Echo

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 L10 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.