Silent Scream

by Lynda La Plante

  ‘What do you think?’ Mike Lewis asked quietly, gesturing at the monitor screen.

  ‘I’d say his brothers primed him, and unless we get something that’ll shift him, we’ve not got enough to hold him. In some ways he bloody jumped the gun by coming in of his own free will. I’d say we’re losing out with him.’

  It felt like that to Anna and Barolli. They were now requesting that Lester bring in confirmation of his invoices for work driving on the film units, as well as his private hire. He became belligerent; a lot of his work was cash in hand and he didn’t have complete records. Barolli warned him they could inform the Inland Revenue. When Anna asked Lester for more details of how often he had met Amanda’s flatmates, he was adamant that he had only met them on a few occasions.

  ‘What about Jeannie Bale?’

  ‘What about her? I said I met them through Miss Delany, but I had nothing else to do with them.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Miss Bale?’

  ‘I dunno. Weeks ago? Like I said, I only met them when I was driving for Miss Delany. I never saw them socially and, to be honest, I wouldn’t want to. The kid was a junkie and the other two were hangers-on.’

  ‘Are you aware that Dan Hutchins is dead?’ Anna asked.

  Lester nodded. He had read it in the papers.

  ‘Felicity Turner is also dead. Did you know that?’

  Again, he said that he had read about her in the newspaper.

  ‘But you were in Amsterdam, weren’t you?’

  He paused for a fraction, then said that he read British newspapers over there, which is where he had seen the report.

  ‘We will need, Mr James, confirmation of when you left Amsterdam and returned to London.’

  ‘I bought me ticket and I dunno if I’ve got anything else to prove it. They don’t stamp passports any more.’

  ‘Where was your car while you were away?’

  ‘I left it in a mate’s garage.’

  ‘We’ll also need to know when you left your vehicle and when you collected it.’

  Lester gave a name and address to his solicitor.

  ‘Why did you go to Amsterdam?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I got friends there.’

  ‘We’ll need their names and addresses.’

  His solicitor made a note.

  ‘On what date did you return to London?’

  He said that he had only just returned the previous day. As soon as he knew they wanted to speak to him, he had, as was obvious, come into the station.

  ‘And you claim you never saw a diary – Miss Delany’s diary? It had a pink cover.’

  ‘No, I never saw it.’

  ‘Take us through the time when you last drove Miss Delany to her flat in Maida Vale. She had an important meeting?’

  Lester blinked as if trying to recall the day. Anna repeated the date and he eventually concurred that he had driven her to the flat and waited outside for about an hour and a half.

  ‘Did you see anyone enter the flat while she was there?’

  ‘Yeah, some bloke drove up in a Porsche and went in.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  Lester gave a pretty good description of Josh Lyons, but could not recall if, when he left, he carried anything with him apart from the briefcase he went in with.

  ‘How did Miss Delany appear to you when she came out after the meeting?’

  ‘She was just like always. I drove her home, but she didn’t talk much as she was texting somebody on her BlackBerry.’

  Anna passed a note to Barolli; they had numerous mentions of Amanda’s BlackBerry but still had not found one. They had already attempted to trace which phone company she used in the hope that they might be able to retrieve her account, which would list all her numbers, but so far had had no luck. Suddenly, Lester tapped the table.

  ‘I just remembered. She said to me that she’d lost it – the diary – maybe left it on the film set or in her trailer. Yeah, she asked me if I’d found it in the Merc – maybe she’d dropped it.’

  At last there was just a glimmer of hope. They knew that Amanda had left her mobile phone on the film set because the extra had handed it into them.

  ‘So she asked you if you had found it in your car?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘When exactly was this?’

  ‘Few days after that meeting you asked me about.’

  ‘When she was filming Gaslight?’

  ‘Yeah, she asked me about it then.’

  ‘At the film unit.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Barolli jumped in fast. ‘But you told us that you weren’t one of the drivers connected to that specific film unit, so why were you there?’

  They got just a small glint of hesitancy from Lester, but then he spread his hands wide.

  ‘I popped in for a free dinner to talk to me brothers.’

  ‘When was this?’

  Again, there was just a slither of nerves and he cracked his knuckles.

  ‘Be the night before her murder, I reckon.’

  ‘Did you go into her trailer?’

  He nodded and added that he looked over her trailer for her, just in case she’d dropped the diary somewhere and it was hidden under cushions.

  ‘Was she in there when you were doing this?’

  ‘No, she was called onto the film set.’

  ‘Leaving you alone in her trailer?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you were just her driver; did you usually go into her trailer?’

  He shifted his weight on the chair.

  ‘On the odd occasion. That time she was very agitated. She told me she’d had this nightmare the night before, heard a woman screaming. It had woken her up and she didn’t know whether or not it was an animal, but it had frightened her.’

  ‘This would be the night before she was murdered?’

  He nodded. They waited but he kept silent. His solicitor looked at him and then back to Anna and Barolli.

  ‘Can I just get this right, Lester?’ Anna asked. ‘You weren’t working for the film unit, you went there for a free dinner, correct?’

  ‘Yeah, I often do that.’

  ‘On this particular night, Miss Delany told you about her nightmare, the scream, and you said she was very anxious, correct?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘What did you do about it?’

  ‘Nothing, I didn’t do nothing. She went back on the set and I left. Ask my brothers, they’ll tell you I left.’

  ‘And you never saw her again?’

  ‘No.’

  Anna tried again, sounding him out about his karate expertise and the fact that he often worked as a bodyguard. She asked him if he had tried to calm Amanda down, perhaps offering to check out the mews house for her.

  ‘No, I did not. Ask me brothers. I left and went home.’

  Langton had also had a moment of excitement; perhaps they had found a chink. He suspected that the killer could have been inside her mews house; had Lester gone to check the place out? If he had, he would have had a key to let himself in. But the moment passed and Langton kicked back his chair as Anna and Barolli agreed to release Lester. They warned him that he might be needed for further questioning and that he was not to leave the country. In the meantime, they would check out his alibis and contact all the people whose names and addresses he had supplied both in England and Amsterdam.

  It was a depressed foursome that met in Mike Lewis’s office. It was now 11 p.m. Langton was in a foul mood, snapping out instructions for them to concentrate on gathering as much evidence as possible. His gut feeling was that, contrary to what Lester had said, he did go to Amanda’s house; maybe to check it out for their victim, which would mean he had a front-door key. He also felt that the brothers were covering up the fact that they used him to drive Amanda, either on the night of her murder or on the previous night. He wanted them brought back in for questioning.

  ‘He’s told us a lot of bullshit in my opinion, and it�
��s your job to break it down. Get another warrant issued; get his car stripped and get hold of that video he said he made doing his karate exhibitions. You want his bank statements and you want to put pressure on him from every angle.’

  ‘He’s hard to budge,’ Barolli said, describing how Lester had made direct eye-contact at all the most relevant moments, never wavering.

  Lester was a 7th Dan Karate master, Langton snapped back. Control was uppermost in their training, but he had seen him hesitate twice. He wanted him brought back, and to do that, they needed hard evidence. Langton walked into the incident room, beckoning for them to join him at the board.

  ‘OK. One, get his alibi sorted. Stag-night party, talk to them. If they were all pissed out of their heads, they probably wouldn’t know what time they came or went anywhere, never mind who’s driving them. Two, find this bloody missing woman, Jeannie Bale. Step up the possibility that those two other flatmates were murdered. I want both their deaths treated as suspicious and linked to the enquiry. Three, Lester’s dealing drugs, I’d put my own money on it. If needs be, get over to Amsterdam and talk to these people he says he stayed with, get onto the airline security, show them his picture, find out when he returned to the UK, check his mobile details again, check what calls he made from Amsterdam and when he was back here in the UK. Open up his bank accounts, find out what money he’s been stashing and check out this missing BlackBerry of Amanda’s. Go through her accounts and get her accountant back in.’

  He looked at Anna and wagged his finger.

  ‘I dunno about this agent your missing girl’s supposed to call. I think it’s crass that you’ve got them leaving messages for her with some bogus part. She’s out there somewhere and with this fucking diary that she reckons is going to make her fortune. Maybe she isn’t interested in doing any more acting. Keep on the publisher, he’s got the money she’s after. Go to press on her again, I want her found.’

  ‘How important do you think this diary is?’ Barolli asked.

  Langton ruffled his hair until it stood up on end.

  ‘Who knows? It could be full of shit or it could be putting our prime suspect right in it. If that’s the case, it’s crucial we find the stupid bitch. Lester James is a karate expert. I think he is very dangerous and some things he said just don’t add up. He’ll want to get his hands on this diary if it does contain details that would implicate him, unless…’

  He paused, then turned to the board.

  ‘I know the guys are getting red eye from scouring the CCTV footage, but they’ve got to go over and over it, and the security footage from the other property. The killer went into that mews, stabbed our victim and walked out. He’s got to be caught somewhere and we could just be missing it.’

  He held up his hand as if he was stopping traffic.

  ‘I’ve already arranged surveillance on Lester James. They were on his butt the moment he left the station. We have to get a result soon. I’m not pointing the finger at any of you, but you need to step up the hunt because we’ve got little time to keep an investigation of this size ongoing, understand me? And I don’t want to run out of time.’

  He said a brusque goodnight and walked out, leaving them all feeling very down.

  ‘OK, get some shut-eye and we go at it again in the morning.’

  Mike was next to leave. Anna looked at Barolli.

  ‘Well, we tried our best.’

  ‘Yeah, it just wasn’t good enough. But I dunno if we could have pushed him further. The boss didn’t want us to go in too hard, remember?’

  Anna gave a nonchalant shrug.

  ‘Next time, let’s see how he would do it,’ Barolli went on. ‘He’s all over this case like a rash, while we run around like headless chickens.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t like the way he implied that the agent scenario I’ve set up is a waste of time. At least I’m trying. Every other avenue has failed to produce her.’

  ‘Unless she’s dead too,’ Barolli said quietly.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Seventh Dan or not, Lester James was far from cooperative when Barolli and two officers woke him up at seven o’clock the following morning. When they showed him the search warrant, he accused them of harassment. They had already searched his place, he shouted, and he was not going to allow them to enter. If he didn’t move out of their way, Barolli warned him, they would have to arrest him, so, swearing under his breath, he kicked his front door open wider.

  Barbara and Joan began checking the list of names and addresses that Lester had supplied. Mike Lewis was putting pressure on the officers assigned to the CCTV footage and they were becoming belligerent; they had been closeted with the tapes for days and still had nothing new to add. Mike also put out for another round of door-to-door enquiries in and around the mews. Amanda’s accountant was bringing in all the details she had of her previous accounts, including telephone bills and mobile phone accounts. Harry and Tony James were coming to the station for further questioning that afternoon. They had been asked to bring in their driving ledgers for the work done on Gaslight. The production company had also been contacted for details of the payments to the unit drivers.

  It was hours of tedious work, gathering information and tracking down the individuals. It took half an hour, for instance, to confirm that Lester James had indeed, as he had stated, left his car in a friend’s garage. When they finally managed to contact the friend, he said that he’d given Lester a key and let him come and go as he pleased. His car may have been parked for the dates in question, he thought, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure as he had been away on business, and the garage was out of sight, round the corner from the house.

  Anna was in her office fending one call after another and having real problems with the Amsterdam numbers. They were either engaged or no longer connected. It was looking likely that someone, she hoped not her, would have to travel over there. They still had no confirmation that any drug dealer known to them had met with Lester James, but were still making enquiries.

  Josh Lyons was now settled in his new office complex and calming down from the upheaval of moving, but had still not been contacted by Jeannie Bale. Nor had the service used by Jeannie to pick up her hoped-for messages about auditions had any recent contact from her. Her agent had still not heard from her. Anna’s concern for Jeannie’s safety was mounting. No sighting and no contact for almost a week; even after the press requests for her to come forward, they had heard nothing.

  It was now nine-thirty. Returning to her office, Anna put in yet another call to a number for a Rick ‘Skull’ Matheson, one of the names on Lester James’s list. This time her call was answered, and by a throaty, growling male voice.

  ‘Skull’s Ink.’

  ‘Mr Matheson?’ she asked.

  ‘This is him,’ the thick voice replied. It turned out that ‘Skull’s Ink’ was a well-known tattoo parlour in Amsterdam run by Matheson, who was originally from Huddersfield. Anna explained who she was and that she was making enquiries regarding his association with Lester James.

  ‘Association?’

  ‘I believe you know him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, but I done work on him.’

  It was over a week ago since Matheson had seen Lester; he’d wanted some part of his tattoo filled in. Anna learned that Lester had been a regular customer.

  Before she could ask Matheson where the tattoo was, Joan knocked and entered; there was a call for Anna on line two. Anna thanked Matheson, made a note of the date Lester had last been in his parlour and switched lines. It was Jeannie Bale’s agent Sylvia, breathless in her eagerness to talk to Anna.

  ‘She just called in. I couldn’t believe it, she just called in! I was having my breakfast and I didn’t expect her to ring at that time and I got all flustered because you told me to tape it and I was in the kitchen, so I didn’t have my machine there.’

  Anna told her to take a deep breath, and then repeat the exact details of the conversation.

  ‘I said �
�hello”, and she said, “Sylvia, it’s Jeannie, I just called my message service”.’

  Anna listened.

  ‘I tried to keep calm. I told her we’d been hoping she’d call in, and that we’d left a message on her service about the audition at midday today, and she swore – “Oh shit” or something like that. She didn’t think she’d be able to make it on time. I got very nervous as I know you want to talk to her.’

  ‘Where was she calling from?’

  ‘I don’t know where, but I did redial so I’ve got the number.’

  ‘Sylvia, did she say she wouldn’t go to the audition?’

  ‘No, she said she couldn’t make that time, so I said I would talk to the producer and see if he could change it. I stressed that it was a hurried recall and she might lose out again, but she said it was impossible for her to get to the theatre until about tea-time. I said I would call her back after I’d spoken to the producer to see if he could see her this afternoon. When I asked for the number she was calling from, she said she’d call in again later. She wouldn’t give it to me.’

  ‘What happened when you dialled the number?’ Anna asked.

  ‘It rang and there was no answer.’

  As Anna jotted down the number, Sylvia asked what she should do next when Jeannie called back. Anna asked her to hold on while she checked out the location of the phone number.

  ‘But what if she calls and I’m engaged?’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  Joan was quickly back with the information as Anna put Sylvia on hold.

  ‘It’s from a call box in Bristol.’

  Anna asked her to arrange a patrol car to stand by.

  ‘OK, Sylvia. When she calls back, give her a four o’clock audition at the theatre to give her enough time to get there. It’s only just over an hour and a half by train to Paddington, and then it’s a taxi ride to Kilburn High Road. Don’t let on that you know where she is – act like she’s still in London.’

  ‘Right, yes, four o’clock at the Tricycle Theatre … Should I say I’ll meet her there?’

  ‘No, that will be taken care of. You don’t usually meet her at her auditions, do you?’

  ‘No, but what if she doesn’t call back?’