Barolli instructed the team to remove some of the DVDs and a couple of videos, but there was nothing else of interest, no passport, no money, nothing incriminating. That was, until they found a large polished wooden box containing a collection of karate knives.
The officers outside Jeannie and Felicity’s flat also found no one at home. They knocked, rang the bell and, climbing into the back yard area, shone torches through the windows, front and back. After fifteen minutes they called the search off when Mike Lewis instructed them to put a surveillance team in place outside.
It was late afternoon when both teams returned to the station. Anna was only just back herself. ‘We really need more evidence on Lester James,’ she said to Barolli.
‘Terrific. Right now the bastard could be anywhere.’ He was eager to get the box of knives for forensic testing. ‘Maybe someone tipped him off. If he’s done a disappearing act, something or someone had to have given him a nudge that we were interested in him.’
Lester James was now listed as prime suspect and both his brothers had agreed to come in for questioning. Also earmarked for interview were Scott Myers and Colin O’Dell. As both were filming during the day, they were to be questioned on video early the following evening.
Left alone, Anna felt a hot flush coming on. She had reprimanded Barolli about a tip-off to Lester James, but she now had a pretty good idea where it had come from: Bruce Mason. She waited to calm down before she went back into the incident room to talk to Barolli.
‘This Lester James,’ she began, ‘on his previous he’d had some connection to drug dealing. If he was a serious player then maybe he scored from Amsterdam, which would be why he’s skipped over there. Maybe he knows people who’d give him a place to stay. The Amsterdam drug squad might have a contact. You found a note about plane times, right?’
‘Forever on the ball, aren’t we?’
‘Someone has to be,’ she said sarcastically. In her handbag was Bruce Mason’s card; back in her office she tapped it against her teeth. Her own car wouldn’t be ready for collection for a couple more days. If she asked to use him as a driver, she’d be able to question him without him giving the James brothers a heads-up. She decided to wait, reckoning she’d be at the station for a very long time that evening.
Harry James, being interviewed by Anna and Barolli, complained that he had already given a statement: he and Tony were indeed the two drivers from the unit who handled Amanda’s collection and pickups on Gaslight. He was her named driver but, on the night before her murder, his brother Tony had taken over. Harry denied that Lester was ever used during the days running up to the murder; he and his brother would be willing to co-operate and show the police the records.
‘What was your brother Lester’s relationship with Amanda Delany?’ Barolli asked.
‘Relationship?’ Harry queried. ‘He was just a unit driver, like us. There wasn’t no relationship bar passenger and driver – it’s more than our job’s worth to ever get involved with clients. We pick them up and take them home, then do it all over again the next day.’
‘Did Lester ever socialise with Miss Delany when she wasn’t working?’
‘Not that I know of. He’s got a big mouth and if he did, he wouldn’t have kept it quiet, so no way.’
‘But didn’t Amanda use him on a private basis?’
‘You got me there. I wouldn’t know. She did use a few of us guys, but whether one of them was Lester, I couldn’t tell you.’
‘Where is he?’ Barolli wanted to know.
‘Manchester. He’s doing a TV stint. It isn’t good money, but you have to take what you can get.’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Be more than a week ago. Came back for her funeral, we all showed our respects.’
‘When did you last speak to him?’
‘I just told you. At the funeral. I’ve not talked to him since.’ Harry leaned across the table. ‘What’s this about? I mean, I’ve come here and I’m answering everything you want, but I dunno why, to be honest.’
‘Helping enquiries, Mr James,’ Barolli replied. ‘We are still investigating the murder of Amanda Delany and we have to backtrack on some dates to give us a clearer overall picture.’
‘Bloody ’ell, you’re taking your time, but I dunno how I can help you. I’ve already given a statement and I can’t add nothing more to it.’
It was Anna’s turn.
‘Your brother Lester’s had a few run-ins with the police, hasn’t he?’
‘He’s just a kid.’
‘Assault twice. He was lucky not to get locked up.’
‘I agree, but we got a job lined up for him and the Judge was a right straight bloke. He knew what problems Lester had.’
‘Like what?’
‘His fists. He’s a karate champion. He goes out with his mates and there’s always some Charlie wantin’ to prove hisself ’
‘When do you expect to see your brother again?’
‘Like I said, he’s in Manchester and I dunno when his stint up there is finished. Why are you so interested in Lester?’
‘Just a formality. Does he own his Mercedes?’
‘Yeah – well, me and Tony chipped in for it. It’s secondhand but you got to have a good-looking motor for driving the actors around and he didn’t have no money. He’s been paying us off on a monthly basis. He’s a good kid.’
‘Did your brother deal in drugs?’
‘What?’
Barolli glanced at Anna and then he took over.
‘Let’s just stop the bullshit, shall we, Harry? We know he supplemented his earnings—’
‘Not with fucking drugs, pal, no way. Lester is an athlete, know what I mean? He would never touch that crap. He was a champion karate Seventh Dan and you don’t get to be that high up without making your body a bloody temple. He went over to Japan to get his belt and he worked from when he was no more than twelve at major dojos. He gave years to accomplish his karate. Now if he was boxin’ he’d be making money, but with karate it’s more like a fucking charity.’
Harry seemed upset. Both Barolli and Anna remained deliberately silent, to see what more he’d come up with.
‘When he was made champion, crowds at Crystal Palace were cheering him. He’s got cups and awards filling his cupboards. We was there, me and Tony, and afterwards he says to me that he’s British Champion – and you know what he got beside this cup? His tube fare. His fucking tube fare!’
Harry was sweating and he loosened his tie. ‘Bloody disgrace,’ he went on, choked. ‘Anyways, that’s when we said to him he was gonna have to earn a livin’, right, so we got him his Merc and he came on board with us as a unit driver. He’s worked hard to come up to scratch.
He knows the streets like the back of his hand now, he’s a good kid and I’m telling you he done nothin’ wrong.’
‘Maybe he didn’t use drugs himself, but did he score for other people?’
‘No, course not. What – and lose his livelihood? There’s no way he ever got into dealing.’
‘But he was arrested and accused of selling drugs,’ Barolli persisted.
‘That case was dismissed, he was never charged. It was some bloke what left them in his car.’
‘So you say he was out of work, broke, and you buy him a Mercedes. So what about you? Supplement your earnings, do you?’
‘No, I fucking don’t, and I resent you even thinking I would be that dumb. I value my job and it comes with a lot of aggravation sometimes and relies a lot on word of mouth, know what I mean?’
‘Did your brother Lester carry a weapon?’
‘You mean a shooter? He wouldn’t need to carry a weapon, he had his fists.’
‘What about a knife?’ Barolli asked.
‘No, no …’
‘But didn’t he give exhibitions using combat swords and knives?’
‘He might have done, but I never saw him with any kind of a weapon.’
‘But he did have a collection
of martial arts weapons.’
‘Did he?’
Barolli opened his notebook, flicking through the pages.
‘In his flat we discovered a Cord-Grip Thrower Triple Set, Wing Chun Butterfly Knives, Kenpo Karate Knives and a Phoenix Knife.’
Harry sat back in his chair. He was sweating profusely and undid the top button of his shirt.
‘I dunno nothing about them.’
Barolli closed his notebook and quietly explained how serious the findings were. Amanda Delany had been stabbed many times with what the pathologist and forensic teams described as possibly a karate knife. He related how the wounds were inflicted by a very strong person who thrust the murder weapon in up to the hilt. He then passed over a photograph of the injuries.
‘Jesus God.’ Harry took a deep breath. ‘I come here in good faith, on my life. I am telling you my brother wouldn’t have done that, not Lester, not to her.’
‘Why are you so certain?’
The man squirmed in his chair.
‘He thought a lot of her, admired her. This is making me feel ill. I reckon if you want to question me more, I should get a solicitor. I don’t want to get Lester in trouble and I dunno if I’m saying stuff that could go against him.’
Mike Lewis and Barbara were getting the same responses from Tony. He categorically denied that his brother would have ever jeopardised his job by dealing drugs to supplement his income. Like Harry, Tony went into a lengthy description of his brother’s prowess at karate. He described him as a gentle giant, a quiet and dedicated young man who had found himself broke and with no future in the world of karate. He and Harry had bought him his car and he had worked hard at becoming a unit driver, to get accepted by the company.
Tony also denied that there had been any kind of relationship between Lester and Amanda, only a professional one.
‘Listen to me. I could tell you stories that’d make your hair stand on end. Really famous movie stars, you’d not believe what they get up to, an’ we gotta turn a blind eye. We become invisible to them. You’ve gotta learn to keep your mouth shut and not gossip about it. I’ve been offered big money by the paparazzi to give them the lowdown on some of my clients, but you can’t. Do it once and word spreads, and the next minute you’re unemployable. Hear no evil, speak no evil and bloody keep your eyes shut while you’re at it …’
‘On Gaslight, did you have any experiences of what you’ve just described?’ Mike asked.
Tony shook his head. It was a busy shoot, he said, under a lot of pressure with money running short and overscheduling the day scene counts. The director had been running around like a headless chicken. It meant the actors were on set for long periods and then back at work early the following day.
‘There wasn’t much activity except the filming and, anyway, the two stars Rupert Mitchell and Amanda Delany didn’t get along that well. Apart from him there wasn’t that much excitement, no high testosterone levels. You only get the real crackerjacks going down when they use the sexy young male stars, then they have their work cut out for them.’
‘How do you mean?’
Tony gave a wide-handed gesture. ‘Well, if you got a lead actor and he’s screwing the make-up girl or the costume designer or the standin, whatever, we gotta know where to pick them up from in the morning. I’ve had to scour nightclubs and pull out legless actors and get them onto the set in time, and it’s not always the male stars; some of the ladies are just as bad. God forbid we ever complain, but you’d not believe what I’ve had to deal with – and Amanda, well, she was a naughty girl. I seen her hooverin’ up stuff. She would be all sweet and like a kid, then get herself tanked up and be giving blow jobs in the back of the Merc. Couple of times I had her throwing up. She was a mess, you know. She’d take anything to get high.’
Mike and Barbara acted surprised, Barbara shaking her head, looking stunned.
‘Oh yeah, I had her picking up total strangers from nightclubs. She was a nymphomaniac, if you ask me, and if she wasn’t pulling in strangers, she’d be going through the cast like a dose of salts. The first movie I worked on with her was The Mansion and, my God, what a time I had.’ He stopped, suddenly aware that he was talking too much.
Mike leaned forward. ‘Anything you say in here is confidential. Now, out of interest, these actors…’
‘She’d have gone through the whole of Spotlight if she’d stayed alive,’ Tony sighed. ‘Once she was in the car and she told me that she was bored. You know, there she was earning millions, and she was bored. She says to me that she was sick of actors and their egos, and this was the time she was supposed to be crazy in love with Scott Myers. I’ll tell you something else for free: I used to hear her tipping off the press. Honest to God, she would call them up and tell them she was in such and such a club, then when it all comes out in the papers she’s crying, saying how can they do that to her!’
‘So did your brother drive her to some of these clubs?’
‘Harry was her one on one, yeah.’
‘No, I mean Lester.’
Tony thought about it. He might have driven her a couple of times, but he wasn’t sure.
‘Do you think it possible that Lester also became one of her conquests?’
‘No chance. Listen, we keep it quiet what’s going down, but everyone knew she was a right little trollop and there is no way he would have got himself involved with her, no way.’
‘But it’s possible?’
‘No, me and Harry would have warned him off her.’
‘But if he also did private work for her, you wouldn’t have known, would you?’
There was a long pause, as if Tony knew he had revealed too much. It was at this point that Mike passed across the photographs of the victim, showing the deep knife wounds made by the weapon.
Tony glanced at them and shuddered. ‘Poor little mare. Whatever I said about her, she didn’t deserve that.’
There was another lengthy pause.
‘You don’t seriously think Lester had anything to do with it?’
‘We’re just following a line of enquiry.’
‘Then you follow another one, pal,’ Tony said angrily, ‘because my brother had nothing to do with that.’
‘Why has he gone to Amsterdam?’
Tony looked phased. ‘Eh? I didn’t know he had.’
‘Do you know if he makes frequent trips to Amsterdam?’ Tony shook his head. ‘Perhaps he goes there so he can score drugs?’ Mike continued. ‘You’ve said that you know Miss Delany was taking drugs. Have you any idea where she got them?’
‘No.’
‘From your brother Lester maybe?’
‘No.’
Tony had had enough. ‘Listen, if you had any evidence, you wouldn’t be grilling me. I am telling you that Lester’s got nothin’ to do with any of this, and you got nothin’ on him apart from his collection of knives – and that is not evidence. It was his career before bein’ a driver, and I’d say he got permission to have them for his displays. You’re trying to get me to trap my brother and I am now saying to you, I’m out of here unless you got some trumped-up charge against me!’
After half an hour the James brothers were released. The teams compared notes and everyone was of the same opinion. Lester James remained their prime suspect. But he was a suspect with not a scrap of evidence against him, and so far forensic had been unable to identify any of the karate knives as the weapon used to kill Amanda. The team stepped up their contacts in Amsterdam to help them trace Lester James, and their drug unit was checking if they had any previous link to him through any of their known dealers. Both brothers had given a mobile phone number for Lester, but it was only used for work and not personal calls. When they tried it, it was switched off. They contacted the server only to find the phone had not been used for months.
Anna had not given any thought to Gordon Berry or, for that matter, to their night together. Tired out as she was by the time she got home, she was pleased to find he had left two messages on her
answerphone saying he wanted to see her. She returned his calls straight away, feeling warm and girlish. They made a date for dinner the following evening. Anna liked sleeping in her unmade bed, curling her body around a pillow that still smelled of Gordon’s aftershave.
There had been no sighting of either Jeannie Bale or Felicity Turner, so the next morning Barolli went to the flat in Maida Vale with the warrant to enter and search.
Anna put a call through to Rupert Mitchell’s home. The maid answered: neither Mr nor Mrs Mitchell was at home. When Anna asked if she could help with the licence plate of the Rolls-Royce, she was surprised when the girl offered to go and check outside.
‘Is it parked at the house?’
‘Yes, Mam. It belongs to Mrs Mitchell’s parents, but they’re abroad. They often leave it here for Mrs Mitchell to use to collect them from the airport.’
It was indeed the same car seen passing on numerous occasions along the street running across Amanda Delany’s mews. The reason there had been a delay in identifying the owner was that the licence plates were Maltese.
Next, Anna checked out the fingerprints which were still being brought in from the mews. Eight were unidentified, left by persons unknown, with no police record. They had the match with Colin O’Dell and Scott Myers who, as agreed, had come into the station to have their prints taken. They had also eliminated Miss Lesser’s, the designer and three workmen, plus a plumber and an electrician.
‘You’ve got eight outstanding?’ Anna asked Joan.
‘Yep. Apparently there was a gardener and a window cleaner, and I’m just tracking them down.’
‘Do me a favour, Joan, tell the office manager I’m going to see if I can talk to the Mitchells about the Roller. Be back straight after.’
Then she swore; her car was still not ready for collection, and she had to wait for a patrol car to be freed up before she could leave the station. She had sensed a strange flatness all round; this was unlike any previous case she had worked on. There was urgency, but the painstaking enquiry was so desperately slow that it was having an effect on everyone.
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