The Girl in the Ice

15

Yakka Events was based in a futuristic office block on a residential street in Kensington. It rose up between rows of ordinary terraced houses, like a pretentious sculpture that had been delivered to the wrong address. Erika, Peterson and Moss had to buzz in at two separate smoked glass doors before they were allowed access to the front desk. A young receptionist sat typing at her computer, wearing earphones. She saw them, but didn’t say a word and carried on typing. Erika leaned across and removed one of her earphones.

‘I’m DCI Foster, this is Detective Moss and Detective Peterson. We’d like to talk to Giles Osborne, please.’

‘Mr Osborne is busy. One moment, I’ll just finish this and get you booked in for an appointment,’ said the receptionist, making a show of replacing the earphone.

Erika leaned over again and pulled down on the cable, yanking both of the earphones out of the girl’s ears. ‘I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. We’d like to see Giles Osborne.’

They all showed her their police ID. The girl’s attitude remained, but she picked up the phone on her desk. ‘What’s it regarding?’

‘The death of his fiancé,’ said Erika. The girl dialled a number.

‘What did she think we were here about? A cat stuck up a fucking tree?’ murmured Peterson. Erika shot him a look.

The receptionist replaced the receiver. ‘Mr Osborne will be out in a moment. You can wait through there.’

They moved through to a chill-out area with sofas and a low wooden coffee table, where design magazines were neatly fanned out. In the corner was a small bar with a giant fridge, lit up and stocked with rows of beers, and beside that was a giant, silver espresso machine. Along the wall hung a montage of photos, taken at various Yakka Events, which mostly seemed to involve gorgeous young girls and guys handing out free champagne.

‘He’d never employ me with my fat arse,’ muttered Moss as they sat. Erika gave her a sideways glance and saw, for the first time, that Moss was grinning. Erika returned the grin.

Moments later, Giles Osborne emerged through a smoked glass door next to the bar. He was short and plump with dark greasy hair, parted to one side. His beady eyes were close set, and he had a large nose but no chin. He had poured himself into skinny jeans and wore a V-necked t-shirt far too tight for his bulging belly. A strange pair of little pointed ankle boots, which gave him a Humpty-Dumpty-ish quality, completed the outfit. Erika was surprised that this was the man Andrea had chosen to marry.

‘Hello, I’m Giles Osborne. What can I do for you?’ he said, his accent confident and plummy.

Erika introduced everyone, adding, ‘We’d firstly like to offer our condolences.’

‘Yes. Thank you. It was a great shock. Something I’m still trying to process. I don’t know if I ever will . . .’ He looked pained, but didn’t invite them further.

‘Could we go somewhere a bit more private? We’d like to ask you a few questions,’ said Erika.

‘I’ve already spoken at length, yesterday, with a DCI Sparks,’ he said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

‘Yes, and we appreciate your time, but do understand this is a murder investigation and we really need to make sure we have all the information . . . ’

Giles regarded them for a moment and then appeared to snap out of his suspicion. ‘Of course. Can we get you a drink? Cappuccino? Espresso? Macchiato?’

‘I’ll have a cappuccino,’ said Moss. Peterson nodded in agreement.

‘Yes, thank you,’ said Erika.

‘Michelle, we’ll be in the conference room,’ Giles said to the receptionist on the front desk. He held the glass door open, and they passed through a communal office where six or seven young men and women were working at computers. None of them looked over twenty-five. Giles opened another glass door, which led into a conference room with a long glass table and chairs. A large plasma television on the wall was mirroring a website, which showed rows of thumbnail images. On closer inspection, Erika realised the images were of coffins. Giles hurried to a laptop on the glass table and minimised the browser, the Yakka Events logo appearing on the television instead.

‘I can’t imagine how terrible this time must be for Lord and Lady Douglas-Brown. I thought I would make some inroads into planning Andrea’s funeral,’ he explained.

‘Andrea was only formally identified an hour ago,’ said Moss.

‘Yes, but you had identified Andrea, correct?’ he replied.

‘Yes,’ said Erika.

‘One is never certain how to react to sudden bereavement. It must seem strange to you . . .’ He broke down and put a hand over his face. ‘I’m sorry. I just need a focus . . . I need to do something, and arranging events is in my blood, I suppose. I just can’t believe this has happened . . .’

Erika pulled a tissue from a box on the conference table and handed it to Giles.

‘Thank you,’ he said, taking it and blowing his nose.

‘I take it your company is successful?’ said Erika, changing the subject as they took their seats at the conference table.

‘Yes, I can’t complain. There are always people who want to tell the world about their new product. Recessions come and go, but there is always a need and a want to communicate a concept, a brand, an event. I’m here to help convey that message.’

‘What message do you hope to convey when you arrange Andrea’s funeral service?’ asked Moss. Before he could answer, the receptionist came in with the coffees and set them down.

‘Thanks, Michelle, you’re an angel,’ said Giles to her back as she left. ‘Um, that’s a really good question. I want people to remember Andrea for what she was: a beautiful young girl, pure and wholesome, innocent, with her whole life ahead of her…’

Erika turned that over in her brain for a moment. She saw Moss and Peterson do the same.

‘That’s really good coffee,’ said Moss.

‘Thank you. We did the product launch. It’s all completely Fairtrade. The farmers are compensated far above the market value for what they grow; their children are given places in schools. They have access to sanitation, clean water. Full healthcare.’

‘I didn’t know I was doing so much good, just drinking a cappuccino,’ said Peterson, his voice heavy with sarcasm. Erika could tell Peterson and Moss shared her dislike for Giles Osborne. This wasn’t going to work if he knew it too.

‘We’ve come here today,’ said Erika, ‘to try and build a bit of a picture about Andrea. We believe the best way to catch whoever did this is to piece together her life, and her final movements.’

‘Sure,’ said Giles. ‘It was a shock – a terrible shock.’ His eyes began to fill with tears again, and he scrubbed at them angrily with the balled-up tissue. He sniffed a couple of times. ‘We were due to be married this summer. She was so excited. She had already started fittings for the dress. She wanted a Vera Wang, and I always gave my Andrea what she wanted . . .’

‘Didn’t her parents want to pay?’ asked Erika.

‘No. The Slovak tradition is that each family pays half . . . Are you Slovak? I think I hear an accent?’ asked Giles.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Married?’

‘No. Can I ask where you and Andrea first met?’

‘She came to work for me, last June.’

‘As what?’

‘One of our sampling girls, although I don’t think she really knew the meaning of the word “work”. I’d known Lady Diana for a few years. We often partner with her floristry business for our events. She said she had a daughter who was looking for a job; then she showed me her picture and that was it.’

‘How do you mean, “that was it”?’ asked Peterson.

‘Well, she was beautiful. The kind of girl we love to employ – and of course, very soon I was in love, ha.’

‘And did she work for you for long, before a relationship developed?’ asked Peterson.

‘No – well, the love took a bit longer than her period of employment. She only did one shift, giving out samples of Moët. She was terrible: she behaved like she was at the party, not working – and she got so drunk! So that didn’t work out, but, er, we did . . .’ Giles trailed off. ‘Look, is any of this relevant? I would have thought you’d want to be out looking for the killer.’

‘So it was quite a rapid courtship. You only met eight months ago, last June?’ said Erika.

‘Yes.’

‘And you proposed very quickly into the relationship.’

‘As I said. It was love at first sight.’

‘And you think it was love at first sight for Andrea too?’ asked Moss.

‘Look, am I under suspicion?’ asked Giles, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

‘Why would you think you were under suspicion? We said we were asking questions,’ said Erika.

‘But I’ve answered all this before. If you want to cut to the chase, I am able to demonstrate where I was the night that Andrea disappeared. From three pm on Thursday, January eighth, until three am the morning of the ninth, I was running a product launch at Raw Spice in Soho, 106 Beak Street. I then came back here to the office with my team; we had some drinks to wind down. I have all this on CCTV. We then went out for breakfast at six am – the McDonald’s on Kensington High Street. I have more than a dozen staff that can verify this, and no doubt there is CCTV footage of most of the places. The doorman on my building saw me arrive home at seven am, and I didn’t leave again until midday.’

‘What is Raw Spice?’ asked Peterson.

‘It’s a sushi fusion experience.’

‘Sushi fusion?’

‘I really don’t expect someone like you to know what that is,’ said Giles, impatiently.

‘Someone like me?’ asked Peterson, reaching up to twist one of his short dreadlocks.

‘No, no, no; what I meant was, someone who . . . who might not move in central London society . . .’

Erika then stepped in. ‘Yes, that’s all fine. Look, Mr Osborne—’

‘Please call me Giles. This is a first-name office.’

‘Giles. Are you on Facebook?’

‘Of course I’m on Facebook,’ he bristled. ‘I run an events company. We’re very active on all social media.’

‘And Andrea?’

‘No, she was one of the few people I’ve ever met who didn’t have a Facebook profile. I’ve tried . . . I tried to get her on Instagram a couple of times, but she’s . . . she was clueless with technology.’

Erika stood and pulled out a couple of screenshots from Andrea’s Facebook profile. She laid them out on the glass table in front of him.

‘Andrea did have a Facebook profile. She deactivated it in June 2014. I’m guessing this was around the time you two met?’

Giles pulled the paper towards him. ‘Maybe she wanted to have a fresh start?’ he said, confused, clearly trying not to react to a picture of Andrea draped over a handsome young man, his hand cupping one of her breasts through her white halter-neck top.

‘So she lied to you about not having a Facebook profile.’

‘Well, lie is a strong word, is it not?’

‘But why keep this from you?’

‘I – I don’t know.’

‘Giles. Do you know of The Glue Pot, in Forest Hill?’ asked Peterson.

‘No, I don’t think I do. What is it?’

‘It’s a pub.’

‘Then I definitely don’t. I don’t stray south of the river, in fact, ever.’

‘Andrea was last seen at this pub on the night she disappeared. She was in the company of a girl with short blonde hair, then later a dark-haired man. Do you have any idea who they could have been? Did she have any friends in South London, around Forest Hill?’

‘No. Well, none that I knew of.’

‘Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt her? Did she owe somebody money?’

‘No! No; between Sir Simon and myself, Andrea never wanted for anything. The night she vanished, she told me she was going to the cinema with Linda and David. I was encouraging her to spend more time with her brother and sister; they’re not close as siblings.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, you know – rich families. The parents delegate the childcare to nannies and teachers. There is always competition for affection amongst siblings . . . Well, David and Andrea seemed to get much more attention than Linda. I was lucky. I’m an only child.’

The Humpty-Dumpty image came back to Erika again. Giles, small and podgy, sitting alone on a wall, his legs not quite reaching the ground.

‘Did you ever meet a girl called Barbora Kardosova? She was a friend of Andrea’s.’ Erika slid a picture of Barbora across the table.

Giles leaned in to examine the picture. ‘No. Although Andrea did mention Barbora. It seemed she dropped Andrea as a friend, most cruelly. It happened a little while before I met her.’

‘How well did you know Andrea’s friends?’

‘She didn’t have many female friends. She’d try and get close to other girls and they became jealous of her. She’s – she was – so beautiful.’

‘Did you and Andrea have an active sex life?’ asked Peterson.

‘What? Yes. We’d just got engaged . . .’

‘Did you have sexual intercourse with Andrea the day she went missing?’

‘What has this got to do with—?’ Giles started.

‘Please can you answer the question,’ said Erika.

‘Um, I think we might have, in the afternoon? Look, I don’t know what this has got to do with her going missing. Asking me about our sex life! It’s none of your bloody business!’ Giles was now red in the face.

‘Did you partake in anal as well as vaginal sex?’ asked Peterson.

Giles stood up so quickly that his coffee spilled over and his chair fell back. ‘That’s it! Get out now! Do you hear me? This is an informal chat, yes? I don’t have to talk to you. It’s voluntary.’

‘Of course it is,’ said Erika. ‘But would you please answer the question? Andrea suffered a prolonged and brutal attack before her death. We are asking these questions for a reason.’

‘What? If we had – if we took part in an unnatural act? No. NO! I wouldn’t marry a girl who . . .’ Giles tugged at the neck of his t-shirt, unable to voice the words. ‘I’m sorry, but I need you to leave. If you want to ask me any more questions I want a lawyer present. This is most distressing and unsavoury.’

The spilt coffee had reached the edge of the glass table. There was a spattering sound as it began to drip over onto the carpet.

‘Was she raped? Was she hurt badly?’ he asked, quietly now, dissolving into tears. He leaned against the table and sobbed into the sleeve of his T-shirt.

‘We don’t believe Andrea was sexually assaulted, but this was a sustained and brutal attack,’ said Erika, softly.

‘Oh, my God,’ Giles said, taking a deep breath and scrubbing again at his eyes. ‘I just can’t think – I can’t imagine what she went through.’

Erika gave him a moment before she continued. ‘Could you tell me, Giles, did Andrea have more than one phone?’

Giles looked up, confused. ‘No. No, she had a Swarovski iPhone. Sir Simon’s secretary sorts out the bill. The same with Linda and David.’

Erika looked at Moss and Peterson, and they got up.

‘I think we’ll end it there, Mr Osborne, thank you. I’m sorry about the line of questioning, but your answers to these difficult questions will really help our investigation.’ Erika touched his sleeve. ‘We’ll see ourselves out,’ she added.

They passed Michelle coming into the glass conference room, carrying a large handful of tissues. She gave them a disapproving look.

‘What do you think?’ asked Erika, when they emerged out onto the street.

‘I’m gonna say it. Cos I know we were all thinking it. What the hell was she doing with him? Talk about out of his league!’ said Peterson.

‘And I don’t think he knew her at all,’ said Moss.

‘Or, she only let him know what she wanted him to know,’ added Peterson.