Fatal Witness (Detective Erika Foster #7) (82)

‘No,’ said Crane. ‘And we spoke to the person who was working on the ticket desk. They didn’t recall seeing Charles that day, but the person did add that it was crazy busy, and they sell a lot of tickets and speak to a lot of passengers every day.’

There was a long silence from Crane on the end of the phone. Moss looked at Erika and raised an eyebrow.

‘Okay. Where are you now, boss?’ asked Crane.

‘I’m still here with Moss, in the pub in Worthing. Everyone has gone on to the crematorium, including Charles Wakefield. Give me a moment, Crane. I’ll call you back.’

Erika was now sweating as she filled Moss in on what had happened.

‘What if it’s Charles who assaulted these women at GDA? And then he found out that Vicky was investigating the assaults, and he threatens her, but Vicky keeps going and tracks down Becky and Kathleen and interviews them. And then she talks to Charles again, saying she has these two women on record.’

‘Hang on,’ said Moss. ‘That doesn’t explain why Sophia was killed.’

‘What if it was as we first thought, mistaken identity? Sophia was in Vicky’s flat. They did look alike. Charles breaks in, in a frenzy, thinking that it’s Vicky. He beats her, rolls her up in the sofa bed mattress and stabs her… His focus would have been on clearing out and destroying the evidence that Vicky had accumulated on the case: all her notebooks, and USB sticks, the hard drive for her computer.’

‘Again. Hang on, though,’ said Moss. ‘You saw what his flat was like when we looked round. He’s a luddite. The only electronics he had were an old record player and a VHS.’

‘Does that mean he’s innocent? He might have learned how to use a computer at work,’ said Erika.

‘Okay, so Charles gets into Vicky’s flat, kills who he thinks is Vicky, but it’s actually Sophia… He cleans up and then resumes the cocktail hour with Henrietta. Then that would explain him being so wired when we arrive on the scene, and we arrest him with the frozen dead cats, which is unrelated. His brother happens to be the Assistant Commissioner… His DNA isn’t taken on arrest. What about Henrietta? Is she involved?’

Erika rubbed at her temples.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Would Julian Wakefield risk his career for his brother? And what does Julian Wakefield have to do with it, if anything?’

Moss put up her hands.

‘Let’s move on from that for a moment. So, back to the first murder… Tess also mistakenly identifies Sophia as Vicky. They look alike and in her beaten-up state—’

‘I arrived on the scene almost as soon as Tess saw the body, which meant that the misidentification stuck with us. We didn’t discover it wasn’t Vicky until twenty-four hours later,’ said Erika.

‘Fast forward twenty-four hours. We find Vicky, she then comes back from Scotland and Charles Wakefield sees her that night as he’s coming out of Lewisham Row station,’ said Moss. ‘Did he look shocked to see her?’

Erika thought back and tried to remember. Her focus had been more on Vicky’s reaction.

‘I don’t know if I would call it shocked, but there was a very strange moment between them,’ said Erika.

‘So when he sees Vicky, Charles Wakefield now knows that he didn’t kill her and she’s about to talk to us… Does he hope she’s scared enough that she won’t spill the beans right away? He waits until she goes back to Tess’s house. Then he knocks on the door late at night, and he’s ready with a knife and stabs her in the back,’ said Moss.

Erika thought it through.

‘Bollocks. Would it stand up in court? I don’t know, but it could have happened. Charles doesn’t have an alibi for the night Vicky was murdered. Well, his alibi is Julian Wakefield. With this inconclusive CCTV, he certainly doesn’t have an alibi for when Vicky was killed. There was no motive for him to kill Sophia, which would explain the mistaken identity. But now we find out he was the caretaker of GDA at a time when Vicky was investigating the assaults on students…’

‘And we’ve just found out from Becky and Kathleen that Vicky was quite a serious operator, and a damn good investigator. What else could she have known, and what if she confronted Charles with something serious?’ asked Moss.

Erika sat back and looked around at the empty bar.

‘And without Charles’s DNA, the saliva forensics found on Vicky’s shoulder is back in play. We thought we’d already matched that against Charles Wakefield’s DNA, but we haven’t.’

She drummed her fingers on the table. They needed a DNA sample from Charles, and they now had grounds to arrest him and take a DNA swab. The only problem was the cremation – could they justify rocking up and making an arrest during such a sensitive time for the rest of the family?

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ asked Moss.

Erika nodded. ‘What if Charles Wakefield recognised Becky and Kathleen when we were talking to them? He could make a run for it. We need to get him in custody, a DNA sample taken, and question him.’

‘What about the fact he’s—’ started Moss.

‘I couldn’t give a damn if he was the King of England, let alone the brother of the Assistant Commissioner,’ said Erika. ‘He could be our man.’