Fatal Witness (Detective Erika Foster #7) (81)

‘Where?’ asked Erika.

‘A nice restaurant in the covered market,’ said Becky. ‘I don’t know if that helps? She was very kind, and we spoke for a long time before we then went to a café, a Starbucks which was empty, and that’s where we recorded my interview. There was an opera singer outside the restaurant where we ate and Vicky said that we couldn’t have the singing in the background on the tape,’ said Becky. ‘She paid my train fare, bought me lunch, and she was so excited about the interview. She thought that this would really launch her podcast to the next level.’

‘Where did she talk to you?’ said Moss to Kathleen.

‘I’ve got kids. I’m on my own. I live out in the sticks in Suffolk, near a place called Beccles,’ she said. ‘Vicky came to me. I got my mother to look after the kids for a couple of hours and we met in a café locally. I thought the same as Becky. She was lovely. Paid for lunch and my bus fare.’

‘Do either of you know Becky Wayland?’ asked Erika.

‘No, she asked us about her, but she’d auditioned at a different time, a couple of years after us,’ said Becky.

They sat in silence for a moment, as Erika tried to absorb this information. The time was ticking, and she could see that some of the students were already getting up to leave the pub. Kathleen took a sip of her drink and twitched her fringe.

‘Did Vicky send you any recording material? Did she send you any sound files? Emails with details of what she found out?’ asked Moss.

Both the young women shook their heads.

‘Did Vicky tell you anything else about her investigations?’ asked Erika. There was another pause. Kathleen flicked her fringe and looked to Becky.

‘What was that thing she said to you about the neighbour?’ she asked.

‘What neighbour?’ said Erika.

‘Vicky said she has this creepy neighbour, an older guy who lives next door, and when she started looking into the assaults at the student halls in Jubilee Road and Hartwood Road, she found out that he’d been the caretaker for those buildings, and a couple of others at Goldsmith’s Drama Academy, between 2007 and 2012. The same dates as when we were assaulted… She said she’d been round his flat to ask him about his time as caretaker, you know, and he must have heard about the assaults and break-ins because he was in charge of those buildings… She said he went mad and told her that he had nothing to do with it, and he threatened to report her for harassment. He pulled her out of his flat, dragged her by the arm. She said his reaction was so weird that it made her even more suspicious,’ said Becky.

Erika sat in shock for a moment. She looked over and saw that people were getting ready to leave. Henrietta and Charles had already gone, leaving two empty glasses and two empty packets of crisps at their table.

‘Are you absolutely sure she said this man was her neighbour?’ asked Erika.

‘Yes,’ said Becky. ‘She called him Charlie, Charlie-Boy.’

Erika was suddenly struck with the image of Charles and Henrietta, entering the pub in their matching black trilbies.

‘Shit. Charles Wakefield,’ she said, looking at Moss.





53





‘It’s true. Charles Wakefield was caretaker between 2007 and 2012,’ said Erika, coming off the phone with Sheila at the GDA admin office. Kathleen and Becky had gone on in Becky’s car to the crematorium, but Erika and Moss had stayed at the pub.

‘And no one we’ve spoken to thought to mention this?’ said Moss.

Erika put in a call to Peterson at the incident room. His phone rang out. She tried a couple of other numbers, and finally Crane answered.

‘What’s going on there, are you all at lunch?’ she said.

‘Sorry, boss. We’ve had a bit of a development here,’ said Crane.

‘What kind of development?’

‘We’ve been going back over all the paperwork and files for the case, and McGorry found something, alarming to say the least.’

‘What?’

‘When Charles Wakefield was arrested three weeks ago, a DNA sample wasn’t taken when he was booked into the custody suite at Lewisham Row.’

‘What do you mean? He was arrested. Everyone who’s arrested has their DNA taken in the custody suite.’

‘Not in this case,’ said Crane. ‘There’s no entry on the National DNA database for a Charles Wakefield. And the arrest report is incomplete.’

‘Christ! How?’

‘Yeah. I had the same reaction. We’re just going back over everything that was logged up until now to try and trace back to who was working in the custody suite on the night he was arrested and brought in.’

‘Have you told Melanie?’ asked Erika.

‘No. I was about to call you first.’

‘So all the DNA we’ve been running through the database for the past two weeks hasn’t included a check against Charles Wakefield?’

‘Not directly.’

Erika went on to tell him about the revelation that Charles Wakefield was caretaker at GDA during the time the assaults occurred, and that Vicky had confronted him about this when she was making her podcast.

‘There was also something else. Charles and Henrietta both showed up for the funeral in black trench coats and black trilby hats. They’re both the same height. I’m just thinking back to this CCTV from Blackheath train station taken when Charles said he went into London on the day that Sophia was killed. That’s his alibi, but because his face is obscured on the CCTV footage, it’s not an alibi. And now I’ve seen them together today, I had the awful thought, what if the person on the CCTV going into central London is Henrietta? Did you manage to track down any other CCTV that shows Charles Wakefield going into central London that day?’