Silent Scream (24 page)

‘Andrew Smith-Barker.’

‘Do you have a contact number or an address?’

Jennifer Hudson peered over her thick-rimmed glasses and shook her head.

‘Sorry, no. Andrea Lesser would, of course. I’ve seen her with him at a few social functions.’

Headed back to the car park, Anna put in a call to the incident room and asked Barbara to track down Andrew Smith-Barker. She was stuck in a traffic jam in Regents Street on her way back to the station when her mobile rang.

‘Hi, Anna, it’s Pete.’

She put him onto speaker.

‘It’s not much, but something’s been bothering me and it might mean going back to the pathologist to double-check.’

‘I’m all ears,’ Anna said, inching forwards. Whichever way she looked, the traffic was solid.

‘When I was at Amanda Delany’s place – and I got the call-out early – Scene of Crime Officers were already working and she had been certified as dead, but the body was still
in situ
until I’d completed my scene examination.’

‘Yes?’ Anna was impatient to hear what he had to say.

‘Well, I recall the bedroom was small, the whole place was not very spacious, and with so many people coming and going …’

‘Yes? Come on, Pete, don’t keep me in suspense any longer. What is it?’

‘It was quite a cold day for summer and had been a chilly night, as I recall. Lots of people have been putting the heating on, haven’t they, and Amanda obviously did too. Judy, my assistant, remembered one of the officers saying they had been sweating, as the central heating system had been turned up very high when they arrived. So someone, and I don’t know who, had turned it off. As it was, it was still very stuffy and we had to open a window to get some air into the place. I think the Crime Scene Manager at the time of the examination gave the wrong temperature.’

‘Sorry, I don’t understand where you’re going with this.’ Anna eased the car another few feet forward.

‘Time of death. If the heating had been on full blast when she was killed, this would have advanced decomposition; rigor mortis had already come and gone. It would mean, Anna, that the timeframe for her murder was possibly a few hours earlier than has been estimated. I’ve had a chat to the pathologist and he agrees.’

‘OK, I’ll look into it, but I know the central-heating timer and thermostat would have been checked.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m sure. Anyways, apart from that, I’m sorry to say we’ve come up with nothing that I think can help your case. We’re still enhancing and examining the fingerprints from the house, but as I told you, it was remarkably devoid of prints as she had only just moved in. I’ve sent what matches we have from the voluntary prints taken and brought to us. None, by the way, matched any criminal ones on our database, but we’re still checking.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You free for dinner at all?’

‘Not for a while, Pete. We’re working round the clock on this one, but as soon as I do have some free time, I’ll call you.’

‘OK, nice talking to you.’

No sooner had Anna cut off the call from Pete than her mobile rang again. This time it was Barbara. She had traced the Knightsbridge address and phone number of Andrew Smith-Barker, and Anna decided she would make an unscheduled call on him.

‘Good morning.’

Anna, sitting waiting in the reception area of Andrew Smith-Barker’s offices, stood up.

‘Please come into my office. It’s Detective Travis, correct?’

‘Yes.’ She picked up her briefcase and followed him, surprised that he appeared to be so handsome, more so than when she had first seen him through her car window with Andrea Lesser. He was tall, at least six feet three, and was wearing an immaculately tailored suit. His thick hair was cut short and flecked with grey, and he had dark brown eyes in an angular face with a slight hooked nose. She could smell Cuban cigars and subtle cologne, like magnolia flowers.

Andrew Smith-Barker’s office was spacious and elegantly furnished, dominated by a carved oak desk. The walls were lined with files and books and a couple of oil paintings. Nothing was out of place, not a loose paper to be seen.

Smith-Barker gestured for Anna to sit in a comfortable leather chair opposite himself as he went behind his desk. He had, she noticed, manicured hands with short-cut nails and a heavy gold ring on the little finger of his left hand.

‘How can I be of help? My assistant tells me you want to ask me some questions.’

She cleared her throat. ‘I’m making enquiries into the death of Amanda Delany,’ she said, showing him her ID. ‘Was she a client?’

He stared at her and then leaned back. ‘How is this connected to her death?’

‘We are looking into all Miss Delany’s affairs, both business and private, to build up a background that might assist our investigation. I believe you know her agent, Miss Andrea Lesser?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘So, Mr Smith-Barker, could you tell me if you handled any investments for Miss Delany? I believe that is what your company does.’

‘I am an investment consultant; I work here in my offices and in the City for part of the week.’

‘Was Miss Delany a client?’ Anna asked again.

‘Whether or not she was, I don’t think I am prepared to divulge any details regarding my business transactions with Miss Delany’. He gave a slow intake of breath. ‘I can’t see how my connection to Miss Lesser or Miss Delany can give you any assistance in your enquiry.’

‘That, sir, is for me to decide.’

‘Really? Any business transaction my company deals with is private and confidential and I have to have written permission from Miss Delany’s beneficiaries, or Miss Delany’s executor, to discuss her affairs. I’ll obviously be contacted by an administrator if there is no will and, as I am sure you are aware, they will be appointed by the court to enable them to deal with a deceased person’s estate.’

‘So you do admit that you handled Miss Delany’s investments?’

‘I admit that I have in the past dealt with some investments for Miss Delany, but to give you access to them would require, as I have said, permission – and you would need a court order to view the accounts.’

‘Did Miss Delany lose any money?’

‘I’m afraid I will not discuss my business dealings with you.’

Anna couldn’t budge him; she had rarely come across someone so intransigent and with such a confident manner.

‘Did you have an interaction with Miss Delany on a personal level?’

‘My relationship with Miss Delany was purely business. I did not socialise with her, if that is what you are asking.’

‘Did you ever visit her mews house?’

‘No, I did not.’

At this point, Smith-Barker stood up as if to indicate that the meeting was over, and Anna had no option but to leave. As a parting shot she said, very quietly, that perhaps she would return with a warrant for him to surrender the records of his financial dealings with Miss Delany. He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders; if that was necessary, so be it.

‘Do you know who Miss Delany’s beneficiaries are?’ Anna asked him.

‘No, I do not. I am waiting for confirmation from her solicitors.’

‘Does that mean you are holding some of her money?’

‘I suggest you return with a warrant, then you will no doubt be privy to all my records and documents concerning Amanda Delany’s accounts.’

Anna was irritated. She hadn’t handled the interview well and she knew it. That said, she was unsure what else she could have done under the circumstances. She would put it to the team that they get a search warrant to force the obdurate Mr Smith-Barker into giving further details, since the gut feeling she had had on first seeing this man with Andrea Lesser had returned – and it told her that something wasn’t right, or even legal.

By the time Anna arrived at the station, Mike Lewis was starting a briefing. He gave her a cool glance and looked pointedly at his watch. Anna took a seat at the back of the incident room to listen to all the updated information.

The interim post-mortem report on Amanda’s old flatmate, Dan Hutchins, concluded that his death was indeed caused by an overdose of heroin. He had very high levels of alcohol in his urine, as well as 153 grams of morphine in every litre of blood, consistent with heroin overdose. He was also severely underweight. The hypodermic needle and tinfoil wrap of heroin discovered beside the body had only his fingerprints on them.

Mike went on to report that a second and extensive fingertip search of the small lane between the mews properties where Amanda Delany had lived and the surrounding gardens had yielded nothing that could be connected to their case. The home-owners from the end double mews property had been contacted and would be producing their security footage for the team to review. None of the residents of the mews who had been questioned again had any new information. Mike then gestured to the incident board and to the photograph of the gold crucifix.

‘We now know that there were, in fact, two of these crucifixes used on the film,
The Mansion.
The costume designer has verified that the one discovered in Amanda’s house was one of them. She believes Amanda had taken it, but we are still trying to locate the second cross.’

Then it was Barbara’s turn. The work she and Joan had been doing in cross-referencing employees on Amanda Delany’s films was still ongoing; checking out the crews and stars from the various production offices was taking considerable and painstaking time. However, they had a list of numerous members of the crew from
Gaslight
who had worked with Amanda on earlier films, including unit drivers, make-up and wardrobe personnel and two props men. Anna paid close attention to the list of names and was so intent on writing them down that she only suddenly became aware that the room was silent and all eyes were on her.

‘Detective Inspector Travis, you’ve been gone all day. Want to fill us in?’ Mike Lewis was asking.

‘Yes, yes, I do.’ She went to the front and stood beside the incident board.

‘The people who worked with Amanda and who I’ve already interviewed need to be questioned again,’ she began. ‘We really need to underline as fast as possible anyone listed as being involved in the murder. I’m sorry, Barbara, but I want us to go further back, to her earlier filmwork. The dates when she was pregnant fall between two of them, and it could be that she became pregnant by someone she was working with.’

Anna paused as she opened her notebook.

‘That it?’ Mike grunted.

‘No, not by a long shot. Today, I got confirmation that Golden Arrow Publishers were commissioning Amanda Delany to write her autobiography.’

Anna raised a quiet gasp when she disclosed how much the deal would have been worth. She had barely let that information settle before she raised her meeting with Andrew Smith-Barker.

‘It is imperative that we get access to Andrea Lesser’s accounts. If we need a search warrant court order, we should use it to determine whether this so-called City Investor has lost our victim’s money or even been involved in some kind of fraud. He was far too defensive, and I smell a rat. If this proves to be correct, then it is yet another motive.’

‘Did he strike you as the kind of man who would go to such lengths?’ Mike asked.

‘No, he didn’t. But we need to know his circumstances, and whether he is desperate. If he really is, then he could have hired someone to commit the murder. It’s been done before.’

‘Come on. There were too many knife-wounds for a contract killing.’

Anna turned on Barolli. ‘Unless it was made to look like a frenzied attack committed out of anger. We’ve all certainly been going down that route! And if you would just let me finish!’

As Barolli sat back down again, he gave a raised eyebrow to Barbara, who sniggered.

‘A frenzied attack by someone with a front-door key because there were no signs of a break-in,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘Andrew Smith-Barker is a close friend of Andrea Lesser,’ Anna retorted. ‘She could have given him the key – all right?
All right?

‘Yes, it’s possible.’ He lifted his hands up in a gesture of defeat.

‘Thank you. And I’m not through yet.’

Tension was building in the room.

‘I could be on the wrong track with the investment scenario,’ Anna admitted, ‘but I’m simply running everything by you that I’ve been working on today. Next, I believe that Amanda Delany kept a diary, and not for jotting down her pick-up times for film schedules, as we found those on the wall calendar in her kitchen. This is a five-year diary – a pink one with a lock. She told the publisher that she wrote in it every day; she even showed it to him.’

Finally Anna had Mike Lewis’s attention.

‘So three things are missing: a soft toy, the other gold chain and crucifix and, most importantly, Amanda’s diary. We get a search warrant to look over the flat in Maida Vale that she shared. . . which is where she was interviewed by the publisher. If it isn’t hidden there, it could mean the killer took it.’

Anna gestured to Joan to get her some water from the cooler and turned over the next page in her notebook.

‘I’m not a qualified profiler, but I have done some of their courses. What I think is being thrown up here is that whoever killed Amanda took the diary – which would mean they knew about the book deal. According to the publisher, Amanda was insistent on keeping it very quiet; she even refused to discuss it with her agent, so whoever knew about it had to be someone close to her. Secondly, why take a cuddly toy? It could mean that the killer wanted some kind of a token, a keepsake that he or she knew Amanda cared about. Again, it would mean that they knew her well, which excludes hiring some hitman to kill her.’