Anna didn’t feel like talking, so she sipped her coffee.
‘You know, when I was about seven, my mother lost me in Woolworths,’ Joan said. ‘I’d just wandered off and then I got panic-stricken because I couldn’t see her anywhere. I went outside and I will never forget what happened when she eventually found me, she was hysterical and gave me such a slap, she’d never done anything like it before and I was crying, and then she started crying as well, saying that she thought someone had run off with me, and-’
Anna interrupted her. ‘Is there a point to this, Joan? I’ve got a terrible headache.’
‘Just that I’d only been gone ten minutes. What her parents must be going through, have gone through, over five years waiting and hoping, it’s heartbreaking.’
‘Yes.’
‘Same with the Flynn girl – her parents keep on calling, you know, asking Mike if there’s any news.’
Anna ignored her desk phone as it began to ring. Joan asked if she was going to answer it, it could be from Mike.
‘No, I’m going home. You can tell whoever it is I’m not available.’ She had an intuition that it was Langton calling.
Joan reached over to answer the phone as Anna picked up her coat and briefcase.
‘Incident room, DCI Travis’s desk.’
Anna paused. ‘Good evening, sir.’ Joan put her hand over the mouthpiece and mouthed that it was Langton. Anna gave a waft of her hand to indicate she didn’t want to talk to him.
‘I’m sorry, sir, she’s not available. Can I take a message for her?’
Joan came round to sit behind Anna’s desk. ‘Well it’s a big update; they found skeleton remains at the multi-storey car park.’
Langton was clearly listening, making only the odd interruption to clarify dates, and Joan was enjoying being the focus of the Chief Superintendent’s attention. She’d never in all the years she had worked for him had such a lengthy conversation.
The arc lights lit up the dank lift-shaft pit, the drills carefully working their way in to the concrete around the skeleton. They now knew from the original car park plans that two foot of extra concrete had been added to hide the body. The archaeologists had drilled down a further six inches into the older layer, allowing them to use small controlled explosive charges to split the two levels apart. Lifting pins with eyes like giant needles had been drilled into the concrete around the body and chains attached to allow the removal of the concrete coffin to the ticket machine area on the ground floor, which was now covered in heavy-duty white plastic sheeting.
Dressed in protective clothing they used small chisels, hammers and special saws to chip and cut away the concrete without damaging the badly decomposed remains. The smell was intense now that the body was open to the air. The archaeologist explained that because it had been entombed in concrete no air could get in or out and although the lime mix in the concrete aided the decomposition there was nowhere for the body fluids to fully soak away. There were shreds of clothing left intact, and one boot was hardly damaged.
‘She was last seen wearing a dark sweater – that looks like wool to me, and isn’t that a part of a leather sleeve?’ wondered Mike.
Barolli peered closer; he could see strands of wool that might be described as yellow-ish. The head and strands of hair were clearer, but the cement had got into the open mouth and eye sockets. The encased remains were eventually light enough to be wrapped in a body bag and taken to the mortuary. It would be some considerable time before they would have confirmation of the identity, but the body appeared to be female.
Anna went straight to bed as soon as she arrived home, knowing the following morning was going to be busy. It was clear that Oates would steal a motor vehicle if he needed to, so uppermost in her mind was the hope they could trace the Jeep, doubtful though it was. Oates’s remark to Eileen, that he had been shovelling shit, began to make sense, as he could have been referring to his work emptying Markham’s septic tank.
Anna realized that they still had no clue where Oates had been living or any employment he might have had after that job. They knew he had worked on the multi-storey car park site eighteen months ago when Fidelis Julia Flynn had disappeared, but she had yet to discover exactly where he was around the time Rebekka Jordan went missing. She wondered if Oates could have been living rough around Shepherd’s Bush.
There was no information about the Jeep the next morning. It was quite possible that the number plates had been changed, or even that it had been broken up, but it was a very long and tedious task to check all Cherokee Jeeps of that year and colour used in crime, sold or crushed in breaker’s yards.
Anna rang the Drug Squad again about Ira Zacks, and this time was put through to the officer who was dealing with the investigation into his drug dealing. They had a lengthy discussion, during which she described the luxury flat. To her relief the Drug Squad was not carrying out surveillance on the address as they were not aware of it. The lease, it turned out, was not in Zacks’ name but his girlfriend’s, and they had been waiting for him to turn up at a known associate’s address to arrest him when the deal went down. Whether or not Anna’s unconnected visit had made Zacks wary, the Drug Squad officer said he had gone ‘walkabout’. The name Henry Oates had not surfaced anywhere in their investigation. The officer thanked Anna for her information, saying he would get a search warrant for the girlfriend’s address, then, if and when they tracked Zacks down, they would be in touch.
It felt very much as if everything was on hold, and the team was now waiting for the pathologist to examine the skeletal remains. The priority was to get an identity as soon as possible. The dental records of Fidelis Julia Flynn had already been forwarded from a dental practice in Dublin some months ago and were on her ‘Misper’ file. The concrete around the mouth area was being chipped away very slowly to avoid any damage, so that the forensic odontologist had the best chance of making a match. Mike decided that he would hold off interviewing Henry Oates again until they had confirmation, either by dental records or DNA, that the remains were indeed those of Fidelis Julia Flynn.
Mike had a very terse conversation with Adan Kumar, who was clearly fishing to see if there was any more evidence.
‘I keep getting calls from my client. As you are no doubt aware, Mr Oates is on suicide watch and is clearly not fit to be interviewed. I think he needs to be further assessed by the prison psychologist.’
Mike couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his reply.
‘Well he must be unstable if he keeps calling you… and yes, having spoken with the prison I am aware he is on suicide watch, which is about to be lifted.’
‘Have you found any evidence that implicates my client?’
‘Our investigation is ongoing, Mr Kumar, and all will be disclosed to you when we are ready to re-interview Oates.’
Mike cut off the call. Thanks to his daily contact with the prison governor he knew that, contrary to Kumar’s assessment, Henry Oates had settled down, and although he was still segregated he had had no violent mood swings. He was eating three meals a day and sleeping. Even though he remained on suicide watch and unable to be interviewed, Mike was not overly concerned by this as it gave him more time to put the evidence together. Oates had no visitors apart from Kumar.
Mike left his office to study the incident board. ‘Zacks has done a runner,’ Anna informed him, putting down her marker pen. ‘Drug Squad think that my visit might have worried him. I really need to narrow down the date he last saw Henry Oates. He was vague about it when I spoke with him, said it was three or more years ago. Oates didn’t have a vehicle then, so if this meeting occurred shortly before or after Rebekka Jordan went missing he may have got rid of the Jeep.’
‘There’s a lot of difference between three and five years,’ Mike retorted.