Silent Scream (35 page)

Anna left the interview room and went to her office. Her headache had returned with a vengeance and she was feeling queasy. She still had to meet Mike to tell him about her afternoon enquiries, but felt so ill that she decided to write him a note and take a taxi home. As she began writing, she dropped her pen and, bending down to retrieve it, she was violently sick. Barbara, suspecting whiplash after the prang in her car, called an ambulance and accompanied Anna to the nearest Out Patients hospital.

It was a long wait, the pain so excruciating that Anna wanted to weep, desiring nothing more than to go home to bed. Only after she had been X-rayed and prescribed painkillers did Barbara put her in a taxi, wearing a plastic collar round her sore neck. It was indeed a case of whiplash and the doctor suggested she take a couple of days to rest.

It felt so calm and peaceful to be in her own bed with its crisp, newly-laundered sheets, the fresh smell so unlike the hideous basement flat she’d been in all afternoon. Anna had a shower, put the plastic collar back around her neck and took two painkillers. Then she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Langton gave Mike and Barolli a long grilling. Offering congratulations on the development, he went on to say that he did not believe they had their murderer in custody. He hoped Anna would be back at work as soon as possible, was his parting shot to Mike. Yet again, she had proved her ability in the interrogation.

Mike snapped at Barolli when Langton was gone.

‘She fucking did it again. Where the fuck did she get all that, about phone calls to that Lesser bitch? I am getting sick and tired of being made to look like a fucking prat. She’s constantly working this case on her own.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Barolli complained.

Mike jabbed the air with his finger.

‘I tell you, I’m gonna put this in a report. Langton thinks the sun shines out of her arse, well, she’s gonna trip herself up and I’m gonna be right behind her, giving a push.’

T
he next morning, Anna felt terrible. The pain in her neck had shifted further down her back and every limb in her body ached. She felt dizzy just getting out of bed. With the neckbrace in place and a hot water bottle strapped to her back, she cooked some eggs and bacon and made a coffee. She knew she should call into the station at eight; it was still not seven. She was anxious about the lecture she knew she would be in for from Mike Lewis when she went back to work. At no time did she even contemplate how she had steered the interrogation of Andrea Lesser to get her to admit the fraud. In fact, she didn’t really have a clear memory of anything she had said.

Back in bed she dozed off for a while, then on waking burst into tears. She couldn’t stop crying; whether or not it was the aftermath of the past evening, she felt utterly at a loss. Before she had a chance to call the station, Barbara rang to say she mustn’t even think about coming into work. Anna had no sooner put the phone back when it rang again. It was Langton. She felt a twinge of pain as she sat up. He asked how she was, praised her efforts on the previous evening and gave her the number of a good chiropractor. She thanked him, on the brink of tears again.

‘You all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, call this guy, he’s special – and get back to work when you feel you can. You can have seven days’ uncertified sickness before you need a doctor’s note.’

‘I will.’ Anna wrote down the number on the pad on her bedside table.

‘If you need anything, just call the station.’

‘Thank you.’

He hung up and she rested back, closing her eyes. She must have fallen asleep because it was after midday when she woke. She eased herself out of bed, feeling less achy. After lunch she took two more painkillers, beginning to feel more like herself.

She called the station to ask Joan about the unit driver Tony James. Joan confirmed that she had run the check and there was no police record. ‘Barolli was also mentioning him,’ she told Anna.

‘Really? What did he say?’

‘He wanted to know why you were asking about him, I think.’

Anna was fazed, wondering how Barolli had got onto the unit driver. She had her suspicions.

‘My brother had his neck in a brace for weeks. Didn’t do any good; in the end he threw it away,’ Joan chattered on.

‘Well, I’m still wearing mine.’

‘What you need is a good massage.’

‘I’ll think about it. Thanks, Joan.’

‘That’s OK. We’re trying to get the smell of sick out of your office. You know you threw up all over your carpet.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Just call if you need anything. Bye now.’

Anna lay staring into space, then leaned over to look at the number of Dr Berry, the chiropractor Langton had suggested. She phoned and got through to Berry’s receptionist, who asked who had made the recommendation. When Anna gave Langton’s name, there was a soft laugh.

‘Is it urgent?’ the woman asked.

‘Sort of. I think I have whiplash.’

She booked Anna in for a late session at 6 p.m.; the address was a private clinic on Marylebone High Street. That done, Anna went into the lounge to go through the thick files piled up at the table. In one was a list of the film crew she and Simon had interviewed. Beside each name and job description was a tick. Anna looked down the list. The actors she was familiar with as they had both interviewed them, so she paid more attention to the rest of the crew whom Simon had questioned. There were over fifty names, ranging from executive producers and script editors to floor-runners and gaffers. None of them, according to Simon’s notes, could be linked to Amanda Delany’s murder.

On the last page was a list of drivers: the extras van driver, the costume and make-up drivers and the grip-truck driver. Lastly, underlined by Simon, were four unit drivers, their names and addresses listed. Two were the brothers they had met on set: Harry James, the unit driver allocated to Amanda Delany, and his younger brother Tony who, Simon had noted, covered for his brother when required. The third was a guy called Bruce Mason. What surprised Anna was the name of the fourth and last standby driver: Lester James. In brackets Simon had written
(another brother).
Anna had not heard his name mentioned before; she had no idea if he was connected to any of the other films.

She checked Lester James’s address and phone number, and eased herself onto her feet to use the telephone. First she rang Bruce Mason, who answered almost immediately.

She hadn’t quite worked out what she was going to ask him.

‘Mr Mason?’

‘Speaking.’

‘I hope you don’t mind me calling, but I am part of the police team investigating the death of Amanda Delany and I wondered if I could ask you a few questions?’

‘I’ve got a POB right now. Gimme your number and I’ll call you back.’

‘Thank you.’ She replaced the receiver, wondering if POB meant passenger on board. Either way she’d wait. She called Joan.

‘I need a favour. Run three names through the Police National Computer for me, would you? And, Joan, just keep it quiet for the time being, eh?’

‘Whatever.’

Anna, having been given a ‘no previous record’ for Anthony James, supplied the names of Harry and Lester James, and Bruce Mason, and then hung up.

It was over two hours before Anna heard back from Bruce Mason. In the interim she had arranged for her car to be fixed and called her insurance company to learn that the van driver had contacted them: apparently on closer inspection, he
had
found damage to his exhaust and rear bumper. The damage to her own car was going to cost, at a low estimate, two thousand pounds – plus she would lose her No Claim bonus.

When her mobile phone rang, she snatched it up. ‘Yes?’

‘Bruce Mason. You called earlier.’

‘Ah yes, I did. I wanted to clarify exactly what a unit driver’s job is.’

‘It’s a bit bloody obvious, isn’t it?’

‘Pardon?’ Anna was taken aback by his rudeness.

‘A unit driver is hired by the film company to chauffeur their actors around. Is this some kind of joke?’

‘No, it isn’t, Mr Mason. We can have this discussion now or, if you would prefer, you could come into the station to assist our enquiries.’

‘Tell me who you are again,’ he said.

‘Detective Inspector Anna Travis of the Metropolitan Police.’

‘You having me on?’

Anna sighed with impatience.

‘I’d like to see who I’m talking to; this sounds a bit unethical to me,’ Mason continued.

Anna arranged to meet him at 5 p.m. in a café close to the chiropractor’s surgery on Marylebone High Street.

Sitting outside the café, the plastic collar round her neck, Anna realised that she had no idea what Bruce Mason looked like. Then she saw a Mercedes park up just outside the café, and the driver got out, and looked around. She signalled to him.

‘You the Detective?’ Mason asked, as he joined her.

‘Yes.’

He fed the parking meter, sat down opposite and smiled. ‘What’s with the collar?’

‘Whiplash.’

‘Oh yeah? High-speed chase in a patrol car, was it?’

When Anna showed him her ID, he loosened his coat and seemed to accept her as bona fide.

Mason was heavy set, broad-shouldered, with thinning hair, good-looking in a rugged sort of way. He was also smartly dressed; beneath his coat he wore a suit and tie. His fingers were thick and stubby and he sported a heavy gold wedding ring.

Anna chose her words carefully to make him feel at ease, to draw him out. Mason explained that the unit drivers belonged to a company and were hired out by the film units to be on call for whichever actor they had been assigned to.

‘We pick them up, take them to locations or the film set, and drive them home when they’ve wrapped for the day.’

‘So is all your work through the company?’

‘Not always. When it’s quiet we do some private clients – bodyguards, you name it. I did Madonna last year, was part of her entourage. It’s about supply and demand. If the stars get to like you they’ll use you as personal chauffeurs. When the film industry is quiet, which it has been of late, we get what work we can.’

‘Tell me about the James brothers.’

‘The James brothers?’ Mason gave a shrug of his wide shoulders.

They were quite a formidable team, he said, often taking the cream of jobs. The eldest brother Harry had money in the company, so it was always first come first served for them. They were a team you didn’t want to mess with, but they always saw to it that he did all right. Although he was on the drivers’ unit, he didn’t get to drive the top stars – the brothers always took them. If one or other of the brothers couldn’t make it, they would bring in someone like himself.

‘Amanda Delany was a top star. Did you drive her?’

‘No, the brothers always handled her and did work for her when she was not attached to a film.’

‘Which one of them drove her most frequently?’

He shrugged, unable to say. He insisted that they were a highly professional team, who knew their place. Anna asked if he could tell her some stories about Amanda. At first Mason hesitated, then gave a few instances of occasions she had had to be carried out of certain clubs, how the drivers often had to go to various hotels to collect her for filming. She was a naughty girl and had even had sex in the back of the cars.

‘But you never drove her?’

‘No, like I said, the brothers were around her, very protective of her, especially the youngest, Lester. He’d known her for years ever since she did her first movie so she trusted him, and there were times when he had to fight off the paparazzi. But he could handle himself.’

‘What do you mean, handle himself?’

‘Lester was a British karate champion. Nobody messed with the kid, but he was quite a handful and I often heard his brothers havin’ a bit of a fit over what he’d got himself into.’ Bruce held up his own big hand. ‘With someone who had as high a ranking as Lester, his hands were classified as lethal weapons, at least in the States.’

‘And you know for sure that Lester drove Amanda Delany?’

‘Yeah, often.’

‘What about on
Gaslight?’

Mason shook his head. As far as he knew, Lester wasn’t on that movie, just Tony and Harry. He himself had been brought in for a couple of days towards the end of the shoot.

‘After Miss Delany’s death?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. It was a bit of a downer, you know. Everyone felt that maybe they should have closed the film, but that’s money.’

Anna checked the time. It was almost six, time for her appointment, so she would have to leave. As she walked Mason to his car, she asked if he knew if Lester could have worked on
Gaslight
without him knowing. It was possible, Mason responded; the director was a wanker and often didn’t keep to the schedule, which was always a nightmare for the drivers.

‘Why you so interested in Lester?’ he concluded.

‘We’ve interviewed everyone but him who worked on the film.’