The Nursery

by Asia Mackay

  ‘G – you and Pixie need to go through all the intel we have on Frederick. We re-look at everything we’ve learned over the last few days. The wife’s art gallery – we need accounts, all painting records. Everything. The Committee wants proof. We find the money, we have the confirmation we need to take Frederick down.’

  Hattie turned to Jake and me. ‘Go search his house. It’s unlikely there’ll be anything there but it’s worth a try.’

  Would it be empty now? I checked my watch. Shit. I was meant to be picking Gigi up. I’d never make it on time.

  ‘Jake, let’s go. I need to get Gigi on the way and drop her with my mother-in-law. We can then search Frederick’s house.’

  I rang the nursery as we approached the Platform’s car park. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve been stuck at work. I’ll be there fifteen minutes late.’ Yvonne was silent. ‘It won’t happen again.’ She still remained silent. ‘Listen, I was going to volunteer to host the next parent coffee morning.’

  ‘That would be wonderful. Thank you. I am leaving the church shortly but I will ensure my staff know you’ll be late. Pick-up will be at the nursery.’ She clicked off.

  I must remember to try that silent technique in my next interrogation.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  JAKE DROPPED ME outside Gigi’s nursery and screeched on to Frederick’s house. He was going to scope out if anyone was home. If Frederick was there I was going to ring him with a made-up lead he needed to chase down on the other side of London. At least if it was just Camilla there with the kids I could tempt her out to the playground with Gigi while Jake searched the house. Talking to her could also provide much needed intel. I thought of how quiet and withdrawn she’d been at all the WAF meetings. Did she know she had things to hide?

  We had fewer than ten hours until Peng flew out of here. We needed to know what was going on. We needed confirmation Frederick was the Snake. That he was the Coyote. We needed answers. That no one else was after Peng and that we could get the Tenebris Network shut down for good.

  At least seeing Gigi would make me momentarily forget everything. A blast of brightness on this dark day.

  I skipped up the steps to the Portakabin and banged on the door. Miss Jenna opened it. She frowned when she saw me.

  ‘Hi there, I’m here for Gigi.’

  ‘Oh, did Mr Easton not get hold of you?’

  My heart skipped a beat.

  ‘I . . . no . . .’

  ‘He picked up Gigi twenty minutes ago. With Florence.’ She took in my face. ‘We know you two work together and you always usually pick up the girls together. He said he’d be fine to take her as he knew you’d be a while.’

  ‘Right.’ I tried to think. Miss Jenna was still staring at me. ‘Right. Yes. He must’ve left a message on my phone. Thank you.’

  I heard myself say, ‘Thank you.’ How British was that. Thanking the woman who had handed my beloved only daughter over to a fucking homicidal sociopath.

  I stumbled down the steps of the Portakabin. Hands shaking, I clicked on my GigiMap app. A blue dot was on Frederick’s road.

  I rang Jake. ‘Frederick has Gigi. It could be a test.’

  ‘I’ve just arrived outside their house.’

  ‘GPS says she’s in there. Make sure he can’t see you. I’ll leave the line open so you can hear.’

  I ran. I was at the end of his road in three minutes. I stopped. I had to think. I had to calm down. I took deep breaths.

  It could be nothing.

  He could’ve just been doing me a favour.

  Or he knows and he’s fucking with me.

  I waited another beat. Until my breathing was normal. I was normal. And this was going to be the performance of my life.

  Frederick couldn’t know I was scared. He couldn’t know I suspected him.

  My heart was still racing. I checked my phone. It was still connected to Jake. I slipped it into my pocket and rang the doorbell.

  Frederick opened the door.

  ‘You found us.’

  ‘I did indeed. Thanks for picking her up. I didn’t realise I was going to be late.’ Where was Gigi? The house sounded silent. ‘Yvonne is not someone you want to be on the bad side of. I had to bloody volunteer to host a coffee morning. So could I just grab Gigi now? Her grandmother is coming over so we need to get back.’

  ‘I can’t let you do that,’ he deadpanned.

  ‘Right. And why’s that?’

  He threw his arms open. ‘Because they’re having a wonderful little tea party; we can’t possibly make them stop. Come in and see.’

  I tapped my watch. ‘I’d love to but really, we should be going. Got a lot to do before Christie’s this afternoon. If you just—’

  Frederick had already disappeared back into the house.

  ‘Come along!’ he shouted as he walked down the hallway.

  I walked into the kitchen. Gigi, Florence and Frederick were all seated around a small child’s table.

  ‘Mama!’ Gigi shouted brightly. She grinned at me. ‘Look, we’re doing tea. You have some?’

  I took in her round little face. Lopsided hairclip fixed to messy hair. My eyes. Her father’s nose. I loved her more than anything. I was fighting every impulse I had to pull her into my arms and run.

  Frederick put an arm round her. ‘Gigi, shall we ask Mummy to take a seat?’ The two of them looked up at me, smiling. Florence had her head down. She was making small lines on a piece of paper in front of her. On her right arm I could see a bandage poking out the bottom of her long-sleeved orange top.

  ‘Sorry, Gigi, we—’

  ‘YES! Come sit, Mama. Come!’ She patted the little chair next to her and I did as she asked. Frederick and I were now sitting opposite each other. Gigi poured me imaginary tea. I picked up the teacup.

  ‘How was the office?’ asked Frederick. He locked eyes with me.

  ‘We’ve been on Ling Ling, the PA, all day. We have evidence she met with Peppa yesterday, meaning she must be her inside link. We still haven’t been able to ID the woman Peppa met with in the playground – she could be the Coyote.’

  ‘You all ready for the auction this afternoon?’

  ‘Everyone’s stressed. We have no idea what the Coyote has planned next. Makes preparing for another attempt impossible.’ I stretched and yawned. ‘And now I have to deal with my mother-in-law when I get home.’ I rolled my eyes. Keep up the chit chat. Everything is fine. ‘So where are Camilla and Arthur?’

  ‘Out shopping.’

  ‘I’m hungry, Mama.’

  ‘OK, Gigi. Shall we go home for lunch and see Ganma?’

  ‘Ganma!’

  I got up, holding Gigi’s hand. Frederick’s arm shot out and held my arm. I looked down at it and then up at him. We observed each other. I had to hope I was managing the staring flirt we’d been so well practised at. That he wouldn’t see the terror.

  ‘Stay for lunch here.’

  ‘Tempting. But I think fish fingers with Ganma is calling.’

  He stared at me for another second. Then dropped his arm.

  ‘Bye, Florence.’ I touched the girl on her shoulder.

  ‘Bye bye.’ She didn’t look up.

  ‘Right, Gigi, now let’s get everything together. Shoes. Coat.’ I hoped he wasn’t looking at my hands. They shook as I did the Velcro up on Gigi’s pink sparkly trainers.

  ‘Now say “thank you” to Florence’s daddy.’

  ‘Fank you.’

  ‘I’ll see you at Christie’s.’

  ‘Goodbye, Lex.’

  I smiled and turned towards the kitchen steps. Having my back to an enemy went against everything I’d been trained for. But I had to do it. Gigi skipped ahead, humming. It was ten steps to the hallway. I took each one, listening for a charge, bracing myself for a knock to the back of the head. If he was responsible for everything we suspected, he would have no qualms about attacking me in front of our children.

  I made it to the kitchen door, stopped, held up a hand and
gave him another look. Felt the bile rise in my throat. I shuffled Gigi along the hallway and out into the fresh air. The front door slammed behind us.

  ‘Meet me outside my house,’ I announced to my pocket and a listening Jake.

  I picked up Gigi and held her close. ‘Mummy is going to carry you the whole way home.’ She snuggled into my neck and I clasped my arms round her. My baby. My Gigi. She was safe. We walked slowly home.

  Jake was waiting outside our door.

  ‘Look who’s here, Gigi!’

  ‘Uncky Jake!’ She wrangled herself out my arms and ran into his.

  He picked her up and hugged her close.

  ‘Good to see you, little miss.’

  I let us in the house. I looked at the photo of me, Will and Gigi in the frame on the table. Had I just come so close to losing her? She had been in harm’s way and I hadn’t been there to protect her.

  ‘Jake, can you just . . . take her to the kitchen.’ I stumbled past him to the bathroom. I just made it to the loo and threw up.

  I collapsed to the floor.

  Never again.

  Never again could I let Gigi get caught up in my work.

  I walked into the kitchen and Jake handed me a glass of water. I drank it in one and put it back on the table. My hands were still shaking.

  ‘Frederick knows something’s up. But he’s not sure what. If he was I wouldn’t have walked out of there.’ I went to the fridge and pulled out a loaf of bread and some cheese and made Gigi a sandwich.

  She was playing in the corner with her toy kitchen.

  ‘Lunch, sweetheart.’ I put it down on the table in front of me and she came over and sat on my lap.

  ‘Sangwitch. Yum.’

  I held her close as she ate.

  ‘We need to move on him now. Just because he didn’t’ – Jake looked down at Gigi – ‘k-i-l-l you, it doesn’t mean he’s not going to run.’

  ‘You’re right. Taking her was a test. I may have held it together enough to get us out of there but he knows something is wrong.’

  ‘I’ll call Hattie.’ Jake walked into the hallway.

  ‘Is that good, darling?’

  She nodded. I stroked her hair and kissed her head. She was safe. That was all that mattered.

  Jake came back into the kitchen. ‘Hattie’s meeting me at Frederick’s house. We’re going to bring him in. Time’s running out. If he is the Snake we need to use him to get to whoever is running Tenebris. Interrogating him will get us the answers we need. You stay here and I’ll call you with an update.’

  I nodded. ‘Be careful – his daughter is with him. He said that his wife and son were out but I can’t be sure. Remember he’s a fudging sociopath who’s capable of fudging anything and as much I want him fudging ended we need to know what he knows.’

  ‘Understood.’

  My front door slammed and we both froze.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m here!’ called Gillian from the hallway.

  ‘We’re in here, Gillian.’

  I pulled out my phone to text a friend who now worked in the private sector. Gillian might be here to look after Gigi but an ex-Special Forces commando would be looking after both of them.

  She bustled through into the kitchen holding a Sainsbury’s bag. ‘Hello, Jake. Found yourself a nice girl yet?’

  ‘Sadly not. Just lots of very, very naughty ones.’

  ‘Oh stop. You’re terrible.’ Gillian laughed and unpacked her lunch onto the table. ‘Alexis, did Will tell you about the carbon monoxide alarm? The other day I woke up in the middle of the night panicking that you didn’t have one here. I could only go back to sleep once I texted him telling him how important it was. He said you had one but do you know you need to keep checking the batteries?’

  A text. In the middle of the night.

  Of course it would be from Gillian. A woman who worried so much about the hidden everyday dangers in the home she wouldn’t drink tap water as she’d read it had oestrogen in and she didn’t want it upsetting her carefully regulated hormone levels.

  ‘It’s OK, Gillian, it beeps when it needs new ones.’

  ‘What a relief.’

  ‘I’m just heading out.’ Jake nodded at us both and left.

  ‘Bye, Uncky Jake.’

  I listened to Gillian’s chatter about the broken-down car and the nice man at the AA and how he taught her a clever trick about the oil gauge and how you can always tell the ones who respect their elders.

  My phone beeped, confirming my commando friend would arrive for Gillian and Gigi protection within the hour. I wasn’t going anywhere until he was here.

  ‘I’ll be off soon, Gillian. I have a bit of time to kill before my next meeting.’

  ‘Not to worry, love, you do what you need to.’

  Gigi finished her sandwich and insisted Ganma sit with her on the sofa and read her the same three books she’d got me to read her at breakfast.

  I made myself a sandwich and ate, listening to Gillian reading. ‘. . . and then Little Red Riding Hood said, “Grandma, what big eyes you have . . .” ’

  Life was so simple in the fairy tales. We knew who the baddies were and good always won over evil. Unless you thought like Yvonne. She’d probably say the maligning of the Big Bad Wolf was transgender prejudice.

  I went upstairs to my bathroom. I removed a panel from the cupboard under the sink. A lockbox was inside. I entered Gigi’s birthday and it opened. I took out my gun and a set of bullets and loaded it. This lockbox was always here just in case I ever had to go straight from home and out to an op.

  I went back into the bedroom and took my modified black Marc Jacobs bag out of my wardrobe. I put the gun inside the false bottom and closed it. I slung the bag’s heavy gold chain over my shoulder and headed downstairs. I was on the landing when the doorbell rang. I tensed and reached inside my bag.

  ‘It’s me,’ Jake’s voice came through the letterbox.

  Why was he back here already? I went and opened the door.

  Jake was holding Florence’s hand. She looked like she’d been crying. I bent down to talk to her.

  ‘Hello, Florence. Gigi is just in the kitchen. She’ll be happy you’re here to play.’ I ushered her through. Gillian and Gigi looked up from the book. ‘Gigi’s friend’s come to join.’

  Gillian patted the space on the sofa next to her. ‘Come on then, love, don’t be shy, come listen to the story.’

  Florence went to sit down with them.

  I shut the kitchen door and went back to Jake in the hallway. I hung my bag up on a hook.

  ‘Frederick’s gone. We found Florence alone in the house. He must’ve walked out straight after you.’

  ‘He just left her? How was she?’

  ‘She was hysterical. Completely distraught about Daddy leaving. We calmed her down with a biscuit and I said I’d bring her here. You need to call Camilla. She knows you. There’s a better chance she won’t freak out as much on hearing from you that her husband’s a psycho traitor who just abandoned their two-year-old home alone to go on the run.’

  I thought of Camilla and her fragile nature. I started thinking a lot about Camilla and how everything I knew about her was most probably wrong.

  ‘I’d better get back. Hattie managed to speak to Dugdale. He says he was shocked but believes Frederick being the Snake makes sense. Frederick did bring him the actual Tenebris web address and the login card, but only after the rumours about Tenebris had begun circulating. It was just a matter of time before the Security Services would be tasked with shutting it down.’

  I nodded. The pieces seemed to fit. If Frederick knew that Tenebris’s time was limited, exposing them was worth it. Especially as doing so gave him a way in to Eight, a way to get close to Peng and secure one final big payday.

  ‘I’ll get Camilla here and find out what she knows.’

  I pulled out my phone as Jake let himself out.

  Camilla answered on the second ring.

  ‘Hi, Camilla
, it’s Alexis. Frederick had to go out so Florence is with me. She’s absolutely fine but you need to come to my house now. I’ll text you the address.’

  ‘I . . . I’m coming. I’ve just got out at Turnham Green tube. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  Chapter Thirty

  CAMILLA WAS THERE within five minutes. She must’ve run the whole way here. She pushed the buggy with Arthur strapped in into our hallway. I called Florence out from the kitchen. She ran to Camilla and she scooped her into her arms.

  ‘Daddy left me, Mummy. He left me all alone.’

  Camilla looked from her daughter to me.

  I nodded. Her jaw clenched.

  ‘It’s because he knows how brave you are, Florence. Isn’t that right? I bet you hardly even cried.’

  She nodded. ‘I got biscuit for being so brave.’

  ‘How about you go back and keep playing with Gigi, and when Mummy’s finished talking to Alexis we’ll go get ice cream?’

  Florence’s eyes widened. ‘Ice cream!’ She ran back to the kitchen.

  Camilla leaned down and unclipped Arthur from the buggy and picked him up. I led Camilla through to the TV room and closed the door.

  ‘She wouldn’t have been alone for more than ten minutes. My colleagues got there very soon after he must’ve left.’

  ‘But why—’

  I held up a hand. ‘Frederick is in trouble. It looks as though he may be working with some very bad people. We think that’s why he ran, why he left Florence alone.’

  Camilla placed Arthur on the floor and handed him a toy mobile phone out of her bag. She slumped onto the sofa. Her hands were shaking. ‘That bastard. Poor Florence. How could he leave her? How could he?’

  I sat down on the armchair opposite her.

  ‘Camilla, you know . . . you know Frederick is not right, don’t you? That he isn’t normal.’

  She looked up at me and smiled. And then she let out a sob. She clasped a hand to her mouth. ‘I’ve waited so long to hear someone say that.’ She stared at me, eyes glistening. ‘He made me feel that I was not normal. That I made him get angry. That I made him not care. That if I did better, if I was more like he wanted me to be, then he would be happy. Then we would be happy.’