Fatal Witness (Detective Erika Foster #7) (56)

‘Yeah. I had two interviews on the same day, the first was at RADA in Central London in the morning, and the second was GDA, a workshop for the whole afternoon until six. My mum wasn’t keen on me going up to London by myself and coming home so late, but then GDA sent through details of accommodation in their student halls. So I arranged to stay, then get the train home early the next morning.’

‘Can you remember the house number and the road the student halls were on?’

‘No. Sorry.’

‘That’s okay. Tell me what happened.’

‘There were three other girls who auditioned with me at GDS, staying overnight. The student halls was a big old terraced house near New Cross Gate station, that’s all I can remember. It had three floors and a shared bathroom on each floor. We found a chippy round the corner, and stopped up for a bit in the kitchen, talking. I went to my room around ten thirty. It was on the ground floor. It was a bit basic but clean. It was February, but the room was like a sauna. The old radiator in the room had the knob missing, which wouldn’t turn down, but there were bars on the window, so I felt safe opening the small window at the top. The other thing that was weird was that the bulbs were missing in the main light and bedside lamp. There was a bit of light coming in from opposite. I had a torch on my phone, and it was late and I couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. I crashed out sleeping almost right away. And then I woke up at one thirty, cos I heard a noise outside my window…’

‘What kind of noise?’ asked Vicky.

‘Feet scuffing on concrete. The window in my room looked out on a courtyard behind the building. The curtains were very thin, and didn’t close properly. That’s when I saw a shadow of a person outside move across the gap.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I thought it was another student out in the courtyard having a cigarette. I’d heard a couple of the other girls who were staying there say that’s where people smoke… Then I saw a flicker of light, and smelt cigarette smoke, so I relaxed and fell back to sleep… I woke up again, later, and this time it was very cold in the room. The heating must have gone off. I heard this high-pitched sound. Eek, eek, eek…’

‘What was it?’

‘There was a pair of hands reaching through the small open window, working with a screwdriver, unscrewing the bars on the window.’

‘The bars were attached to the inside of the window?’

‘Yes. I didn’t think that was weird until I saw someone reaching in and unscrewing them. It all happened so fast. He reached the top half of his body through and he lifted the set of bars off the wall and lowered them onto the floor.’

‘How did he reach down to undo the screws at the bottom of the bars?’

‘I’ll get to that in a moment,’ she said, her voice quavering. ‘With the bars off, he climbed inside, so his shoulders and torso were now through the narrow top window. I thought I was dreaming. He was so brazen and confident as I watched him.’

‘Did he know you could see him?’

‘I don’t know. It was all in shadow. I didn’t see his face… He slithered his way through that high window at the top, and down into the room, head first, putting his hands on the windowsill like in a head stand. He hit the floor with a thud and then he slowly stood up. His shadow seemed to grow and elongate at the bottom of my bed. It was terrifying. That’s when I tried to run for it… He got to the door before me.’ On the audio recording they heard her voice was thick with emotion. ‘And he pushed me back onto the bed.’

‘It’s okay. Take your time,’ said Vicky.

‘I lay there as he stood over me. I should have screamed. I should have fought, but I just lay there. The room seemed so small and he seemed to fill it. He went to the door and checked that it was locked, and then he came back over.’

‘Could you see his face?’

‘No. It was very dark. The light bulbs were gone, and in the middle of the night there wasn’t much light coming in from outside…’

There was a heavy silence, and they heard a rustle of something, maybe tissues.

‘Take your time,’ said Vicky.

‘He pushed himself on top of me. I just remember the smell of him, he had a really horrible strong aftershave on. Like it was too much, and mixed in with this he had horrible breath… He said, “Keep your mouth shut, bitch, and I won’t hurt you…” He grabbed my arms and pinned me down… put his knee between my legs… He kept saying “shush, shush, shush” like I was a little kid who’d woken from a bad dream. As he loomed over me with his breath, he started to drool. It was disgusting. He was drooling like a dog and I felt it on my neck and my cheek… And he was… he was hard. I could feel it… Then, thank God, I heard someone in the corridor outside, one of the other girls had gone to use the bathroom at the end of the corridor. The toilet flushing distracted him for a moment. I suddenly thought that this is not how my life was going to end. I managed to get my hand free. I’d been to this self-defence class where they showed us this move, where you hit someone with the flat of your hand up and under their nose… I don’t know how I got the courage, but I hit him hard… And I must have got the bullseye, cos he screamed, and I screamed, and then he ran for it. He got the door open, and he was gone. The corridor was dark outside… I lay there for a second in shock with the door wide open. And then I freaked out and closed and locked it and put a chair up against it…’