Backlash (4 page)

Mike informed the team that Fidelis liked to be known as Julia and that she had come over from Dublin, in September 2010, to study at the City University. She had spent her
first term in the university’s halls of residence and over Christmas had answered an advert in
Time Out
to share a flat with two other female students in Kilburn. To help pay her rent
she worked part-time at a nearby Texaco garage. Mike said that about eight weeks after she moved in Julia had told her parents that her flatmates were high and mighty and she had argued with them
about paying equal rent as she had the smallest room. Although she seemed desperate to find another place to live her parents had encouraged her to ignore the other girls, stay put, and discuss the
rent with the landlord. It was after this conversation that Julia’s parents became very concerned, as they suddenly heard no more from her, which was unusual as she called home most weekends.
They had repeatedly called her mobile, leaving messages and texts, but all to no avail, so after about three weeks they contacted the Dublin Garda who then informed the Kilburn missing persons
unit.

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.

By the time her fiancé Ken had been killed, she had already moved away from Maida Vale to live in a top-floor modern apartment at Tower Bridge. His death had hardened Anna and she had
formed a protective shell around herself. She kept her distance, allowing no one to get close, and was loath even to mention what had occurred. Langton had encouraged her to go for promotion to
Detective Chief Inspector, a process that had been time-consuming, but Anna had no outside interests other than her health club. She was gaining a reputation as a very dedicated officer with her
tough no-nonsense attitude and almost obsessive attention to detail, which had paid off, and she was firmly on the fast track, particularly in her new role.

Anna Travis had won respect from each of the various murder squad teams she had worked alongside, and yet it was only Langton with whom she continued to have a strong emotional bond, one she
doubted she would ever break. They had been through too much on both a personal and business level. Even so, having had no contact with him for some considerable time, she felt a slight trepidation
meeting him at his home. Since their break-up, Langton had married his second wife, adopting her daughter Kitty, and had a son with her, called Tommy.

Anna had only ever met Langton’s wife, Laura, once many years ago, and it had been very difficult as at the time she herself had been very enamoured with Langton and very young. She
subsequently became personally involved with him after he had left Laura and, when their relationship didn’t work out, he had, or so she presumed, returned to be with Laura again. Attempting
to discover anything further about Langton’s personal life was difficult, since he was very private and most of what she did know had come via incident-room gossip, rarely from Langton
himself.

She rang his doorbell and then had to wait at least five minutes before he answered the intercom and buzzed her in. Her mind raced with all their past history as she moved slowly up the stairs
to the second floor, where the front door to his flat was open. She gave a polite knock and entered.

The flat was a jumble of kids’ toys, tricycles and skateboards, and propped on a hook on the wall was Langton’s racing bike. Anna called out, at which there was a bellow from Langton
telling her he was in the bedroom. Unsure of the layout of the flat, she walked into the main living room, which was yet another jumble of children’s toys, including a large doll’s
house, which lay on its side with miniature furniture littered around it.

‘There’s some coffee on in the kitchen if you want one,’ he called out. Anna found the kitchen, which was in the same state as the rest of the flat. There was dirty crockery
stacked in the sink, with empty containers of microwave and takeaway meals spread out on the table. She rinsed a mug clean and then looked around for the coffee percolator.

‘What are you doing?’ he shouted.

‘Getting a coffee, do you want one?’

‘No.’

Carrying the mug, Anna walked along the narrow corridor. One door was open and it was obviously Kitty’s bedroom, judging from the pink duvet left on the floor alongside various clothes.
She pushed open the next door with her elbow and walked into the master bedroom. It was huge with high ceilings, a massive double bed with a carved headboard and fitted wardrobes, but like the rest
of the flat it was untidy.

Langton was wearing a threadbare blue dressing gown and a T-shirt. One leg was propped up on a stack of pillows and sporting a plaster cast from mid-thigh down to just above his ankle. He was
unshaven, which made his face look sallow, and he had dark circles around his eyes. Littered over the bed were stacks of files, with more loose on the floor, and he had a notebook open with a
pencil stuck behind his ear.

‘Sit down. Chuck everything off and sit on the bed.’

‘Where’s Laura?’

‘In the country with the children for the school holidays. Said she might pop home for the weekend, but I had to get them out of the way. They prefer it there anyway.’

‘Don’t you have anyone cleaning or cooking for you?’

‘No. I send out for takeaway or microwave what I need. Look, don’t start . . . I know the place is a tip and she’ll sort it when she gets here. Half the stuff needs to be
chucked out anyway; it’s like a minefield out there.’

‘I saw the doll’s house.’

‘I fell over it last night.’

She sipped her coffee; it was tepid. She noticed an array of dirty coffee mugs and bottles of pills on the bedside cabinet.

‘Well I’m here. Was the operation a success? I thought maybe something had gone wrong.’

‘It’s excruciatingly painful and I can’t – or I’m not supposed to – walk until it’s all set, or the plaster has dried or whatever, but that’s not
why I wanted to talk to you. You seen anything of Mike Lewis?’