Members of the team would also be present at the funeral of not only Rebekka Jordan but those of all the victims. Grieving parents and other members of their families might then manage to reach some kind of peace, but they would all have to face the trial and learn the horrific details of what happened to their daughters.
Anna did not call Eileen Oates personally, but informed McBride that they had found Corinna Oates’s body. It would be left to a family liaison officer to tell Eileen.
Anna was sipping the last drop of her wine, watching the party begin to break up, when Langton approached to say he would like a word with her in private. She saw him asking Mike if he could use his office. Mike glanced over, and then turned away, back to his conversation with Barolli, who was sitting down. Joan and Barbara had fussed over him and he’d told them he was going on extended leave for while.
Anna closed the office door. Langton was sitting behind the desk, flipping a pack of cigarettes up on its end and back flat down again.
‘You wanted to see me?’
‘Too damned right I do. You walk in on an interrogation, having, I believe, not mentioned to a single member of the team the fucking mind-blowing information regarding the fate of the suspect’s bloody daughter.’
‘Hang on a second, it was all just supposition until I got the DNA result from Pete Jenkins.’
‘What do you take me for, take us all for? You have photographs of boots, underwear, you’d got a toxicology report…’
‘It wasn’t finalized, it still isn’t, I said there was heroin found in her hair to unnerve him.’
‘Lying to a suspect can get interviews thrown out in court, you know that.’
‘Yes, but I’d received a phone call about it and besides you’re always pulling tricks in inter-’
‘This is not about me! What about the DNA? How long were you working solo on this line of enquiry, Travis?’
She felt her legs begin to shake.
‘Again it was just supposition on my part, knowing that Corinna had run away from the rehab centre.’
‘Is that on the board?’ he snapped.
‘I think it might be, but I was just piecing together bits of information that I’d picked up.’
‘That you declined to share with anyone else.’
‘That is not quite true – I didn’t get to speak to the contact from the rehab until late at night, the girl Morag Kelly.’
‘This on the board, is it?’
‘No it isn’t, I didn’t have the time.’
‘So go on, you got in contact with – who was it?’
‘Morag Kelly, she had been in rehab with Corinna Oates, and the reason I wanted to talk to her was to try and find out what clothes Corinna might have been wearing and a description of her hairstyle.’
‘Why was that? Did you happen to mention this to anyone?’
‘Joan or Barbara – I can’t remember – one of them got me Morag’s number.’
‘But they didn’t know why you wanted it.’
‘No. I knew that Mike and you were busy with Timmy Bradford’s interview and I went to the forensic lab. This was after Morag had mentioned that she thought Corinna had stolen her boots. I found the boots described by her in the bundles of clothes removed from Oates’s basement.’
‘But you didn’t mention this to anyone?’
‘No, because I couldn’t be certain they were the same boots until I’d seen them for myself.’
‘So when did you start this DNA enquiry?’
Anna had to gasp for breath, and her legs were shaking even more as she tried hard to control her temper.
‘When I saw the body of the unidentified victim.’
‘I see. So while we were interrogating Bradford you were running around the mortuary…’
‘I wasn’t running around. I went there out of interest, and I told you when I got back that we had not recovered Angela Thornton and therefore had an unidentified victim. Also I-’
‘Yes, yes. I know this – so you go on your own accord out of interest to check the remains, am I right?’
‘Yes, and I noticed that her hair was braided and very dark. Eileen Oates said Corinna used to wear it in braids like Jamaican girls do. I wasn’t sure about her ethnic origin.’
Langton flicked at the cigarette box; it was really irritating.
‘Tell me why the ethnic origin was of such interest?’
‘Well it’s bloody obvious we didn’t have the remains identified, so I suspected from the hair that it could also possibly be a black girl-’
‘Yes, yes, you are missing the point. Why did you request DNA samples from the victim to be matched with Oates?’
‘The forensic anthropologist wasn’t sure but said the unidentified victim could be white European.’
‘Oh, so now the body is not black but white.’
‘The age range fitted Corinna, as did the decomposition to the time frame from when she absconded from rehab. Do you mind if I sit down?’
‘Be my guest.’
She sat down.
‘I had interviewed Bradford and Ira Zacks and they had told me that Eileen Oates had maybe forced Oates into marrying her because she was pregnant.’
He did a mock look around the room.
‘I never had a report about this. You inform anyone else about this shotgun wedding?’
‘No I did not,’ she snapped. ‘At the time it did not appear to be of any consequence.’
‘Oh I see, so when did it, in your opinion, become of consequence?’
She had to clear her throat before she could continue.
‘Bradford told me that when the baby was born, Oates flew into a rage and claimed it could not be his child because it was dark-skinned and Ira Zacks made a similar comment.’
Langton waved at her with his hand.
‘All this is in your notes, yes?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t think at that time it was of importance to the case so I didn’t add it to the incident board, as it was eighteen years ago.’
‘When did it become important then?’
‘Bits of information just all suddenly seemed to fit together. Corinna missing, the boots, the hair colour and hairstyle of the body.’
Langton ran his fingers along the edge of the desk, clicking them, and then looked up.
‘Well go on, I’m listening.’
‘I began to wonder if the unidentified girl was Corinna. Eileen Oates had been adamant that she was Henry’s daughter so I asked for her hair to be tested, and knowing we had Oates’s DNA on record I wanted to determine from familial DNA if it was his daughter. I still only had the boots to really make the connection, the hair was just a possibility.’
‘And?’
She felt as if she was on trial, and it was almost impossibly hard for her to keep her temper in check.
‘It was negative, the hair was no longer suitable for a full DNA profile, only mitochondrial inherited from the mother.’
He leaned forwards.
‘Negative, negative?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jesus Christ, are you now telling me it wasn’t his daughter?’
‘If you would just let me finish: it was obviously disappointing, and one of the reasons why I didn’t put all this out to the team because I still wasn’t sure-’
‘Corinna Oates is not his fucking daughter?’
‘NO, but I then had sent from Glasgow a swab from Eileen Oates, and a blood sample which she agreed to give. Corinna is her daughter, but Oates is not her biological father, even though he is named on her birth certificate.’
Langton jerked at the knot of his tie so hard it came loose.
‘But that still doesn’t prove it’s Corinna. Eileen Oates could have a hundred daughters for all we know. I can’t believe you didn’t see fit not to divulge any of this to the team, to me, to DCI Lewis.’