Silent Scream (19 page)

Anna didn’t know why that encounter interested her so much. Was this the meeting Andrea Lesser had mentioned? Had something that Anna had inadvertently dropped into their conversation upset her? She might not have recognised the gentleman with Miss Lesser, but she had a strong suspicion that something was being covered up.

A
nna knew something was wrong when she returned to the station. The incident room was quiet apart from the telephones ringing incessantly. Everyone was working without the usual banter and chit chat. As she went into her office, she could see across the corridor Simon talking on his phone; DCI Mathews’s door was closed and the blinds were down.

Anna began to type up the report on her meeting with Andrea Lesser. Once again she decided that the information from Dilys Summers was not enough to warrant adding to the report. She was about to call Barbara in to check through the contacts book Andrea Lesser’s assistant had given her, then she hesitated, unsure as to how exactly she would go about finding out if another agent had approached Amanda Delany. There were hundreds of theatrical and film agents, but which of those listed would have the clout to even be considered by their victim to handle her career?

She placed a call into
Spotlight,
the theatrical information company, and asked if someone could give her details of who the top agents were. She was told that the fastest way to get that information would be to go online, as
Spotlight
now had an internet service, but she would be charged to use it. Anna was becoming impatient.

‘What if I were to list some famous actors – could you tell me who represents them, to save time?’

When the girl at the other end asked who she wished to know about, Anna was stuck. Never having been interested in either the theatre or film, she couldn’t really think of any names that would apply, apart from the three actors she had interviewed. She cut off the call. It had taken fifteen minutes to get no result and during that time she had seen a trolley with coffee and teapots, and plates of sandwiches, being wheeled into the incident room. Then came a request over the Tannoy for all personnel to gather in the incident room immediately. Anna watched Simon hurry out of his office, adjusting his tie.

The incident room was filling up with civilian staff and uniformed officers, as well as detectives.

‘Do you want to sit in the front?’ Joan asked, and Anna answered her with another question.

‘What’s going on?’

Before Joan could reply, Mathews’s office door opened and he stood aside. DCS James Langton walked out ahead of him. Anna flushed as she sat down; she’d known he would be making an appearance at some point, but wished she’d had advance warning. She gave him a covert glance as he walked to the front. He was tanned and he looked fit and more handsome than she had ever seen him look before. He was, as always, exceptionally well-dressed in an immaculate dark pinstriped suit, white shirt and dark navy, Met Police Murder Squad tie. There was a steely strength to him as he gave a slow, studied glance around the gathered officers. The room fell silent as everyone sat waiting expectantly.

‘For those of you who don’t know me, I am Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton. I have worked with a few of you previously.’ He gave a brief expressionless nod to Anna, Barbara and Joan, then turned towards the incident board.

‘We have confirmation that your victim is to be buried next Tuesday. We will require a show of the top level, and I want some plainclothes there as well, as I strongly believe that our killer will be present.’

He suggested they carry cameras as unobtrusively as possible, and had already arranged two CCTV cameras to cover all the mourners entering and exiting the church. No doubt the paparazzi would be there in full force. ‘One of the
Crime Night
specials has agreed to feature the case,’ he went on, ‘and hopefully that will be beneficial. I say hopefully, as to date we have virtually nothing. It appears to me that the investigation is slipshod and without much incentive or imagination. This is a front-page case, the victim a film actress, and yet there has been little or no forthcoming evidence. We need to have a focused direction and clear lines of enquiry.’

They sat, poker-faced, especially DCI Mathews who was over to one side. Langton continued in a quiet, controlled voice. They had no murder weapon and, more importantly, no viable suspect.

‘Right now, I want to go over with each member of the team exactly where they are in the enquiry. I want to start with those of you who have been assigned to check on CCTV footage. A CCTV camera must have been in operation in the vicinity of the victim’s mews. This is a smart luxury mews, with only one entrance and exit, via the archway leading into the courtyard. You have properties side by side to the value of three or four million, with even more expensive properties backing onto both sides of the mews.’

Anna kept her eyes down. It was unusual to criticise an investigation in front of the entire team; in this case, it publicly demeaned DCI Mathews. But then James Langton was never one to play by the rules. It was only a matter of time before he tore a strip off her and Simon.

The two officers who had been checking on the CCTV cameras were satisfied that they had been diligent. They had photographs of the mews entrance and there were clearly no cameras. They had made enquiries in and around the road beyond the mews and had been given only one camera position. They had checked the footage for the time of the murder, but had gleaned little apart from a list of the vehicles passing before and after the time of Amanda’s death. All the vehicle owners had been traced and none appeared to have any connection to the dead girl. Not one had driven into the mews and all of them, after being questioned, had a good reason for being in the location. Anna was watching Langton closely. She knew that hooded look of old; he appeared to be paying attention, often nodding in agreement, a notebook open in front of him. He glanced up when the officers finished their explanation.

‘What is the number of the victim’s house?’

‘Fourteen, sir.’

‘What are the numbers of the houses at the dead end of the courtyard?’

There was a blank glance between the officers.

‘OK, what is the number of the house that your victim’s garden backs onto?’

‘I’m not sure, sir,’ said one.

Langton nodded. He then described how a mews property would once have been part of the large house it backed onto, that at one time, all the houses in the mews would have been stables or garage facilities. Anna was wondering where he was going with this, when Langton gestured for Joan to bring him a large drawing board with a black marker pen. He drew a cul-de-sac, with eight houses on either side, and two houses at the end, blocking it off. The dwellings on the left were numbered 1 to 8, and on the right, 11 to 18, with numbers 9 and 10 knocked into one big property at the closed end of the mews. He then wrote the word MEWS at the top in thick letters. Each small mews house was connected, apart from number 16, which was detached.

Langton pointed to numbers nine and ten. ‘This double property at the end of the mews is valued at six million pounds, credit crunch or not.’ He loosened his tie. ‘Did anyone interview the occupants?’

‘No, sir. We were told that the owners were away on holiday in Antigua.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, sir, and—’

Langton held up his hand.

‘You also,’ he interrupted, ‘received the same response, “nobody at home”, from the house that backs onto your victim’s property – correct?’

‘Yes, sir, but their neighbour said they would be back at the end of this week. They didn’t have any security cameras.’

‘Bollocks, fucking rubbish! Are you trying to tell me that substantial properties like these do not have any kind of surveillance cameras? What kind of crap statement is that!’

‘We did make enquiries.’

‘Did you – either one of you – find out if there was a housekeeper in residence? Or if someone was checking the properties for the owners? Did you make that a priority? Didn’t you think to check whether or not the premises have a police registered response alarm? Think about it, think about the value of those houses. If the owners had any sense of security, they would have the police connection – which would mean they would have two nominated key-holders and must assign one if they are away. If you had checked this out, you might get access to the premises via the key-holder, to seize CCTV footage if there is any.’

‘We were intending to return when the owners came back.’

The young officer was red-faced. Langton picked up the black marker and drew the number 14 on Amanda’s house, then he took a red pen and made a huge cross and kept going over and over it until it almost obscured the entire block of number fourteen.

‘You have a young girl stabbed to death here and you are fucking waiting until these owners return home? Haven’t you heard of a telephone? Because I am telling you now that numbers nine and ten do, in fact, have very high-tech surveillance cameras. They have four in all; two are focused on the entrance of the mews, and a further two are actually on the rear sides of the property. They wanted to make sure they were bloody well-covered back and front, one of the reasons being . . .’

Again, he picked up the black marker pen and then drew over the small narrow path.

‘There is a gate from the property behind number sixteen; it’s been there since the houses were built in 1856. The people living in the main house also own the mews house and use it for their domestics to live in – very luxurious it may sound, but they are exceptionally wealthy people. This gate opens at the rear of their garden – it’s well-hidden with bushes – and the path runs from their back garden along to the back garden of their mews courtyard.’

He gave a cold glance around the incident room.

‘But it doesn’t stop there. It narrows and continues right out into the mews courtyard. This means it’s possible that someone used it that night and didn’t enter the main mews courtyard but climbed over the walls to get into the victim’s garden. If the gate is hidden by bushes it should be very easy to ascertain if there has been any recent disturbance.’

He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Check it out.’

Simon gestured to Langton.

‘There was no sign of a break-in either to the rear or the front of our victim’s house,’ he said.

Langton glared at him.

‘From memory I read that on the previous night, your victim was woken by a scream. Did she go and check her rear patio garden? Maybe if she did, she left the French windows open, didn’t lock them behind her, so that’s a possible entry. Have we any further details on this scream she heard? Any reports made about an attack or burglary?’

‘No, sir. All the doors and windows were checked when the body was discovered. We’re going on the assumption that Miss Delany knew her killer, who may have had a key to her front door. During the refurbishing there would have been a lot of people with access to her house.’

‘Really? Have you questioned all the builders and decorators then?’

‘Not as yet, we’re still tracing them all, but the designer has given us the details of everyone he worked with. He also had a key, which he returned to Miss Delany’s agent.’

‘Who made the keys?’

‘Pardon?’

Langton said impatiently, ‘When the victim moved in, I presume she had new locks fitted. Do we know how many keys were cut?’

‘No, we have no details of that.’

‘Check it out. Next!’ He turned to the board again, pointing. ‘No weapon. All we know is that it was a six-or seven-inch knife, double-bladed, non-serrated edges with some kind of a hilt, correct?’

He turned back to the room.

‘I want a fingertip search, better late than never, of that entire area of number sixteen. That’s the path, the gate, the garden.’

No one dared mention that there had been a very thorough search; it was starting to feel very uncomfortable in the incident room.

‘Motive,’ Langton snapped, and then looked at everyone. ‘Well? Anyone come up with anything tangible?’

There was an awkward silence as Langton started to pace up and down. A number of officers brought up the details regarding Amanda’s pregnancy and the abortion and he shook his head.

‘How many bloody years ago was that, for chrissakes? It doesn’t work for me, and I tell you what else doesn’t – the possibility that one of her former flatmates, knocked out of playing in a movie
eight
years ago, was still envious enough to want to commit a murder. None of this is to my mind relevant. It has to be something that belongs in the present – a crazed fan is a possibility – something happening right now that flips someone into a fury that results in . . . how many stab wounds?’

Anna made a note: to date they had not checked any of Amanda’s fanmail.

‘Listen up. The fact that we have a sick, anorexic girl, the fact that she was snorting cocaine and smoking crack cocaine are not motives – character knowledge, yes – but more important is how many of the famous movie stars she was fucking would also have a motive. Why? They’d already been trashed in the papers. This is a murder enquiry, it’s not a burglary that went wrong. Somebody wanted that girl dead, and somebody had to have a reason. Now we can look at some variations on that . . .’