by Asia Mackay
‘Nuts are a problem.’ I rolled my eyes.
He frowned.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got it sorted. Anything on the Pigs?’
‘Nothing to report.’
‘There’s a WAF play date at your house after lunch. Hopefully I might learn something from the wives.’
‘I’ll make sure I’m out of the way. I need to get back to Peppa and George anyway.’
‘Oh God, those pigs,’ a Scottish mother behind Frederick in the pick-up line cut in. ‘I swear I go to sleep humming that theme tune.’
A conversation among the waiting parents was then launched as to just how many millions the creators must have made, followed by a debate as to why their town had both a doctor and a vet when they were all animals, and then there were more specific questions between a few mothers at the back:
‘Is it just me or is Danny Dog hot?’
‘Marianne, he’s a dog.’
‘And a child.’
‘And a cartoon.’
The doors opened and Ms Yvonne waved the other children out.
‘Don’t forget, everyone, it’s our Roald Dahl celebration tomorrow. We can’t wait to see some beautiful costumes!’
The demands from this nursery never seemed to end.
Chapter Sixteen
I RANG THE DOORBELL of Camilla and Frederick’s house and waited. There was always a murmur of excitement at getting to nose around someone’s house. I was going to enjoy this.
I looked down at Gigi in her princess dress and sparkly shoes. My daughter was a princess, day in, day out. She loved pink. And she hated getting dirty. I loved her. She was my everything. But dammit, I couldn’t help but wish she was a little less conventional. I had tried my best. Given her trucks to play with. Told her she could do anything she wanted. That ‘like a girl’ meant being strong. Fearless. But this was her. This was my Gigi. And if this was how she was, I would love and accept her. As a pink-loving princess.
The door finally opened. ‘Alexis, Gigi. How lovely.’ Camilla smiled at us. ‘Come on through.’
We followed her into a beautiful kitchen. Dark blue cabinets with a marble countertop. As befitting an art gallery owner, what looked like expensive, but not necessarily nice, art was dotted all over the walls. Crittall-style doors led out to a garden with fake grass. Kate and Dionne were already there. Kate’s twins were chasing each other round and round as Peppa’s daughter Bella and Florence sat colouring at a mini table and chairs. Gigi immediately ran to join them.
I looked round the large open-plan space. Everything was immaculate. The only nod to the hectic family life was a large noticeboard brimming with reminders from the nursery and an abundance of Florence’s artistic masterpieces.
Camilla noticed me staring at their noticeboard. ‘Frederick insists we keep everything. He’s surprisingly sentimental.’
‘Is he very hands-on?’ asked Kate as she and Dionne joined us from the garden.
‘Oh yes. He’s the one that gets Florence up in the morning. Well, more likely she gets him up. She has never slept well. Sometimes they’re already in the playground by seven a.m.’
‘Don’t think my husband has ever got up with any of ours,’ said Kate, shaking her head.
‘Frederick’s an early riser anyway. Doesn’t seem to mind. He takes a coffee, catches up on emails, has some fresh air before being stuck in an office.’
It was strange to think of how other couples did things. Like in any partnership you slipped naturally into what became your responsibilities and what became theirs. I was always the one on early shift. I’d never really thought about it but it would be nice if Will occasionally stepped up and did it instead.
Why was I comparing them?
‘Frederick has even been picking her up from nursery every day this week.’ Good to know our latest mission was getting him credit with Camilla. ‘I guess he just likes doing his bit. It’s just the way he is. He likes to get involved in everything. He even helps me with the gallery, accounts, invoices.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘The stuff I’m no good at.’
From what I knew of them it seemed more like he had to help her with everything as she couldn’t cope. I watched her yet again getting distracted and looking off into the distance. She was a fragile flower. She needed looking after so he took charge. She played the little woman so he could be the big man. Every relationship needed a certain dynamic to work and maybe that was theirs.
I wondered why I felt I had a more accurate insight into Frederick and Camilla’s relationship than I did the others’, whose conversations and online correspondence I had been monitoring for the past few days.
I looked at Kate. Hers and George Pig’s relationship seemed mostly about surviving the chaos of their children. Kate took hours getting the boys to bed and they seemed to visit them intermittently throughout the night. I didn’t know how Kate managed to hold it together so well. I was sure we would come across a prescription for amphetamines or Prozac at some point, but so far nothing. She seemed to run solely on caffeine and high-energy protein shakes. Solid food didn’t seem to be a feature in her life. She was staring with a slightly terrifying intensity at the untouched Victoria sponge on the table.
The doorbell rang and Camilla went to get it.
I turned to Kate. ‘How about Neil, does he do his bit?’ I needed to somehow get the subject onto George Pig.
‘With tearaway twins and a seven-year-old, he has to. But I get that it’s tough. Work is busy at the moment and seems to be taking its toll.’
‘Poor him. How?’
‘He’s made me cancel the weekend in Cornwall we had planned next week. Said he can’t leave London.’
Camilla re-entered the kitchen with Naomi and, after the obligatory air-kisses and laying out of teacups, we all sat down.
‘And how about you, Naomi, how are things with you?’ I looked at her red-rimmed eyes. ‘Are you OK?’
Naomi burst into tears.
‘Sorry . . . I . . . You think you’re fine and then, well . . .’ Naomi wrung her hands and looked up at us. ‘My husband’s having an affair.’
There was silence as we all took this in.
So she knew.
Naomi let out another sob.
‘Naomi, I’m so sorry. What a shit. What a total shit,’ Kate said as she flung an arm round Naomi. Camilla got up from the table and went to get a box of tissues.
‘That utter bastard.’ Dionne said it loudly enough the children in the garden outside turned around. ‘How do you know for sure?’
‘I’ve found enough proof. He isn’t being very discreet.’ Camilla handed her a tissue and she dabbed her eyes with it and blew her nose.
‘Have you confronted him?’ I asked.
‘No. I’m scared. I’m worried about losing the house. I’m worried about losing Bertie.’
‘You don’t need to worry, Naomi, the mother always gets custody,’ Kate told her.
‘Oh.’ Naomi looked up. ‘I’m not worried about the kids. I know I’ll get them . . . Bertie is our dog. Ronald loves that dog. But I really love that dog. What if they give him Bertie as a kind of consolation prize? He’s the one that keeps me company all day when the kids are at school. I can’t imagine sitting down in a chair without him curling up on my lap. I can live without my husband. But . . . but not my dog.’ She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Twenty years of marriage. The bastard not only had an affair but didn’t even have the respect to try and hide it better. He works for MI6, for God’s sake.’
‘Have things been bad between you for a while?’ asked Kate.
‘It happened slowly. But then doesn’t everything when you’ve been married as long as us? One day it’s fine. You work. Things are ticking along. You’ve got into your routine. You know your roles. Some days you might notice you’re not really having sex. Some days you might notice you’re not really talking. Exchanging information, yes, but not really talking. But you decide it doesn’t matter. No marriage is perf
ect. No husband is perfect. You’re just getting on with life. And you’re both pretending that this is all fine. That you’re happy because you aren’t miserable. You’d know if you were miserable, right? And you have children. You’re their parents and they need you to be together. And you wouldn’t want to upset them when you aren’t really miserable. Yes, this is never what you imagined. But then what’s the alternative? You aren’t going to find anyone else. Your children are happy, they’re settled, this is the life they know. And isn’t seeing them happy enough? It should be enough. It should be.’ She stopped to draw breath and took a sip of tea. We were all quiet, waiting for more. She was calm now. Her tears had stopped.
‘You want to say things. Of course you do. Can’t you speak a little nicer to me? Why don’t we laugh anymore? And even though you aren’t happy, even though you haven’t been happy for a long time, you don’t do anything because you don’t want to rock the boat.’ Naomi looked down at her hands. ‘And then you realise the boat’s already sunk. You find out he’s sleeping with someone else. And it makes you sad. So sad. Until you realise you’re not sad that he’s cheated, that he’s lied, that he’s broken your wedding vows. You’re sad that he didn’t do it earlier.’ She shook her head. ‘That years have been wasted in this limbo. This living through your children and forgetting the rest of your life.’ She let out a long breath.
We all sat there in silence. Kate broke it first. ‘You’re right, Naomi. You’re completely right. And you’re so brave to take the first step. You don’t need him.’ She reached her hand across the table and clasped Naomi’s.
Camilla was stirring her tea, staring off into the distance. Naomi’s marriage problems were either boring her or she didn’t know how to cope with such an unbecoming display of emotion.
‘Just remember we’re here for you, Naomi,’ continued Kate.
‘Yes, yes, of course we are. Anything you need,’ I added.
‘Look, darl, I can get the name of Suze’s lawyer,’ Dionne told her. ‘The guy was a total shark. Got her everything. She kept the house and had enough left over to buy herself a ski chalet. And they can’t even bloody ski!’
I turned to Dionne. No mention in any of Peppa’s records showed anything about a ski chalet.
‘That’s amazing. Whereabouts is it?’
Dionne grabbed another slice of cake. ‘Dunno. French Alps somewhere. They haven’t been in ages.’
A property abroad was a good way to hide money you didn’t want being found.
‘How long has she had—’
‘So, Naomi, are you going to talk to the lawyer?’ Kate gave me a glare. She was right. It was a little insensitive to be asking about ski chalets just when Naomi had dropped the cheating husband bombshell.
‘I guess so.’ She sniffed and took a deep breath. ‘It will be a relief, actually. To take the next step. What is it they say about raising children? It takes a village. Well, I had my village. I just realised my husband didn’t live in it.’
After we all said our goodbyes, I watched Kate insist on Naomi coming back to her house for a bottle of wine.
Good women bonding over a bad man. A fast-tracking of a friendship. It was nice to see a bit of light amid the darkness.
Part Four
Mess
mess, n.
1. A dirty or untidy state of things or of a place.
2. A situation that is confused and full of problems.
Chapter Seventeen
‘WE NEED TO DO BETTER.’ Hattie stood at the head of the meeting room, hands clasped together in front of him. We were all in our usual seats round the table. Only Jake was missing as he was watching Peng. ‘We aren’t making fast enough progress. Forget striking a blow against Tenebris; we haven’t even made a tiny ripple. I still have no promising leads on the Coyote.’ He turned to Cameron. ‘How are you and Jake doing with the hackers?’
Cameron popped her gum. ‘So far we’ve confirmed no one is with Tenebris and there are only a few left to talk to. One in Surbiton, one in Hackney and one based in Watford. I’ll need Robin for that interrogation. He’s Chinese and subjects always revert to their mother tongue when in intense pain.’
‘Me? With you?’ Robin glanced across at Cameron.
‘Correct,’ Cameron answered without looking at him.
‘OK.’ And that was all he said. No wisecracks. No jokes. He was clearly intimidated by Cameron – he was refreshingly quiet around her.
Hattie looked at Geraint. ‘How are we looking with the Dictaphone?’
‘The link is up and running. Every time she clicks the red button we get a direct line to whatever it is recording.’
Hattie nodded. ‘Good. Lex, what’s the update on Daddy Pig?’
‘Daddy Pig’s wife knows about the affair – my gut says if he couldn’t hide infidelity from her, chances are he wouldn’t be capable of hiding high-level espionage from all of us.’
‘And he got another email from Daniel Wheal – the man he arranged to meet at the Christie’s auction,’ said Pixie. It was hard not to stare at her lime green jumper – it was adorned with the face of a large black pug with its tongue out. ‘The handover is a set of keys for Wheal’s weekend place in Oxford. He’s clearly just planning a weekend away with his mistress. He ain’t a Snake, just a dirty pig.’
‘That’s it then,’ said Hattie. ‘We officially rule Daddy Pig out.’ Hattie walked up to the whiteboard and drew a red cross over Daddy Pig’s details. He looked back at me. ‘What’s the latest on Peppa?’
‘Peppa has a ski chalet we didn’t know about and a property abroad is a good place to hide money.’
‘Let’s look into that, but I think George Pig should be the main focus of our attention.’
I nodded. ‘I agree the Switzerland link is the best indication he’s guilty.’
‘With the trail on the Coyote totally cold we need to identify the Snake fast. We’ve got three days until Peng flies out of here. Once she leaves, the Snake goes quiet until their next mission and we lose any chance of locating them and shutting down Tenebris. The Committee will not reinstate Eight until Tenebris is taken down. Remember, it’s not just Peng’s life you’re working for, but your jobs and the future of the Security Services as we know it. Tenebris threatens everything.’
*
The storage locker key Robin had found during a search of George Pig’s house was now considered an important enough lead to follow up. Earlier this evening Geraint had tracked down which storage company he had an account with. Jake was driving down the M4 to it now in the hope he would unlock it and find a few million hidden in suitcases and then we could tie this all up nicely. Hattie was watching Peng as she attended an event at the Embassy.
Cameron and Robin had gone out to Watford to undertake the interrogation of the Chinese hacker. He was the last one on their list of suspects. If he failed to be working for the Tenebris Network, that line of investigation was officially dead.
Geraint and Pixie continued to trawl through George Pig’s online history while I focused on Peppa Pig.
The ski chalet looked like it was owned by Peppa and her brother, who was in property development. Considering how little they’d bought it for I wasn’t holding out much hope it would turn out to be anything more than a small investment to help her sibling out.
Apart from the odd email from this unknown character trying to arrange a meet-up, nothing else in Peppa’s life was raising any red flags. She worked, she came home, sometimes in time to put her daughter to bed. And nights were spent alone online as she watched Netflix or surfed the internet for anything from ‘what developmental milestones a three-year-old should be reaching’ to ‘ways to get rid of mum tum’. There was the odd terse email exchange with her ex. But other than that life seemed quiet.
I wondered if she was happy or lonely.
At 10 p.m. I sent Geraint and Pixie home. Will was away for the night at some legal conference in Bristol and my mother-in-law was staying the night. I tried to convinc
e myself my dedication to working late was down to the critically important mission we were on, as opposed to not wanting to have to make small talk with Gillian.
I went to the canteen and checked my emails as I ate a sandwich stuffed with pretty much everything I could find in the fridge. The nursery was requesting we bring in any unwanted bottles of wine for the school charity tombola they were holding in a few weeks. Unwanted wine? We were parents. All wine was wanted.
I left the canteen and, turning the corner, found myself face to face with a bald man in black, holding a gun. A not unusual sight down here.
Apart from the fact I had never seen him before.
My heart was hammering, but I kept my voice level.
‘Hi, you must be Greg. The computer is just this—’ I kicked him in the stomach as I was talking. He went down hard. He was back to his knees before I ran and jumped at him, knocking him backwards. His head made a deep clunking sound as it hit the concrete flooring. I picked up his gun and ran to the keypad on the wall ahead. I typed in a six-digit code triggering a silent alarm.
We were compromised.
For the first time in Platform Eight’s history we’d been infiltrated.
And it was on my watch.
I patted down the unconscious man. Nothing. No ID, no phone. Another Ghost. Activating the alarm meant all active Rats would be notified by emergency text. On a normal day that would mean within a few minutes I could expect anything from one to thirty colleagues blasting round the corner with an arsenal of weapons. But right now we were working as a shell and that meant only my unit was registered as active. Three Rats apart from me in operation. Only those three would get the emergency call to arms.
I had no idea how far away help was.
And I had no idea how many Ghosts were down here.
I needed more hands on deck.
I pulled out my phone and text Frederick. Nightmare! Gigi been dreaming she’s home alone and ghosts invading.
He pinged back in seconds. What a nightmare! I’m about fifteen minutes from home. What’s that password for the phonics website?
