They had taken a seat back at the booth, a table of food untouched in front of them, while Madeleine finished what she had come to say. ‘Emsworth was on the payroll of Vasiliev’s operation. The Nguema character you mentioned to me a while ago, the one Emsworth was having the meeting with, he and Vasiliev were business partners, together with a third man, one Clive Witherall. Witherall and Nguema are also under investigation for a number of dealings, including suspected arms trading. You heard about the chemical spillage in Equatorial Guinea. Well, it seems Witherall’s company, TradeSmart, was working with Nguema to cover their arms dealing business by using units containing chemical waste to import their product, the idea being that anyone working at the port who saw the chemical waste symbol would do little more than a nominal check, for fear of getting too close to the hazardous material that was concealing the weapons.

‘Anyway, they fucked up. One of the local companies they hired in Bata to dispose of the chemical waste dumped it next to a village. It was a disaster, as you can imagine. Various agencies, in the UK and elsewhere, have been looking into the spillage, trying to connect Witherall and Nguema to the operation. Vasiliev’s involved, too. One of her many projects: she has a number of side-hustles, very millennial.’

For a moment, Madeleine had clearly forgotten the basis on which they were having this conversation. This wasn’t a catch-up between two old colleagues. When she remembered, her face darkened again. ‘Emsworth was one of their inside men. It was his job to keep abreast of what was happening, in terms of how much the FCO knew and any future deals that would affect their operations. That’s why he wanted to get rid of us. We were uncovering too much. Me, in terms of the human trafficking work I was doing in Hanoi, which connects back to Vasiliev, and to Nguema, whose company ran a lot of the boats that were used for the human freightage. And you: well, you were simply in the wrong place at the right time. Presumably after you saw Emsworth in Moscow, Vasiliev and Nguema were spooked. He must have tried to test you, with the various activities he asked you to do; and perhaps for a while you were deemed reliable … And then you weren’t. Once he got rid of me – I was considered far too active, I imagine – he kept you on as someone he could keep an eye on: keep your friends close and all that …’

Gabriela took a long gulp of her drink and set down the glass, nodding to the waitress for another. Without sedation, she wasn’t sure how she could stay sitting there with everything she was hearing.