Silent Scream Read online

  ‘Fill it out. You’ll have to think hard about what you’ll say when they ask how you think you would perform in the next rank. You’ve got to write no more than twenty lines on seven topics, covering examples of how you would deal with effective communications, planning and organisation, customer and community focus, respect for race and diversity, strategic perspective, openness to change and, last but not least, personal responsibility.’

  Anna flushed, not knowing what to say.

  ‘Well, go on, take your application home and remember, think carefully about what you are going to say. Then it’s down to you, Travis. Good luck.’

  ‘Thank you very much, sir. I really appreciate this and I’ll do my best.’

  ‘I hope you do, Travis. You’ve got a big future ahead of you.’

  Anna thanked him again and hurried out, grinning from ear to ear. She crossed to her small office and put the application form into her briefcase. She was packed up and ready to leave. They would all be having a drink in the local pub to celebrate the end of the case, and then it would be onto the next one. She didn’t mention the promotion application to anyone. Instead she enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine and then left, eager to get home.

  Back at her flat, close to Tower Bridge, Anna went straight into her bedroom and chucked her briefcase onto the bed. She picked up her late father’s photograph from her bedside table and kissed it.

  ‘Daddy, I’m going up for promotion. Detective Chief Inspector …’ Then she laughed and flopped down onto her bed, holding the photograph frame to her chest. He would have been so proud, her father, the late Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Travis. She was determined that she would work her butt off to fill in the application to the very best of her ability.

  As Anna showered and washed her hair, humming, she felt so good and so positive. It had been a tedious investigation, and although the guilty verdict had been the one the team had hoped for, she was glad the case was over. Hunting down the evidence had involved painstaking enquiries and lengthy conversations with the nurse. It had never ceased to amaze Anna how complicated people’s lives were. A jealous wife, a sickly husband and a homely middle-aged woman in a tragic triangle. At first Anna had not suspected that the nurse could have been anything other than a dedicated carer. Dilys was a widow in her mid-forties, rather overweight, with greying hair, and only when she spoke of the victim’s kindness to her, did Anna begin to suspect there existed anything other than a professional relationship. When she eventually asked if there had been something more, the floodgates had opened. Dilys had explained how fond she had become of her patient, how admiring of the way he never complained and was at all times so charming.

  Lady Halesbury, possibly suspecting something was going on, had asked Dilys to leave. It had been a terrible wrench, but the nurse had packed up her suitcase and returned to her council flat in Paddington.

  ‘I loved him,’ she told Anna. ‘We loved each other. I have never known such kindness and such sweetness from a man …’

  Anna had listened as the woman seemed to shine, her eyes bright as she explained that they had become lovers. Lord Halesbury had asked her to marry him as soon as he could get a divorce. She knew he would be an invalid, but to be in his company no matter what, would have given her the best years of her life.

  Lying on her bed thinking about the case and the outcome, Anna sighed. The stout little nurse, her face shining with adoration for the dead man, and the bitter, vicious wife, who couldn’t bear to lose her sick husband or his fortune; both women middle-aged and yet caught up in heated passion. The real passion in Anna’s life had been with James Langton; she wondered if she would ever know or feel that passion for someone else.

  Wanting a last glass of wine before bed, she uncorked a bottle of wine and sipped from her glass as she stood by the open window, looking out onto the Thames and Tower Bridge. She had not seen Langton for over eight months, though she had heard news of him and read about him in the police journals. She drained her glass and refilled it. She was suddenly depressed. Even thinking about the last time they had been together made her flush with embarrassment.

  The murder enquiry they had both worked on involved tracking down an infamous drug dealer, Alexander Fitzpatrick. During the enquiry, Anna had met Damien Nolan, husband of a woman who eventually became a major part of the investigation. Anna had found Damien attractive from the moment she had met him, and when he was excluded from the case, she had foolishly agreed to see him. She knew at the time that she was being unprofessional, that Damien would possibly be called as a witness for his wife’s defence, yet she had ignored her own doubts and agreed to meet him. They had met on three different occasions before they went back to her flat and slept together. He was sexy, he was attractive and he was a very experienced lover. In some ways Anna felt her relationship with him freed her from the hold Langton had over her. Even in part knowing she was being foolish made their illicit dates exciting.

  Damien was intelligent, amusing and she really enjoyed his company. He had made her feel attractive – sexy even. It wasn’t love, she knew that; it was something she had never experienced before – a kind of lust. Anna had few friends and even fewer lovers, James Langton being the most recent and the most important in her life. Having Damien, being with him, had helped her confidence. He had bought her sexy underwear, encouraged her to dress in a more flattering way, and even suggested a new hairstyle.

  Anna never kept the hair appointment. On the day she was going, Langton turned up on her doorstep. It was early on a Monday morning, three weeks before the trial was due to take place. She was nervous at seeing him and he didn’t make it easy for her. He refused her offer of coffee, saying he wasn’t there for a social meeting. Tossing his coat onto the sofa, he lit a cigarette and she passed him an ashtray. From the way he was behaving she knew something was wrong.

  ‘OK, I won’t beat about the bush, Anna. Are you seeing Damien Nolan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then fucking stop it, you stupid girl. One, he’s involved in the entire investigation, two, he’ll be called by the defence and three, it is fucking unprofessional.’

  She couldn’t look at him.

  ‘You having sex with him?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘It is my business, Anna. I am leading the case, and to have one of my officers screwing a possible suspect …’

  ‘He hasn’t been charged with anything.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Anna, his wife has and he’ll be asked to give evidence. What you are doing is crass stupidity, let alone insubordination. I could have you disciplined – which would result in you being demoted or possibly kicked out. I can’t believe you would not only be so unprofessional, but what the fuck are you doing with that prick?’

  She wanted to say, ‘Having great sex,’ but all she ended up doing was bursting into tears.

  ‘End it now and I’ll not mention it again, you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, then do it – and if I hear you are still seeing him, having any kind of relationship with him, then you will pay a high price.’

  He picked up his coat and walked to the front door.

  ‘Don’t think I wanted to come here and tear a strip off you. There is nothing personal in this, you understand what I am saying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Then no more is to be said.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As he glared at her, she felt as if his dark eyes were boring into her head.

  ‘Yeah, you should thank me, because I won’t let a whisper of this get out. You’ve got a bright future and you almost blew it.’

  She hung her head like a schoolgirl and he walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  She had not seen Damien Nolan since then. She had been on tenterhooks during his wife’s trial, hoping he would not be called to take the stand. He wasn’t, but he did show up in court. Anna had kept her face turned away from him, never meeting his quizz
ical looks. Damien’s wife was sentenced to twelve years for attempting to pervert the course of justice, assisting an offender, and possessing Class A drugs with the intent to supply. Five years were added for assisting Fitzpatrick’s escape. He had never been caught and his whereabouts remained unknown. The failure to bring him to justice sat heavily on everyone involved in the lengthy investigation, and especially on Langton. Fitzpatrick had been so audacious that Langton knew he had lost. It was one of the few cases with no closure for him, and it had infuriated him.

  Anna was asleep when the phone rang. She checked the time: four-thirty in the morning. It was DCI Mathews and he was not a happy man.

  ‘You heard of Amanda Delany?’

  Travis was still half-asleep, so made no reply.

  ‘Movie actress – well, she was; she’s been found dead. I don’t have any facts and I’m on my way there, so you join me as soon as possible.’

  Anna drove herself to Amanda Delany’s mews house in no time at all at that hour of the day. Mathews greeted her with a sigh, gesturing for her to get into a forensic protection suit, like the one he was already wearing.

  ‘She’s in the bedroom.’

  Anna followed him along a narrow hall and up the stairs. She could see the forensic team at work with specialist lighting equipment set up. As she reached the open bedroom door, Mathews nudged her.

  ‘It’s not that big a room and I want them to get on with it as fast as possible, so just check around. I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen. I’ve already got officers making cursory house-to-house enquiries.’

  Anna inched further into the bedroom, moving slowly around the bed to view the body. It lay in a spreadeagled pose. Anna was struck by the actress’s beauty, which even in death was astonishing. Her wide blue eyes were open, and it looked as if someone had carefully arranged her silky blonde hair to spread out across the pillow. Her duvet had been removed and bagged, Anna was told.

  A masked forensic officer turned towards Anna. ‘You know who she is?’

  ‘Was … Yes, I do. There’s been a lot of press about her recently.’

  ‘Be even more now!’

  As if on cue, there was a flash of cameras from the press photographers gathered outside.

  Mathews appeared and signalled to Anna. ‘Body warm and stiff. Dead for between three to eight hours. Not a lot we can do here, and as it’s such a cramped space, I’ll be back at the incident room.’

  There were more flashes of cameras, accompanied by shouts as the press started asking for an update. Anna remained in the bedroom doorway as Mathews went outside to give a statement to the press. He said little, bar the fact that the victim was a white female, aged in her mid-twenties. They were treating her death as suspicious.

  Anna remained at the mews for another hour but there was little for her to do, apart from feeling as if she was in the way. No weapon had been found at the scene; neither the locks on the front nor the back doors were damaged. Amanda’s boxes of jewellery seemed undisturbed, and five thousand pounds in cash was found hidden in a drawer with her underwear. The police made it a priority to seize her handbag and were searching for her mobile phone to check for calls and messages sent and received.

  By the time Anna arrived at the incident room, set up in nearby Pimlico, it was almost 10 a.m. Amanda’s body, identified by her agent, had been taken to the mortuary. The pathologist would start work as soon as he got in. The number of knife wounds visible on her torso made it clear how she had been killed, but not until they had the pathology report could they surmise whether she had been raped before she was murdered.

  It was DCS Langton who had assigned Mathews to the Delany case and instructed him to retain the team who had worked on the Halesbury case. The team now regrouped and waited for instructions. Anna had written up her findings on the board: as nothing appeared to have been stolen, nor did the mews look as if it had been broken into, it seemed very possible that Amanda knew her assailant.

  So far, the team had only the basic facts. Forensic would take their time; they were still at the victim’s house and would be there for at least two or three weeks. The team would be forced to wait for the autopsy report. Mathews sent four of them along with a Detective Sergeant to organise and supervise POLSA, Police Search Advisors, to search for the weapon. They would continue a detailed house-to-house enquiry within the small mews courtyard to discover if any resident saw or heard anything suspicious. Amanda’s parents had been contacted. They lived in the South of France, but prepared to return as soon as they could.

  Mathews slurped his beaker of coffee.

  ‘What we need is a motive for the murder. Nothing appears to be stolen and there’s no damage to the property or forced entry, so at present the motive does not appear to be robbery.’ He held up a large coloured day-to-day calendar they had removed from Amanda’s kitchen; it contained very little personal information. He also had a small leather-bound address book.

  ‘Amanda Delany listed her pick-up times for her current filming, costume-fittings, wig-fittings and so on, but there are no details in it of her private life. It’s possible the killer was someone she knew. We’ll need to draw up lists of her friends, current and ex-boyfriends, work associates, and the contractor and workmen who did the refurbishments to her house as they could have kept hold of spare keys. We also need to question everyone she was working with, as they would possibly have been the last people to see her alive.’

  Half an hour later, at the end of Mathews’s briefing, the duty manager began passing out to the team their priorities. Copies of the calendar and address book had been made and pages were handed around so they could begin questioning everyone listed. Mathews signalled for Anna to join him in his office. He wanted her to prepare a full intelligence victim file on Amanda’s life, and start by interviewing Amanda’s agent who was arriving any moment.

  ‘This is a bloody pain in the arse,’ he muttered, checking the time. ‘I was hoping for a few weeks’ annual leave. I also have a feeling that this is going to be a pressured investigation. The press office is already inundated.’

  ‘She was pretty famous,’ Anna observed.

  ‘I wouldn’t have known her if I fell over her.’

  ‘Maybe her films are more for teenagers, but she had a high profile. She got a break starring in a successful movie straight out of drama school.’

  ‘She’s not gonna get any more breaks, Travis, but I hope to Christ we do, and can wrap this up as fast as possible. We’ll have Jimmy Langton on our backs – and you know what he’s like. I’d put money on it he’ll be very “present” because he’ll love the publicity. And I’m warning everyone that we’re going to get a shedload of it.’

  He paused, as if realising he was repeating himself. He didn’t even notice how Anna flinched on hearing Langton’s name. Changing the subject, she asked who would be partnering her. Mathews sighed.

  ‘It’s not usual for me to delegate a specific partner, but I can allocate a DS to be the case officer and bring in another DI.’ He passed over an internal list of officers. ‘Your choice. You can take your pick, and if there’s anyone here that you liked working with, then—’

  ‘To be honest, sir, you and I both know that I had to do a lot of the legwork on our last case and as you’ve said, this one is going to be under the spotlight. I really appreciate you suggesting me for promotion and would have liked, or sort of expected, to get a few weeks off to prepare.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is it possible for you to replace me?’

  ‘No.’

  Anna felt irritated. ‘In that case, sir, I’d like to be working alongside an experienced DI or DS.’

  She was trying to be diplomatic. She’d not found any of the present team to be really talented or prepared to work the long hours she herself had put in.

  ‘Leave it with me and I’ll call you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Andrea Lesser was waiting in an interview room. She was an attractive woman in
her early forties, wearing little make-up, dressed head to toe in Prada: grey skirt, grey cashmere sweater and a neat jacket that she had draped over a chair. She owned one of the biggest theatrical agencies in London.

  ‘Thank you so much for agreeing to come in,’ Anna said as she sat down opposite. She offered water but Miss Lesser shook her head.

  ‘I’d just like to get this over with as soon as possible. I’m still in shock.’

  ‘It must be very distressing for you. You knew Miss Delany well?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been Amanda’s agent since she left drama school. Have you any idea what happened, who could have done this?’

  ‘Not at the moment, which is why it is imperative I get as much detail as possible about her recent movements.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I was a close friend – I mean, my relationship with her was business. I knew her, but not on a social level – by that I mean … Oh God! I can’t think straight!’

  ‘You knew her well enough to have her house keys.’

  ‘Yes, she did depend on me. I had the keys to check that the building work on her new house was done to her satisfaction. She only moved in a couple of months ago. I had to make sure the interior designer was not going over budget and all the right furniture was delivered …’ She sighed.

  ‘Which is probably more than what an agent is normally required to do?’ Anna said kindly.

  ‘Well, yes, it was a lot of extra work for me but Amanda was an important client and, with her being so young, I suppose I did more for her than most actors I represent. To be honest, I did resent it a little, but there was no one else.’

  ‘What about her family?’

  ‘She didn’t really get along with them, partly due to the bad publicity she’d had recently. Her parents are very straightlaced, and found the tabloid hounding distressing.’

  ‘Did Amanda?’

  ‘Did she what?’

  ‘Feel hounded?’

  ‘She did, but much of it was her own doing.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Andrea Lesser hesitated. She started tapping her foot.