Silent Scream (47 page)

‘But she was very promiscuous, wasn’t she?’

‘She was her own person and she could do what she liked.’

Barolli took over. ‘You want to tell us about the night just before she was killed? You were hired to drive Colin O’Dell and Scott Myers, right?’

Lester nodded and whispered to his solicitor again. The latter established that his client did drive the two people mentioned, but for their sake, under client privilege, he did not wish to discuss it.

Barolli went in more strongly. As they had already interviewed both men, all they wanted was confirmation from Mr James that he did collect them from the mews house.

‘Yes, I picked them up. I dropped one at a taxi rank and the other at Heathrow.’

‘Clients’ so-called privilege doesn’t mean squat, does it, so please tell us about that evening.’

Lester straightened his massive shoulders.

‘They were both out of it, drugged up or drunk. I was worried they’d throw up in the back seat.’

It must have pissed him off, Barolli observed, having to listen to the two of them talk about their sexual antics with Amanda Delany.

Lester leaned forward and said clearly, ‘I’m just a driver, pal. What they talked about was no business of mine. See, hear, speak no evil – that’s the code.’

‘But for you, hearing about it must have really upset you.’

Lester sat back in his chair, the picture of self-control.

‘Like I just said, it was no business of mine what they got up to.’

Anna now went for it.

‘Come on, Lester, it must have really got to you because I think you felt a lot more for Amanda than just being her driver. I think, in fact, that you were obsessed by her. I also think that hearing them talking about her that way must have made you pig-sick.’

‘No.
What you’re trying to infer is bullshit.’

Barolli brought out the photographs of the karate weapons they had found in his flat and laid them out in front of Lester.

‘We found these weapons in your flat, Mr James. What have you got to say about them?’

‘You had no right to take them,’ Lester said steadily. ‘They’re for exhibitions, and I’m not going to be victimised because I own them. I use them in karate shows and you can’t make out anything against me for having them. I’ve even got videos of me using them at Crystal Palace.’

Anna moved the pictures around the table.

‘Amanda Delany was murdered by a weapon that was very possibly one of these types. She was stabbed repeatedly.’

She produced a photograph of Amanda taken at the mortuary, showing the stab wounds slashed across her naked body.

‘Somebody did this to her, Lester. Look at her. Whoever did this didn’t want to hurt her face. Look at the photographs, Mr James . . .’

Lester turned away as his solicitor drew the photograph towards him and glanced at it. He tapped Lester’s arm and yet again they had a whispered conversation.

‘My client denies that he had anything to do with this tragic event. I suggest that if you have any evidence that implicates Mr James, you make it a priority right now or I am advising my client to leave. You should have allowed me to view any photographs in my pre-interview disclosure. If my client is not under arrest, I will as from now warn him not to answer any further questions.’

Anna said quietly that they were not yet ready to end the interview and she asked Mr James to continue answering their questions.

‘I reckon I’ve answered all I need to. I’m not stupid and I know what you are trying to make me out to be, but you have got it wrong.’

‘We may have, so if you could just clear up a few more loose ends…’

Lester having admitted meeting Amanda’s flatmates, Anna asked again if he had known all three at some time or other. Lester became less anxious and agreed that he had met them several times, and had also been in their flat. Anna turned the pages in her file.

‘So you were aware that Dan Hutchins was a heroin addict?’

Lester nodded.

‘You were also, I suspect, aware that Amanda used cocaine and crack cocaine and speed, and often took amphetamines and Ecstasy.’

‘I knew. So what?’

‘As her driver, you must be able to give us the name of her supplier?’

‘No.’

‘Come on, we know you were scoring the drugs for her, Lester.’

His solicitor jumped up and again angrily accused them of not submitting disclosure of these allegations. Lester turned and gestured for him to sit down.

‘It’s all right. I never supplied nothing. It’s a lie.’

‘Is it?’ Anna persisted. ‘You supplemented your earnings by supplying drugs. You would do anything she wanted, wouldn’t you?’

‘No.’

‘How many times did you go into her mews house?’

‘I never went in, I was just her driver.’

‘We have your fingerprints, Lester; we know you were inside her mews. Why are you lying?’

‘Jesus Christ, I am being set up here because I never done the drugs for her and . . . maybe I went into the house once, like when she first moved in, but I was always just her driver.’

‘Did you have a key?’

‘What?’

‘To her house. Did you have a key, Mr James?’

‘No, like I keep on saying to you, I was just her driver. I picked her up and I dropped her back at her place. That was my job.’

Barolli glanced at Anna and she gave a small nod as he began picking up the photographs and replacing them into the file.

‘Can I go home now?’

‘Just a few more things, Mr James,’ Anna said softly.

Lester hung his head down as if he was tired.

‘Do you recall seeing a fluffy toy rabbit? It was Miss Delany’s favourite thing and she always went to sleep with it.’

Lester sighed. He wouldn’t have known what she slept with, he said, as he was just her driver.

‘Didn’t she take it with her at all? Are you saying you never saw this rabbit?’

‘No, I never saw nothing that she went to bed with. All I know is, she was an insomniac and would do anything to stave off going to sleep.’

‘So she talked about that, did she?’

‘Yeah. She also said she was scared of the dark. What people don’t know is that she was really very vulnerable and had a lot of pent-up anger, especially towards her parents.’

‘Did she ever tell you why she was angry with them?’

‘No.’

‘But she told you she was scared of the dark?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did you ever sleep with her?’

Again, Lester stared at Anna with an unflinching, cold look.

‘I was her driver, nothing more.’

‘Did you want more?’

‘She paid me for driving her.’

In the viewing room, Langton drummed his fingers on the table with impatience. They were getting nowhere. He turned to Mike.

‘He said he did competition displays for karate, the knife collection – mentioned a video. Did anyone bring it in?’

Mike shook his head.

‘I want to see it, and I want access to his bank accounts,’ Langton said.

‘What do you think?’ Mike Lewis asked quietly, gesturing at the monitor screen.

‘I’d say his brothers primed him, and unless we get something that’ll shift him, we’ve not got enough to hold him. In some ways he bloody jumped the gun by coming in of his own free will. I’d say we’re losing out with him.’

It felt like that to Anna and Barolli. They were now requesting that Lester bring in confirmation of his invoices for work driving on the film units, as well as his private hire. He became belligerent; a lot of his work was cash in hand and he didn’t have complete records. Barolli warned him they could inform the Inland Revenue. When Anna asked Lester for more details of how often he had met Amanda’s flatmates, he was adamant that he had only met them on a few occasions.

‘What about Jeannie Bale?’

‘What about her? I said I met them through Miss Delany, but I had nothing else to do with them.’

‘When was the last time you saw Miss Bale?’

‘I dunno. Weeks ago? Like I said, I only met them when I was driving for Miss Delany. I never saw them socially and, to be honest, I wouldn’t want to. The kid was a junkie and the other two were hangers-on.’

‘Are you aware that Dan Hutchins is dead?’ Anna asked.

Lester nodded. He had read it in the papers.

‘Felicity Turner is also dead. Did you know that?’

Again, he said that he had read about her in the newspaper.

‘But you were in Amsterdam, weren’t you?’

He paused for a fraction, then said that he read British newspapers over there, which is where he had seen the report.

‘We will need, Mr James, confirmation of when you left Amsterdam and returned to London.’

‘I bought me ticket and I dunno if I’ve got anything else to prove it. They don’t stamp passports any more.’

‘Where was your car while you were away?’

‘I left it in a mate’s garage.’

‘We’ll also need to know when you left your vehicle and when you collected it.’

Lester gave a name and address to his solicitor.

‘Why did you go to Amsterdam?’ Anna asked.

‘I got friends there.’

‘We’ll need their names and addresses.’

His solicitor made a note.

‘On what date did you return to London?’

He said that he had only just returned the previous day. As soon as he knew they wanted to speak to him, he had, as was obvious, come into the station.

‘And you claim you never saw a diary – Miss Delany’s diary? It had a pink cover.’

‘No, I never saw it.’

‘Take us through the time when you last drove Miss Delany to her flat in Maida Vale. She had an important meeting?’

Lester blinked as if trying to recall the day. Anna repeated the date and he eventually concurred that he had driven her to the flat and waited outside for about an hour and a half.

‘Did you see anyone enter the flat while she was there?’

‘Yeah, some bloke drove up in a Porsche and went in.’

‘Can you describe him?’

Lester gave a pretty good description of Josh Lyons, but could not recall if, when he left, he carried anything with him apart from the briefcase he went in with.

‘How did Miss Delany appear to you when she came out after the meeting?’

‘She was just like always. I drove her home, but she didn’t talk much as she was texting somebody on her BlackBerry.’

Anna passed a note to Barolli; they had numerous mentions of Amanda’s BlackBerry but still had not found one. They had already attempted to trace which phone company she used in the hope that they might be able to retrieve her account, which would list all her numbers, but so far had had no luck. Suddenly, Lester tapped the table.

‘I just remembered. She said to me that she’d lost it – the diary – maybe left it on the film set or in her trailer. Yeah, she asked me if I’d found it in the Merc – maybe she’d dropped it.’

At last there was just a glimmer of hope. They knew that Amanda had left her mobile phone on the film set because the extra had handed it into them.

‘So she asked you if you had found it in your car?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When exactly was this?’

‘Few days after that meeting you asked me about.’

‘When she was filming
Gaslight?’

‘Yeah, she asked me about it then.’

‘At the film unit.’

‘Yeah.’

Barolli jumped in fast. ‘But you told us that you weren’t one of the drivers connected to that specific film unit, so why were you there?’

They got just a small glint of hesitancy from Lester, but then he spread his hands wide.

‘I popped in for a free dinner to talk to me brothers.’

‘When was this?’

Again, there was just a slither of nerves and he cracked his knuckles.

‘Be the night before her murder, I reckon.’

‘Did you go into her trailer?’

He nodded and added that he looked over her trailer for her, just in case she’d dropped the diary somewhere and it was hidden under cushions.

‘Was she in there when you were doing this?’

‘No, she was called onto the film set.’

‘Leaving you alone in her trailer?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But you were just her driver; did you usually go into her trailer?’

He shifted his weight on the chair.

‘On the odd occasion. That time she was very agitated. She told me she’d had this nightmare the night before, heard a woman screaming. It had woken her up and she didn’t know whether or not it was an animal, but it had frightened her.’

‘This would be the night before she was murdered?’

He nodded. They waited but he kept silent. His solicitor looked at him and then back to Anna and Barolli.