She slipped the nightgown over her head and pulled a dress from the hangers, hearing something drop at the back of the wardrobe.

There was nothing obvious that had fallen to the floor. Pausing, she pushed her fingers into the clothes hanging from the rail and felt along the back until she touched a bag, partly suspended against the back of the wardrobe, pinned in place by a couple of wooden hangers. It must have fallen from the open shelf above and become lodged there.

Pulling it out, she saw it was the same bag Ivan had been holding behind his back when he came in earlier. It was made of thick card, with ribbons for handles, and when she peered inside, without giving herself pause to think, she saw two boxes.

Her heartbeat quickening, she was aware of the front door unlocked in the other room, just paces from here, with Ivan likely to return soon with Layla from the crèche. Her fingers fumbling with the catch, she cracked open one of the boxes and found a woman’s watch encrusted in diamonds.

‘Gabriela?’

Ivan’s voice was suddenly there in the next room, followed by Layla’s cry.

‘Coming!’ she shouted, stuffing the box back into the bag and pushing it back on the shelf above the wardrobe, hoping that’s where it had been stashed before it fell, turning just in time to see them both in the doorway watching her.

‘You got dressed?’

‘I felt like a mess. Do you like it?’ She took a step towards him, distracting him with the soft red silk she’d bought with his allowance a week earlier.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he said, handing her Layla, and as she held her daughter against her chest, she felt ripples of unease, like cuts, up her arms.

Chapter 71

Isobel

Lighting a cigarette, tickling the tip of it with the flame of a match and enjoying how it suddenly burns orange, I watch the company records open up in front of me on the computer screen.

My eyes move over the company name: PKI Ltd, and halt at the name of the Directors: Unlisted.

Ignoring the voice in my head telling me to stop, telling me all of this is over, that I’ve already fucked it up, I keep scanning through the pages as it becomes clear the company is not owned by a person, but by another company, The Stan Group, whose details are in turn registered to the British Virgin Islands.

‘Of course it is,’ I say aloud, spurred on by the discovery. Where else would a crooked company be based than behind the protection of the world’s biggest tax haven?