London, the day before Anna dies
Madeleine arrives first at lunch the next day, ordering a large glass of wine, feeling a stab of pain as she spots her friend teetering on the pavement on the other side of the road.
Holding her fingers tightly around the stem of her glass to hide the shaking, Madeleine watches Gabriela cross towards the restaurant, looking left and right and then left again, once more than necessary, as if expecting a freight lorry to emerge from behind the blind bend and crush her beneath its weight. Does Madeleine imagine a hint of skittish excitement in her movements as Gabriela curls a handful of hair behind her ear? The truth is, she’s really not clear what she sees when she looks at the woman she had until that morning considered one of her closest friends. At this point she might as well be a total stranger – and how much easier it would be if she was.
Gabriela pulls open the door to Daphne’s restaurant and Madeleine feels herself flinch. Her friend moves towards the booth, a smile breaking across her face as she leans down to kiss Madeleine on both cheeks. Her skin is cold and Madeleine pulls back, moving into conversation before she has a chance to give herself away too soon, shifting her gaze to the table where her fingers cling to her glass.
‘What will you drink? Wine?’
The waitress appears but Gabriela speaks directly to Madeleine. ‘Actually, I think I’d like something stronger. A brandy?’
There is something almost vibrant about her face, the life bursting from it as if in a final flourish.
As the waitress disappears, Madeleine speaks more quickly than she’d intended, purging herself of the words. ‘Talking of something stronger, I’ve just been in your old neck of the woods. I drank so much vodka I think I can still feel it in my liver.’
‘Moscow?’
She doesn’t even blink. Holy shit, you’re good at this, Madeleine thinks. You’re far too good.
‘What were you doing in Russia?’ Gabriela asks, her tongue running discreetly over her top lip. Madeleine holds her eye, willing her to crack, to show a chink of weakness, of remorse. Anything.
‘What am I always doing? Work,’ Madeleine says. ‘Is there anything else in my life apart from work? God, sometimes I wonder if I’m getting this living thing all wrong. But no, I shouldn’t say that, not now when things are finally coming together.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
Was there a shift then, almost imperceptible? An uncrossing of the legs, a rearrangement of hands under the table?
‘Anyway …’ Madeleine smiles stiffly. ‘We always end up talking about my work. I’m such a narcissist. Tell me about you, what’s going on?’
There it is, a flicker in the left eye. As the waitress arrives and starts to dole out their drinks and a selection of starters on the table in front of them, Gabriela’s mask drops just a fraction. Not so much that Madeleine would have noticed it if she hadn’t been looking, but she is looking now – albeit too late – and yet she still can’t be quite sure what is staring back at her.
Gabriela’s voice is slightly higher pitched when she speaks again. ‘No, tell me about Moscow. I’m interested, it’s been so long since I was there.’
‘Has it?’
Gabriela looks up too quickly, her gaze meeting Madeleine’s and then focusing immediately away again, her cheeks turning red. It would be wrong to say that Madeleine is enjoying this, but at last she feels something start to tear, her fingers catching hold and pulling gently but persistently enough to rip through to whatever lies beneath.
‘Well, I shouldn’t tell you this, but we always share things with each other, don’t we?’
Does Gabriela notice, Madeleine wonders, the catch in her voice?
‘Besides, who are you going to tell, right? So you know how I told you we were closing in on some of the peripheral figures? Well, one of those is a Russian-owned company …’
Madeleine pauses, giving her friend one last chance to intercept, to launch in with the truth – but the rocket has already taken off. They are both already flailing through space, the air thinning, and time to attach their oxygen tanks is running out.
‘But there are a few things we need to tie up first,’ Madeleine says, and Gabriela doesn’t even look up this time as she replies.
‘Right.’ The colour drains from her face, a single vein pulsing above her left eye.
‘Aren’t you going to ask which company?’
Madeleine doesn’t wait. ‘Oh, it’s one of those intentionally oblique ones – offers a breadth of legitimate services, specialising in energy supply, I believe. But like so many of these companies, they dabble in sidelines. After all, that’s where the money’s at, right? As well as bursts of philanthropy. In this case, a children’s orphanage, no less.’
Madeleine watches as the fork slips from between Gabriela’s fingers and crashes against her plate. When Madeleine speaks again, she can barely suppress an acid note of scorn.
‘Gaby, is something wrong?’