Gretchen Schiff, 21, was the Austrian flatmate of murdered Spanish student Sofia Medina. Strike and Robin suspect that Sofia may have been the young woman seen removing items from William Wright’s bedsit after he was murdered. Gretchen was the last person to see Sofia alive (Chapter 33).
Initially suspicious and unwilling to meet, Gretchen eventually relents and agrees to meet Robin in the Montagu Pyke, a Wetherpoons pub on Charing Cross road, just around the corner from Denmark Street.
Robin, sitting watching the entrance to the pub, recognises Gretchen as she arrives. ‘She was a curvy girl with thick, naturally golden hair that fell to her shoulders, sallow skin and a pair of clear green eyes. She wore no make-up and her fleece added inches to a very large bust’ (Chapter 45). She is accompanied by her boyfriend, Max, ‘a tall, stringy, intense-looking young man whose hair was tied up in a bun and who sported a goatee and round-rimmed glasses’ (Chapter 45). Gretchen speaks very good, virtually accent-less, English.
Max asks why Robin is interested in Sofia. Robin tells them the agency is investigating a robbery, and that Sofia matches the description of the girl seen entering and leaving the burgled room. When she tells them that this girl was with a man with dark, curly hair, Robin feels that Gretchen and Max recognise this description. Robin then mentions Sofia’s OnlyFans account but Gretchen and Max remain reluctant to talk. Eventually Robin tells them that she will inform the police that they are withholding information. At this, Gretchen starts to cry and reveals that Sofia wanted a sugar daddy. She had met the dark, curly haired man through her OnlyFans site. The man said he was in the music business, and had a big house in the country with a swimming pool. Gretchen finally admits that she hadn’t told the police this because she had posed for pictures for this man with Sofia once when she was drunk, and she was scared her family would find out. Robin recommends that Gretchen calls a lawyer (Chapter 45).