‘I ain’t done nothing.’
Anna opened her notebook and began to flick through the pages.
‘You said you last saw Henry Oates seven years ago at York Hall.’
Bradford leaned forwards.
‘I was telling you the truth. I ain’t seen him for years, that’s God’s truth.’
‘What about the time you took him to Taplow Quarry?’
‘What?’
‘You were working there.’
Bradford leaned back in his chair and shook his head.
‘Are you shaking your head because you didn’t work there?’
‘No, it was bloody years ago, and I only lasted a few months cos the work was shit, and the money was no good. You got covered in the crap, in your hair, up your nose…’
‘Tell me about the time you took Henry Oates there.’ Bradford sighed, looking down at the table top, unable to meet Anna’s eyes.
‘He was looking for a job. I met him at a boxing match. I told him I was working there and he asked if I could take him with me.’
Bradford’s gaze wandered around the small room.
‘Like I said, it was years ago the last time I saw him and I just forgot he went with me to Taplow.’
‘You had a fight with him, didn’t you?’
Bradford shrugged.
‘Yeah, we had a punch-up. They wouldn’t let him drive one of the trucks like I was doing cos he had no driving licence. Like I said, I had a job and he wasn’t gonna get one. He was all uptight, blamed me for wasting his time; he told me I had to take him back to London, but I told him to fuck off or wait for me to finish workin’.’
‘Don’t swear, Mr Bradford,’ Anna said firmly.
‘Sorry, but you know you got me hauled in here, my mum’s frantic, she won’t believe it was for nothin’.’
Anna glanced at Barolli and closed her notebook. Bradford had confirmed what they had been told by the chalk pit manager.
‘I dunno how he got back to London, maybe thumbed a ride, but that was the last time I saw him.’
‘But how do you think he got back to London?’
‘I dunno. I swear before God I never saw him again. He bloody swung a punch at me and hit me in the face. Knowing him, he could have even walked back. As it turned out, I left the job a few weeks later like I told you, but I never wanted to see him again. He’s got this temper and he could just let fly. I mean, I could hold me own with him, but he caught me off guard.’
‘Are there any other contacts with Henry Oates that you may have “forgotten” about?’
Bradford hesitated and then gave a slow nod of his head.
‘Yeah, forgot this an’ all, sorry, but it was before the fight at the quarry. I’d had this run of bad luck. I’d been saving up and looking for a place to live, but I was stupid. I took a punt on a dog, got told it was a certainty, lost five hundred quid.’
‘What about the savings your mother mentioned, that you’d lost the money you’d saved for a flat?’
He pulled a clownish face.
‘Yeah well, that was a bit of a lie, she’d have never let me stay with her if she’d known I’d blown what I’d got on a fucking dog. Excuse me, sorry, she’s very careful with her savings. I know she’s got quite a packet from her last husband, and… I completely forgot this. I’ve had to move in with her off and on for years, it’s the gambling doing me in always, and then when I get a bit of dough I move out. Me and her husband didn’t get along either, but since he passed on I’ve been staying with her more and more.’
Anna waited patiently.
‘Go back to the time you say something had slipped your mind.’
‘Right, yeah. It was when I was taking him to the quarry, he came to Mum’s flat for me to drive him there. I don’t even have the car any more, had to sell it.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, he was early so I let him in and told him to wait in the hall. Of course Mum was hovering around, it was only six-ish but she’s always up with the birds.’
‘Did she meet him?’
‘Christ no, he was stinking out the hallway and she’d have gone apeshit about me being with his type. I just grabbed my overcoat and we left. I was tellin’ you the truth, cos I honest to God haven’t seen him since that time at the quarry.’
‘Thank you for coming in, Mr Bradford.’
He had the audacity to smile. ‘Had an option, did I?’
‘What’s so important about this chalk pit?’ Barolli asked after Bradford had been allowed to go.
Anna explained that Oates couldn’t have been working at the chalk pit when Mrs Murphy said she saw him covered in dust. She thought it unlikely that the elderly couple would be nine months out, particularly as Mrs Murphy recalled the exact date the gates arrived.
‘It’s the chalk pit, something about that place. But if they are right about the dates Oates helped them put their gates up, it was March 2007 that Oates explained to Mr Murphy about the chalk dust. Mrs Murphy did say her husband’s memory was not so good. Maybe he did get the timing wrong.’
Joan was in tears, her shoulders shaking as she slumped at her desk.
‘What’s up with you, Joan?’ Anna asked. ‘Just got a dressing-down from the Chief Super.’
‘Langton?’
‘No, the one who’s standing in for him.’
Anna leaned close to Joan, who was wiping her eyes with a tissue.
‘What happened?’
Joan tearfully explained that she had, although not specifically instructed to do so, run a check through missing persons, searching for the Christian name Angela.
Anna tensed up, leaning closer still as Joan passed her a report. She sniffed.
‘Angela Thornton, “Misper” from Epping over five years ago, and as you can see from the description of the clothes she was wearing they also include a gold bracelet, a present from her parents for her twenty-first. It was engraved with the inscription, “Angela 1999 from Mum and Dad”.’
Anna couldn’t believe it. She perched on the edge of Joan’s desk.
‘Good work, Joan, but tell me what Hedges said that’s got you so upset.’
Joan said that she had left early the previous evening so had come in that morning very early and had decided rightly or wrongly to check out the bracelet.
‘I mean, it’s the most obvious because of the inscription.’
‘Absolutely, yes I agree.’
‘I’d just got a result when I picked up the phone and it was him, Chief Superintendent Hedges. He asked me for an update. I mean, he usually speaks with Mike, but I was the only one available and so I told him.’
‘About the bracelet?’
‘Yes, and he went ballistic. He said that he had not given the go-ahead to open up any further missing persons cases and as such I had overstepped my position.’
Anna patted her shoulder. ‘Leave this with me, go and get yourself a cup of coffee in the canteen. As far as I’m concerned you’ve done nothing wrong. If Hedges had been more of a presence and kept up to date with our investigations he’d have realized the recovered jewellery had to be followed up.’
As Joan left the room Anna became more irate as she recalled how Mike Lewis had told her that Hedges had said that as far as he was concerned both investigations were now Langton’s. She decided that if Hedges should complain to her or Mike about Joan’s behaviour she would remind him of his remark to Mike and his total lack of interest concerning the investigation of a possible serial killer.
Anna, still annoyed about Hedges’ attitude, sat at her desk reading the Essex Police report about the missing girl. The case had been left open on file, with no suspects and no clues as to her whereabouts. Angela Thornton had last been seen in June 2007 on CCTV footage with two friends leaving a nightclub in the Mile End Road. The friends had said that they had all been drinking heavily and as they lived locally together they walked home, leaving Angela to get the Central Line Tube home to Epping. By the time she left the club the last Tube would have already gone. Anna looked at a map of the area and noticed how close Mile End was to Hackney and Oates’s squat.