Silent Scream by Lynda La Plante Read Free Book Online Page A

have an alibi, does he – since he drove himself home.’
    They continued their journey in silence for a while and then Simon hit the steering wheel in frustration, muttering, ‘Fucking traffic! This bloody congestion charge just makes it worse.’
    ‘What do you think about the scream Amanda claimed to have heard?’ Anna asked.
    ‘Christ knows. You keep going back to that.’
    ‘I know, it just bothers me. She gets to the set and tells everyone how much it had affected her, but she didn’t call the police.’
    They eventually drove into the station car park and headed into the incident room. Phones were ringing nonstop as Anna threaded her way through the booths towards her small glass-fronted office.
    As soon as Mathews saw Anna, he signalled for her to join him.
    ‘The TV coverage is kicking in – they’re showing clippings of her films and they’re impatient for an arrest. So far, we have no suspect. Unless . . .’ He peered at Anna.
    ‘We’ve come up empty-handed. No one we interviewed on the set appears to have a motive, and in most cases they were either working or had alibis, so the team will have to run checks on them all. Have we been given a closer time-frame for her death?’
    ‘Not come through yet, but they’ll be finishing up the post mortem some time soon.’ Mathews sighed, then glanced at his watch. ‘We’d better have a briefing and see what else, if anything, we’ve got. With such a high-profile case, we’ll be getting a lot of media attention. You think we should go for an interview on one of the TV crime shows?’
    ‘I suppose so, but right now we’ve not really pieced together her last known movements, apart from being dropped off at home by the unit driver.’
    ‘You question him?’
    ‘Yes, Simon did. His name is Harry James. He didn’t see anything suspicious and waited until Amanda let herself into the mews house before he drove off. He returned to the film set and had another actor to drive home.’
    ‘What about this scream?’
    ‘Er, no one seems to have any concrete details, apart from the fact that she told a lot of people about it. She didn’t report it at the time though, and apparently the team has found no one or anything connected to it in the area of the mews.’
    ‘You get on and write up your report. I’ll be out in half an hour, then I’ve got to get off home.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    A few minutes later, Mathews tapped on the window of her office, holding up the front-page coverage in the Evening Standard.
    MOVIE STAR ’ S MURDER . WHO KILLED AMANDA ?
     
    Anna wasn’t surprised to find, fifteen minutes later, as the team gathered for the briefing, that Mathews had already gone home. Simon waited for everyone to assemble.
    ‘OK, the Guv has had to leave so it’s down to me to gather all the information we’ve got so far.’
    He turned to the board. Alongside the photographs of Amanda from various films were the tragic shots showing how her body was discovered. None of the neighbours in the mews itself and the properties backing onto Amanda’s house had heard or seen anything suspicious. Nothing, as yet, had come in from forensics or the pathology labs to help ascertain the exact time of her murder. They had no weapon.
    ‘It was a brutal killing,’ Simon stressed. ‘Look at the way her body was found and then look at what we’ve got – fuck all. We have no suspect, we haven’t found anyone so far who saw anything suspicious, and no one we’ve interviewed knows of anyone with a grudge against the victim.’
    ‘Bar the ex-wives of some of her boyfriends,’ Barbara the blonde DC interjected. ‘Seems like Amanda got her rocks off, shagging married stars and one in particular.’ She held up a newspaper. ‘Scott Myers’s wife is also an actress, also pretty attractive. She’s been in the news over the past year, accusing Amanda of stealing her husband and persuading him to leave her and their three kids – all under seven, by the