Fatal Witness (Detective Erika Foster #7) (88)

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‘Are you ready, boss?’ asked Moss an hour later, when they were about to go into the interview room. Erika took a deep breath. She suddenly wished she could wind back the clock and still smoke in the police station. She remembered all those long-gone overflowing ashtrays in interview rooms.

She smoothed down her hair and nodded.

Charles Wakefield was sitting in the same suit he’d worn for the funeral. His hands were neatly folded in his lap, and he was staring at the wall. His solicitor was a swarthy-looking man in a suit that was a size too small, with a thick circle of hair surrounding a shiny bald spot.

‘Ah, detectives, there you are,’ said Charles calmly, sounding as if he’d been saving their seats at the opera, and the show was about to start. ‘Oh, deary me…’ he added when he saw Erika leaning on the metal crutches. ‘What did we do to ourselves?’

Erika ignored him and took a seat next to Moss opposite him.

‘Mr Wakefield, good morning.’

‘Good morning to you too,’ he said, peering at their ID badges. ‘Just memorising your names and numbers.’ He flashed them a nasty smile, and Erika noticed he had a couple of black teeth towards the back of his mouth. He also had terrible breath.

‘Were you the caretaker for Goldsmith’s Drama Academy between 2007 and 2012?’ asked Erika.

‘Yes, I was,’ he said.

‘We found it rather difficult to get this information from GDA. It seems their records are rather patchy.’

‘Oh, are they? That’s unfortunate. But yes, I can confirm that I was caretaker.’

‘Can I ask why you left?’

‘Of course. I retired.’

‘What were your duties as caretaker?’

‘I mainly oversaw maintenance.’

‘Painting? Fixing things, light bulbs?’ asked Erika.

Charles pulled a face. ‘It was more about me arranging the tradespeople, but yes.’

‘You don’t own a passport. You haven’t owned a passport since 2012, when your last one expired,’ said Erika, looking at her file.

‘Yes.’

‘We can assume you’ve been in the UK all this time, since your last passport expired.’

‘I certainly was in the UK,’ he said. The solicitor pursed his lips and looked across at Charles.

‘Why don’t you have a passport?’ asked Erika.

‘Inspector, how is this relevant?’ asked the solicitor.

‘Mr Wakefield?’

‘I don’t like going away,’ he said. ‘I prefer my own bed.’

‘So, you rarely venture away from home? Leave London?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘And you have a real paranoia with authority—’

‘Detective, really!’ said the solicitor.

‘You don’t have a passport or a driver’s licence. Your phone is ex-directory. You don’t have a mobile phone or an email address, no television licence. You don’t even have a credit or debit card, and every bill, and the ownership of your flat, is in your brother’s name. You don’t even own a bank account. How do you pay for things?’

‘That’s private, and nothing to do with this,’ said the solicitor.

‘You aren’t registered with a doctor or a dentist, Mr Wakefield? It’s rather odd, don’t you think?’

‘I’ve always been blessed with good health.’

‘In fact, you seemed to vanish off the face of the earth in 2012, as far as bureaucracy is concerned. Why is that?’

‘No comment,’ said Charles.

‘Why no comment?’

‘Because I am legally allowed to do whatever I like within the law. And there is no law to say that I have to have any of these things!’ he snapped.

‘We’ve been back through the records of your arrest for assaulting a police officer on Monday 22nd October. Your brother, the Assistant Commissioner, stepped in and ordered the custody sergeant not to take a DNA swab from you. Why would he do that?’

‘He wasn’t ordering them not to take a swab. I suffer from odontarrupophobia… A phobia of toothbrushes and other objects being in my mouth.’

Erika could see Moss trying to suppress a smile.

‘Don’t you dare send me up!’ said Charles, slamming the flat of his hand down on the table and making them all jump. ‘It is a legitimate and debilitating phobia.’

Is that why your breath stinks like a dog’s backside? Erika wanted to say.

‘We would like a doctor to verify this, but as you don’t have a GP or a dentist—’

‘I do have a GP. A private doctor. And I do have a diagnosis. With regards to the DNA sample, I didn’t want the swab, and that was my right. I was, however, willing to give a blood sample, but then things moved very fast the next morning…’

‘And you were fast-tracked out of here,’ finished Erika. ‘However, we do now have your DNA sample, which we’re checking against the DNA found at both crime scenes. It seems that the nurse in Hove was able to take this.’

‘Which was extremely distressing! Anyway. You’ll find that my DNA doesn’t match either crime scene, because I was never there,’ he said.