Madeleine looked up for a fraction of a second before returning to her mouthful of broad beans.

‘Aren’t you going to ask which company?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Oh, it’s one of those intentionally oblique ones – offers a breadth of legitimate services, specialising in energy supply. But like so many of these companies, they dabble in sidelines. After all, that’s where the money’s at, right? As well as bursts of philanthropy. In this case, a children’s orphanage no less.’

The fork dropped from Gabriela’s fingers, clattering against her plate, and Madeleine watched her, silence crackling dangerously between them, before she asked, ‘Gaby, is something wrong?’

Chapter 74

Gabriela

The pavement seemed to rise up in front of her as Gabriela moved through Camden Town, back towards the house, Madeleine’s words still spinning in her mind.

‘It only came up because I was talking to colleagues here who are investigating a businesswoman called Irena Vasiliev on grounds of corporate tax evasion, on a huge scale, along with a number of other substantial crimes.’

Madeleine had barely looked at her as she spoke, her voice so quiet she could hardly hear it. Irena Vasiliev. The name echoed through her head as she moved, instinctively, her body taking over from her addled mind.

‘They brought the case to me in private as they wondered if I knew anything. Because the thing is—’ She looked at Gabriela then, catching her eye and holding it. ‘Whilst going through the documents, the secret recordings and the evidence brought by insiders who have been working on the case, evidence has been amassed that one of Vasiliev’s associates was having a relationship with a woman who used to work for the FCO.’

Gabriela’s blood ran cold as she recalled Madeleine’s face, watching her as she slipped a pile of papers across the table, the details jumping out like bullets.

Mr Ivan Popov is director of a number of global companies. One of them is GEF Energy Ltd, a business engaged in the provision of renewable energy and solar power. The ownership of GEF is divided between an investment company and another company, the Stan Group, registered to the British Virgin Islands.