‘Why did you come here today?’ asked Erika. ‘I presume that your plans were to stay in Scotland with Cilla?’
‘I’m head of the drama department, I always have work to do, papers to sign,’ he said.
Cilla was still breathing heavily, and trying to get her anger under control.
‘Is that all the questions you have, officers?’ she said finally.
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Erika.
‘Well, if you can excuse us there are things I have to do. I have to call Tess… I need time to process what you’ve just told me. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home, back to your house, Colin,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Yes, darling. Whatever you need.’
‘Thank you for your time,’ said Erika.
It was almost dark and pouring torrentially with rain when they came outside, and they stood for a moment on the steps under the main entrance, debating whether to make a dash for it or wait for the rain to subside.
‘I still can’t work out where Vicky’s sources came from,’ said Erika. ‘And now Cilla and Colin tell us she was hiring actors and writing scripts!’
‘It doesn’t mean her whole podcast was fiction.’
‘I need to find those women,’ said Erika, wishing again that they had something to go on from Vicky’s flat; notebooks or computer files. ‘How did she find them, or find out about the break-ins? People who come here to audition don’t stick around, they come for the afternoon, and then they stay a night in the student accommodation and they’re gone.’
‘Vicky graduated six years ago,’ said Peterson. ‘She might have known them, or heard about them. Her last year of study here would have been 2012, and in January and February of that year, Kathleen Barber and Grace Leith reported the break-ins at Jubilee Road.’
‘But if Vicky’s podcast is a work of fiction, then that could scupper our theory that she was close to outing the attacker of these women,’ said Erika. ‘What if that’s not the motive for her murder?’
‘Why didn’t Tess say anything?’
‘Tess didn’t take much interest in the podcast.’
‘What about Shawn? He said that Vicky did all the work on the podcast herself, and he only contributed music…’
Erika rubbed her face. ‘And don’t you think it’s weird that Cilla came back to London so fast? She must have had to buy a flight almost as soon as Vicky left.’
‘And Colin and this other teacher, Ray, had only just arrived to stay at her place. They’re both giving me the shivers, Cilla and Colin. That whole fainting performance,’ said Peterson.
‘Yeah, it was a bit theatrical. But who can tell? We meet a lot of weirdos in this job.’ Erika checked her watch; it had just gone five thirty.
‘You should get a wriggle on if you want to catch your delivery,’ said Peterson.
‘I’d forgotten all about it.’ Erika looked at her phone and saw that she had emails from Crane and the team at Lewisham Row. ‘I should cancel it. I need to check in with the surveillance team on Jasper Clark. And there’s been two messages left by Maria Ivanova… She’s asking when we’re going to release her sister’s body. She wants to have it flown back to Bulgaria so they can plan a funeral. And we need to contact this Sheila in the admin department to see if Goldsmith’s Drama Academy have any records on these assaults.’
‘I can do those things.’
Erika carried on scrolling through, and saw more in her inbox.
‘And I’ve had another message from one of Sophia’s colleagues at the hospital, a student doctor called Olivia Moreno. She’s willing to talk to us about her – she’s available tomorrow morning.’
‘Erika. Let me do those,’ said Peterson. ‘I don’t mean to be horrible, but you look like crap. You haven’t slept properly in days. Go home, get that bed delivered. Have a proper meal and a good night’s sleep.’
Erika went to protest, but she felt ragged and exhausted. She looked up at Peterson’s soft brown eyes, grateful that she could rely on him. She almost told him how much he still meant to her… But she bit her lip and held back. She looked at the emails again. She couldn’t think straight, and a decent night’s sleep on a proper bed was integral to her doing her job well.
‘Okay. Thanks. I’ll forward these to you now,’ she said.
‘And if you get anything else tonight that I can deal with—’