Oates had been given bacon and eggs and fried bread and two mugs of coffee. He was affable and very talkative and all those coming into contact with him were warned to keep him sweet. It was ten-thirty when he was brought into the interview room, where Kumar was already waiting.
Barolli explained that they had some missing persons photographs for him to look at and see if he recognized any of the women as his victims.
Oates sat as the photographs were spread out in front of him. Again he appeared to be enjoying the attention. It was sickening the way he dismissed one after the other, muttering derogatory remarks about the women, shoving the pictures aside as he went through them.
Anna slipped into the viewing room with a bacon roll and coffee. There were a couple of other members of the team there already, taking the opportunity to observe Oates, and it was almost as if they were watching a film in a private cinema. With Mike at the press conference she had spent the morning coordinating the upcoming search of the quarry. Costs were no longer an issue now they had clearance from the Deputy Commissioner to use whatever manpower was necessary. The forensic archaeologist, specialist POLSA and underwater search teams and the foot officers and their sniffer dogs all had to be ready to go when they received the call, along with sufficient transport. Even caterers had to be organized. If they were to work in bad light or into the night they would require arc lamps and high-powered torches. Protective suits and footwear would be needed, as the chalk quarry was likely to be bogged down after heavy rain. They would also have to bring abseiling equipment and ropes to access some areas of the massive quarry as Oates claimed he had buried his victims deep down. By now Anna had been supplied with detailed Ordnance Survey maps covering the area, and all they were waiting for was the green light for the convoys to go.
‘What have we got so far?’ Anna asked.
The way they were working the interview was that as soon as Oates identified a victim this was fed directly back to the incident room, then they could get the missing woman’s file brought over from the station that did the original investigation.
‘We’ve got two so far,’ a young fresh-faced officer said, as he stood up to allow Anna to take his seat.
Oates had selected two photographs of missing girls: Kelly Mathews, aged twenty-two, who had disappeared four years ago, and a curly-haired redhead, twenty-one-year-old Mary Suffolk, missing for three years. Anna watched as Oates continued dismissing one photograph after another before he started to laugh. His hand was covering a photograph of a dark-haired girl with buck teeth.
‘This one reminded me of my bitch of a wife – yeah I did this one.’
‘Has he identified the girl that owned the gold bracelet? Angela Thornton?’ Anna whispered.
Just as she mentioned the name, they saw Oates hold up the last photograph – it was Angela. He seemed irritated, saying he thought there had only been three, but this meant he’d miscalculated. There must have been four victims.
Barolli stopped the interview shortly after this when Oates had said he was hungry and asked for lunch. He came back up to the incident room, totally worn-out. That afternoon they would proceed with the viewing of the jewellery and ask Oates to place each item he recognized next to the victim to whom it belonged.
‘My face feels stiff from giving the bastard encouragement. He’s enjoying himself, loves the attention; he’s stuffing his face down in the cells. I can’t face eating, he sickens me.’
Barolli slumped into his chair at his desk. Meanwhile, Barbara and Joan had the task of arranging the photographs of the dead girls Oates had claimed he’d killed in a row across the interview-room table. They all now had names: Kelly Mathews, Mary Suffolk, Alicia Jones and Angela Thornton. From the missing persons reports it appeared they didn’t live in the same area of London, and had no connection to each other bar the fact that Oates, by his own admission, had abducted them. At this point there was no information on the vehicles Oates claimed to have stolen. He could not remember the makes of the cars, just that he had taken them from various car parks and streets in and around London. He had always dumped them after returning from the quarry.
The afternoon was taken up with Oates going through all the items discovered in his basement. He seemed to like the way he was asked to put on the light latex gloves. He joked that they were too small, that he had fighter’s hands, but eventually he seemed satisfied with a pair that fitted and then prodded and inspected one item after another.
‘Bit like a car boot sale, this, isn’t it?’
Barolli smiled, nodding.
‘So what you want me to do? Eh, you remember that old game show they used to have on the TV? They have this conveyor belt, right, and they’d pass along all these things, like a teddy bear, a toaster, a cream jug, pair of gloves, and then the contestant had to remember what they were, and if he or she was able to remember, they got them all at the end of the show.’
Barolli forced himself to look interested.
‘Yeah, it was terrific, but my memory is rotten – I’d never get anything, but I bet you can though. Play the game, Henry, let’s see if you can match these items to the girls you took them off.’
‘Are you gonna time me?’
‘I haven’t got a stopwatch – just see if you can do it.’
Anna was back in the viewing room observing Oates acting like a teenager, laughing and joking. He also kept up a light shuffle with his feet. Langton walked in and stood behind her chair, watching.
‘We’ve got four, not three,’ she said quietly.
‘I know. I’d stop this fucking farce in there, but he likes it, and we don’t want him refusing to take us to the bodies in the quarry.’
‘Kumar’s been sitting in on it, started taking notes, but he looks as if he’s filled his notebook.’ They both glanced at Kumar to the side of the screen, sitting head bowed, his notebook on his knee.
‘You think the press tip-off came from him?’
Anna looked at Langton, then back to Kumar.
‘I wouldn’t put it past him, this case is going to be front-page news for days.’
He withdrew from his coat pocket a copy of the Evening Standard and passed it to her.
‘Trying to get photographs of the Jordans, the bastards, and they’ve dug up all the old pictures we used of Rebekka.’
Anna sighed as she read the front page and was about to turn over when Langton tapped her shoulder.
‘Look what he’s doing.’
Oates was performing his silly prancing shadow-boxing dance, choosing one piece of jewellery and placing it on the photograph of the victim’s face. He was very fast and his tongue pointed out of his mouth like a child’s as he concentrated.
He didn’t speak, but surveyed his handiwork and then with one hand swept the rest of the bits and pieces aside.
‘They belonged to me wife, me kids, left them when they ran away from me; only these things belong to each of my girls.’
Anna stood up, believing he was telling the truth as laid on top of Angela Thornton’s photograph was her gold bracelet.
In small piles by each of the dead women were hair slides, rings, cheap broken necklaces, earrings and bracelets.
‘How do you check if I’m right?’ he asked Barolli.
Barolli told Oates that forensics had already taken what samples they could and now they would see what the reports on the missing girls gave them.
‘I get a prize, do I?’