She went back at him angrily. ‘You aren’t discussing it. You’re telling me that Mike is going to be the scapegoat because somebody has to be held responsible for Oates’s escape. Too damned right I am not holding up my hand, but I will support Mike in this.’
‘Let me finish, for Chrissake! What I wanted to discuss with you was keeping a bloody united front, everybody singing off the same hymn sheet so that there’s no one person who’ll be singled out.’
She leaned back in her chair, knowing she had pushed the right button. Langton was basically making sure that he, as the most senior officer at the quarry, was not going to take the flak for the shit that had already hit the fan, and he wanted to find some way of sweeping the whole mess under the table.
Langton spread his hands out and, calming down, said they should now go over all the details that led up to Oates being released from his handcuffs not once but twice.
‘It seems to me the main issue is whether the decision was right to get Oates out the second time, especially with the bad weather conditions and related safety issues,’ Anna suggested to Langton.
‘The weather changed for the worse after the decision was made . . .’
‘Yes but you made it, not Mike,’ Anna reminded Langton.
‘I know, but none of you disagreed, and how could we have guessed what would happen next?’
‘Well, there’s a lot of the day’s events on video so it might be worth going over it . . .’
‘Well I hope the cameras were off when I head-butted Kumar.’
‘You did what?’ She was astonished.
‘I slipped in the mud,’ he said, smiling.
‘You know, your car was parked right across his and he couldn’t back out; he added to the chaos around Oates because he kept hooting his car horn. I wish I’d seen it.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s another point to make, but another is the intrusion of the press helicopter. I want whoever authorized that to give us the person tipping them off about the entire operation. We can lean on them as part of the screw-up.’
‘I already checked out the helicopter’s logo. News Flight Aviation – they’re contracted by independents or do film for themselves and sell the footage on. Whoever it was must be getting a big backhander from the aerial pictures sold to the press, never mind the TV. We all suspect that Kumar is leaking the information – proving it is a different matter.’
Langton nodded and then said they should get on with their so-called hymn sheet. He wanted all those involved to be aware that there could be a major enquiry, so they should be primed up and ready.
They sat together, smoking and drinking, making notes, and only when he was satisfied did he call it quits, saying that she could go home.
‘Don’t you have one to go to?’ she joked.
He nodded to the bottle.
‘Last thing I need is to be picked up over the limit.’
She left him in Mike’s office, wondering if, like the old days, he was going to do an all-nighter. She was, as ever, impressed with his stamina – he was smartly dressed as always, albeit with a six o’clock shadow, but she wouldn’t put it past him to have his shaving equipment in his briefcase.
Anna got into her car and could see that Langton’s Rover was still filthy, unlike her own Mini. She tried to calculate when Langton had taken a break. He had been at the site when the bodies were uncovered, then at Scotland Yard over Oates’s escape, and had then gone back to the quarry, leaving only at dawn. He had been at the hospital with her to see Barolli, and she knew he had spent time at the mortuary with the pathologist. She couldn’t imagine when and if he had slept at all. She was used to him being a night owl when she had worked alongside him; they had all joked about his laundry and dry-cleaning bags stacked in his office.
She tried not to think about him. She hoped that the promotion he had hinted at was on the cards this time round, that it might be the reason he was putting so much time in, desperate to get that next rank, plus there was a big difference between a chief super’s and a commander’s pension. Deep down, Anna also believed that the Langtons of the force were now few and far between. He wasn’t quite old school like her father, he was the next generation, but as he was coming up for retirement age she suspected that he did not want a blemish on his hard-fought-for career. She knew of a few incidents that were certainly more than blemishes, but that was yet again part of Langton’s character. He did bend the rules; he did unleash his fury and was unafraid to have a go at the Kumars of this world. There was no other officer she had worked alongside that had gained the respect of everyone who had worked with him.
Even though she didn’t want to be, Anna was still thinking about Langton when she let herself into her flat. His reaction when she had challenged him over making Mike Lewis the scapegoat interested her. He had denied it, but she still wondered if he would have been prepared to let Mike take the blame for the present debacle. He had been very fast to ask her if she wanted to step forwards and hold her hand up, and she had been equally fast to refuse. The truth was that Langton was the senior officer, and Mike, she knew, had been relieved he had shown up. By the time she was ready for bed, Langton was still occupying her thoughts. As well as everyone thought they knew him, and she believed that she maybe knew him better than anyone else, there was a part of Langton that was as unreachable as it was unpredictable.
Langton had rolled his coat into a pillow and was lying on Mike Lewis’s office floor. He was always able to take catnaps, often for no more than twenty minutes or so, and it always refreshed him, but tonight he felt dog-tired. He was fascinated by Travis, and he also realized just how much she had grown, and not necessarily apart from him, as he was certain their past would always be a strong link between them. But again he had seen that stronger force within her. She was a fighter, that he had always known, but now there was something else beneath it, ruthlessness and a quiet yet determined backlash against him. In a way he was almost seeing a mirror image of himself when he was around the same age.
He sighed, trying to make himself more comfortable, punching at the rolled-up coat beneath his head. He knew what had taken its toll on his emotions, and he had attempted to make Anna aware of what it meant not to grieve for a loved one. She hadn’t, to his knowledge, ever let go, and it concerned him because he was certain that fury lurked beneath her controlled exterior. He himself had lost it completely when he had almost died after being attacked, and he had made sure the culprit who had tried to kill him paid the ultimate price. Anna, he suspected, knew what he had done, but it remained a subject they never spoke of. Besides, there was no way she could take revenge and justify the circumstances as he had done. The man she had hoped to marry had been brutally murdered and his killer would spend the rest of his life in prison with no hope of release. Langton suspected that there had been no release for Anna Travis, but that she had buried her fury, and he truthfully didn’t know if or how it would manifest itself. Finally he wore himself out thinking about it and fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
Mike Lewis was one of the first to arrive in the incident room, to find that a cleaner was just clearing his office, the window wide open. In her cart were the empty glass and bottle of Scotch and the disgusting beaker filled with cigarette stubs. Mike could still smell cigarette smoke; he guessed instinctively that Langton had been using his office. Fifteen minutes later he knew for certain because he found him in the canteen eating breakfast.
‘Good morning,’ Mike said pleasantly.
‘Glad you think it’s good,’ Langton grumbled. ‘Bring me another coffee, would you?’
He looked as if he needed a shave and his tie was loose around his unbuttoned collar.
As Langton’s breakfast tray was cleared Mike sat opposite him and got the singing-off-the-same-hymn-sheet discussion. Mike listened and agreed, but he was nevertheless nervous. He asked if there was going to be an inquisition and Langton laughed.
‘Too bloody right – don�
�t know about inquisition, but we’re going to have the top brass breathing all over us, so better to be prepared and show a united front.’
Mike said he would get onto it straight away, and took the remainder of his coffee with him, leaving a surly-looking Langton still in the canteen.
Anna was at her desk when Mike told her that Langton was up in the canteen. She was surprised; it wasn’t even eight-thirty yet.
‘I think he was in my office, stinks of cigarettes, and by the look of him he was there all night.’
‘Old habits die hard,’ she said, smiling.
‘Yeah, maybe they do, but it’s my office.’
‘You see how many calls came in last night?’ she asked.
Mike nodded, but none had given them any information they could use, most of them were time-wasters, but any remotely likely ones had to be checked out. Henry Oates had been ‘seen’ in Waitrose, at a petrol station, and at a variety of Tube stations, and every location had to be visited, enquiries made and any CCTV viewed.
Mike said he would give a briefing to the team as soon as everyone was gathered.
‘Make sure we’re all singing off the same hymn sheet?’ Anna laughed, but Mike wasn’t amused – it just confirmed that Langton had already discussed it with her previously.
Langton was having a shave in the Gents. He splashed cold water over his face and dabbed it dry with a rather seedy grey towel. His opened briefcase revealed some cologne and a laundered tie; he always kept a spare one in case he spilt food down himself. By the time he walked into the incident room, Mike was winding down his briefing.
‘Good morning, everyone,’ Langton bellowed as he banged open the double doors, tossed his briefcase onto Barbara’s desk and clapped his hands, making his way to join Mike at the front.
‘Right, let’s make this a day to remember. He’s out there somewhere and I want him tracked down.’
Langton pointed to the slew of calls and possible sightings and turned back to the expectant faces.
‘I don’t believe Oates is out and about living off the land. I think he is hiding and it’s either in a fucking squat in some derelict house or he’s homed in on some poor bastard. Now, what have we got? Who did he know? Who would be mad enough to let him lie low? We know he’s got no money, he escaped wearing a police-issue grey tracksuit, and although he left his rain protective suit in the stolen police car, he would have still been wearing the boots we so helpfully provided. He’ll want a change of clothes, new footwear – does he steal them? What reports have we got in from clothes shops that he may have been seen in, or thefts from clothes lines, and remember we’ve got petrol stations selling everything from underwear to Reeboks. What have we got?’
He took a look at the likeliest possible sightings, dismissed them bullishly and then gestured to Travis.
‘These two known associates, what about them?’
Anna went to the board to read the reports from officers who had visited both addresses. Ira Zacks’ elegant flat had been investigated. The information they now had on Zacks was that he had been picked up for drug dealing and was being held at Brixton Police Station. The flat was empty and there was no sign of a break-in or that anyone had been living there recently. Mr and Mrs Murphy, who lived opposite the squat in Hackney, had also been visited but they had not seen Oates. The three houses earmarked for demolition remained under surveillance in case Oates attempted to return to his basement flat. There had been no sightings of him at his old sports centre. Lastly, they had a report from the address where Timmy Bradford was living with his mother. The officers had not spoken to Bradford’s mother, but Timmy had said he hadn’t seen Oates and promised that should he make contact he would alert the police. Also up on the board was the number for DCI McBride in Glasgow, who had reported back that Oates had not attempted to seek help from his ex-wife. This was easily confirmed as Eileen was now under police protection, having given evidence against her so-called boyfriend.
Langton sighed as the room went quiet.
‘Well we appear to be up fucking shit creek, don’t we?’
Anna was still at the board. She turned.
‘Can I just ask if the officers who went to Timmy Bradford’s place searched it?’
A young DC stepped forwards to say that Bradford had been very civil, and had said that his mother was in the bath, that it was inconvenient, but if they wanted to come back they were welcome to take a look around.
‘Did you?’
‘Yes, ma’am, we went back about half an hour later and he let us in, we looked over the flat and left.’
‘Did you look in the bedroom cupboards, under the beds?’
‘We had a good look round, yes.’
‘What about his mother, Mrs Douglas – did you speak to her?’
‘No, ma’am, he said she had just gone to the corner shop.’
‘How did Mr Bradford seem to you?’
‘Like I said, ma’am, he was very civil and suggested if we wanted to wait we could.’
‘So he didn’t seem nervous or agitated in any way?’
‘No, ma’am.’
Anna returned to her desk, tapping a pencil up and down as phones carried on ringing. Langton came over.
‘Do you have a charger I can use? Battery’s low.’
Anna opened her desk, where she kept various chargers, and he rooted through them, bending close to her.
‘This is a total fuck-up,’ he muttered.
She leaned closer to him.
‘What’s that cologne you’ve got on?’
‘Don’t ask me, Christmas present from Kitty. I just chuck ’em into my briefcase – you like it?’
The ground felt as if it was opening up beneath her. She knew exactly what it was: ‘Happy’ by Clinique – it was the same one that Ken Hudson had used.
‘What is it?’ Langton could see she had turned pale and had started shaking. ‘Christ, it’s not that bad, is it?’
‘Excuse me.’
Anna had to get out of the room. She was finding it hard to catch her breath and her head felt as if it would explode. Langton watched her go and Mike had noticed her as well.
‘What’s up?’
Langton shrugged as he fixed the charger to his mobile, plugged it in and sat at her desk. On a notepad he could see she had scribbled ‘mother’ then underlined it twice.
Anna clung onto the washbasin rim, taking short sharp gasps of breath, not wanting to faint. It had hit her so hard and so unexpectedly. Langton wearing the same cologne was unbelievable, and would be funny if it didn’t rip her heart in two.
‘Calm down, calm down,’ she said to herself like a mantra, but she was too dizzy to release her hold of the washbasin. Her stomach lurched, and she almost bounced off the walls as she stumbled into the lavatory, where she was violently sick. Now her body felt cold, but at least she had stopped shaking and was eventually able to stand upright.
It was another ten minutes before she was capable of washing her face and hands and another few moments before she managed to walk out and back into the corridor.
Langton was leaning against the wall, waiting.
‘You okay?’
‘Yes, must have been the Chinese I ate last night.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean you went off and got a takeaway after we finished up here?’
‘YES!’
He gestured for her to calm down and they walked along the corridor together.
‘You’ve written the word “mother” on your notepad.’
‘Yes.’
‘You going to tell me why or do you want me to guess?’
She stopped and folded her arms.
‘I met Mrs Douglas, Timmy Bradford’s mother. She’s neat and tidy and very house-proud. They have the first visit to her flat recorded at eleven-thirty in the morning, and it doesn’t ring true to me that she would be having a bath at that time. I would think she’s got her twinset and pearls on by seven, fully
dressed and dusting.’
Langton pursed his lips.
‘Does Oates know the flat? Has he been there before?’
‘Yes, though Bradford said he’d never actually let him in, but he’s already shown himself to be a liar when it comes to Oates, so he could be helping him.’
Langton took only a brief moment before he decided that another visit would be on the cards. He also added that they would take it very carefully, first question neighbours, no uniforms and no patrol cars on show.
‘They know you, right? The mother and son?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good, so you’ll be able to identify Bradford. Now tell me about the time you were there.’
Anna repeated in detail her visit to Timmy Bradford’s and his recollections of his boxing days with Oates, how he had lied to her about seeing Oates just the once and only admitted going to the chalk quarry with him when he was brought into the station for questioning. She added that his mother appeared to be a nice woman.
Back in the incident room they pinned up maps of the Kingsnympton estate, along with enlarged photographs on which the empty boarded-up flats could be clearly seen. It was a very well-maintained estate, but a very large one, with hundreds of flats. They also scrutinized a small row of shops frequented by the residents of the estate. There was an off-licence, a hair salon, a closed-down minimarket, a launderette and a newsagent’s.
Langton suggested they start with a few discreet enquiries before upping the ante and bringing in the SO19 firearms arrest team. He stressed they were just working on a theory, and had no proof yet that Oates was hiding out at Bradford’s, so it was imperative they play a very covert hand.
‘Why take it softly-softly?’ Mike asked.
‘Because if I call in SO19 now the top brass will be all over this after what happened at the quarry. If Oates isn’t there and the firearms go in throwing thunder flashes and waving guns about we’ll look like a right bunch of pricks for not doing our homework, so I want some surveillance on the premises first.’
‘But they searched the flat,’ Mike pointed out.
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