London, three days after Anna dies
Madeleine hails a cab on Marylebone Lane. It is an extravagant way to travel to the office, she concedes, but if she were to take the tube as normal, it would no doubt be while she was underground without phone-signal that the call she had been waiting for all morning would finally come through. As for the bus – she would rather crawl to Vauxhall, and that would probably be quicker than negotiating all those endless stops, even in a tailored pencil skirt and heels.
Ducking into the back, she picks up the newspaper a previous passenger has left on the seat, partly to distract herself from the nerves building in her stomach with every second that her phone doesn’t ring, and partly to signal to the driver that she is not in the market for chit-chat. Pulling out the croissant tucked in her handbag, she takes a bite.
It is a local paper, folded somewhere in the middle, and she flicks through the pages with limited interest until she reaches the back page and turns it over. She sees the photograph of a glamorous-looking couple, arm-in-arm, and begins to read:
The socialite heiress and magazine editor Anna Witherall has died at her North London home. The mother-of-two was found hanged at the family house on Parliament Hill in South End Green. Ms Witherall, who was editor of luxury interiors magazine House at the time of her death, was married to the late David Witherall. The couple leave behind two daughters, aged three.
David Witherall, who was heir to the global trading company TradeSmart, died just months ago after being hit by a car. Ms Witherall was found hanged at the couple’s £3.5m home. Her body was discovered by a friend who had been looking after the children for the day.
An inquest will follow.
Scanning the page, Madeleine’s eyes fall on the byline. ISOBEL MASON.
Isobel Mason. Madeleine sits forward in her seat, mulling over the name, her mind moving back to the previous week, to the meeting at the women’s refuge in Kentish Town. Madeleine and Dana had arrived first. Maureen, who ran the refuge, was an old contact of Madeleine, since her time investigating human trafficking back at the Foreign Office. It was Maureen who had brokered the meeting between Dana, one of Madeleine’s informants, and Isobel Mason, a local journalist and friend of Maureen who was looking into an attack on a sex worker Dana had been in contact with. Madeleine hadn’t needed to go along but there was no way she was going to let one of her sources, and a woman she cared about, go to meet a reporter alone. If she was honest, she had been reticent about Dana speaking to Isobel at all, but from Maureen’s assurances, Isobel was as fine a journalist as one could wish to meet – not that the bar, in Madeleine’s experience, was particularly high. Isobel’s motives in probing Dana for information, Maureen insisted, were as much about trying to find out what happened to the missing woman as they were about finding a story. At least that’s what Maureen had clearly chosen to believe.
‘Dana has been working with the organisation to help report suspected instances of trafficking. She has been hugely brave in working with Madeleine, and she thinks she might be able to help you,’ Maureen had said by way of introduction once Isobel had arrived.
Madeleine had tried not to look taken aback when she walked in. In the flesh, which frankly she could do with a little more of, Isobel looked about twelve, with rings under her eyes and chewed fingernails – more akin with one of the girls Maureen looked after than an accomplished reporter. Though perhaps her deceptive appearance was part of what made her effective in her job. From the research Madeleine had done ahead of coming along with Dana, Isobel had had her fair share of meaty stories, especially for a local hack who must have been in her early twenties at most.
‘I’m not here in an official capacity,’ Madeleine had confirmed when Isobel eyed her sidelong. ‘Maureen mentioned your enquiries, and I thought of Dana. Maureen tells me you’re a brilliant journalist, and very trustworthy. I thought it would be good to meet you, put a face to a name …’
And here is the same name staring back at her now, attached to a piece about the death of Anna Witherall who was married to the late heir of a company associated with Irena Vasiliev – the Russian boss of the man with whom Gabriella had been having an affair.
Pulling out her phone, Madeleine dials Sean’s number. He answers after two rings.
‘Madeleine. How do?’
‘Listen,’ she says, lowering her voice, though the driver is immersed, tutting along to a radio phone-in, oblivious to her conversation.
‘Are you in the office?’
‘Sure am.’
‘Could we speak when I get in? I’ll be twenty minutes or so.’ She looks out at the traffic as the car moves along Park Lane. ‘Actually, make that half an hour.’
‘No prob—’
Before Sean finishes, Madeleine cuts off the call and sits back in her seat, her mind spinning.
Sean smiles as he runs his eyes over the paper Madeleine has flattened on the desk for him to read.
‘Please tell me you don’t think this is a coincidence,’ she says, her words quickening with anticipation.
‘It’s a hell of a coincidence,’ Sean replies, more neutrally than Madeleine had hoped.
‘Oh, come on,’ she says, prodding him on. ‘TradeSmart is implicated in a chemical spillage and for a while has MI6 on its case … Suddenly the co-owner dies in a hit-and-run – and then his wife hangs herself?’
‘Maybe she was bereft, couldn’t cope with life without him … They had two young kids. It can’t have been easy for her, can it?’
Madeleine kisses her teeth. ‘And they all just happen to be associated with Irena Vasiliev, one of the world’s biggest corporate crim—?’
It is a moment before Madeleine realises the ringing is coming from her bag.
‘Hold on a second.’ She pulls out the phone and turns away from Sean as she sees the name flashing on the screen.
Inhaling deeply, she nods at him to hold on a second and presses answer.
‘Is it done?’ she asks quietly into the mouthpiece.
‘Yes,’ the voice at the end of the phone replies. ‘It’s done.’