Silent Scream (54 page)

Lester coughed and straightened in his seat.

‘She got back about four-thirty in the morning. She was very tired and I said to her that I’d checked over the house and locked up and I’d not found anything worrying, so I left.’

‘How did you leave?’

‘Back way. Used the alley along the gardens and went to pick up my car, then I drove home.’

‘So did Amanda lock up the door into her garden?’

‘Yeah, she did. Well, if you found it locked then she must have.’

Langton sifted through the files, as Anna sat staring at Lester. His control was admirable.

‘You have stated that you were just her driver and that you never had any interest or interaction of a sexual nature with Miss Delany?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I believe you are lying. Not only do we have confirmation in her diary that you were very much Miss Delany’s sex toy, someone she could use whenever she felt like it, but also someone she felt was becoming over-protective and she didn’t want to continue the arrangements you had for either drugs or sex.’

‘Not true. I was just her driver and she depended on me. That’s why she asked me to check out the mews.’

Anna passed a note to Langton. He read it and gave her a small nod and she gave a smile to Lester.

‘You were just her driver,’ she said. ‘Someone Miss Delany used on private jobs as well as working for various film units.’

‘Correct.’

‘So
as just her driver,
it didn’t anger you when she asked you to drive Colin O’Dell and Scott Myers from her house after they had spent the night with her?’

‘I admitted I drove them last time I was interviewed. Didn’t bother me who she saw. Like I keep on telling you, it was just a job for me. I had no other feelings like you keep on suggesting.’

Anna raised her voice. ‘She would give you a blow job in your car, wouldn’t she? She certainly made a lot of notes about the size of your penis and the fact that you were unable to keep an erection for long. It must have really grated on you to have to listen to these two men who had just had a sexually active threesome with her. Then shortly after that night, you were told by Jeannie Bale that Amanda Delany had recorded all your inept sexual approaches in her diary and only did what she had to do to score drugs from you so she wouldn’t have to pay you.’

Lester looked stunned by her accusations.

‘All right, I admit she occasionally went down on me. I couldn’t refuse her, as she was very insistent and, like I said, I depended on her for my income. That was the only reason. Whether or not I was not up to scratch, according to her, is neither here nor there. I got paid, that’s what it was all about.’

‘So you admit you dealt drugs?’

‘No, I’m not admitting that at all. What I do admit is that occasionally she would want to have oral sex, that’s all. And why refuse? It made her happy, if not me. I never liked it, to be honest. I just let it happen so I would get paid.’

Both Anna and Langton rested back in their chairs, as if what he was saying made total sense to them, which gave him confidence.

‘I could tell you some stories about who she picked up at clubs, and if you think it bothered me, then you’re wrong. I didn’t have any emotional ties to her. I was only, like I keep on saying, her driver. Whatever you’re trying to make out, how I felt because of some stupid stuff in her diary, it didn’t make me get uptight.’

‘Not even if it was to be published and your name—’ Anna was interrupted.

‘She never had the deal, I know that. After she come out from that publisher’s lunch meeting she was pissed out of her head, and the next time she met with him at her flat she was coked up. She told me she would never be able to write anything, it was all in her head; she was also back on the crack cocaine, so she’d never have held it together to write a fucking book. It’s all bullshit and if that Jeannie Bale told you anything different, she’s lying. All she ever wanted was to put Miss Delany down because she was so jealous of her success.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us this when you were last interviewed?’

Lester sighed, then made an expansive gesture with his big hands.

‘She was dead, I didn’t want to rub salt in open wounds. A lot of people will come out of the woodwork and say bad things about her, and I just didn’t want to be one of them.’

‘Because you cared for her?’

‘I was her driver. Whether I cared about her is immaterial. We had a professional relationship, nothing more.’

‘Did you kill Amanda Delany?’

‘No, I did not. When I left her house that morning, she was alive and I went home.’

‘How did you feel when you were told she had been murdered?’

‘Terrible. It was a shock. Also, it would mean a big loss of earnings for me. I had to get away – went to stay with friends in Amsterdam. I was very depressed about it, partly because I should have been more protective, maybe not left the house but stayed with her.’

‘If you had, she would still be alive?’

He nodded. Anna sifted through the files and statements, and Langton closed his folder, resting his hands on top of it. Lester took it as an encouraging sign, and leaned forward.

‘I told you the honest to God truth. If that bitch Jeannie Bale has tried to make out that I was anything other than a good friend to Amanda, then she’s crazy. You’ve not got a shred of evidence against me, I know that.’

‘So did Jeannie leave the mews house before you?’

‘Yeah. I was talking to her from the lounge and the next minute, I realised she’d run off .’

‘So she couldn’t have been involved in the murder?’

He hesitated. ‘Suppose not.’

Langton took over again.

‘That still leaves you, so take us through exactly what happened when Miss Delany returned home early that morning.’

Lester wiped his face.

‘I told you. I said to her I’d checked everything out and nothing seemed to be of concern, so I left.’

‘So both you and Jeannie Bale went out of the garden doors and then down the alley back to the main road?’

‘Yeah, ’cos my car was parked up there.’

Langton opened his file again and made a note.

‘Why didn’t you park in the mews?’

‘Ah well, there is a reason. My brother Harry would be driving her back from the film unit, right? And I didn’t want him to know I was there waiting for her.’

‘Why not?’

‘He wouldn’t have approved. Both he and Tony are sticklers for keeping artists at arm’s length, very professional they are.’

Langton closed his folder again, and picked up his pen and replaced the cap. Anna followed suit. Their ploy worked. It appeared that they were finishing the interview, which made Lester relax. He smiled.

‘I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time. I should have said some of this to you before in my first interview, but I’ve explained my reasons.’

Langton nodded and thanked him. It was Anna’s turn.

‘Do you have any tattoos?’ She asked pleasantly.

He jerked with surprise. ‘No.’

‘Would you please take your shirt off, Mr James?’ She spoke quietly and Lester looked at his solicitor in confusion.

‘Is there a reason you wish my client to remove his clothes?’ the solicitor asked.

‘Yes,’ Anna replied. ‘If Mr James refuses, then we’ll have to stop the interview for now and get the necessary authority to strip-search him.’

Lester glanced once more at his solicitor, who gave him a small shrug of his shoulders as if to say it was up to him. First Lester undid the buttons on his cuffs and then slowly, button by button, he opened his shirt. He stretched it wide for them to see his bare chest.

‘Take the shirt off, please,’ Anna said firmly.

‘Why? You looking for scratches or something?’ Lester glared at her. ‘There won’t be any ’cos I never was involved. This is stupid.’

‘Just take your shirt off, and then stand up and turn around.’

Langton looked at Anna, frowning. Lester pushed back his chair to stand in front of the table. His muscles stood out, as did his six-pack and small waist, as he inched the shirt away from his trousers and took it off. He held it in one hand, staring at both of them.

‘Satisfied? Or do you want my pants off as well?’

‘Turn around, please.’

Slowly Lester turned. Even his solicitor peered at his back with interest and then with shock.

Over almost his entire back Lester had a tattoo of Amanda Delany’s face. It was a good if rather exaggerated likeness, with her blue eyes and blonde hair and wide lips parted in a sexual pout.

‘You can put your shirt back on now, Mr James,’ Anna instructed.

Lester remained standing as he drew on his shirt, carefully buttoning up the front, leaving the sleeves loose.

‘Sit down, please.’

Langton looked at Anna, raising his eyebrows.

‘It must have hurt a lot when she laughed at your tattoo. Maybe not to your face, but she wrote about it in her diary, said it wasn’t a good likeness. I disagree, it’s very good – pity she didn’t see the finished tattoo. You had it completed in Amsterdam, didn’t you?’

Lester nodded. It was as if all the fight had drained out of him.

‘Do you turn to see it in your mirror? Or is just knowing she’s there enough?’

He swallowed. It was almost painful to watch the many expressions passing across his face, hurt being uppermost.

‘You loved her, didn’t you?’ Anna asked gently.

He gave a small nod and his eyes welled up with tears.

‘What did she say to you that made you so angry you made sure no one else could have her?’

He remained silent. Anna continued in the same low tone of voice, not wanting to break the mood. She suggested that after Jeannie Bale left him in the lounge at Amanda’s house, something must have happened for him to lose control, wanting perhaps to hurt Amanda Delany the way she had hurt him. She got no reaction; Lester remained sitting like a block of wood in front of them. Now Langton leaned forward.

‘Come on, Lester, give it up. You stabbed Amanda Delany over and over again and then you combed her hair and spread it over the pillow, never touching her face so she looked perfect, just like she looks on your body.’

‘No,’ he said softly, and then his body shook as he took a deep breath.

‘Stabbed her repeatedly, didn’t you? Neat fast incisions, one after the other. Did she cry out? Beg you to stop?’

‘No.’ It sounded like a low moan.

‘Unless the first stab silenced her, and you knew what you were doing, one, two. Did she shudder, beg you to stop, or did she—?’

‘The first stab killed her. I’m a professional. I’m not sure how many other times I stabbed her, but she didn’t cry out, she didn’t feel any pain.’

Lester gradually became more composed. Looking at his solicitor, he said quietly that he had done it. There was no point in pretending any more, he was admitting it.

‘That’s best for you, Lester,’ Langton urged him. ‘Tell us what exactly happened to make you do it. . . Come on, you’ll feel better if you let it all out.’

‘I loved her, I’d have done anything for her,’ Lester said, almost dreamily. ‘Five years I’d taken care of her, five years or more she’d depended on me. I never liked her taking drugs, but she insisted. I only got the drugs for her to keep her happy, and when she wanted gear for her friends I did that too, but I’ve never touched them myself – I value my health too much. She needed them to function, used to say that unless she had them, unless I got them for her, she’d go to some street dealer and get shit given to her, and then the press would find out. So I did it, always made sure it was good quality stuff, and I never let her use heroin. But she got into crack cocaine and that was her undoing. That movie actor Colin O’Dell was the first to give it to her, and then she used to get real nasty with me if I didn’t score it for her, so I did.’

It took a long time for Lester to retrace the events that drove him to commit murder. It was when Amanda made him score for her friends that he became angry. But the biggest insult had come when she insisted he drive Colin O’Dell and Scott Myers and he had had to listen to the two of them laughing and talking about their threesome and what a slag Amanda was. He had wanted to stop his car and get out and beat the living daylights out of the pair of them, but he had controlled himself. He had rarely had full consensual sex with her and never in her bed, but he had always believed that one day she would realise that he was the only person who really cared about her.

‘She told me her grandfather had sexually abused her from when she was only six years old, that her parents would never believe her because her grandfather paid for everything, and even when she had told her mother that he was molesting her, all she had said was it didn’t matter because he had done the same to her.’

Lester passed a hand over his eyes.

‘What kind of a mother is that, to allow it to go on, simply to maintain their luxurious lifestyle? Sick people – sick, perverted people – they never knew what they had done to her. Amanda was damaged goods and that’s what made me so protective of her. She always said that without me there was no one else.’