The day Tom came over for the first time, Michael combed his hair neatly to the side and pulled on his best clothes, a chequered M&S shirt he’d worn every other day after being taken on as maths professor at a nearby college, neatening the display of tins and condiments he had started to stockpile the day he bought the house, and had barely made a dent in since. Moving through the hallway that morning with Tom, past the mismatching table and chairs, the brown flocked sofa that once belonged to her grandparents, she noticed Michael had placed a small bunch of yellow flowers on the table for the occasion.

It was the following January when her phone rang. They were having a drink at the Pineapple with Saoirse and Jim, winding down after a day sending out ever more CVs in the hunt for a proper job, or at least an internship, that would pull Gabriela out of her own head, now that her degree was finally coming to an end. There was something about the letters flashing on the screen, their shape solid and unyielding against the garish light of her phone at this time of night, No Caller ID, that made her hold onto the edge of her seat by her fingernails.

‘Ms Shaw?’

She flattened her hand against the cracked leather seat of her stool and stood, the microphone warm against her ear as she pushed her way through the crowded bar and out onto the street.

‘Speaking.’

‘I’m calling from the Whittington Hospital, we have your number from a past calls list of Mr Michael Shaw, of …’

Before the woman on the end of the phone could finish saying her address, she felt the pavement rush up to meet her. By the time she turned to see Tom moving through the heavy velvet curtain and out into the street after her, a few moments later, she was sitting on the kerb, her vision blurred through the tears.

Chapter 5

Gabriela

One Year Later

She arrived early at Westminster tube station that first morning at the FCO, taking exit five onto Parliament Street as per the instructions she’d been sent, letting her eyes take it all in as she looked back towards the Houses of Parliament – the tourists gathering for photographs in front of soldiers on horseback, men in suits bustling with their briefcases into the backs of taxis, their phones pressed to their ears. As she approached the stone arch at the foot of King Charles Street, a security guard directed her towards the open brown metal gates where another official passed her bag through a scanner before she was pointed towards a reception area and handed a lanyard with her name on it.