Miss Hodgson was stunned. She had never been consulted about this money. Had she been, she would have been extremely concerned that she had not made provision for where it should have been banked in high-or low-interest accounts. She was astonished at the amounts that were showing in dollars; with the pound now much lower than when these monies had been paid, she would have automatically insisted the dollars be paid straight into an American account. She finally admitted that she had, at no time, been aware of these contracts and very large deposits, over four million pounds’ worth. This figure was close to the sum of the investments made by Smith-Barker on behalf of Miss Delany – investments into pension plans and companies that had all been wiped out in the stock market crash.
Langton listened to both Mike and Barolli as they took him through the paper trail. They had, without a doubt, a motive for the murder of Amanda Delany. Their job was to tie in how the two, Andrea Lesser and Andrew Smith-Barker, could have arranged her death. Andrea Lesser had keys to the mews house, she could have easily hired someone to do the job, but now the team would have to prove it.
‘Bring them in and grill the pants off the pair of them,’ Langton ordered. ‘Leave no stone unturned. It’s difficult to prove fraud without a lot more evidence, which will be hard to come by with the victim dead.’ He encouraged them to delve deep into both suspects’ backgrounds, dig up anything they could to connect them to the actual killing and prove they had instigated fraud. They had only Miss Hodgson’s verbal statement that Amanda had become suspicious.
‘Suspicions but no real proof, if Miss Lesser is saying that Amanda knew of the transactions.’
‘Ronnie Hodgson’s still here, Guv. She’s with the Fraud guys sifting through all the contracts.’
‘OK, let me have a word with her.’
Ronnie Hodgson was nervous when Langton approached the interview room, but he quickly charmed her. He pulled out a chair for her while he perched on the edge of the table.
‘This must be very distressing for you,’ he began.
‘Yes, yes, it is. We believe that four million pounds was due to my client.’
‘Is it usual that an agent invests on behalf of a client?’
‘It has been done, but always with the client’s agreement. Film work often pays such a lot of money, it is necessary to be ready to deal with it, so to speak.’
‘Deal with it, like investments?’
‘Yes, pension plans and suchlike.’
‘In the past, you received a cheque, did you not, with the agent’s commission taken off?’
‘Yes, but sometimes it was sent directly to my client’s bank account and they would simply send me an invoice of expenses and percentages taken from the original payment.’
‘Did you get any invoices regarding the four million pounds?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘Were you aware that these large sums were to be paid into your client’s account?’
‘No. I knew Amanda had accepted film work, but I had no indication how much she was being paid.’
‘So you were dependant on Miss Lesser to contact you and send you the invoices.’
‘Yes, that is correct.’
‘Have you at any time in the past been worried about late payments?’
‘No, never, but as I said, I was not always aware of which contracts Amanda had signed or what negotiations had been made on her behalf.’
‘I see.’
‘I have brought in all my files.’
‘We really appreciate your assistance, but tell me – what do you think has taken place?’
Ronnie Hodgson licked her lips. ‘I can’t really say, just that it is unusual.’
‘Unusual? I’d say it was a bit more than that, wouldn’t you? Four million invested over a lengthy period of time and your client seemingly unaware of the transactions. But she was becoming very suspicious, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what did she think was happening?’
‘She thought it was being stolen.’
‘Stolen?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘When I asked Andrea Lesser about it, she assured me that there was nothing untoward taking place and that a few contracts were late being sent out so that monies were delayed being paid.’
‘She lied.’
‘Yes, I believe so now.’
‘Why do you think she lied to you?’
‘Because, according to the contracts, I’ve seen that the money was paid in full to her agency and on time – and should have been forwarded immediately into Amanda’s bank account.’
‘So she put the money elsewhere?’
‘It appears so. She must have passed it on to Andrew Smith-Barker, an investment banker, who I know to be a personal friend of hers.’
Langton moved from the table with a smile.
‘Thank you so much. I would appreciate it if you kept this information private and confidential until we have made further investigations.’
‘Oh yes, yes, I will,’ she assured him.
‘I am sure you will, as I believe you to be a very honest woman and I would hate any of this to be detrimental to your business, which could well happen. But I will endeavour to give you every protection … We don’t want the tar-brush syndrome, do we? You could, Miss Hodgson, be seen as very much a part of this theft of your client’s money.’
Langton ushered her out to continue her work with the Fraud Squad. He took Mike aside.
‘She’s a good witness. Lesser and Smith-Barker must be brought in as soon as possible. I’d say they’ve been shredding anything that might implicate them in swindling our victim out of her earnings.’
He tapped Mike on the shoulder.
‘Don’t go easy on them. We need a result because if they didn’t kill Amanda, somebody else did. Push the agent woman, sounds like she’s besotted with the banker … OK?’
Mike watched Langton stroll down the corridor before he turned back into the interview room. When he entered, Ronnie Hodgson was crying. He wondered what Langton had said to her; she was more eager to help than she had been before.
Anna waited for Felicity to come into the scruffy lounge. She had opened the door of the Maida Vale flat in her dressing-gown and gone to get dressed. It was almost three in the afternoon. The room had been cleaned up since Dan Hutchins had died. The smell of stale tobacco and wine remained, but at least there were no dirty food cartons left littered around. Anna was pleased that Felicity was alone, although she was expecting Jeannie back from an audition, some play on the fringe.
‘You want a cup of tea?’ Felicity asked as she returned in jeans and a T-shirt, but barefoot.
‘No, thank you.’
She disappeared and returned with a cracked mug and a slice of white bread covered in thick jam. She sat on a dirty cushion, jam smeared across her pallid cheeks.
‘Are you an actress?’ Anna asked.
‘Not really. I was at RADA but on the stage-management side.’
‘Can I ask you about Amanda? She used to live here, didn’t she?’
‘Yeah, off and on, between blokes. She kind of used this as a base and we got all her mail here. Well, we never knew who she was dossing down with and she’d just turn up and collect it.’
Felicity slurped her tea and waved her hand around the room.
‘We’re gonna do it all up when we get the money from her will.’
‘Do you know how much Amanda left you?’
‘Yeah, well, we called her agent and asked about it and she was pretty rude and told us that she’d send us a cheque as she was the ex …’ Felicity stared into space, trying to recall what had been said to her. Then she went on, ‘We want to rent out poor Dan’s room. We’ve not done nothing as he was paid up until the end of this month.’
She took a bite of her bread and then tossed the rest into an overflowing wastebin. It hit the side and dropped onto the floor.
‘I miss him,’ she
said.
‘You must miss Amanda too.’
‘Yeah, but not as much, as she hadn’t really been around that often. You know, she was a bit out of our league and it was hard for Jeannie as she was always so jealous. Not for me really as I’m not an actress. I just do the odd stage-management gig, but mostly I’m on the dole and
There was a pause as Felicity slurped her mug of tea, then took out a packet of Silk Cut cigarettes and turned on the electric fire to light her cigarette from the only bar that was working. She blew out smoke and stared at Anna.
‘What do you want?’
‘Just to talk really, find out a few things.’
‘Executor, that’s the word I was lookin’ for. Miss Lesser is the executor of Amanda’s will, so she will be paying us but I’m not sure how much. Do you know how long it will take?’
‘No. I think solicitors and death duties have to be sorted before any beneficiary is paid.’
‘Oh.’
‘You knew Amanda for a long time, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
Anna hesitated, not wanting to push too hard until she felt Felicity was at ease with her. But just as she was about to say something, the girl moved across the floor to sit closer to her, picking up an old shell to use as an ashtray.
‘Dan loved her, you know, he’d do anything for her and she was always kind to him, but he was just … depressed a lot. He could never see anything in his future because he reckoned everyone lived and then they died and there was not much point in bothering with what happened in between.’
‘I find that very sad.’
‘Yeah, but when you think about it, that’s what happened to him. He lived a bit then he died, but you know, I never understood where he got the dough from to buy the gear that killed him. I mean, he was always broke and it was him that started Amanda wondering what was going on with her money.’
Anna leaned forward as Felicity stubbed out her cigarette.
‘When she could, she got him jobs as an extra on her films, and he got friendly with a couple of actors.’
She took out another cigarette and went across to the electric fire again to light it.
‘What do you mean about her money?’
Felicity sat hunched up beside the fire.
‘He’d been at some internet café and met up with an actor he’d worked with on her film, The Mansion. Did you see it?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Well, they got chatting and then he showed Dan his new car. He said he’d got paid more than he expected. It was a secondhand Mini, but in good nick, a convertible. Anyway, Amanda came round a few days later maybe and he said to her about the Mini and that she should get herself a car, but she said she didn’t have a licence and preferred usin’ a driver. Then she said that it was odd about the other actor buyin’ a car because she hadn’t been paid a cent for the film yet, and she was quite pissed off about it. Anyway, she called from here and spoke to Andrea Lesser.’
There was a pause as Felicity puffed away on her cigarette.
‘What happened when she called her?’
‘Not a lot, but she said she was gonna check up and see where her money was. I didn’t hear what she said as the phone is in the hall, then she left.’
Anna waited, hoping there was more to it.
‘We all talked about it, you know after she’d left, and then …’ She started to giggle.
‘Then what?’
‘He shouldn’t have done it, but we were all a bit stoned and he called that stuck-up Miss Lesser, who wouldn’t take on Jeannie when she was doin’ a play at the Tricycle Theatre. She sent a letter asking her to come and see her in the play, but when she heard nothin’ back, she called her and she didn’t even come to the fucking phone.’
‘Go on. Dan called Andrea Lesser?’
‘Yeah. He said he needed to speak to her urgent, right – that he was an agent.’ She curled up, still giggling.
Anna was getting impatient.
‘He said that he was checking up about Miss Delany’s cash. She kept on asking him who he was … then cut him off. It was ever so funny.’
‘I bet it was.’ Anna sneaked a look at her watch, and Felicity sat with her eyes closed.
‘You said all Amanda’s mail came to this address?’
‘Yeah, fanmail. She used to pay Dan for answering some of them, but it was so boring and they would come in sackfuls. In the end he didn’t bother.’
‘Did Amanda take it with her?’
‘What?’
‘The fanmail.’
‘Oh no, she was bored shitless with all the weirdoes and crappy people. She was supposed to send back signed autographed photographs, but she couldn’t be bothered, ’cos I mean they hardly ever give a stamped addressed envelope.’
‘Do you still have any of the letters?’
‘Yeah, we got bags of them, used them when it got cold to light the fire, but it always smoked something awful, to be honest. You’re sittin’ on some as that sofa’s springs are broken.’
Anna stood up and removed one of the hideous orange foam-filled pads. Beneath them were black binliners tied with string. She opened one and found it full of letters and cards.
‘Would you mind if I took these with me?’
Felicity shrugged. Anna stacked the bags side by side and then replaced the foam cushion which sank down almost to the floor.
Before Anna could ask Felicity anything further, the front door slammed shut and Jeannie barged into the room, carrying a big leather bag.
‘I didn’t get it, I fucking didn’t get it.’
Jeannie was wearing cowboy boots and a long full black skirt with a top with mutton-chop sleeves. Her dyed blonde hair was caught up with two big bow slides at each side of her head. When she saw Anna, she apologised.
‘I didn’t know we had company. I’ve just come from an audition for this Victorian play on at the Bush. The bastards didn’t even ask me to fucking read.’ She delved into the bag and brought out a litre bottle of cider. ‘I’m gonna get smashed tonight. I’ve not worked for friggin’ months and this was my part!’
Jeannie was so upset and angry she didn’t appear to make any connection as to who Anna was and it wasn’t until she had lit a cigarette and drunk half a tumbler of cider that she seemed to realise.
‘What are you here for?’
Before Anna could reply, Felicity told her that she had needed to ask them some questions about Amanda. She pointed to the binliners saying that Anna wanted to take them away.
‘I’m sick to death of her,’ Jeannie complained. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be so close to stardom and lose out; you don’t know what it does to your head.’
‘Did you know she’d been pregnant?’
Anna caught the look between the two girls.
‘You did know, didn’t you? Tell me about it.’
Jeannie shrugged. ‘Don’t suppose it matters now she’s dead.’
‘Who was the father?’ Anna asked
‘She had an abortion,’ Felicity said. They had sworn never to talk about it, but Jeannie muttered that it didn’t matter now.
‘We were short of money so Amanda went to France to see her parents, you know they’re loaded, and she’d spent all the money she’d got from the film. It wasn’t that much, right, and we owed rent on this place and …’
The girls fell silent and Anna waited, but neither said a word.
‘Did something happen in France?’ she prompted.
‘She got raped, we never really got to the bottom of it all, but it was someone her father knew and she came back in a right state, and then a few weeks later she found out she was pregnant.’
‘She went back to France to try and get it all sorted out,’ Felicity interjected, ‘but her dad had gone ballistic and refused to believe her that any of his polo-playing friends would have touched his daughter.’
‘He was a right bastard,’ Jeannie said. Amanda had returned to London, she confirmed, by now four
months’ pregnant, with a film in the offing and her agent pressing her to begin work.
‘So she had an abortion,’ Anna said softly.
‘Yeah, and that far gone it wasn’t easy for her to find someone who would do it. Some guy she had worked with on the movie helped her out, gave her a name.’
‘Do you know who that was?’
They both shook their heads. All they knew was, he had been on the movie with her and he drove her to the place wherever it was and then she had returned and gone to bed.
‘It was terrible ’cos she started screaming and then there was all this blood and we was in an awful state as we didn’t know what to do. In the end we called an ambulance and then we called her parents and they came to London.’
‘She nearly died,’ Jeannie said softly.
‘She was never really the same after she came out of hospital, was she?’ Felicity looked at Jeannie, then leaned towards her and whispered.
‘We don’t know that,’ Jeannie said.
‘Know what?’ Anna asked.
‘Well, if you ask me,’ Felicity said, ‘something was goin’ on with her father. She was scared of him and she hated him, but she once said to me that things had happened to her, even when she was a kid.’
‘She never admitted anything,’ Jeannie added. ‘We just suspected stuff and they did a botched job on her, left something in her stomach that had festered or poisoned her, and she had to have a hysterectomy.’
‘Did her parents come here?’
Jeannie shook her head. They had arranged a private clinic and then had taken her into the Drury a few months later, but they had never come to the flat.
Anna was trying to assess all their information and inference that the rape could have involved Amanda’s own father. She also had to get the dates straight. However, neither could really recall the exact timeframe; they had all been pretty drugged up at the time.
‘This driver you say Amanda used to take her for the operation …’
‘Never met him, he’d just draw up outside – nice Merc. I think he was one of the unit drivers off the movie,’ Jeannie said.
‘Did you ever actually see his face?’
Silent Scream Page 23