Tinker, Tailor, Schoolmum, Spy

by Faye Brann

  ‘The Angel Gabriel visits Mary,’ came a voice from the front. It was Dmitri, beaming at them while he did his reading. Sacha nodded and smiled in return, and Matisse took another photograph before placing her phone in her bag. She wanted to enjoy this brief sense of family unity before it disappeared, along with her husband.

  After the concert, the children were given gingerbread men and squash, while the adults scoffed mince pies and drank tea and tried not to look like they all wanted wine instead. Becky, Kate and Vicky congregated in one corner of the refreshments area. Becky was keeping a beady eye on her PTA volunteers and making sure none of them skulked off before everyone left and they could clear up the rubbish and leftovers. Vicky was doing her best to avoid Sacha and Matisse so that she didn’t have to look either one of them in the eye. She saw Matisse making her way slowly through the crowds towards them and began to make her excuses to the girls. She really didn’t want to talk to Matisse right now.

  ‘I have to run and get back for the sitter,’ she said to her friends.

  ‘Why? She was late enough getting to you. Come and have a drink at the pub instead,’ Becky said.

  ‘I can’t … Evie needs to go home …’

  ‘Let Chris take her home,’ Kate said. ‘Come on, it’s been ages since we all went out together.’

  ‘No,’ Vicky said. ‘I nearly missed Evie’s singing again tonight. I need to go home and spend some time with the family.’

  Becky and Kate both looked disappointed. ‘We understand,’ Becky said, ‘It’s just we feel like we never see you anymore,’ Becky said.

  ‘That’s not true, don’t be silly.’

  ‘You’re always running off doing something else lately – if it’s not meeting friends in town, it’s baking with Matisse.’

  ‘Well, if that’s true you only have yourself to blame.’ She tried to keep her voice light and jokey. Part of her really did want to go for a drink, but everything felt different now and she wasn’t sure how to fix it. She’d put distance between herself and the others because it was easier than lying, but she was going to have to figure out how to manage things better if she wanted to keep her friends.

  And her husband. Vicky spied Chris waving at her from the door. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Chris and Evie are waiting for me and we’re due to pick up Ollie from his girlfriend’s. I have to go.’

  ‘Ollie’s got a girlfriend?’ Kate said. ‘We really haven’t talked in ages.’

  ‘What about the clearing up? In case you forgot, you’re part of the PTA too,’ Becky said.

  ‘I can’t. I’m sorry, Becks, I’ll make it up to you … and we’ll arrange a drink before I go, I promise.’ She backed off and turned to catch up with Chris and Evie just in the nick of time and headed off to the car.

  They walked in the cold, damp evening hand in hand with Evie.

  ‘That was a lovely evening, Evie. The carols were beautiful and you sang really nicely.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum. Me and Isobel did all the harmonies for “Hark the Herald Angels”, did you hear us?’

  ‘You did brilliantly,’ Chris said. ‘I had no idea your singing had got so good, Evie. It was an evening of revelation.’

  It certainly was.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It had taken her only a few moments to put two and two together.

  The first box she opened after Magda had gone back to her room was full of photos of a very young Matisse. The pictures showed a chubby, happy girl with two rather strict-looking parents, the images depicting what Vicky guessed was Matisse’s childhood home in the South of France. She’d flicked through them fairly quickly; after all, Matisse wasn’t the target and photographs from her childhood weren’t likely to be relevant.

  She grabbed the second box and placed it on top of the first. More photos. This time Matisse as a young woman – early twenties – with a wedding band on her finger, expensive clothes and the more familiar detached look in her eyes. A few were posed with a younger-looking Sacha – still imposing, but fewer lines and without the gut. They certainly made a handsome couple, but Vicky couldn’t detect much chemistry between them, or even that they particularly liked each other. For newlyweds – which they must have been, she looked so young – they didn’t seem to be very much in love.

  Vicky moved through the pictures, thumbing them like a Rolodex. After the first third of the box, Sacha didn’t seem to feature any more. Photos of the couple by the Eiffel Tower, by the banks of the Seine and by the Louvre were quickly superseded by the blue skies, palm trees and sand dunes of Dubai. And in all of them Matisse was on her own.

  She was way over the two minutes she’d promised Jonathan, but she was onto something important, she knew it. She went back to the photos at the top of the pile to compare and found that Matisse was looking remarkably happier in the photos further into the box. Why? She’d left behind her home, her friends, her family, to move to Dubai. So, what was bringing the light back into her eyes? Or who? Someone was taking those photos and she’d bet good money it wasn’t Sacha.

  Time was running out. She had to hurry up and get out of the house and get to the carol service. She stopped suddenly, and pulled out a photo of Matisse grinning wildly, her chin pointed upwards to a man who was not her husband.

  Vicky blinked and took another look at the photo. Anatoli’s laughing eyes gazed into Matisse’s and they were holding hands, the Burj Al Arab Hotel resplendent in the sunset behind them. As incredible, as unlikely, as horribly coincidental as it might seem, there was no doubt that Matisse and Anatoli had been together and had been in love. Vicky checked the date stamp on the picture – 2007 – and looked at their faces again. She pulled out Dmitri’s birth certificate and took photos of both. If her suspicions were correct – which would certainly seem to be the case, given the date of the photo – then Dmitri was not Sacha’s son at all. He was Anatoli’s.

  Vicky met Jonathan after drop-off the next day for her debrief, in a Clapham cafe near the common; it was busy and buzzy enough to mask their conversation, but Vicky wasn’t planning on staying there. She grabbed her coffee, made a pointed U-turn, and headed back out of the shop towards the common itself.

  Jonathan looked surprised she hadn’t sat down and got up from his chair, swigging his coffee with one hand and holding the dog’s lead with the other. She used her hand mirror to check he’d followed her from a safe distance and after five minutes or so, when they were well away from security cameras and busy streets and they could relax a little, Vicky found a bench to sit on. Jonathan let the dog off the leash to run across the wide expanse of common and joined her.

  ‘So, come on then,’ he said. ‘What’s the big secret?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s not relevant to the actual case. We know from surveillance that Sacha suspected Dmitri might not be his. But his true paternity might be very relevant to the operation in Dubai.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I discovered this in Matisse’s office last night.’ She handed over her phone with the timestamped photograph of Matisse and Anatoli and then swiped to show him the image of Dmitri’s birth certificate and the photo she’d taken, of Dmitri and Evie on their playdate. Jonathan looked at it and sucked in air through his teeth.

  ‘Jesus. Didn’t see that coming.’

  ‘You and me both. I’m pretty certain Dmitri is Anatoli’s son. The timing works out, and … well, they have the same eyes. It’s unmistakable once you make the connection.’

  ‘How did we miss this? We knew Anatoli and Matisse had contact in Dubai, but I wasn’t aware there had been a relationship between them, never mind a child.’

  ‘I’m not sure Anatoli knows about the child, either. Given Dmitri’s birth date, and the timing of Matisse’s departure from Dubai, I’m not sure she would have even been aware she was pregnant when she left,’ Vicky said.

  ‘So maybe she never told him.’

  ‘She’s never talked to me about Anatoli. I didn’t find anything to suggest they’ve had co
ntact since she left Dubai.’

  ‘It’s a nasty conflict of interest …’

  ‘With respect, sir, it was a long time ago—’

  ‘Not you, Turnbull. Anatoli.’

  Vicky flushed red and shut her mouth.

  ‘We can’t tell him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s already under a lot of stress. It could compromise the operation if he knew he had a child,’ Jonathan said. ‘He may decide to contact Matisse to warn her, and make sure she and Dmitri aren’t put in any danger … but he’d be doing the exact opposite. Sacha isn’t a fool. He would know something was up, and it wouldn’t take him long to get it out of Matisse, and then God knows what would happen, to her, to Dmitri, to Anatoli, to the whole deal. The whole thing would be a complete shit show.’

  ‘So, what are you suggesting?’

  ‘I think we need to recommend to MI6 that we take Anatoli out of the equation.’

  ‘You want to kill him?’

  Jonathan shook his head. ‘No! I want MI6 to put him on that plane to America, just like he wanted.’

  ‘But he’s the one who has the relationship with Sacha. He’s our man on the ground. We need him,’ Vicky said.

  The dog came bounding back towards them with a stick in its mouth. Jonathan got up from the bench and wrestled it away from the dog, then threw the stick back across the grass. Vicky stood too, and they walked slowly across the common as the dog ran off again to fetch.

  ‘Anatoli’s already putting himself at huge risk. Not made any better, I have to say, by the prospect of running into you.’

  ‘At this point, I’m the least of your worries.’ Vicky thought for a moment, then continued. ‘I still don’t understand how Anatoli ended up as an MI6 informant. He was so adamant he wouldn’t help us when we asked him to. Something very serious must have happened to make him change his mind.’

  ‘MI6 believed Sacha’s business dealings had given him reasons to be nervous. He’s an art dealer by trade, not a gun runner and he was getting too involved.’

  ‘No, that’s not it; it’s not enough.’ Vicky stopped walking. ‘What if it was personal?’

  Jonathan met her gaze.

  ‘What if Sacha knew Matisse was seeing someone?’ she said. ‘He’s not stupid; maybe he suspected all along that Dmitri wasn’t his son. He isn’t a man who would forgive his wife’s infidelity easily.’

  ‘So, he found out about the affair and threatened Anatoli? Sacha doesn’t seem like the kind of man who’d leave it there, much less trust him with the biggest business deal of his life.’

  ‘Okay … so what if Sacha knew Matisse was having an affair, but got the wrong man?’

  ‘Airdrop me that photo.’ Vicky silently thanked Mike for his coaching and once Jonathan had received the file, he tapped a few keys on his phone and held it to his ear. ‘Judith, can you look up something for me? I’m sending you a photo with a timestamp on it. I’d like to know if there are any reported incidents in Dubai around that time. No, I’ll wait.’

  Vicky occupied herself with the stick and the dog while Judith supplied Jonathan with the information he was asking for. He put the phone down and slipped the leash back on the dog before telling her what he knew.

  ‘There was a shooting reported in the news the day after the photo was taken. It was at the Burj Al Arab. The victim was a Russian national, suspected contract killing, the hitman was never caught. It might not be related, but—’

  ‘Oh, it’s related.’ Vicky pointed to the image. ‘Look where the photo of Matisse and Anatoli was taken. You can see the hotel behind them. Sacha must have had the wrong man killed.’

  ‘How would that happen?’

  ‘Wrong place, wrong time for someone. Matisse is an attractive woman. I’m sure there were plenty of admirers he could have thought were after her.’

  ‘Okay. So, for argument’s sake, let’s say Sacha doesn’t realise the mistake he’s made. No wonder Anatoli wants a new passport and is willing to do anything to get it. He must live in constant fear of Sacha finding out the truth.’

  ‘I’m guessing he was terrified of Matisse being punished as well. That’s why he never contacted her, to let her know he was alive. He wanted to protect her.’

  Jonathan nodded. ‘Seems likely.’

  ‘So, after she’s left Dubai and gone back to Paris, Matisse finds out she’s pregnant. She thinks the real father is dead, so she isn’t going to confess and suffer the same fate; she convinces Sacha the child is his, to protect herself and her baby and continue living the good life she’d become accustomed to.’ Vicky paused. ‘What did Matisse do before she met Sacha?’

  ‘They met in a strip club in Paris,’ Jonathan said. ‘She was a dancer. And more.’

  Vicky digested this new piece of information.

  ‘Psych evaluations say it was a symbiotic partnership: he got a beautiful woman on his arm who knew how to keep secrets, and she got money, prestige and a way out of a life she didn’t want to live anymore.’

  ‘So, what if that’s changed?’

  Jonathan screwed up his face. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Dmitri’s eight years old; he’s still a boy, but I remember when Ollie was that age, you could already see what he’d look like when he was older. His face is changing, he’s got big teeth growing in, his jaw is squaring up, and soon enough he’ll be a man who looks nothing like the one who is supposed to be his father. He might not have made the connection to Anatoli yet, but, even so, Dmitri is slowly turning into a permanent reminder of Matisse’s infidelity. That must make Sacha angry, and, worse still, humiliated.’

  ‘All this is very interesting, Turnbull, but as you said, it’s not really relevant. We haven’t really learnt anything new and there’s still no proof he’s going to run.’

  ‘Not proof exactly, but if you add up all the circumstantial evidence … Matisse says he’s leaving her. There are return tickets in the house for all three of them, but no passport for Sacha. Matisse isn’t an easy read, but those photographs alone tell me she’s not going anywhere. There are boxes of them in that room of hers … I used to think she was callous and unfeeling, but I know that’s a façade; the real Matisse has a big heart sitting behind closed doors – literally – she couldn’t leave all those memories behind. It’s my guess that Sacha’s getting ready to ship out alone. And Dubai is an easy place to run from – he could easily get to Iran, and from there he could disappear altogether. It would explain why he’s overseeing the deal instead of staying away – to collect the cash and get out, all in one go.’

  ‘We’ll need the evidence. We need the shipment to exchange hands, we need to track where the money is before he tries to run, and we need to make sure we stop him,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘He’s good, though,’ Vicky said. ‘We need a distraction to put him off his game.’ She paused. ‘When was the last time Anatoli and Sacha had face-to-face contact?’

  ‘Anatoli says they’ve met in person maybe once a year in the past three years, but they’ve mainly communicated by phone or email.’

  ‘It’s probably not been enough for him to have put two and two together so far, but with everyone in the same place and a little nudge in the right direction …’

  Jonathan’s eyes widened slightly. ‘If Sacha realised he’d been right all these years about Dmitri, and that his closest ally is his greatest enemy, that would be a huge distraction.’

  ‘Maybe he’d be surprised and pissed off enough to let his guard down and make a mistake,’ Vicky said.

  Jonathan spoke with a hint of agitation in his voice. ‘This is a very delicate operation we’re talking about.’

  Vicky nodded. ‘What about Anatoli? Do we tell him about Dmitri?’

  ‘No. It could compromise things. I want him focused on setting Sacha up for the fall, and if he’s thinking about his son, he might not want to take the risk.’

  ‘Sacha could kill Anatoli if he guessed the truth. And it puts Matisse and Dmitri in more
danger than we realised.’

  ‘That’s where you come in, Victoria. We’ve teamed up with MI6 to make sure there are plenty of eyes on Sacha, but your job, now more than ever, is going to be to make sure his wife and child get out of this unharmed. And Anatoli.’ He handed her a set of numbers written on a Post-it. ‘Mike asked me to give you this. It’s the combination for the safe in your hotel room. Everything you asked for will be in it, plus a weapon, standard issue.’ He put his hand up to stop her speaking. ‘I know, you don’t want a gun. But, given what we know now, you might need it.’

  ‘What about Chris and the kids?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘I need to be able to tell Chris something, to reassure him.’

  ‘You have my word, Victoria. I will make sure your children are kept out of harm’s way.’ He continued, not giving her time to respond. ‘Details of where to report will be handed to you when you check in. Our lead officer’s name is Tariq.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Relief flooded over her as she realised she was finally going to get the closure she’d wanted. She was going to Dubai, and she was going to be able to put right the wrong of so many years ago. She would protect her friend, unite Anatoli with his family, restore her professional pride and prove to Jonathan – and herself – that she was up to the job … and, finally, show Chris that she and the people she worked for could be trusted.

  ‘Be vigilant and flag if you think we’ve got problems. MI6 have a lot of people over there, but you’re the one that knows all the players in this game; you’ll be the one best placed to recognise any shifts in relationships or behaviour on Sacha’s part. Keep close.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Jonathan glanced at his watch. ‘We should go.’ He called the dog back over and got up from the bench. ‘Merry Christmas, Turnbull,’ he said, and walked off back over the grass towards the tube station.