‘I’d finished what I had to do and they let me leave early. I went and got the Jeep from a back street where I parked it. The traffic was really busy, all single file and going really slow; that’s when I saw her, standing at the lights.’
His voice had taken on a softer tone and when Anna looked at him his eyes were glazed over, staring not at her, but straight through her. The alteration in his voice bothered her, and again she went back to Samuels’ assessment that Oates potentially had several different personality disorders. He was certainly behaving very differently to any previous interaction. He seemed very depressed, and hardly moved his hands, but kept his fingertips pressed against the edge of the table. She forced herself to pay closer attention as Oates described seeing Rebekka.
‘She was looking so sweet, in her riding boots, carrying her hard hat, and she had this pretty Alice band, pink it was, made her face glow. She was so unsure about when to cross.’
He gave a sigh and lightly ran his fingers along the table’s edge, almost as if playing a piano.
Anna knew that the Alice band was the one piece of evidence that Langton had kept out of the press. She made a note and then looked back at Oates as he had paused for a few moments.
‘“Hello, Rebekka,” I said, and I leaned over and opened the door. She remembered me and she said she was going home so I said to her that I was going that way and I could take her there. She got in beside me. I had a car behind tooting at me to get moving cos the lights had changed so I drove off.’
Oates continued, describing how Rebekka had chattered on to him about her new pond and how he had driven all the way around the roundabout as if he was going to head to Hammersmith but took the wrong turning.
When Oates spoke as Rebekka, his voice was childlike. He described how suddenly she had become afraid, saying that he was not going the right way and she knew how to get home as her father always took the same route when he collected her from the stables. His hands went still and he dropped them into his lap. He told them how she started to get more and more frightened and nothing he said would calm her down, so he had been forced to do something drastic. She had been trying to get out of the Jeep and he had no option but to do it.
Oates clenched his left fist, and demonstrated a vicious punch, just as he had before. He had struck Rebekka a few times until she went quiet.
‘I think, I am not certain, but I think I broke her neck.’
The silence was hideous. Neither Mike nor Anna could speak, and Kumar had his head bent forwards as if unable to take in the horror he was forced to listen to. It didn’t end, it took Oates a few more moments of silence before he described his own terror, knowing what he had done, and knowing he had to do something to make sure he wouldn’t be caught with the child in the car.
‘You know, I was in a stolen Jeep, I wasn’t even sure where the hell I was, but then it all became clear – I knew where I could take her, where she would never be found. I saw an alleyway round the back of some houses so I went down there and threw out the spare wheel and put her body in the boot well. I went along Western Avenue, then on the M4 past Heathrow. I’d been thumbing lifts that one time trying to get back home from the quarry and I reckoned that would be the best place to take her. It was getting dark and I was sweating in case I’d be picked up for going too slow.’
He smiled, shaking his head, and continued to describe how he had eventually reached the quarry where he had tried to get work, but then changed his mind and found a back road and made for the disused quarry, passing a heavily wooded area.
‘I was getting into a right state. I didn’t know where the road came out, but then I reckoned as there was no one around I’d get rid of her there.’
Oates chewed at his wet lips and this time drummed his fingers on the table.
‘Now, how about this? Left in the back of the Jeep was a spade, a big shovel – talk about lucky. Was I lucky? And she was feather-light and easy to carry.’
In the viewing room Barolli and Langton remained silent, listening as Oates professed his luck as he carried his little victim over his shoulder and made his way through the woods. What surprised him was that after only a short while the wood thinned out and he was looking down into the disused quarry. He told them he had intended to toss the body in at first, but lost his footing and slithered down the embankment; it was by now pitch-dark. He had the girl by her hair and the spade in the other hand and as soon as he had found firmer footing he dug a grave.
There was another lengthy pause as Oates opened a bottle of water and drank in gulps. He gave a ghastly smile.
‘Thirsty work.’
His eyes were bright, no longer glazed, and so Anna asked if he had removed Rebekka’s clothes. He snapped at her that she should mind her own business, and she could see the Oates she had first questioned returning with a vengeance.
But it wasn’t over. It took a lot of carefully structured questions, stroking his sick ego, to see if he could recall the exact location. He swore that he could easily find it again as he’d climbed all the way back up and then nearly killed himself.
‘I didn’t see the fucking ditch. I was in the wrong fucking gear and instead of going backwards I shot forwards smack bang into the fucking ditch and there was this soddin’ big fir tree; the bonnet buckled up and it started smoking and the more I tried to rev it up and back out the more it got stuck.’
Oates described how he’d set the Jeep on fire, worried he might have left evidence inside, and then he ran and kept on running until he made it back onto a road and thumbed a lift. He was gloating again, saying that no witness had ever seen him and all the press about the missing girl never mentioned her getting into a Jeep.
‘I was so in the clear it wasn’t true, but when I went back there I saw the fucking thing had gone. I thought the police had found the Jeep but then I saw it at the gypsy camp with no plates or wheels on it.’
He hesitated and drank more water. Replacing the cap he shook the bottle.
‘Why not get it all off me chest, right?’
It was almost ten when Langton and the team gathered in the incident room. They now knew that Oates had returned numerous times to the same location – he even knew the gypsy camp and had seen the stolen Jeep broken up amongst the other wrecks. He said he was certain there had been three more car thefts, three more victims, and he had become adept at stealing vehicles, dumping the bodies and leaving the cars in a side street or anywhere he chose. He had kept the shovel hidden in the woods and he came to know the area like the back of his hand.
Oates was returned to his cell for the night as the exhausted team went over in some detail what the next move would be. There was no feeling of accomplishment or exhilaration; their depression hung heavy. Langton said that they would need to arrange for a search team and Oates to be taken to the quarry as he had claimed he knew exactly where he had buried his victims. Rebekka Jordan’s was the only name he could recall, managing just a sketchy description of the other women. He had made it very clear that he had not molested or sexually abused ‘the little one’, only the women.
It would take time for a search of the quarry to be organized and any bodies found to be exhumed. First they needed another session with Oates to see if he could remember any more details of the other victims and who the ‘trinkets’ he had kept might belong to. They would then transport Oates with armed officers to the disused quarry and from his directions uncover the graves. Mike queried why they would need armed officers with Oates in handcuffs, and Langton said that as much as he disliked doing it he had to be aware of Oates’s safety in case a disgruntled member of the public took a pop at him.