Silent Scream

by Lynda La Plante

  Surveillance officers were standing by the basement railings of Jeannie Bale’s and Felicity Turner’s flat. Barolli headed down the steps, kicking aside the litter and old newspapers that had blown down there. He cupped his hands around his eyes to get a look through the window into the lounge. The grubby curtains were partly drawn and he couldn’t see anything. The surveillance team had already checked round the back and talked to a woman in the flat on the ground floor. She hadn’t seen the girls recently, but knew about the death of the young boy because of all the police and ambulances. They were waiting for the landlord to arrive with the key; that would save them breaking down the door.

  Barolli checked his watch; it was still only just after nine. He looked into an old coal chute, dragging the door back to find it was filled with junk and broken furniture. It was filthy and he had no intention of getting any closer. He stared up at the dirty windows and back to street level. At one time these houses would have been occupied by one family, the basement used for the cooks and maids, and four floors up there would have been small rooms for the butlers and valets, the long-windowed, elegant rooms on the floors in between for the family.

  ‘Times change, huh,’ he said to one of the officers.

  An Indian man peered over the railings; this was the landlord with the keys to the property. Mr Singh took considerable time sorting through the keys until he got the correct one, complaining all the time about the rubbish on the steps and the mess in the small basement courtyard.

  ‘Two minutes with a broom,’ he kept repeating, but judging by the overflowing wheelie bins, a lot more than a broom was required.

  Eventually the door to the flat was opened and Barolli asked for Mr Singh to wait as they went inside; he would need to be a witness if they removed anything.

  ‘Christ, it stinks in here,’ Barolli muttered, stepping over ashtrays and Coke cans in the lounge. He went from room to room accompanied by the two surveillance officers. It looked almost as if a robbery had taken place, but it could as easily have been the way the place was left.

  The pink bedroom was a mess. Clothes were left in piles on the floor, and two battered suitcases lay open on the floor, their handles broken. Wardrobe doors hung ajar, drawers were pulled out, shoes discarded by the wardrobe. The second bedroom was less untidy; this Barolli knew to be Dan Hutchins’s room. The third bedroom, Felicity’s, was also a tip; clothes had been stuffed into plastic bags and left in piles on the bed. The kitchen was disgusting and smelled of sour milk. Empty takeaway food cartons were stacked in an overflowing flip-top wastebin. Dirty towels lay on the bathroom floor, the medicine cabinet was open, empty but for some talcum powder and a half-full perfume bottle. Make-up was caked around the washbasin and on the sides of the bath.

  Barolli tutted to himself. He was searching for any clue that indicated something untoward had happened, but there were no pools of blood, no splattering, just a nasty mess everywhere.

  The surveillance guys were digging around in the hope that they’d find some notes or letters, but were having no luck. Barolli returned to the pink bedroom which he knew to have been Amanda Delany’s. Photo albums were stacked up and it looked as if papers had been burning in the old blocked-up fireplace. He looked through some of the albums; they belonged to Jeannie Bale and were full of photographs and flyers for fringe theatre productions.

  Barolli called into the station to report his findings. He couldn’t tell if anything had happened to the two girls; it appeared more likely they had upped and run.

  ‘Place is a shit hole,’ he told Mike Lewis. ‘There are suitcases and belongings stuffed into plastic bags, but no sign of either occupant and, judging by the smell of stale milk, they’ve been gone a good few days.’

  Mike instructed him to have a really thorough search and see if he could find any indication of where the girls could have gone. It was the last thing Barolli wanted; the awful mildew damp was seeping into his bones.

  He sat on the unmade bed in Amanda’s old room, stared around slowly, then looked down to his feet to see blonde hair sticking out from beneath the bed. When he pulled it out, the doll gave a plaintive cry of ‘Mama Mama’. Its china face was cracked. Barolli remained alone in the flat for another half an hour, rifling through drawers and cupboards. Two female officers joined him and they began a thorough search of the whole flat. They upended wastebins, checked all the crunched-up paper, envelopes, anything with any handwriting or type, but there were no clues as to where the girls might have gone. With so many discarded clothes, make-up and hairbrushes left lying about, it was impossible to know if anything significant was missing.

  Anna was led by the maid into the same small study where she had first met Rupert Mitchell. Helen Mitchell received her coldly. When Anna asked if her husband was at home, Helen said he was away filming; she suggested Anna make an appointment with his agent.

  ‘It’s not Rupert I want to see. I just need a few words with you, please.’

  ‘Really? Well, I don’t have long.’

  ‘This shouldn’t take long,’ Anna responded.

  Helen was immaculate in a smart coal-grey skirt and cashmere sweater, her blonde hair tied in a loose band, her chiselled face even more attractive than Anna had remembered.

  ‘The Rolls-Royce in your driveway?’

  ‘My father’s.’

  ‘He is in Malta, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Anna took out the pictures of the CCTV coverage from Amanda’s neighbourhood, asking if anyone apart from her father drove it.

  ‘I use it to collect them from the airport. Daddy is always reluctant to leave it in a long-stay car park so it remains here in the drive. Not that that’s the best place, but we use our garage for Rupert’s car and Daddy’s is actually too large to fit into it.’

  ‘Who else drives it?’

  ‘No one else. Rupert wouldn’t be seen dead in it.’

  Anna laid out on the desk the CCTV pictures, asking if Helen’s father was in London on the dates printed at the bottom of each picture.

  ‘I have no idea. It’s possible.’

  ‘Would you look at the dates?’

  Helen got up from her seat and bent over the desk, peering at the three photographs.

  ‘I don’t know. Is this why you are here? I mean, has my father not paid a parking ticket or something?’

  ‘No, I am still investigating the murder of Amanda Delany.’

  ‘What on earth has this got to do with Daddy’s car?’

  ‘Was he in London?’ Anna asked again.

  ‘I can’t remember.’ She returned to her seat.

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Then I suggest you ask him.’ She rattled off her father’s mobile phone number.

  ‘You see, Mrs Mitchell, this car, your father’s Rolls-Royce, was seen close to Amanda Delany’s mews on three different occasions.’

  Helen was suddenly tense, patting her hair and twisting her rings round her fingers.

  ‘You have stated that you never went to Miss Delany’s mews.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So was it possible your father maybe visited her?’

  ‘No, he didn’t know her.’

  ‘Have another look at the dates. Perhaps your father wasn’t the driver?’

  Helen chewed at her lips.

  ‘Could it have been your husband?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You seem very sure.’

  ‘I am… because it was me.’ Helen gave an open-handed gesture and said that she was visiting friends in Elizabeth Street, which was in the same area. But when Anna pressed for their names she caved in.

  ‘It was me, all right? I admit it.’

  ‘So on three occasions you drove to Miss Delany’s mews?’

  ‘I admit I was in the area and I admit that I did drive past her mews on two occasions, but I did not go into the mews. I just drove past.’

  ‘And on the third?’

  ‘I parked in the road and I walke
d into the mews.’

  ‘And?’

  Helen was trying to keep calm, giving short intakes of breath, and then she bowed her head.

  ‘I went to see her because she kept calling here. If I answered, she’d put the phone down. Once she spoke to me in French, but I knew it was her.’ She gave a soft deprecating laugh, saying that she was fluent in French herself, and when she continued the conversation, the phone went down.

  ‘Why did you go to see her?’

  ‘Partly because of the phone calls, and I knew a couple of times she had talked to Rupert here at the house. He kept on telling me not to worry about it, that he had asked her to stop ringing.’

  One evening she had overheard a conversation Rupert had had in his study as the door was ajar. She heard him telling the caller that they should not ring the house and that he was getting tired of the persistent phone calls, they were upsetting his wife. This all came at the worst possible time, Helen explained, as she was having fertility treatment. The stress was making her very agitated, exactly what she didn’t need to be happening.

  ‘So you went to confront her?’

  ‘Yes. I know it was foolish, but I’d overheard Rupert on the phone that time agreeing to meet her.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A few weeks into filming. He seemed jumpy, even angry. When I asked him who had been on the phone, he told me that it was nothing for me to worry about, then he went out for a walk. I checked the last caller’s number on the phone and rang it and she answered. When I told her to stop pestering my husband, she was very rude. She said something like there was no need for her to pester any man and that she simply wished to talk to him about something personal.’

  ‘What happened when you went to see her?’

  ‘It was awful. I rang the doorbell, but I wasn’t even sure she would be at home. But I knew because of Rupert’s schedule for the filming that she wasn’t called that evening.’

  Helen had waited on the doorstep for quite a while before Amanda opened the door.

  ‘I’m not being bitchy but, facing her, it was really hard for me to believe that my husband could have ever had any interest in her. She looked dreadful. Her hair was unwashed and her face spotty and she had a cold sore on her lip. She was wearing a sort of cotton shift nightdress and she was skin and bone and had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.’

  After she let Helen into the house, Amanda had told her to sit in the lounge; she was finishing off a meeting with someone. Helen had sat waiting, hearing muffled voices and then the bedroom door had opened and she caught a glimpse of a man leaving. When Anna asked her to describe him, she was hazy; all she could remember was that he had been blond and tough-looking. Then Amanda returned to the lounge to get her wallet and when she left, she closed the door so Helen was unable to see or hear any further interaction.

  ‘When she came back, she had a small plastic bag and something wrapped in tinfoil. She stuffed whatever it was into her bag and then laughed, saying it was for party time.’

  Anna asked Helen to repeat the description of the man she had seen. She had not really had more than a glimpse; all she recalled was that he was very well-built and fair. She had never seen him before or since. At this point, she got up and poured herself a glass of tonic water from the drinks cabinet. Anna asked if she would agree to look at a video ID parade. Helen nodded. ‘I really had only a glimpse of him,’ she repeated, ‘but yes, I would be prepared to try and identify him.’

  Helen sipped the tonic, returning to the armchair.

  ‘I’m certain she knew why I was there, and when I asked her to leave my husband alone, she just shrugged her shoulders and said she had no interest in him whatsoever. She said she had only called to ask if he’d come over as she’d something to discuss with him. He wasn’t the only person she’d invited. Scott Myers and Colin O’Dell were coming over as well.’

  Anna had her notebook open. She knew the date of Helen’s visit, but needed to know when it was that Amanda had intended to have all three actors to her house. Helen was unsure, but thought it would have been a few nights before she was murdered. She wished she had never humiliated herself to such an extent. She stayed no more than a few minutes longer with Amanda and couldn’t wait to leave.

  ‘It was hideous. I felt as if she was laughing at me. I asked if she would help me, woman to woman. I told her I was undergoing fertility treatment and wanted to save my marriage.’

  Helen frowned as if trying to remember something. Anna remained silent.

  ‘I’m just trying to recall exactly what she said, something like, “It would be to his benefit”. What she meant by that, I don’t know. She also asked if it was true that my father was a multi-millionaire.’

  Amanda had walked her to the front door and then, as Helen left, she had made a strange, doll-like, side-to-side swing of her head, ‘Tell him it’s in the diary,’ she had said.

  Helen had no idea what Amanda meant by that, and she never discussed the meeting with her husband. The next thing she knew, Amanda had been murdered.

  ‘So you don’t know if Rupert kept the date?’ Anna had underlined the word diary in her notebook.

  ‘He couldn’t have, because they were night filming and I have his schedule.’

  Anna stood up.

  ‘Does he need to know about this?’ Helen asked nervously.

  Anna assured her that she had no reason to repeat their conversation. At the front door she paused.

  ‘This man, the one you saw at Amanda’s – is there anything else you can think of that you remember about him?’

  ‘I doubt it. I think he might have been giving her drugs, you know, in the tinfoil wrapper that I saw, and Rupert said Amanda was often very stoned. What is it about men?’ Helen frowned. ‘What makes them want to be with someone like that scrawny, drugged-up creature, her lips with that awful cold sore? I don’t understand it.’

  Anna looked at the glossy, elegant, beautiful woman.

  ‘I think it’s something to do with being needy. I don’t know.’

  Helen watched Anna walk down the path and get into the patrol car before she closed the front door.

  At the station Mike Lewis headed up the briefing. They were now able to eliminate the Rolls from the investigation. Anna reported the possible meeting between the three actors, O’Dell, Myers and Mitchell, and their victim shortly before her murder. Barolli was next up, stressing his concern for Jeannie Bale and Felicity Turner’s whereabouts. They had decided to wait before going public about the girls’ disappearance until they had contacted their next-of-kin. Felicity Turner’s parents in South Wales said they had not seen their daughter for years; Jeannie Bale’s mother was still being traced. Jeannie’s agent had not spoken to her client for a few days but promised to contact the station if she was to call in, which she usually did on a regular basis. Next, Barolli gestured to the board and the listed landline phone numbers they had been checking.

  ‘One phone number is of particular interest – the number for the London hotel where Mr and Mrs Delany were staying. We have contacted the hotel and they confirmed that the Delanys were still in residence when two calls were made from there. They supplied the number: it was for Jeannie and Felicity’s flat in Maida Vale. Mr Delany had also asked reception to cash a cheque for him, for five thousand pounds, on the same morning that the calls were made.’

  Anna gave a soft whistle. Could the girls have gone to the South of France with the Delanys? She doubted it, but the calls between the girls and Mr Delany were highly suspicious. Mike Lewis was ahead of her.

  ‘This diary, because it continues to be a missing item and one worth a lot of money to our victim, if she was going to use it as material for her memoir – and we have the guy from Golden Arrow verifying that he had seen it – it might be that she left it in the flat and our two girls found it. These two calls the Delanys made to the flat may be connected to the whereabouts of the diary.’

  ‘If Delany was paying the girls the
five grand,’ Barolli interjected, ‘that’s a pittance compared to what it could be worth. So I’m not sure I go along with the five grand pay-off’

  When Mike asked Anna if she knew whether the girls were aware of the publisher, she admitted that they might be, as she had mentioned him when she was asking them if they had found the diary.

  ‘Well, bloody get onto him and see if those little cows have contacted him.’

  ‘Gordon, Anna Travis called to say she’ll be working late this evening so can’t make dinner, and not to bother returning her call as she’ll speak to you in the morning.’

  Gordon Berry had just finished his treatment with Langton and was walking out from his surgery with him.

  Langton glanced at Gordon. ‘Bit unethical, isn’t it, Gordon? Or do you need to make sure she’s wearing her neck brace?’ He smiled.

  Gordon slammed the door of his surgery as soon as Langton had gone and rang Anna on her mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. He called her flat and left a message asking her to get in touch.

  When his receptionist tapped on his door to say his next patient was waiting, he grunted. Surprised, she asked if everything was all right. He glared at her.

  ‘No, it isn’t. You just landed me right in it!’

  She looked confused. He waved her away as his mobile rang.

  ‘It’s Anna,’ he heard. ‘You called me. I can’t really talk as I’m about to start an interview briefing.’

  ‘OK. Look, I’m sorry. One, not to be seeing you this evening, but two, more important, Langton knows about us.’

  ‘How? Did you tell him?’

  ‘No, and I don’t want to get into it, but just so as you know.’

  ‘Shit. Well, so what. I’ll try and call you later, OK?’

  Anna turned off her phone and closed her eyes. Barolli passed her window and rapped on it; she was wanted. She could see, through the blinds, Langton looking over the incident board.