Fatal Witness (Detective Erika Foster #7) (95)

‘What are you doing?’ asked Cilla, turning at the sound of Erika searching through the drawer. There was a creak of wooden floorboards, and she saw Colin standing in the doorway. He stared at Erika, holding the envelope with his handwriting and the photo on her phone.

‘What is it?’ asked Cilla, looking between Erika and Colin.

He came into the room and saw the album in her hand, and the picture with his arm around Lily’s waist. Erika’s phone rang, but she kept staring at Colin.

‘Perhaps you should answer that,’ said Colin.

Erika silenced the call. ‘Does this belong to you?’ she asked, holding up the envelope.

Colin smiled and shook his head.

‘This is your office? And is this your handwriting?’

Colin started to chuckle, shaking his head. Cilla kept staring. She looked completely in the dark as to what was going on. Erika’s phone chimed with a text message, and she glanced down, seeing it was from Crane. It was a CCTV photo of Charles Wakefield, walking along a tube station platform, wearing his long black coat and trilby. His head was angled up at the departures board, and his face was clear to see. The timestamp at the top of the photo read: 22.10.2018 16.58pm.



* * *



My contact at TfL just sent this, taken at Baker Street tube station the day of Vicky’s murder. Charles was telling the truth. he did go into London, his alibi checks out!

CRANE



* * *



Colin moved swiftly over to Erika and grabbed at her phone. She was shocked at how fast he moved and twisted it out of her hand. She watched as he read the message and went pale.

‘What is it? Colin, will you tell me what’s going on?’ said Cilla.

‘He killed Sophia, thinking it was Vicky,’ said Erika. ‘And then when he realised his mistake, he came back and finished the job and killed Vicky.’ She was watching Colin, who still held her phone. ‘But Vicky hadn’t found out it was you who was breaking into the student halls and assaulting those young women… She was close, though, wasn’t she? She’d questioned Charles Wakefield. Did he know? He was the caretaker at the time. How did he find out?’

Colin’s jaw was tense, and a vein was pulsing in his forehead.

Erika looked back at the photo in the album. ‘What happened with Charles and Lily?’ She watched Colin’s face and looked at the photo again, of him and Lily, and she thought back to what Charles had said in the interview room, how Lily had lied, and tricked him. In the photo, the young woman was looking up to him with an intense look in her eyes. Lust and subservience. ‘Lily slept with Charles, didn’t she? Did she do it for you?’

Colin moved to stand between Erika and Cilla. Erika went on, ‘Charles found out about you, breaking into those rooms late at night, and you had to get some dirt on him, to keep him quiet, so you seduced fifteen-year-old Lily, and then you made sure she seduced him…’ Erika was thinking out loud, working it out, but she could see that Colin was panicking.

‘Colin?’ said Cilla. ‘This can’t be true? You told me nothing was going on with you and Lily. You knew she was underage.’

‘And once Charles had been seduced by Lily, then you had him under your thumb. He was mentally very fragile, and he could have been charged with sleeping with a minor. His brother is a senior police officer. I’m sure you made it very clear to him that Lily would co-operate with the police, and how rough a prison sentence could be for a nonce who has a police officer in the family.’

‘You shut up!’ said Colin.

‘Colin! This is ridiculous! You tell her it’s not true right now!’ said Cilla, her eyes wide with fear.

‘And this big house you own, on top of the hill. You can see down the hill to the Drama Academy, and those student houses on Jubilee Road and Hartwood Road,’ said Erika, indicating the window where the criss-cross of streets around New Cross Gate station could be clearly seen, lit up against the night sky. ‘They’re so close. Hardly any walk at all for you…You knew we were getting close to the truth, didn’t you? So you wrote this letter to Charles, reminding him of the stakes,’ said Erika. She tutted and shook her head. ‘It’s always the little details. I’ve seen it so many times, with psychopaths like you. You think you’ve got away with it and it gives you a false sense of confidence. That’s when you slip up.’

She waved the envelope in the air, but she didn’t see Colin’s fist coming until it was too late. He punched her hard in the face, and Erika crumpled on the floor.





63





Erika lay on the floor of the office. The side of her face was numb, and she was dazed. She opened her eyes and saw Colin standing over Cilla, who was still holding the photo album. She was shaking and staring back at him. Suddenly he grabbed her by the back of her dress and dragged her across the room. She screamed and dropped the photo album. Even in her dazed state, Erika could hear the terror and confusion in Cilla’s protests.

‘Colin, no! What are you doing?’ she cried as she wheeled around, her heels clattering on the wooden floor. She hit the bookcase as he dragged her out of the office, and when they were out on the landing he slammed the office door shut. There was a moment of quiet and then Erika heard Cilla’s voice soft and pleading, and then she started to scream.