Read Online Backlash by Lynda La Plante - Free Book Online Page A

victims locally.’
    ‘I know that, Anna, but with the length of time since both girls went missing and no confirmed locations it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. I had a search unit check
Hackney Marshes but they found nothing.’
    ‘Not much to go on then?’
    ‘You said it.’
    Anna stood and picked up her empty coffee cup.
    ‘You know what Langton always asks me, or used to ask me? He would always want to know what my gut feeling was. What’s yours?’
    Mike leaned back in his chair and swivelled from side to side. ‘Well he’s obviously lied about how Justine died. As for Rebekka and Fidelis, why confess to a crime you didn’t
commit?’
    ‘Attention, notoriety maybe?’
    ‘Then why retract the confession?’
    Anna sighed and Mike raised his hands in a submissive gesture.
    ‘So in answer to your question, my gut feeling is uncertain. If you want to know what I really think about Henry Oates then read the post mortem report and let me know your gut
feelings.’
    Mike handed the report to Anna as he got up from his chair and went over to the blinds to open them.
    ‘I will let the team know that you are investigating the Rebekka Jordan case while we concentrate on Fidelis Julia Flynn.’
    Mike opened the blinds and noticed that Barbara, Joan and Barolli were huddled together whispering to each other.
    ‘Do you want to do it together?’ Anna asked.
    ‘I don’t think there will be any need. These walls are paper-thin and by the looks of it that lot have been eavesdropping our conversation.’
    ‘Some things never change,’ Anna said with a smile.
    ‘Bet you’ll be glad of a bit of extra help from Travis,’ Barolli said as Mike entered the main office.
    ‘It’s DCI Travis, or ma’am, and that goes for you all and yes she will be heading up the Jordan investigation and you will give her your full cooperation as and when she asks
for it.’
    As Mike Lewis briefed the team Anna went through the post mortem report and murder scene and mortuary photographs. What she saw made her stomach turn as she began to fully
understand exactly how Mike felt about Henry Oates. He was a loathsome individual with no shred of humanity, who needed to be locked away for life. In wondering what drove men like Oates to such
depravity she realized how little she or indeed Mike and the team actually knew about him.
    Anna went into the main office, put her files and briefcase on an empty desk and asked Joan to track down Henry Oates’s ex-wife in Scotland. She then turned to
Barbara.
    ‘Get as much background as you can on Oates. I want you to go back five years. Start with his social security and National Insurance records – any child support, divorce, births;
he’s got two children so there has to be something.’
    Barbara gave a hooded look to Joan over her computer but Anna was onto it fast.
    ‘That a problem for you, Barbara?’
    ‘No, it’s fine by me. In fact Mike had already asked for as much data as possible.’
    ‘Good. Paul, have you got a full list of all the items removed from Oates’s squat?’
    ‘Not yet. You want me to get on to the crime scene guys?’
    ‘Yes. Apart from it being a pigsty, from the photographs it looks to me as if he was a hoarder, maybe kept tokens from his victims, so they need to weed out women’s clothing,
jewellery, anything that could link him to the two new cases.’
    ‘I’ll give them a push to get cracking.’
    ‘Is Pete Jenkins still at the lab?’
    ‘Yeah, in fact he’s dealing with our case. You want to talk to him?’
    ‘Ask him if he could make it a priority for his staff to list and check everything that was taken in. Say I’ll talk to him later today.’
    Anna began sorting through the Jordan family statements, thumbing backwards and forwards. Although five years had passed they were, at the time, obviously well off; they had a
large three-storey detached house with a Filipino live-in domestic helper, a gardener, and a cleaner that came in