‘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.
He seems so bloody confident, thought Erika. She turned the pages in the folder of research Crane had compiled overnight and emailed to her.
‘Did Vicky Clarke approach you to talk about her podcast?’
‘No. Why would she?’
‘Vicky was working on a podcast episode about an intruder who broke into the student halls at GDA, and assaulted three young women. When she heard that you had been the caretaker at GDA around this time, she wanted to talk to you.’
‘You are mistaken. She didn’t talk to me.’
‘We have two people who say she did.’
‘Bully for you. Did you find any actual evidence? Notes she left, or any recordings where she mentions this, that we spoke?’
‘We have recovered some recordings,’ said Erika.
‘I would be interested to hear them,’ he said with another sly smile.
‘Your alibi for Monday 22nd October…’
‘I have already given her these details,’ said Charles, turning to his solicitor.