It takes a moment for Gabriela to compose herself, and when she does, she sees that Ivan is looking at her in a way that makes her rearrange herself on the spot.
‘But what are you doing here?’ she asks, recovering herself just enough for the sentence to form.
‘I was about to ask you the same thing …’ He lingers for a moment as if awaiting a reply, and then he says, ‘My flight was cancelled. I’m leaving tomorrow instead.’
‘OK,’ she says, after a moment. ‘My course was postponed. I didn’t see any reason to tell you, as you were supposed to be away.’
‘I see. Well, that’s worked out well then, hasn’t it?’
‘Hasn’t it?’ she says, as he leans in to kiss her, the bristle of his beard scratching her cheek.
‘I’ll cook for all of us. Polina, too,’ she says as evening folds in, having spent the afternoon resisting the urge to stare at him, to scour his face for evidence of what he does and does not know.
She moves into the kitchen and puts on the apron hanging on the back of the door – the one she had made, with a print of Layla and Ivan with Ivan’s mother from their trip to Moscow, the three of them on the sofa in her apartment.
‘Polina,’ Gabriela calls out. ‘You’ll eat with us, won’t you? I need a drink,’ she says, turning to Ivan. ‘Do we have gin?’
‘We seem to have run out,’ he says. ‘What about something else? We have wine or—’
‘I really fancy gin. Do you think you could run out and grab some, while I prepare this?’
He pauses. ‘OK. If you’re sure you can’t have something else.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
Polina walks into the hall and out of nowhere she has a flicker of memory of Madeleine talking. Information from insider informants.
Pushing the voice away, she looks back at Ivan and he shrugs, then pulls on his coat. ‘Anything else?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she says.
Moving back into the kitchen, she waits until she hears the door slam shut and then she pulls out her phone, her fingers struggling to keep up with her mind. Googling Heathrow flights Moscow delays, she closes her eyes briefly, silently praying she has got it wrong, that he hasn’t lied about his flight being cancelled. Because why would he come back and lie about it, unless he knows something?
Following the links to a page entitled Live flight information, she types in Moscow and waits as the results emerge on her screen.
She spots Ivan’s flight within seconds, and next to it, the departure information. GATE CLOSED.
And in that moment, her stomach drops as if a boulder has been stuffed down her throat.