Silent Scream (50 page)

They ploughed on. The diary made sickening reading, veering between childlike tittle-tattle about some of the actresses to lists of male stars with ticks beside them. Sometimes she had noted ten out of ten scores for their sexual prowess. The initials LJ featured constantly, picking her up, driving her home and then getting a blow job as thanks. It was relentless and sordid.

‘She was going down on every man she met!’ Barbara exclaimed.

Anna was getting a throbbing headache. She had the pages covering the last year of Amanda’s life, which were mostly filled with work commitments; the girl seemed to be focusing strongly on her career. There were enthusiastic entries describing the new house, and long entries about its furniture and fittings, then an entry about being interviewed about
Gaslight.

She wrote of her excitement at working with Rupert Mitchell, how she couldn’t wait to make his stuck-up bitch of a wife cry; she was going to fuck his brains out. There were a couple of abusive paragraphs about Fiona, Scott Myers’s wife, and then a long, badly-written section about Scott’s prowess in bed. There were some empty pages, no further references to LJ, then again figures of between two hundred to five hundred listed. Anna presumed it was drugs; sometimes there were initials beside them, but they were as haphazard as the writing. There was a reference to her agent and to money and then, underlined, the words
something is wrong.
Beneath that was a scrawled note about wanting a puppy.

Anna looked up. ‘I’m almost done and I don’t have any reference to LJ. Anyone got anything else?’

‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?’ Joan said. ‘I mean, she’s had more sex than I’ve had hot dinners. It’s almost every night! I wouldn’t have the energy, or to be honest the inclination. I mean, she seems to get her rocks off doing it in the back of the car.’

‘Does she say who’s driving?’ Anna queried.

‘No, but apparently Colin O’Dell has a very small dick!’

Barbara gave her a slap. ‘Joan! Wash your mouth out!’

‘I’m only telling you what I’m reading and, for your information, the most well-endowed is Scott Myers.’

Everyone turned as Langton walked in; he made a gesture of disbelief.

‘What the fuck is going on?’

Mike explained.

‘And it takes all of you to do it?’

‘It’s five years’ worth, Guv, and we’ve come across a lot that we can use.’

Langton looked furious. ‘Meanwhile, you’ve got that girl waiting around. She’s in with a solicitor, and I want her interviewed again as she might have vital information. Put pressure on her, put the fear of God into her, and tell her she’ll be charged with perverting the course of justice and add blackmail to that.’

Barolli stood up. ‘I’ll go. I’m nearly through.’

Langton nodded and then looked at Mike, demanding, ‘We got enough to arrest Lester James?’

‘We’ve got the initials LJ all over the diary. We can only assume it has to be him. He was lying about not having sex with her; it looks like it was an ongoing scene for years.’

‘We’re also pretty certain he was dealing drugs,’ Barbara added.

‘ “Pretty certain” isn’t fucking good enough. Anna, get in with Barolli and see if you can make it more than just “pretty certain”.’

Anna nodded, and she gathered sections of the diary, putting them into her briefcase with the notes. As she bent down, she felt a wave of nausea and had to sit back in her chair. Joan saw her face drain of colour and went to her side.

‘You all right?’

‘Yes, just got a bit dizzy.’

Langton slammed the door of Mike’s office shut with the heel of his shoe.

‘This is fuck-all use, Mike. I want a detailed report of what Lester James is doing. We have surveillance on our prime suspect that is costing. Have the guys called in?’

‘Yes, sir. He’s keeping quite a low profile, stays at home, goes to a gym early morning, then to a dojo in Marshall Street in the West End, but he’s not doing much driving or work that we know of.’

‘Let him see he’s being tailed. I want to put pressure on him now, and if you are getting material we can use from the diary, specifically the last few weeks before her murder…’

‘Travis is on that section.’

‘Terrific, and she’s in with Jeannie Bale.’ Langton sighed and yanked open the door. ‘Have you watched the video taken from Lester’s flat?’

Mike looked confused.

‘The film of his exhibition at Crystal Palace karate nights.’

Mike hesitated. ‘I’ll get onto it.’

‘No –
I’ll
do it, and then after that I’ll be in the viewing room. Pull your finger out, Mike, and start fucking leading this enquiry.’

Mike sat at his desk, deflated and tired, as was everyone else. He found Langton impossible to deal with at times. He came in like a whirlwind and cast aspersions left, right and centre, even though they were all working round the clock with no weekend leave on the cards. He looked at his watch; it was already 10.15. He hadn’t even had time to call home to tell his wife that he would be late yet again.

Langton banged out a chair after turning on the monitor; he looked up at the smoke alarm, wanting a cigarette, but knew it would go off if he lit up. Instead he opened a bottle of water and then leaned forward, concentrating on the DVD he’d inserted. He watched as Lester James took to the mat for an exhibition in martial arts weapons. Wearing a white Gi with a black belt, Lester bowed and, acknowledging his opponent, moved to the centre of the mat. The two man began a display of part karate and part self-defence, each with a new weapon which was described by the narrator. Lester held them up from a tray carried by a young boy at the side of the mat. The crowds cheered. Langton fast-forwarded; it was starting to get tedious. Then he straightened, pressed reverse and froze the frame. Lester was strapping on a bodyguard’s sheath knife and let it rest at his left side. His opponent attempted to attack him from the rear. Langton let the film wind on in slow motion as Lester did a fast half-turn, used his left arm to block, kicked the man’s legs from under him and unsheathed the knife in one fluid movement to lean over him with the knife held to his neck.

The knife he was using for the demonstration was a six-inch blade with a handle and bridge, virtually identical to the one described by forensics as the possible murder weapon.

Mike whipped round as Langton barked out his name. Langton thrust the DVD at him, his face set with anger.

‘Look at this – the section I’ve stopped the film at. Lester James is only fucking using a knife described by the pathologist and forensic as being the type of weapon used to kill Amanda Delany.’

Mike blinked. He flushed.

‘I want it found, and I want Lester James arrested for the murder of Amanda Delany. Tonight, Mike. Bring the son of a bitch in.’

J
eannie sat with her hands in her lap, head bowed. Anna went for her.

‘You have lied to me. You had to have had that diary in your possession when I was in your flat, interviewing you. Why did you lie?’

Jeannie mumbled that she didn’t know it was there until after Anna had left. Felicity had had it, she’d found it in Dan Hutchins’s room. Jeannie had taken it into her bedroom for safekeeping, and had had every intention of calling the station to say that she had found it.

‘Then why didn’t you?’

Jeannie tearfully explained that Mr Delany had phoned and she had told him.

‘He was very angry. He said to me that it was his property, right? He wanted it, and I had to give it to him.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘It was Felicity’s idea. She said that if he was so anxious to have it, then maybe he would give us some money for it. We were both broke and she was having trouble with Social Security ’cos she’d been unemployed for so long and she really needed money. I think she’d been cashing money that belonged to Dan – you know, his cheques kept on coming after he was dead and she got scared and so she thought up the idea of asking Mr Delany for some cash.’

There was a pause, and she scratched her arms and then started biting her nails.

‘But he didn’t get given the diary, did he?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Jeannie wriggled in her chair. Felicity had arranged to meet him and get the money, then he could pick the diary up from the flat. Jeannie was concerned that if Felicity got the cash, she’d go off and score drugs.

‘I went looking for her, with the diary. I called her and she said she was over at Waterloo Bridge, so I got a taxi to meet her.’

‘With the diary?’

‘Yeah. We did intend giving it to Mr Delany, honestly. It was just she was acting all crazy.’

‘So did she score?’

‘No. He wasn’t answering his phone and she didn’t know anyone else to call.’

‘Who did she get her drugs from?’

‘Mostly Amanda, but she was going through a detox programme, and she wasn’t bringing any gear around, especially not for Felicity ’cos she never paid her for the cocaine she’d got the last time.’

Barolli interrupted, saying Jeannie was talking as if Amanda was still alive.

‘We knew where she got them from,’ Jeannie said, ‘and after she died, we called him. I mean, I didn’t. Felicity did.’

‘Who did she call?’

‘Amanda’s contact – her driver Lester James – but he wasn’t around.’

‘So then what did you do?’

‘Well, Felicity got this idea about holding onto the diary to get more money out of Mr Delany. She even came up with the idea of contacting the publisher who come round to meet Amanda, and as she’d said her story was worth a lot, Felicity reckoned we’d get a big pay-off.’

It was obvious that Jeannie was placing all the blame on Felicity, who Anna considered too stoned to have an idea in her head. It was lie upon lie. Anna was certain that it was Jeannie manipulating the entire scenario with Mr Delany and Josh Lyons.

‘Go on. After you met Felicity at Waterloo, what happened?’

Jeannie was biting her nails down to the quick; two pink spots had appeared on her cheeks.

‘It was a sunny day, right, and we were by the pleasure boats, and Felicity’d bought a bottle of cider, so she decided we’d go for a trip up the river. I didn’t want to go as she was getting drunk and she could get real nasty. I gave her a few hundred and said we’d try getting some coke for her later when she got home, and so she got a ticket and went on the boat.’

‘So when did you decide to pack up and leave your flat?’

‘When I read about Felicity in the papers. It scared me, I sort of blamed myself, you know. I shouldn’t have let her go on the boat by herself as she was well on the way to getting pissed, and she could get into real fights with people. She was a nice girl, but when she was drunk she was a right fucking cow.’

Anna tapped her notebook.

‘Doesn’t work, Jeannie. You see, Felicity’s death was not in the press until three days after she died. You had already left your flat. We paid a visit there with your landlord. Why don’t you stop spinning a pack of lies and start telling us the truth. You were on that boat, weren’t you? Do you think we haven’t made any enquiries, haven’t talked to witnesses?’

Anna was spinning her own lies now, and Jeannie was shaking with nerves.

‘Did you push her into the river? You think we are going to believe that she would just go off with a few hundred pounds when you were given five thousand for the diary, which you never had any intention of giving to Mr Delany,
did you?’

Jeannie started to cry.

‘You keep putting all the blame for everything you have done on a dead girl, but it’s not going to wash with us. We know you tried to sell the diary to the publishers, we know you’ve been running around with it, and if, as you say, you only knew about Felicity’s death from the newspapers, then you must also have known that we wanted to talk to you.’

‘I never. I told you the truth, I swear before God.’

Langton, watching the interview, loosened his tie. He liked the way Anna was goading her. Suddenly the solicitor intervened.

‘My client denies having any responsibility for the death of Miss Felicity Turner. She was never with her on the boat and, as she has explained, she read about her demise in the press.’

‘That’s right, I’m telling you the truth.’ Jeannie nodded her head.

‘Your friend was drowned, but from blood tests we know she had injected a substantial amount of heroin. Where did that come from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you can understand our confusion with your statement?’

‘Maybe she got some of Dan’s gear; he died of an overdose, and he used to keep a stash hidden in the fireplace. She could have found it, you know, probably needed something to give her confidence to meet with Mr Delany. And I tell you something, we didn’t mind ripping him off because we knew Amanda hated him. He’d molested her when she was a kid, and her grandfather, they’d both abused her so what we did was for her really.’

‘That’s enough crap, Jeannie. I think
you
were the one to find the drugs,
you
took them to Felicity, and that was the only way she would part with the five thousand pounds. You have been sitting here lying to us.’