Echo

*21*

Deacon put through another call to Edinburgh. "It's Michael Deacon," he told John Streeter when the man came on the line. "I presume you've read that your sister-in-law's been charged with the murder of Nigel de Vriess?"

"Yes."

"Have you any idea why she did it, Mr. Streeter?"

"Not really. I spoke to her the Friday before Christmas, suggesting a truce. She was surprisingly amenable."

"What kind of truce?"

There was a short silence. "The kind you suggested," he said then. "I told her we now believed she'd been telling the truth and asked her to use her influence with de Vriess to let us search through the DVS personnel files for anything that might lead us to Marianne Filbert. She agreed and asked me to contact her again in the new year with a view to proceeding."

"Did she seem worried by the suggestion?''

"She was puzzled by it. She asked me why we believed her now when we hadn't before, and I said that you'd become interested in James's story and had persuaded us to work with her rather than against her."

"What was her answer to that?"

"As far as I remember, she said it was a pity we hadn't attracted your interest five years ago before quite so much water had gone under the bridge."

"Did you ask her what she meant by that?"

"No. I assumed she was saying there'd have been a lot less anguish for everyone if the truth had come out at the time of James's disappearance."

"Anything else?"

' 'No. We wished each other a Happy Christmas and said goodbye." Streeter paused again. "Do you know if the police have questioned her about James?''

"Yes, but her story hasn't changed. She still denies knowing anything about what happened to him."

There was a sigh. "You'll keep us posted, I hope."

"Of course. Goodbye, Mr. Streeter."

With cast-iron guarantees that her part in the story would never be written, Deacon persuaded Lawrence to talk to his partner about the woman who had been offered ten thousand pounds by de Vriess to keep her mouth shut. "All I want to know," he told the old man, "is whether she reported the incident to the police, and if she didn't, why not?"

Lawrence frowned. "I imagine because the money was an inducement to stay silent."

"How can it have been if he had time to go to his solicitor? Most women dial nine-nine-nine the minute their attacker walks out of the door. They don't give him time to get legal advice. That ten thousand sounds more like severance pay than inducement."

Lawrence phoned through the answer a couple of days later. "You were right, Michael. It was in the nature of a pay-off, and she did not report the incident to the police. There had been a history of abuse against the poor woman which ended in the injuries my colleague witnessed. In fact he urged her to prosecute-" he chuckled happily-"somewhat unethically it must be said because he was still acting for de Vriess at the time-but she was too frightened to do it."

"Of de Vriess?"

"Yes and no. She refused to give any details but my colleague believes de Vriess was blackmailing her. She was a stockbroker and his best guess is that she used insider knowledge to buy shares, and de Vriess found out about it."

"Why stop? Why pay her?''

"De Vriess claimed it was a onetime incident when he'd acted out of character because he was drunk. The woman said it was the culmination of a series of such incidents. My colleague believed her and promptly severed our firm's connection with a man he considered to be extremely dangerous. His view is that de Vriess realized he'd gone too far-he broke her arm and her jaw-and decided to release her with a lump sum. His instructions were to offer the woman ten thousand pounds on the clear understanding that there would be no further contact between the two parties."

"Did she ever get paid?"

Another chuckle. "Oh, yes. My colleague screwed twenty-five thousand out of de Vriess before refusing any further business from him."

"You realize this would help Amanda's case considerably? It proves Nigel had a taste for rape."

"Oh, I don't think so. It wouldn't suit her book at all to have it demonstrated that Nigel blackmailed women in order so make them party to their own rape. As I understand it, her defense is that this had never happened before, that Nigel forced his way into her house in a state of high arousal, and that his death was an accident when she lashed out after managing to get free of him."

"She's lying."

"I'm sure she is, my friend, but she's fighting for her life, poor creature."

"Will she get off?"

"Undoubtedly. Barry's witness evidence alone will persuade a jury to acquit.''

"She wouldn't have been arrested but for him," said Deacon, "and now she's looking to him to save her. As Terry would say, that's well ironic."

Lawrence tittered. "How's his reading coming along?"

"Faster than I expected," said Deacon dryly. "He's discovered the joys of looking up dirty words in the dictionary, and he's sending me round the bend by reading the definitions out loud."

"And how's Barry?"

There was a long pause. "Barry's decided to be honest about his feelings," said Deacon even more dryly, "and unless he puts a sock in it pretty rapidly, I'm planning to do the job for him by ripping his balls off and stuffing them in his mouth. I'm a tolerant man, as you know, but I draw the line at being the object of someone else's fantasies."

Facsimile transmission-Dated: 4.01.96

THE STREET, FLEET STREET, LONDON EC4

From: Michael Deacon

To: DS Greg Harrison

Nota Bene: You're not the only person I've been telephoning!

John Streeter called Amanda the week before Christmas (on my advice), asking for a truce and saying that the Friends of James Streeter were planning to approach Nigel de Vriess in the new year with a view to searching through the DVS/Softworks personnel files to try and get an angle on Marianne Filbert.

Wise up! It's about as likely that Amanda met Nigel by chance in Knightsbridge on the Saturday before Christmas as you or I winning the lottery. The odds against it are phenomenal. For Christ's sake, the world and his wife would have been there looking for last-minute presents. She made an arrangement with him to come to her house for some Christmas jollies. See below.

Who owns the cottage in Sway? Amanda or Nigel? If Nigel, then his wife knew nothing about it, and her evidence that there was no contact between Nigel and Amanda doesn't hold water. I'm betting Amanda was required to get herself down there whenever Nigel said "jump." (He knew she'd murdered James, and was using her as his personal punch bag whenever he felt like sex. Lawrence has told you what a bastard Nigel was, and Barry says he was RAPING her-what more proof do you need that Nigel had a hold over her?)

How did she know where Nigel had left his Rolls if it wasn't outside her house? Did he pause in mid-rape to tell her where he'd parked it?

If her car was parked in her driveway, why didn't she reverse into her garage, load Nigel into the boot and dump him somewhere before getting rid of the Rolls? The fact that she didn't is the best proof you've got that the BMW wasn't there.

How does she explain the sacks of cement in her garage when we have photographic evidence that the garage was empty at the beginning of December?

Why have rumpy-pumpy in London when they could have gone to Sway, considering she was going there anyway and it was only forty miles from Halcombe House? Because the disappearing act would have been harder to work from Sway, that's why! It had to be London for easy access to Dover; and it had to be somewhere he wasn't known. So she phoned him and persuaded him to come to London for a change!

This was premeditated murder which would have worked if Barry hadn't thrown a spanner in the works. While Kent & Hampshire police were running around like headless chickens looking for a kidnapped/absconded entrepreneur she would have been spending a quiet Christmas with her mother (who gives solid alibis!). The only risk was leaving the body in her garage over the holiday, but she didn't have time to dispose of the Rolls and Nigel all in one night so she probably thought it was a risk worth taking. It was never going to be as easy as disposing of James. If she'd tipped Nigel over her garden wall he'd be sitting on a mud-bank when the tide went out, and someone would want to know what was in the concrete overcoat. You really must trawl the river beside the Teddington flats. I guarantee you'll find a bag of bones weighted down with hardened cement, and you can use John Streeter for DNA comparison. I've met Amanda's mother, by the way, and the alibi's lousy. The poor old thing's been arthritic for years and knocks herself out every night with sleeping pills. Amanda could have murdered half of England, and Mrs. Powell Snr. wouldn't have known a damn thing about it.

Best wishes,

Mike

Metropolitan Police-Isle of Dogs-facsimile-10.01.96 09.43

From: Greg Harrison

To: Michael Deacon

Hearsay evidence. Amanda denies John Streeter said any such thing. Her version is that he verbally abused her as he has done every Christmas since James vanished.

We can't prove she didn't meet him in Knightsbridge.

The cottage in Sway belongs to a Mrs. Agnes Broadbent. The lessee for the past six years has been Amanda Powell.

She told Nigel she didn't want to see him and said she would call a taxi. He said: "Don't bother, I'm going. The Rolls is parked in Harbour Lane." Then he attacked her. A witness remembers seeing a Rolls-Royce in Harbour Lane that night.

She thought about lifting Nigel into the trunk of her car but he was too heavy for her. She only just managed to drag him into the garage.

She is planning to have the patio relaid in the garden. Some of the stones have worked loose.

Sway doesn't enter the equation. De Vriess's only intention was to rape her, so he forced his way into her house to do just that. His death was an accident! (You understand I don't necessarily believe this, but am merely quoting her!)

Have you any idea how much it costs to trawl rivers? We've no more reason to search the Thames at Teddington than any other stretch of water. We need evidence that a body is there. You seem to have it in for Amanda. Why is that?

Yours,

Greg

P.S. You're placing a lot of trust in Barry and Lawrence. Their evidence of Nigel's "brutality" towards women is very slight. Are you looking for trouble from his family?

Dated: 15.01.96-Facsimile transmission

THE STREET, FLEET STREET, LONDON EC4

To: DS Greg Harrison

From: Michael Deacon

Lawrence and Barry have no reason to lie, unlike Nigel's family. And far from "having it in" for Amanda, I'm trying to help her so, as Terry would say, I'm "well gutted" about the assistance I gave you in finding her. I should have protected her story as assiduously as I'm protecting Billy's, then I'd have been able to interview her. Why the hell didn't you charge her with manslaughter, on the grounds of provocation, and agree to bail instead of having her banged-up in the nick? That way I could have effected a chance meeting. I guarantee I'd have got more out of her than you lot ever will.

In passing, are you to blame for my being designated a potential witness? Get real! What did I ever see? Okay, I was in her house on Christmas Eve but as far as I was concerned the poor bitch was trying to cope with the smell that you lot have seen fit to put down to Nigel. Listen, even I, a humble journalist, know that bodies don't go off that badly after 36 hours in the middle of a cold winter. That was Billy Blake who has been her constant companion since June in a so-far vain attempt to force her into an admission of murder. Okay, I know it sounds crazy, but "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy," my friend!

Do yourselves a favor, trawl the river by the flats at Teddington and find James. That's her real crime. Losing her temper and striking out at a two-timing bastard who was about to skedaddle off to his mistress with Ł10 million in a numbered Swiss bank account. Not that I blame her, particularly. The more I learn about James, the less I like him, and she's certainly paid her dues by being Nigel de Vriess's plaything for the past five years.

As to that garbage you sent me last week:

John Streeter's wife heard his side of the phone call so there's independent proof of what he said; search Nigel's bank accounts for the rent payments on Sway; Amanda will have told Nigel to park in Harbour Lane; if Amanda managed to get Nigel atop the sacks of cement, she could get him into her trunk (she's an architect, therefore must know something about the mechanics of lifting); no one relays patio stones in the middle of winter-frost cracks cement. Go with your GUT INSTINCTS. Ask yourself why Nigel raped Amanda. Because he knew she wouldn't report him. Why not? Because THE BASTARD HAD A HOLD ON HER.

I'm guessing that the James scenario went something like this:

James Streeter was a thief and a liar. He began a mini-fraud in 1985 to fund his stock-market dreams. When he met Marianne Filbert in '88, he learned how to skim millions and the fraud became more sophisticated.

In the meantime he'd married Amanda whom he met through Nigel de Vriess. I can only explain this marriage in terms of "escape'' for her as she must have discovered by then what Nigel was really like. It's harder to say what James's motives were. A bit of social-climbing perhaps? (i.e. if Amanda was good enough for the boss then she was worth having.) His father describes him as "status-conscious.''

The marriage was a stormy one and James was soon casting around for someone more amenable. Meanwhile, he encouraged Amanda to pursue the Teddington flats project, possibly to legitimize some of his "dirty" money. (The title deeds were registered in her name only-for tax purposes?-which was why she had no trouble exchanging the property for the house in Thamesbank.)

As soon as the fraud came to light, Nigel, from his position on the Lowenstein board, guessed that James was responsible. He may even have sussed him through the Marianne Filbert/Softworks/DVS connection-the bank's in-house investigation will have unearthed the abandoned Softworks security report. Either way, there's a good chance he took a "cut" in return for tipping James off about when to run.

I think he also "tipped off" Amanda out of spite because she certainly learned that James was about to vanish and leave her to face the music alone.

She killed James in anger, then sheltered behind the fact that all the evidence pointed to him absconding. Her problem was that Nigel knew what she'd done and held the knowledge over her. I'm guessing he did tip Amanda off and did take a "cut" off James and Marianne. When Marianne contacted him to say that James had failed to arrive, he realized that James had never left the U.K. After that he put two and two together, worked out that Amanda had disposed of James in the river, weighted down with bags of cement from the building site, and threatened to go to the police. (The MO was so effective, she was going to repeat it with Nigel.)

The evidence for all of this lies in Nigel's treatment of Amanda, as witnessed by Barry. How could a man like de Vriess afford to do what he did unless he knew she wouldn't go to the police? Dammit, he had everything to lose if she screamed rape the minute he left the house.

Best wishes,

Mike

THE STREET, FLEET STREET, LONDON EC4

Amanda Powell

HM Prison

IX Parkhurst Road

Holloway

London N7 ONU

15th January, 1996 Dear Amanda,

I have no idea if Billy's views on hell and damnation have any validity. He described purgatory as "a place of eternal despair where love is absent." However, he saw it not as an eternity of ignorance, but as an eternity of terrifying awareness. The condemned soul knows that love exists, but is condemned forever to exist without it. I believe he was so appalled by this vision that, as Billy Blake, he set out to save sinners from the dangers of unredeemed sin.

For others, he thrust his hands into the fire or subjected himself to intense cold. For you, he died. That is not to say you should carry his death on your conscience because death was what he wanted. Without it, he had no hope of rescuing his much-loved wife, Verity, from the loneliness of the bottomless pit to where, as a suicide, she would have been banished. He believed there was no salvation from that terrible place except through divine compassion, and he hoped that if he led a life of extreme penitence before dying voluntarily of self-neglect, he could achieve the miracle of plucking Verity from hell through God's merciful intervention.

You can argue that his mind was completely unhinged by shock, grief, alcohol abuse, and persistent malnutrition. Certainly, some of his friends believe he was an undiagnosed schizophrenic. But I agree with the sentiments you expressed the first time I met you. "We are in terrible trouble as a society if we assume that any man's life is so worthless that the manner of his death is the only interesting thing about him." Billy's "worth" was in the efforts he made to save you, because the only reason he sought you out was to persuade you to pay in this life for the murder of James, rather than postpone your suffering into eternity.

The irony is that you were prepared to give an unmourned derelict the dignity in death that you had denied to James, and perhaps that was Billy's intention all along. It's what brought me to see you, after all. Billy must have known that walking to Andover in the middle of a hot summer to learn your address from Nigel de Vriess (although Nigel was abroad at the time, and it was Fiona who told him how to find you) would destroy what little reserves of energy he had.

This meant that his death in your garage would be the inevitable consequence of his actions. As you said yourself, he could have attracted your attention, or eaten food from your freezer, but he did neither, just quenched his thirst on ice cubes and quietly died. He wasn't interested in judging you, you see-he was a murderer himself-he was only interested in reminding you of that other man who had gone unburied and unmourned.

I enclose a summary of what I think happened, which I have sent to DS Greg Harrison. I have omitted Billy's part in the proceedings because he never reported it at the time and because I doubt the police will accept a dead man's witness. But I am confident he was watching in the shadows when you killed James. Neighbors in Teddington remember a squatter in the old school, and Tom Beale from the warehouse tells me Billy mentioned "dossing upriver from Richmond" before he moved to the Isle of Dogs.

You may ask why he didn't come looking for you sooner. The simple answer is that he only knew you as Amanda Streeter, the woman who'd bought the school where he was squatting, and when you reverted to your maiden name and moved, he lost sight of you until he read your name in connection with Nigel de Vriess. But the real answer is that he wasn't ready. An elderly woman talked to me once about suicide. She said: "Have you taken into account that there may be something waiting for you on the other side, and that you may not be prepared yet to face it?" Billy understood better than anyone, I think, that he needed to be prepared, and his preparation came through suffering. He always said he hadn't suffered enough.

I don't intend to do any more than I have done already-which is to leave justice to the authorities-except to tell the Streeters that their son was murdered. None of us is all bad, Amanda, and we each deserve to be mourned. Billy's salvation I leave to you. My view is that it makes no difference if he was mad or sane, he believed that saving another soul from hell would earn God's compassion.

You asked me to prove that Billy's life had value, but I'm sure you realize now that you're the only person who can do that. It is in your hands whether, through your own redemption, you also redeem him and Verity.

With best wishes,

Michael Deacon

P.S. Please don't think there is any animosity behind this letter. I have always liked you.

Metropolitan Police-Isle of Dogs-facsimile-19.01.96 16.18

From: DS Greg Harrison

To: Michael Deacon

Amanda Powell has come clean about James. We start trawling tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. See you at Teddington!

Yours,

Greg