Silent Scream Read online

  ‘I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but we’re here under very tragic circumstances,’ he responded.

  Anna watched Sutton drive off in his Mercedes before she reversed and headed out of the mews. Simon sat beside her, his mood obvious.

  ‘Well, that didn’t give us much,’ he said grumpily.

  ‘On the contrary, I think we got more of an insight into our victim for one, and we now know that along with her diary, her cuddly toy is missing.’

  ‘Terrific. So what are you saying?’

  ‘That maybe the killer stole both these items. The diary I can understand, but not the cuddly toy. That is odd. I mean, why take it unless it meant something to him?’

  It was after seven in the evening when they returned to the station. The incident room was quiet with only the night staff working. Apart from a few details regarding the files taken from Amanda’s laptop, there were no new items written up on the incident board.

  Anna sat in her office and felt weary. Not that it had been a particularly hard day’s work; it was piecing together their victim’s background that made her feel depressed. She felt compassion for the girl with her anorexia, her drug-taking and damaged skinny body; then to be murdered at just twenty-four years of age was wretched. Anna was only twenty-nine but by comparison she felt so much older. It was as if their victim had hardly lived. After finishing her reports, she was preparing to leave when she saw on her desk a file from Joan Falkland with a typed note attached.

  Copies of the files from Victim Amanda Delany’s laptop – more to come. I’ve also made a CD copy for you to use on your own computer.

  Anna flipped open the folder. It contained printed sheets from the various files, listing each one by name and date. She slipped the CD into her briefcase, then finished the evening’s work by marking up her notes on the incident board. She’d catch up on reading the files from the laptop at home, but as Joan had not underlined any passages or remarked on anything of interest connected to the case, she didn’t feel there was any immediate urgency.

  Anna didn’t get home until after nine. Unlike the Amandas of this world who would probably be getting ready to go out clubbing, she had a shower, made an omelette and, too tired to continue working, went straight to bed. She set her alarm for six the next morning, intending to work at home before going into the station.

  Chapter Five

  It was a wonder to Anna the next morning how such a delicate, confused and tortured creature could not only be phenomenally successful but very rich and, as Sutton had said, very much in charge of her finances. It felt as if she was investigating two women, instead of just one young girl. With so many physical ailments, Anna wondered how on earth Amanda Delany had got herself out of bed each day to work on the film set.

  She jotted down a list of things that bothered her: the two missing items – the toy rabbit and the rest of the gold crucifix chain – and she underlined them both. Tapping her teeth with the pencil, she then wrote down the three names, Scott Myers, Rupert Mitchell and Colin O’Dell. She paused, then wrote Fiona Myers’s name down too and underlined it. She flopped back onto her pillow, trying to fathom out what else was niggling away at her. She couldn’t quite get it to surface, then she remembered something. Getting up, she went into her sitting room, opening her desk drawers in search of an old notebook. Thumbing through it, certain that she was correct, she went back to her previous case – the murder of Lord Halesbury.

  There it was. The nurse, Dilys Summers, had first met Lord Halesbury when she was working as a nurse at the Drury Clinic, She had left the clinic to work privately for His Lordship. Summers must have been at the Drury around the same time as Amanda Delany.

  Anna added Dilys Summers to the list of people she wished to interview. By this time it was after seven and she still hadn’t checked the files copied from the laptop. Dressing quickly, she took the file into her kitchen to read while she ate breakfast. Flipping through pages of childish jottings, some diets and some awful poetry, she sighed.

  My life is full of dreams.

  When they are fulfilled

  And nothing appears as it seems

  You start to wonder

  Why bother with dreams?

  Loving someone all the time

  is only trying to find

  that certain someone

  who is just kind.

  Anna shook her head. There were pages and pages of these trite poems. Headings at the top of the page read Too Much Too Soon, Screwing My Life Up, and then there were further odd lines, some misspelled: It’s not all agony, Hiding behind the screen, Not all just up to now. There were whole pages of these one-liners; Anna couldn’t make out what they meant. Were they, perhaps, the first line of a poem or just random thoughts?

  She checked the time: it was almost eight and she had to leave for work. Then she caught sight of an almost-full page of neatly typed manuscript, bearing the words at the top: Chapter One. Anna whistled to herself. She couldn’t help becoming interested, not by what was written on the page itself but by the heading. Was Amanda Delany writing a book about her life? If this was so, then perhaps the previous one-liners had not been poetry but titles for a book. She would ask Joan to check the dates from the laptop as to when the files had been written, and she’d read the material just as soon as she got a quiet moment.

  It had taken DC Joan Falkland another slew of phone calls from agents to personal assistants, but she had two appointments for Anna, one with Scott Myers and the other with Colin O’Dell, who had agreed to be interviewed in Dublin where he was filming. Barbara had contacted Rupert Mitchell and he too had consented to see Anna.

  ‘Good, arrange for me to meet him after I return from Dublin and, Barbara, can you do me a favour? I want you to get a magnifying glass and start checking all the news coverage and photographs of Amanda and whoever she was with, to see if anyone is wearing a gold crucifix like the one we found at her house. I also want to take photographs of it with me.’

  Barbara glanced at Joan, and as Anna moved away, she muttered under her breath, ‘Great! She gets to meet all the movie stars and I get to sit with an effing magnifying glass all day.’

  Barbara did have the grace to blush as Anna returned and overheard her remark, but Anna didn’t even bother reacting to it. Instead she leaned on the side of Joan’s desk.

  ‘One more thing I need you to do is to get me the rest of the files from the victim’s laptop. Can you include on all of them the dates they were written? Also, can you check with the costume department on Amanda’s last film, to see if she wore the crucifix?’

  ‘They’re being copied up right now.’

  ‘Good. Get them to my office before I leave.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am, and I’ll check on the crucifix.’

  This time, Joan didn’t look at Barbara but began to arrange Anna’s appointment with Rupert Mitchell.

  DCI Mathews gave a briefing at nine that morning. As the team gathered, it became clear that they were no further along with the investigation. Anna brought up the two items she sensed were important, the missing toy rabbit and the gold crucifix, and said that she would be interviewing three people she felt might help with their enquiry. DCI Mathews asked that they get a clear view of Amanda’s financial state. So far, they had not considered that it might have a connection to her murder, but after Simon had revealed how much the house was worth and that Amanda’s earnings ran into millions, the Guv wanted a full investigation.

  Just before Anna left to meet with Scott Myers, Joan received a call from his personal assistant to say that he would not be at his flat, but at home with his wife and their children. Even better; Anna wanted very much to meet Fiona Myers. Joan had also arranged a flight to Dublin at lunchtime, leaving from Heathrow and returning this evening. From there, Anna would be able to drive to Rupert Mitchell’s home in Kingston. Lastly, she handed Anna the rest of the file taken from Amanda’s laptop.

  Anna made no mention of wanting to meet up with Dilys Summers
or her possible connection with Amanda when she worked at the Drury. Nor did she mention her hunch that Amanda had possibly been writing a book; she needed to find out if it was a reality or just the young girl’s fantasy. She was about to call Andrea Lesser when Mathews walked into her office.

  ‘It’s flatlining, isn’t it?’ he said glumly, then sat down heavily in her desk chair. ‘I’ve just had bloody Chief Superintendent Langton on the phone and he gave me an earful. There’s more coverage in this morning’s papers and we’re gonna have to give a press release, but saying what? That we’ve fuck all!’

  Anna was eager to leave, even more so as she knew that if they didn’t bring in a result soon, Langton would be breathing down their necks.

  ‘I’ve got to go and see him.’ Mathews gave her a bilious look. ‘You got any gut feeling about this?’

  ‘No, sir, I haven’t, but as I said in the briefing, I really do think the murder is connected to someone she knew. I suppose it’ll be a process of elimination.’

  ‘Right. They’ve got pictures of the cross ready for the press release. It wasn’t hers, was it?’

  ‘We’re not sure. Simon is checking with her agent, Andrea Lesser, but if we find that it wasn’t the victim’s but could have been the killer’s and there is a press release on it, then we risk alerting the killer to get rid of any connection. I think it would be best to keep it quiet and for us to simply ask everyone we interview if they recall Amanda wearing any kind of pendant as we believe some of her jewellery could have been stolen. If we get a positive recall, we can ask whoever to describe it.’

  Mathews stood up and sighed, plodding to the door. Then he paused.

  ‘OK, no press release on the crucifix. I want closure on this one. I’m about to retire, and as you know, I’ve got a reputation for tying things up. Mind you, he lost out on his last case, didn’t he? So it happens to the best of us.’

  ‘Let’s hope we have a productive day.’ Anna wished he’d leave.

  ‘I bloody hope we get something.’ Then he was gone.

  A few minutes later, Anna left the station herself. The last thing she wanted was to be confronted with Langton, but if they didn’t get a break in the enquiry, she knew he would be coming into the station. Simon was also heading into the car park and she caught up with him.

  ‘Did you call Miss Lesser about the crucifix?’

  ‘Not yet, she wasn’t in her office. Seems they don’t start work until ten so I’ll call her later. Did you get the lists of the last calls Amanda made? We’ve taken them off her mobile.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  He opened his briefcase. ‘Here you go. I’ve got copies. We’ll also need to get DNA swabs from the actors associated with her as well as fingerprints from everyone you’ve lined up to see today, so we can eliminate them.’

  Anna hesitated, about to mention the book, but decided against it until she had spoken to Andrea Lesser personally. Her competitive nature was surfacing – a bad trait, she knew. She wanted to be the one who cracked open the case, not Simon Dunn.

  Scott Myers lived in a substantial property backing onto Hampstead Heath. It was well-maintained with a small front garden and stone steps leading up to an imposing front door with stained glass panels. A Volvo hatchback pulled up and parked, and the driver tooted the horn. Anna turned and waited as a slim, dark-haired woman got out carrying two large, eco-friendly grocery bags.

  ‘Are you from the police?’ she called out.

  ‘Yes, I am DI Anna Travis. You must be Fiona Myers. Do you need a hand?’

  ‘Good God no, this is a very light load. Could you just get the front-door key out of my pocket and open the front door though?’

  Fiona had a heart-shaped face with big, dark brown eyes. Her hair was cut in a fringe and just above her ears, giving her an elfin look. She was very slender and as Anna opened the front door she hopped over the mat into the hall.

  ‘Be careful, that brass thingy on the door is a bit loose. I keep meaning to get it fixed but haven’t got round to it. Come on in.’

  She headed down a wide hallway, cluttered with scooters and roller skates.

  ‘You mind coming into the kitchen? Then I can unload.’

  Anna followed her into a huge kitchen, lined with pine cabinets and with a big stripped-pine kitchen table in the middle. The fridge was covered in spelling magnets and there was a bright red Aga.

  Fiona dumped the bags down. She crossed to open a dishwasher and muttered, ‘Bloody thing, it has a mind of its own. You switch it on and then it does nothing, then about an hour later it springs into life. I’ve asked the bloke to come out and sort it, but …’

  Anna sat on a stool at the table, as Fiona began to put away the groceries.

  ‘Is your husband here, Mrs Myers?’

  ‘No, but he will be. He’s taken Sadie to the dentist. She must have wiggled her baby teeth with grubby fingers and now she’s got a gum infection. It’s all because her twin brother’s lost more than she has so he’s had the tooth fairy visit more than she has. Do you want a coffee?’

  ‘Yes, if you’re having one, thank you.’

  Fiona moved like a dancer around the kitchen, fetching mugs and coffee and occasionally kicking the dishwasher. She chattered on, excusing the fact it was instant coffee, but one of the kids had broken the percolator. At last she brought over the coffee, but instead of sitting down, immediately jumped up to fetch a biscuit tin, banging it down on the table.

  ‘They’re rather kiddies’ selections of gingerbread men and Oreos, but do help yourself.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was a pause as Fiona spooned in sugar and then got up again to fetch a jug of milk. Anna said nothing, waiting for her to calm down.

  ‘I know why you’re here,’ Fiona said suddenly. She got up yet again and went over to a stack of newspapers; she picked up a Daily Mail and held it out. There was a picture of Amanda on the front page.

  ‘I was reading this earlier. It’s two days’ old. Have you read it?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Anna said quietly.

  ‘Yes, I suppose you would have. Terrible, very sad. Do you know when her funeral is going to be?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry I don’t.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go and I don’t think Scott will either. We’ve had enough stinko press and she’d probably turn in her grave if she knew I was there. But who knows, I might change my mind.’

  Fiona sipped her coffee and rested her chin on her hand. ‘Why do you want to see Scott?’

  ‘I also wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You knew Amanda well, didn’t you?’

  ‘Because she had carnal knowledge of my husband, didn’t mean that I knew her. She’d been here numerous times, but it was just, you know, friendly dinners with some of the film people Scott was working with. I’d cook up a big pot of chilli and open lots of wine.’

  ‘It must have been very difficult for you.’

  Fiona dropped her cookie-friendly act and stared hard at Anna. After a moment she turned away.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t very pleasant. I mean, I’ve got over it now, but it was a horrible time. She used to call him here, had this simpering little voice. I felt sorry for her, but that was before I knew what was going on. She always looked as if she was going to keel over she was so thin, but man, she could drink like a fish, hardly ever ate anything. She would down glass after glass; I don’t know how she could stand up. I couldn’t believe it, of all the women, she would be the one. But she was so needy and men always fall for that act, don’t they?’

  ‘It must have been very difficult for you.’

  ‘You already said that once! And yes, it was. It can’t be easy for anyone when their husband walks out, and especially when it’s front-page news before I was even told he was intending to run after her. I have three children under seven and it was stressful enough even when he was living here because of all his work commitments. Having the fucking press camping out o
n my doorstep was a bloody nightmare for me and the kids.’

  ‘Did you see Amanda over this time?’

  ‘You must be joking. If she’d come here I would have scratched her eyes out!’ She sighed and then laughed. ‘I must sound like a suspect and to be honest, I’d have liked to throttle her. In some ways, when I knew what had happened to her, I even thought she got what she deserved, but in reality … It’s sad, she was so young.’

  ‘I have to ask you this, Fiona. Where were you at the time of Amanda’s murder?’

  Fiona looked startled and then said that she had been at home with her children and the nanny.

  ‘Did you ever see Amanda wearing this?’ Anna showed her the photograph of the gold cross.

  ‘Is it a crucifix?’

  ‘Yes, gold, with a gold chain.’

  Fiona stared at the photograph and then passed it back.

  ‘I doubt she would wear something like that,’ she commented. ‘In fact, I don’t ever recall her wearing jewellery. She was always in skimpy T-shirts and miniskirts – you know, showing off the skeleton frame. She had her tits done, I think, as they stood up like ice-cream cones.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  Fiona took her coffee cup to the sink and rinsed it out.

  ‘Maybe a few months ago. I was at a nightclub and she was there with Colin O’Dell and she smiled and waved at me as if nothing had ever happened between us. It made me so furious, but I didn’t go and pour a glass of wine over her, which I would have liked to do. I just turned my back.’

  ‘Was your husband still seeing her?’

  She returned to the table.

  ‘I doubt it. She dumped him and he was in a real state and guess whose shoulder he came back to cry on – mine! Mindblowing, isn’t it? He walks out, leaves me and the kids, and tells all the press he’s never been so in love and that he wanted to marry her, and then … expects me to welcome him back with open arms. Men!’

  ‘Is he living back with you now?’

  ‘No, he fucking isn’t. He comes and goes with the excuse of seeing the kids. We’ve got a parents’ day at school tomorrow so that’s why he’s here. We are not back together and we won’t be – ever. I can’t forgive what he put us all through and he knows it; it’s over. He was the love of my life. Shit, I’m only thirty-two and we’d been together since we met at drama school, and the bastard does that to me. I gave up my career for him and the kids and he leaves me for that little nymphomaniac.’