‘Okay. So. Vicky contacted you, and explained what she was doing with the podcast. What happened next?’
‘For me, she explained that this was the first podcast episode that she was doing where she was actively investigating something,’ said Becky. ‘She told me that in the past, she’d made her true crime podcast episodes based on information that was in the public domain and she’d just dramatised it, but this was more real—’
‘She’d already talked to me,’ said Kathleen, ‘and I think she’d also talked to the other girl, Becky Wayland, and she’d been quite shocked that there was a serial predator—’
‘Yeah, so by the time she found me, I was another piece of the puzzle. She asked if I would come down to London, or if she could come up and talk to me, record what I had to say. She offered to pay for train travel and lunch for the day. And I fancied a trip up to London, so I met her in Covent Garden.’
‘Where?’ asked Erika.
‘A nice restaurant in the covered market,’ said Becky. ‘I don’t know if that helps? She was very kind, and we spoke for a long time before we then went to a café, a Starbucks which was empty, and that’s where we recorded my interview. There was an opera singer outside the restaurant where we ate and Vicky said that we couldn’t have the singing in the background on the tape,’ said Becky. ‘She paid my train fare, bought me lunch, and she was so excited about the interview. She thought that this would really launch her podcast to the next level.’
‘Where did she talk to you?’ said Moss to Kathleen.
‘I’ve got kids. I’m on my own. I live out in the sticks in Suffolk, near a place called Beccles,’ she said. ‘Vicky came to me. I got my mother to look after the kids for a couple of hours and we met in a café locally. I thought the same as Becky. She was lovely. Paid for lunch and my bus fare.’
‘Do either of you know Becky Wayland?’ asked Erika.
‘No, she asked us about her, but she’d auditioned at a different time, a couple of years after us,’ said Becky.
They sat in silence for a moment, as Erika tried to absorb this information. The time was ticking, and she could see that some of the students were already getting up to leave the pub. Kathleen took a sip of her drink and twitched her fringe.
‘Did Vicky send you any recording material? Did she send you any sound files? Emails with details of what she found out?’ asked Moss.
Both the young women shook their heads.
‘Did Vicky tell you anything else about her investigations?’ asked Erika. There was another pause. Kathleen flicked her fringe and looked to Becky.
‘What was that thing she said to you about the neighbour?’ she asked.
‘What neighbour?’ said Erika.
‘Vicky said she has this creepy neighbour, an older guy who lives next door, and when she started looking into the assaults at the student halls in Jubilee Road and Hartwood Road, she found out that he’d been the caretaker for those buildings, and a couple of others at Goldsmith’s Drama Academy, between 2007 and 2012. The same dates as when we were assaulted… She said she’d been round his flat to ask him about his time as caretaker, you know, and he must have heard about the assaults and break-ins because he was in charge of those buildings… She said he went mad and told her that he had nothing to do with it, and he threatened to report her for harassment. He pulled her out of his flat, dragged her by the arm. She said his reaction was so weird that it made her even more suspicious,’ said Becky.
Erika sat in shock for a moment. She looked over and saw that people were getting ready to leave. Henrietta and Charles had already gone, leaving two empty glasses and two empty packets of crisps at their table.
‘Are you absolutely sure she said this man was her neighbour?’ asked Erika.
‘Yes,’ said Becky. ‘She called him Charlie, Charlie-Boy.’
Erika was suddenly struck with the image of Charles and Henrietta, entering the pub in their matching black trilbies.
‘Shit. Charles Wakefield,’ she said, looking at Moss.
53
‘It’s true. Charles Wakefield was caretaker between 2007 and 2012,’ said Erika, coming off the phone with Sheila at the GDA admin office. Kathleen and Becky had gone on in Becky’s car to the crematorium, but Erika and Moss had stayed at the pub.
‘And no one we’ve spoken to thought to mention this?’ said Moss.
Erika put in a call to Peterson at the incident room. His phone rang out. She tried a couple of other numbers, and finally Crane answered.