‘So what’s new?’ Gabriela asked Madeleine a few weeks later as she lit her cigarette at the bottom of the stairs that led from KCS to the park.
Madeleine shrugged. ‘You know, this and that.’
There was something about her tone, the way she exhaled without looking at her that made Gabriela study her face more intently. ‘What does that mean?’
Madeleine was a terrible liar. ‘We’ve been told we have to be careful about how much we share with other departments.’
Gabriela paused. ‘OK. But it’s just me.’
‘I know,’ Madeleine said, facing her briefly and then looking away again.
‘What aren’t you supposed to talk about?’
‘Gabs, please don’t ask me to talk about stuff that I’ve just told you I can’t talk about.’
Gabriela’s mind spun back to the conversation with Emsworth, his mention of information finding its way into ‘the wrong hands’.
She paused, compelled to press Madeleine further, but one look at her face told her not to bother. Yet how could she feel hurt by her friend’s refusal to confide? It wasn’t like Madeleine was the only one who had chosen to keep secrets.
It was a few days later and everyone else seemed to have cleared off when Gabriela went to the printer to collect some documents she needed before finishing up for the day. As she approached, she heard the whirring of the machine and suddenly felt Emsworth push ahead of her.
‘I think that’s mine,’ he said firmly, and instinctively she took a step back.
‘Sorry.’
‘No problem.’ He smiled tightly before heading back to his office and filing the papers into his bag.
She waited where she was, collecting her own documents and then lingering until she saw him head out towards the loo.
Before she could second-guess what she was doing, she felt herself move towards his office, making her way straight towards his bag and pulling out the papers, her heart pounding in her throat. Flicking through, she had barely scanned the first page when she heard a flushing from down the hall. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she took a photo of the first page then stuffed the papers back into the bag and ran back out into the office, making it to Lauren’s desk just as Emsworth moved back into the room.
‘Still here?’ he said.
‘Just finishing up,’ she replied, not daring to meet his eye, hoping he did not notice her quickened breath.
Walking to the tube station twenty minutes later, she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. With a quick glance behind her shoulder, she faced forward again and pushed the idea out of her mind, putting it down to the sense of guilt for what she’d snuck a look at, distracting herself from the lingering sense of unease by committing to memory the name she had just seen on the paper: Francisco Nguema.