"Do you know her, sir?"
"I've seen her once or twice. She and I are distant neighbors and, as Michael will tell you, I like to sit on the riverbank and watch the world go by."
"Go on, sir," said Fortune when Lawrence came to a halt.
"Forgive me. I was wondering how far human depravity can sink without its showing. You see, if Michael is right, then Mrs. Powell must have encouraged Nigel to make love to her in order to facilitate his murder, and that would make her very depraved indeed." He smiled a little wistfully. "By and large, I prefer to think well of people."
The superintendent smiled politely, hiding his impatience over an old man's ramblings. "In my experience there's no relationship between how a person looks and how they behave."
"Normally I would agree with you." He took the photograph of Nigel de Vriess from Barry and examined it with interest. "It's a cruel face, don't you think? But then he was a very arrogant man, and arrogance is a dangerous quality. I can say quite truthfully that Nigel de Vriess was one of the nastier by-products of a civilized society."
"Did you know him, sir?"
"In a manner of speaking. One of my younger partners handled his affairs for several years." He tapped the photograph. "The occasion when he refused to act for de Vriess again was when he was instructed to buy off a young woman who had been beaten within an inch of her life during sexual intercourse. De Vriess put a value of ten thousand pounds on her physical and mental well-being, but my colleague was so shocked by the damage done to her that he severed our firm's connection with him. He described de Vriess as a psychopath, and nothing I have ever read or heard about him leads me to think any differently. Society should never allow a man like this to accrue wealth. When money is in the wrong hands then justice, the bedrock on which our democracy rests, can always be corrupted."
Deacon's expression was thoughtful as he looked at his elderly friend.
"I'm not sure I understand the point you're making, sir," said Fortune.
Lawrence looked surprised. "I'm so sorry. I assumed it was obvious. You see, I can believe in de Vriess's depravity far more readily than I can believe in Mrs. Powell's."
"But it's de Vreiss who is dead, sir, and not his lady friend.''
Barry cleared his throat nervously. "She didn't look at all happy," he confessed. "He was pulling her round the room by her hair at one point, and then he made her bend over a little table so that he could-well-" he faltered to a halt. "I think he might have been raping her," he added in a whisper.
Five pairs of eyes swiveled in his direction.
"Why the hell didn't you tell us this yesterday?" demanded Harrison.
Barry looked terrified.
"You didn't ask him," Deacon pointed out. But, by God, it explained much of Barry's confused behavior over the last twenty-four hours. No wonder he had been able to describe the dominant male with such accuracy...
* Daily Express: 27.12.95
Stop Press: Police took the unusual step this afternoon of releasing the name and photograph of a woman they want to interview in connection with the disappearance of missing entrepreneur Nigel de Vriess, whose Rolls-Royce was found abandoned in Dover. She is Amanda Powell of Thamesbank Estate, London E14, formerly known as Amanda Streeter. She is thought to be in hiding somewhere in the UK.
* Daily Express: 30.12.95
Stop Press: Following a sighting by a member of the public, police have charged Amanda Streeter-Powell with the murder of her onetime lover, Nigel de Vriess. She was discovered last night in a cottage in Sway in the New Forest which is only 40 miles from de Vriess's home in Andover. Neighbors say she was a regular weekend visitor there. Neighbors in London E14 and colleagues at work describe themselves as "dumbfounded" by her arrest. "She's a nice woman," said one. "I can't believe she's a murderess."
Telephone message
From: DS Greg Harrison
To: Michael Deacon (Room 104)
Date: 3.01.96
Dictated to: Mary Petty
Greg Harrison is fed up with your calls. He says he spends more time talking to you than he does to his wife, and he loves her!
Amanda Powell has been charged with murder and is on remand at Holloway, and, no, he can't take you to see her because you'll probably be called as a witness at her trial, along with Barry. In any case, it would be a waste of time your talking to her because she has nothing to add to what she told the police six years ago about James's disappearance. She spent the weekend of 27th/28th/29th April with her mother in Kent, and her mother confirms this. Her alibi satisfied the investigating officers then and continues to satisfy them. Without more evidence, there is no justification for wasting taxpayers' money by trawling the Thames at Teddington.
With regard to de Vriess's murder, and for Christ's sake don't quote Greg as this is all sub judice and he could get the sack for talking out of turn (Greg asked me to underline that) Amanda agrees with Fiona Grayson. There had been no contact between her and Nigel for months. Amanda claims she had a chance meeting with Nigel in Knightsbridge on Saturday morning (they were both Christmas shopping, apparently), he became very excited about seeing her again, and twelve hours later forced his way into her house in order to rape her. Barry's evidence supports this. When Nigel finally released her, she lashed out at his face and he fell backwards on to the brass doorstop. The forensic evidence (bruise on his cheek/traces of blood on the doorstop) supports this. We are still looking for witnesses who may have seen her BMW in Dover during the Saturday, but have found none to date. The neighbors continue to support her statement that it was parked in her driveway. (Although they're a little less sure than previously as they are very used to it being left there.)
The reason Amanda didn't dial 9-9-9 was because she panicked. She says she realized immediately that she needed to put as much distance between herself and Nigel's Rolls-Royce as possible, so drove it to Dover, a town she knows well because her mother lives only 20 miles away. She agrees it's ridiculous that she thought getting rid of the car was more important than getting rid of the body, but she was confused and frightened following the rape. She hitched a lift out of Dover with a French truck driver, arriving home by 8:30 a.m.
At the moment none of this can be disproved, but Greg is working on it.
Communicate by fax in future. Hardworking policemen can't afford to spend hours on the telephone.
*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."