kelly Mathews, Mary Suffolk and Alicia Jones’s identities had all been confirmed through their dental records. The
assistant told her that Kelly and Alicia had broken hyoid bones, which were ante mortem, and so it looked like they had been strangled.

‘It’s the decomposition, makes it hard. Mary there and the other one at the end, well Prof Hall’s got to do more work on them yet.’

‘Her name’s Angela Thornton,’ Anna said, picking up the report.

‘No, there’s no Angela Thornton here. That one’s a UI.’

Anna picked up the report and, sure enough, clearly marked on the front in large red marker pen were the letters ‘UI’ for unidentified. She looked at the dental records in the
report; there was a copy of Angela Thornton’s with ‘no match’ across them, again written in red marker pen.

‘The dental records don’t fit. We had her listed as possibly being . . .’

‘Angela Thornton,’ Anna said quietly.

‘Yes, but so far we don’t have a Scooby Doo who she is. Her body was caked in mud so we didn’t really see the hair wasn’t a match until we washed her down . .
.’

Anna unzipped the bag and this time the smell that hit her from the rotting flesh made her gag, as it was much stronger than the other bodies. The corpse, she noticed, was also the least
decomposed of all the recovered victims.

‘You’re right, Angela had thick blonde curly hair, but this is braided,’ Anna remarked as she touched one of the tightly woven braids that was laid out around the skull, which
still had a few braids attached to it. It was impossible to tell what colour skin she had or what she originally looked like; her skull with its empty sockets gave no indication of the colour of
her eyes, or the shape of her lips.

‘Where is the clothing that was removed from her?’

‘Wasn’t any, not even any fragments. She was the only one in her birthday suit, but with so much on we’ve not been able to do much more on her yet. Could be a West Indian with
hair like that.’

‘Thank you.’

Anna went into the examination room where the pathologist was working on Mrs Douglas and gestured at him to see if he could spare her a moment. He was masked and gowned up and not happy with the
intrusion.

‘Detective Travis, I am working as fast as I can, this has been bordering on the farcical. Detective Chief Superintendent Langton has been bombarding me not only with so many bodies that
I’ve almost lost count, but he’s continually on the phone. I’ve got a forensic anthropologist coming later this afternoon to look at the remains of all the bodies from the quarry
and help with how long they have been dead. There is no way I will complete the post mortem on Mrs Douglas today.’

Anna interrupted.

‘I’m sorry, Professor Hall, for disturbing you; I have no intention of putting any more pressure on you and your dedicated team.’

‘Well that is very civil of you, I am sure.’ He was a very old hand and near to retirement age, a tall hooked-nosed man who wore half-moon glasses. He loosened his face mask,
revealing his rugged features.

‘What is it exactly you want from me?’

‘The unidentified remains – we sent you the dental records of a possible victim called Angela Thornton . . .’

‘I unfortunately can’t recall names, but I am aware the odontologist did not get a match from one of the bodies’ dental records.’

‘Yes, I know, and we have been very grateful for your immediate attention with regard to all the victims that were brought in. It’s just there is one big favour . . .’

‘I knew there had to be something, and you are fortunate that you happen to be a sweet-faced young woman. What is it?

Anna asked if he could give her an estimated time of death for the one unidentified victim.

He sighed and said that after he had finished with Mrs Douglas he would get her brought back in and examine the body with the anthropologist, but it wouldn’t be until later that
afternoon.

‘Would it be possible for me to take a sample of her hair for a DNA test?’

‘Yes of course, but you don’t need me to be there for that – get my assistant to do it for you.’

He turned away, and Anna hesitated.

‘Professor, I just wondered, with regard to Mrs Douglas, how long you think she might have been dead.’

He sighed and glared at her over the top of his glasses and gestured to the examination table.

‘A rough estimate based on the skin coloration and the fact that there was no longer any rigor mortis in her body would be at least forty-eight hours. Also the hypostasis is somewhat
strange.’

‘Sorry, what do you mean strange?’

‘About six hours after death the blood in the body will settle in direct response to gravity. After a period of time the staining becomes permanent. In Mrs Douglas’s case her blood
had settled in her back and legs so she’d clearly been lying flat on a hard surface for some time.’

‘You mean she was already dead before she was left hanging from the pulley ring?’

‘Ten out of ten, DCI Travis.’

‘How did she die then?’

‘Can’t say until I’ve completed a full internal examination. I’m not happy with the marks on her neck either so I need to dissect the throat and tongue as well. Now I
really do need to get on and, please, no more interruptions, especially from DCS Langton.’

Anna had obtained one of the braids from their unidentified victim and took it to Pete Jenkins’ office in the forensic science department. As she entered the room Pete
gave her a warm welcoming smile.

‘Hi, Anna. Is there a dead body left in London that you haven’t unearthed?’

‘Don’t go there, Pete. How’s the forensic work going?’

‘I’ve got more fragments of clothes, but trying to ascertain what they were before they rotted to shreds is very difficult. I’m using the labels mostly, but I don’t
honestly have much for you to go on and I won’t for some time.’

‘I need a DNA test on the hair taken from one of the bodies brought out of the woods near the quarry.’

Pete mock-slapped his head and then offered her a coffee as he’d just made a fresh pot.

‘I don’t have the time, Pete, and if you could do this a.s.a.p. for me, here’s the sample. I need to know ethnicity and have it checked for a match if possible.’

‘Well, you know hair samples take a lot longer and this one will be pretty degraded due to the decomposition. It’ll be at least twenty-four hours, but I’ll get it first in
line. Anything else?’

She smiled and asked if she could have one more look at the evidence brought from Henry Oates’s basement. He raised his eyebrows and said that it had been bagged, tagged and moved into one
of the secure rooms.

‘Truth was, we couldn’t wait to get the stuff out of the lab, it stunk the place out. I doubt most of it is of any use to your case and we’re waiting to get it cleared and off
our hands – all the vitals have been sent over to the station. Is it anything particular?’

‘Yes, it’s the women’s clothing. I remember there were a number of items and there’s now a chance some of it may have belonged to one of his victims.’

Pete led Anna into the ante-room, where the bagged items were stacked in large plastic boxes on long wide shelves.

‘Help yourself. With all the work you’ve been bringing in I don’t have the time or inclination to dig around in here with you, but my offer of coffee still stands, so come back
to my office if you want to join me.’

‘Thank you.’

He turned to go and paused. ‘How’s Paul Barolli?’

‘Recovering very well.’

‘That’s good.’

‘How’s Matilda?’

‘She is the light of my life, and I don’t get much light, been here for night after night, but I read you’ve got the guy under arrest.’

‘Yes. We have.’

He smiled and closed the door, leaving her in the musty-smelling room. There were strip lights overhead and the neon shed a bluish light on the rows of tagged plastic bags. She moved along the
shelf until she got to a bag marked women’s clothes, then she carried it to a small side table and opened it. There was some rather unpleasant dirty underwear, a pair of drainpipe jeans and
some sweaters. She took her time sorting them and then checked the labels, putting a couple of items aside. She then replaced the bag on the shelf and listed the items she had removed. Next she
found a smaller bag containing ladies’ shoes and opened it. There was one high-heeled shoe and a pair of patent leather knee-high boots. They were all very worn and the shoe was a different
size to the boots. She made a note of the sizes and replaced them.

Anna didn’t take Pete up on his offer of a coffee. Instead she went back to her flat as it was just across the river from the Lambeth laboratories. There she made herself
a sandwich and a cup of tea and skimmed through the Angela Thornton file. She had disappeared after a night out with girlfriends in the Mile End area of London. She had to all intents and purposes
been a pleasant young woman, well dressed and still living at home with her parents. The inscribed bracelet that had led eventually to her missing person file was, of all the items removed from
Henry Oates’s stinking basement, the odd one out because of its value. The fact that the clasp was broken and it was missing some stones, which her parents had said were garnets, also made it
different. Nothing else they had recovered had been of anything like the same value.

As soon as Anna got back to the station she rang Glasgow. McBride gave her the contact number of the rehab facility that Corinna Oates had, as a condition of her sentence for
drugs offences, been ordered to attend. Frustratingly she was switched from one department to another and no one appeared to know what she was talking about. She tried McBride again, apologizing
for bothering him, but explaining she urgently needed to contact either Eileen Oates direct or whoever had been dealing with her daughter absconding from the rehab centre. After yet another series
of time-wasting calls she found no one able to give her any assistance, but then McBride called her to say that Eileen was at the hospital with her youngest daughter who was about to give
birth.

Everyone had noticed that Anna was obviously caught up on some business or other as she had been on the telephone most of the afternoon. As the team were all working on the
charges against Oates, everyone was equally busy. Oates was still being held in the cells at the station, and Mike as the DCI on the investigation had been closeted with the Area Commander and
Langton as they reviewed the mass of new evidence. Preparing to re-interview and then charge Oates with the murder of Mrs Douglas along with the other victims was a lengthy process, and they were
still waiting on the post mortem reports to finalize the papers, whilst at the same time evidence was still being brought from Mrs Douglas’s flat. It was hard to even contemplate that number
of man-hours.

Anna had turned her attention to the tapes of Henry Oates’s interviews. She was focusing in particular on the moment when Oates placed the bracelet on top of the
photograph of Angela Thornton, playing it over and over. She would then rewind to the bit when he had dismissed various other photographs of missing girls until he had selected the ones he claimed
to have murdered then taken to the quarry. He was abusive and rude about some of the missing girls’ looks, but he had clearly picked out the picture of Angela Thornton and he had placed the
gold bracelet on it. Although he did not know their names, he could identify the items he had removed from each body. Backwards and forwards she rewound, replayed, half unsure of what she was
looking for, until Barbara interrupted her.

‘I’ve got the name and contact number of a girl who shared a room with Corinna Oates at the rehab centre. She left there just after Corinna absconded. I’ve not managed to talk
to anyone at the centre as they blank me with invasion of privacy, and without having permission from Christ knows who they just clam up, but this girl is clean and doing community work as part of
her sentence. Her name is Morag Kelly, she’ll be at that number after ten this evening.’

‘Terrific, thank you.’

‘I’ve been onto BT and they are getting back to me, but I’ve been a bit caught up.’

Anna pursed her lips.

‘This is very important, Barbara. Leave it with me, I’ll do it myself.’

‘Mrs Douglas’s flat is a crime scene – I mean, surely Mike can get this information within seconds?’ Barbara suggested.

‘He’s busy right now; as I said, I’ll check it out. Besides, right now it’s just a theory, so don’t bother him with it.’

Barbara gave a small shrug of her shoulders and went back to her desk. Bursting with irritation, she turned to Joan.

‘She’s off on some theory of her own! But she’s got me running around for her as if we’ve not got enough on our plates.’