‘He told me he used tae always fight with other kids but it always ended up with the staff giving him a good beating. Anyways, he run off when he was just a teenager and got tae London, started to work for some old bloke that was an ex-boxer and he took it up, he was like a sort of mentor tae him.’
‘Where was the boxing club?’
‘Bethnal Green, near the York Hall where they have all the fights. The old boy trained him and everythin’ and he started out as an amateur. He was good, ye know, had a lot of potential. This old guy raised money for a club tour to America and wanted tae take Henry, but he needed his birth certificate tae get a passport. He tracked his mother down tae Liverpool and went tae see her. She was still using drugs and on the game…’
Eileen sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. She told Anna that Henry never had a proper father and when he tracked his mother down he asked her about him and she told him that she never knew who it was and didn’t care either but it had to have been some waster as that was the only blokes she’d ever known, wasters that she went with to get a fix.
‘Did he go to the States?’
‘Nae. The rest of ’em did, though, and while they were there the old boy snuffed it, had a massive heart attack. It really hurt Henry, he’d become like a dad tae him, even let him live with him, but when he died his missus kicked him out. He carried on boxing, but I think that was because being in the ring made him feel better about himself and the club was the only place he had any friends. That was all just before I met him. So you see, I used tae feel sorry for him cos he’d never really had nobody… turns out he was like what his mum said, a waster. I know I wasted years on him.’
McBride was taken aback when Anna joined him in the incident room and announced that she would be leaving in time to catch an earlier train back to London.
‘Did you get anything out of her for your case?’
‘Not much, however…I think she will give up McAleese, but she is very frightened. She’s been beaten up. I think she will talk if she gets protection. Can you arrange that?’
‘It depends…’
‘He threatened to kill her. Take a look at the bruise on her chest, and she’s got a pregnant teenage daughter, she’s scared for her as well. Eileen Oates is an abused woman, but taking her back over her abusive past with Henry Oates I think made her aware that she was in the same old situation. She’s scared McAleese will kill her. If you offer her witness protection I think she’ll make a statement against him.’
‘I’ll get a car arranged to take you to the station.’
‘Thank you.’ Anna was slightly taken aback by his abruptness.
McBride cocked his head to one side and gave a small tight-lipped smile. ‘Thank you.’
As the train sped her back to London Anna once again sifted through the file on Rebekka Jordan. All the current employees at the stables had been questioned five years ago and all their names and addresses were listed. On top of these were the part-time workers and Saturday morning stable hands and trainees. Henry Oates’s name did not appear, but after her conversation with Eileen, she would now have to talk to the owners to take them back at least a year before Rebekka went missing. She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. She thought about Eileen Oates. She was a sad creature, like a wounded animal incapable of any self-esteem. She opened her eyes and made a note to check if they could trace any known associates of Oates from his boxing days as he might still have kept up with them.
Back in Hackney, Barbara and Joan had been busy compiling the statements gathered from people who had last seen Fidelis Julia Flynn. The flatmates had been able to give a clear picture of the evening she left, the last time they had seen her. She had given no indication that she was meeting anyone. Although all Fidelis’s landline and mobile phone calls had been checked at the time she was reported missing Mike had instructed Barbara to go over them again. Her flatmates had brought in their old BT telephone bill, which they had kept because Fidelis had made a number of calls and had not paid for them. These were all highlighted in pink and indicated that she kept in touch with her parents in Dublin on a regular basis. The other numbers were for a hairdressing salon, a local cinema and the garage where she had worked. A number that had been called on several occasions from her mobile had turned out to be to an unregistered pay-as-you-go phone, which to date had not been traced. Mr and Mrs Flynn had sent more photographs of their daughter, taken in Dublin shortly before she came to London. Barolli had looked through the suitcases and a zip-up bag which contained make-up, a sponge bag, clothes, shoes, handbags and a purse that had two twenty-pound notes in and some change. There was no diary, no notebook, and searching the pockets of the handbags he had found nothing but a couple of old crumpled receipts and a used lipstick.
Anna had fallen asleep on the train and woke with a jolt as her mobile rang. It was Langton, impatient to know if there were any developments from Glasgow, but her phone repeatedly cut out and so he suggested she came over to his flat straight from the station. As she had already told him that Oates might have worked at the stables and that this was basically the only new information, she was loath to see him because she knew he would grill her on every part of her interview with Eileen. She received two text messages from him, the first asking her to pick up some milk, bread and eggs and the second to also buy a bottle of vodka.
By the time the train arrived back at Euston it was early evening, so Anna bought the groceries from the first shop she saw in the station and caught a taxi to Maida Vale. She stopped in Floral Street not far from Warrington Crescent where Langton lived and from an off-licence bought him his vodka. After keeping her waiting on the doorstep for five minutes, Langton buzzed her in; when she reached the front door of the flat it was ajar. Someone had obviously cleared up as the main room was tidier than when she had been there previously. Placing the groceries and vodka in the kitchen, which was also clear of dirty dishes, she called out, asking if he wanted her to make a coffee or tea.
‘Just bring in the vodka and some ice,’ he called back.
Anna opened the fridge, which she was pleased to see contained some bacon, lettuce, a cooked chicken and what looked like a dish of fried rice. She found where the glasses were kept, filled one with ice and went into the bedroom. He was propped up on pillows with his leg stretched out on a square cushion from the sofa, and he was unshaven, wearing the same old dressing gown with a T-shirt beneath it and pyjama bottoms with one leg cut out for the plaster cast.
‘You having one?’
‘No. I only had a sandwich on the train so I won’t stay long as I’m tired out. I didn’t sleep on the way there. The sleeper is comfortable but the rhythm of the train kept on changing and-’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he interrupted, unscrewing the top from the bottle of vodka. ‘So take me through it all. What is she like, for starters?’
Anna drew up a chair and opened her briefcase to take out her notebook as she described Eileen. He listened without interruption, sipping his vodka with the ice clinking in his glass. She explained how the most important information came up, the stable connection, that Oates could have worked there and met Rebekka up to a year before she went missing, but she obviously had not had time to check it out. She added that she wanted to check out the boxing background to see if Henry Oates was still friends with anyone connected to the club, and that she had asked Joan to see if Oates had ever held a driving licence or owned a vehicle.