While she’d fleetingly wondered whether now was the time to tell Tom she had packed it in, she instantly remembered the cover the job gave her for the stints she spent with Ivan. She managed weeks here and there, telling Tom that she had work trips abroad. Did he wonder where she was, those nights holed up in another city or country? Did he try to picture the bed in which she slept?

She tried to push this thought out of mind as she took the bus to Aldgate and walked along Commercial Road, turning off onto the canal somewhere near Limehouse. Making her way along the path, the Thames stretching out on her right, the towers of Canary Wharf looming over the water in the distance, she felt the same fluttering sensation she’d experienced on the way back from that day trip to Brighton brush over her skin, and when she turned, she imagined a figure pulling back into the shadows.

Moving forward more quickly, listening out for footsteps, she took a deep breath and turned suddenly, ready to confront whoever was following her. But as she turned, there was just a single jogger making his way along the path behind her. The pounding of his trainers, the unexpectedness of his pace caused her to take a step back and hold onto the railing, the only thing standing between her and the river below.

Catching her breath, she watched the man disappear around the corner before closing her eyes and leaning down. When her phone rang a moment later, it was Polina, calling to update her on Layla while Ivan was away on another one of his increasingly frequent work trips; trips that suited Gabriela because the less he was around the less likely he was to question her own periods of absence.

‘I’m putting the phone to her ear so she can hear you speak,’ Polina said and Gabriela felt a pulling in her chest.

‘Layla? It’s Mummy. Can you hear me? Hello, darling …’

As a cyclist spun past, she felt herself withdraw slightly. Though she couldn’t pinpoint how and why, she understood on some level that the unravelling had already begun.

‘Can’t you come out with us today, Mummy?’ Callum asked the following morning as she ran fingers through her uncombed hair in the kitchen, her bag already on her arm.

‘You know, why not?’ she said, overcome by a sudden sense of duty to her second-born.

‘You’ll come?’ he said, his face joyful and disbelieving in equal measure.

‘Really?’ Tom queried. ‘But I thought you had that big meeting to prepare for, I thought you couldn’t—’

‘That’s not until next week,’ Gabriela interrupted him, sensing a thought she didn’t like taking shape in his mind.

‘But I’m sure you said—’

‘Oh look, forget it, if you don’t want me to come …’