What had she been thinking, contemplating telling him that she was going to quit her job? Had she really been planning to break up with Tom, to expose him to the truth, to expose Sadie and Callum? Had she really imagined they would play happy families on alternate weekends, she and Ivan and their three children on day trips to Legoland? For a moment she wondered if she had lost her mind.

The moment she pushed open the door, she heard the familiar strains of Shirley Scott from the kitchen and instantly she knew Tom was home.

‘Hey,’ he said, sticking his neck around the doorway from the kitchen, a smile stretched across his face.

She must have looked taken aback to see him there as his face fell. ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’

‘Forgotten what?’ she said, collecting herself as she moved into the hall.

‘Sadie’s parents’ evening. We talked about it on Friday before you left.’

Vaguely, she remembered the conversation. She put down her bags. ‘Of course not, I just thought we were meeting there. I’m glad you’re home.’

The words rushed out of her and she moved towards Tom and pulled him so close to her that he laughed with surprise.

‘I love you,’ she said, her whole body shaking with the realisation. ‘Oh God, I love you so much.’

Chapter 75

Gabriela

Now

Outside, the morning sun filters through the cloud as the sound of Callum and Tom pulling on their shoes in the hallway behind her gradually fades. It is only once she is halfway down the street that she lets herself start to engage with what she has to do now. Looking into her bag, she pulls out her phone, half-expecting to find a text message from Madeleine. They have not spoken since lunch yesterday, but there is no message and she doesn’t know whether she is relieved or dismayed. No message telling her that this was all a joke, that she had got it wrong, after all.

Briefly, Gabriela recalls Madeleine’s words not long after she side-shuffled from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the National Crime Agency – which already feels like a lifetime ago – crossing the river to continue the fight against organised crime in the stale headquarters in Vauxhall.

‘They pride themselves on being the UK’s answer to the FBI, but that’s obviously a joke. There is a complete lack of proper cops. It’s all people like us, civil servants. Impotent pen-pushers. Though we’re operationally independent – notionally, at least.’

Except they aren’t impotent at all. They are coming for her, and there is only one way to escape.

Madeleine’s words circle relentlessly in her mind as she steps onto the train, and off again at Kew Gardens.