The Girl in the Ice (Detective Erika Foster 1)

‘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.’