The Nursery

by Asia Mackay

  Camilla stared at Arthur smashing the buttons on his phone. A tinny ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ started playing. Her whole body was shaking.

  ‘Has he . . . has he always been like this?’ I needed to keep her talking. She looked as though she was on the brink of losing it and I needed to learn as much as I could about Frederick.

  ‘When we first met it was a few years after university. At a dinner party. He was handsome, charming, very bright – all the girls were fawning over him. When he asked for my number I felt so lucky. That he had chosen me. And when he proposed I couldn’t believe it. I was over the moon.’ She looked down at her rings and twirled them round and round. ‘I did wonder how well I really knew him. He never seemed to drop his guard. He was . . . too perfect. He always said the right thing.’

  ‘And after you got married?’

  ‘Then I could never say the right thing. Everything upset him. It got to the point where I just . . . I was scared to talk. When I got pregnant with Florence I thought he’d be happy. That we’d be a family. But it changed nothing. He only showed interest in her when other people were around. Perfect husband. Perfect father. He’d perform when he needed to and the minute we were alone . . .’ Her voice broke and she went quiet.

  ‘Did your friends not notice what was going on?’

  Arthur tired of his toy phone and crawled round the sitting room, looking for something new to play with.

  ‘Frederick encouraged me to lose touch with my friends. One by one he took issue with something they had said. Anger that one of their husbands had made a joke about his new haircut. Disgust that one of my school friends put on a lot of weight. There was always something. By the time Arthur was six months old everyone had given up on me. People thought it was what happened when you have kids. You just disappear for a while. Frederick wouldn’t even let me have my phone when he was with me. He’d take it off me the minute he got home from work and hand it back to me in the morning as he left.’

  She watched Arthur as he pulled DVDs off the shelf under the television.

  ‘Did Frederick use your phone when he had it?’

  Camilla nodded. ‘Sometimes there’d be what looked like encrypted text messages on it. And there was some app he downloaded. Password protected so I could never get into it. I just presumed it was some kind of spyware – so he could see what I was doing on my phone when he was at work.’

  I thought of the Ghosts raiding the warehouse at the first WAF coffee morning to wipe the women’s phones. The WhatsApp worm I sent to our group would’ve downloaded Camilla’s phone too. Frederick must have been using it to communicate with Tenebris. It didn’t matter if he’d deleted anything incriminating, the worm and Geraint would’ve eventually found them.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Camilla. It’s been horrible for you. You must be so lonely.’

  She shook her head. ‘Having no friends to see made it easier. I could pretend our strange little life was normal and focus instead on the children. I didn’t have to hear how happy everyone else was. How their biggest problem was builders overrunning on their extension. Or finding a good holiday destination with a kids’ club. What could I say? What could I share about my life? Yesterday Frederick screamed at Florence – for playing with Play-Doh she found in his office – to such a terrifying degree she wouldn’t say a word for hours. She was shaking as he went on and on about how she shouldn’t ever go through his things.’ She looked up at me. ‘Or I could tell them about that time our ten-month-old nearly cut his finger off because Frederick left him alone with the bread knife and, rather than comfort him, rather than try and bandage it or make it better, he locked him in the bathroom so he couldn’t bleed on any carpet while he carried on working on his laptop.’

  I didn’t doubt what Camilla was saying for a second.

  ‘I nearly left him that day. By the time I came back home Arthur had screamed so much he could barely breathe. I even booked an appointment with a lawyer. But I couldn’t go through with it. Who would believe me? I’d had a breakdown after Arthur was born. My mental health was what would be considered questionable. I had no evidence of any wrongdoing on his part.’ She shrugged. ‘I had nothing on him. He was a paper-perfect model citizen and government employee. Even if I had the courage to leave him, he’d still be allowed weekends with them. He’d still be allowed to be alone with them. I couldn’t let that happen. He took Florence out early this morning when I was asleep with Arthur in his room. She came back howling with a hurt arm. I don’t even—’

  ‘I was there. I was out running. He didn’t see me but I was right there. She fell from the top of the climbing frame. He didn’t react – didn’t look up from his phone.’ I thought back to Frederick’s look of disinterest. How he’d held her at arm’s-length. ‘That’s when I knew.’

  Camilla closed her eyes.

  ‘My poor baby. My poor babies. This is all my fault. All my fault.’ She dropped her head into her hands and began to cry.

  ‘Camilla, stop.’ I came across the room and grasped her hands. ‘None of this is your fault. Frederick is a sociopath. He’s fucked in the head. You’re a hero for surviving with him as long as you have. We’re going to take him down. He’s been selling information at work that’s getting our agents killed. I promise you he’s going to be out of your life very soon. But until we have him, until he’s safely locked up, you need to get away. Somewhere he can’t find you.’

  ‘Why?’ She looked up at me.

  ‘Because . . . because he might try and hurt you. He might try and take the kids.’

  Camilla shook her head slowly. ‘No, Lex. He won’t. He wanted a wife, he wanted a family, because it’s what people did. Now you all know what he is, he doesn’t need to hide anymore. He doesn’t need us as part of his cover.’ She smiled through the tears. ‘We’re finally free.’

  *

  Camilla didn’t seem fazed when I told her my colleagues were currently searching her home. ‘Tell them to take as long as they need. We won’t be back for hours.’ She walked out pushing the pram and holding Florence’s hand, telling her about all the fun they were going to having eating mint choc chip and then looking for a new house to live in. Planning their new start seemed to have invigorated her.

  Jake was ringing me. I answered it.

  ‘We’ve torn apart the house and found nothing. No clue as to where he’s gone. Nothing suspicious. And no hidden cash.’

  I thought of something in his kitchen that was different. Something had changed since my last visit. I was too focused on trying to get Gigi safely out to notice it at the time but something was definitely missing. The room had seemed more minimalist. Even tidier.

  What was it?

  Florence’s pictures. The ones stuck all over the pinboard. The ones that had made me feel so guilty for binning Gigi’s. They were all gone. Why would he have taken them down?

  ‘Have you checked the bins?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve been through them all. Even the recycling.’

  ‘Any children’s drawings or paintings?’

  ‘Yes, there were about twenty of them. Utter shite.’

  ‘Take them apart. They were stuck up all over the kitchen three days ago at the WAF coffee morning. He must’ve only recently binned them.’

  Jake rang back a minute later.

  ‘Do two-year-olds paint by numbers?’

  ‘No, Jake. That’s a little advanced.’

  ‘OK then – we’ve found a code. Under each bit of stuck-on tissue or twirly pasta or glitter are number sequences. I’m bringing everything in to the Platform. See what G and Pixie can make of it.’

  ‘Someone at the nursery. They must be working for Tenebris. Frederick has been communicating with them through the pictures.’ I thought of each of the teachers.

  Miss Jenna. The one who had just started. The one who was outraging everyone with her lack of Montessori training. The one who had let Frederick take Gigi.

  ‘I know who it must be. We n
eed to pick her up. If she’s been the go-between for Frederick and Tenebris then she must know how to get hold of them. Even who they are.’

  ‘Send everything you have on her to G. He’ll track down an address and Cameron can go get her.’

  *

  ‘Frederick is definitely the Snake,’ announced Geraint as I walked into the meeting room. Jake and Hattie had beaten me back there as I’d had to wait until Kenny the commando had arrived and been briefed on everything he needed to know about keeping Gigi and my mother-in-law safe.

  ‘I’ve gone through the gallery accounts and things don’t add up. The gallery took receipt of seven different works of art by Salvador Dali, Henry Moore, to name but a few, and immediately sold them to seven different buyers. None of whom I can find any record of on any international database. They are genuine people but all with different addresses and nationalities.’

  Hattie nodded. ‘All his Tenebris earnings were transferred to art. It’s easy to hide and easily transportable. And he can sell on as and when he needs the money.’

  ‘Do we know where these works of arts are now?’ If Frederick managed to evade us, if we at least knew where he was headed we could be waiting.

  ‘The British Virgin Islands. I’ve been going through courier records from the gallery and Frederick arranged shipment of seven paintings to an address there. The paperwork may say they are inconsequential ones worth a few grand but I’m betting you they’re hiding what’s really underneath.’

  ‘Do we think Peng is still at risk?’ asked Jake. ‘Surely Frederick’s not going to make a play for her now he knows that we know who he is? He won’t be able to get within a few feet of her without us taking him down.’

  I thought about it. ‘Frederick knows Peng is going to be at the Christie’s exhibition this afternoon and there’s no way of knowing he hasn’t already got a plan in place for killing her. Look at the banquet – Peng could’ve died there without him even being in the room. It pains me to say it, but he’s good at this.’

  ‘He might not even be working alone,’ added Hattie. ‘You all go to Christie’s. I’m going to head to Heathrow. With Frederick’s high-level MI6 credentials, he would’ve had no trouble gaining access to the airport and potentially tampering with the plane.’

  Geraint frowned. ‘Surely he wouldn’t take down a plane just to get one woman?’

  ‘If Frederick has a questionable moral compass and is gearing up for one final payday, I’d rule out nothing.’ Hattie looked round at us. ‘The Committee state the priority is making sure Peng gets clear of the UK alive. As soon as that happens we switch to tracking down Frederick. We will get him. He will be held responsible for everything he’s done.’

  We were all silent. Frederick’s greed and treachery may have been responsible for the deaths of several colleagues, but it was Robin we were all thinking of.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  CHRISTIE’S AUCTIONEERS WAS HOUSED inside an impressively large and beautiful building in Mayfair. This afternoon’s auction was of Asian contemporary art. Peng and the delegation would be there for the auction and to meet the artists whose work was being showcased.

  People were starting to arrive; the main auction room was filling up fast. I stood by the door, assessing who was entering.

  Daddy Pig walked in. I remembered from his email correspondence how his attendance at this auction had been long planned. He was picking up the keys to a friend’s country pad for a night away with his mistress. I thought of Naomi and her stoic tears. And his cold determination to make her fight him for every penny.

  I stopped Daddy Pig with my arm and leaned in. ‘We know you’re having an affair.’

  His head whipped towards me. ‘Who the hell are you? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Just like you, Ronald, I work for a number.’

  He frowned. ‘What the hell kind of business do Five or Six have with my private life?’

  ‘Not Five. Not Six.’ I stared him in the eye. ‘Eight.’

  He paled.

  ‘I . . . I’m not doing anything wrong. I . . .’

  ‘Your wife might disagree. You treat her right or we might feel the need to intervene.’

  ‘Come on . . . You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Do you think anyone in Eight ever jokes about anything? Do you think we’d waste time talking to you unless we had a point to make?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head vigorously.

  ‘Let her divorce you and give her everything she asks for. Remember: we will be watching you. We will be following you. We will know everything. So choose your next move very carefully.’

  ‘Understood.’ He swallowed. He walked off fast.

  ‘Oh, and Ronald?’ He turned back to me. ‘She gets to keep the dog.’

  The horror on his face made me smile.

  *

  Jake came up to me.

  ‘We got to Miss Jenna. I just spoke to Cameron. She tracked her down to Luton and had a little chat with her.’

  I could only imagine exactly what that entailed.

  ‘The Tenebris Network is financed by two fund managers.’

  ‘This great criminal enterprise, capable of crippling our Security Services, is run by a couple of city boys? How the hell is that even possible?’

  ‘Frederick. He brought it to them. Tenebris was all his idea. The three of them have equal shares in it.’

  Not just the Snake.

  Not just the Coyote.

  But the creator of the whole of the Tenebris Network.

  Tenebris. Latin for ‘dark’. That should’ve been the first clue. Frederick and his chums showing off their public school education. A smug in-joke. But I hadn’t seen it. I hadn’t seen anything. Distracted by gooey eyes and the feeling he found me attractive. I was angry. So angry at myself for being fooled. And at him for being a calculating shit with a seemingly natural flair for treachery and deception.

  ‘Is Cameron sure the intel is solid?’

  ‘Miss Jenna’s not a professional so it was easy to get her talking.’

  I wasn’t surprised. The patience to cope with a room full of two-year-olds is not something most of us who had chosen this industry could ever manage to fake.

  ‘She worked as a classroom assistant for a couple years, moved up to London for a teacher training degree but dropped out and got in with a bad crowd. Met one of the hedge fund boys on a night out, name of Mark Somersby. She’s been sleeping with him. He pushed her into this, threatened to blackmail her with some compromising photos he’d taken. He’d text her what messages she needed to get to Frederick through the kid’s drawings.’

  I found it comforting that Gigi had been in daily close proximity to someone who at least had some kind of teaching background.

  ‘How would Frederick report back to them?’

  ‘If Frederick wanted to get a message to them he’d write in code on the back of those Wow cards you have to hand in.’

  Hah. I knew it. No way could Florence have been doing all those things the Wow cards said she was. Riding a bike without stabilisers, counting to ten in Mandarin. I should’ve seen a red flag then.

  ‘G and Pixie are now trying to track down this Mark Somersby. There’s an alert out on the car registered to him, so we should be able to locate him soon. We use him to get the name of his partner, and the Tenebris Network will be shut down by the end of the day and those greedy tosspots will be at the Box.’

  Up by the Farm was a large square concrete building, with numerous soundproofed rooms that was used for high-level interrogations. Its nickname was down to not only the building’s box-like appearance but what a great deal of interviewees would leave in.

  ‘There’s just Frederick left.’

  ‘I’m betting he’s already en route to the British Virgin Islands.’

  I wasn’t so sure. ‘He knows this is his last chance for a final payday. He succeeds in killing Peng and he gets paid whatever ridiculous seven-figure amount the Chinese People
’s Alliance have promised him. And then he has enough funds to stay invisible for the rest of his life.’

  We looked round. The auction room was rapidly filling up.

  ‘You know him best,’ said Jake. ‘What do you think his move would be?’

  I scanned the crowds of people. He wouldn’t risk coming up here. Not when he knew we were looking for him.

  Peng walked into the room with the rest of the delegation trailing behind her. She started a slow tour around the room, admiring each piece of art fixed to the walls.

  How would I get her?

  In a room I couldn’t be seen in?

  If I didn’t care who or how many had to die.

  There was one way.

  But would he have gone for it?

  ‘Yesterday he screamed at Florence for playing with Play-Doh she found in his office.’

  Was it really Play-Doh?

  ‘He went on and on about how she shouldn’t ever go through his things.’

  Or was it C-4?

  I looked round the bustling room. There must be three hundred people here.

  It had to be C-4.

  A bomb. He’d planted a bomb.

  If he couldn’t get close to Peng without getting caught, it was the only way.

  I turned to Jake. ‘We need to search whatever is directly underneath this room.’

  He took a beat to process what I was saying.

  ‘You’re right. It makes sense.’

  Geraint and Pixie were in a van parked outside. ‘G-Force, pull up the floor plans of Christie’s. We need to know where Frederick would most likely plant a bomb.’

  ‘A bomb . . . right.’

  ‘There’s a door at the far corner – where does it lead?’

  ‘Down to the vaults. That’s the best bet for where it would be. The auction room would be directly above the blast radius. There’s another set of stairs leading down to the vaults by the entrance.’