Silent Scream

by Lynda La Plante

  Having had a good night’s sleep, helped by a sleeping tablet, Anna was determined to use her one day off to get herself more organised. She knew she had been lacking her usual energy and was annoyed with herself for asking Joan to do work checking out publishers and theatrical agents that if she’d been on form she’d have done herself. She had to start making more of an impression; come Monday she would be more confident, especially as Langton was now overseeing the case. Simon’s transfer, although she had not really got along with him, had unnerved her. As always, her loss of her confidence was because of Langton, and she grew more determined to prove her position within the team.

  After breakfast Anna sat reading the Sunday newspapers. In every one there were articles about Amanda Delany, photographs and gossip columns rehashing her past indiscretions, and interviews from so-called close friends who were heartbroken by the tragic murder. One paper bore the headline POLICE NO NEARER TO ARREST FOR MOVIE STAR’S BRUTAL MURDER and there were other snide comments. She came across a lengthy interview with Julian Pike, the director of Gaslight. Expressing his shock and sadness, he described Amanda as a consummate actress of massive talent that was proven by her brilliant performance in his film. While he hoped the police would eventually discover the killer, he could think of no one who had held a grudge against Amanda; she was a true inspiration for young girls, and he hoped Gaslight would garner her many posthumous awards.

  By late afternoon, Anna was feeling at a loose end. It was just after six when she drove to the station to collect more DVDs of Amanda’s films to take home to watch that evening. She was surprised to see so many cars in the car park; with it being Sunday, there would surely be only part of the team working.

  When Anna walked into the incident room, she found it a hive of activity. No one really paid her any attention as they stood grouped around the incident board listening to Mike Lewis. Catching Joan’s eye, Anna gestured for her to join her in her office.

  ‘How come everyone’s in today?’ she wanted to know.

  Joan raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Sunday leave was cancelled.’

  ‘Nobody told me.’

  ‘It was on the board. I had to cancel my family lunch. I’d got all the food in as well.’

  ‘Did it come from Mike Lewis?’

  ‘Yeah. Barbara had a hissy fit as she was supposed to take her kids to a football match.’

  ‘Did something come up?’

  ‘No, I think that’s why we’re all here. They were wondering where you were, but it’s a bit late now as we’re packing it in at six-thirty.’

  ‘Really … Would you ask Barolli if he has a minute as I’d like to see him and I’d also like the DVDs of The Mansion and The Heiress. I’ve brought back the two I watched.’

  Anna was tightlipped as she passed over the boxes. Joan glanced at them.

  ‘Sort of unexpected, wasn’t it – you know, that she was such a good actress. But then considering what they were paying her …’

  ‘Do we have the figures?’

  ‘Yes, Mike Lewis had Miss Lesser here this morning. Not a happy woman, but she brought in copies of contracts so we’ve been—’

  Just then, Barbara passed the open office door, saying, ‘I’m going home. We’re calling it quits for tonight.’ Anna then heard her mutter under her breath, ‘All right for some,’ with a glance towards her.

  Anna was infuriated. Joan left, and she folded her arms waiting for Barolli, her foot tapping with annoyance.

  ‘Where were you this morning?’ he said, the moment he walked in.

  ‘I was at home, and if I had been aware that weekend leave had been cancelled, I would have been here.’

  ‘We called you.’

  ‘I might have been at the laundry.’

  ‘Well, it was on the board.’

  Anna stood up. ‘I don’t give a shit!’ she said angrily. ‘It would have been manners if you had spoken to me about it. I also resent the way you’re behaving towards me. Twice you’ve been less than respectful. Perhaps you forget that I’m a rank above you, and as such I want to be made aware of any team reports.’

  ‘Excuse me for living,’ Barolli retorted sarcastically.

  ‘No, I don’t excuse you, Tony. Now be kind enough to give me details of what has been taking place today.’

  ‘I was just going home.’

  ‘I’ll be in the incident room in five minutes.’

  She stared hard at him and he hovered.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry if I’ve appeared disrespectful to you in any way – there was never any intention of that. But you know, coming in on the case this late, we’ve had a lot of catching up to do, and with Langton on our shoulders, I’ve been run ragged.’

  ‘Five minutes.’

  Anna took a couple of deep breaths. She was shaking as he left her office; she had never dressed down an officer before. Joan returned with the DVDs, buttoning up her coat.

  ‘See you in the morning,’ she said, eager to be gone.

  ‘Whose idea was it to bring in Andrea Lesser?’ Anna asked Barolli when she joined him in the incident room.

  ‘Langton’s, and she didn’t like it. We didn’t bring her in here, but had a meeting with her in one of the interview rooms. He’s also arranged for the accountant to be brought in first thing tomorrow morning as he wants to know how much dosh Amanda had earned.’

  ‘Was Langton here?’

  ‘Yes, left just before lunch.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’d like an update.’

  Barolli sighed. She could tell he was annoyed but she held her ground. He fetched a file and sat on the edge of one of the desks.

  ‘Lesser was very unpleasant to start off with, bleating on about how it was all highly confidential and she didn’t understand why we were interested as she couldn’t see that there was any connection between what her client had earned and her murder.’

  He laughed.

  ‘You should have seen old Langton working her over. Eventually she was helpful and we were all taken aback at how much her little star was worth. But what surfaced was that there is no way Lesser or anyone from any theatrical agency would have wanted anything to do with Amanda’s death. There were so many offers on the table, and a Hollywood studio after her that Lesser said could lift Amanda Delany’s fees into around twelve million a film. It’s a lot of money and, to be honest, I can’t see it.’

  ‘Can’t see what?’

  ‘How that anorexic little tart was worth it.’

  ‘Have you watched any of her films?’

  ‘Not had the time,’ he said pointedly.

  ‘Maybe you should. She was very talented.’

  Barolli shrugged and passed the file to Anna.

  ‘It’s all there. It’s confidential, of course, but Joan reckons a lot of it was in the press anyway, so that could also open up a motive.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘You get some dickhead reading about how much the victim was worth and that’s an incentive for Christ knows what.’

  ‘Blackmail?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘What about fraud?’ Anna said. ‘We’ll need to see the accountant to make sure there haven’t been any underhand dealings.’

  ‘By whom?’

  Anna sighed. She was determined to make the overconfident Barolli take a step down.

  ‘Possibly her agent. There was quite a scandal a few years ago about a theatrical agent not paying their client their full wages. Sometimes the movie stars get to earn so much they don’t know what they are due. This is why I’ve been attempting to track down the possibility of a publishing deal. The fact that Amanda was going to spill some beans may have given someone a motive.’

  ‘How far have you got with it?’

  ‘I haven’t. There are a lot of publishing houses that might have been interested, and as Miss Lesser has denied any knowledge of anyone offering Amanda a deal, and we have no one else to confirm it, I’ll just have to wade through all the companies known to off
er lucrative book contracts to models and actors.’

  ‘Right.’ Barolli was now rather subdued.

  ‘Thank you for this. I’ll see you in the morning.’ Anna patted the file and strode away towards her office.

  Anna was eager to leave the station but, still angry at not having known about the cancellation of their weekend leave, she wanted to be seen to be working. Mike Lewis came out of his office, ready to go home. He looked tired out, but came and tapped on her door then entered.

  ‘Sorry there was a hiccup over the team meeting up today,’ he told her. ‘We’re under a lot of pressure to get a result. You saw the Sunday papers?’

  ‘Yes. No one seems to think we are doing anything positive, but the reality is we don’t have a suspect.’

  ‘Tell me about it. The Guv is getting very edgy and we really need to pull out all the stops this coming week. You know we had her agent in?’

  ‘Yes, I was told.’

  He yawned. ‘I gotta get home and give the wife a break. She’s had the kids by herself all day as it’s the au pair’s day off

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ Anna said as he walked out.

  Amanda had been paid one and half million pounds to star in Lady Hamilton, and from looking at her film contracts Anna knew her asking price had risen as fast as her stardom. What was odd was that her fee on Gaslight was lower at £500,000. Added in were back-end deals and a percentage which Anna couldn’t quite understand. Amanda’s accountant would no doubt explain it all the following morning, so she put the file aside and concentrated on watching The Mansion, which also starred Colin O’Dell and Scott Myers. In the film, a group of young people club together to buy a rundown old mansion. They are qualified as plumbers, carpenters, electricians or builders and have bought the mansion in the hope that they will not only make homes for themselves, but sell off one of the larger wings to cover their costs. It started with a slow build-up of various ‘accidents’, then began to twist into horror as terrifying things happened to all the couples, resulting in the breakdown of their friendships and ending in murder.

  Anna was struck yet again by Amanda Delany’s talent as an actress. Her role demanded that she play not only the girlfriend of the electrician Colin O’Dell, but she was also the ghost that haunted the mansion. Scott Myers played the part of a carpenter who fell in love with Amanda. There were a few explicit love scenes in which he was unable to determine if he had been making love to the ghost or the living girl. Anna found it at first quite enthralling but its need to shock the audience became preposterous. The ghost had vampire qualities, and the only way to kill her was by hammering a stake into her heart. The last scene when Amanda appeared in a bloodstained nightdress was only rendered plausible by her quiet and tragic performance.

  Anna was about to switch the TV off, when she decided to play the last scene again. She froze it and peered closely at the screen. Amanda was wearing a small gold cross on a gold chain, very similar to the one they had discovered caught in her sheets. Next, Anna slowed down the lists of credits, making notes. One important name that cropped up was the costume designer Joanna Villiers who also did the costumes for Gaslight. Anna intended to check out the cross with her first thing in the morning. She was determined to gain more respect from the team, and especially from Mike Lewis and Barolli.

  Chapter Ten

  Anna was parking her car the next morning when Barolli passed her, heading for a waiting patrol car. He hurried over to her.

  ‘We got some developments this morning and a possible OD with one of Amanda’s flatmates.’

  Anna gasped. ‘Who?’

  ‘The kid, Dan Hutchins. I’m on my way over there now.’

  ‘Is that the main development?’

  He paused, and looked back.

  ‘No, it’s from Joan.’

  Anna dumped her things in her office and went immediately to the incident room. Barbara turned to greet her.

  ‘Dan Hutchins was found dead this morning – OD, we think. And Joan’s come up trumps; she’s in with Mike now.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Barbara moved closer. ‘You know she’s a bit of a film buff. Well, she reckons that Amanda was wearing the gold crucifix in one of the films she was watching.’

  ‘The Mansion,’ Anna said flatly.

  ‘Right. Mike’s looking at it now and then they’ll get onto the costume designer. Joan’s certain it was identical to the one found at the victim’s house.’

  Anna nodded. The rug had been pulled from under her feet. She was sure Joan was correct, but she would have liked to be the one who brought it to the team’s attention.

  She turned her own attention to arranging a visit to the first publishing house on Joan’s list. The commissioning editor, Noel Kenrick, was expected into work at ten that morning.

  ‘I’ll see him then,’ she told his assistant over the phone, as she introduced herself.

  With time to kill she left the station and made her way over to Pimlico and the office of Kenrick & Carter. It was a large, white, Art Deco building with glass-fronted reception doors emblazoned with their logo. Knowing she was very early Anna sat, wishing she had not escaped the incident room so quickly. She put in a call to Barolli on his mobile, but it was switched off. It was still only 9.15 a.m. so, frustrated, she called the second name on Joan’s list of publishers and arranged an appointment at 11.30 a.m. at their office near to Waterloo Bridge.

  At the flat in Maida Vale, Barolli was questioning Felicity Turner and a distraught Jeannie Bale. All they could tell him was that they had been out at a party and Dan had been with them. He had left early and they had not returned to the shared flat until 3 a.m. When they knocked on his bedroom door to see if he wanted some coffee, they found him on the floor, having some kind of seizure. They called an ambulance but he was dead before it arrived. Barolli reckoned that the young man had simply overdosed. The girls suspected that he might have scored heroin at the party and returned home to inject himself. Neither knew of anyone at the party dealing drugs, but since the murder of Amanda, Dan had been very depressed, they said, and had hardly left their flat.

  Back at the station, Mike Lewis was questioning Joanna Villiers about the gold crucifix. She agreed that the cross in the evidence bag was identical, but whether or not it was the one used in the film, she couldn’t be 100 per cent sure. Asked if the hire company would have retained it, she said that it had been part of the costume department and they had actually bought two, just in case one was damaged during the scene when the stake was driven through the vampire’s heart.

  ‘So what happened to the crucifixes after the filming?’

  Jo Villiers was able to give them the name of the jeweller where she had bought them. She knew Amanda had taken one, but the other … She shrugged her shoulders, explaining that often at the end of filming, actors could buy their costumes at a 70 per cent reduction of the original cost. As it had been a costume drama and most of the costumes had been hired or made specifically for the actors, none of them were sold. However, she did have a note in the cost report she had brought with her that neither cross was returned.

  ‘But they were gold,’ Mike observed.

  ‘I know. You have no idea how much stuff actors nick. Like I said, I knew Amanda had taken one. She sort of hinted that she’d like to keep it and I let it go, but the other one just went walkabout; and that’s something that happens all the time like you wouldn’t believe. Maybe she took both of them.’

  ‘How much were they worth?’

  ‘Oh, not that much. Maybe forty, fifty pounds, and to be honest, every film unit usually lets its stars walk off with stuff. If it keeps them happy, they don’t care. I’ve had actors nick their entire costumes and not pay for them.’

  ‘But you were shown a picture of the cross by Detective Travis.’

  ‘I just didn’t recognise it. The film was made quite some time ago, and it wasn’t until you showed me the section again that I remembered the crucifixes being worn. I’m really
sorry, but I’ve worked on so many movies since then.’

  ‘Do you know if Colin O’Dell took the second cross?’

  ‘I have no idea. It was in a leather case on the set, so it could have been taken by anyone really – from the props department or the electricians, even extras. You have to keep your eyes open.’

  ‘So you never reported it missing?’

  No, Joanna said. It had been a difficult sequence to film and it had taken two days. The special effects, like the fake breasts used for the stake to be hammered into the vampire’s heart, had cost a fortune. The blood bags beneath used to spurt blood had taken a considerable time to set up and she had to have four changes of identical costume for Amanda. It was a disappointing result for Mike, since God knows how many other people would have to be questioned about the crucifix.

  Before she left, Joanna gave Mike the names of the people she recalled who had also been attached to both films, notably the unit drivers Harry James and his brother Tony, who she thought had worked on both sets. Mike wasted no time in earmarking a team to bring them both in to be questioned.

  By now, Barolli was back from the Maida Vale flat. Rereading the interviews of Jeannie Bale and Felicity Turner, he felt there was no connection to their investigation. Mike suggested another session with the girls when the distress of their flatmate’s death had eased. Next time, he wanted them brought into the station.

  He looked around and gestured at Anna’s empty office, asking, ‘Where’s Travis?’

  ‘She’s off talking to publishers, trying to find out if Amanda had any publishing deal,’ Barolli replied.

  There was an undercurrent of irritation about this between them, as it was now after midday, but neither said anything in front of the team.

  Anna had interviewed two commissioning editors from two top publishing companies. Their response had been almost identical, dismissing any possible deal ever offered to Amanda Delany as bordering on the ridiculous. They were adamant that they didn’t, unlike some companies, pay exorbitant advances to starlets, strippers or game-show winners; they were very much literary publishers.

  They both advised her to meet with Golden Arrow publishers. Although a small company, it had made substantial profits from three celebrity books published in the past year. Their offices, in comparison to the previous two publishers, were scruffy and occupied the second floor in a rundown four-storey building on Ladbroke Grove. Anna had been given the name of Josh Lyons, commissioning editor and part-owner of Golden Arrow, and he had agreed to see her straight away.