Tom was at band practice when she got home that evening, a note on the table saying that Harriet, one of the mothers of Sadie’s new nursery friends, had agreed to take the kids given that she’d failed to get back in time, and that Tom would pick them up on his way home as he couldn’t reach her to confirm that she’d be able to.
She had drunk so much by then that she had to read the words twice before moving to the counter and pulling down a half-finished bottle of wine and filling a glass. It was still sitting on her bedside table when she woke the following morning, as if from a strange dream.
Tom and she hardly spoke, he giving her the silent treatment and she too distracted to notice as she pulled on work clothes and left the house, wondering where the hell she was going to go, the hangover compressing her head from all sides. For want of a more inspired plan, she took the tube to Oxford Circus and sat on a bench on one of the squares until her body told her she needed to eat.
Walking to the nearest Pret, she picked a sandwich at random from the shelf and paid without waiting for her change. She pulled out a chair at the nearest table, drew her phone from her bag and composed an email to Emsworth, copying in HR as instructed.
Dear Guy, As mentioned, due to circumstances beyond my control, I have to tend to a family emergency with immediate effect and will not be able to return to the office. I hope you will understand. I’ve left my phone in the drawer of my desk. Gabriela
For another month or so, her days followed variations of the same theme, waking at the crack of dawn and leaving before her family got up, avoiding the possibility of a conversation she couldn’t trust herself to have with Tom, which was to say any conversation at all. How could she trust herself not to slip up; not to say something that would give her away? Because no matter how she racked her brain she couldn’t think of a way to tell him that she had left the FCO without telling the truth about why. One slip-up would be all it would take. As far as she knew the house could be bugged; there could be men following her at this very moment. The children were at risk, that much she could not afford to doubt … But at risk from whom?
At home on the sofa one evening, she worked through in her mind what she knew of Francisco Nguema from the files Emsworth had pulled out. Even inside, she didn’t dare look at the page she had photographed – and she didn’t need to. The image was there, like a scan, when she imagined it. She knew from her subsequent Google searches that he was a businessman based in Equatorial Guinea. From what she could gather, the FCO’s interest in him derived from his connection to a British businessman she’d never heard named, however for all her internet trawling, there was nothing to hint at the root cause of the danger that lurked behind Emsworth’s threats. Whatever it was, though it was deemed worth killing for.
When she blinked, once again the image flashed in her mind of the woman, her eyes scooped from their sockets, beside her the body of the child. When she opened them, Sadie and Callum were sitting in their pyjamas side by side on the carpet, and she had to walk out of the room.
‘Are you OK?’ Tom asked, knocking on the door as she rinsed her mouth in the sink.
‘I don’t feel well,’ she said, moving through the hallway towards their bedroom. ‘If it’s OK I think I’ll get an early night.’
In the weeks that followed she feigned exhaustion in the evenings after getting in from what Tom believed was just another day in the office, before heading to bed as soon as the children were asleep, leaving little space for proper conversation. She avoided the length of time in which Tom could look at her and see the lies lurking behind her eyes. In the bedroom, she found herself covering her body as she undressed, aware that the house could be under constant surveillance. There was a sense of betrayal she felt on Tom’s behalf at being unable to warn him, but she had no choice. When she pictured Emsworth’s eyes that day in his office, she was in no doubt of the sincerity of his threats.
She had taken to packing a basic lunch from home along with a piece of fruit to see her through the day, topped up by occasional stops for coffee, languishing in the same café for as long as possible before the looks of the waiting staff became too pointed to ignore. Financially, she could afford to go without work for a few months, eating into what remained of her father’s inheritance, but still she had to be careful.
This particular morning, however, she had heard Tom stirring in the bedroom as she placed her bag on the counter and had run out before having to confront him. She had tossed and turned for most of the previous night, her mind bending with possible solutions, and the same thoughts churned over in her mind as she roamed the streets later that day. She could tell him she’d quit, that she had changed her mind and decided to do something else, but unless she had a clear idea of what that might be, he wouldn’t buy it, surely, however naturally unprobing he might be; besides, even if she did decide to retrain or apply for another role, that would involve going to the FCO for a reference. HR was hardly likely to offer her one when, as far as they were concerned, she had simply buggered off without working out her notice period. She would rely on the support of Emsworth in any such application, but how could she go begging to the man who had threatened to have her family slaughtered, the man who had ruined her life? Besides, he would never help. This was personal, for him. She had humiliated him and he wanted her to pay.
The other option, she conceded, was to claim she’d decided she didn’t want to work anymore, that she wanted to be a stay-at-home mum. But she would go mad, she was sure of it, if she had to take on the duties of primary carer. Besides, could she convincingly persuade Tom of such a change of heart, particularly as Callum was about to start school? What little faith she had then in her own powers of deception.
The only remaining choice was to say she had been sacked, in order to get Tom on side. But sacked for what? What could she have done that would get her kicked out so spectacularly, and without any warning? That brought her back to the only possible explanation: the truth. And the truth just wasn’t an option.
By the time lunchtime arrived she was famished. When she pulled herself out of the thoughts looping in her brain and realised where she was, she felt a tingle of excitement.
The bell tinkled above the door as she stepped down into the bistro, the familiar counter on the left, tended to by the same chef she’d seen on numerous trips here with Emsworth. There was something so gratifying about being here in his favourite spot, reclaiming a snippet of her old life, walking the line of danger, knowing that he could walk in at any moment and could do nothing about her being here – it involved just the right amount of risk, not enough to warrant any kind of revenge, after all her mere presence was no real provocation after all, but just enough to make her feel alive.
As she stepped down into the room, the waitress shooed her into a red leather chair in front of a table by the window, smiling briskly.
‘Anything to drink?’
‘A Coke, please … and I’ll have the mozzarella and aubergine bake,’ she added, sitting back in her chair and tuning in to the buzz of her fellow diners.
She had just taken the first bite of her lunch when the bell tinkled. When she looked up, quietly relishing the prospect that it could be him, she noticed a man duck into the restaurant, the tight, greying curls on his head brushing against the top of the low doorframe.
Scanning the room in that way people do, instinctively, when they sense they’re being watched, she felt his gaze land on her for a moment before moving to the line of foods in plastic tubs.
‘Luca,’ he said to the man behind the counter before speaking amiably for a moment to the chef in Italian. So he was a regular here, too.
‘I’ll sit in today,’ she heard him add in English to the waitress. ‘I’m meeting someone here later.’
She had just taken a mouthful of her lunch, a string of mozzarella hanging between her mouth and the fork, when she felt him in front of her.
‘Do you mind if I—’ He paused, smiling amusedly. ‘Sorry, terrible timing …’ he added, acknowledging her full mouth, and then, ‘There are no free tables … I’ll move when one comes up …’
She blushed and dabbed at her mouth with the linen napkin, her smile tinged with apology.
Pointing to the chair in front of her, she said, ‘Of course not.’
He was the sort of man she could see in the street and feel completely unmoved by: good-looking in that self-assured manner of the very rich, his coat and buffed fingernails putting hers to shame. And yet there was something about him that made her cheeks flush as he sat in front of her, while she attempted to make delicate the act of stuffing her face with mouthfuls of oily cheese.
It was a relief when a moment later his phone vibrated on the table and he picked it up, tentatively. ‘I’m sorry, do you mind if I take this?’
‘Of course not,’ she batted her hands at him.
‘Allyo?’
The moment he spoke, she felt the colour in her cheeks rise again.
When he hung up, a moment later, he looked at her and smiled. ‘Sorry about that’.
‘You’re Russian?’ The moment she said it, she felt stupid.
‘Ty govorish’ po-russki?
‘Da,’ she shrugged, before reverting to English. ‘I mean, not perfectly, but I worked there for a while.’
‘Really, in Moscow?’
She nodded.
‘What do you do?’
The question took her by surprise. The lie formed on her lips so easily. Besides, what did it matter? It wasn’t like she would ever see this man again.
‘I was working for a charity.’
‘Really? I run a charity, what a coincidence! Which one were you with?’ He widened his eyes, laughing. ‘I swear – I’m not just saying that as a dodgy chat-up line.’
‘Amnesty International,’ she smiled. ‘What about you?’
‘Nothing quite so impressive, I’m afraid. We’re a small environmental non-profit. GEF – Global Environmental Federation. That’s my main business, anyway.’ He shrugged, acknowledging her expression. ‘I know, but believe me, I’m not so painfully earnest as that makes me sound. So whereabouts were you living?’ he asked, turning the conversation back to her.
‘Just off Tverskaya,’ she replied, picturing the wide central street alive with cars, weaving erratically between lanes of traffic, the road flanked on each side with imposing shops and hotels; impossibly glamorous couples stepping out of chauffeur-driven cars.
The man nodded approvingly, as the waitress arrived with his lunch, turning to take her empty plate. ‘Anything else?’
After a moment’s hesitation, she shook her head. ‘Just the bill, please.’
Standing, she felt self-conscious of her bare legs.
‘It was good talking to you,’ he said, looking up at her with an intensity she could not have fabricated when she thought back on it, later. ‘My name’s Ivan, by the way.’
She smiled. ‘You too. Do svidaniya.’
‘Nadeyus, eshche raz uvidimsya,’ he replied: I hope to see you again.
His words brushed over her skin as she left the building, her whole body alive with anticipation, though for what she could hardly have imagined.