Outside, the morning sun filters through the cloud as the sound of Callum and Tom pulling on their shoes in the hallway behind her gradually fades. It is only once she is halfway down the street that she lets herself start to engage with what she has to do now. Looking into her bag, she pulls out her phone, half-expecting to find a text message from Madeleine. They have not spoken since lunch yesterday, but there is no message and she doesn’t know whether she is relieved or dismayed. No message telling her that this was all a joke, that she had got it wrong, after all.
Briefly, Gabriela recalls Madeleine’s words not long after she side-shuffled from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the National Crime Agency – which already feels like a lifetime ago – crossing the river to continue the fight against organised crime in the stale headquarters in Vauxhall.
‘They pride themselves on being the UK’s answer to the FBI, but that’s obviously a joke. There is a complete lack of proper cops. It’s all people like us, civil servants. Impotent pen-pushers. Though we’re operationally independent – notionally, at least.’
Except they aren’t impotent at all. They are coming for her, and there is only one way to escape.
Madeleine’s words circle relentlessly in her mind as she steps onto the train, and off again at Kew Gardens.
They had taken a seat back at the booth, a table of food untouched in front of them, while Madeleine finished what she had come to say. ‘Emsworth was on the payroll of Vasiliev’s operation. The Nguema character you mentioned to me a while ago, the one Emsworth was having the meeting with, he and Vasiliev were business partners, together with a third man, one Clive Witherall. Witherall and Nguema are also under investigation for a number of dealings, including suspected arms trading. You heard about the chemical spillage in Equatorial Guinea. Well, it seems Witherall’s company, TradeSmart, was working with Nguema to cover their arms dealing business by using units containing chemical waste to import their product, the idea being that anyone working at the port who saw the chemical waste symbol would do little more than a nominal check, for fear of getting too close to the hazardous material that was concealing the weapons.
‘Anyway, they fucked up. One of the local companies they hired in Bata to dispose of the chemical waste dumped it next to a village. It was a disaster, as you can imagine. Various agencies, in the UK and elsewhere, have been looking into the spillage, trying to connect Witherall and Nguema to the operation. Vasiliev’s involved, too. One of her many projects: she has a number of side-hustles, very millennial.’
For a moment, Madeleine had clearly forgotten the basis on which they were having this conversation. This wasn’t a catch-up between two old colleagues. When she remembered, her face darkened again. ‘Emsworth was one of their inside men. It was his job to keep abreast of what was happening, in terms of how much the FCO knew and any future deals that would affect their operations. That’s why he wanted to get rid of us. We were uncovering too much. Me, in terms of the human trafficking work I was doing in Hanoi, which connects back to Vasiliev, and to Nguema, whose company ran a lot of the boats that were used for the human freightage. And you: well, you were simply in the wrong place at the right time. Presumably after you saw Emsworth in Moscow, Vasiliev and Nguema were spooked. He must have tried to test you, with the various activities he asked you to do; and perhaps for a while you were deemed reliable … And then you weren’t. Once he got rid of me – I was considered far too active, I imagine – he kept you on as someone he could keep an eye on: keep your friends close and all that …’
Gabriela took a long gulp of her drink and set down the glass, nodding to the waitress for another. Without sedation, she wasn’t sure how she could stay sitting there with everything she was hearing.
‘Every piece of information we uncovered during that operation he was handing straight back into the hands of his paymasters: traffickers, arms dealers. That is why the FCO needed to get rid of him. But obviously it would be too embarrassing to expose how much they had let slide. And so it was easier to see him off on a more palatable charge.’
‘Serena,’ Gabriela said, swallowing.
Madeleine nodded. ‘I mean, it was kind of genius. To push him out on the grounds of sexual discrimination … no one who had worked under or around Emsworth would ever be suspicious that it was anything but a legitimate case.’
‘How do you know all this?’
Madeleine looked away.
‘OK, then, why didn’t you tell me at the time?’ Gabriela’s voice was little more than a whisper.
Madeleine laughed. ‘Why didn’t I tell you? You think I should have trusted you?’
Gabriela looked down in shame, wondering how much Madeleine knew.
‘And what’s changed?’
Madeleine regarded her, her eyes narrowing.
‘What’s changed is that now I know you weren’t aware of what your boyfriend was up to – and now that you do know, I need to find out if you have anything useful on Popov and Vasiliev. I need to know if you can help us bring them down. Because if you do that, you won’t get dragged through the mud when this all comes out in court. There is still a chance for you to salvage what is left of your life.’
‘Polina?’ She is struck by the silence resonating through the house as she walks through the front door, pushing it closed behind her with a wariness she cannot name.
‘Layla?’
How long has it been since she phoned from the supermarket? It can’t have been more than half an hour, and yet the house is still, her daughter’s changing bag absent from its usual hook in the hallway.
Moving more swiftly now, her heartbeat quickens as she places her keys on the counter in the kitchen and looks out over the garden. The quiet beauty of it never fails to touch her, and yet the sudden lack of leaves and flowers has transformed it into a space she almost doesn’t recognise.
Perhaps her daughter is asleep in the bedroom and Polina is in the bathroom, she tells herself as she moves back towards the stairs, padding up the striped red runners. She is moving from Layla’s bedroom, which is empty, into the master bedroom, the blinds having been pulled back so that the room is flooded with light, making her squint as she looks around the his and hers bedside tables, the recently acquired Matisse hanging above the headboard.
Moving faster still, she lets her eyes roam the room and in the silence she must reconcile herself to the fact that she doesn’t truly know him at all. She doesn’t know anything about his life, not really, just as he knows nothing about hers. Much as she wants to believe he is unaware of the purpose of the visas his company doles out, she cannot think that he is so naive, so detached from the work to which he dedicates so much of his life. Either he knows, or he chose not to ask.
But what does that matter now? Either way, she understands what she has to do.
Pulling out her phone, she dials Polina’s number but it goes straight to voicemail.
Banging doors as she moves from room to room, she calls out her name. ‘Layla?’ But she is not here.
A sick feeling rises up inside her as she reaches the top of the stairs. Just as she takes her first step, she sees Polina’s silhouette at the door. In her arms is Layla, her face breaking into a smile as she sees her mother.
Gabriela runs down the stairs to her, her whole being shaking with relief as she envelops her daughter in her arms.
Polina laughs, taken aback.
‘Where were you?’ Gabriela says forcefully, looking over her daughter’s shoulder at her.
‘By the river,’ Polina says, her voice more wary now. ‘Layla was restless so I took her for a walk. Is everything all right?’
Closing her eyes, she relaxes her grip on Layla slightly.
‘Sorry. Everything is fine. There was just a change of plan, that’s all. I panicked …’
She gives Polina a reassuring smile and says, ‘If it’s OK with you, I thought I might take Layla out for the day. What do you think, Layla? You and me, shall we go out somewhere nice?’
When Layla smiles, there is a familiar expression, the way her mouth curls up at one side, and she realises it is herself who she is seeing. Layla has always looked so much like her father, the same tight dark curls, the same dark eyes, the prominent brows. If she hadn’t come out of her, Gabriela might have questioned her provenance before this moment, before this flash of her own face in her daughter’s.
‘You want to come with Mummy? OK, let’s do it!’ She turns to Polina, giving her brightest smile. ‘Is there a change of clothes in her bag?’
‘Of course. And a couple of nappies, and her dummy. I know you’re keen for her to give it up, but it offers her comfort when you’re gone, and I really don’t want to take another thing away from her right now.’
She means nothing by it, but this comment makes Gabriela flush. The smile falters on her lips.
And yet, Polina is right, because she knows Layla better than anyone. She has spent more time with Layla in her short time on earth than anyone else. It was Gabriela’s lap she chose for cuddles when all was well, but it was Polina to whom she instinctively turned when the tears rose in her eyes.
‘I’ll go and get packed then,’ she says, moving towards the hall, regretting not having gathered all that she needed before Polina returned.
And then she hears the door click open and a voice calling her daughter’s name, and when she turns she sees him standing in the doorway, blocking their escape.