‘Every piece of information we uncovered during that operation he was handing straight back into the hands of his paymasters: traffickers, arms dealers. That is why the FCO needed to get rid of him. But obviously it would be too embarrassing to expose how much they had let slide. And so it was easier to see him off on a more palatable charge.’

‘Serena,’ Gabriela said, swallowing.

Madeleine nodded. ‘I mean, it was kind of genius. To push him out on the grounds of sexual discrimination … no one who had worked under or around Emsworth would ever be suspicious that it was anything but a legitimate case.’

‘How do you know all this?’

Madeleine looked away.

‘OK, then, why didn’t you tell me at the time?’ Gabriela’s voice was little more than a whisper.

Madeleine laughed. ‘Why didn’t I tell you? You think I should have trusted you?’

Gabriela looked down in shame, wondering how much Madeleine knew.

‘And what’s changed?’

Madeleine regarded her, her eyes narrowing.

‘What’s changed is that now I know you weren’t aware of what your boyfriend was up to – and now that you do know, I need to find out if you have anything useful on Popov and Vasiliev. I need to know if you can help us bring them down. Because if you do that, you won’t get dragged through the mud when this all comes out in court. There is still a chance for you to salvage what is left of your life.’

‘Polina?’ She is struck by the silence resonating through the house as she walks through the front door, pushing it closed behind her with a wariness she cannot name.

‘Layla?’

How long has it been since she phoned from the supermarket? It can’t have been more than half an hour, and yet the house is still, her daughter’s changing bag absent from its usual hook in the hallway.

Moving more swiftly now, her heartbeat quickens as she places her keys on the counter in the kitchen and looks out over the garden. The quiet beauty of it never fails to touch her, and yet the sudden lack of leaves and flowers has transformed it into a space she almost doesn’t recognise.

Perhaps her daughter is asleep in the bedroom and Polina is in the bathroom, she tells herself as she moves back towards the stairs, padding up the striped red runners. She is moving from Layla’s bedroom, which is empty, into the master bedroom, the blinds having been pulled back so that the room is flooded with light, making her squint as she looks around the his and hers bedside tables, the recently acquired Matisse hanging above the headboard.