Monday 11:00am

Bill and his team met to review where they were with the murders.

“We have received many reports from people who say they know the man in the CCTV tapes. There are too many that identify him as Anthony Cascarini to ignore,” says Hawkins. He carried on to give his report on Cascarini. “He’s an accountant in a company that is known to have many shady characters as their clients. I think Cecilia has been researching him.”

“What else do we know about him, Cecilia?” asked Bill.

“Well, we know a lot about his wife. She is, or was, a supermodel, so there’s been hundreds of articles written about her. She’s also featured in a few books. One “Shooting Stars” by Charlie Brooks, the fashion photographer. I’ll start with the wife.”
Cecilia began to read from her notes.

“Sam-Zee was born in Tucson, Arizona. Her full name was Samantha Z. Samuels. The Z didn’t stand for anything; her father thought it looked cool. He was a father she didn’t know as he left before her first birthday; maybe that’s why her mother gave her enough love for two parents. 

She was a beautiful child and her mother was very proud of her. She entered her into baby contests, which she usually won, and later she became a regular on junior beauty pageants. At fifteen, she became a professional model. She was on the books of a small talent agency in Tucson which provided her with a lot of work for local advertising agents and publications. 

By the time she was seventeen, her mother realized that Sam needed to leave provincial Tucson if she wanted to further her career as a model, so they moved to Los Angeles. They rented a small bungalow in the Fairfax area, close to West Hollywood and Beverley Hills where most of the talent agencies were located.

As her mother expected, Sam was soon getting a lot of highly paid modeling assignments. By her eighteenth birthday, she was on the verge of becoming a supermodel. She was known as Sam-Zee. Her face was regularly on the covers of fashion magazines and she began getting more and more television commercials. She was earning more in a week than her mother had earned in a year in Tucson. 

The work was hard, sometimes boring, but she loved it. She enjoyed the attention. She loved the travel. Sam-Zee had a fantastic body and it was all real, she certainly didn’t need a boob-job so she was usually the first choice for any assignment that needed a beautiful tall blonde in a swimsuit.

Her introduction to drugs started when on a photo shoot in Jamaica. She met Charlie Brooks, the fashion photographer. He was fifteen years older than Samantha and it didn’t take long for him to seduce her. She thought she was in love with him, but to Charlie, she was just the latest in a long list of conquests. 

Samantha felt very grown up when Charlie introduced her to cocaine and once she started, she couldn’t stop. She found that she cared more about cocaine than she cared about Charlie. 

Once Charlie recognized the addictive personality that he’d seen many times before, he stopped seeing her and knew that her drug use would probably lead to her downfall. As for Sam, as long as she was able to satisfy her craving for the drug, she didn’t care what Charlie did.

In Los Angeles, she found that many of the models that she worked with regularly used cocaine, and she was surprised how easy it was to come by, as long as you had the money; and she had plenty of money.

Within six months, Sam’s mother realized that something was wrong. Sam was getting less work, she was becoming unreliable and bad tempered, and the make-up artists had to spend a lot longer on her face than they had before. Her income had reduced by half. 

 Her mother suspected that Sam was abusing drugs, but she didn’t confront her daughter. She knew her daughter was associating with the wrong kind of people and that it was time for them to leave Los Angeles. Even though Samantha was now old enough to take care of her own affairs, her mother was still her manager and took care of all her business and financial affairs. Sam had no idea of anything practical and as long as she had money in her pocket she was happy to leave everything to her mother.

Sam-Zee was known internationally but news of her decline had not reached Europe. Betty called the leading agent in London and revealed that Sam-Zee would be moving to Britain to further her career. The agent was enthusiastic to sign up one of America’s up-and-coming young models and didn’t hesitate to offer her a generous terms and a huge signing bonus.

Samantha was not happy when Betty broke the news. Sam had no contacts in London; she didn’t know how long it would take to find sources to satisfy her cocaine habit, but she knew better than to argue with her mother. She knew that one of her friends would let her know where the action was in London. 

Although they had more than two million dollars in the bank, they were still living in the little house in Fairfax. There were only a couple of months left on the lease and most of the furniture was cheap, so three days after Betty had signed the contract with the London agent, they were flying into Heathrow Airport.”

When Lee stopped for a breath, Slade said “Enough about the wife. What about this Cascarini fellow?”

“I’m just getting to him, be patient. Anyway, Betty booked a suite at the Dorchester in Park Lane, while she made business contacts and arrangements for long-term accommodation. She needed a lawyer and an accountant, as she was not yet familiar with British law and tax conventions. Co-incidentally, the contract she signed with the talent agent had been drawn up by Sir Geoffrey’s company, so the first thing she did was to retain his company as her legal advisors.”

“Okay, we didn’t need the wife’s life story,” said Bill. “That’s enough Cosmo Magazine stuff, when did she meet Cascarini?”

“I’m getting to that, and most of this stuff comes from People Magazine and the Brooks book.

The lawyers recommended Tony Cascarini at Oliver Gold as a very reputable accountant. Betty made an appointment to see Cascarini the next day and told Sam that she would need to accompany her to sign papers for their joint bank accounts. That’s when they first met. They were married within six months.

I haven’t found a lot on Anthony Cascarini yet. His mother died when he was young and he never knew his father. He was brought up by his Italian grandparents, and after leaving college he qualified as an accountant and joined the firm of Oliver Gold. He doesn’t have a record, but the Gold company represents a lot of shady characters.” 

Hawkins says “We don’t need any more background, we have our man and we have his address. I called Oliver Gold’s but Cascarini has not been at work for a few days, he didn’t show up again this morning. He lives in Hampstead.” 

Bill said “Let’s pay him a visit and see how sick he really is.”

As he was walking to the door he added, “Hawkins, pop in and see that Russian woman on the way. She’s staying at the Charing Cross Hotel, and take Cecilia with you. I’ll meet you in Hampstead.”