The Nursery

by Asia Mackay

  ‘How come the wife didn’t talk about it?’ asked Hattie.

  ‘She didn’t know. They’re estranged. He’s done it all on the quiet. Booked her into a private clinic for more treatment and no doubt a chance to make things right with Kate before she dies.’

  What George was doing was admirable. He knew, despite Kate’s apparent ambivalence to having her mother in her life, that she would be heartbroken if she left this world without making things right. For all Kate’s worrying and complaining that she wasn’t appreciated, that she wasn’t valued, I hoped she would see the love in what George was doing and how next to that, all the little stuff paled in comparison.

  ‘Being a good husband shouldn’t rule out the fact he could still be the Snake,’ said Hattie. ‘We continue surveillance on him, but Peppa has now become our priority.’

  ‘We’ve found a link between Peppa and the Chinese Embassy,’ said Geraint. ‘Peppa’s local dry cleaners is owned by a Karen Lim. Her sister Alice works at the Chinese Embassy. We’ve red-flagged this connection, as in the last couple of weeks Peppa has visited the dry cleaners on five different occasions.’

  ‘And this is a deviation from her usual pattern?’

  Pixie squinted at her screen as she scrolled down. ‘In the last year, her usage of this dry cleaners was more like once every two to three months.’

  ‘What do we have on Alice Lim?’

  ‘Limited information. She’s been at the Embassy for nearly eight years. Implies she’s pretty high up. We haven’t been able to locate her yet. If she’s funnelling confidential information about Peng and the delegation to Peppa using the dry cleaners, it’s a very safe way of doing it. No in-person interaction.’

  Hattie nodded. ‘It makes sense. If Alice and Peppa are working together then the Coyote will have all the information they need to make the hit. How are we doing with the doll?’ He motioned towards Hoxton dolly on the meeting room table.

  ‘The tracker is inside the doll’s stomach,’ said Geraint. ‘We used our thinnest, most lightweight model. It means the range isn’t as good but anything bigger would’ve made her look noticeably pregnant.’

  I held up Hoxton dolly against the enlarged photo of the real dolly on the whiteboard. They looked identical. ‘I think it will be OK. The only problem is the smell.’ I picked up Hoxton dolly and gave it a sniff. ‘There’s just no way of knowing if they smell alike. She could reject it outright.’

  ‘I checked the brand of washing powder Peppa uses and used the same one,’ offered Pixie.

  ‘So our whole plan for success rests upon whether a three-year-old can spot a fake doll?’ Hattie sighed and looked round at us all. ‘We’re in trouble. Real trouble. We haven’t confirmed the identities of the Snake or the Coyote. They are both still in operation and out there circling Peng. Tomorrow she will be at Lord Wycombe’s shoot surrounded by guns and well over a hundred of people we haven’t cleared.’

  ‘What are you suggesting we do, boss?’ asked Robin.

  ‘We need to get her to understand the risk and to cancel.’

  ‘Admitting to Peng and her people that we have a security leak and that’s why she could end up dead is something the Committee would never approve,’ I said. ‘It’s giving China the heads-up they can place all the blame at our door should anything happen.’

  ‘We could try and get her to back out without explaining why it’s so high-risk?’ suggested Robin.

  ‘Peng is not going to listen to the British Security Services. She has no reason to trust any of us, especially if we can’t explain the situation in full.’ Hattie pinched the bridge of his nose as he leaned back in his chair. ‘If any of us had a relationship with her we’d have a shot, but it’s not like we’re going to be welcomed into her suite for a cosy off-the-record chat.’

  I remembered something from a file I had read a long time ago. About a Rat and a certain mission in China. Could it be? I looked it up on our server as everyone continued to debate the situation. A few clicks and it was confirmed.

  ‘I have an idea,’ I announced. ‘I just need to make a call.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I KNOCKED ON THE DOOR of Peng’s suite at the Mandarin Oriental. Her assistant Ling Ling opened the door.

  ‘Hello, Miss Alexis, Minister Peng is expecting you.’

  Ling Ling showed no sign of recognising me as the catsuited woman chasing her would-be mugger, but then she would’ve only had a brief glimpse of me streaking past her as she lay winded on the street.

  Ling Ling led me through an opulent entrance hall and into the suite’s large sitting room where the floor-to-ceiling windows framed an impressive view of Hyde Park. I took in the lavish silk wall coverings, marble fireplace and deep sofas. A large platter of breakfast pastries had been placed in the centre of the marble coffee table, alongside a vast china teapot and three matching dainty teacups and saucers.

  The largest sofa next to the coffee table had an ornate wooden frame and plumped-up pale-blue cushions.

  And upon it sat Minister Peng and Mrs Moulage.

  They both stood up.

  Ling Ling nodded at Peng and left the room, closing the panelled door behind her.

  ‘Hello, Agent Tyler.’ Peng strode forward and clasped my hand in hers. ‘It is good to meet you. Doris has filled me in on everything. Please come sit.’ She motioned towards the armchair next to them.

  Doris? Did I finally know Mrs Moulage’s real name?

  ‘Thank you for meeting me, Minister Peng. I understand this is unorthodox but when I saw from our files that you had crossed paths with Mrs Moulage, I hoped you might be open to an off-the-record conversation.’

  ‘We’ve known each other for over forty years.’ Peng turned to Mrs Moulage. ‘I owe everything to this woman, yet requesting that I meet with you is the first time she’s ever asked me for anything.’

  ‘The files mention your first meeting, how it was at the People’s Congress during the aftermath of a high-profile delegate’s assassination. Did you help with her mission?’

  Peng and Mrs Moulage exchanged a look.

  ‘The files won’t tell you the full story of what happened that night.’ Peng reached over to the teapot and filled up each of the teacups. ‘I was working late. I was ambitious even then, as a junior clerk. One of my superiors came across me alone in one of the offices and decided to take advantage of the situation.’

  She poured a tiny splash of milk into Mrs Moulage’s teacup and handed it to her.

  ‘Milk? Sugar?’ she asked me.

  ‘Just milk, please.’

  I watched as her hand shook a little as she poured it in and handed it to me.

  ‘I made quite a bit of noise.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘Thankfully, Doris was passing by that office at that moment and heard the commotion. She didn’t have to get involved. It could’ve risked her whole mission. But she walked in on us, shot him dead and told me to run.’ Peng looked over at Mrs Moulage. ‘She saved me.’

  ‘And then you saved me back.’ Mrs Moulage smiled.

  ‘Doris was caught by police just outside Congress; one of them thought he had recognised her from earlier, behaving suspiciously. She was trying the lost tourist act and they weren’t believing her.’

  ‘Until you came up to me saying, “Audrey, there you are. Audrey, let’s go for dinner now.” ’

  The two women laughed.

  ‘I thought she looked like Audrey Hepburn and it was the only foreigner name I could think of. We were able to walk away from the police and were eating Beijing’s best jiaozi dumplings before they found even one of the two dead men in Congress that night.’

  ‘The details of how Siew-Yong and I met are not in the files because what I did went against all our protocols. Especially the part where I let her walk away because I trusted her to never tell anyone what she knew. But sometimes you have to rely on your instincts and do what you think is right.’

  ‘Well, Doris, you have good instincts. All these decades
later and this is first time I’ve spoken about it.’ Peng reached over and patted Mrs Moulage on the knee.

  ‘I’m glad you rang me, Lex,’ said Mrs Moulage. ‘After the warehouse I did worry your mission had something to do with Siew-Yong and I no longer have the required clearance to get into Eight’s system. You need to explain to her what you told me.’

  ‘Minister Peng, we are coming to you, unofficially, to warn of an imminent threat to your life. The Chinese People’s Alliance have hired an assassin to kill you while you’re here in the UK.’

  ‘I know,’ said Peng. She topped her cup up with more tea. ‘They’re always trying to kill me. They and various other terrorist organisations. I seem to make a lot of people very angry. Most of my dresses have to be tailored round a bulletproof vest.’

  ‘That’s sacrilege, Siew-Yong, utter sacrilege.’ Mrs Moulage, resplendent in a beautifully cut dark pink midi-dress, shook her head.

  ‘Minister Peng, I understand you’re used to living with the threat but this time it’s different. It’s much more dangerous. Right now our Security Services are compromised. There is a leak. We don’t know if we can trust even our own people.’

  ‘And you worry they are feeding information to my enemies.’

  I nodded. ‘The Wycombe shoot that you’re attending tomorrow. It is most likely they will strike there and we won’t be able to protect you. There are too many variables. Too many points of entry. Too many guns.’

  ‘I understand the risks. But you must understand I have to go.’ Peng put her cup down on the table. ‘There are things I prefer to not go into but getting this contract with Lord Wycombe’s company signed relies on certain conversations I need to have with certain people who’ll be attending. Returning to China without this contract will be considered a massive failing on my part. I will struggle to maintain control and respect. The factions that seek to undo me will try that bit harder, and have that much more support.’

  ‘Is it worth dying over, Siew-Yong?’ asked Mrs Moulage.

  Peng sighed. ‘I know that both of you will understand how to get to this position I have had to fight every step of the way. In China our most influential philosopher, a man called Confucius, believed “women are to be led, and to follow others”. He died nearly two and a half thousand years ago and his influence is still ingrained in most of the government’s way of thinking. That is what I am up against.’

  Peng put her teacup back on the table.

  ‘Over my years in office I’ve seen average men thrive without any real effort. And I’ve seen brilliant women sidelined and ignored. Ling Ling and the rest of my staff, the ones who really know me, they call me biàn sè lóng. The chameleon. Because that is what I have had to be. I don’t get the privilege to be myself. I don’t get to just turn up. Each meeting I have I prepare for, I have to research everything I can about who will be sitting across the table from me. I find out what kind of “me” they will respond to. Respectful, grateful, pleading, strong, fearsome. If I need to charm, if I need to threaten, what I need to do to win them over.

  ‘I’m sixty-four now. I’ve worked my whole life to get to this ministerial position. And this will be as far as I ever get. But at least right now there will be girls growing up getting to see me here. In a position of power. And that is all I want. To be seen here, to be seen doing my job well, and bowing out still with my head held high.’

  Peng’s voice never wavered as she spoke. I knew I wouldn’t be able to convince her to do what was best for her own safety. She couldn’t show weakness, she couldn’t fail, she couldn’t stop. She was fighting for her legacy.

  ‘I understand, Minister.’

  ‘I’m glad we met, Lex. I feel in good hands with you.’

  ‘I will do my best,’ I said. I meant it. Meeting Peng, being impressed by her, made me all the more determined to keep her alive.

  We all got to our feet. Mrs Moulage shrugged on her fur coat and picked up her snakeskin handbag.

  Peng and Mrs Moulage embraced. ‘Stay safe, Siew-Yong.’

  ‘And you, Doris.’

  *

  Mrs Moulage and I got into the waiting lift together. I pressed the ground-floor button and the doors closed.

  ‘Doris Moffett,’ Mrs Moulage announced into the silence. ‘That was the name I was born with. Little Doris Moffett had no control over her life. She didn’t get to say where she lived, what people did to her or who she really was. So one day Doris Moffett became Mrs Moulage. And everything changed.’ She turned to me and smiled.

  ‘Is there a Mr Moulage?’

  ‘There’s never been a Mr Moulage. I changed my name for me. I used the Mrs as I was operating in an era where I needed it. Men bothered me less, women liked me more.’

  The lift doors opened and we walked to the Mandarin Oriental main entrance. Mrs Moulage turned to the cheery-looking uniformed doorman. ‘Taxi, please.’

  ‘Certainly, madam.’ He headed out into the cold.

  ‘You’ll need to keep your wits about you at the shoot. The Coyote is unlikely to attack without a fleet of Ghosts behind him.’

  ‘I know. It’s not going to be easy.’

  The doorman opened the door with a flourish. ‘One’s here, madam.’ He led the way with his arm.

  We walked out together and stood at the top of the steps.

  ‘If they come for her’ – Mrs Moulage touched a hand to my face – ‘you knock ’em dead, sweetie.’ She walked down the steps and got into the back of the waiting black cab. ‘You knock ’em dead,’ she repeated as she pulled shut the door.

  ‘Nothing like a pep talk from your mum, is there?’ said the doorman as we watched the taxi drive away.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘WHO’S FREDERICK?’ Will was in the kitchen waving my phone at me. He must have arrived back from the office while I was upstairs changing.

  ‘I work with him, and funnily enough his daughter is at nursery with Gigi. You know Florence? The sweet, quiet one?’ I walked over to Will and took the phone out of his hand. ‘Why? What’s he saying?’

  ‘I just saw something about a password for a phonics website.’

  That message was sent a day ago during the Platform Eight invasion.

  ‘You’ve been going through my messages?’

  I thought with a start how lucky it was I’d deleted the many post-funfair WhatsApp messages from Shona and Frankie grilling me on Frederick.

  Will shrugged. ‘I was bored waiting for the kettle to boil. You seem to get a lot of junk mail.’

  ‘Sorry my phone doesn’t have more interesting information for you.’ Whereas I thought going through Will’s phone would be an admission that I didn’t trust him, he clearly had no such qualms.

  ‘Come on, finish that coffee, we need to go.’

  Will gulped it down and followed me out the kitchen. ‘So where are you taking me?’

  Anita, our neighbour’s nineteen-year-old daughter, was already slumped on the sofa in the sitting room with Geordie Shore playing loudly on the television.

  ‘The hottest ticket in town.’ I handed him a leaflet.

  He looked down at it: Ms Yvonne’s Introduction to the Early Learning Syllabus.

  ‘Are you kidding me? This is what we’ve booked a babysitter for? Why do I have to come?’

  ‘Because we’re both her parents. Because anything that’s deemed important enough for a letter from her headteacher we should go to. Especially considering since BiteGate we have some making up to do.’

  ‘She hasn’t chomped on anyone else, has she?’ Will couldn’t keep the laugh out of his voice. He didn’t seem to take Gigi’s violent lashing out as seriously as me.

  ‘Thankfully not.’

  ‘Will Rochelle be there?’

  I turned round to look at him. ‘Why? Do you want her to be?’

  ‘You jealous?’

  ‘Please. I’d like to think you’d have better taste than a fawning lapdog.’

  ‘Because of course men hate it when
women tell them how brilliant they are and make them feel good about themselves by being transfixed by everything they say.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Yes, what we really love is being mostly ignored, never getting a straight answer and being left alone for long evenings while they’re out doing who knows what with who knows whom.’ He pulled on his coat and headed out the door.

  It seemed we continued to be in a bad place. And Will now thought it was OK to go through my phone looking for answers to questions he hadn’t asked me yet.

  *

  Upon arrival at Gigi’s nursery we were immediately accosted by Ms Yvonne telling us that we were not to leave without Gigi’s runner bean plant. ‘These plants teach the children important lessons about nurturing and growth.’

  I took in the plastic cup with a wilted bit of greenery stuck in some soil and kitchen roll and resisted the urge to add, ‘And the inevitability of death.’

  We headed through to take our seats. I noted how Rochelle was, of course, seated right at the front. She cut off her conversation with the woman next to her to give an enthusiastic wave to Will, and a less enamoured one to me once I walked in front of him. I looked round the pokey Portakabin packed full of parents crouched into small children-sized chairs and spotted Camilla in the row behind Rochelle. No Frederick. I was relieved. I tried not to think too much into why I didn’t want Will and Frederick to meet.

  The only empty chairs left were a few over from Rochelle in the front row. So now not only did we have to sit through the talk but we were right in front of Ms Yvonne and couldn’t get away with checking our emails in the boring bits.

  *

  After an excruciating hour, where I mostly learned I had no idea how to pronounce the alphabet phonetically, the Early Learning talk was finally finishing. We were all getting up to make a break for the door when Weather Mum put up her hand.

  ‘As we’re all here, Ms Yvonne, we were wondering if we could make a request for the children to be read more of the classic fairy tales they all love at home.’ Weather Mum smiled round the room.