London, the day before Anna dies
There are so many things Madeleine wants to ask, but there is no time. For now, above all, a single question needs answering.
‘Did you know?’
One look at Gabriela’s face gives her the answer she needs.
Madeleine closes her eyes, overcome with relief and contempt. It is almost worse, in a way, that her friend clearly had no idea who she was getting involved with. How could you not have known? Madeleine wants to ask. She wants to take Gabriela by the shoulders and shake her. How could you not have looked more deeply and discovered who he really was? And yet, even if she had dug, what would she have found? These people are sophisticated, they know how to cover their tracks. Besides, in order to find the truth you had to be willing to believe it.
A woman who is willing to live a double life, to betray her children as well as her partner – could she be counted on to ask the right questions of herself, let alone of anyone else? Madeleine curses herself for such a misogynistic judgement, but it is true, and she, for one, is willing to look the truth in the eye, even if she hates what is staring back at her.
‘We met at a restaurant, the one Emsworth always took us to—’
Madeleine pictures their old FCO boss, Guy Emsworth, at the Italian bistro on Crown Passage, his unofficial second office.
‘Madeline. I—’ Gabriela attempts to take her hand.
Madeleine pulls her fingers away sharply. She doesn’t raise her voice, she doesn’t even look up, leaning into her bag and extracting a pad from which she tears a single sheet of paper. Without looking at Gabriela, she scrawls down an address.
‘I’m going to show you this and you need to memorise it – then I’m going to tear up the paper.’
Gabriela nods.
‘You will drive as soon as possible to where I need you to go. You will tell Tom and the children to meet you there. Someone will meet you here.’ Madeleine indicates towards the name of the British ferry terminal scrawled on the paper she is holding up. ‘He will tell you what you need to do next. Have all your passports.’
‘When?’
‘Soon. I’ll call you with further information. You need to go straight home and gather your things.’
Madeleine doesn’t want to commit with details just yet, not only because she can’t be certain Gabriela isn’t being bugged – much as she thinks that Gabriela isn’t in on it, she cannot wholly trust anything she says. How can she? But it’s also a matter of logistics – she has not yet decided who she can trust with this task. Too many lives are at stake.
She had discussed it directly with Sean, not long after the big revelation. After admitting she and Gabriela had worked together – keeping the details brief – they had agreed that for the safety of the children, at the very least, this couldn’t be handled in-house. There had been too many leaks already; it was impossible to think Vasiliev didn’t have a man, or woman, on the inside passing information back to her.
For all her anger towards Gabriela – and there is plenty of that – Madeleine is desperate to get this right. Whomever Madeleine chooses to be the one to usher Gabriela to safety has to be the right person, and Sean, to his credit, understands that Madeleine is the one to seek that person out. So she had been wrong about Sean, she had conceded as she made her way home from the office after his revelation, and yet that was hardly surprising. We are wrong about people all the time. People can surprise you, for better or for worse. That is one fact of which she can be sure.
She has to act quickly. Once Popov is arrested, Vasiliev will be targeting Gabriela and her family, culling those who might speak out.
‘Have you memorised it?’ Madeleine asks, signalling towards the words on the paper she is holding up.
Gabriela nods.
Without another word, Madeleine stands. She hesitates for a second, blinking hard as she tears the paper into tiny pieces. As she turns away from the friend she will never see again in this lifetime, she closes her eyes and feels the burn behind them.
Madeleine pauses for a moment, waiting for Gabriela to say something, but she says nothing. She doesn’t even say thank you.
Madeleine clutches the door handle for the duration of the taxi ride from Daphne’s restaurant to her flat on Bulstrode Street. It is only when the car stops that she notices she is doing it. For a moment she simply sits, holding herself there in the sudden stillness of the vehicle, not ready to process what has just happened.
‘We stopping here or what?’ the driver asks, the sudden burst of noise over the speaker in the back of the cab puncturing the silence.
‘Yes,’ Madeleine says, steadying her voice, righting herself again, ready to take action. Reaching into her handbag, she notices the indentation of the door handle on the skin of her palm as she pulls a twenty-pound note from her purse.
Her heels make a clattering sound as she steps out onto the pavement. Moving towards the front door, she blocks out the sound of afternoon life bustling on as ever along Marylebone Lane.
Gabriela will be back at home by now, Madeleine calculates as she enters the townhouse. She’d had it divided into flats after her father had died – it was one thing living in the house she had grown up in, between stints abroad as part of her father’s diplomatic career, but quite another to do so with her childhood ghosts hanging around to bother her. There had been a time she had wanted to sell the whole thing, to start anew, but what would be the point? You didn’t get two chances to purchase a pad like this, right in the heart of Marylebone, certainly not with stamp duty and all the other taxes that would soon eat into any profit. So when it was suggested that she split it into two apartments and sell one off, she didn’t think twice. Just as she hadn’t thought twice at the time about handing over the keys to owners who would never use it. It was one thing having a moral high ground in the abstract, and another refusing a shit-ton of cash when you needed it. She is a hypocrite, she accepts that fact mournfully. We all are.
She thinks of Gabriela without emotion, forcing herself to push her own feelings aside. There is no time for that. The children will still be at school, which will give their mother time to gather their things without causing alarm. Tom might be home, but what she does or doesn’t tell him now is none of Madeleine’s concern. As long as he goes with her, which surely even with all that is happening he will have to understand is necessary … That is all that matters now.
But first, Madeleine has to get a plan in place, to sort out the arrangements, as promised. Beyond that, Gabriela is on her own. She has to be: her life depends on it.